50 Books Challenge 2024 Part Four

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fourth 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, the second one here and the third one here.

What are you reading?

I only like Stephen King’s earlier stuff, on the whole, although I’ve got his new anthology of short stories on preorder, as he’s still pretty good at those. I find the later novels indulgent, overblown and with a quite nasty attitude towards female bodies in his descriptions.
I adore The Talisman. He and Peter Straub are perfectly balanced and the cracks don’t show, even when you know they occasionally wrote each other’s bits. The Black Tower is bilge.
My recommendations would be:
The Talisman
Christine
The Bachman Books (only old copies that include Rage)
Skeleton Crew
It, with the caveat that the sexual content involving children is a massive demerit and mistake on his part.
On Writing
Danse Macabre

Thanks for the heads up on the other prize list inaptonym. It looks good.

I'm still in the queue for The Britannias but did find one of her fiction books that ticked all my boxes - Cwen - a group of women set up a matriarchal society on an island. It was a slog. One of those "when will it end" books when you look and could cry that you're only on 50%. I'll try the other when my hold arrives, but I won't be so patient again.

I used to read King religiously in my youth, but only bother now if everyone is raving about one in particular. My favourite was The Dark Half.

I also rate The Dark Half as one of his best.

I see It as a masterpiece, with the caveat regarding the sex stuff and also the stuff with Bill and his wife at the end which I'm just not interested in.

The Stand is groundbreaking and brilliant imo, but the Harold stuff could definitely be cut down.

On Writing is excellent and would be a great place to start for anybody interested in reading/writing but not necessarily interested in reading horror.

For short stories, I recommend Survivor Type and The Langoliers as right up there with the best.

46. Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

I'm in no mood at the moment for anything challenging and I thought this would fit the bill. In that sense, it did.

Joy and Stan Delaney are retired tennis coaches with four adult children. When Joy goes missing fingers point to a recent mystery houseguest.

Australian Family Saga like an episode of Neighbours. Lots of psychoanalysis of the children's lives. Again my complaint would be it doesn't even get going til the final third

And Dear God what a waste of time this is. Real throw it at the wall stuff a total anticlimax

THAT is your ending to your novel ? THAT?!

Fuck Me.

8.Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell
Have fallen behind and have not caught up with thread 3 let alone this one. Just read this for readalong but have raced ahead and finished it. Not saying anything as others have yet to finish.
Going to read A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult next

I had a reflexive urge to type the last line of Survivor Type then, but I didn’t because Spoiler

Excellent restraint demonstrated there.

I love Stephen King and both @RazorstormUnicorn and I have been rereading all of his books in publication order over the past few years (we decided to do this independently but are at roughly the same point).

It's funny because the books I loved first time round are not the same as the ones I enjoyed during my reread. The ones I have loved recently are: The Green Mile, The Dark Tower series (esp The Wolves of Calla), The Shining, Christine, Different Seasons, The Talisman, The Dead Zone, Hearts in Atlantis, Misery, Dr Sleep, 11/22/63 and Dolores Claiborne. I absolutely HATED The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon though.

The follow up to The Talisman, Black House is next on my list of hard copy books to read, once I finally finish Jude the bloody Obscure.

28 The Duke and I by Julia Quinn

The first book in the Bridgerton series. I’ve managed to binge watch 2 series of Bridgerton, as well as the linked Queen Charlotte series, and after watching the Season 3 trailer several times I thought I’d read the books until S3 comes out later this month. I’m glad I didn’t read the books first, as I think they would have put me off watching the series. I did prefer book Daphne to TV Daphne, she seems a bit more feisty and didn’t have that irritating short fringe, but that was about it. I also think this suffered from not having any sun-plots involving the rest of the Bridgerton family. I just found it all a bit dull and won’t read the rest I don’t think. I’ll just enjoy the TV series.

@MamaNewtNewt

I also stopped after the first Bridgerton book. The series is much better.

@PowerTulle - welcome!
@inaptonym 🤣🤣🤣 Yes! But I’m under no illusions and only 99p spent. I did consider buying the paperback 🤣🙈

Ok, back to my beloved Tartan Noir. The Suffering of Strangers by Caro Ramsay. No 9 in the Anderson and Costello series. It’s not as good as my other reads, like DI Shona Oliver etc. But I do enjoy these two detectives. This one is rather dark and may need a content warning for baby loss. Wizzed through it in a day and have moved on to the next one in the series.

Also fitted in another 99p one, Giggling Squid, Tantalising Thai to cook at home by Pranee (Kindle doesn’t tell me her surname)

Haven't posted for ages, mainly because I've just been reading fluff.

40 / 41 / 43 Three more books in the House Witch series by Emilie Nikota. I assume these are self published, and if not she really should sack her editor. Ignoring the mangled use of language, they're entertaining fantasy that rattles along at a good pace with plenty of plot.

42 Infomocracy by Malka Older
I've seen lots of good reviews of this as a SF political thriller, but I was a bit disappointed in it. It's set on a future earth where nation states have largely become obsolete in favour of 'micro-democracy', with 'centenals' of 100,000 citizens choosing a government at ten year intervals. As a result, big cities have become a patchwork of different government & laws, though largely dominated by a few giant corporate organisations. The whole system is maintained by the all-powerful 'Information', essentially Google with a neuro implant.
Comparing this with Ada Palmer's (admittedly bonkers) Too Like the Lightning which has a similar theme of micro-democracy, Older's world-building felt very unimaginative. Essentially, it's the early 21stC with the addition of neuro-implant internet and a different election system (plus rather natty flying camper vans). That would have been fine, but the entire first half of the book was basically world-building & election meetings. Fortunately from 50% it picked up the pace, & the thriller element got going. It's the first in a trilogy, & I'll read the 2nd at some point, but not rushing to do so.

44 Death in the Spires by KJ Charles
Jeremy Kite's life was ruined by the murder of a close friend, just before the end of his 3rd year as a scholarship student at Oxford University. Ten years later, in 1905, the murder remains unsolved. Then his boss receives an anonymous letter accusing him of the crime, which results in his losing his job. Determined to make sense of what happened, he tracks down the people who were there the night Toby died.

I always enjoy Charles' books, and this was a good solid old-school mystery with some great characters.

45 Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell
Read for the readalong, & I'll keep my thoughts on it for that thread.

I started reading The Stand on holiday and found it was actually ruining my holiday. Such a relief to abandon it. I had to delete it from my kindle as I hated it malevolently squatting there.

I really really didn't like it.

I’m not a great lover of King but have only read a few. I wasn’t overly keen on The Stand (started well, much too long, stupid end) or 11.22.63 (same) but I really enjoyed It.

I loved The Stand and It when I was younger, and read them several times, but they just didn't hold the same appeal for me when I read them again a year or two ago.

I’ve no idea if this was me, but Pereira Maintains is on my top 5* reads ever. I actually bought it as a gift for a lecturer who really influenced my reading during uni and was delighted he had never come across it.

I’ve never read any King, probably won’t I imagine. I don’t really like being scared or similar so they’ve just never appealed.

I don’t mind Bridgerton as a bit of fluff to
pass the time, I’m all up to date.

Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell
I cannot remember if I updated or not. Will save my main commentary for the readlong thread, but thought this was ok, enjoyed the read long more than the actual book. I think it was all the piety. I will remember some of the characters for some time to come - Thurston Benson for example. Just an exemplar of a good, decent person.

Am I the only 50 booker who hasn’t read any Stephen King - never appealed but not sure why…

I am reading very slowly this month.

26. The Cleaner of Chartres - Sally Vickers

The clue is in the title - Agnes is a cleaner in Chartres. She cleans in the cathedral but for numerous other people as well and babysits, acts as a carer etc. (Not quite sure how she fits it all in). Agnes was abandoned as a baby, brought up by nuns which wasn’t a particularly happy experience, had a baby at 15 and spent time in a psychiatric hospital. The book flashes back to episodes in her early life and the great unresolved mysteries of her parentage, the father of her baby and what happened to her child. There’s a love interest, some old ladies (one of whom is particularly vindictive), a nice doctor and a nice priest but I didn’t really care about any of them - just a bit meh generally. The best part was reading about the cathedral.

Crossposted with AgualusasLover so not the only one!

I haven’t read any Stephen King either @TimeforaGandT and don’t think I will. I’ve had The Stand way down on my list of potential reads for a while, but actually not feeling like it’ll ever rise to the top.

I have never read Stephen King either.* *

Thank you Fuzzy and PowerTulle - I am feeling less of an anomaly now!

Signing up to the Not Read Stephen King bench.

I've only ever read three King books. I did enjoy The Stand during the first lockdown in 2020. It made Covid seem like a walk in the park in comparison!