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?

It's great to hear the positive reviews of John Connolly's latest book. I'll look forward to reading it eventually!

@inaptonym I agree on Fire Weather. I didn't mind some of the non-Fort McMurray chapters but they were definitely the best.

36 Comfort Eating by Grace Dent
Warmed up leftovers from Hungry with a side salad of limp sleb. I do like Grace, but she’s phoned it in for this one.

Something I DNFd: The Dictator's Wife by Freya Berry. A friend told me this was good and recommended The Piano on TV and I didn't like either this week. Might have enjoyed it in a different mood but the writing was just too elaborate and the complex set up of a fictional dictatorship didn't grab me.

Re The Piano. I loved the first series and this one hasn't worked so well. This week's in Edinburgh was probably the least engaging, even though they gushed over the participants' talents more. I know MN (Telly Addicts anyway - think some of us on here like a good sob!) is averse to 'sob stories' but they help with The Piano. Dull, ordinary people playing very skilfully isn't all that uplifting...

Oh I love a good sob (book or film) so I'd better not venture over to the Telly Addicts board!

Me too!

Sadik, I'm a third of the way through Cloistered and I also read I Jump the Wall about two years ago. I think they're fairly different - the latter focused more on life after having left the convent, and as she emerged into WWII, her experiences are fairly distinct.

Cloistered got off on the wrong foot with me, as the initial description makes it sound like she was escaping illicitly in the middle of the night, and leaving a religious order isn't like that. You don't need to escape, you can just decide to go. I'm not really warming to the author, but I'm interested enough to keep going.

My recent reads:

58. What Remains, Tim Weaver.
Chessie mentioned enjoying this series about a private investigator who tries to trace missing people. It's decent genre fiction. I normally enjoy this kind of thing either because I really like the main character or the setting, and I didn't find either to be particularly fascinating, but it's competently written and I have a couple of the other books from the library so I'll give them a go.

59. Wifedom, Anna Funder
Life of Eileen O'Shaughnessy, who became the first Mrs Orwell. A few people on here were enthusiastic about this, and it was right up my street. I loved it. The account of her work during the Spanish Civil War was very compelling. I cheered along as the author raged about women's contribution being hidden by biographers' use of the passive voice - "This happened". No, she made this happen! A definite bold for me.

Happy to report two recent strong bolds:

25 Nightbitch - Rachel Yoder
Under the pressure of being a SAHM to her toddler boy, and giving up her career as an artist, an unnamed mother starts to transform into something a lot more canine… I absolutely loved this exploration of the primitive, mythic and animalistic core of motherhood, but it has limited plot, is performance art in literary form, and definitely not for anyone with sentimental feelings for cats and bunnies.

26 The Quick and the Dead - Cynric Temple-Camp
Memoirs of a New Zealand-based, South African-born pathologist who spent the early part of his career in war-torn Rhodesia. I’d strongly recommend if you like this sort of thing (not for those squeamish about maggots, for sure), and it’s the first medical memoir I’ve read set here in NZ, so plenty of local interest.

Also:
27 The Leader Assistant - Jeremy Burrows
Read in preparation for my new job as an Executive Assistant starting next week! (Probably won’t mention what else I’ve been reading lately in the new office, in case they get a bit… scared.)

45 Blindsighted and 46 Kisscut - Karin Slaughter

After saying I would have a KS break, I didn't! In my defence, I was on trains a lot so less easy to read my current largeish paperback.

These are the first two in her Grant County/Sara Lipton series. I like Sara, a children's doctor and a medical examiner (i.e. person who does autopsies) and I enjoyed both of these. The first was a bold. I like the police characters who work with Sara and I like her family.

I am now taking a break to read 1989 in paperback.

@inaptonym – oh goodness, that’s sounds awful! I will not bother. How do some of these books get shortlisted??

39 Enter Ghost - Isabella Hammad - much reviewed on here. I loved it. Its the first book I've read (AFAIK) set in Israel/Palestine. It probably would have been a good idea to get the Audio and listened it, as advised by @Stowickthevast I might still do that. I'm mulling over my next Audio purchase.

54. The Infiltrators by Norman Ohler

In 30s Germany, Libertas Haas-Heye meets Harro Schultze-Boysen. Their chemistry is undeniable and they are politically likeminded, they and their friends will form an anti-Nazi resistance in Germany and they will pay the price.

I knew little to nothing of any kind of resistance movement in Germany, possibly because any records of trials were deliberately destroyed, so it was interesting from that point of view. It was very short (250) but definitely worth a read.

@bibliomania I didn't warm to her that much either, & have a suspicion that others might have a rather different view of some of the events recounted, which is partly why I'd be interested to read another account of life in a closed order. To be fair, the running away in the middle of the night episode makes sense in context (& it's not in fact when she left the order for good).

Good luck for the new job @LadybirdDaphne!

19. Between The Stops by Sandi Toksvig

Back in the day my family loved Toksvig and when I was 13 we watched Island Race together as a family. It might even be what sparked my love of stories of journeys. I've seen her on TV on and off and now I've read her memoirs I want to go back and watch everything she has ever been in.

She comes across as thoroughly likable. She's witty, hugely clever and engagingly quirky in her reading and love of lesser known bits of history.

I gave it 4.5 on storygraph and it was nice to feel close to my parents for a bit while reading. They're both gone now, but I like to think they'd have been fans, and would have got what she stands for.

53. Prophet Song by Paul Lynch Last year's Booker winner, telling one woman's story as Ireland descends from authoritarian rule into civil war. I know a few posters weren't so keen, but I thought this was fantastic. It felt very immediate & present, & the way in which Eilish always seems to be one step behind where things actually are as normal life falls apart really resonated for me. One of those books where I'm tempted to go back to the start for an immediate re-read, so that I can pay full attention without the temptation to rush to find out what happens.

39 Sandman: Dream Hunters - Neil Gaiman

Last of the Gaiman Sandman series, and a wistful beautifully illustrated standalone story based on a Japanese folk tale. I’ll feel a bit bereft of the Sandman universe having spent so much time in it this year, but am sure I’ll revisit it.

The Man I Never met was fine… a bit trashy but fine.
Next up is 13) the sheltering sky

@MegBusset

Do try the Audible adaptation it's very good

48 The Family Upstairs - Lisa Jewell
Three bodies are found in a supposed suicide pact with a baby asleep in a cot upstairs. 25 years later and the baby is set to inherit from their trust fund and three interwoven stories flit between then and now as the truth about the suicides comes out.
I started off really enjoying this but as we got closer to the climax of the story I felt it lost its way. Too many ends were tied up and very complex relationships were just forgotten about as people started afresh. The characters were developed slowly which felt believable but then it rushed through as if the author panicked that it was going to be too long. Bit disappointed by the end as I felt it was really going somewhere. I might check out the sequel if I see it on offer but I’m not in a rush.

I can't remember when I last contributed to this thread, so this is my list so far and I'll only comment on my latest read due to not knowing where I'm up to :)

1. The Last List of Mabel Beaumont, Laura Pearson
2. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrille Zevin
3. The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins
4. The Pumpkin Spice Cafe, Laurie Gilmore
5. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid
6. A Court of Frost and Startlight, Sarah J Mass
7. The Black Moth, Georgette Heyer
8. Carrie Soto is Back, Taylor Jenkins Reid
9. The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
10. This is the Night They Come for You, Robert Goddard
11. The Bone Readers, Jacob ROss
12. The Moonlight Child, Karen McQuestion
13. Big Little Lies, Liane Moriarty
14. Circe, Madeline Miller
15. The Wife Between Us, Greer Hendricks, Sarah Pekkanen
16. The Dry, Jane Harper
17. Keeping Faith, Jodi Picoult
18. The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden
19. The Burnout, Sophie Kinsella
20. The Favour, Nicci French
21. The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfeild
22. Dark Matter, Blake Crouch
23. Red Queen, Victoria Aveyard
24. Yellowface, R.F. Kuang
25. The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller
26. None of This is True, Lisa Jewell
27. Tall Oaks, Chris Whitaker
28. The Inheritance Games, Jennifer Lynn Barnes
29. A Court of Silver Flames, Sarah J Mass
30. Force of Nature, Jane Harper
31. The Hawthorne Legacy, Jennifer Lynn Barnes
32. Glass Sword, Victoria Aveyard
33. A World of Curiosities, Louise Penny
34. All the Broken Places, John Boyne
35. Powerless, Lauren Roberts
36. Under Currents, Nora Roberts
37. Malibu Rising, Taylor Jenkins Reid
38. Prophet Song, Paul Lynch
39. Weyward, Emilia Hart
40. A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara - Whilst it is a bold, it's not quite a 5 star read for me. It's exquisitely written and heartbreakingly gut wrenching, but I felt a tad too long in some places, at moments when reading it, it could feel a tad repetitive. I do like miserable books, but felt that maybe it was not quite as subtle as other books of the same miserable nature to be truly, truly brilliant. I would still highly recommend though, and it is well worth the time.

Nothing to contribute but wanted to place mark. I haven’t read anything at all in the last month - first time in my life. I think. It’s not nice.

Ah, @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie - sending

Have you started and abandoned some, or not felt like starting anything?

Sorry to hear that Remus, that sounds horrible.

28. The Last Resort by Susi Holliday Amazon first reads freebie. 7 strangers are invited to try out a new luxury retreat experience. They all have varying reasons they've been chosen: a travel influencer, a photographer, a potential financial investor etc. But one person, Amelia, doesn't seem to fit the selection criteria. Is she there as a case of mistaken identity or is something more sinister going on?

This book was ok, the technology was incredibly far-fetched and the book was full of recent pop culture references (Fyre Festival, Made in Chelsea, The Only Way is Essex, This Morning presenters etc). I find when a book is filled with references like these it can really date the book in future.

Overall one of the better freebies I've had, the characters all had distinctive voices and the suspense was good and the resolution wasn't too neat