50 Books Challenge 2024 Part Six

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the sixth 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, the fourth one here and the fifth one here.

What are you reading?

@Tarragon123 I too picked up Caledonian Road in the kindle deals but have t got around to it yet so I’ll be interested to see your review. I didn’t love Before the Coffee Gets Cold but I struggle with Japanese fiction- I find the writing too flat- so others may have a much more positive review for you.

Loving the book holiday chats! I brought 3 plus kindle to Porto earlier in the summer but didn’t even finish the three- city breaks don’t leave a lot of time. Going on a pool side holiday in October and hope to read at least 5-8 in that week! I do love the kindle for travelling- saves me using up half my luggage allowance on books.

I’ve finished a couple more
133 Notes of a Native Son- James Baldwin
It’s Baldwin’s 100th anniversary and I’ve loved the two novels of his I read before so thought I’d try this book of essays. Part 2 and 3 of the book were excellent- about being a black American and has family during his growing up and young adulthood (1920s-1950s) and also about his life in France. The piece about his father was particularly moving. The first part, though brilliantly written, was about cultural touchstones at the time which I was unfamiliar with (eg the movie Carmen Jones) so I didn’t enjoy it so much.

134 The Axeman’s Carnival by Catherine Chidgey
Chidgey is a writer from NZ and every book seems to be remarkably different. The last one I read (and loved) was Pet from the perspective of a child in the 1980s. This one is a very different tone and from the perspective of a magpie nursed back to health as a baby by Marnie, a farmer’s wife in a remote farm. We see Marnie and her hisband, and her wider family from Tama’s (the magpie’s) perspective. Parts of this are funny, parts dark and sad and overall it’s an interesting and quirky read. Will definitely read more by this author.

Currently on my August classic book club read (Crime and Punishment- I avoided the audio after Eine’s experience) a book of short stories which is just okay, and a Mark Lawrence fantasy which I’m really enjoying. Also listening to the second Ruth Galloway The Janus Stone.

Another one here who didn’t really enjoy Before The Coffee Gets Cold - I thought it was a really intriguing idea but then the book just didn’t do anything with it in my opinion. I know others on here have really enjoyed it though so hopefully you will too Tarragon.

That was exactly my thoughts on Before the Coffee Gets Cold, great idea but poor characterisation and not well executed.

@SheilaFentiman I'm really tempted to buy Demon Copperhead on kindle. I have a brand new paper copy but since getting my kindle I never reach for paper books anymore.

@ÚlldemoShúl your review of Notes from a Native Son is interesting. I've loved the James Baldwin books I've read so far but this one didn't grab me when I started it so I put it down. Sounds like I need to give it another go and plough through the first bit.

@Tarragon123 I read Before the Coffee Gets Cold a couple of years ago in our Bookgroup. From memory we all mainly enjoyed it but it was one for me that over promised and under delivered. Having said that if it wasn’t for Bookgroup I don’t think I would ever have picked it up as it really didn’t appeal that much. One of our group absolutely adored it though and scored it a 9 out of 10 (which is very high for our book group!). Hopefully it will hit the spot for you.

Not much reading time for me this evening which is frustrating as I’m loving Prophet Song

54 Ghosts Of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures - Mark Fisher

Collection of essays from the esteemed politics / music / culture writer and blogger. Although some of the topics are more interesting than others, as ever he managed to make complex political/ cultural points without sacrificing readability, and this has pointed me in the direction of some other books to read - inc David Peace’s Red Riding books and the Savage Messiah fanzine collection - so will report back on those soon.

The Cold Coffee books also suffer from diminishing returns.

70. The Ministry Of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Blurb:

In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering 'expats' from across history to test the limits of time-travel.

Her role is to work as a 'bridge': living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as '1847' - Commander Graham Gore.

There are also a number of other "expats"

I read this all in a couple of days but I can't be too enthusiastic because my honest view is that this is nonsense. Bollocks of the highest order. It doesn't make any sense and is a Swiss Cheese 🧀 of plot holes

Why these people? Why their era? Why? Why? Why?

You never find out.

I want someone else to read it then PM me a synopsis because right now I'm at a loss with it.

It's not even as if it's not my thing as per my username I love a bit of a time travel story, if it works. This did not. A shame. I wanted something more cerebral than silly.

That's a fab pile of books @cassandre , Starlight is strange and wonderful, enjoy!

55 1974 - David Peace

First of the Red Riding crime series and an extremely dark and brutal piece of Northern noir. Not a light read for sure but stylish and compelling, leaves a lot of questions unanswered for later in the series.

96. The Morning Gift, Eva Ibbotson
Ruth is part-Jewish and needs to escape late 1930s Vienna; a handsome young Englishman helps her to do so by marrying her. Of course they will go their separate ways once in England - won't they? Ibbotson sticks to her formula - the hero is wealthy, sophisticated and kind, her heroine is young, has lots of hair, is endearingly naive and yet cultured (this particular heroine recites Goethe to a sheep) and there are obstacles in true love's path. But I love her anyway - it's funny and pleasing and the world of the Viennese exiles in London is beautifully drawn.

97. Why Mummy Drinks on Holiday, Gill Sims
More mysteriously, why does bibliomania read this trash? I wasn't intending to, but the shiny new cover winked up at me in the library and I picked it up. Mummy manages the summer holidays with her two moppets - she's off work with money to splash around but deep in self-pity because she's not living the dream. For extra frazzled points, her children here are younger than in previous books, but the author hasn't bothered to stick to her own timeline and here she becomes friendly with characters that she'll be deriding when their children are all older. Its main sin is that it's not that funny. There's a scene when they challenge themselves by taking a bus to the beach, regardless of the horrors of public transport. Oh my aching sides.

98. Killing Time, Jodi Taylor
Latest Time Police novel, not her best. Some characters are stranded on a ghost train hurtling through time and space while others mount a very long-drawn-out rescue operation, and so on for nearly 600 pages. I wrestle a bit with this series, due to the underlying current that (time) police brutality is amusing but I do like the scenes set in different times. There aren't enough here and the character development is glacial.

Thank you for all your feedback on Before The Coffee Gets Cold. I’m even more looking forward to reading it. I think I was alone in enjoying The Maiden, so maybe it’s a book for me 😊

78 Death and Croissants – Ian Moore. This kept popping up on Kindle as a suggestion, so when I saw it in the library, I decided to borrow. They are very much targeting the ‘Cosy Crime’ genre, so if you like Richard Osman and Rev Richard Coles, you’ll like Ian Moore type of thing.

Book blurb: Richard is a middle-aged Englishman who runs a B&B in the fictional Val de Follet in the Loire Valley. Nothing ever happens to Richard, and really that's the way he likes it.

One day, however, one of his older guests disappears, leaving behind a bloody handprint on the wallpaper. Another guest, the exotic Valerie, persuades a reluctant Richard to join her in investigating the disappearance. Richard remains a dazed passenger in the case until things become really serious and someone murders Ava Gardner, one of his beloved hens... and you don't mess with a fellow's hens!

He kills off a hen. Just no. One of the first rules of Cosy Crime is that you do not kill off pets. And the worst bit is, you don’t find out who kills the hen! I’ve scoured Good Reads and folk like me who didn’t enjoy the book, are furious about Ava Gardner’s death. However, it appears to have been popular and he has completed another 3 books in the series with another one planned. I cant even be bothered writing a proper review. Do not recommend and I like Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series (but not Rev Richard Coles).

53 The Seaside by Madeleine Bunting
This has been hanging around in my physical TBR pile for a while but other non fic jumped in ahead of it, plus I picked it up a few times and wondered why I’d bought it, as some travelogues can be dire (more on that later!).
It is superb! She starts up on the Yorkshire coast and works her way clockwise, ending up in Morecambe. It’s not a chronological or continuous journey, as she has childhood ties with Runswick Bay and later, Brighton, plus her early career as a journalist gives her an insight into other coastal resorts. Many of her visits took place inbetween lockdowns during Covid. Some were with friends, some with family.She has her own interesting interpretations of the places she visits, but she’s never Judgy and is very generous in giving space for other voices, both historical and contemporary. She does a lot of sea swimming and eats a lot of fish and chips.
What shines through is not only her love of the liminal coastal areas but that that love is shared by so many people, for so many different reasons.
I knew a little about the health and wealth inequalities in coastal towns compared to inland but it was like a cold splash of sea water reading them set out time and time again throughout this book. There’s also no small amount of hope in this book, with projects intended to address poverty, health and social alienation in every place she goes to.
It’s on a par with books by Peter Ross and Stuart Maconie imo. I’m trying to decide which one of Bunting’s to read next, although I’m worried it won’t be up to the high standard of this one.

35 Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue. Set in a girls' boarding school in York in 1805/6 (plus a much briefer timeline 10 years later), we hear about the experiences of half-Indian Eliza and her intriguing friend Lister. I assumed this was fiction until I found out in the author's note that it's based on real people, using letters and diaries as source material. I enjoyed it.

36 The Herd by Emily Edwards. Elizabeth and Bry are best friends until their differing views on vaccinating their children, and the consequences of these views, tears them apart. Decent chick lit.

@Tarahumara I bought Learned by Heart last month when it was 99p as I've enjoyed all her other books. Glad it's got a positive review.

@Tarragon123 I agree with all that has been said about Before the Coffee Gets Cold: an interesting concept marred by the execution. Perhaps something was lost in translation but it didn't grip me as the blurb suggested it might, and I haven't gone back to the sequels (partly based on what others have said here). I found Convenience Store Woman disappointing too, maybe Japanese fiction just isn't my thing.

180. Vengeance Day. Simon Dinsdale
     Book 2 in the Christian Dane detective thrillers. Christian is still being persued by baddies from his army days in NI.

181. Serabelle. Tavi Taylor Black
     Set in America at the time of their fight for women's suffrage. It was a bit "upstairs, downstairs"/"Downton Abbey in the sense it was about upper and lower classes and how they lived alongside each other. I can't remember much else about it (doesn't mean it's not good, just I have a bad memory)

182. War Bunny. Christopher St. John
     Set in the distant future, humans are extinct and animals roam the land. They have their own religion, the book has some brilliant passages from their scripture (which is very similar to the Bible). There's a strict hierarchy, ordained by 'Dah' and rabbits are pretty low down. Their main purpose is to be "glorified" aka killed by other animals. Until Anastasia. She decides rabbits should be allowed to live and the rabbits, helped by some other animals start to fight back. It sounds bonkers, but was really good.

183. Descended. Ingrid J. Adams
     A bold for me. A coming of age story with a fantasy element. Witches, dark magic and first loves.

184. If I Can Save One Child. Amanda Lees. Based on a combination of real people, it's a fictional account of the underground system, SOEs and spies in WW2 and the lengths they went to in order to save innocent lives.

185. Sweet Delusions. Bea Miller
     Cassandra and James agree to be FWB, but of course fall in love. This was very close to the cheesy category of smut for me.

186. The Broken Pieces of Us. Celia Tandy. Slow starter. As in i was over half way through before I started to enjoy it. Rosie gets a job as a nanny for widower Matt. And then they fall in love. And some other stuff.

187. Infinite Stranger. Wendy Skorupski
     On the eve of her wedding Leah looks back on her life, particularly her relationship with her mum and where that went wrong. And the Monk friend she had made as a teenager. I think most teenage girls have very inappropriately crushes. But most of is outgrow them much sooner than Leah!

188. Walking Out of This World. Stephen Ford
     A walking group end up in a mysteries village where they meet people from their pasts, first loves mainly. Then bad shit happens and they get stuck in awful situations. There are strong hints at both Male-Female and Male-Male rape. It was an interesting commentary on not dwelling too much in the past.

189. All The Light We Cannot See. Anthony Doerr
     I'm probably the last person on Earth to read this so I don't need to review it I don't think. I loved it. Easy bold.

190. Vengeance Street. Louise Sharland.
     Grace is a probation officer who's life is falling apart. She's divorced, has a teenage daughter and all the issues that come with that. She might have made a mistake that cost a 9 year old her life. And now her clients keep showing up dead.

And I don't usually list audiobooks (personal preference) so haven't numbered this. But it was so good it needs a mention.
19, The Musical It's pretty much a full musical, rather than a narrated book. Its the story of the 19th Amendment. The women's right to vote in America. Loved it. I especially liked the parts when make characters just said "mansplain mansplain mansplain" rather than any actual words.

Catching up on some reviews

Books 198 - 208 were the rest of the St Mary’s series by Jodi Taylor, including the collected short story books. Most were rereads, but I hadn’t read the last three previously. The last one does feel like the last one, with lots of story threads wrapped up, but she’s said it’s not the last one so I’m intrigued to see where she goes with it next. Maybe focusing on a different set of characters, or a different incarnation of St Mary’s? Anyway, I love this series and have throughly enjoyed my reread and the three new reads.

209 Sketches of Young Gentlemen and Young Couples, with Sketches of Young Ladies by Charles Dickens and Edward Caswell

Dickens wrote these short amusing essays for magazines, about different types of young man or young couples (The Theatrical Young Gentleman, The Cool Young Couple etc.). Edward Caswell then wrote some about young ladies which are also included here. Good fun for Dickens fans, but not much here for you if you’ve never got on with Dickens.

210 High, Wide, and Handsome: An American Journey by Julian Bishop

A Brit living in the US drives from coast to coast. The travelogue part was interesting but there’s lots in here explaining aspects of American life that are different to British life and I found all that really interesting, particularly the obsession with high school and college sport!

211 The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford

A reread for the Rather Dated thread on here. A very funny book!

212 RMS Titanic in 50 Objects by Bruce Beveridge

Uses the device of different objects linked to Titanic to tell the story of the ship. Nicely presented but most of the objects were actually from the sister ship Olympic (saying they would have been identical on Titanic), and as a bit of a Titanic geek this didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. Would be a good starting point if you don’t already know much about the story though.

213 Our Holiday by Louise Candlish

I usually enjoy her books but this wasn’t great. Second home owners clash with locals in a seaside town. This was too long and drawn out and none of the characters were likeable so it was hard to sympathise with any of them. Not one of her best.

214 A Time To Change by Callie Langridge

Someone upthread read this and it sounded intriguing, as I love a time travel book. Lou discovers she’s able to go back in time to when the local derelict stately home was lived in by the family, and she makes changes to their lives that influence her own once she’s back in the present day. This was all fine but then it adds in additional complications of the house permanently ‘collecting’ time travellers (one in, one out) which was never
properly explained and seemed unnecessary to me!

215 One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware

Lord of the Flies but with adults!

A group of 5 couples is taken to a desert island to film a new reality TV series looking for ‘one perfect couple’ as the winners. However they’re all stranded after a storm and have to do whatever’s necessary to survive and find out the real aim of the show. I really enjoyed this - all a bit preposterous of course (they’re all alarmingly naive about the TV show they were going into - surely some of them would have read the documents?!) but kept me gripped.

Eine I've heard very mixed reviews of The Ministry of Time but it seems to be big on the publishing push list this year. Not one I'll be reaching for based on your review!

63. All Fours - Miranda July. I've been listening to this in audible since June but keep having to stop it as it is definitely not suitable for my work commute. I finally decided to get the Kindle version instead - it's only £1.99 at the moment if anyone fancies it. This feels quite auto-biographical although it is marketed as fiction. An unnamed first person semi-famous artist (like July!) is the narrator in her mid-40s who embarks on a drive across America to New York. She gets about half an hour from her home in LA, becomes obsessed with a guy she meets at a service station, and ends up staying in a motel near him for the next few weeks. It all gets very weird and very sexual with graphically described sex of pretty much every description, but interspersed with musings on mid-life, menopause, monogamy and generally how to navigate the next half of your life. There are some interesting ideas like having a day away from your partner a week, although questionable if they're really workable. This is definitely a book you'll either love or hate. Likely to get MNetters' backs up is her non-gendered child referred to as them throughout. In fact, the narrator would get ripped to shreds on any number of Aibu posts! I enjoyed it while thinking it could have been a bit shorter - the end doesn't really go anywhere - but would give it 4.5*.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I felt exactly the same about The Ministry of Time. There's a TV series coming soon. Total Emperor's New Clothes. I wondered if the massive pushing of it has been some kind of dare.

21 The Bear and the Nightingale - Katherine Arden
Thoroughly enjoyable tale of a young woman growing into her magical powers in medieval Russia, includes folkloric creatures and talking horses as well as conflict with the Orthodox church.

That's good to hear @SapatSea that it wasn't just me. I must've missed your review

It doesn't add up. It doesn't make any sense within the established parameters it itself sets.

Yes this is why I'm not keen to read the second one. I thought the first one was okay, but I'm not keen on wasting my precious reading time on something I know in advance I'm not likely to enjoy!

I found (and bought) quite a few Kindle book bargains last night that aren't listed as daily or monthly deals (some of them were on my wishlists). They included All Fours by Miranda July (as mentioned above, £1.99). I already bought Learned by Heart last month but it's 99p again at the moment, and it's about the young Anne Lister as a girl at boarding school in the very early 19th century (from the description, not yet read it). For 99p each I bought quite new novels by Sarah Hilary and Rachel Cusk, and Lucy Caldwell's latest collection of short stories, Openings (I thought her novel These Days and 2nd story collection Intimacies were excellent, and I still have some of her other books TBR).

I also found 6 of Willy Vlautin's 7 novels are on sale for 99p - I already had 3 on Kindle and 2 in paperback, but I've bought the 3 I didn't have on Kindle - I've read his 1st and 6th books and have the new one out of the library. He's an American musician/songwriter and novelist, his writing is set in the American west (Oregon, Nevada and New Mexico) and the two books I've read are about people living very precarious lives, not the most cheerful reading, I think his songs are on similar themes....

78 Angela’s Ashes - Frank McCourt
Frank’s memoir of growing up in Ireland during the depression.
This was heavy but lifted by Frank’s light humour which is I suppose how children view things. Matter of fact and then they move on. I found it similar to the Helen Forrester books so I wouldn’t say I found it shocking (though of course it is, I’m just desensitised I think) but a very good read. Not sure if it’s a bold for me as I found it quite dense in some areas and then it skipped others very quickly which I don’t always get on with but very good nonetheless.

Thanks @elkiedee I picked up Parade. Look forward to hearing your thoughts on All Fours!