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?

And belated welcome Thewolvesarerunningagain. What an interesting reading list. What did you think of The Good Earth? It's a book my mother used to talk about but for some reason I've never read. Would you recommend it?

I see Empire of Pain is 99p in the deals

As ever, I've been keeping up with the thread but haven't posted for a while.
Tolkein & King - Haven't read, haven't seen any of the films.
Prize lists - haven't been reading the books but I've really followed the reviews on here with interest. Thanks to everyone who has been sharing their thoughts.
Good the see some buzz about The Square of Sevens when it was a recent kindle deal. I bought a print copy after hearing good things about this one, hoping to get to it in May. Also good to see a positive review of Act of Oblivion - I've been lent a copy but have found Robert Harris a bit hit and miss before so it's good to see that others have liked this one.

15. Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda & Jeremy McCarter
Two main sections to this non-fiction read - one part is the story of how the musical Hamilton was created, and the other is the lyrics from the show with annotations from Lin-Manuel Miranda sharing the inspirations for specific songs, references, personal anecdotes and notes about historical accuracy (or artistic license!). Fascinating! I got so much more from seeing the show and listening to soundtrack after I had read this.

16. A Woman Made of Snow by Elisabeth Gifford
Dual timeline historical fiction. In the late 1940s, a young mother is asked to research the history of her husband's family and the Fife castle where they live. She becomes fascinated with the individuals she sees in an old photograph, and when human bones turn up on the estate she is convinced that there is a connection. Settings in Fife, Dundee and on the whaling voyages that set off for the Arctic in the 1800s. Not a hit for me.

17. I Did It For You by Jayne Cowie
This is the second Jayne Cowie book I have read and I liked it even more than the first, although I'm not a fan of the UK cover! Her books are set in a recognisable present day or near-future UK in which one aspect of life is different to reality - and then she explores how individuals, families and communities are affected by this one thing. That makes it sound complex and it really is not - I find her books to be easy, quick to read page turners but with a little to make me think.
A gene has been discovered which appears to be an indicator of an increased likelihood of a man committing violent crimes. Following this discovery, new parents are offered the opportunity to have their sons tested at birth. Positive individuals can be refused admittance to certain schools and some parents try to enrol their children in expensive behavioural treatment programmes. Two sisters with teenage boys live with the consequences of whether or not they chose to have their sons tested. Plot gets a little over the top towards the end but I really enjoyed this book overall.

18. Friendships Don't Just Happen! by Shasta Nelson
Available through the Audible Plus catalogue - happy I hadn't paid anything for it! I may have picked up one or two ideas from this, but overall I didn't enjoy this and I'm not sure that audio was the best way to take it in. The author loves a list - "the three principles of..." followed by "the three steps to..." followed by "8 ways to approach blah blah blah". Her life is very different to mine, and I was a bit amazed by some of the things she says and does. Sometimes this was like an interesting view into another lifestyle, other times she was saying "when this happens, we always feel that..." and listed something that I have never thought or felt so it felt a bit unrelatable. Not recommended from me.

19. Flying Solo by Linda Holmes
Laurie is almost forty and is staying back in her small home town in Maine while she clears out her great-aunt's home following her death. She reconnects with old friends, comes to terms with calling off her engagement...and becomes very curious about the origins of a wooden duck that she finds among her great-aunt's possessions. This is a light, humorous novel which I really enjoyed as a fun read, elevated for me personally by a few things that I really identified with. Will look out for this author's other title which I suspect might follow different characters in the same community.

Thanks, I'd missed that one.

Coffee with Hitler which is on my wishlist is also 99p

@inaptonym just saw your post on Kobo, how are you able to have 4 excellent libraries, can you just join any library? If so, what are the excellent ones you have found as mine is a bit pants. Thanks.

I have been lurking somewhat on this thread, I’m only on 10 books so don’t think I’ll make it to 50 this year! But I was wondering if there’s an easy way to see all the Kindle 99p deals? I keep getting kindle unlimited ones or more expensive ones using filters.

@DutchHouse

You can sign up to emails

Urgh. Phone just ate huge post.
@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I didn't say on the other thread, but back in 2020 I had a Dark username as well, but had a <cough> run in with them upstairs and was shown the door.

@DutchHouse
Go: Kindle~Kindle Books~Book Deals~then on that page down to the bottom and you get "see all deals". Click that and then top right filter to show only free to 99p.

I shall be having a look through later after interviewing someone. Or probably not, as so far out of 11 candidates 9 have been no shows. Da fuck?

I can't remember what number I'm on, but I'll quickly add:

Burial Rites Hannah Kent.
A bold, as I imagined. Should've read it years ago. Don't know why I didn't. Etc etc.

Sightlines Kathleen Jamie
Another bold. How much do I love this woman's simple, yet magnificent musings. (I bought the paper copy of this after loving Findings and now I've just bought her next collection. Surfacing

Rereading The Great Gatsby as I want to read/reread some classics this year so thought I'd ease myself in with a short one that ends with the most beautiful lines in literature.

@ASighMadeOfStone

I know you by another username entirely which begs the question how many runins have you had?

My paper white is v annoying. I reopen it and it is not always on the page I closed it on. Sometimes I have to flick a couple of pages forward or back, sometimes its whole chapters!!

17. About Grace by Anthony Doerr

I have been really excited to read this (his first book) as I loved All The Light We Cannot See and I enjoyed Cloud Cuckoo Land too.

This was not good. It's about a man who dreams the future. He then goes on to make some startling poor decisions and he has an absolute refusal to actually discuss anything that is happening with anyone in his life. I have never met a character so passive and it drove me bonkers. I've spent ages on this, not really wanting to pick it up as I couldn't care less about David.

If anyone, like me, has never got started on the Strike novels, A Cuckoo’s Calling is 99p today.

I'm a misunderstood advocate for that which is morally right. 😂

Ageism, weirdo rubberneckers at real life tragedies and anti-vaxxers are my downfall though. I try to scroll by but I just find myself going "let me through I have something to say here".

22 Just What Kind of Mother Are You? by Paula Daly. Set in the lake district in winter, Kate's teenage daughter has gone missing and her friend Lisa feels responsible. This is pretty good if you like this kind of thing.

23 Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney. I know that Rooney is a bit marmite, both on here and IRL, but I like her and I thought this was great. No one does angst-filled relationships between flawed characters quite like her!

16. Berserker by Adrian Edmondson, thanks to MorriganManor for recommending this autobiography, I very much enjoyed it.
    The constant linking back to being (or not being) a Berserker felt a little overdone but he obviously felt he needed a theme to link together his life story.
    It was interesting to hear about his relationships with other comic strip comedians and of course with Jennifer Saunders. I was surprised and a little sad at his seemingly ambivalent feeling about Rik Mayall - particularly towards the end of their double act years.
    Ade Edmondson has been a constant (TV) feature in my life since 'The Young Ones' & 'Comic Strip Presents' burst on the scene in the 80's. I wasn't a fan of 'Bottom' but have loved most of his other comedic roles and his straight acting parts in recent years. I was surprised that neither of my 20 something daughters had a clue who he was when they asked what I was reading. This despite the fact they both knew who Jennifer Saunders was, and that they had both seen Ade E. as Malvolio in The RSC's Twelfth Night. Certainly made me feel old!

17. Loosely Based On A Made Up Story by James Blunt, he's not for everyone as he admits himself, but it's hard to see why he became such a national pariah in the years after 'You're Beautiful' became a monster hit and before he became an, almost, national treasure thanks to his wit and Twitter superstar status.
    This is a funny & entertaining read, he's been a 'very naughty boy' over the years and isn't shy about revealing his various exploits or of naming and shaming those who treated him with contempt and unkindness during the wilderness years. (Noel Gallagher, All of Keane, Mick Jagger, Damon Albarn to name but a few.)
    In the main, as you would expect, this is an irreverent and funny whip through his life with short chapters that are easy to read. The two chapters dealing with his tour of duty in Kosovo however are altogether a different kettle of fish and the horror and brutality of war is really brought home.
    This book would be a litigators dream but I'm presuming he neatly sidesteps this issue with the title and the disclaimer on the front page:
    'This book is inspired by true events, but is not a biography. Nothing herein should be construed to represent a true or accurate recreation of the actual events that transpired. The stories, conversations and relationships between the persons depicted have been fictionalised. Basically, I made this shit up.'
    However, when you google the more bizarre elements and stories detailed in the book you find that they actually are true, so maybe not so fictionalised after all.

And so after 4 biographies on the trot it's time for some much needed fiction and I've moved on to David Nicholls You Are Here.

@DesdamonasHandkerchief I like your review of Loosely based on a made up story. I may have to add that to my list.

I just finished number 18 for this year. Spare by Prince Harry, Haz, Harold, Spike, Darling Boy.....too many names to many identities I think I could do with a more flippant biography after that. Poor Harry, he just sounds so confused. Desperately searching for meaning in everything from foxes to every action of his family. Searching for justification for his actions, both the good and the bad. He seems tired of life being done to him and wants to take control, but has no idea of how. As a book, if felt unfinished, like a wandering mind, the first draft rather than a finished thing.

Now onto 1984 on audible, Les liaisons dangerous as part of the read along and the Skeleton key as it was on my kobo and I don't remember putting it there.

There were quite a few sources where Rik Mayal was described as difficult back in the day @DesdamonasHandkerchief. I remember watching him tear an interviewer to shreds and it was an uncomfortable watch - I can't remember who it was but it was someone young, trendy and male (and obviously surprised). It was around the time he was playing Alan B'Stard and we assumed that he was playing up to the role. Apparently his terms for a guest spot in Black Adder were that he had to have more lines than Rowan Atkinson which I found surprising. My husband spent time on the same hospital ward as RM a week after he'd been in for a bit and all the nurses described him as a "nightmare". I imagine he wasn't the easiest to have a partnership with!

He was a very talented man. We still occasionally watch Black Adder and Bottom, so my two DS in their 20's know him. I saw him live back in the Kevin Turvey days and there was a palpable tension between him and the audience.

I got Beserker out of the library a few days ago and am looking forward to getting into it. I'm currently reading Dear Fatty by Dawn French with my book club. I'm only six chapters in, but finding it a bit boring so far TBH.

That's really interesting @Mothership4two I hadn't been aware of that, just the outpouring of love when he died - maybe Ade Ed held back a bit on what he really thought then. There was definitely a suggestion that Rik M had started to believe his own publicity and couldn't inhibit the loser character he portrayed in Bottom anymore because he viewed himself more as a sex god and was giving attractive girls in the audience the eye at live performances!
@Hoolahoophop if you get round to the JB autobiography I hope you enjoy it and I haven't oversold it!

12 The Wizard of the Kremlin - Giuliano da Empoli
A fictional account of Putin's rise to power told by a former aide and spin-doctor and reported by a European journalist

This was kind of interesting, I particularly enjoyed the first half of the book, which imparted some insight into the Russian psyche and goes some way to explaining the impetus behind Putin's support and ultimate election. The second half slowly started boring me, and I was not sorry when it ended

Belated welcome to @Thewolvesarerunningagain. These threads are the best place on the internet and very good for the soul (but terrible for the TBR list and book budget).

14. Wild, by Cheryl Strayed. I know we often say 'I must be the last to read this' but I really must be with this, as it was published in 2013 to great acclaim. I had a false start with it when it first came out, but I'm not sure why, because I loved this and it's a definite bold. Strayed was in crisis having lost her mother, got divorced and started using heroin when she decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail - which at the time was fairly unknown and certainly not as popular as it is today. She was utterly unprepared, and this is the account of her journey. It seems that many PCT hikers are quite snooty about her, but I loved this and I could fully relate to the determination to do something that you don't actually know how to do.

15.The Cliff House, by Chris Brookmyre. 7 women on a remote Scottish island for a hen do, which turns unforgettable for all the wrong reasons. This is an enormously fun romp with the requisite twists and turns, some of which I saw coming and some I didn't. My only complaint is that would everyone in a group of people all have a similarly dramatic dark secret? If so perhaps I'm more boring than I thought because I don't have one! But that's a minor quibble because of course the whole story requires a suspension of disbelief. If you're a fan of Chris Brookmyre this is very enjoyable and if you're not, this won't change your mind.

I highly rated Wild also @noodlezoodle it was a bold for me, something I'm chronically short of this year

Yes, I loved Wild!

Just finished Women's Prize shortlisted River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure. This is a story of two alternating halves. One follows Alva, a 14 year old half American-half Chinese girl in 2007 whose American mother marries a Chinese businessman Lu Fang. The other story is Lu Fang's tale starting in the mid 80s. I thought this was very good, with interesting characters and descriptions of China and Shanghai and changing attitudes through the years. I've seen people say the characters are unlikable but I just think they were flawed. Strong contender I think.

Glad to find some fellow Wild fans, Eine and Tara.

I'm missing her writing, so I've started Into The Wild for some more wilderness.

I've not read Wild so will add that to my TBR!