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 got Candy House by Jennifer Egan and Things We Say In The Dark by Kirsty Logan. Both Wish List, didn't trawl deals.

Has anyone read The Language of Food by Annabel Abbs?

Annoyingly I bought The Candy House in paperback a few weeks ago but haven't got round to reading it yet. I don't know if I should reread the Goon Squad first as it's meant to be a sequel and I don't really remember it.

I didn't think the deals were that bad. I've picked up Babel, The Sea Of Tranquility, Maame, Woman,Eating, and from the daily deals Romantic Comedy.

Just finished A World Of Curiosities by Louise Penny, the 18th inspector Ganache book. I found the first third really quite dull, going over and over the ground she's explored a thousand times. It wasn't helped by having a flashback to the car where Gamache first met Beauvoir. But it improved in the second half. I think this series may be my Strike. There's been extremely diminishing returns in at least the last 8-10 books but I still keep reading them. This was actually an improvement on the last couple.

@Stokey

Oh it's a sequel? It's years since I read Goon Squad that could be difficult

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I think it's not exactly a sequel but has some of the same characters. This is from the NYT review

"Our friend i, by the way, is Chris Salazar, son of Bennie Salazar, the punk rocker turned music executive who rises and falls in “Goon Squad.” Although “The Candy House” is full of such connections and reappearances, you don’t really need to have read “Goon Squad” to follow it. But there’s no need to deny yourself the pleasure, and the thematic connections may be even more important than the plot tissue."

@Stokey I am a louise penny superfan and I struggled a bit with WOC......I have so much love for Armand Gamache though I will keep reading them....

Oh well that's ok then! I'm still stuck in the doldrums I'm afraid. Hopefully find THAT book soon

Bless my mum - she’s lent me Strike even though she hasn’t read it yet, because she’s got several books lined up before she gets to it! That’s me sorted for the next few days…

I feel the same about the Three Pines series.
Still stuck in Strike. The ancient Land Rover is annoying me now. Just buy a Skoda or a Ford or something.

I read a library copy of The Candy House and bought the Kindle version when on offer a few weeks or months ago (some time between January and August - can't remember). The layout of some of the later sections made me think it was just as well to have read it on paper though I haven't looked at the Kindle edition to see how well (or not) it works.

I only realised it was meant to be a sequel afterwards and also can't remember much about A Visit from the Goon Squad, except that I liked it at the time, but it was more than 10 years ago!

53 The Dying Day by Vaseem Khan

The second in Khan's Malabar House series, this time India's first female police inspector, Persis Wadia, has to follow a series of literary clues to try to retrieve a valuable copy of Dante's Divine Comedy. There's a fair bit of murder along the way as well, obviously. I enjoyed working out the riddles and Persis is an intriguing character; not your usual female detective and not really the sort of female character who is written about much at all (a perfectionist, unsympathetic at times, but refreshingly lacking in traditional detective demons). Looking forward to the others in the series.

Like half this thread, it appears, I am now engrossed in The Running Grave. Obviously it is way too long but I am drawn in as ever and sneaking chapters in between everything else I'm meant to be doing.

55 This Bloody Mary Is The Last Thing I Own - Jonathan Rendall

Tremendous collection of writing about the brutal, often tawdry and occasionally beautiful world of boxing - I think this was a Backlisted recommendation and I heartily endorse this for anyone with an interest in life’s underbelly whether a boxing fan or not.

A Visit From the Goon Squad and The Candy House together (listed as Goon Squad series) are 99p on Amazon kindle at the moment.

109. Gone Viking, Helen Russell
This author did well with her non-fiction book about an English woman encountering Danish culture. Here she stretches herself with fiction about an English woman encountering Danish culture. Two sisters go on a back-to-nature retreat where they forage, build boats, throw axes and learn to be more Viking - but can they rebuild their relationship and learn to be sisters? At first the fiction layer felt a bit of a waste of time and the pacing is a bit slow, but it did rather win me over in the end. Decent chick-lit.

110. Eve Bites Back, Anna Bear
Non-fiction account of female writers and how they have struggled to make their voices heard in a patriarchal system. Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe are clearly just following me around at the moment. They're the subject of the opening chapter here, and I also read about them in Hidden Hands last year and For Thy Great Pain this year - and I haven't yet got round to Femina, where I'm expecting to meet them again. This was billed as surprisingly funny, although I can't say it make me laugh - it's like a seminar where the lecturer makes an occasional jocular remark. It's not ground-breaking stuff - I remember encountering many of these ideas in Literary Women by Ellen Moers which is nearly 50 years old - but it's always welcome, and each author casts her eyes over new terrain. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Mary Elizabeth Braddon.

111. Echolands: A Journey in Search of Boudica, Duncan Mackay
One of those books which isn't a straight history of its subject, but has the author gazing moodily across the landscape, having feelings about the past. Possibly not everyone's cup of tea, but I like this kind of thing and was happy to follow the author as he strode off in his reproduction Roman solder sandals (worn with socks, obviously).

the author gazing moodily across the landscape, having feelings about the past
I have several of those on my TBR pile @bibliomania . I’m slowly making my way through The Debatable Land by Graham Robb who spends much of the early part of the book marvelling at how different Carlisle is from Oxford and that’s before he finds himself buying a house with no vehicular access that still has Nicholas Ridley’s panic button to the local police station in the sitting room.

Oh, why do I find that so alluring, @BoldFearlessGirl ? Mind you, I've had mixed experiences with Graham Robb. The Ancient Paths was a bit bonkers.

I haven’t read that one @bibliomania. I was excitedly informed by the man in the English Heritage shop that “the author lives around here, you know!” so I kept an ear out for a tweedy cyclist pointing out the difference between Northumbria and Oxford, but I was sadly disappointed.

Disappointing indeed, @BoldFearlessGirl

Persons of Interest by Peter Grainger

This is another long series of police procedural books I suppose, I think this is number 3. Slightly jaded DC Smith and his adventures in a Norfolk town. Like Louise Penny but in Norfolk, a bit funnier and without so much introspection. I'm enjoying these loads and they are all available as audiobooks on my Libby app which is a bonus.

My next audiobook is Black Cake......I'm about an hour in and although the narration is beautiful I have very little idea what is going on. This book and specifically the audiobook has been recommended to me by so many real life people I will be very disappointed if it doesn't pick up....

Still behind with this thread - not enough hours in my life
Book 7 - Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov
My book groups choice so persevered . Mixed feelings about this.
The narrator (the author) opens a clinic for the past that offers treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers. The concept became popular with healthy people culminating in an election for all European countries to
Choose their own decade.
Interesting concept but felt very disjointed. Some parts I loved, others I struggled with. Didn’t get involved with the story and felt more of an observer. Some parts beautifully written though. Am keen to hear what the rest of the book group thought though

So currently bookless. Going on holiday on Friday and planning my holiday reads but still trying to read from my huge TR pile 😀

Quite fancy A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth I had read 188 pages already but put it aside a couple of months ago, I think possibly for a Books group read, and then never picked it back up again. I will have to start again now because whilst I can remember the storyline, I can’t clearly remember all the characters and how they’re interlinked..

The others are light reads in case I want something quick or else my arms are killing me from reading A suitable boy whilst on the sunbed 😂

The Enchanted April is excellent holiday reading, Sonnet.. Enjoy your holiday!

29 Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

I am sure this was read by a few 50 Bookers along the way. Since moving house a few months ago I have a TBR bookshelf, and this was the first one I have taken off it. It was really lovely to read a physical book again after a few impatiently bought Kindle books, my brain doesn't feel the same reading e-books.

This is a story of multiple timelines and characters centred on Marian Graves, a woman born around 1918 (can't exactly remember now) who becomes a pilot. I almost don't want to explain more, I'm bad at summarising without spoilers. I really enjoyed just sinking into a great story. For once I enjoyed the modern timeliness almost as much as the past. I'm not sure the big twist near the end made sense at all but I chose not to fight it. Recommended.

I didn't finish The Great Circle.
One of the timelines irritated me too much. Can't remember which. 😂
Shame because I like books about aeroplanes (love Saint-Exupery)

I'm likely going to be making a trip to Barter Books in Alnwick later this month and I remember a discussion here a while back on it, has anyone who's paid a visit got any good tips for me?