50 Books Challenge 2023 Part Eight

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the seventh thread of the 50 Books Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2023, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, it’s not too late to join, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

The first thread of the year is here, the second one here, the third one here here, the fourth one here, the fifth one here, the sixth one here and the seventh one here

Yeah g'wan. 😂
Just for the review that I'll undoubtedly replicate with even more ffs-ing in a year or two when I finally finish ffs-ing over the others I've still not ffs-d about because there's only so much ffs-ing I can do in a year.

@SoIinvictus 😂😂😂
I enjoyed reviewing the last one much more than I enjoyed actually reading it.

I’ve seen two stage versions of Streetcar, the Gillian Andersen one and the more recent one with the guy from Normal People and the woman who is in the new Pygmalion adaptation. It’s brilliant, through hard to match Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando, but that’s my own bias.

I do like Ibsen too, though I’ve not seen enough. I was sick the day I was due to see Ruth Wilson in Hedda Gabbler but did see Rosmerholm the last time it was on in London and it was incredible.

Chekhov and Shakespeare are my first loves though.

Bit slow on the reading at the moment but here is a link for those who are interested in the next Dickensalong

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/4903775-dickensalong-2023-2024-nicholas-nickleby

Very bizarrely I bought this last night and then find the whole thread is debating or doing the same! Synchronicity!

I have actively missed him. But it's Robert

Good point 🤣

Waterstones had sold out, so you’re all safe from my FFS for a while.

Just checked and I'm an idiot - it's not out yet, which is why I couldn't find it! lol

Ha! I was just wondering if it was out yet.

Tuesday

@Piggywaspushed thanks for the Dickens read-along link! I’ve checked BorrowBox and Nicholas Nickleby is available in a couple of weeks, so I’ve reserved it. It does mean I’ll need to get through the book a lot quicker than the read-along!

I love the Marlon Brando version of Streetcar (and the Simpsons version 🤣). Would love to see the play.

This thread moves so quickly - I miss a few days and there are pages of updates!

My latest reads are:

66. Colditz - Ben MacIntyre

I knew the basics about Colditz (or thought I did but it seems some of the things I thought I knew were incorrect!). Fascinating, even handed look at all the occupants of Colditz and life there. Very accessible and recommended.

67. Crampton Hodnet - Barbara Pym

Set in North Oxford amongst the world of academics and clergy as viewed through the eyes of Miss Morrow, lady companion to an interfering battle axe spinster. Miss Morrow could be downtrodden and dull but is saved by her sense of humour. Loved this (but realise it’s not for everyone).

Following on from the earlier discussions and insights from cassandre (thank you), I am now reading Educated by Tara Westover

27 Operation Pedestal by Max Hastings
I am truly astounded by Hastings' work rate. Clearly he is now a significant team rather than a single author. However, his voice remains strong and recognisable. Unfortunately so, because after the much more astringent Vietnam, he's back to a distinctly soupy reverence for the fighting men of WWII. Having said that, this is a fine story pretty well told, the story of the convoy sent to relieve a starving and oil-dry Malta in 1942. He's good at demonstrating the unbearable tension of the slow progress and incredible vulnerability of the convoy.

You can get the Gillian Anderson one on the National Theatre website, although I'm not sure if you have to pay now. It's excellent. And, of course, Brando is sublime - the ending is wrong though.

54 Black Diamonds - Catherine Bailey

Not sure who recommended it first on here? Thank you anyway- a thoroughly enjoyable and fascinating read charting the rise and fall of the aristocratic Fitzwilliam dynasty of Wentworth stately home. Though when this was published in 2007 the house was in private hands, it looks like it’s now being managed by the National Trust and I’m definitely going to plan a visit.

I'm back from dropping DD1 at uni at the end of the earth. Only book finished was The Salt Path which we didn't listen to together - too much chatting to be done - but I finished on the way back. Also started Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe but then the weather got crazy and I couldn't hear it over the wind and rain so I resorted to the pile of CDs that DD2 had prepared for me.
Just finished catching up with the thread. Have pledged to do better on the next Dickensalong with Piggy!

52 All Souls by Javier Marias

Described as a black comedy set in Oxford - although I'm not sure I would have classified it that way, overall I really liked this odd little novel. The Spanish protagonist is temporarily working at the university, and this is a semi-stream-of-consciousness slither through his love affair with a married colleague, but also and more strikingly, his friendships with male colleagues and what they teach him. There are some beautifully realised characters in here, particularly the tragic Cromer-Blake and the larger than life yet strangely elusive Toby Rylands. Clare, the protagonist's lover, felt somewhat flat to me (and largely characterised by her legs) and indeed the overall approach towards women was a bit dubious. But the writing approaches something more profound than the black comedy of the reviews and there were several sentences I squirrelled away in my head.

131. Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

This was the only Booker Nominee I really wanted to read and, well...
as billed it's an Irish dystopia.

In the night two policeman come for Larry Stack and shortly after he disappears. His wife Eilish then tries to hold the family fort down as Ireland becomes a police state and then descends into civil war. It is these events as seen from the kitchen sink, from the woman's "lot"

It is near ruined by the awful layout of no paragraphs or speech marks making it impossible sometimes to even know if someone is speaking never mind who.
The poor layout is so off putting, all the sentences running together is really draining, but ultimately the big problem is the unsubtle vibe of :

WHAT IF SYRIA HAPPENED BUT IT WAS IRELAND?!! AND IT HAPPENED TO YOU?! BE MORE AWARE OF INTERNATIONAL REFUGEES.

is really beating you round the head politically and quite patronising. The ending is very "on the nose" in that respect.

Parts are well done, particularly "the hospital chapter" though it was very grim.

Earnest yet flawed

50. Ranger Confidential: Living, Working and Dying in the National Parks by Andrea Lankford

My husband hates that I insist on entering every visitor centre of every National Park on this trip as I can't resist buying things and he sees it as unnecessary spends. However I have demolished this book in three busy holiday days so clearly this wasn't unnecessary.

I've spent the last three weeks envious of the rangers working in these beautiful places. I wondered how to get one of the jobs (I can't, I'm not American). Then I read this and now I don't want the job!

Rangers are paid less than I thought, live in some awful accommodation which is worse than I thought, and charged for it. They are attacked, verbally and physically and being American, sometimes shot at. They have to save hikers who do stupid things like climb over 'stay on trail' signs and then predictably injure themselves. And despite all these down sides, most of them are on short term contracts with no health insurance fighting their colleagues for a coveted permanent role.

As someone who lives the National Parks, this book was a fascinating insight. Some incidents from Death In Yosemite are referenced from the ranger point of view. It's not the best written memoir, it jumps all over the place, I can't tell you what was going on with the timeline, but I still loved it. Right time and right place and all that.

Very much here for the Streetcar chat, my favourite play. I saw the Gillian Anderson one a few years ago and would have LOVED to have seen the Paul Mescal one. I hope a recording of it might show up one day.

I seem to have been flying through books, here is what I've read recently:

63. Preloved by Lauren Bravo. Gwen is in her late 30s, single, made redundant and feeling lost in life when she starts volunteering in a charity shop. Gradually the people she meets help her to rebuild. This was a cute premise but didn't quite hold together for me. Nothing really happened for a long time and Gwen was absolutely insipid, incapable of making any decisions at all. There were a lot of little vignettes about items being donated which was a nice touch.

64. Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan. Set in 90s London, when a toddler is found strangled to death on a council estate, fingers point at an unpopular Irish family. Unscrupulous tabloid journalist Tom whisks them away to a hotel to interview them in search of a salacious story, but is disappointed when he can't find anything to write about in the 'ordinary' stories and tragedies of their lives. This started out as being a sordid story about crime and news and corruption, but ended up being actually quite a beautiful book about a family working to reconcile after years of difficult times. If anything it was maybe a bit too short to fully explore this.

65. Everything's Fine by Celia Rabess. A novel charting the friendship and then romance between Jess, a liberal black woman, and Josh, a conservative white man, who both work in banking, in the run up to Trump's election. This was pretty controversial online I think and it's definitely a challenging book. It has the arc of a rom com - all snappy back and forth dialogue and will they won't they sexual tension - but a lot of it is quite uncomfortable. Josh has a lot of power over Jess, socially, but he's also her actual boss at one stage and is intimately involved in discussions about firing her. He goads her into debating issues around race and equality, always armed with data and statistics that leave her feeling emotional and unsure. But the relationship between them feels real and they're obviously very much in love. I'm still not quite sure what I make of it but I think I loved it as a very clever take on a love story and a new angle on the fairly ubiquitous 'young woman makes bad and chaotic relationship choices' plot.

I saw Streetcar with Paul Mescal and can confirm it was as good as you'd expect. He was actually the least good thing about it, although that's not meant as the criticism it sounds. Just that the other actors were so good, and the staging was tremendous. I have a second hand copy I picked up in a bookshop which has been thoroughly and smartly annotated by someone all the way through and really appreciated reading it with the additional commentary.

Here's my birthday book pile - small but good! Both recommended on here 🙂

Happy Birthday 🎈
Joyeux Anniversaire @DuPainDuVinDuFromage
Happy Reading!