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?

Did anyone else surreptitiously read a book under the desk at school?

Yes, during maths waves at Sonnet

also did anyone else surreptitiously read a book under the desk at school ?
Yes! I also read whilst walking to (secondary) school. Which was mostly fine except the day I had my head so far buried in No Greater Love by Danielle Steele that I almost got hit by a car. Which my mum's friend was driving.

176. About Last Night. Laura Henry
     A lesbian romance. Audrey finally breaks up with her abusive, cheating girlfriend. She then has a one night stand with Toni. There was a lot of sex at this point. 3 days later Audrey starts her new job, and quelle surprise, Toni is her boss. Lots of fun ensues. There's also complicated sister relationships with both women. A nice, fun easy read.

177. The Bite. Jim X Dodge. 13 year old Mitzie is struggling to survive in a post apocalyptic, zombie infested world. So she does what any sensible teen would do and lies about being bitten and claims immunity. A team is then assembled to accompany Mitzie across Florida to a lab who are trying to find a cure. Most of them, unsurprisingly die and Mitzie realises the error of her lies. And not everyone is who they say they are. I think this book is actually aimed at teens, so if you own some of those, they might like it. It was a really quick read.

178. Searchlight, The Rock. Ann Bryant. This book is for 7-11 year old, but if I don't list it my numbers won't tally. 12 year old twins and their mum crash land on Earth and have to learn to be human whilst trying to find their father. Great for the age group!

179. The Walk. Emma Marns. Heartbreaking. I cried a lot. Maire and Ailbe both find themselves pregnant and unmarried in 1970s Ireland. Ailbe gets sent to the Bessborough home, where anyone who knows about the Magdalen laundries can imagine how she was treated. Maire has better luck and is sent to live with relatives of the babies father. The story spans 30 years. You have to suspend belief slightly at the outcomes and who and how people meet. Like any book that's "based on" real events.

I saw that Times article and rolled my eyes. She'd have been flummoxed by our meet up - it was many (good) things but not very dark.

I really like a novella, CutFlowers. But have a strong aversion to short stories - they don't have the space to breathe that characters get in a novella.

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh 👋

So I started The Bee Sting by Paul Murray last night - enjoying it so far.

I also started as a re-read The 4 Pillar Plan by Dr Rangan Chatterjee - it made a big impression on me previously and as a result of not being well really since the start of the year I have let my eating and exercise go by the by. I hope this will kick start my self help!

I was lucky that my primary school encouraged more advanced readers. In the older age groups we used to have a short session a day for independent reading and my teacher quickly realised he needed to tap me on the shoulder when it was over as I would be do engrossed in my book. Once I'd read everything in the school library he was bringing books from home for me to read.

Just raced through (how competitive!) Great Uncle Harry. Michael Palin's book about - well- about this Great Uncle Harry.

Harry died in the Somme but very little was known about him in the family. The reason for this is clear. He went abroad quite young, didn't marry or have children, their letters don't seem to have been kept and he was a regular but terse diary writer.

Nevertheless, from this Palin manages to resurrect fondly his Great Uncle from the shadows - a lot of it is supposition. Notwithstanding, I liked the idea that harry was just quite an ordinary man (middle class, yes) not a decorated war hero, not an officer,didn't die a remarkable death, no academic honours , lived in the shadow of a brilliant father and a dashing brother who died tragically young. The end paragraph of the book is genuinely affecting.

It did make me ponder , though, ow much or war writing- especially fiction but also non fiction - is about the middle and upper classes and how much the witness of the working classes has been lost. Presumably there are archival reasons for this. I don't count Robbie from Atonement because the whole point is that the upper middle classes have taken him ,and polished him, and then dumped him when it doesn't suit : but that he is no longer really working class.

Can anyone think of exceptions? Morpurgo tries,but any others for grown ups?

I am reading a novel called The Warm Hands Of Ghosts by Katherine Arden at the moment @Piggywaspushed and the main characters a nurse and a soldier in WW1, are more working class/impoverished lower middle than upper middle imo. It starts with the explosion of the Mont Blanc in Halifax, Canada and the impact of that on the surrounding area concentrates on the devastation wrought on working people.

ETA: for children, but Robert Westall wrote about war and the working class.

Thanks. It does seem like children's writers do it more.

I still think of the TV adaptation of The Machine Gunners if anyone ever says ' Where we going now?'

Can anyone think of exceptions? Morpurgo tries,but any others for grown ups?

AL Kennedy's Day springs to my mind, Piggy. The protagonist (I doubt you'd call him a hero) is from a very abusive background in Staffordshire and the RAF in wartime gives him a sort of 'family'. He ends up in a POW camp and then after the war - still traumatised - finds himself as an extra in a film, playing a POW.

It's not an easy read, though. DH picked it for our bookclub and only two people came 😂

It’s many years since I read it so I could be completely wrong but Birdsong came to mind.

I think Pat Barker covers a range of social classes in her WW1 trilogy - not so much the first part, but the second two books about Billy (I think?) who is definitely working class.

Birdsong is really middle class, isn't it?

I feel like, even when there are working class characters they aren't protagonists, and are evened up with some posh tragic officers!

Some interesting suggestions, though!

I can’t remember! The only bit I can remember is about colliers.

45. My Italian Bulldozer: Alexander McCall Smith.

Paul is a Scottish writer of food and wine. He struggles to finish his latest book on Tuscan cuisine following the break-up of his relationship. His editor suggests he goes and spends time in the quaint village of Montalcino for rest and relaxation while he finds inspiration in his surroundings to finish his book.

The title caught my eye in the library and I have fond memories of reading the series about The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency, so I chose this for a nice easy read and it didn't disappoint. Enjoyable.

I've probably forgotten, too. Probably influenced by Faulks being v posh!

Billy Prior iirc. I suppose I just remember the officers, but you're right about Billy.

I'm going to squeeze on with my last review for this thread:

Gabby Logan - The Midpoint Plan. This is a manual for how to thrive in middle age, nicely written on the whole. Apart from the views and experiences of the author and her interviewee's, there's nothing here that I haven't read about in newspaper articles and other books, but it's nice to have the advice in one place. I was disappointed that Gabby barely mentioned the benefits of counselling and psychotherapy in the mental health chapter, and I'd have appreciated some transparency of why her physical health has improved because of the private healthcare she seemingly uses.

Unfortunately (imo) the Billy Prior sections of the Barker series are genuinely dreadful writing.

I can’t think of any other working class characters anywhere though.

Just popping out of my ‘I’ve forgotten how to read’ coffin to say hello. I’ve been reading poetry, and have especially enjoyed revisiting Plath. I don’t like all or even much of her stuff tbh, but there’s the odd line that absolutely blows me away.

Squeezing on here too!

38 A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr

Finally got round to reading this and it is as lovely and as elegiac as everyone else has said. Damaged by his experiences in the Great War, Tom Birkin arrives in the village of Oxgodby with no money, tasked with restoring a medieval mural in its church. His time there will heal him, but also break him in new ways. Carr does not only evoke the sleepy sultriness of a long English summer (although he does that astoundingly well) - he also packs art, love, heartbreak, friendship, renewal into a paltry 100 pages. Not a word wasted. Although of course pre-dating her work, it reminded me very much of Claire Keegan's style. It's wonderful, do read it.

39 The Letters Volume IV: 1929 – 1931 by A Reflection of the Other Person – Virginia Woolf

I think I am now mildly obsessed with Virginia Woolf. It's my own fault because it was much cheaper to buy her entire works in a mammoth Kindle volume than to purchase individual books, so it's now just there on my phone, and I can't resist dipping into it from time to time. The Letters are perfect for this, and I enjoyed reading this volume as it covers the period when Woolf met Ethel Smyth, whose autobiography I read after coming across her in Year of Wonder. Woolf's letters to Smyth are much more challenging and ideas-heavy than her letters to her other correspondents (including Vita Sackville-West) and provide a very interesting insight into their relationship. I think my next dip into Woolf will be her diaries for the same period. Good for reading on the tube when you've forgotten your paper book!

I need to re-read my Complete Works of Sylvia Plath (bought, unoriginally, when I discovered her at 16). I have random favourites which change over time, but I have always loved "Resolve". And a friend who has since sadly died introduced me to "You're", which I still think is dizzyingly brilliant.

@MorriganManor – I’m so pleased I wasn’t the only one!

72 Squeaky Clean – Calum McSorley. This has been reviewed a couple of times on here. Debut author from Glasgow and I think he won an award for it. Certainly doesn’t feel like debut author. Well written, non Scots may struggle with some of the words/phrases. Enjoyed.

It was the one thing I didn't like about In Memoriam last year - the relentless poshness.

I think something by non English authors may be better like All Quiet on the Western Front?

@Southeastdweller we may need another thread!!

I am posting way more than I ought - but ha - yes - and got caught!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/5126904-50-books-challenge-2024-part-six