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 always do "palate cleansers" as well - I try not to read the same type of book or author in a row. The exception was the Robert Galbraith ones on audio.

Yes I'm the same - I like a bit of variety from one book to the next.

@ÚlldemoShúl I read and enjoyed The Hunter recently.

A disappointing book 33 finished today, Talking at Night by Claire Deverley. Billed as being like Normal People, which I love, and One Day, which I really do not. Unfortunately for me it was much closer to the latter. Two soulmates spending years continually missing each other, punctuated by multiple unnecessary tragedies.

I read this as thought it would be good because it was on the Longlist of the Women’s Prize for Fiction. It was fine. But I read Soldier Sailor last year, which is unbelievably good. It just doesn’t compare, I can’t believe they were both on the same list. I enjoy historical fiction and this was fairly standard for me, 2-3 stars, nothing special. I loved Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, not sure if that’s still 99p.

31. The Hidden Man - Charles Cumming

Read this so others won’t have to. It’s a pity because I've enjoyed Cumming's Box 88 and Thomas Kell spy books, so I didn’t really check when this popped up as a 99p deal. Actually it’s a standalone from 2003 and really…not good.

Brothers Ben and Mark Keen live in very different worlds - Ben, an artist, married to beautiful but brittle journalist Alice, is a depressive grump. The more worldly Mark works for the slightly questionable Libra, a company that runs nightclubs in London and Moscow, but seemingly hasn’t noticed that his business partners are dodgy as hell. Ben is estranged from their father, Christopher, who worked for MI6 for years, and soon both brothers are drawn into a web of espionage and danger as competing groups of spooks vie to unravel the secrets and lies at the heart of the club's operations.

I've probably made it sound more exciting than it is - lots of this was, sadly, very dull and clunky, with moments that were downright laughable (at one point Ben, an adult man in his 30s, asks what Google is). I wouldn’t avoid Cumming's books completely - the series are genuinely good reads - but definitely give this one a swerve.

@Kinsters I'd also recommend The Dictionary of Lost Words. I didn't realise there was another book in that world so will check it out.

Per Peterson- Out Stealing Horses

Started out strong, great setting, interesting characters and a good enigma. Narrator is an older man who has come to live alone in a cabin in the Norwegian woods with only his dog for company. Wonderfully evocative writing and fascinating details. The narrative focuses on his coming to terms with events in his childhood and in particular his relationship with his father. There are references to his father’s role in smuggling victims of the Nazis over the border to Sweden. To me it seemed like a set of linked set pieces, each of which was wonderful and many will linger long. but in the end I’m not sure what it added up to. Worth a read for the log rolling scenes ( a way to transport logs to lumber sawmills was to float them in large numbers down stream) alone. Not sure I’d read more by this author though.

25. The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie This month's read christie challenge book. A Poirot. I really struggled to get into this. I love the locked room style mysteries of hers so struggled with this one and for the majority of the book it seemed like there was no way to discover the murderer. In the end I worked out who the murderer was once it became clear which group of people the they were in. Hastings was less annoying in this one than he is in the earlier Poirots. Interestingly in terms of tv adaptations I much prefer Poirot to Marple but so far have preferred reading the Marples due to how annoying a narrator Captain Hastings is

@Terpsichore that got me looking up Google history. It had 16% of the searches in 2003 whilst Yahoo had 36%. So yeah, should have been pretty well known!

@Tarragon123 I’m sure she will say anyway, but when is Lynn’s next book coming out?? 😀

I’ll grant that Google was comparatively youthful at the time (gosh, that feels like a long time ago now!) but the character also barely knows how to turn the computer on and has to get his wife to do it for him…

I know, amazing. I was trying to think what i used in the early days at work, I think it was Netscape when at uni!!

sounds like the character was a manchild numpty, though 😀

We used "ask Jeeves" when I was at school/6th form. So late 90s, early 00s.

AskJeeves! I forgot him!

When I started my PhD in 1994 we had a training session teaching us how to use Netscape. Got my first email address then as well. Had a friend who had been at MIT as an undergraduate and she was amazed all the Brits didn't have email as undergrads.

Alta Vista and Yahoo were the first we used at work.

I think I got an email address in 1999 mainly because my dh set it up for me.
I remember being on Erasmus in France in 94/95 and I got a questionnaire from the international students' office about my preferred means of staying in touch with college which listed electronic mail as an option. I didn't know what that was.
It was either a letter or buying a télécarte for the phone box.

The French had this cool thing called minitel but I only heard of it. I never used it. Asking for a book in the college library involved an archaic system of filling out an application form and putting it into a box and waiting an age for the librarian to get your book. The number of times I missed this as I did not recognise my named being called out back to front surname first and frenchified as well. I wised up eventually!

I have a vivid memory of learning all the parts of a computer in school (I remember loving the space bar for some reason) and trying out all the different search engines. I'm pretty sure we used yahoo at home.

I'm struggling through Enter Ghost, it's not that I think it's badly written, I just find it a bit boring. I think I'm too basic for prize nominated literature lol.

43 After That Night - Karin Slaughter

This is 11th in the Will Trent series, and the first I have read (the perils of 99p buying/responding to tube ads!) TW for rape and sexual assault. Will is a cop in Atlanta investigating serious crimes.

I thought it was very good, gripping, the main character's relationships were well fleshed out and I could feel her horror and anguish at various events. This is a bold for me.

@Kinsters I'm doing a mix of audible and reading for Enter Ghost, and the audible has definitely helped me get into it more. Also good for pronunciation of names!

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Short stories set in Nigeria and the States. I read these one at a time over a few months which was a lovely way to experience them, allowing me to savour each one. They are, as you might expect, beautifully written. Adichie is probably my favourite living writer.

Popping in just to say I set up my first email address which is still my main private one at the Bradford TV and wotsit museum. Early 00s I imagine. Then used to go to the local library when back in the UK in the summer for 30 free internet minutes which obviously were used for scouring Friends Reunited for old boyfriends. Was that not what the internet was invented for? 😂

My retired mum got the internet before me, I first got it in 2004 when DD was 1.

I remember phoning my friend to ask how to link a file.

In book talk, still going with Asta's Book but not somehow getting really into it as too busy at work which is a shame. Will try and crack it this weekend when not Eurovision watching.

I agree about Adiche @JaninaDuszejko

I just bolded 39. Zikora which is an Adiche short story about a woman in labour and her relationships with her mother and partner who left her as soon as she found out she was pregnant. I wasn't going to count it in my list as it is only 35 pages long but she manages to draw the characters, their histories, fears and motivations so beautifully that I felt that I was as close to them as if I had read a whole novel.

I read, and loved, Zikora last year. Don't know if it's still the same but it was free with Amazon Prime. I recently bought We should all be feminists which I'm looking forward to reading.

Just checked, there are two Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie short stories free with Prime, Zikora and The Visit. That'll keep me going till my next book of short stories arrive.