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.

I felt exactly the same about Geraldine Brooks Year of Wonder. All the way through it was a bold until the ending. I’ve picked up a few more of hers in charity shops, hoping she managed to stick the landing in some of them though I haven’t got to any yet.

31 Let us Descend- Jessamyn Ward
This tells the story of Annis, a slave on a southern plantation in the US. We learn about her life and those of her mother and grandmother covering some of the key horrors of slavery. It is beautifully written and I thought it was going to be a bold for me but it leaned too far into the magical realism aspects which pulled me out of the story too much.

Thanks @Southeastdweller and hope things get easier soon.

List tomorrow when I'm on the laptop rather than phone, but wanted to chime in that I've returned a pile of books to the library unread and I feel a bit lighter without the obligation to plod through them.

Speaking of plodding, I reread A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson (which I won't count or include in my list based on self-imposed, arbitrary and inconsistent rules). I spent a few days fantasizing about walking the Appalachian Trail and watching vlogs until I realized that if I were to walk 2000 miles, I would have more variety, historical interest and comfort in Europe. Lots of plans being hatched for the days when dd is off doing her own thing.

1 The Short End of the Sonnenallee by Thomas Brussig, translated by Jonathan Franzen and Jenny Watson
2 The Five Minute Garden by Laetitia Maklouf
3 Kristin Lavrandatter III: The Cross by Sigrid Undset. Translated by Tiina Nunnally
4 Stars of Fortune by Cynthia Harnett
5 Heartstopper Vol 5 by Alice Oseman
6 Nimona by ND Stevenson
7 Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushimo. Translated by Geraldine Harcourt
8 Rizzio by Denise Mina
9 Sophia, Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary by Anita Anand

This biography of the youngest daughter of the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire is fascinating. It starts with a history of her family and how her father lost his Kingdom and the Koh-i-Noor then his move to the UK and relationship with Queen Victoria. Sophia was born into riches, lived most of her life in the grace and favour residence of Faraday House next to Hampton Court, mixed with some of the most important India Nationalists and was one of Emmeline Pankhurst's inner circle (but was never arrested and sent to prison because the British establishment did not want the embarrassment of Queen Victoria's God-daughter in prison).

Ending this weekend by finishing up Real Tigers - Mick Herron. The third instalment of the Slough House series.
Think this slightly suffered from a busy week at work and me reading in bed so dropping off by the end of the chapter so feel like I’ve missed key parts of the plot. The final third I’ve read over the weekend was much more engaging and it felt like more actually happened (or I was much more awake when I was reading!)

Have to say I find the Diana Taverner & Ingrid Tearney characters completely interchangeable and can’t keep them straight in my mind but I enjoy the cast of characters at Slough House so I will be tracking down book 4 from the library.

As much as I love a lively debate on here, it's often gratifying to know you weren't the only one who had issues with a book.

GrannieM I thought it might just be me who lost my way with The Future, but I was definitely struggling to keep going past a certain point.

As for Year of Wonder, I am clearly not alone!

Just finished this

Ordinary Human Failings - Megan Nolan
A young child dies in suspicious circumstances and her playmate is arrested. A journalist swoops in on the family in the hope of a major scoop. The playmate's mother is forced to confront her past and the circumstances that brought her to London from Ireland.
This wasn't quite what I was expecting, but it was a really interesting look at how society and the authorities judge people and how cycles of generational trauma can be very difficult to break free from.

@FortunaMajor ive just started Ordinary Human Failings- good to see a good review!

@Southeastdweller thank you for the new thread and all best wishes🙂

I've been saving Tombland up as I think it's going to be the last Shardlake; I believe CJS is quite unwell sadly. Interesting to hear the different views. I'm usually quite patient with long books so will see how I get on ..

@RomanMum I've read Viv Groskop's How to Own the Room about public speaking and thought it was good.

23. Winter's Gifts by Ben Aaronovitch Novella in the Rivers of London series, this one is set in the US and featuring Kimberley Reynolds. This was quite slight, but I like Kimberley as a character, & enjoyed having a story from her perspective. Worked nicely for me as an audiobook to listen to while working.

Like Remus I'm having a proper reading slump, hence the easy-listening fantasy. I've got a few books that ought to appeal, including Fire Weather and People Like Us from the library, & The Beekeeper of Aleppo which I was given at Christmas, but none really calling to me at the moment. I've also DNFed Don't Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight on audio which I thought I'd like.

I've just reserved Sophia though from the e-library & should get it in a couple of days, hopefully that will get me out of my slump.

@ÚlldemoShúl

I read Horse and March by Geraldine Brooks last year both were solid but not special.

I have Let Us Descend on TBR, not keen on magical realism so that's disappointing

@highlandcoo I hadn't heard that CJS was unwell. Tombland was my least favourite Shardlake so I was hoping we would get another one soon. Have you seen they are making a Shardlake TV series?

5.. Children of Men by P. D. James

This was a terrible disappointment and a case study on how and why I abhor SF books by women authors - a nonsense "story" with minimum worldbuilding, no reasoning, explanation or resolution, and an abundance of feeeeeeliinnnnnnggggsssss. The few political insights are too facile and overlaboured for the cognitively impaired among us whom the author appears to believe is her reader base.

The 2006 loosely based on this movie and starring Clive Owen was a far superior achievement, and literally the only such case in living memory.

.......... SPOILERS..........

In order the squeeze a successful movie out of this mediocre book, its screenwriters have significantly altered the plot and the characters. Gone is Theo being the cousin of UK's dystopian dictator, which was seemingly written into the book with the sole aim of banging on about said dictator's childhood, thoughts and feeeeliiiingssss. Gone is the improbable coincidence of the only pregnant woman in the whole world being Theo's love interest and one of only 5 people in the budding resistance movement that approached him. Also gone is the nonsense about the presumed and actual father, as well as the religious mumbo jumbo. The film has also added the scientific research center into infertility whose scientists the mother is trying to reach with Theo's help, which gives a direction to the film's plot which is sorely lacking in the book.

If anyone is wondering, I am lamenting the hours lost forever reading this crap and I'm certainly not recommending it.

@CoteDAzur

Death Comes To Pemberley by PD James is one of the worst books I've ever read, I've also read An Unsuitable Job For A Woman but I have absolutely no memory of it. Couldn't be persuaded to read another

Help! I've mislaid my library bag. The one my library books are ALWAYS in. The bag that only goes from the library, to my car, to my living room, to my car, to the library... you get the idea. I have now been looking for it for far too long and am going to have to go into the library on Tuesday and stump up for the books and films that were in it. I simply DO NOT UNDERSTAND how this happened!!!!

Eine - I'm not surprised. Whatever you do, don't pick up The Children of Men.

You've left it in the library @nowanearlyNicemum

I didn't know that about Shardlake @MamaNewtNewt. Thanks for the information. I'm torn between looking forward to the series and worrying it won't be done well enough and the character of Shardlake will be totally different to how I imagine him..

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I agree; I thought Death Comes to Pemberley was beyond appalling. All the well known writers who praised it at the time should be ashamed. It was rubbish. Painful to read.

@highlandcoo

Every single wonderful character destroyed

I found both Children of Men and DEath Comes to P unreadable. Reader, I tried.

50. Knights, Necromancers and Murder R.M Schultz
    The second in the Calec of the Woods series. These are great if you like fantasy stories with a crime solving storyline. Calec and Serileen are trying to work out who's killing the villagers. Is magic involved? Why does the killer have s different coloured cape depending on who saw them? Great fun.

51. Secrets of Blythwood Square Sara Sheridan Set in Scotland in the 1850s (I think). Its about a female photographer setting up on her own, an heiress who's house has secrets and a tiny smidge of romance. The characters are either real people, or based on real people. It covers racism and equality as well as slavery, pornography and homesexuality.

52. Chasing the Light Julia Boggio Part to of a trilogy. ( I reviewed part one on a previous thread). This one centers around Franchesca who suffers with every reproductive disorder possible it seems. As someone who also suffers from PCOS and incredibly painful periods I absolutely identified with her. It's set in the wedding photography world, but it's about the lives of the photographers as much as their jobs.
    
    Not going to lie though, this book did make me angry. Only because of the way Francesca's medical issues are viewed by the doctors. And Stella's husband, who's name escapes me is an absolute twat in this book!

I also came to that conclusion but nope. They are sure I didn't leave it there 😥

Shit, hope you enjoy it. Not sure I have a very good record on here of recommending books!

Randomly reminded that I too thought that Rizzo should have been longer. But maybe that was the point, it's such an iconic story in Scottish history and yet we really know so little about it thanks to the passing of time.

Same same! And yet I really liked her Adam Dalgliesh/Cordelia Gray mysteries.

CoteDAzur, I would suggest it's not that women can't write SF, it's that PD James can't write SF.

Don't worry, lots of people have recommended Sophia @JaninaDuszejko so if I don't like it I won't blame you!

24. The Living Soil Handbook by Jesse Frost Frost is one of the recent US wave of young social-media farming stars, in his case hosting the No-Till Market Garden podcast. He's definitely one of the better examples, & while I'm not a no-digger this is a good book on soil health with lots of interesting thoughts in it.

I'm always wary of SF written by non-SF authors. I've read too many bad examples by 'literary' writers who fall down badly, particularly in believable world-building.