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?

23 The Ski Trip - Sarah Clarke Four uni friends go on their annual ski trip; one of them falls to his death from the piste. His widow Zoe and another friend, the main character Ivy (all part of the same friendship group at uni, though Ivy had lost touch with the rest of them for years after a falling-out) travel to Morzine to recover his body…and the secrets start coming out. The premise is good, and the evocation of the ski resort and the flashbacks to their time at university are both done well. Unfortunately the denouement is silly and OTT, and involves people acting in a way that doesn’t seem realistic, which makes the book average at best.

@ASighMadeOfStone I don’t remember any salty sex in that one… 😀

35. Lord of The Rings - Return of the King nice conclusion to the series. I much preferred the more informal writing style that went with the Hobbits stories. Does this count as a classic?! I think it does. Next to watch the movies. Amazingly I've gone through life never seeing a LoTR spoiler, it was not hard to see the ending coming though.

There are 16 Georgette Heyer books in the kindle daily deals today. I think quite a few people on here really like her. I've not read any before so might pick up a couple.

40 The Places In Between - Rory Stewart

Gripping, often extremely tense and surprisingly moving account of his walk across Afghanistan, from Herat to Kabul in the winter of 2001/2 just as the Taliban had been booted out following 9/11. He’s a very fine writer and I enjoyed this even more than Politics On The Edge. A bold from me.

Thanks for the heads-up - I’ve bought a few (trying to remember which ones I’ve read before but not entirely successful! 😄)

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

Have you read Icebound by Andrea Pitzer?

49 The Twat Files - Dawn French
A collection of memories where Dawn feels she made a twat of herself. Quite funny, but repetitive, lots of name dropping. Easy read.

Georgette Heyers?? Going that way. Thank you @MamaNewtNewt.

20 All the Light We Cannot See by Anothony Doerr
This was great and a bold. I've rarely read a story split between protagonists and timelines with such even skill. All the better as at first I was vaguely connecting it with The Minituarist, which I DNFd with a clang some time ago.

The stories of a young girl and a young boy in two neighbouring countries which end up at war. Much read and reviewed here. Tender, intricate storytelling.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I’ve got it, but haven’t read it. Even icy disasters aren’t appealing to me at the moment. I’m doomed.

@PermanentTemporary

Stay far away from the Netflix version

i enjoyed the Netflix but haven’t read the book!

Oh I thought it was dire! Having read the book

36. The Other People - CJ Tudor my second CJ Tudor book and there is definitely a formula - great characters, supernatural element, parenthood, wildly unrealistic and totally over the top. I enjoyed this and read it in a day. I'll be looking for more of her books when I want something easy and addictive to read. I didn't think it was as good as The Burning Girls.

Me too! I loved the book but only managed one episode on Netflix.

21 Charity Girl by Georgette Heyer
One of today's deals. Hadn't read it for a few years as it's not one of my favourites but nicely took care of a quiet afternoon.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

Stephen King has a short story collection coming out I think it's You Like It Darker a Leonard Cohen lyric

Ooooh yes, think it might be out tomorrow @EineReiseDurchDieZeit ? I have it on preorder.

Re The Bee Sting , not asking for spoilers and I’m steering clear of reviews etc but I have the most dreadful sense of doom about what’s going to happen. It’s bloody brilliant though!

24 The Scarlett Dress - Louise Douglas Well this was really good - a sharp contrast with the last book I read, even though it was in essence just another murder mystery. The bones of a young woman who went missing at a caravan-site next to the Severn estuary in 1995 are found by builders developing the site 24 years later. We follow Will, who was 19 at the time of her death and in love with her; and Marnie, who was 10 at the time and has suffered from mutism ever since. No stupid twists here - the outcome felt realistic and it was clear who the murderer was, and why, well before the end. But that wasn’t the point of the story really - it’s character-driven and explores the various relationships well, with flashbacks that fit well into the story (no irritating dual timeline here). Definitely recommended and I’ll read more by Douglas.

Last Train to Istanbul by Ayşe Kulin. Translated by John W. Baker

This is a novel about two Muslim sisters from Turkey in the mid 20th century, one married to a government official and living in Ankara and the other married to a Turkish Jew and living in Vichy France. It is loosely based on reports of Turkish diplomats saving Jews from the Nazis and the author names a couple of Turkish diplomats she spoke to about their experiences and some people who experienced the train journey through Europe. As a novel it's not going to win any literary awards but it's easy reading enough and in the French parts the tension builds in a satisfying enough way so an enjoyable read.

However, as I always do with a novel that says it is based on true life events, I googled to find out the true story and how many Turkish Jews were saved from Hitler. Unfortunately I discovered the story is heavily disputed. Only one Turk has been recognised as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, Selahattin Ülkümen and he was stationed in Rhodes, not in France. There has been no evidence to support the stories of the Turkish consulates in Marseille and Paris that this novel is based on. The historian Marc David Baer claims that stories of Turkish diplomats in France saving Jews have been overemphasised to detract from the role of the ambassador Behiç Erkin during the Armenian genocide earlier in his career and far from saving Turkish Jews from the Nazis thousands of them were denaturalised (had their Turkish passports revoked) which put them in far greater danger from the Nazis. It is thought thousands ended up in the Death camps due to having their Turkish citizenship revoked vs the possibly <200 that were saved. So, yeah, not sure what to think about this book now.

Finished a coupe this weekend

19 Last dance at the discotheque for deviants by Paul David Gould - I am not sure why I picked this, I think it may have been rated on here so I thought I would give it a go. Not really my thing at all. Too relentlessly sad. Poor Kostya is talking to us through his diaries having had a miserable end early in the story. His family and friends all had a hand in making him feel miserable, unloved and unlovable which ultimately led to his death. It was just sad, I couldn't get past that and I really didn't need to be reading sad.

20 Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone - first time reading with my primary aged children and it has been much more fun than when I read it alone as an adult (I was just too old to have got caught up in the hype when it first came out, being too old and too young to enjoy a children's book on witches and wizards)

I'm now reading swallows and amazons with the kids, which is a grind as its not easy language to read aloud. The Les Liaisons dangereuses read along, listening to The Society for Soulless Girls which is not as good as I hoped and on paper The Skeleton Key by Erin Kelly which I am really enjoying. I go away next week so will have to choose my holiday reading and listening. Something lighter from the list and maybe a couple of biographies.

@Hoolahoophop

I didn't get on with Last Dance either, as you say, too much of a downer

56. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King (Audible)

I wasn't intending to do another Stephen King book so soon but this was mentioned in the last King discussion we had, and as a fairly short audio book, I thought I may as well.

As an audio it was read by the late actress Anne Heche and so was a quality listen. Quite strangely, the pauses between chapters generated creepy music, trying to make it scarier than it was I thought.

As a Little Girl Lost story it's playing on the nightmares of parents but I thought it was a rather simple tale, not heavy handed it's true but a bit "something and nothing" over before it's begun.

Average, I thought

That was next on my King TBR list, Eine. I know it's widely loved but you haven't sold it to me.
On which note, can anyone tell me what I'm missing about The Talisman? I don't understand because I generally love King, and find that I get immersed in his stories very quickly (even if things have a habit of tailing off towards the end). And I know this is considered one of his best but I'm now about a third of the way through and it's just not doing it for me.

@PepeLePew

It's ok, it was a decent listen it was just very ordinary storytelling. Young girl lost in the woods, everything you would expect from it.

Maybe I'm too hard to impress?

The Talisman was my next King after the raves on here.