50 Books Challenge 2024 Part Five

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fifth 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.

Some of us bring over to the new thread lists of the books we've read so far, but again - this is your choice.

The first thread is here, the second one here , the third one here and the fourth one here

What are you reading?

I'm a big Maggie O'Farrell fan. My top three are After You'd Gone, Hamnet and I Am, I Am, I Am but I also really liked The Marriage Portrait.

A quick wave at everybody. Sadik, on the question of Irish, yes, I think it is less widespread than Welsh. I grew up not far from a Gaeltacht area, but I couldn't really hold a conversation in it and the same goes for friends and family. It's compulsory at school but I don't think it's well taught - it felt to me that it was taught with a reproachful air of "You should know this already" and I don't remember things like grammar being explained properly. Maybe I missed that class.

Recent reads:

79. The Last Goodbye Tim Weaver
More adventures for our missing person investigator, with chickens potentially come home to roost from previous clashes with the police and a surprising twist at the end.

An essay:

My Mother and Other Wild Animals, Andrew Sean Greer
Very enjoyable account of the author's American road trip with his mother.

80. Four Thousand Weeks, Oliver Burkeman
Let go of the idea that if you can just be efficient enough, you can fit everything in. Once you've let that go, you can then decide what your finite time and energy should be spent on. Sensible and helpful.

81. Solder Sailor, Claire Kilroy
Mother narrates her experience of early motherhood. Loved this. The author found the right voice to tell the story - while fragmented, it never feels difficult to read, and the combination of intense love and rage are well conveyed. I was genuinely moved by the last pages.

82. Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands, Heather Fawcett
Emily is off to Switzerland to locate a door to a fairy kingdom, equipped with a detached faun's foot. You have to let go of the fact that the author doesn't know much about Edwardian Cambridge - and fatally, doesn't know what she doesn't know - but if you can get past that, it's good fun.

83. Thunderclap, Laura Cumming
Art journalist writes about the Golden Age of Dutch art, with a few excursions into her Scottish father's painting. If I were to be critical, I'm not convinced it all fits neatly together, but her writing about the Dutch painting is delightful, and had me poring over the illustrations and vowing to make a pilgrimage to Delft. Lovely.

Forgot one:

84. Not Far from Brideshead: Oxford Between the Wars, Daisy Dunn
Might be a niche interest - I wanted to read about the atmosphere in the aftermath of WWI, with the shadows of all the lost young men lingering in the cloisters. There's a bit of that and lots of other stuff, poets, writers, controversial academic appointments etc. Some parts were more interesting than others.

Just catching up with this thread and checking in.
@Mothership4two I loved the cover of Pine which was why I picked the book up in the first place 😀 I’m often attracted to books by their cover, rather like wine and their labels 🤣
@Tarragon123 I’ve read most of the Ruth Galloway books (think I’ve got a couple more to go) and really enjoyed them. I’ve not read any others of hers except a stand-alone one called, I think, Strangers Diary. I seem to remember enjoying it. I have got Postcript Murders on my to read pile as I picked it up second hand but possibly need to read in order - are the Harbinder Kaur series worth a punt?
@Hoolahoophop I loved all Kate Mosse’s earlier books but I really struggled with the burning chambers and subsequently have not read any since. (although I do have the sequal The city of tears on my TR pile)
The exception being her book * Warrior Queens and quiet revolutionaries” . I actually saw her live talking about this book and it was a great read.
@TimeforaGandT I did a reread of all the Dick Francis books a couple of years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it! I have a fair few Felix Francis and I believe there is some out there that I’ve not yet read. Thanks for the motivation I think I will now have a look at reading those.

Thank you everybody, as usual so many good tips, so many good books and feeling slightly overwhelmed by it all 😀😀

I just finished Yellowface by Rebecca Kuang. Imo it is over long and overly detailed about the publishing industry in places, which led me to keep putting it down. But I'm glad I read it - it considers some interesting themes and definitely gets you thinking. Would be great for a book club discussion.

Now I'm reading Transit by Rachel Cusk. It is like a selection of short stories, tied together to make it seem like a novel. Her writing is sublime. I am reading it one chapter/story at a time.

@Sadik All Irish children learn the language in school from age 4 to 18 which depending on the skill of your teacher and own interest can make you reasonably fluent. But it’s only spoken as a first language in An Gaeltacht and those areas (some islands, parts of Donegal and Kerry) are shrinking. Like Biblio and Fuzzy, I’ve lost a lot of mine over the years but can still speak a cúpla focal (a few words)- I’d love to be able to speak more. It seems that Wales have done a better job of keeping the language alive.

For reading I have finished
108 The Dying Day by Vaseem Khan
The second Persis Wadia case. Set in India at the time of partition with India’s first female detective. In this episode, Persis is investigating a missing academic and a valuable first edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy. This was as enjoyable as the first which is unusual. Thanks to whoever on here recommended this series to me, I’m enjoying it immensely.

Currently reading Piranesi by Susannah Clarke on kindle- not sure about it yet- strange but it’s early days. The Coast Road by Alan Murrin which is about 3 women in Donegal in Ireland in the 1990s where a husband (prior to the legalisation of divorce) refuses his estranged wife access to their children. So far it’s good. And listening to Black and British by David Olusoga which is anger inducing.

Thankyou @FuzzyCaoraDhubh @bibliomania and @ÚlldemoShúl

I've been inspired by 32 words and also Tir which I read earlier in the year to go back to Welsh classes this September. I did a few years when dd went into (Welsh medium) school, got to the point where I could understand a fair amount then life took over. Though tbh the only people I know who've managed to become genuinely fluent as adults either have a Welsh speaking partner, or a job/hobby where it's the working language.

Re keeping the language alive, the Welsh medium education system is very good here. The children start in meithrin (nursery) at 3, & even before then there are Welsh language playgroups. I think something like a quarter of children go through school in Welsh (maybe more at primary)

I'm reading Not Far From Brideshead now too, but among other books so it might take me a while - I borrowed it from the library some months ago and then spotted a Kindle quite a long way down the monthly deals list a couple of months ago. I've held on to the library copy until I've actually read it because there are a few photographic plates and in case the footnotes/endnotes (oddly, I think this one has both!) don't work well.

My grandfather studied Greats (Classics) in Oxford in the 1930s - I haven't actually looked at the index but I don't think he'll be mentioned there; however, I wonder if he studied with any of the figures portrayed - it seems to focus on a few eccentric academics. My mum's parents then settled in Oxford after the war and my mum and her sisters grew up there. So although I was born and bred in Leeds we visited regularly until the mid 1990s. Then before I had kids I went to several crime fiction conferences at St Hilda's College - they were really interesting events.

You've more of a connection than I do, elkie! My image of 1930s Oxford comes from Barbara Pym, but she isn't mentioned at all.

@Sadik if you haven't read it, The Colony by Audrey Magee is an interesting read with quite a bit about the Irish language.

@TattiePants I read Winter People last summer when I was in Ireland. It was quite good in a nothing much happens but is reasonably evocative kind of way. I don't remember huge amounts about it though.

I'm stuck in a Roman-tasy world and have just ingested A Court of Thorns and Roses and it's two sequels in the space of a week.

They're kind of compelling but also kind of terrible. I think the word "mate" is used over 200 times in just one book, and there's a ridiculous attempt at bisexual diversity that completely fails. The writing veers pretty close to fan fic at times but there is something about them that it's weirdly addictive.

I think I'm nearly ready to resume my normal more adult fiction though. ( Although these are way more sexy than anything I normally read!).

@Tarahumara - I will add your recommended Maggie O’Farrell books to my TBR list/pilez

@Sonnet - I must have missed your Dick Francis reviews. I seriously underestimated how many there were and how long it would take me to get through them all. However, it was good to re-read old favourites and re-read some I had only ever read on publication and had no real recollection of. I need a new project now!

@sadik I’m starting Sylfaen (Foundation) with Dysgu Cymraeg in September, having just finished Mynediad.
DM is fluent and Welsh was my first language but unfortunately she let my grandmother dissuade her from sending me to Welsh medium education so I ended up forgetting most of it. Loving learning it again though doubt I’ll ever be fluent now.
Like the sound of 32.

I've given up working out and numbering this year's reads, but my last book was Promised by Caragh M. O'Brien (final book in the Birthmarked trilogy) - s'alright. Currently reading Mist Over Pendle by Robert Neill which is a fictional side story based around the run up to the Pendle witch trials and written in the 1950s. I have about 100 pages to go and it's a good read.

19 The Winners - Fredrik Backman
Final instalment of Backman's Beartown trilogy. Based in rural Sweden in an ice hockey-obsessed community. Awful things happen and different people deal with them in different ways!

The characters are all very well drawn and I had grown very fond of them throughout the 3 books. This instalment was a bit long-winded and I'm surprised it wasn't edited differently. That said, I was along for the ride and would still recommend.

Very slow month of reading. Toooooo muuuuuuch maaaaarkiiiiiing!!

I also enjoyed Instructionsfor a Heatwave @TimeforaGandT 👋

Good to hear Fuzzy - was beginning to worry about the fact I had recommended it to others!

181 Lace by Shirley Conran

I’ve never read this before - too young when it first came out and then somehow it passed me by when I was older. I wish I hadn’t bothered now! It’s far too long and I didn’t actually like any of the characters enough to really care what happened to them or who would turn out to be someone’s mother. I stuck with it to see if it would get better or if the reveal would be worth it but no. I’ll stick with Jilly for bonkbusters!

I brought it to our meet-up in May, but later I wasn't sure it was a good choice.
It was difficult choosing a book for someone else.

@ChessieFL that's a shame. I loved Lace as a teenager. Maybe it's a book you have to read at the right age.

50. Public Places - Siân Phillips

Finally I'm at 50, hurrah! I decided to strike while the iron was hot and complete the second of this two-volume set of memoirs. It’s the very early 60s and Siân Phillips is now married to handsome, mercurial, magnetic star-in-the-making Peter O'Toole. They buy a beautiful Georgian house in Hampstead and she sets about restoring it to perfection while their first daughter is still a baby.

Sounds idyllic, yes? Well, no, because O'Toole is (famously) a drunk, but also an abusive tyrant who specialises in reducing his wife to a state of abject acquiescence to all his demands (although 'he was never violent', she says pathetically at one point). He expects her to have been a nun in her previous life so all her past relationships become fuel for his regular all-night jealous rages; she learns not to answer back, to challenge or to cross him, but to do exactly as he wants, even when he pretty much destroys her acting career for years. Even what she wears or eats is controlled (she develops an eating disorder, and no wonder). Reading all this made me so angry at times that I kept having to stop and calm down. Especially, I’m afraid, because she punctuates the horror with tales of their periods of reconciliation and how wonderful he was. Sadly I have a very low tolerance for the 'crazy genius' view of things so their break-up came as a relief, except that she immediately married a younger man who ended up being a total mistake, albeit for very different reasons.

In summary, there’s a kind of grim fascination in this, and lots of inside stage/actor info - on a very grand level, as SP moves in increasingly rarefied circles - but it’s a depressing echo of many threads in Relationships, tbh.

Behind on reviews, behind on the thread...

56 Consequence of Love by Sulaiman Addonia
Another “take it off the shelf and give it a shot”. Set in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, among the East African migrant worker community who keep the city turning. The narrator falls in love with a veiled woman he sees on the street who drops notes for him, and they both risk everything to find a way to be together. This was rather lovely and horrifying in equal measure.

55 Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Occasionally, I feel compelled to pull a book off the shelf that’s sat there for years and is at risk of being culled in the next Oxfam Books purge. There tends to not be much science behind my choices, and I’m rarely disappointed (though I do have a strict rule with such books that if I’m not engrossed after 50 pages they go straight onto the pile without a second thought). This was one such book and it more than passed the 50 pages test.

Frank and April are living in the suburbs with their children. Frank has a job in New York, April cooks, cleans and puts a dress on when Frank returns home so she can present him with a martini and a smile.

They dream of a different life, knowing themselves to be different to the people around them and believing that they can and will do better. April makes a radical decision and persuades Frank of the merits of it. But as the plans start to unravel, the fault lines in their marriage become apparent and

I have no desire to watch the movie. Reflecting on this, I think it’s because the book does a wonderful job of describing scenes that feel extremely visual, while the nuances of the characters’ interior lives couldn’t be conveyed on screen effectively. It’s all about the small twists in how we talk to ourselves, convince ourselves and others of our point of view and then move on with our lives.

54 Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon
First in a long series of Venice-based detective novels. I will keep reading these for the characters (including Venice which is a character in its own right) rather than the plot (conductor found dead in his dressing room at the opera house, turns out he was a nasty piece of work with many people who had good reason to want him dead). I’ve got the next couple lined up from the library.

53 Yellowface by RF Kuang
June Hayward didn’t write the book that she’s being feted for. Or rather, she wrote it, based on a story idea and fragments of narrative that her dead friend left on her desk, and which Juniper discovered in the aftermath of said friend’s untimely death. Once the train has left the station, how do you stop it? And should you even try?

I thought this was a lot of fun, while also making some astute points about cancel culture, cultural appropriation and social media. It was certainly far better than Babel – tighter, funnier and better constructed. I know not everyone has loved it, but I would certainly recommend it.

52 Holiday at the Dewdrop Inn by Eve Garnett
I do love these books. Kate Ruggles goes back to the Dewdrop Inn to recover from measles, just in time for the village fete and various other festivities. Wonderful nostalgic easy comfort reading.

51 Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport
I found myself getting increasingly frustrated with the amount of time I spend online, so hoped this would have some good ideas to help me regulate that. I’ve heard some of his podcasts before but this is the first of his books I’ve read. The theory is that you cut out all “discretionary online activity” for a month, go outside, meet people face to face and learn hobbies and skills. I managed it – up to a point, I wasn’t prepared to give up music or podcasts and I failed at the “learn a skill” but I did cut down radically on social media and finish some craft projects I had hanging round, as well as getting together with more people face to face, which was great. I don’t think this has radically changed my life, but it’s certainly improved it a lot at a time when being online doesn’t feel like a particularly fun place to be.

@TattiePants - 20,000 Streets Under The Sky will break your heart. And then if there's any heart left to break, almost any other of his later novels will do the same.

Yes, I think I probably would have enjoyed it more if I had read it as a teenager.