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 also read Wild Swans and mainly remember the feet.

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake (illustrated edition) I’ve had the full version on my shelf for a couple of years and never got round to it, then discovered there is an abridged version with beautiful photographs (thank you if someone here recommended it) so borrowed it from the library. Absolutely fascinating and revelatory, I had absolutely no idea how central fungi are to plant and animal life. So many fascinating facts and new angles on the world eg the distinction that whereas animals put food into their bodies, fungi put their bodies into food; fungi being like a body without a body plan. The illustrated edition is glossy and beautiful, almost magazine-like which was annoying when it occasionally went to the extent of repeating good sentences in enlarged type a few paragraphs later. Am far too strait-laced ever to try magic mushrooms but now feel I’m missing out! Still don’t know why they grow in rings though.

Unruly by David Mitchell - listened via BorrowBox. Entertaining account of England’s Kings and Queens up to Elizabeth I. Mitchell narrates the audiobook himself - so quickly I checked a couple of times I hadn’t inadvertently sped it up . The history, commentary and jokes flow engagingly, though I’m not sure I’ve retained much. There’s a lot of swearing so not great for listening to with kids in earshot.

I read Wild Swans and mostly remember her talking about helping her Auntie have a poo and wondering why on Earth she included it.

Still don’t know why they grow in rings though.

Mushrooms are just the fruiting heads. So you start with one, then next year you have a small ring round that, the next year a bigger ring around that and so on and so forth.

“Oh, and someone left a slaughtered fox in his car.”

@Terpsichore 😀

I feel this could be the 50B catchphrase for when an author has just gone A Bit Too Far 😀

61 Girl A - Abigail Dean

Got this after reading comments on the author upthread. A bold.

Girl A (Lex) escaped at the age of 15 from a “House of Horrors” where her parents had kept her and her siblings captive for years. It is a mix of present day (when Lex is named executor of her mother’s will) and flashbacks, and carefully builds the increasing severity of the cult-like atmosphere built by Father in the house.

@Tarahumara the brief summary is that the book is banned in China and so is any mention of either the book or the author in the Chinese media. Copies of the book that the author has attempted to post to China have never arrived. However, there is a Chinese-language version produced for Taiwan and Hong Kong and she's been able to take copies into China in her luggage. She personally never has her luggage searched and isn't under any surveillance when in China. So although it's officially banned, there are copies circulating and many have read it. An edited version was attempted which left out her views on Mao's character but this was also rejected by the government censors.

Sorry, one more thing to add to the summary: among the Chinese citizens that have read the book, it is considered to be accurate and is therefore popular with younger generations who are able to get their hands on an illegal copy as the government have heavily censored accounts of the history of Mao's regime

The Marches by Rory Stewart is 99p on Kindle. Not sure I can stand more of him, even at that price!

In the never-not-confusing world of Kindle deals, there are 31 pages of Prime Day book deals. Link is on the 'all Kindle deals' page, but also pasting it here in the faint hope that the link might work: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?rh=n%3A8517542031&fs=true&ref=lp_8517542031_sar

Thanks @noodlezoodle I've had a look but it's mostly dross and I gave up. Hopefully others will have finds!

My quick update before I kick back and enjoy catching up with this thread

Book 10 The Death of Lucy Kyte by Nicola Upson - bestselling crime author Josephine Tey inherits a remote Suffolk cottage from her godmother, it came full of secrets including an infamous murder committed near the cottage a century before which still haunts the local community. Josephine comes to observe that something dark has a tight hold on the heart of this small community. Is it just the ghosts of the Red Barn murder, or is there something very much alive that she needs to fear! In the will is also named a woman Lucy Kyte but nobody knows about her. Until, one day, Josephine finds a diary which opens doors into the past and leads her to where Lucy is today.
For me this overpromised and underdelivered. It felt very drawn out and given nothing happens for the first 150 pages was very nearly a DNF!
Book 11 is Old Gods Time by Sebastian Barry I am loving the lyrical way this book is written but finding the subject matter hard. I’m also getting a little confused as to what is “real” and what us an “illusion”. Galloping through it pretty quickly given I only started it yesterday

@Sonnet i read a few of the Nicola Upsons and found them ok… it did inspire me to go back to my Josephine Tey books, though 😀

Keir Starmer - Tom Baldwin

Biography of our new PM.
I was fascinated by it, he has quite the CV and his childhood story was quite moving.It’s rather a flattering portrait but I like what I’ve seen so far.

47 The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty

Still going through my kindle backlist to find books I’d had a while.
I wasn’t sure I liked this to start with, but it grew on me. It’s a first novel of the “showcase” type, I felt, where an author throws everything in to impress and some parts didn’t work as well as others. What she is good at is the hidden thoughts and feelings of ordinary people and I greatly enjoyed the sections where she slowed down a bit and explored motivation etc. There could have been a whole book about Elsie Blitz and her poor, neglected son Moses, for instance. The ending was a bit too pat after the build up to it and the section of Todd’s art was just….meh.
As a whole, it made me laugh, cry and want to kick a pathetic, predatory man in the bollocks so job done, really.

@Sonnet Aw, Lucy Kyte is one of my favourite of the series, but can see it depends on how much you like both Tey's work and Upson's version of Tey. And lurid 19th C murder ballads. Props for continuing with OGT which I shamelessly DNFed 😁

Not sure what it says about me that the daily deals I bought were Girl Unmasked (autism memoir) and Much Ado about Numbers (maths in Shakespeare)... 0 interest in Rory, sorrynotsorry.

The Rabbit Hutch was a bold for me last year I really enjoyed it.

Couldn’t get this link to work but managed somehow to find the list. The Marches by Rory Stewart is in the deals and a recent build for me.

i picked up The Enchanters by James Ellroy having just finished…

51 One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson

The second Jackson Brodie novel, which didn’t quite connect with me in the way the first one did. The characters and plot lines were all a bit disparate (until coming together in a rather contrived way), and I just didn’t really find it compelling. Might look at the next in the series but in the meantime the Ellroy should give me something a bit grittier.

On paper I should have liked it - but possibly an issue with me and my reading slump :)

I'm quite new here but really enjoying seeing what people are reading.

Here are some of the books I've read so far this year:

The Postcard by Anne Berest. Simply one of the best books I have ever read. Translated from the French, it is about a Jewish family and the author tracking down what happened to them during WW2 and before.

The Kamagawi Food Detectives by Hishashi Kashiwai. This was a Japanese best seller. I don't particularly* *understand why tbh. It was sweet and gentle but i found the underlying concept - recreating a dish eaten years ago - pretty underwhelming

West Heart Kill by Dann McDorman. Interesting take on a fairly traditional murder mystery. The reviews were impressive - "genre bending" according to Val McDermid. So I was expecting more than I got.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. I'm sure lots of you have read it. I sailed through it, but found the ending rushed and nowhere near as carefully plotted as the rest of the book.

Everyone Here is Lying by Shari Lapena. Better than average crime thriller.

Sunburn by Laura Lippman. I love everything I've read by her and this is probably my favourite. I had no idea where this story was going.

Fatherland by Burkhard Bilger. Another one chasing down family secrets in WW2 but this time on the German side. I loved it.

Transit by Rachel Cusk. It is like several short stories pulled together into a novel. I love her work and each of the stories is memorable.

Nothing Left to Fear From Hell by Alan Warner. This is a fictitious reenactment of Bonnie Prince Charlie's escape from Scotland, during which he dressed as a maid servant. I love that period in history and the Highlands of Scotland and the book was funny as well as informative and poignant.

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murders by Jesse Q. Suttano. Mixed bag really.

Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang. I got bored with a lot of the publishing industry minutae and found it over long and much in need of editing. It took me ages to read it as I kept getting bored with it. Didn't live up to the hype for me.

What You Are Looking for is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama. Another Japanese "uplifting" book and I much preferred this one. It's a series of short stories in which people find help for their problems through books, which I think we can all relate to!

I’m on the kindle mega sale now. Bad for the wallet 😀

The first Harbinder Kaur is there, for example...

My reading has slowed right down but have just finished this 10. The Woman In The Walls by Faith Cobaine when buying a house doesn’t mean it’s yours. This is a fairly decent ghost story if overly long about Gemma who falls in love with a house called The Lilacs set in the Lake District. The house never seems her own and all sorts of odd happenings happen with a load of tragedy thrown in.

26. Forever Interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Filled the brief of a quick engrossing read. It's fluff but not really as I had tears in my eyes at several points on this one. The main couple are implausibly deeply in love in a way that makes one own relationship look dull in comparison. I wanted to friends with several of the characters.

8 from the sale, only one of which was more than 99p (it was on my wishlist and a big reduction, so I let myself get it :D)

I see what you mean Eine, in fact the only things I fancied on the list were things I already own! But I'm also certain that I saw a lot of those things already in the July deals, so I'm confused about what they really are - particularly as Prime Day hasn't actually started yet. V odd.