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?

49. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
50. The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
51. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson A re-read of Larsson's Millennium trilogy which I'm sure doesn't require a synopsis. I always think the first book is by far the best and I like that it can be read as a standalone. A few things grate for me and I feel overshadow the whole experience. In book two the repeated use of the word "dyke" to refer to lesbians. I'm not sure if this is an issue with the translator or if the original Swedish used a similar term but I find the frequency of the word really uncomfortable. There is also one instance of the n word being used which I just find unacceptable and unnecessary And in book 3 I find the trial so utterly chaotic and nonsensical. I know absolutely nothing about the the Swedish legal system so will happily be corrected, but I presume a trial would work similarly to an English trial. In the book, one person is in the stand being cross-examined by defence counsel when she suddenly switches to questioning a completely different person who is not in the stand. She questions person 2 for a while before switching back to the person in the stand, then randomly questions a 3rd person, again without them taking the stand. It's such a poorly written scene and I found it very frustrating to read

I quite enjoyed Miss B’s B - I must have been going through a rare high tolerance for nonsense patch.

@Sadik – I love the SJ Bennett series. Easy, fun reading.

79 A Line To Kill – Anthony Horowitz. This book intrigued me as Horowitz has himself as a character in the book. This is the third in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series, which I didn’t realise. I enjoyed the premise of an author writing themselves and I think this worked really well. Hawthorne and Horowitz are invited to a literary festival on the Island of Alderney. Hawthorne is a retired Met detective who Horowitz has been writing about. Add some other writers (I’d love to know who they were based on!) and then the sponsor of the literary festival in murdered. No one leaves the island until the murder is solved. I didn’t guess the murderer. Good plot and characters. Very enjoyable and I will track down the first two books in the series.

@elkiedee @PermanentTemporary I too adore Red Plenty - it was the first book on my abortive '10 best of the 21st C.' list before the NYT closed the ballot 😅Cahokia Jazz was v. good (if v. religious), but better as a wintry read.

More light reads over the last week of the Olympics:
The Last Word - Elly Griffiths
4th in the Harbinder Kaur series, though I was prepared by @Tarragon123 's earlier review not to expect much of the likeable lesbian Sikh detective. Even so, a bit disappointing - if I wanted this much cosy octogenarian porridge-stirring and Wordle-streaking I'd go back to Richard Osman. And I was very not down with the new DS clearly intended to be Harbinder 2.0 for the Shoreham investigative crew. I also wish more had been done with the bookish premise (dead authors, undercover infiltration of a writers' retreat and bookgroup...) - while it wasn't as bad as Val McDermid's Past Lying it wasn't a patch on either Anthony Horowitz series (Hawthorne&Horowitz, Susan Ryeland). Elevated by Nina Wadia's excellent narration, which wrung every bit of humour and warmth from the text.

The Suspect - Rob Rinder
Book 2 of a series, though I'd not read the first - stands alone quite well thanks to the flatness of the characters 🙃 I find RR ('s TV persona) sparky and quick but this was such bland, wooden plod with Jewish mother phone call interludes for comic relief (mostly unsuccessfully). Main mystery resolved deus ex machina with so many holes and threads left dangling it could serve as a Strictly costume. B plot also left unresolved, though this at least felt intentional and threw up some interesting legal and moral questions. The love triangle between the (if not gay, then I'll eat his peruke) male lead and two female colleagues was pure cringe and wholly unnecessary. I don't exactly begrudge the 99p spent on this, but also won't be tracking down the first book (thoroughly spoiled here anyway) or any future instalments.

The Temple of Fortuna - Elodie Harper
Concluding the Wolf Den trilogy set in AD70s Imperial Rome, with a literal (volcanic) bang, but a literary whimper. It all gets a bit Forrest Gumpy as Amara always happens to be in exactly the right place to be eyewitness for all Events of Historical Interest, in the room for the highest levels of political intriguing after Vespasian's death in Rome, on the ground for the eruption of Vesuvius back in Pompeii and right among the fleeing refugees in its aftermath. In trying to cram so much in, everything ends up flattened out, which sacrificed the one thing this series had going for it: emotional involvement - I felt more over a minor bathhouse spat in book 1 than I did over the lives and deaths of major characters here.

English Food - Diane Purkiss
This was by no means bad but was just very okay - felt bitty and tossed together, and didn't satisfy. I like DP's academic work and loved two of her previous popular books (on the English Civil War and English fairylore), which possibly compounded my disappointment.

On to Booker LL reading now, with Headshot. If anyone else wants to skip a months' long library wait for this, it's available on both Everand and Kobo Plus if you sign up (first month free, as with all these subs).

Ha, crossposted @Tarragon123 yes the Hawthorne/Horowitz books are good fun!
@EineReiseDurchDieZeit Someone on here panned Orbital earlier this year, and I also have IRL friends who hated it - you're definitely not alone. I actually feel unable to give it a fair reading at this point, although tbf the premise already had my (SF genre reader) hackles up.

99. Toxic, Sarah Ditum
Reflections on the harshness of celeb culture to famous women between 1998-2013: the rules of the fame game were changing as the online world developed. Interesting to see how you can be wealthy and successful but still find yourself without a lot of power in certain contexts.

100. The Invention of Charlotte Bronte, Graham Watson
This covers the period from when Charlotte found herself famous and how she narrated her own story and that of her siblings, continuing past her death and into the period when Mrs Gaskell was writing her biography, trying to wrench information from Charlotte's father and husband. I found this curiously gripping - it would certainly make you think twice about volunteering to write anyone's biography. How you can tell the truth about anyone's life when everyone sees things differently, and when does it become a betrayal?

101. The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell
We encounter Holly Sykes at various stages in her life, from being a teenage runaway through to later life in a dystopian future west Cork. Each section has a different narrator. Intruding into their stories, we see hints of a battle between supernatural beings, which eventually gets a section all of its own. In other hands, this would have been foregrounded as the main plot, and the sections featuring peripheral characters would have been trimmed down to a few scenes. While I found these sections readable in their own right, I'm not sure they all earned their keep within the larger narrative. It's a baggy way to tell a story - generous or self-indulgent, I'm not sure which.

@satelliteheart I was thinking about The MIllenium Trilogy yesterday as I was going through my Kindle list where they were listed as read and bought many years ago. I'm looking for a big saga so thought they might be worth re reading as I can;t recall the storylines. After seeing your review I do recall the jarring use of the word "dyke" and think there was a lot of graphic violence involving women and a lot of bloat as the trilogy wore on. Is that right? They were such successful books at the time of publication but seem to have totally fallen out of favour.
@bibliomania You are right The Bone Clocks felt baggy and disjointed to me when I read it on publication. It's another I had earmarked as a possible re read.

@SapatSea yes, there is definitely too much bloat in the 2nd & 3rd books. Whilst reading the 3rd book there was a point with the LONGEST conversation between two people and I paused in the middle and thought "this is an entirely pointless conversation and is taking ages". It was 3 pages of back and forth dialogue which could easily have been summed up in one paragraph. There's also an entirely unnecessary sidequest involving Erika Berger in book 3 which could have been cut out completely with zero impact on the story. I know he originally planned 10 books so it's possible he was setting up for one of the future books but he obviously died unexpectedly after writing the first 3. I also wondered how much his death impacted the books as I don't know if any editing was done which could explain why there is just so much unnecessary info in them. I've never bothered to read any of the subsequent installments by other authors

I hit the jackpot this week as I lay melting in the South East heat wave with vestibular migraine and could just about manage to read ( and nothing else) for a few hours a day. So what a joy to discover two concise and wonderful, heart warming books.
Small Bomb at Dimperley - Lissa Evans
Set at the end of WWII, dyslexic Corporal Valentine Vere -Thissett, aged 23, has been reluctantly demobbed. His dashing "Flash Heart" type older brother, Felix has been pronounced dead after being MIA for several years and so Valentine is now the Baronet of a rotting pile called Dimperley which is saddled with massive debts and several in house demanding dependent relatives . Working class Mrs. Zena Baxter has a young daughter and works at Dimperley as a secretary for Valentine's Uncle who is slowly writing an exhaustive and very dull Family history. With Dimperley under threat of being bull dozed can this diverse bunch somehow manage to save it? Such a great feel good novel with bittersweet elements and laugh out loud moments. Lissa Evans excels at WWII era fiction.

Three Days in June - Anne Tyler I find Tyler a bit hit and miss and too quirky sometimes (for me)but this short novel is really well observed. Gail is 61 and works as a deputy at a private (U.S.) shcool. The head announces she is retiring and rather than consider Gail as a successor the job has already been offered to a trendy educator with a "method" and a book to match who wants to bring in her own Asssistant, so it looks like Gail will be jobless. Having been totally blindsided by this, Gail must also attend her daughter's wedding rehearsal dinner that evening, where there is also strife. Added to her woes, her ex husband who was meant to stay at their daughter's flat assumes he can stay with Gail for the wedding that weekend as he has brought a foster cat with him and their daughter's intended is allergic to dander. Cue a busy weekend for Gail that will have big life repercussions. The characterisation and the quiet reflective comments and moments were just so apt and as a woman of a certain age it all resonated with me. The novel is nice and short, no stuffing or bloat, just great story telling with not a word wasted.

@satelliteheart Thanks for that. Yes, that is a good theory about a set up for the future. I've not read any of the sequels by other authors either. I think once a book is popular then the subsequent books seem to have less stringent editing (perhaps to get them published swiftly) and they also seem to get longer in length. I think the Shardlake books suffered from that and (tin hat on) The Game of Thrones books and even Harry Potter

Both those sound great @SapatSea & I'm glad you had some lovely books in the circumstances

@inaptonym I DNFed English Food - I was hoping for a modern book on the lines of Dorothy Hartley's Food in England but I just found it all too superficial & incoherent.

@SapatSea

You are right about ASOIAF it will never be finished

Cormoran Strike also though that has an end point.

@bibliomania

I loved Bone Clocks I think it's much better than Cloud Atlas

EineReise, I agree that I preferred Bone Clocks - more characters to cheer for. I did enjoy them both. They're just not what you might call lean.

Sapatsea do you have access to review copies? I’m looking forward to the Lissa Evans so am pleased to hear it’s good!

I really enjoyed Miss Benson’s Beetle but then I’ve enjoyed everything Rachel Joyce has written.

219 Look Here: On The Pleasures of Observing the City by Ana Kinsella

The author muses on her life in London, particularly the people she sees as she goes about her daily business. This was OK but ultimately didn’t really tell me anything I don’t already know about the city, and there was too much in there about fashion and what people were wearing for my taste.

220 Rare Singles by Benjamin Myers

Someone upthread read this and didn’t think much of it (think it may have been MorriganManor but apologies if not!) but I really enjoyed it. I loved the characters, especially Bucky, and could really visualise the Scarborough setting. I haven’t read anything else by Myers before but will look out others of his, although I gather from reviews that all his books are quite different from each other.

Just finished the enjoyable and interesting follow up to Otto English's Fake History, which is Fake Heroes. He chooses 10 people - from the obvious such as Kennedy to a guy whose name I have already forgotten but basically was responsible for leaded petrol. He perhaps steers clear of sensibilities around Gandhi, Mandela, Churchill (although MLK gets an honorary mention or two and Churchill was covered in his first book)and misses a trick by having no sporting hero.

It's jaunty and fun to read. I'm sure lots of people have heard it all before but not me especially. I like the bit at the end of each chapter where he celebrated an unsung hero. That's nice.

Once more, though, I must bemoan the typos and errors! At least 8! Editing is so slack these days.

@SapatSea I haven’t read that Lissa Evans so will add to my TBR as her previous books were bolds for me.

Two very contrasting reads for me to add:

58. Poor - Katriona O’Sullivan

This is autobiographical and, as the title suggests, Katriona was brought up in poverty but in shockingly awful circumstances by parents who were heroin addicts and alcoholics with a father who was in and out of prison. It’s a miracle that she and her siblings survived their childhoods. A difficult read but Katriona manages to inject levity and make the best of circumstances so it turned out to be quite uplifting. Definitely a bold from me.

59. The Quiet Gentleman - Georgette Heyer

A lighter read after Poor. Good standard fare from Heyer. Gervase, having mainly been brought up by his grandmother after his father remarried, has inherited his father’s earldom and sells out of the army to return to his ancestral home inhabited by his stepmother and his younger half-brother, Martin, who both clearly feel that Gervase is the interloper and that Martin should have been the heir. Fortunately for Gervase, the animosity is diluted by his cousin, Theo, who runs the estate and Drusilla, a neighbour’s sensible daughter who is staying with the dowager countess. Things turn more interesting when Gervase meets another neighbour, Marianne, who is young and pretty and also being pursued by Martin and relations between the brothers deteriorate further. Perfect light reading.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I'm with you on The Bone Clocks.*

38.The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman. The fourth Thursday Murder Club episode has the usual preposterous plot, with our senior citizens mixed up in class A drug importing and art fraud. The topics of infirmity, death and grief are always sensitively covered though.

@SapatSea the Lissa Evans and Anne Tyler books sound interesting, I'll definitely be looking out for those. I agree Anne Tyler can be hit or miss, Morgan's Passing was a particular low for me but that may have been because I detested the main character (man-child who felt the world owed him a living)!

@SapatSea much sympathy for vestibular migraines. I suffer from them too, overlaid with mennieres disease, and vertigo attacks are really the most horrendous thing. All I can do is lie in a dark room and read if it's not too bad.

Very off book topic but I have had some success with the dizzy cook diet which is worth trying if they're a regular occurrence.

75. A Second Chance by Jodi Taylor

The gang goes to Troy

Decent plot twist / Cliffhanger

Two things are a bit irritating though :

A large number of the characters are really just "names on a page" and lack any personality or depth.

I'm only on Book 3 and the large number of characters who've been killed off in that time feels wasteful and unnecessary. It starts having less of an impact and coincides with the lack of depth problem. The fact that this is a time travel saga only adds to the impact problem

Yes, I've bought the lot, but I'm still going to try and break them up.

135 The Janus Stone- Elly Griffiths
Second Ruth book which I think everyone read donkeys years ago. Worked out who the baddie was quicker this time. Still enjoyable. Will keep going for now.

136 56 Days- Catherine Ryan Howard
This thriller is set during Covid. Ciara meets and falls for Oliver just before lockdown. They decide to move in together for the initial 2 week lockdown. Generally I’m not a fan of these sort of domestic/ psychological thrillers but this was good. The people felt more real, the background story was interesting and the twists and turns were mostly good. Surprisingly enjoyable.

137 Old Romantics- Maggie Armstrong
Book of short stories, mostly around romantic relationships. Several are from different time periods of the same couple. This was far too Sally Rooney for me- people who don’t talk and flatly angst about themselves.

138 Crime and Punishment- Fyodor Dostoevsky
I tried the Peavar and Volokonsky translation first- couldn’t get on with it at all. Avoided the audio after Eine’s experience and eventually fell in love with the Constance Garnett translation. Raskolnikov, the protagonist decides to kill a money lender. The rest of the book deals with the crime and its aftermath. I found this a real page turner and thought provoking. It’s my third Dostoevsky (persevered through The Brothers K with difficulty, The Double was okay) and now I know what the fuss is about. A bold from me- but only in this translation.

Read the crap Christie on the plane. It was very crap indeed, culminating in a couple falling in love after one meeting. Cba to look up the title, but it was something to do with Zero. Rubbish.

@ÚlldemoShúl, your comments about the different translations of Crime and Punishment are interesting! Constance Garnett was an extraordinary person.

The translation I would recommend (although I haven't read any others, so can't compare) is the one by Oliver Ready. I read it a few years ago and found it extremely powerful and moving. Actually, I bought the translation because I met him a few times and had a very positive impression of him, which was reinforced when I read his version of Crime and Punishment.

Thanks@Stowickthevast I was diagnosed with Menieres for many years but revised to VM and chronic migraine in recent years. It sucks. I have some level of symptoms all the time. Very strict migraine diet for years and meds. Had a scintiallating scotoma out of the blue last week and have been at sea since. Really sorry to hear you suffer too.
@ChessieFL I do get digital ARC's ( Kindle or a reader app). I signed up to Netgalley.co.uk several years ago - anyone can. Most of the titles are dross but there are gems you can request and if approved get to read in return for a review.
@ÚlldemoShúl I really struggled with The Brothers Karamazov too. C&P is a much better read.

@ÚlldemoShúl

I'm glad that you had a better experience than I did with C&P your page turned was my slog. I owned it in 4/5 formats and just wanted to cross it off. This was probably my mistake and I should have given it the time, it didn't suit how I use audiobooks. Having said that I doubt I could ever face it again. I struggled with how angsty it is as well.