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

Happy birthday @DuPainDuVinDuFromage and happy reading. I’ve heard The Ferryman is a good read.
so jealous of all the people who have seen Streetcar. Would love to see it some time.
Really just pooped on to say When God was a Rabbit is in the kindle sale today if you fancy reading something that will drive you so crazy you want to throw it against a wall.

Happy birthday!

I haven’t seen any reviews of the Cronin yet. It’s on my wish list.

@Welshwabbit glad you liked All Souls - DH and I read it for a book club and both loved it, and in his case he was so taken with Marías's writing that he ordered all his books to read. There’s a sequel to All Souls which he also rates very highly, called Dark Back of Time. It's a kind of clever reflection on the reactions to the original book. I haven’t read it yet but I definitely will.

Happy birthday DuPain! Enjoy your books.

I studied Streetcar at school and still have my copy covered in notes and colour coding. I’ve never seen a live version of it but the Marlon Brando film was fabulous.

Happy Birthday DuPain.

Happy birthday @DuPainDuVinDuFromage

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I've just started listening to Prophet Song as suspected I'd be driven mad by the lack of punctuation. The narrator has a nice voice, being Irish and all. No further thoughts yet but am only a couple of chapters through.

Thanks all! 😊

Happy birthday @DuPainDuVinDuFromage! The Ferryman looks intriguing, have added that to my wishlist.

Happy birthday, @DuPainDuVinDuFromage.

94 Everything Fat Loss by Ben Carpenter
I come across Ben’s TikToks a lot and he has a very endearing manner. His thing is to use science to debunk weight loss myths. This book arrived at a good moment; having lost a reasonable amount of weight and needing something a bit less full on for the last few kilos I'd driven myself slightly mad trying to figure out the best times to eat/balance of macros/etc. Essentially, the message of this book is that science generally says that the way to lose or maintain weight it to limit calorie consumption slightly and the rest is really about what you like and can sustain to do that. So for example if you know alcohol makes you eat too much, limit alcohol but a couple of drinks isn't going to undo progress.

Hello readers, I saw this thread referenced on another reading thread. Are you open to new members? I have assumed it was a closed group but you read such lovely books and I am sadly in need of both recommendations and also book chat in my life!

Whether or not I join you, I would really like to say that I finished Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore yesterday and loved it - it's the story of the (sorry for triggers) rape of a 14 year old girl in West Texas in the 1970s, and the effects it has on her community. The writing reminded me of Marilynne Robinson (not as cheerful though!) with a strong hint of Barbara Kingsolver. The characters are beautifully drawn and there is an extraordinary and unsettling sense of menace which is really well handled I think. Would love to hear anyone else's thoughts on it.

Welcome @PersisFord, the more the merrier. This is indeed the best thread on the whole of Mumsnet.

Happy Birthday @DuPainDuVinDuFromage.

@PersisFord welcome! We love new people joining us, people who drop in occasionally, people who are here all the time. Any books, any number of them. The only requirement (and I guess even that isn't really a requirement) is that you like books and chatting about books.

Hi Persis, and any lurkers, we're never closed. Anyone can take part at any point, as much or as little as they want.

Thanks! I love books and love chatting about books. And I got 2 book subscriptions for my birthday so I'm reading all sorts of new things and it's nice to talk about them!

Props to you guys for reading plays though. Outside of school the only play I've read is Harry Potter and the cursed child and I have VERY LITTLE idea what went on in it really!

And happy birthday @DuPainDuVinDuFromage , I hope you got lots of BOOKS!!!

Happy Birthday Du Pain

@Stokey
It'll work much better as audio I think, I'm still thinking about one section of it.

@PersisFord

I can vouch that Cursed Child is worth seeing and probably only works live

I didn't rate Valentine - too many irrelevant POV

Thanks again for all the birthday wishes, and welcome @PersisFord ! It is indeed a wonderful thread, I am a relatively recent joiner and everyone is lovely, and I have such a long to-read list now…

Happy Birthday @DuPainDuVinDuFromage and welcome @PersisFord its good fun here.

24.The Diary of A Bookseller by Shawn Bythell. Non fiction covering 2013/14 in The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland. Lovely little book full of anecdotes and snark about the public. Glad to see he’s still going 10 years later and Amazon hasn’t destroyed them yet. Would love to go to Wigtown. I don’t think he’d be impressed with my reading taste. My only book about flowers is very bedraggled from being outside in the shed.

have ordered the Galbraith to my kindle as a treat for a long Tuesday commute.

Welcome @PersisFord ! Funnily enough I am currently reading the second in Vaseem Khan's Malabar House series, featuring Inspector Persis Wadia as the lead character. It's the first time I'd ever heard the name. Is that where your username comes from?

132. Oh Miriam! by Miriam Margoyles (Audible)

Presented as short vignettes whereby Miriam can hold forth on a topic such as swearing, family, chat shows and cats; this sadly feels like a cash grab on behalf of the publisher based on the success of This Much Is True - some overlap is had both between chapters and between books and there's lots of BEKIND going on which seems at odds with her often rude outspokenness. If it's similar to anything I would say Claudia Winklemans Quite eg here's some thoughts about some stuff.

Happy Birthday @DuPainDuVinDuFromage I hope you are having a lovely day.

Welcome to @PersisFord and any other new joiners I may have missed!

I'm behind by a few reviews and have just been reading easier stuff as I'm really busy at work and totally knackered!

117. The Closers by Michael Connelly

The next in the Bosch series. Bosch is back in the LAPD and partnered with Kiz Ryder in the cold case department. His time away has given Bosch some perspective on how important being a part of the LAPD is to him, and consequently he’s a bit less of a nob head, slightly less arrogant and doesn’t go rogue quite as much but he’s still strangely attractive to women. He’s the James Bond of the detective world with a new woman in practically every book. The central case was interesting, and I like a cold case angle, but I guessed who it was as soon as they appeared on the page.

118. Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King

The Great Stephen King Reread continues. I’ve picked up the pace after getting stuck on Nightmares and Dreamscapes for a few months as I have some of his newer novels that I have never read, and am looking forward to. I enjoyed this collection of interconnected stories, mostly set in the 1960s, the impact of Vietnam on individuals and the psyche of America was captured throughout. I also loved seeing Ted Brautigan from the Dark Tower series.

119. The Change by Kirsten Miller

Nessa: The Seeker, Jo: The Protector, Harriett: The Punisher. With newfound powers the time has come to take matters into their own hands…

I found this book enjoyable, if a little bit silly at times. As I age into the ‘middle-aged woman who is as mad as hell and is not going to take it any more’ demographic I loved the idea of nature addressing some of the power imbalance between men and women, giving women powers to enable them to protect themselves and each other. It’s also a bit of an ode to the power of female solidarity and friendship, but by about half way in Harriett was working my last nerve with her mysterious, all knowing vibe. I also guessed the twist, although I’m not too concerned about that as it’s not really a ‘whodunnit’.

120. The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly

Mickey Haller is a defence lawyer who works out of a Lincoln car. Haller is retained to defend a rich real estate broker and the more he looks into the case the more he wonders if he actually has that rarest of finds - an innocent client. There were plenty of twists and turns along the way but Michael Connelly does seem to excel at writing arrogant, cock-sure men, which I wouldn’t mind if I thought he intended us to laugh at them, I just don’t think that’s the case. Still I’m in now so I’m going to see this through to the bitter end and read all the books in the Bosch universe.

I'm currently listening to Booth on audible and am finding it a bit of a drag. Not sure if it's just that I'm not in the mood with being so tired, or the fact that I'm finding the narrator's voice really irritating, as it sounds right up my street. Might have to leave it for a while or switch to the book.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit that's a shame. I LOVED This Much is True and was looking forward to it but I'm not down with the whole "be kind" thing. Not that I'm advocating being an arsehole, but there are times when people seem to equate standing up for your rights, or having a different opinion as a direct attack. One of the things I loved about her last book was the total lack of fucks given so I was hoping for more of the same.

@MamaNewtNewt

I mean, she sort of does both : I Give Zero Fucks but EVERYONE MUST BE KIND. A bit " one rule for me"She stops short of support for JKR but does attack cancel culture in general

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit yes loads of POVs but unusually I liked that about it - I think it just made it more and more ominous!!

@Welshwabbit Persis Ford is a character in one of the Anne of Green Gable booms- beautiful and mysterious!!

65: Black Teacher - Beryl Gilroy

I loved this memoir originally published in the 1970s and recently reissued. Beryl came to London from what was then British Guiana in the 1950s, after an already-stellar career as an infant teacher back home, and was immediately faced with a huge struggle to be accepted for jobs purely because of the colour of her skin.

She eventually did find posts, and worked with deprived children in some of the poorest parts of London. Her observations of these children are fascinating, and her care and love for them shines through - she must have been an inspirational teacher. She was no pushover for sure - the core of steel shows through several times, and she had to be tough purely to keep going in the face of horrendous racism of the most unbelievable kind. This is definitely not a sanitised memoir: incest, abortion, child cruelty and domestic violence are all tackled, and you feel that Beryl was able to take it all in her steady stride to protect and help the children in her care. I’m sure they felt lucky to have her.

19 Drive your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - Olga Tokarczuk
Janina lives on her own in an isolated village near the Czech border in Poland. Her life is seemingly ordered and predictable: she works part time in a school teaching English to small children, in the Winter she acts as caretaker to her Summer-only neighbours' houses. She devotes her spare time to calculating the horoscopes of everybody she knows and spending time with her friends. When people start dying in mysterious circumstances, Janina has her own theory about the causes of their deaths and we are treated to her exounding on the reasons thereof.

I loved this, my first bold for a while. I enjoyed the author's writing style and Janina's habit of renaming everybody she meets to suit their appearance and/or temperament. The astrology stuff went over my head (I don't know anything about this subject) but her love of nature and beliefs regarding the fates of the animals around her are beautifully expressed.