50 Books Challenge 2024 Part Two

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the second thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2024, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

If possible, please can you embolden your titles and maybe authors as well of books you've read or going to read? It makes it much easier to keep track, especially when the threads move quickly at this time of the year.

The previous thread is here

Here.

Here's my list so far;

1. Wrong Place, Wrong Time - Gillian McAllister
2. The Making of US- Lisa Jewell
3. Shrines of Gaiety - Kate Atkinson
4. The Satsuma Complex- Bob Mortimer
5. Dark Tides - Philippa Gregory
6. Downlands - Philippa Gregory

7.My Name is Leon - Kit de Waal

Aha!

Thank you. As I thought.

@highlandcoo My Grandpa was from Kirkcudbright and I have Paper Cup on my to read list because of your recommendation, thank you !

Placemarking for the moment and thanking @Southeastdweller as ever.

Also finished The Deathly Hallows and despite my chuntering am slightly bereft.

Also agree with @EineReiseDurchDieZeit about weird choices as we hurtled to the end. Hagrid who has been so important places no part at all other than to get caught and say things in his "oo arrrrr me combine harvester yer a wizard 'Arry" voice, the writing of Snape's role in things still seems unconvincing to me. OK, he loved Lily always and saved Harry lots, and (according to a Reddit page) deflected McGonagall's curse to hit the Carews but why was he such an absolute wanker for 7 years.
And why did Draco have to get involved in stuff? Glad we got shut of Tonks though.

And the fucking Tale of the fucking Three fucking Brothers is just derivative and lazy. And why more bloody wands and stones? Pfffft.

I also still find the description of Ariana Dumbledore and the Gaunt family disturbingly bizarre.

I think my absolute favourite characters now I'm done are Luna, Kreacher, Aberforth and Neville.

Was disappointed that Prof McGonagall didn't say "I've always wanted to do that spell" in the book when she gets the statues stomping around 😂

Do I want to get into the Fantastic Creatures etc malarkey? On reflection, I think not. I'm satisfied with 1-7 and will revisit in a decade I think.

I faffed around last night starting 4 separate books and giving up on all of them. (one because of apostrophe abuse) I thought I might try the Salt Path but I know already I'm going to hate that woman so I'm off to Iceland for a nice Nordic police procedural.

Thanks @Southeastdweller

1. A Bollywood State of Mind, Sunny Singh
2. Squirrel seeks Chipmunk, David Sedaris
3. Betty Tiffany McDaniel

@BlindurErBóklausMaður

I feel a bit bereft too now I'm done

Think I might give Marion Todd a go, @highlandcoo - the St Andrews setting sounds good.

On Hags, I wanted to like it, because I think your views on gender/sex matters do evolve with experience and middle-aged women have valid things to say. The book annoyed me though. The author seemed to want to portray middle-aged, middle class white women as the most marginalized group in society and it didn't ring true to me. (I might be being unfair).

Hello thread 2. Hope I've got the bold for standouts, italics for stinkers thing right!

1. Katy Watson, The Three Dahlias
2. Anthony Horowitz, A Twist of the Knife.
3. Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung Born 1982 (trans. Jamie Chang)

4. Mick Herron, The Secret Hours 5. Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

1. Nick Wallis, The Great Post Office Scandal
2. and 8. Barbara Sleigh, Carbonel and The Kingdom of Carbonel

9. E. M. Delafield, Messalina of the Suburbs

10. Eva Ibbotson, A Glove Shop in Vienna & other winter stories
Full of the usual Ibbotsonisms but a bit uneven, as with all short story collections. The running order unfortunately clumped several samey 'poor fellow lumbered with a wife who has a headache every night, is it any wonder he falls headlong for the adorable ballerina/opera diva/museum curator?' together, which made me abandon it for a while. I seem to remember Ibbotson deploying all sort of fairytale shenanigans to make sure her OTPs swerve actual adultery in her romance novels, so the casual cheating in many of these was unexpected.
My favourites tended to involve animals (a most fearsome carp, an earthworm with a poor sense of direction), small semi-feral children, and very sensible governesses -- 'The Little Countess' was basically 'Flora Poste summers with the Tolstoy family' and worth the price of admission alone 😁

11. Monica Dickens, The Fancy
The previous 'Rather Dated' read, written and set in 1943 and full of the mundanities of daily life and character studies I find perfectly satisfying in lieu of much plot. Deeply unglamorous and realistic, verging on the grim at times, but with flashes of wry humour; recommended for Lissa Evans fans.

12. Martha Wells, System Collapse (Murderbot diaries)
Felt like a retread of the last novel-length entry, Network Effect, which I already thought dragged compared to the high-octane novellas. But with additional PTSD for Murderbot following the events of that book (understandable, but not much fun to read <redacted>).

13. Hwang Bo-reum, Welcome to The Hyunam-dong Bookshop (trans. Shanna Tan)
Charming example of 'healing' slice-of-life -- one at the more realistic end of the scale than e.g. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop although the two share some ingredients. I enjoyed having an older, divorced female protagonist dealing with some more concrete problems that come with running an indie bookshop, like whether hosting an event with a book blogger who got into a viral twitter spat with a publishing CEO might be more trouble than it's worth, or if she can afford to stop stocking trendy bestsellers she doesn't care for. Rather than the find-the-missing-neighbourhood-cat-to-help-the-lovelorn-baker-declare-his-love-for-the-deaf-florist level of peril in some of the more twee books in this genre. 😉

I've not actually posted qnything I've read yet so will do that now.

The Short End of the Sonnenallee by Thomas Brussig, translated by Jonathan Franzen and Jenny Watson
Loosely connected vignettes of the life of teenagers on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall in the 1980s. Loved this.

The Five Minute Garden by Laetitia Maklouf
Bought for DH after seeing it recommended on here since we really need to do something in the garden this year.

Kristin Lavrandatter III: The Cross by Sigrid Undset. Translated by Tiina Nunnally
I've loved this trilogy and adored this final installment. Although about half way through I remembered we were in 14th century Europe and yeah, the Black Death featured. I am now avoiding historical novels set in the 14th century because between this and Doomsday Book I've read enough plague lit to last me a lifetime. But just brilliant, first bold of the year.

Stars of Fortune by Cynthia Harnett
Nobody else seems to remember this but it was one of my favourite books as a child. It has maps, illustrations of a real place, real historical characters and a family tree with a postscript that explained who was who and how she deviated from the real history. Frankly if every adult book I read had that I'd be happy and on this rereading I'm surprised Cynthia Harnett's books are mostly out of print these days.

So we're at the newly built Sulgrave Manor with the Washington family (George Washington's ancestors) in 1554. Mary Tudor is on the throne and the beautiful Lady Elizabeth is imprisoned at Woodstock Castle (just 20 miles away). Naturally the older teenage boys of the family are obsessed and defy their father to go to Woodstock. Adventure ensue. However there's also lots of lovely historical details that impact the story and description of family life. Delightful and I can why 11 year old me loved this.

Heartstopper Vol 5 by Alice Oseman
Charlie and Nick have sex.

1. Uncle Paul by Celia Fremlin

This was only just an ok read. The eldest half sister of Isabel and Meg, Mildred, is convinced that she is being stalked by her first husband, who married her bigamously and was, shortly after, arrested for the attempted murder of his first wife and imprisoned, but is now believed to be out of prison.

The tension builds up around Mildred's fear, and the other two sisters begin to have doubts about the safety of their own relationships. The melodramatic denouement rather let things down for me and I was a little disappointed. Perhaps I expect too much from a thriller. I got a copy of The Long Shadow for Christmas, and am hoping that doesn't disappoint.

@JaninaDuszejko I also loved Cynthia Harnett as a child -- The Wool-Pack and The Load of Unicorn in particular. YY to precious few 'adult' historical novels measuring up to her standards.
Kristin Lavransdatter is on my no-excuses TBR this year, so glad to hear its praises sung.

@BlindurErBóklausMaður wise choice to swerve Fantastic Beasts, if you've already hit your disturbingly bizarre wizarding family dysfunction limits, because 😬

Thread 2! Help - haven't even finished reading thread 1 yet. To be fair super busy at work (& binging on the traitors).

My list ...

1. The Cutting Season Attica Locke
2. Jesus Land Julia Scheeres
3. In a Dark Dark Wood Ruth Ware

And most recent review

1. Night Waking Sarah Moss

I really struggled to get into this, which surprised me as I loved Moss's novella Ghost Wall. Anna, a research fellow from Oxford, has moved with husband Giles & their two young sons to an isolated Scottish Island owned by Giles's astocratic family. Anna is struggling with a night waking toddler and the lionshare of the domestic duties. Consequently she is failing to finish her historical book on childhood. It grew on me as Anna's complex character emerged. I dont have a partner who has inherited and island nor am I an Oxford academic, but the feelings of being trapped and guilty in early motherhood resonated strongly. The periodic descriptions of her son's night wakings, the all encompassing intrusive needs of toddlers, and the dilemma between concentrating on paid work or just enjoying time to yourself when you finally claw out some childfree time were very real. Anna isn't a saint & I saw a lot of myself in her. Husband Giles has frankly no redeeming qualities apart from maybe being good in bed?. His pompous attitudes and failure to support Anna is anger inducing. I spent large parts of the novel wanting to force feed him quavers (you'll have to read it to find out why). Moth her youngest is a great toddler and some scenes are real gems. I loved the interplay, between Anna and the holidaymakers who come to stay in a rental on the island. Judith the controlling and overbearing mother could have been a pantomime villan, but she is drawn with nuance & a compassionate eye. Zoe her troubled adolescent daughter is arrogant, vulnerable and difficult all at the same time. She's a great potrait of a teenager. Despite all this there were sections that dragged a bit. With so many layers, i sometimes wanted just to focus on the present day narrative.. Intertwinned are Anna's thesis on 18th century childhood, her exploration of local history (& her husband's family's role in it), the death of a child during wartime and the mystery of a baby's skeleton in the garden. At times, it just felt a bit like it was going off in too many different directions. Also alongside some great characters there were others that seemed one dimensional and less believable - the policeman seemed solely there to cast judgement on Anna's parenting. And I'll be honest Raph the oldest son, seemed an incredibly unlikely 7 year old. He was beyond even mumsnet levels of precociousness. Good, but not a bold for me.

Finished number 11 today
11 A Tomb with a View by Peter Ross
Recommended by someone on here. This was a riveting read, exploring graveyards in Britain and Ireland and the stories of the people who are buried there. I found the cillíní and the war graves terribly moving. I also enjoyed the section on Glasnevin and Shane MacThomáis- I’ve been on the tour there and it’s well worth a visit if you’re in Dublin. That sent me down a rabbit hole of watching the documentary mentioned in the book on YouTube- One Million Dubliners. A fascinating watch. Thanks to whoever recommended this as I’d never have found it otherwise.

So glad you liked A Tomb With A View! His Steeple Chasing about churches is also excellent and I slightly prefer it, although they are both bolds for me.

@HenryTilneyBestBoy make sure you read the modern Tiina Nunnally translation. It's a fascinating novel, wish it was better known in English.

@TimeforaGandT I read Snow last year and enjoyed how he warped a typical Chtistie-like closed room mystery into something interesting. Have to agree with a previous poster on the last thread though (sorry forgot who) - his female characters are rather problematic. One throwing themselves at the protagonist (for no apparent reason) and several using sex to manipulate.
@BarbaraBuncle I find Fremlin quite enjoyable, but agree that the endings can get a bit silly and melodramatic. I think The Hours Before Dawn is the best of hers I've read.* * * *

Thanks for new thread! I’m on book 8, The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes. Great so far!

Thanks @MorriganManor I’m adding that to my tbr.

Thanks as ever for the new thread, @Southeastdweller. I can't keep up, either with my own reviews or the speed at which you are all posting. Plus I have five books on the go and am dithering between which to pick up (it's an eclectic mix of Middlemarch, a random spy thriller, Alan Partridge, a book about extremists and Letters to My Palestinian Neighbour which is a series of short essays about Israel and being Israeli).

So far, read and reviewed:

1 Nine Quarters of Jerusalem by Matthew Teller
2 How To Avoid A Climate Disaster by Bill Gates
3 Tackle by Jilly Cooper

And just finished and reviewed (briefly) here:

4 A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney
I cried on the concourse of London Bridge listening to this. Hug your children tight; life is brutal, cruel and deals random blows. I have no idea how he had the strength to narrate this.

5 This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Read at the urging of DS who loved it. It was not really my thing (possibly I am not the target audience) or my kind of sci-fi but it was rather beautiful in places.

6 Slow Horses by Mick Herron
A re-read but such a good re-read. I read this spy thriller when it was first published and then forgot all about it and missed the fact there was a whole series. We watched the first series of the TV show over Christmas so I went back to this in preparation for the rest. So good - I don't know what about this makes it so readable but I'm totally there for this tale of MI5 losers and misfits trying to save a young man who has been kidnapped by extremists while various skulldugging goes on behind the scenes.

7 Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart
I am conflicted about Rory Stewart. He's smart and likeable and clearly competent and decent but I still don't like his politics, and - unfairly - judge him for getting out of politics rather than sticking around as a backbencher (I know he was kicked out of the party, I said I was being unfair), and I find his books a touch unselfcritical. Even when he's recounting his failings I'm never quite convinced he believes it.
This is a pretty hair raising account of the current state of the Tory party, narrated by the saintly Rory who is patient, thoughtful, inquisitive and non-partisan, according to Rory.
I could do without the accents when he reads aloud - he did it in Occupational Hazards and it pissed me off no end.

@Owlbookend Thanks. I'll see if the library has a copy of that one. I think she wrote well and I liked the characters she created in Uncle Paul and the slow build up of menace and threat. I just wish she had managed to execute a more credible ending. All along I was doubting everyone's true identity, along with Isabel and Meg. She painted some good side characters too.

Thanks for the thread @Southeastdweller

I’m having a crappy week with several bits of bad news so turning to Bill Bryson, my ultimate comfort writer. This time it’s Down Under , on Audible.

Also indulging my bleak mood a little with the absolutely fascinating photojournalism book Chernobyl: A Stalker’s Guide and the absurdist Soviet classic The Foundation Pit by Andrey Platonov. Plus about 1/4 through and up to the 1100s in Simon Sebag Montefiore’s epic The World.

blimey - I always forget how fast the January threads fill up. thanks as ever @Southeastdweller for keeping house. Bringing over my list:
1.Just Like You by Nick Hornby
2.Oxblood by Tom Benn
3.My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
4.Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
5 The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
6.Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

Still working on the excellent but fairly demanding Mantel Pieces by Hilary Mantel in print, and on audio I’ve got Trespasses, which I’m not loving yet.

I've gotten through quite a lot of reading recently due to the bad weather and a poorly little one sleeping lots in the day.
1 Eye for an Eye- MJ Aldridge
2. A Year of Living Danishly- Helen Russell
3. It Girl- Ruth Ware
4. Blood Sweat and Tea- Tom Reynolds

1. Undoctored- Adam Kay- didn't find this as enjoyable as the book version of This is going to hurt which had a good mix of wit and emotion. Didn't like the tv series though as I found it lacked the humor of the book and was quite triggering in places.
2. Verity- Colleen Hoover- This was a page turner and I did enjoy the mystery element. However, on thinking about it there are plot wholes and I just couldn't get on board with chopping and changing near the end.

TBR
Now undecided what to read first
Paper Cup by Karen Campbell
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

I'm another who didn't love Hags. She made some good points but I found it very repetitive and it felt like she'd taken a good extended essay and just padded it out.