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?

32 The Gathering by CJ Tudor
Always a reliably decent read, her latest novel is set in a remote town in Alaska. In a parallel history, vampyrs are real and coexist uneasily with humans after a bloody and troubled few centuries. It is illegal to kill them unless they are found to have harmed humans first, in which case the whole Colony can be lawfully ‘culled’.
A young man called Marcus has been murdered and all the evidence suggests it was a vampyr killing. Det Barbara Atkins is sent to investigate, as she is a specialist in the field and she is authorised to allow a cull if the evidence warrants it. However, she suspects all is not as it seems, the townspeople of Deadhart violently opposed to the existence of the Colony in the buildings of the old mining settlement due to past events. There is a brisk trade in vampyr artefacts (crosses made of their teeth, heads mounted on boards for display etc) and a distasteful town history where female vampyrs who still look like children were incarcerated in a brothel. Athelinda is one such female and boy, is she still angry!
I was a bit smug about guessing one plot twist but in true CJ Tudor fashion I was proved wrong
Thoroughly enjoyable.

@cassandre I also adored Oscar and Lucinda when I read it in the 90s, it was one of my favourite novels. In comparison I got very annoyed at The Chemistry of Tears because the main character describes herself as an 'oddly elegant tall woman' which did not ring true at all, what woman would describe herself as elegant? Plus the modern day story is a bit of a male fantasy of a man's children deciding they like his mistress more than their mother which annoyed me. The historical story wasn't as annoying and the descriptions of the automaton were excellent (particularly if you are familiar with the Silver Swan at the Bowes Museum) so a bit of a mixed bag.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I would say that if you like True History of the Kelly Gang you'd probably enjoy some of Beryl Bainbridge's historical novels.

49. Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

Got off to a promising start.

In the late seventies Pamela is the head of a sorority at Florida State University. One night the house is attacked by a menacing man and two girls are killed and two injured

In the aftermath Pamela is targeted by Tina, a woman looking for answers to her own crime. Her friend Ruth was a victim of the same killer she believes

This falls off a cliff quite quickly and became deathly dull. I just wasn't interested in Ruth's story though it did take an unexpected turn. I started glazing over and skimming at the 60% mark so it's possible I missed information.

When will my run of duds end?

Finished 10) the Pearl, John Steinbeck, neither here nor there. I think it is technically a children’s book which might be why I found the language a bit.. overly flowery?

On with 11) the diary of Mattie Spenser which I’m enjoying

I went to get my eyes tested today, walked past our local Waterstones and they had a table outside of books they were selling for a pound. I came away with three, had to leave some for other people. So worth checking if your local Waterstones have something similar happening.
The Dreyfus Affair, Les Parisiennes and Iron and Thunder

Edward Thomas - Beautiful Wales

After visiting St Fagan’s museum in Cardiff last week and seeing the wonderfully restored church of Llandeilo Talybont, I did a bit of my own research and discovered that the poet Edward Thomas was a regular visitor to the church in its original location and wrote about it to his wife. This little book is a collection of his writings about Wales and possibly mentions the church. It predates his poetry and is full of references to Welsh mythology and literature, some nice descriptive passages but a bit wordy and convoluted.

@MorriganManor this sounds right up my street!

Just noticed that Disney+ have a dramatisation of Shardlake coming soon. Reminds me that I haven’t yet read the last book.

The first Shardlake is in the 99p deals today.

Also Binyavanga Wainana's short book (actually more of an essay) How to Write About Africa which is funny and insightful, not just about outsiders writing about Africa, but "issue lit" more generally. Not that I'm against writers pointing out global injustices - it's an honourable tradition - but don't borrow the suffering of others just to add a bit of gravitas to your work.

I spotted that yesterday. It starts on Wednesday.

I thought the last book was the weakest. It was very very long!

@TattiePants I agree, I only got round to readingTombland this year as it is such a big brick and I thought it would never end but CJ Samson was ill when he wrote it - maybe the editor should have done a better job. I mainly disliked it as I just felt Shardlake made decisions that were totally out of character.

I always thought Shardlake would make a great TV series but in my head I imagined Shardlake as someone who looks like and has the build and mannerisms of an actor like Mark Rylance, so the actor playing Shardlake in the trailer just totally jars with that. I'll deign to give the series a go though

I love the Shardlake series and think they showcase the very best of historical fiction. I'm also really looking forward to the tv series. Sadly when I googled C J Samson just now I discovered he died two days ago.

Oh never! @SirSidneyRuffDiamond That is sad. He had been ill for quite a while IIRC.

That's awfully sad. He was a very good writer.

I've been seeing the trailers.for the series around for a few weeks. There's only been a tiny snippet, but I'm not convinced by Sean Bean. I think we've probably been spoiled by Wolf Hall.

I don't have Disney+ unfortunately.

@SapatSea When I saw the photo of the actor online I assumed he was Jack Barak. He looks nothing like my idea of Shardlake. I believe he's getting good reviews though.

I agree @TattiePants that Tombland was a bit of a long haul. Great series overall however.

Also 99p, Emeric Pressburger's The Glass Pearls which both Terpsichore and I reviewed earlier this year. This one's really worth going into blind (and absolutely do not read the introduction first!) but a it's a good taut midcentury thriller with hidden depths. I probably underrated it at the time, but find certain scenes and phrases drifting into my head at times, months later.

Sorry to hear the sad news of Sansom. I enjoyed Tombland for all its length and immersing myself in the Kett rebellion made the first lockdown more bearable. Physically, Sean Bean is much closer to my mental image of Cromwell than Mark Rylance - though for a horrible moment I thought Bean'd been cast as Shardlake 😱Not sure if I'm going to see past sweet Scorpius Malfoy as Barak either, but will give it a go.

@highlandcoo I was also totally unaware of The Librarianist, until spotting it on my library's 'new in' shelf (in paperback no less). It is very understated - almost perversely so - but drily funny, and the dialogue is of course on point. Haven't read the books you mention though, suspecting they'd be too twee.

I'm finding some gentleness welcome anyway, considering the non-fiction stack I came away with, due to a lot of reservations arriving all at once (the Becky Holmes was another impulse grab at lightness 😅)

I've just seen about CJ Sansom. So sad, I love the Shardlake books and will watch the series.

Such sad news about CJ Sansom. The Shardlake books were such good reads and influential too- so many copycats since- some I enjoy but none as good as the original

Never given CJ Sansom a go. Might start with Dissolution as it's 99p

I haven't yet read Shardlake - I don't think I can read more reformation fiction after Wolf Hall was so perfect - but obviously sad to her the news about Sansom.

I've started and quickly discarded The Fraud by Zadie Smith and The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene. The Fraud audiobook was read by the author, and I don't think her attempts at various accents helped matters.

22.Exit West by Mohsin Hamid Saeed and Nadia meet in an unnamed, Middle Eastern city and fall in love. Civil war breaks out and they flee their home city through a door, which transports them from their country to Mykonos, where they live as refugees.

I didn't love this, and it was all my own fault. I didn't know about the door business, and I wasn't in the market for magic realism or a thought experiment or whatever you want to call it. But Hamid's depiction of the day to horrors of living with political instability and flight from one's homeland was really moving.

I just dropped by. Has CJ Sansom died? That is terribly sad.

I never would have read Shardlake - and neither would DS- if it weren't for you lot.

Just realised it's Sampson.

No, goodness - we were all correct! The BBC got his name wrong which is very very poor form.

Sorry to hear about CJS, who I think had been ill for several years. I found Tombland a slog, but really rate the series over all. I enjoyed Dissolution but there's no Jack B in it, so you could potentially miss it and start at the second one if new to the series. The first has quite a different feel imo.

Just googled the actor and he's giving me slight Jonathon Gullis vibes - definitely not how I imagined Shardlake.

The horror!