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?

Interesting list. I've read 13 of them and have several others on my TBR pile. Fortunately I feel no competitive inkling whatsoever when I look at a list like this!!

I’ve read 17 (I think, it wouldn’t tally for me) including NLMG which I hated plus 1 DNF - Austerlitz, there was only so much railway station architecture I could take. I have another 20ish on my TBR but there are loads I’ve never heard of.

I've read 16 on the NYT list. Most of the ones I have read are the older ones, and predominantly by UK authors. I've started and abandoned a few, including The Human Stain, and The Corrections, and a lot of what I have read I didn't massively rate. Glad to see the love for Americanah, The Line of Beauty and Wolf Hall though.

It's a rich and interesting list, but heavily weighted toward litfic. Virtually no sci fi or fantasy or detective fiction...

I think if the NY Times had surveyed the general public, or booksellers even, to name their favourite 21st century books, the list would have looked quite different. This is very much a list compiled by critics who review books for the NY Times, and authors whose books are reviewed by the NY Times.

Still, I've added some new titles to my TBR list, which is great, since obviously I am in desperate need of a larger TBR pile 😜

@CluelessMama I like the sound of The Return of John McNab. I remember enjoying That Summer, a WWII drama/romance, by the same author. I didn't realise at the time that he was Scottish. Maybe a new writer to discover.
I Seek A Kind Person also sounds very interesting.

@SheilaFentiman I'm in the middle of Iain Pears' novel Stone's Fall just now and having exactly the same experience of feeling a bit lost amidst the details of the various plots and characters. Not helped by having Covid and managing to read only the shortest of sections before falling asleep again. I'm persevering though.

@ÚlldemoShúl Small Things Like These. I was completely engrossed in the story and characters.

I loved that one too! I was hoping it wasn’t my much hated Goon Squad! Though I’m sure some people did love it.

I think if the NY Times had surveyed the general public, or booksellers even, to name their favourite 21st century books, the list would have looked quite different.

If they'd asked the general public Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows would have won.

Goon Squad was one of my DNFs!

@Boiledeggandtoast I wish I had too!

I think I've read 20 of them but I keep getting different totals every time I count!

I have read 1 and 2 of the Neapolitan quartet and thought My Brilliant Friend was fine, but The Story of a New Name was electrifying and I'm not sure why the former is no. 1 and the latter isn't even on there.

Of the others I've read, I think the one I'd single out is The Sympathizer, which isn't the sort of thing I normally pick up at all, but I remember loving it. Bel Canto also fabulous.

I have read 12. Loads I have never heard of. I quite liked #1 but not best book of the century liked!

Love an arbitrary book list. I've read 33 I think. It seemed reasonable enough to me, obviously quite literary, and American leaning. I was shocked at no Sally Rooney though - as she is indisputably a phenomenon, even if she divides opinion!

Finished Butter by Asako Yuzuki and as I feared, she totally chickened out (turkeyed, actually) on the ending. I did enjoy the first 2/3 and want to let the annoyance settle a bit before reviewing.

Thanks for linking the NYT list @PermanentTemporary I must have missed it yesterday in blind rage over my broken Connections streak.
47 read, 5 DNFs and 18 TBR, so am now feeling extremely basic. 😅
Bit surprised to see Say Nothing (rather than Empire of Pain), not remotely surprised at the Ferrante-fest. Most striking omission: Tokarczuk (votes split between too many bangers?) among other oddities. I like their 'if you liked X try Y' blurbs and the nitty gritty, esp. authors nominating their own books - publicly. Could not imagine that happening with a UK equivalent!

This thread adds far more to my TBR (practically all the Irish books mentioned recently.) Glad to see @ÚlldemoShúl 's praise for Glorious Exploits which I recently received as a birthday present from two friends from separate contexts/continents who've never met each other but were equally adamant I'd adore it - the pressure!

And the Scottish John McNab @CluelessMama I loved Andrew Greig's histfic retellings Rose Nicholson and Fair Helen and this sounds like a more modern spin.

@Terpsichore I posted about Holden in one of the Slightly Dated threads (Monica Dickens, maybe?) Hope you enjoy! Handheld Press also have another of her WWII books which also sounds similar (There's No Story There). I badly want to read her pre-war novels (Bright Young Person frippery, apparently) but they go for hundreds, so hoping HH reissues those at some point.

@cassandre Interesting to hear about Chang-the-academic. Young Queens was clearly written by a highly intelligent as well as empathetic woman, which is why the face-value readings were so jarring. I felt she overshot 'accessible' by some way (despite being a general reader who only studied History to A-Level) and imagine it would annoy an actual academic much more. But you're a much kinder reader than I am, so maybe not 😁
Your reviews of Cynthia Harnett make a happier person, though! Barbara Willard definitely belongs on the same shelf, if you haven't tried her yet.

This is very much a list compiled by critics who review books for the NY Times, and authors whose books are reviewed by the NY Times.

I agree.

I've read 30 on the list and tbf apart from the number 1 I enjoyed all the ones I have read from there. Quite a few others I own but haven't got around to yet

@inaptonym

I got todays Connections but I'm very hit and miss with it. It can be absolutely maddening for example the category "Mariah Carey Songs"

I’ve only read 5 on the NYT list, but have enjoyed all 5. Nice to see the marmite Never Let You Go make the top 10.

Thanks for the support @Owlbookend I'm doing better with C&P and will probably finish it.

Handheld Press also have another of her WWII books which also sounds similar (There's No Story There)

@inaptonym I bought that too 🥴

I have read 19 on the NYT list which surprised me as I generally fare quite badly on these types of lists. Think I picked up a few on the non-US authors (Mantel, Ferrante).

Felt as if they had done it specifically for the 50 bookers by including both Station Eleven and Never Let Me Go!

44. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang This is quite well known and I know at least one person here has read it recently so I won't do a long synopsis. But will summarise that it covers three generations of Chinese women through the rise of the Communist party to shortly after Mao's death. Chang is the third daughter of China and she covers the lives of her grandmother and mother followed by her own. This was originally published in 1991 but I read a reprint from 2003 which included an added afterword by the author covering the reception of the book when it was originally published and the way the Chinese regime has treated both the book and the author which was very interesting

I actually read this as a child, I must have been about 10 when my family passed it around on a family holiday and eventually it came to me. I actually didn't remember much of it but the early account of foot binding had stuck with me ever since. I was shocked on re-reading to realise that was one of least violent parts of the book. I'm amazed that having read the book themselves my parents let me read this at such a young age, with so many accounts of torture. This is definitely not a book for the faint-hearted but it's a very important story and gives an incredible insight into china under Mao. The thing that really sticks with me is the story of Chang's father who was a committed and loyal communist, putting the party above his own wife's well-being and yet the party repaid him with years of torture. Absolutely heart breaking

I have just finished Eve which I liked and didn't have the same issues as previous reviewers.

I like Bohannon's writing style although some of the biology and paleoanthropology was too intricate for me (she is publishing a YA version, interestingly).

It got a touch repetitive - for such a long book, an editor should have trimmed out repeated facts and points. I did laugh at 'more on penises later' . I think the thing that has stuck with me most are the parts where she explains why looking after women better is actually better for all society and the bit where she explains that in an ultra marathon, women beat men quite often, which hadn't really occurred to me. I mean, I wouldn't, I can barely run a bath.

20 Everyone Here Is Lying Shari Lapena
William returns home, after the women he is having an affair with breaks things off, to find his 9-year-old daughter Avery unexpectedly home from school. She has been sent home from choir practice after being disruptive and he reacts badly hitting her and slamming out of the house. When he returns, Avery is missing and he cannot bring himself to tell the truth about their final meeting. When i started, I thought it would have been more interesting if their altercation had been less violent and William more of a nuanced character. However, I quickly realised that this was all about plot rather than character and in some ways none the worse for that. Short chapters with the introduction of a dizzying array of suspects kept me going. I gulped it down in two sittings - it was rather like the literary equivalent of a pot noodle. Obviously it is all a bit implausible, but at least the bits of the jigsaw fit together. The only problem is that the perpetrator is revealed much too early and after that it runs of of steam. Didn’t stop me getting to the finish line though.

53. Bluebird, Bluebird - Attica Locke

After a run of fairly worthy reads I was hoping for a decent crime thriller I could consume relatively speedily - unfortunately this didn’t quite hit the spot, but probably due more to my continued problem sticking with something if it doesn’t grip me from the get-go.

Texas Ranger Darren Matthews has the uniform, the 5-pointed star and the impressive over-6-foot build, but he’s also black, and wrestles mightily with the ingrained racism of his home state. When he’s called to a tiny country settlement where two murders have taken place - one of a black man, one of a white woman - he's drawn into a confusing swirl of events and motivations.

I got a bit lost halfway through with this as Darren's many problems started to seem a teeny bit too much - he was suspended from duty, his marriage was on the line, his mother was a deadbeat, he was overfond of a drink, his (white) friend and colleague wasn’t quite as supportive as he’d hoped, and of course everyone in the investigation was against him, white and black. Oh, and someone left a slaughtered fox in his car. On top of all this it was often rather over-written. So I might pass on the other Attica Locke I have on the tbr shelves.

@satelliteheart I read and loved Wild Swans many years ago. I'm really interested in the bit about how the book and author were received in China - could you briefly summarise?