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

I don't remember watching Threads although I would have been 15 when it was broadcast. I was quite worried about nuclear war at that age, and also about nuclear power. With Woodcraft Folk, I went to see a double bill including a concert film from the 1970s (I think after the Three Mile Island nuclear power station accident in the US) and a film entirely made of up of government propaganda, all the Protect and Survive ads etc from the 1950s. We also went to see Silkwood, about a power station worker (a real life person) who raised concerns about radiation and then died in suspicious circumstances.

I watched Threads and also the less terrifying US one ... The Day After?

Threads traumatised me. I can still picture a woman out shopping in it, and the people cowering under a door.

I grew up next to a nuclear submarine base. We were clear we were in the firing line.

There was another post apocalyptic one.. more of a drama? Was it called Survivors?

20. Wakenhyrst- Michelle Paver In a Manor House cut off from the nearby village by a Suffolk fen, Maud grows up with only the company of her cold and repressive father after her Mother dies in childbirth and her brother is sent away to school. Denied the opportunities afforded by education, she is engaged as a typist in service of her father's obsessive research following the discovery of a medieval doom panel in their local church, which leads her to pry into his private notebooks and alert her to the progressive breakdown of his mental health.

It was OK, not a great book but interesting enough. Maud is well-drawn as a teenage girl coming to terms with the realities of her life. Father is a bit of a caricature, as is the love interest (handsome under-gardener), but it fulfilled my requirements for now (nothing too demanding for me right now, thank you!)

Yes Survivors

They did a modern version one as well maybe 15 years ago. It got axed after 2 series

Thank you! 6 trains and a plane 😂 but I'm home.

The first few weeks I find all I can do is read and watch TV series. (and try not to WhatsApp DD 364 times a day but wait for her!) Hope yours is doing well.

Nuclear war- I was obsessed in the 80s. I was secretary of the university CND group and we got Monsignor Bruce Kent to come and have a debate with a Liberal MP. Then we all went to the uni pub for pie and peas and BK teased the Liberal. The earnestness of those days 😂 we practised being arrested and had an even more earnest bloke from the local branch hang out with us. He used to say he didn't know what he'd do with himself if they ever did get rid of Trident.

I have no memory of Threads despite being late teens when it came out. I was pretty worried about nuclear war, I remember, so it's possible my parents vetoed it. Bruce Kent spoke at my uni too.

I'm also currently reading Attack Warning Red and finding it fascinating how official advice shifted between the 50s, when people were expected to muck in and look out for their neighbours, to every man for himself in the 80s.

'Threads' looks horrifying. As a ten or eleven year old, I would have been scared out of my wits watching it.

I'm another one mostly reading (well listening to this time) the Strike books for the Robin / Strike sexual tension - would they just do it already so I can move on with my life! I haven't been this invested in anyone's sex life since my mega crush on Rob in 1997! Actually I don't mind the central mysteries in the books as well, but I really didn't enjoy the last book that much.

Those I Ching quotes are really fucking annoying me.

And I’ve just reached the first name dropping of a posh restaurant. No carpet description, but whole acres of tablecloths.

I hate all her quotes at the top of the chapters, she has so many chapters they just feel like a pointless way of showing she’s well read. But the mystery is great this time.

The quote thing is my #1 annoyance

Belated happy birthday DuPain

I'm also listening to the latest Strike. Fully agree on the quotes at the start of the chapters being irritating.

I'm 22% in and while invested, feel I'll have fatigue by tomorrow and will be praying for it to end. Might take a mid book palate cleanser as I have the new Emily Wilson Iliad lined up.

Thinking about the love/hate chat earlier, a lot of us do it with the Serrailler series too and keep punishing ourselves despite knowing better.

I've said it before of JKR, she gets more harshly judged than most due to her vast wealth from writing. She's never tried to set herself up as anything more than an entertaining storyteller, but people hold her work against a higher standard. I think she's a thoroughly decent human being and will continue to support her for that alone.

I've read the first Harry Potter and really should finish the series one day, but everyone's reviews of the rest are hardly glowing so I don't think I'll bother!

51. A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe

I'm sure this was highly recommended on here and I jumped on the band wagon. Aberfan was well before I was born and to be honest, I hadn't heard much about it, so it was good to get some understanding of the sad event. I could hardly put the book down. I liked the supporting cast of Martin and Gloria more than I liked William who was very definitely flawed and a bit wet.

I loved the original Survivors and rewatched it with my son as an adult. The story line was still pretty good but I had to smile at most of the actors wearing make up and ironed clothes and having had their hair 'done'. I just have to camp overnight and I turn into Stig of the Dump!

I read all of John Wyndham's books in my teens and loved them. @BoldFearlessGirl. Maybe I will pick one up again now. Hope they stand up. I read a few Stephen King then too, but they scared the bejeebus out ot me!

Ha, yes, it’s definitely true of the Serailler books too, Fortuna. Increasingly ludicrous and enraging, and yet we keep reading….

Just dropping in to catch up with the reviews. Have to admit I'm skimming past the nuclear war related posts. My terror as an 80s child has never really abated. I was much more resilent then and read Brother in the Land as a 10-year-old. I lent it to a friend whose mother confiscated it as 'too depressing'. As an adult I can kind of see her point. I ploughed through lots of apocalyptic books then Children of the Dust is another I remember. Couldn't face any of it now.
I'm still slowly making progress through The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. After a reasonably pacy start, there was quite a lengthy 'people talk about marriage prospects in drawing rooms' section that slowed me down somewhat. However, things have once again picked up.
I've read one of the Duggar autobiographies @EineReiseDurchDieZeit read in the meantime, but will save my review till I've finished Wildfell. Really trying to keep with it despite work and home being very busy at the moment

Tenant does pick up @Owlbookend

I haven't read any of the Strike books but she seems to write them at a phenomenal rate, especially given the length, it seems only a couple of months since you were all talking about the last one!

66. Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. What can I say, I was off work with covid and watched the film of this one day and read the book the next. The premise is so ludicrous I can hardly write it down but: the son of the American president and the young British Prince Henry start a clandestine love affair and spark a number of international diplomatic incidents. In spite of myself I found this really cute and engaging.

67. Drunk On Love by Jasmine Guillory. What can I say, I was still off work with covid. This boring novel about running a commercial vineyard interspersed with sex scenes has cured me of my short lived 99p kindle romance phase.

Now I'm better I'm hoping to start the new Zadie Smith tonight.

Imogen - Jilly Cooper My favourite of her ‘Name’ books and still fun to read. Lovely (if you ignore the dubious parts).

Now onto Strike.

I remember Brother in the Land, Owl.

I'm in the library queue for Strike. I'll read it along with a hundred other books this year - it's not a big decision. I agree with Fortuna that I read it in the same spirit as Susan Hill or Sophie Hannah. They all are annoying but keep the pages turning. I like crime fiction that's not too graphic. I don't care if Robin and Strike knock boots - my shrivelled little heart prefers to see the villain unmasked than the heroes unrobed.

I haven’t started Strike yet. I avoid buying hardbacks as much as possible (expensive, take up too much room, and uncomfortable to hold when reading in bed/bath etc) and I don’t really want to spend £13 on a kindle book.

However my mum does like hardbacks and also likes Strike so I need to wait until she’s finished it so I can borrow it from her!

I am also in the library reservations queue but my library doesn’t tell you where you are in the queue so I have no idea whether books are going to arrive tomorrow or next year.

@Owlbookend

Stick with Tenant it's an amazing book