50 Books Challenge Part Three

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the third thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2024, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

If possible, please can you embolden your titles and maybe authors as well of books you've read or going to read? It makes it much easier to keep track, especially when the threads move quickly at this time of the year.

The first thread is here and the second one here.

Oh no! @HenryTilneyBestBoy, hope you are not too sore.
I haven’t read Mavis Cheek for years but remember loving Mrs Fytton’s Country Life.

19 Around The World in 80 Days - Michael Palin

The book of the landmark 1988 TV series by the National Treasure. Great fun, as was the TV series which I remember watching. Only 36 years ago but quite different pre-internet world. His packing included books, maps, radios, camera, diaries and the organisation must have been so complicated. He seems to love everyone he meets along the way.

Oh no, @HenryTilneyBestBoy , what a horrible start to the week. Hope you aren’t too physically hurt.

Love Michael Palin’s travel series @BestIsWest. He has such an open and enquiring mind for different cultures and places. The only time I remember him showing anything more than mild exasperation is when he gets back from his Around The World trip and they won’t let him in the Club where he’s supposed to end it. Hospitality everywhere he went apart from back in London - he was visibly quite cross.

Some of these write ups are crap. I think I'm all booked out and can't think of what to say. I also hate spoilers so have to try and write about the book without spoiling it.

53. Another Side of the Heart. C.H Lazarovich
    Mark and Mary's 21 year old daughter died a year ago, and their marriage is pretty much over as well. They aren't even together for her anniversary. The story is mainly about Mary who ends up making friends with a young woman a similar age to her daughter. Predictable in places. Heartbreaking in others.

54. Exodus. Steve Catto
    Sci-fi/futuristic type thing. Earth is going to be destroyed by meteors so there's a plan to go to live on Mars. Of course not everyone can go. There's an alien species who take over human bodies. And the rebel people who aren't going to Mars. Tbh I'm not sure I entirely understood everything in this book. But want to read part 2 anyway.

55. My Perfect Family. Melanie Price
    A fairly typical murder mystery whodunnit type book. Not sure what else I can say about it. It was a good one. I didn't guess the ending.

56. Fog Of Silence. S.J Richards
    Book 3 in the Luke Sackville Crime series. These are so good, a couple of SPAG issues, the language feels a bit simple at times, but I love them. This one was a hard read for me though as the crime at the centre of it all was the sexual exploitation and Murder of teenage boys. And I'm the mum of 2 gay teenage boys.

57. Daughters of Warsaw. Maria Frances
    WW2/ Holocaust fiction. One of my favourite genres. This one is a multi-timeline set mainly Warsaw in the 1940s. Irena Sendler is a background character (a hero of mine) so a lot of the story really did happen. The ending was a bit unrealistic I think. But then it could happen, just very very unlikely. Zofia works with Irena Sendler, smuggling medicine and food into the ghetto, and children out. In modern day America her great-grandaughter discovers papers showing what she did and travels to Poland to find out more.

58. Olympia. Eva Grace
    I'm not sure about this one. Its a reimagining of the tales of the Gods of Olympus, but set in the modern day. Ares is female which was an interesting change. Its not my usual sort of book, and I'm not sure how much of what is in it is part of the Greek Mythology anyway, and how much was new.

59. Mannigan. L. Ross Coulter
    This has a lot going on. There's a lot of biblical references, some psychology References, some beautiful poems. At times I was gripped and it felt very hunger games-ish. At other times I was bored and don't know what was happening. Will has some kind of magic power so he can't die. And he fights the baddies. And then ends up in heaven I think. Honestly, it's better than I've made it sound.

60. Pink Camouflage. Gemma Morgan
    This book was astounding. Its about the misogyny in the British army. Its a true story, and is so raw. Gemma Morgan competes her officer training and gets sent to Kosovo. She ends up with PTSD. The way she is treated at times is absolutely shocking. Sometimes I forget how recent a lot of mental health care is. Gemma sounds incredible though. This was a bold for me.

21 Uncut by Christopher Fowler
21 short stories with twists and sharp teeth. It’s long enough since I read them that I’d forgotten how some pan out. Inside the mind of murderers, Snow White in space, the spirit of London takes against someone, airlines demand their sacrifice……inhuman places make human monsters as the saying goes. A blast from the past and a definite bold.

Tried Rory The Tory and the more I read the less I like him. It’s a bit like being buttonholed at a party by someone incredibly earnest, mansplainy and surprisingly dull. I’ll probably go back to it every now and then but it’s not at the top of my list.

Now on North Woods which is superb. It was near the bottom of my Winter 23 Kindle collection so I think I’d transferred it from Autumn 23 and forgotten about it.

@MorriganManor yes, MP seems lovely. He glosses over the Reform Club in the book but the series is on iplayer so I’ve started a rewatch.
Laughed at your spot on description of Rory the Tory. I did enjoy the book despite not sharing his politics and despite his terrible impressions on Audible but the self confidence is breathtaking.

Sorry to hear of the accident, @HenryTilneyBestBoy I enjoyed that Mavis Cheek book.

Thoroughly recommend Michael Palin on audible - he has three volumes of diaries also, each covering around a decade, but he deliberately doesn’t repeat much from
the travel books apart from the odd anecdote about washing his pants in a sink 😀 there’s a fair bit about the process of choosing titles for the travel programmes, convincing the bbc to let him go etc though.

@SheilaFentiman - thanks I shall look for those. Pole to Pole up next though.

@HenryTilneyBestBoy that could have been much nastier, thank goodness you’re OK. I used to quite enjoy the odd Mavis Cheek too.

@HenryTilneyBestBoy As a fellow cyclist, sending you much sympathy and all best wishes. I hope you're not too sore and that your bike wasn't badly injured either.

@HenryTilneyBestBoy thank goodness it was 'just' a broken screen and bruises. I hope they stopped to check you were ok.

Thank you all 💕@TattiePants if shouting 'stupid cnut' over his shoulder as he peddled off counts....🙄Fortunately nothing else suffered much damage except for my mood, which was briskly improved by Mavis Cheek over lunch. She seems a bit like a cross between Trapido x Pym, maybe? Though I'm not at all well read in this era, and also couldn't resist multiplying Barbaras 😅

9 Ironopolis - Glen James Brown
The stories of various residents of the fictional Burn estate, a post-war council housing development on the outskirts of Middlesbrough, scheduled for demolition and redevelopment.

I loved this, a definite bold for me. This author uses various writing styles, starting with a series of letters from Jean, a lifetime resident of the estate and wife of the local hardman Vincent, to a London-based art dealer who wants to uncover the past of an under-rated artist who happened to be Jean's childhood companion. The last section of the book is an attempt to make sense of his life narrated by Jean's son Alan when he finds himself alone, a middle-aged man with no job, no children and no real idea of who he is or who his parents were.

Vincent's malevolent influence features in each section (we would have called him the "Cock o't'estate" where I grew up but I'm not from Middlesbrough so that title doesn't get a mention here), as does the nebulous presence of Peg Powler, an folkloric water witch from the Tees and her fabled ability to lure children and unwary young men to their watery deaths.

Oh no! Sorry to hear that @HenryTilneyBestBoy

Ironopolis was a bold for me last year @YolandiFuckinVisser , I’m glad it has another admirer. He has a new one out in June, I hope it is as good.

@HenryTilneyBestBoy Glad you're not too wounded yourself, but what a bummer about your ereader.

Re MIchael Palin - I had a bit of a binge on him last year iirc, but thought the last two I read, Into Iraq and North Korea Journal were quite flimsy in content and a bit style over substance - beautifully presented hardback books, but low on content and not really worth the cover price overall imo.

Just catching up with the thread. @HenryTilneyBestBoy that's awful. I hope you're feeling a bit better this evening. A soak in a warm bath, good book & a glass of wine may be needed. Can you get some compensation from Deliveroo? Maybe shame them into buying you a new ereader?

My stepmother was a big fan of Mavis Cheek novels. She kept telling me how good they were but, to my shame, I still haven't read one. I must put that right.

22. An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
    In post-war Japan retired artist Ono is spending time time with his daughters and grandson, and negotiating a engagement for his younger daughter to be married. He reflects on his past, especially his work creating pro-war propaganda.
    There isn't a lot of plot in this novel, but it makes up for that with its thoughtfulness and the picture it creates of a changing Japan.

23. Umami by Laia Jufresa trans. Sophie Hughes
    In Belldrop Mews in Mexico City every house has some kind of sadness, the death of a child, an eating disorder, a childless widower, an absent mother.
    The story is told non-linearly. Every section begins with a chapter set in 2004, and goes back to 2000, with each viewpoint character having their own year. It sort of works, but is a bit confusing at times as some of the characters have similar voices, and it means it doesn't really have a proper end (but maybe that's the point). The writing is lovely though, and it does show grief well.

24. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
    Something happened to Melinda in the summer holidays that turned her into a social pariah and left her too traumatised to speak.
    A YA novel that while quite sad is told in a light tone and mixes a bit of humour in, and I think paints a believable picture of a troubled teenager.

25. The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo
    Set in 1930s Malaysia, Ji Lin accidentally comes into possession of an amputated finger while working in a dancehall, meanwhile kitchen boy Ren needs to find his late master's missing finger before the 49 days of the soul are over. And people are mysteriously dying.
    This is a magical story, drawing on folklore, beautifully told, and with quite a complex and intriguing plot.

21. The Murder After The Night Before - Katy Brent

This wasnt bad for a crime thriller, but it started off better than it ended. Molly wakes up the morning after her office Christmas party, with a huge hangover and a man in her bed that she doesn't recognise. The day goes further downhill when it transpires that she was filmed, whilst drunk, performing a set act on a man in the street and the video goes viral on social media. Not only that, but she finds her flatmate, Posey, dead in her bath.

Molly has a huge task finding out what happened to Posey - was it an accident like the Police think, or was it murder and by whom?

I did enjoy it, it was a page turner, but not especially memorable.

22. Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout

A re-read for me, in advance of reading Olive, Again (which I'm currently reading). Olive is such a difficult, prickly woman, swift to anger and uncaring of who she offends, but somehow still likeable, wise and often rather endearing. I think I still prefer Lucy Barton as a character, though but Olive is certainly memorable.

13 Toast - Nigel Slater

Bought this (on Audible) as I enjoyed the Christmas Chronicles readalong so much, but where that was warm and cosy, this account of his childhood and adolescence is anything but. Food plays a central role (each chapter is themed around a particular dish, most of them familiar from my own childhood) - as a substitute for love, a method of control, a metaphor for sex, a representation of a troubled and unhappy home life. Nigel writes very openly and honestly and I found this very moving as well as evocative of the dishes of my youth.

29. In The Woods by Tana French

The synopsis of this caught my attention on BookTube. In the 80s, 3 children go missing in the woods and only one is found. 20 years later that child is on Dublin's Murder Squad and is called to a fresh case where he grew up.

I don't read much crime but I was looking for something to replace Robert Galbraith now that I've completed them. The audiobook didn't work for me I didn't like the voice so I switched. This was ok, it was overlong at nearly 600 pages and it dragged I thought. Not massively running to the next in the series.

Can anyone recommend a British or Irish detective series? Preferably one that works well on audio? Prefer gritty to cosy. Thanks!

This book still gives me the rage because the ending does give you the answers it should

@splothersdog

INDEED. I pressed Post before I realised I hadn't mentioned the lack of resolution. Detective Ryan turns into a knob as well.

Sorry to hear about your accident HenryTilney - hope you’re not too bruised, sore and stiff. Gutting about your e-reader.

I have just finished:

16. Politics on the Edge - Rory Stewart

I know that Rory the Tory and this book have been quite divisive. I am a bit of a political geek so it was a bold for me. There’s no doubt that Rory is a keen bean but I quite liked his never-ending enthusiasm and admired how much he got done (in terms of clinics, visits etc rather than actual achievements). Not sure how he managed to find time for so much walking and when he ever saw his family. The insights into other politicians and political events was fascinating (noting that it’s Rory view of people and events) and in some cases depressing (although not surprising).

Onto lighter fare now with this month’s Agatha Christie challenge book: The Mystery of the Blue Train

Ashamed to say I had never heard of Mavis Cheek but looks like my sort of book so will add to my TBR list.

I absolutely love the Dublin Murder Squad.

If you liked Cassie, consider trying the next one, The Likeness. It’s a far fetched premise but there isn’t the supernatural angle, so you may prefer it.