I've just finished Yellowface (but am behind on reviews...). I'd say definitely worth 99p. I thought it was a lot better and more tightly done than Babel, and it's a very contemporary tale of cancel culture, race and friendship. I don't expect it will make it to my year end list of bolds, but it was just what I needed (unreliable narrator, engaging story, well plotted, not too much navel gazing).
Sending you all the best, @Owlbookend. I've just got back from visiting a good friend who's going through treatment at the moment. It's brutal. I hope you've got good people around you looking after you.
48 The Talisman by Peter Straub and Stephen King
I think I voiced my frustration with this on the thread a while back. While it got significantly better about half way through it was still slow, and much less engaging than most of King’s novels. The whole “switch back and forth between worlds” got quite tiresome and I had limited interest in the quest element, compared to the set pieces (in particular, an extended episode set in a boys’ home run by a terrifying sadist). In the interests of completeness, particularly across the Dark Tower universe, I’m glad I finished it but it certainly won’t be one I recommend to anyone. Though it obviously benefited from Straub’s input to the ending, which didn’t make me want to throw it across the room.
47 Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid
I must be one of the last people on the thread to read this. I think I started it a year ago and abandoned it but found it more approachable this time and raced through it quickly. This felt like two books put together – young woman coming of age while grappling with racial politics and career angst, and older woman grappling with racial guilt and career angst, coupled with a fair dose of ambivalence about motherhood. I don’t think that necessarily made it a worse book, but I wasn’t hugely gripped by it.
46 Ready Steady Go by Paul Oakenfold
As music books go, this was a bit of a disappointment. Lots of back story and business dealings but not a great deal about the music, or how he feels about music.
45 Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara
An extended piece of investigative journalism looking at the cobalt and rare metals supply chain that powers all of modern life. While the large tech companies all have human rights statements and commitments to removing forced and child labour from their supply chain, the truth is that the supply of commodities into the supply chain right at the point of mining combines properly sourced metals and those mined by people in desperate conditions for far less than their labour is worth. And the Congolese people who should be enjoying a standard of living like that of people in other asset rich countries are among the poorest in the world. This was depressing, miserable and guilt-inducing in equal measure. It certainly made me think twice about replacing my current phone which is, to all intents and purposes, completely fine, just a bit slow. But the book doesn’t really explore what we as consumers can do, given there is essentially no ethical alternative to not buying electronics, electric cars, and so on.
44 Joe Country by Mick Herron
At this point in the series the plots seem slightly incidental to the undertaking. In fact I’m already hard pushed to remember how it was that they all ended up somewhere a long way from London in grave peril. But it doesn’t matter because the characters are so good. I’d have liked more Roddy Ho, because everything is better when Roddy is involved (not for the people around him) but otherwise all good and on to the next one.