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

*countered.

FFS.
CHUNTERED. I CHUNTERED.

I'm only there for the sexual tension

I too have taken the plunge and have started to listen to The Running Grave on my commute.
In the meantime I’ve finished a few more shorties.
113 Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
A well known classic comedy of three men and a dog taking a holiday boating on the Thames. The first chapter was very funny. Then it became too meandering and forced in its humour for me. I’ve come to the conclusion that I like books with comedy, like Terry Pratchett and Mick Herron, but not books that are written as full blown comedies like this and PG Wodehouse.

114 Passing by Nella Larson
This was very good and much better that the more recent The Other Half which it is always compared to. Written in the 1920s it tells the story of Irene, a middle class black woman in New York, who is horrified to find her childhood acquaintance Clare is passing as white and married to a racist white man. We learn a lot of Irene’s own flaws in her telling of the tale. I really enjoyed this beautifully written and thoughtful book. A bold from me.

115 I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
Translated from French. This is the story of ‘the child’ who has lived in a cage in an underground bunker with 39 other women for as long as she can remember. The others can remember life ‘before’ but she cannot. One day the guards run away and they escape to try and find a way back to life and the story of why they ended up there. This is one of the bleakest books I’ve ever read. It was interesting but I never want to think of it again. Not recommended for anyone who is feeling down.

I’m only here for the sexual tension
Might save this line for my next work meeting.

The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham
I finished this so nobody else has to. Silly, xenophobic, classist nonsense of which even Enid Blyton might have been ashamed. More piffle than Lord Peter Wimsey and I guessed the murderer just about as soon as it happened, although not the motive.

I’ve started The Running Grave on the commute. She’ll always need an editor but am racing through it. Not enough Pat thus far. But the case feels like it’s on much sturdier ground than the internet trolls of last time.

I was disappointed with I Who Have Never Known Men. Began well and went downhill iirc.

1000 pages for the new Galbraith!!! It's probably a good thing I won't get it for a while (unless I cave and buy it), need to work myself up to that. I struggled with the Ink Black Heart but thought it was.mostly because of the funny layout and simultaneous conversations in the game....but now I'm worried that they are just getting long and boring (like Harry potter books 5 onwards!!!)

Good luck to you all embarking on it!

The ending of I Who Have Never Known Men cheats the reader IMO

Just dug out my review:

I Who Have Never Known Men
Can't be bothered to check the writer's name

This was bad. Derivative, adolescent and dull. A study in pointlessness.

I also read that review by Mark Sanderson. He wrote that JKR "still gives the impression she’s writing for people who move their lips when they read".

Dickhead.

Am I the only one on these threads that’s never read a Strike book?

@TattiePants I haven't either. For whatever reason they don't appeal. Maybe if Max Hastings ever stops producing chewy prose doorstops on 20th century warfare I will get there.

Tattie - me neither. Never appealed - and at 1,000 pages it never will.

😁 Remus. Must try that line.

@TattiePants I've never read a Strike book but I have seen a few of the TV series.

I read the first years ago and was not impressed yet have since done all the others this year. I wanted something roughly easy reading but not too stupid as a late night Audiobook - they've been perfect for that, really not taxing and certainly some of us on here have a love/hate dynamic with them. They are very flawed and have often pissed me off, but I still go back.

WHY CAN'T THEY JUST SHAG?!

I haven’t read one either.

I have never read a Strike novel. I had a bad experience on holiday when The Casual Vacancy was the only book I had to read, except I couldn’t, because it was shit. JKR is a fantastic woman, but her writing style is not my thing.

I didn't enjoy The Casual Vacancy either @BoldFearlessGirl (book club read), but might try at least one Strike book when I get the time and if I find a cheap one in a charity shop

I have so many reservations about the Strike books and about JK Rowling too. I don’t think she’s a fantastic woman- rather, like us all, she’s human and flawed. I’m sure she’s done many good things and, as I said after Ink Black Heart she must be doing something right in the writing as I keep going back, despite feeling rather dirty as I do so.

I do think she’s occasionally made some poor decisions in how she’s used her fame to voice occasional dangerously divisive opinions and it makes me cross that she seems to be beyond the touch of editors. There’s an arrogance and self indulgence implied in both of those, I think.

But heck, at the end of the day, I’m still invested in whether Strike and Robin are ever going to shag.

I read the first one, thought it was pants,and haven't read another. I was fed up of reading a running ad for Doom Bar.

I read The Cuckoo's Calling and haven't read any more since then.

I’ve never read the Strike books, but I don’t go in for police procedural/whodunnit type books generally. It’s just not my genre, nothing against them or her. I’ve also not read Harry Potter in spite of 3 DC.

I have seen some of the Tv series and the films.

I've never read the Strike books but have enjoyed the TV series with DP. I was tempted to read the books as well but have been put off by you lot

(& well said @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie )

It would be worse if I tried the first one and liked it. I like embarking on a good series but 34 hours? I’ll just keep on with my donations to Lumos, I’m sure she won’t mind I’m not buying her books (or notice)