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

Let me know how you get on with Milkman @RazorstormUnicorn - thanks!

Thanks @Stokey 😊 Yes! I noticed some quotations that I hadn't known came from Othello. 'Wearing one's heart on one's sleeve' for example.

87. Babel by R F Kuang. I think this has been much reviewed already on here so I won't go into details, but it's a kind of alternate reality set in 1836 Oxford where silver with translated words written on it power the world.

I found this a bit odd. It started off reading very YA to me and I was thinking my teen might like it. But then we got to endless lectures on language, classics and colonialism. I think the author wears her research very heavily. Parts of it read like an undergraduate showing off how much they know, and the footnotes were generally a bit pointless. I think there were the bones of a good story here, but it was too long-winded with one-dimensional characters for me.

Iago as a wife beater isn't too difficult to imagine, I guess. If you're. toxic misogynist, it's not so big a step from telling a woman to 'charm her tongue' to thinking you could beat her into silence.

That's true. It just distracted from the theme of jealousy which is really the point.

Yes. Desdamona was treated very badly by both men.

In my opinion nothing has topped Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear's Othello at the NT.

I also liked Milkman.

@BoldFearlessGirl it's an excuse for more reading time, which is always good! Hope you feel better soon

@Stokey - yes, that is exactly how I felt about Babel!

I'm another who DNF Milkman I got a bit fed up with all the "somebody Mc somebody" stuff. I think that Anna Burns took that a bit too far and it slowed down and diluted the narrative.
I am of a similar age and background as Anna Burnsand a fellow escapee to London and Sussex. I think she does capture the creeping sense of dread and intimidation well but I just felt that it wasn't something I wanted in my life and that it was best to stop reading it. My younger sister also DNF it for her book group as she found it too upsetting and it brought up such bad memories. I'm glad other people liked it and learnt a lot from it.

Get well soon @BoldFearlessGirl and enjoy the TBR pile.

I have scuttled through
40 Bizarre Britain by David Long. A compendium of "facts" to supposedly shock and amuse us about the UK. A Kindle Unlimited and obviously so.

Random number generator has given me Fingersmith now. Only 100 years behind everyone else obvs.

@SoIinvictus I am so jealous that you get to read Fingersmith for the first time.
I might be due a reread

I’ve picked up, read a few pages and put down Milkman a number of times. Maybe I should give it another go.

Fingersmith is another book I’ve owned for years and never got round to reading so looking forward to reading your review Sol.

51 Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke Wow. What an amazing book. Like magical Dickens, and Austen, and probably other 19th century writers I am too uncultured to think of. It’s dauntingly huge but reading it was like falling into another world, with its own history and literature - the world-building is fantastic and the writing felt exactly right for the setting and period - I don’t remember noticing any anachronisms. I’m sure this is a marmite book but personally I absolutely loved it. I have now added Piranesi to my list…

@BoldFearlessGirl eeek get well soon!! Drink plenty of fluids.....

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
I'm sure you have all read this - I'm not sure why I haven't before. The beautifully narrated story of the death by suicide of a family of sisters. I found it strangely soothing - as you know the outcome right from the beginning there isn't any tension or dread....it is sad though.

The Women in Black by Madeleine St John
I'm pretty sure I got this on the strength of a recommendation from this thread - a group of women working in a department store in Sydney over Christmas undergo life-changing experiences. I raced through this in the car outside various child activities and it was witty and gentle, but I felt maybe it was all a bit tidy with happy endings all round.

@DuPainDuVinDuFromage I loved that book too! Did not get on AT ALL with Piranesi though...interested to hear what you think!

Fingersmith and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell are both excellent reads (I found) but very different books! There's a Korean film which was adapted from Fingersmith called The Handmaiden which so good but not one to watch with your kids or granny in the room.

Pirensi is in my to read pile.

26.Assembly by Natasha Brown. This is a short book, full of the black female narrator’s thoughts as she juggles reaching the heights of a successful finance career, with a monied boyfriend for whom she may just be a ‘sentence in his autobiography’. This combines with relentless racism and a terrifying diagnosis that force her to question everything. I loved this, the writing was very beautiful and I felt really connected to the narrators inner slightly confused monologue.

I loved Milkman but could not get on with Piranesi. Experimental literary fiction doesn't always hit the mark when I'm reading. I wanted to love Piranesi, but was just slightly bored throughout.

Am behind on reviews so will try to catch up.

94 All The Sinners Bleed by SA Crosby
As thrillers go, better than average. Although that said I don’t remember a huge amount about the detail. Set in the South, a black sheriff grapples with racial politics and horrifying secrets that explode after a school shooting in his small town.

96 The Millstone by Margaret Drabble
My kind of book. Short, charming, slightly wry, and a social commentary that isn’t overdone. A young academic finds herself pregnant in the Sixties and after a half hearted attempt at ending the pregnancy (she buys gin, her friends drink the gin) she decides to have the baby. This was wonderful; refreshing, to the point and deeply moving.

96 God: An Anatomy by Francesca Stavrakapoulou
Have been meaning to read this for a while. Fascinating exploration of how the body of God has been imagined and represented through history and how Yahweh was initially a flesh and blood being who became increasingly sanitised over time. There was a lot I learned about the emergence of the Judeo-Christian concept of God and how he was essentially just one of many gods and just happened to essentially get lucky. Lots of really interesting insights into Jewish history, anthropology and all sorts of other fields.

I probably should not have listened to this as an audiobook, as it was easy to zone in and out so I missed rather a lot. I suspect pictures would have added a lot to the experience. And the author, while clearly exceptionally talented and extremely capable as a researcher and storyteller, is not a natural reader.

DuPain - I loved JS & Mr N but found Piranesi very weak in comparison.

Whereas I found JS & MrN quite boring but loved Piranesi!

The Running Grave - Robert Galbraith

Mixed response from me. I really did not like one section and at one point was going to be a DNF. It picked up though and by the end I was enjoying it and it felt like it was wrapped up too soon (did I really write that about a JKR book?)

Usual issues as everyone else has noted, too much nonsense about Strike’s diet, Strikes stump, Robin’s bloody Land Rover and too many characters that don’t add anything.

Looking forward to the next one.

I am a bad person. I was less bored by Strike's diet than I was by the buck-toothed girl and by poor brainwashed Will with his tracksuit and his tracts.

Arf Remus He was a bit wet.

I loved both JS&MN and Piranesi. So different in some ways but the world building in both is magical.

Fingersmith borrows from Wilkie Collins which can only be a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Love everything Sarah Waters wrote but think this is my favourite.

Agreed that was excellent, but I also saw a terrific production by a young company (whose name I can't remember sadly) at Wilton's a few years ago which was possibly even better.

I also liked Milkman.