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.

@Tarragon123 Blood And Sugar sounds great and just noticed that it is 99p on Kindle. Bought.

@Tarragon123

Yes Lily Gladstone definitely commands the screen and I agree Leo looks rough. I've watched about an hour and don't know if I'll go back. No translations of any Osage speaking doesn't help

@BestIsWest Very nice to see the boy poet. My dad worked for British Steel too and I coveted his donkey jacket. I remember the strike - we got free school dinners for the duration of it and used to go and stand around a brazier with my dad and his mates when they were picketing in the evenings. In my youthful stupidity, it all seemed very exciting.

Same, @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie, I remember having free school dinners too.
I think I may need a re-read of young Mole.

Are you sick of Capri and longing for Wolverhampton?

@BestIsWest I am a bit older than you and I am still saying that I blame Thatcher as the root cause of so many ills.

Hi..just popping in

Hi @bettbburg, how're things?

Hello @bettbburg! Good to hear from you.

I'll update properly tomorrow. Life manic so my reading has really slowed down but I've enjoyed the thread and ongoing discussions.

Hello @bettbburg.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I almost considered a name change to Adrienne Storme. Funnily enough I lived in Wolves for a short time. Longing for the Mander Centre and the Molineux. Never tiring of the Inner Ring Road.

Hello @bettbburg lovely to hear from you

Hi @bettbburg how are you doing?

Love the Adrian Mole references.

Reading has slowed down here too.

👋👋 @bettbburg

9. The fall by Louise Jensen
A thriller about a young girl being pushed off a bridge the day after her Mum and her twin's fortieth birthday.

This was a book club read. It was ok. The author had an annoying device of ending and starting each chapter on a similar sentence. It was meant to be set in England but felt very American with long wooden road bridges. There were some surprises.

10. Metroland by Julian Barnes Follows a London boy from school with his friend to Paris in his twenties and then suburbia in his thirties.

This is Julian Barnes first novel and you can see a lot of themes he comes back to later. Quite a lot of intended pretension and not the most flattering portrayal of young men but the odd devastating sentence. I enjoyed it and will continue working my way through his books.

21. Dead Lions - Mick Herron

The second in the Slough House spy thrillers. The slow horses are back, investigating why a former spook ended up dead on a bus in Oxford, and digging up secrets from years before. Was an old-school Russian op being run from a picture perfect English village, or was that an elaborate bluff? It took a while to get back into the world of the slow horses but once there this was a gripping read and the next book in the series is on my pile waiting to be read. Not sure if I'll get through the whole series though.

@BestIsWest 😂

Hi@bettbburg Good to see you.

15.A God In Ruins by Kate Atkinson.
The companion book to Life after Life which I had read many times, I’ve always struggled to get into this one. It follows Ursula’s brother Teddy’s experiences having survived being shot down and living as a POW and how his long life is impacted by his experiences of war. The time line is quite muddled and I mostly felt terribly sad for Teddy in his old age. But it was very beautiful and had a few smart moments where your feelings about characters flip. I loved the ending except it was followed by a final addition that was so borrowing unnecessary and left a bit of a sour taste.

16.The other Mother by Jen Brister. The comedian’s experience being the non biological parent with her same sex partner of twins. Some laugh out loud moments but this is very focused on the baby years and I’ve noticed I’m a little bored of baby jokes now I’m out of those years myself so would have liked a longer time period focus I think. She is very funny though and I love her material with her blunt Spanish mother.
17.Small things Like These by Clare Keegan. Short book about a father of 5 preparing for Christmas in Ireland and becoming more aware of the mothers whose children have been taken from them in the neighbouring nunnery. Powerful. I’d like to see Keegan sustain some of this power in a longer novel.

18.Three Hours by Rosamund Lipton. A pacey thriller about a siege in an English high school. I really didn’t like this. It was so unrealistic. Perpetrators identified and diagnosed in hours. School lay out designed perfectly for a siege. Obvious twists. Fairytale ending. Ultimately too nice. Also, given the public debate around US gun laws it was so odd that the complete unlikelihood of this happening in England wasn’t touched on, despite some of the worst US shootings being mentioned at length.

@BestIsWest that Dominic Sandbrook audiobook sounds great. I must be a couple of years older than you so it's very much my era too. It would be interesting to hear it analysed from a historical perspective.

I'm approaching the end of the 3-part 55-hour audiobook History of Britain by Simon Shama, which I've really enjoyed, and need something else to get stuck into on long car journeys. Who Dares Wins sounds like it would fit the bill.

@bettbburg, nice to see you here 👋

For anyone contemplating Who Dares Wins I can very much recommend the podcast The Rest Is History four parter on 1974 - it was excellent and goes some way to setting the scene.

Hi betty nice to see you

Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons

Modern (1930s modern) fairytale very loosely based on Cinderella. Viola, a young widow, goes to live with her husband's much richer parents who disapprove of their young daughter-in-law because her father owned a shop. There are two spinster sister-in-laws, Tina who is secretly in love with the chauffeur, and Madge who longs for a dog. Across the valley lives Victor Spring, young, rich and handsome. Shall they meet at the charity ball?

This is funny and sharp and all end well for all our heroines. Delightful though probably not for those of you who don't like Cold Comfort Farm.

Exactly the same… hate to think how much of my Amazon budget is 99p books 😀

I have Nightingale Wood on my shelf, Janina - must move it up.

22 The Secret Barrister

Late to this one as I found it in a charity shop, I had previously read his (possibly her, but I think not) third one.

It’s interesting and rather scary on the underfunding and bad practice of the UK system, if a bit pompous in parts. Worth reading, but not a bold.

Just catching up on the thread, once again my reading has slowed right down - I really thought this would be the year I’d pick up again but I’m kind of limping along as last year.

Finished number 9 which was The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read - Philippa Perry - this was fine. I started it when I was pregnant and then life (and baby) got in the way. DD is now 3.5 and I thought I ought to finish it if only to get it off the pile. I’m quite glad I didn’t read it when DD was younger and I was already dealing with post partum anxiety and trying to be the most perfect parent ever, convinced that my every misstep was traumatising her forever! Because whilst I’m sort of in broad agreement with most of what Perry advocates, I found the delivery really irritating to be honest.