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.

@ASighMadeOfStone Couldn't agree more about Rachel Again. Was a DNF for me. On audible. Which is unheard of. I could have just listened to it passively and let the hours tick by. But it was just too shite. I hated it.

23 The Time Traveller’s Wife
Probably my sixth re read at least. Is and always will be a bold. For those who haven’t read it, it is the (love) story of Henry and Clare - he travels through time and she cannot. I think it is a wonderful book about love and relationships.

25. Love In A Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford

This was a re-read, via an audiobook from the library. The narrator was really bad, with a peculiarly flat monotone delivery and odd intonation, very little expression, no differentiation between character voices. I'm glad I hadn't paid for that rendition, otherwise I would have sent it back for a refund.

That aside, I did enjoy the story very much. I may be in a minority but I much prefer Love In A Cold Climate to The Pursuit of Love. I think it's funnier all round, and the characters far more interesting - I love Cedric Hampton and his interaction with Lady Montdore. Fanny, as ever, is a brilliant observer of the family dramas.

10 Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson
I don't know how many times I've re-read this, I still love it. A refreshing reminder of what a good writer Atkinson was in those days. Her more recent books really don't compare (I will never bother reading Transcription again)

34. City On Fire by Don Winslow
35. City Of Dreams by Don Winslow

I bought City On Fire by mistake. There's a series on Apple of the same name but it's a completely different book it's based on!
I decided to read it anyway.

So we are in Providence, Rhode Island. The Irish mob and the Italian mafia have divided the territories up in a way everyone is happy with and the two factions are so close that they even socialise together. But when Liam Murphy repeatedly insults Paulie Moretti the disrespect must be answered.

I really don't read much crime, the year so far has been an exception. Maybe this was cliched I don't know, I'm not an expert in this genre. I do know that if rattled along for me and I found myself unexpectedly enjoying it for what it was, essentially a Goodfellas wannabe

The second City Of Dreams is not as good and a lot of time is wasted on a dead end subplot involving two bit players on a film set.

That said, I will definitely read City In Ruins when it's released in April.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I wonder if you've come across the Crimetown podcast? The first series was about Providence and its organised crime past, and it was mind blowing.

15 This Game Of Ghosts - Joe Simpson

Follow up to Touching The Void; more episodic in nature, covering a bit of his childhood as well as his climbing exploits both before and after the accident that made him famous. He doesn’t always come across very sympathetically- though I guess should be commended for his honesty! - but his readable style makes it a decent enough addition to the mountaineering canon.

No! I'm not really knowledgeable about podcasts at all. Really surprised that there is an organised crime problem in a state I thought of as wealthy/sleepy.

@Hoolahoophop who narrated The Count of Monte Cristo that you were listening to? There seem to be at least 7 different versions on audible and if you're going to be listening for 40+ hours the narration needs to be pretty darn good!

@nowanearlyNicemum it was John Lee and I thought he was good. A bit of an accent at times for the different personalities of the count but not over the top.

I was off work sick today so read another book.

18. The Idea of You by Robinne Lee. Solène is a wealthy single mother and art dealer who gets hospitality tickets for her daughter to see her favourite British boyband. At a meet and greet, she hits it off with lead singer Harry Styles, sorry Hayes Campbell, despite their age gap. Solène is 39, so extremely old, but we are constantly told how beautiful, thin and glamorous she is so it's ok. They embark on a secret love affair, flying round the world to various 5 star hotels and villas while wearing a lot of designer clothes. Will her daughter find out? Will the press? Will it drive a rift with the other band members? Obviously. Completely absurd and very sexy. Probably not one to bother with unless you're also in bed with a throat that feels like barbed wire.

Like the sound of this. DH’s aunt (amazing lady) came from Providence snd told us few tales about it.

I have been away for sometime, but it has been great to catch up on all the posts. I see there are more positive reviews for I Have Some Questions For You. I’m definitely in the minority in disliking it 😁I splashed out on a hardback copy thinking it would be my type of thing - to find out it wasn’t .

Another who was too old, but watched many, many Dawsons Creek episodes (was definitely team Jen/Pacy). It hasn’t aged well - saw a couple of episodes not long back and Dawson’s obsession over Joey seemed even more creepy and controlling than first time around.

On to my most recent review
Bluebird Bluebird Attica Locke
After being lukewarm (at best) about the other Locke novel I read this year (The Cutting Season), I loved this. It is a more straightforward mystery thriller with black Texas Ranger Darren investigating the potentially connected deaths of a black man and a white women in the small town of Lark. A page turner that had me hooked early on with a great sense of place. I often feel disappointed in the endings of thrillers, but this wrapped things up satisfyingly. On finishing I immediately bought the next in the series.

I’ve finished my next Women’s Prize book and I think this one is going to be hard to beat.
40 Enter Ghost- Isabelle Hammad
Sonia, the British born daughter of Palestinian immigrants spent all her summers in Haifa as a child with her wider family. In her 40s, she returns to stay with her sister Haneen who now lives there. While there she gets involved with a production of Hamlet in Arabic which is going to be performed on the West Bank. This explores relationships- both familial and romantic, regrets, the Israel-Palestine conflict and art and theatre. It is beautifully done and the use of Hamlet in this is tremendous. A definite bold.

@Owlbookend , I just wasn't gripped either by I Have Some Questions for You. It was a DNF for me. I couldn't get emotionally involved with the narrator or with the crime she was investigating, so I gave up!

Just catching up after being laid low for a few days with a horrible cough, which I'm still struggling to shift.

Great to see @bettbburg on the thread!

Re Adrian Mole I read the first one earlier this year and really enjoyed it. I'd forgotten just how funny it was.

I thought A Terrible Kindness was really well done, and handled the tragedy sensitively.

A few reviews to bring me up to date:

20 Rachel Ryan's Resolutions by Laura Starkey
21 Amy Perry’s Assumptions by Laura Starkey

Two fairly forgettable rom-coms that I read while I was too ill to concentrate on anything else. I can’t even remember what Rachel’s resolutions or Amy’s assumptions were, and the romances and main characters were equally forgettable.

22 Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Strangely, what with the recent conversations on the thread about this book, it was selected by Random Number Generator as my next read. I think I loved this book even more than I did the first time I read it. I particularly liked the juxtaposition of the pandemic in the present day, with the start of the Black Death, and I think the fact I had a little more experience, what with COVID, may have contributed to that. That said I can kind of see why @CoteDAzur didn’t rate it. I enjoyed this more from a historical aspect, as the medieval period is a favourite of mine. If I’d been coming at it purely from a science-fiction perspective, it might not have hit the mark. I’m going to continue with the series (I’ve already started To Say Nothing of the Dog on audible). Both Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog are free on Audible Plus if you have that.

23 Why Don’t You Love Me? by Paul Rainey

This is a graphic novel that I got for my birthday, or Christmas. It’s hard to describe without spoiling it, but it starts off with a family with two children. The parents seem distracted at best, and downright neglectful and cruel at worst. But about halfway through there is a reveal which gives things a different perspective. I absolutely loved this one. A definite bold.

11 The Ministry of Unladylike Activity - Robin Stevens First in the new series, a follow-up to the Murder Most Unladylike series, with Hazel’s little sister May as the main character (along with two new characters, Eric and Nuala). A spy / murder mystery story set near Coventry in 1940, with lots of wartime references - a very different atmosphere from the glamorous and decadent 1930s world of Daisy and Hazel, although we get cameos from both of them (now young adults working for British Intelligence). Suspension of disbelief is needed at the start of the book as May and Eric get themselves into the situation where they will find the murder, but other than that it was lots of fun and brings together a nice little group of characters, all of them misfits in some way, as a good set-up for the rest of the series (DD1 is already reading book 2 and I’ll get to it once DD2 has also read it). Overall, not as good as the Daisy and Hazel books, but still great - I think Robin Stevens is one of the best children’s writers of this century.

My latest reads

54 The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown

Cassie works in a bookshop and is left a magic book by a customer - this book allows her to travel anywhere in the world by simply imagining a door and stepping through it. However others want the book so Cassie is in danger. I really enjoyed the beginning of this where Cassie is just having fun with the book, but enjoyed it a bit less later on where some other characters are brought in that are never fully explained. I thought this was a really interesting idea but could have been executed better.

55 The Hidden Years by Rachel Hore

Dual timeline book. In the 1960s Belle goes to stay at a house in Cornwall and discovers the story of Imogen who lived there in the 1940s. Inevitably there’s a connection between the two stories. Once you put aside the coincidence of Belle ending up in that house, this is a nice story if you like these types of book.

56 The Guest by B A Paris

Iris and her husband come home from holiday to find their friend Laure in their house, staying in their bed and wearing Iris’s clothes. Laure asks to stay for a while but soon outstays her welcome. I thought this was a bit rubbish - there wasn’t really much tension about why Laure was there or what she was up to, and the way the end is revealed was a bit of a cop out.

57-59 Death and Croissants, Death and Fromage, Death at the Chateau by Ian Moore

A cosy crime series about a middle aged Englishman running a B&B in the Loire Valley in France, who gets dragged into solving murders along with glamorous guest Valérie. Good fun although not to be taken at all seriously!

@Owlbookend I enjoyed Bluebird recently too. I agree Cutting Season wasn't her strongest, have you read the Black Water Rising/Pleasantville duology? I thought those were great, more legal thrillers with a murder committed as part of a political conspiracy.

Solider, sailor - Claire Kilroy - the first of my women's prize reads and while I agree with @GrannieMainland about the way the husband is written it didn't stop me making this a bold. She depicts that early chaotic time of new motherhood so well. The anxiety, the fierce love, the boredom and the mourning for the person you were before. Highly recommend

The Rachel Incident- Caroline Donahue - another bold. Irish writer and I have a weakness for Irish writers. The story of Rachel and her best friend, a gay man James. Rachel is in her final terms at university and the pair become obsessed and then involved with one of her professors. If you hated Normal People - as I did- this might be for you. The characters are flawed but relatable. There is none of the incessant navel gazing of Rooneys characters . The writing is sharp and witty and time period is spot on. Recommend

60 Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? by Nicci French

Charlotte, a mum of 4 in her late 40s, doesn’t turn up to her husband’s birthday party and has not been seen since. Thirty years later the children get together again to help move their dad into a care home, and a podcast is being made by another family about their mum’s case. What will be found? I thought this was a bit too long and it was also a bit of an odd book - the first half is a bit more of a family drama and then it turns into a police procedural. I also feel that the podcast about a cold case trope has been a bit overdone lately. Having said that I did quite enjoy this and I liked the detective brought in to solve the case - it felt a bit like it might be the setup for a series about her and I would read that.

13. My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

I feel like I could copy and paste this review. Loads of my books in 2024 have been outstanding reads as I basically going through the 50 Bookers best of 2023.

So, this book has been reviewed by many and I don't have much to add. It's an incredibly uncomfortable read yet it was a page turner. Is Vanessa in love with her teacher? Can it ever be love if you are 15 and he is middle aged?

It reminded me of the rock star biographies I lapped up in my teens. At the time I thought nothing of Anthony Keidis from RHCP dating a school girl. In fact I too would have loved to have been in a relationship with him! So the confusion resonated somewhat. At 42, I think if I reread RHCP and Aerosmith I'd have a completely different view. I'm tempted to give them a go, but worried it might turn me off the music....

I'm waiting for my reservation to turn up at the library. I do rather like Nicci French's novels, but the last two I thought were not as good as some of their earlier novels.

Their Frieda Klein series are my favourites, so it would be good if they were possibly thinking of another series.

My March reads so far:

13. The Maiden, Kate Foster 3/5
    Women’s Prize longlist. Very loosely based on a historical event: a woman executed for murdering her lover in Edinburgh in the 17th c. The story moves quickly and is narrated by two different young women: one the noblewoman who is accused of murder, the other a prostitute. Unfortunately the 17th c. setting didn’t seem convincing to me at all; the novel seemed more like a modern bodice-ripper.

14. River East, River West, Aube Rey Lescure 4/5
    Women’s Prize longlist. The story of a troubled family in Shanghai: teenage daughter, American mother and Chinese stepfather. Fast-moving and well-written, the narrative alternates between the daughter’s life in modern-day Shanghai and the stepfather’s earlier life in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. The depictions of Chinese culture are thought-provoking, even if the characters aren’t always sympathetic.

15. Les Disparus du Clairdelune, La Passe-Miroir Livre 2 [The Missing of Clairdelune, The Mirror Visitor Book 2], Christelle Dabos 5/5
    I’m charmed by this French YA fantasy series, starring a clumsy but very clever young heroine who is caught up in a world of court intrigue. There is a strong feminist slant to the narrative, and it’s very well-written and well-plotted. I enjoyed this second volume even more than the first.

Has anyone listened to any audibles of the Woman's Prize books? I need a new one and quite like spending my credits on them. A couple I loved last year were Fire Rush and Black Butterflies.