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?

Thanks for the new thread. Here's my list so far.

1. I Have To Save Them. Ellie Midwood
2. P.S Jane. Jessica Julien
3. Mrs. Quinns Rise to Fame. Olivia Ford
4. The Villa. Jess Ryder
5. Artificial Wisdom. Thomas Weaver
6. The Paris Spy's Girl. Amanda Lees
7. Twisting Time: Forbidden City of Gold. D.F Jones
8. The Liberation of Bella McCaa. Catherine Aitken
9. The Quelling. C.L Lauder

10. Munich Wolf. Rory Clements 11. Sam Time. Donna Balon 12. A Most Malicious Messenger. Katherine Black 13. Taken to the Hills. S.J Richards 14. Blood On The Tracks. Guy Hale 15. Black Money. S.J Richards 16. The German Child. Catherine Hokin 17. Phoenix Rising. Celia and Ephie Risho 18. The Bakers Secret. Lelita Baldock 19. The Vermillion Ribbon. Hayley Price 20. Inheritance. Philip Tyler 21. Nicole's War. Andrée Rushton 22. Aria and Liam: The Druids Secret. Coline Monsarrat 23. Dark Arts. Karen Taylor 24. Vermilion Sunrise. Lydia P. Brownlow 25. Opaque. Calix Leigh-Reign 26. Knights, Witches and Murder. R.M Schultz 27. The Advocate. Theresa Burrell 28. Queen of Secrets. E.J Tanda 29. The Lost Child. Kathleen McGurl 30. Blood Sapphires Revenge. Bruce Farmer 31. New Dreams at Polkerran Point. Cass Grafton 32. Highly Flawed Individual. T.C Roberts 33. Tale of Two Curses. Theresa Biehle 34. Right Across the Bay. Quinn Avery 35. How Boys Learn. Jeff Kirchick 36. The False Men. Mhairead MacLeod 37. Evermarked. A.J Eversley 38. Truth Sister. Phil Gilvin 39. Crodor The Ancient. Celia and Ephie Risho 40. The Whispering Palms. Annette Leigh 41. Good Girl Deprogramming. Michelle Minnikin 42. When The Moon Was White. Jeff Probst 43. Split Adam. Calix Leigh-Reign 44. The Wartime Book Club. Kate Thompson 45. House of Dreams. Mark Stibbe 46. Humebeasts. Lisa Munoz 47. Island In The Sun. Kate Fforde 48. Shooters. Julia Boggio 49. Escape to Polkerran Point. Cass Grafton 50. Knights, Necromancers and Murder. R.M Schultz 51. The Secrets of Blythwood Square. Sara Sheridan 52. Chasing the Light. Julia Boggio 53. Another Side of the Heart. C.H Lazarovich 54. Exodus. Steve Catto 55. My Perfect Family. Melanie Price 56. Fog Of Silence. S.J Richards 57. Daughters of Warsaw. Maria Frances 58. Olympia. Eva Grace 59. Mannigan. L. Ross Coulter 60. Pink Camouflage. Gemma Morgan 61. Hear her Scream. Dylan H Jones 62. Cursed by Slumber. Michelle Moras 63. The Clark's Factory Girls at War. May Ellis 64. An Elf With No Name. Mortimer Langford 65. Memory Road. Sarah Edghill 66. What we Thought We Knew. Claire Dyer 67. Moral Injuries. Christie Watson 68. A Woman Of Pleasure. Kiyoko Murata. Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter. 69. All The World's A Stage. Guy Hale 70. Orson the Great. Colm McElwain 71. The Giveaway Girl. Chrissie Bradshaw 72. Knights, Witches and The Missing. R.M Schultz 73. Naked Truth. Vicki Rebecca 74. Into the Darkness. Steve Catto 75. Gathering of the Four. A.E Bennett 76. A Tale of Something New. D.S McColgan 77. Specular. Calix Leigh-Reign 78. Maybe It's About Time. Neil Boss 79. The Godfather of Dance. Andrea Barton 80. Dark Shadow. Simon Dinsdale 81. The Keeper of Secrets. Maria McDonald 82. Crown of Confessions. E.J Tanda 83. The Grief of Godless Games. J.T Audesley 84. The Magical Journey of John and Adele. Ancius M. Murray 85. Liddle Deaths. Morgan Christie 86. What Would Aimee Dean Do? Y.M Miller 87. 17 Alma Road. Ian Gouge 88. Chapel Field. Paula Hillman 89. Jesse's Triumph. Amra Pajalic. 90. The Pact. Lisa Darcy 91. Then There Were Giants. Nicky Heymans 92. Wolf's Keep. K.E Turner 93. Hindsight. Mary Turner Thomson 94. Awaken the Dawn. Ellis K. Popa 95. Knights, Witches and The Vanished City. R.M Schultz 96. Sweetness In The Skin. Ishi Robinson 97. Blackwolf. Phil Gilvin 98. The Journalist. John Reid Young 99. Death Under a Little Sky. Stig Abell 100. The Pictish Princess. Dolan Cummings 101. My Mystical Path. Donna Shin-Ward 102. Three Brave Hearts. Liz Middleton 103. Jericho Caine, Vampire Slayer, Love, Lust and Blood. Dee Rose 104. Love Lottie. Mel Higgins 105. The Orphans of Berlin. Jina Bacarr 106. Hard Times For The East End Library Girls. Patricia McBride 107. Leap. O.C Heaton 108. Death Walks In Mowhall. Benjamin Hanna 109. Corpse In The Chard. Anna A. Armstrong 110. Green Ray. O.C Heaton 111. The Weight of What Was. Pip Landers-Lett 112. Aria and Liam: The Baker Street Mystery. Coline Monsarrat 113. Let Me In. Claire McGowan 114. Through Blood and Dragons. R.M Schultz 115. Earth Protectors. Samuel Lawson 116. The Palladium. Thorsten Brandl 117. Birth of the Tiptons. Philip Davidson 118. Good Things. Kate MacDougall 119. Mask of the Gods. Karen Furk 120. The Rutland Connection. Michael Dane 121. Murder On The Isle. Anna. A. Armstrong 122. Fall From Grace. Alan Feldberg 123. The Photograph. Diane Clarke 124. Wolf's Prize. K.E Turner 125. Courting The Sun. Peggy Joque Williams 126. The Time That Never Was. Steve Fallon 127. Atom Inc. O.C Heaton 128. Them Old Bones. Astor Y Teller 129. Black Mark. Paul Spencer 130. The Nine. Gwen Strauss 131. Amateurs. Gill Oliver 132. The Hedge Witch. Colleen Delaney 133. Turkish Delight. Anjelica Søndergaard 134. Out Of Her Mind. Sally Hart 135. Miracle Number Four. Paul Marriner 136. The Advocates Betrayal. Teresa Burrell 137. Catch Me Twice. Catherine Yaffe 138. Conditions Are Different After Dark. Owen W. Knight 139. Broken Shadows. Sorrel Pitts 140. Make the Dark Night Shine. Alan Lessik 141. Accidental Dragons. Astor Y Teller 142. Catalog of Desire and Disappearance. Ana Cruz 143. Husbands. Mo Fanning 144. Knife River. Justine Champine 145. 8ish. Luing Andrews and Jack East 146. Truestory. Catherine Simpson 147. The Flower Queen. Kay Freeman 148. Secrets Dark and Wicked. Jessica Julien & Juliet Stevens 149. The Guardians Light. Oliver Crane 150. A Simple Foundation. Larry Heitz 151. How Soon is Now? Paul Carnahan 152. Murder on Stage. F. L. Everett 153. Murmurations. Sarah Thompson 154. Sun of Endless Days. L.G Jenkins 155. The Days of Our Birth. Charlie Laidlaw 156. The Florence Letter. Anita Chapman 157. The Game of War. Glen Dahlgren 158. Under her Roof. A.A Chaudhuri 159. Remedy. Emily Bridget Taylor 160. One Month's Notice. Katie Lou 161. The Second Life of Jonathan Sendel. Jeffrey Ashkin. 162. Second Glance. AE Bennett 163. Allison Consents. D. Accord 164. Be More Octopus. Suzanne Lissaman 165. Halfmoon Lane. Paula Hillman 166. The Diary at the Last House Before the Sea. Liz Eeles 167. Gallows Wood. Louisa Scarr 168. The Swan's Nest. Laura McNeal 169. Killing Nan and other crime short stories. Keith Wright. 170. The Croaking Raven. Guy Hale 171. Catalyst. Cameron Phoenix 172. Destiny of a Free Spirit. Stephen Ford 173. All in Monte Carlo. Anna Shilling 174. Seven Summers. Paige Toon 175. The Consciousness Company. M.N Rosen 176. About Last Night. Laura Henry 177. The Bite. Jim X Dodge 178. Searchlight, The Rock. Ann Bryant 179. The Walk. Emma Marns

Thank you @Southeastdweller

Bringing over my list:

1 Appointment with Death Agatha Christie
2 Demon Copperhead Barbara Kingslover
3 Yellowface RF Kuang
4 The Bird Tribunal Agnes Ravatn (trans Rosie Hedger)
5 The Constant Rabbit Jasper Fforde
6 Steppenwolf Hermann Hesse (trans Basil Creighton)
7 The Seven Dials Mystery Agatha Christie
8 Notes on Grief Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
9 The Eye-Eye and I Gerald Durrell
10 The Great British Bucket List: Utterly Unmissable Britain Richard Madden
11 When the Dust Settles Lucy Easthope
12 K-Pax 2 On a Beam of Light Gene Brewer
13 The Worlds of Prot Gene Brewer
14 Mrs Dalloway Virginia Wolf
15 The Adventures of TinTin: Cigars of the Pharaoh Herge (trans L Lonsdale-Cooper & M Turner)
16 Mosquito: A Natural History of Our Most Persistent and Deadly Foe Andrew Speilman & Michael D'Antonio
17 Three Elegies for Kosovo Ismail Kadare (trans Peter Constantine)
18 The Passport Herta Muller (trans Martin Chalmers)
19 The Devils Workshop Jachym Topol (trans Alex Zucker)
20 Watermelon Marian Keyes
21 The Testament of Mary Colm Toibin
22 Under Milk Wood Dylan Thomas
23 A Child's Christmas in Wales Dylan Thomas
24 Foster Claire Keegan
25 Charlotte Sometimes Penelope Farmer
26 My Name is Lucy Barton Elizabeth Stroud
27 The Ditch Herman Koch (trans Sam Garrett)
27a Mythos Stephen Fry - DNF
28 Rachel's Holiday Marian Keyes
29 The Solitude of Prime Numbers Paulo Giardano (trans Shaun Whiteside)
30 The Only Plane in the Sky Garrett Graff
31 Lovers at the Museum Isabelle Allende
32 Autumn Ali Smith
33 Metamorphosis Franz Kafka
34 Small Things Like These Claire Keegan
35 The Tobacconist Robert Seethaler (trans Charlotte Collins)
36 This Boy Alan Johnson
37 Broken April Ismail Kadare (trans Peter Constantine)
38 Around the World in 80 Novels Henry Russell
39 Zikora Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
40 Chess Story Stefan Zweig (trans Anthea Bell)
41 Katalin Street Magda Szabo (trans Len Rix)
42 You Took the Last Bus Home Brian Bilstow
43 Time Shelter Georgi Gospodinov (trans Angela Rodel)
44 A Heart that Works Rob Delaney
45 Rizzio Denise Mina
46 Chasing the Dead Tim Weaver
47 Western Lane Chetna Maroo
48 The Bog People P.V. Glob (trans Rupert Bruce-Mitford)
49 The Unexpected Professor - A Life in
Books John Carey
50 The Angels Game Carlos Ruiz Zafon (trans Lucia Graves)
51 So Late in the Day Claire Keegan

Am still reading David Copperfield (as per the beginning of the last thread!)

List

1. Identity, Nora Roberts
2. Nightwork, Nora Roberts
3. Chances, Freya North
4. Whatever it Takes, Adele Parks
5. Pretty Girls, Karin Slaughter
6. The Great Post Office Scandal, Nick Wallis
7. Politics on the Edge, Rory Stewart
8. Eat Sweat Play, Anna Kessels
9. Stranded, short stories, Val McDermid
10. Past Lying, Val McDermid
11. Ruth's First Christmas Tree (short), Elly Griffiths
12. The Crossing Places, Elly Griffiths
13. Let Me In, Claire McGowan
14. Still Life, Val McDermid
15. The Crossing, Mat Brolly
16. The Crow Trap, Ann Cleeves
17. The Maid, Nita Prose
18. Bringing Columbia Home, Mike Leibenhart
19. The Last List of Mabel Beaumont, Laura Pearson
20. A Memoir of my Former Self, Hilary Mantel
21. The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes
22. The Secret Barrister
23. The Time Traveller’s Wife, Audrey Nifenegger
24. I Have Some Questions for You, Rebecca Makkai
25. See Them Run by Marion Todd
26. The Premonition by Michael Lewis
27. In Dark Water -Lynn McEwan
28. Dead Man Deep -Lynn McEwan
29. The Girls of the Glen -Lynn McEwan
30. The Gathering Storm -Lynn McEwan
31. Empire of Pain - Patrick Radden Keefe
32. The Strawberry Thief - Joanne Harris
33. Scoops - Sam McAllister
34. Royal Road to Fotheringhay - Jean Plaidy
35. Sing You Home- Jodi Picoult
36. The Captive Queen of Scots - Jean Plaidy
37. Mother Tongue - Bill Bryson
38. Act of Oblivion - Robert Harris
39. Elephants Can Remember - Agatha Christie
40. Westwind - Ian Rankin
41. 1979 - Val McDermid
42. The Dubrovnik Book Club - Eva Glyn
43. After that Night - Karin Slaughter
44. Triptych- Karin Slaughter
45. Blindsighted - Karin Slaughter
46. Kisscut - Karin Slaughter
47. 1989 - Val McDermid
48. Sisterland - Curtis Sittenfield
49. Broken - Karin Slaughter
50. Meet Me at the Museum - Anne Youngson
51. The Last Widow - Karin Slaughter
52. Skin Privilege - Karin Slaughter
53. Rizzio- Denise Mina
54. A Faint Cold Fear - Karin Slaughter
55. Medea - Rosie Hewlett
56. Depp vs Heard - Nick Wallis
57. The Secret of Villa Alba - Louise Douglas
58. Yellowface - Rebecca F Kuang
59. The Bernini Bust - Iain Pears
60. Giving Up The Ghost - Hilary Mantel
61. Girl A - Abigail Dean
62. All Fours - Miranda July
63. Under Her Roof - A A Chaudhuri
64. Just Another Missing Person - Gillian McAllister

I’m having a pause for re reads. I think the only one I haven’t reviewed is All Fours - it was very good, about an artist going through menopause, but I feel I want to read it again to give a proper review.

Those typing lists out again… mine is in Notes app in iPhone and selecting it all in keeps the numbers and formatting when pasting into mobile site. I write the books on there as I finish them, ready for the next thread.

Thanks DuPain and Fuzzy!

Thanks for the new thread southeastdweller.

I’m still working my way through rereading the St Mary’s series (well, most are rereads but I haven’t actually read the last three before). Really enjoying them all again.

Thanks for the new thread. Task for today, after work is done, is to queue up holiday reading. I cannot wait for a week of doing nothing much apart from reading. I occasionally think that there must be a market for such holidays - cosy book books, book chat, trips to book shops. (My holiday will involve things such as laundry and trips to the supermarket so not quite all-book).

Sign me up 😀

Just checking in, thanks @Southeastdweller as ever. I'm also away for a few days, & currently reading (& enjoying) The Mountain in the Sea at the campsite before heading out for a bike ride. Can't check back to find who recommended it on here, but thanks anyway!

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller. I did finish another Cathy Glass last night so will add the review at the bottom but I am now reading Verity and I picked up Oliver Twist from the library. Never read any Dickens so I am looking forward to this.

1 Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing - Matthew Perry
2 The Lost Bookshop - Evie Woods
3 TV: Big adventures on the small screen - Peter Kay
4 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
5 My Dark Vanessa - Kate Elizabeth Russell
6 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
7 I invited her in - Adele Parks
8 Little Whispers - K L Slater
9 Orange is the New Black - Piper Kerman
10 1984 - George Orwell
11 I Survived: A True story - Victoria Cilliers
12 Inside Broadmoor - Jonathan Levi
13 Normal People - Sally Rooney
14 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid
15 I, Partridge - Alan Partridge
16 Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros
17 The People of Platform 5 - Clare Pooley
18 My Sister, The Serial Killer - Oyinkan Braithwaite
19 Confessions of a Shopaholic - Sophie Kinsella
20 Skipping Christmas - John Grisham
21 Three Hours - Rosamund Lupton
22 The Golden Oldies Club - Mark Daydy
23 Regeneration - Pat Barker
24 No, Pete Townshend: The Kids Aren’t Alright - Les Macdonald
25 A Heart That Works - Rob Delaney
26 Strangeways: A Prison Officer’s Story - Neil Samsworth
27 Is It Just Me? - Miranda Hart
28 Unwanted - Cathy Glass
29 Beautiful - Katie Piper
30 The Daughter of Auschwitz - Tova Friedman
31 Iron Flame - Rebecca Yarros
32 Fred and Rose - Howard Sounes
33 The Fault In Our Stars - John Green
34 Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
35 Hear me out - Sarah Harding
36 My Best Friend's Secret - Emily Freud
37 Piglet - Lottie Hazell
38 Dear Teacher - Jack Sheffield
39 The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett
40 The Perfect Neighbour - Susanna Beard
41 Does My Bum Look Big in This - Arabella Weir
42 Waiting to Begin - Amanda Prowse
43 The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole, 1999-2001 - Sue Townsend
44 The School for Good Mothers - Jessamine Chan
45 Mad about the Boy - Helen Fielding
46 If I am Missing or Dead - Janine Latus
47 Thirteen Reasons Why - Jay Asher
48 The Family Upstairs - Lisa Jewell
49 The Twat Files - Dawn French
50 Twopence to Cross the Mersey - Helen Forrester
51 Liverpool Miss - Helen Forrester
52 By the Waters of Liverpool - Helen Forrester
53 Lime Street at Two - Helen Forrester
54 Big Girls Don't Cry - Francesca Clements
55 The Great Post Office Scandal - Nick Wallis
56 Baby P: It must never happen again - John McShane
57 The Devine Doughnut Shop - Carolyn Brown
58 The Children's Nurse - Susan Macqueen
59 Breathtaking: inside the NHS in a Time of Pandemic - Rachel Clarke
60 An Innocent Baby - Cathy Glass
61 Hidden - Cathy Glass
62 Cut - Cathy Glass
63 The Silent Cry - Cathy Glass
64 You Are Here - David Nicholls
65 Daddy's Little Princess - Cathy Glass
66 Nobody's Son - Cathy Glass
67 Cruel to be Kind - Cathy Glass
68 The Night the Angels Came - Cathy Glass
69 Day One - Abigail Dean
70 Damaged - Cathy Glass

and 71 A Long Way from Home - Cathy Glass. This was a bit different from the other books I had read in that the first half was about another couple and their adoption of a young girl. The second half was when the girl came to Cathy. Don't know if I preferred it or not, but it was different.

Definitely need to read something else now!

44 How to Say Babylon - Safiya Sinclair

Had high hopes for this memoir about the poet’s upbringing in a strict Rastafarian family in Jamaica, and ultimate escape - but it rubbed me up the wrong way for several reasons:

The overly poetic language with mixed metaphors crammed together in dizzying proximity (she’d received advice from Derek Walcott, no less, to avoid such dense use of imagery in her poems, but apparently didn’t think it applied to prose).

The determination to write a poor-me pity narrative despite winning a scholarship to a private school, being amazingly clever as she keeps telling us, a spectacularly brilliant poet by her late teens - and beautiful/thin enough to be signed up as a model; she’s a legend in her own mind in a way which probably sits better with an American audience than a British reader.

And the interminable third quarter where she mopes about for years waiting for someone to save her and pay for her to go to university, rather than, I don’t know, getting a job or something.

Her relationship with her father was very difficult and sometimes violent, regularly emotionally abusive, and I don’t want to deny her suffering or achievements in spite of it. But she really did not win me over.

@PepeLePew did you know that there’s a bookshop in Wigtown that you can stay in and run for your holiday? I would love to do this one day.

www.wigtownbookfestival.com/our-projects/the-open-book#:~:text=Nestled%20in%20the%20pristine%20surroundings,of%20the%20town's%20vibrant%20community.

As it's the summer holidays I'm going to take the time to copy my list over from Goodreads.

1. Mrs. S by K Patrick
2. The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
3. I who have never known men by Jacqueline Harpman
4. How to stop time by Matt Haig
5. Good Material by Dolly Alderton
6. The Factory by Oyamada, Hiroko
7. The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary by Ogilvie, Sarah
8. The Winter Cottage by Lucas, Rachael
9. The Fall by Jensen, Louise

10. Metroland by Barnes, Julian 11. Lovers at the Museum by Allende, Isabel 12. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Braithwaite, Oyinkan 13. Magpie Murders (Susan Ryeland, #1) by Horowitz, Anthony 14. North Woods by Mason, Daniel 15. A Flat Place by Masud, Noreen 16. When the Parents Change, Everything Changes: Seismic Shifts in Children’s Behaviour by Dix, Paul 17. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Gaiman, Neil 18. The Husbands by Gramazio, Holly 19. Sweet Danger (Albert Campion Mystery, #5) by Allingham, Margery 20. The Flower Farm (Applemore Bay #2) by Lucas, Rachael 21. Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1) by Clare, Cassandra 22. Sane New World: The original bestseller by Wax, Ruby 23. Oh William! by Strout, Elizabeth

Currently tackling S. by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst, postcards and all.

That's disappointing @LadybirdDaphne. I thought it sounded really interesting. I was debating whether to order that or A Flat Place from the woman's prize shortlist so have gone for the latter. I really enjoyed Thunderclap but am not a big non fiction reader.

59. We All Want Impossible Things - Catherine Newman. This author has a new book out, Sandwich, which I've seen on some potential Booker lists so I thought I'd read her earlier book. It's written by a first person narrator Ash, who's a slightly chaotic writer in her mid 40s with 2 daughters (17 and college age). Ash's childhood best friend is Edi who is dying of cancer. The book starts with Edi being moved to palliative care in a hospice near Ash rather than in New York where her husband and 7 year old son live. The hospices near them are full and it would be too stressful for her son to see her dying. This premise annoyed me as it just seemed really odd and unconvincing. The rest of the book is really a series of episodes of quirky life at the hospice, interspersed with reminiscence of Ash and other friends, and some quite visceral bits of end of life care, which are sad and moving. Ash is also going through some relationship issues and basically sleeps with everyone she meets, while her teen unconvincingly accepts with wisecracks. I did actually quite enjoy this on the whole but it's also easy to pick holes in. It's very American with lots of pop culture references. I think I would like to read her next one.

Thank you @Southeastdweller
I’m posting my very short list as I only started counting in May. 2 bold so far 😀

1. Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver

2.My Fathers House – Joseph O’Connor 3.So Late In The Day – Claire Keegan 4.Small Things Like These – Claire Keegan 5.Bournville – Jonathan Coe 6.Something to Hide – Elizabeth George 7.Pachinko by Min Jin Lee 8 Foster by Claire Keegan 9 Kala by Colin Walsh 10 The Death of Lucy Keyte- Nicola Upson 11Old Gods Time by Sebastian Barry 12 The Secret of Cold Hill by Peter James 13 Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagen

Currently reading The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
And The 4 Pillars by Dr Rangan Chatterjee

Also listening to Gamble by Felix Francis

You never know, I may get to 50 by year end 😀

Thanks @Southeastdweller I'm currently wading through The Wheel of Fortune by Susan Howatch which I remember loving many years back on first reading. Might be my mood but just not loving it this time around.

Thank you for keeping the threads ticking along @Southeastdweller

50 The Warm Hands Of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
In many ways, the book I thought In Memoriam was going to be.
Laura Iven is a Canadian nurse, back at home in Halifax when the Mont Blanc, a ship carrying explosives, is holed by another ship and explodes, destroying not just the port itself, but surrounding buildings and nearly 2,000 people. This actually happened and although I often grumble about books containing real tragedies, this is very sensitively handled.
Her brother, Freddie was last seen fighting at Passchendaele and she receives a parcel containing his uniform coat and both dog tags. Although she is still suffering injuries from her time as a nurse in a field hospital she is determined to call in favours from old colleagues and get back out there to find him.
The story switches back and forth between Laura and Freddie, who is indeed still alive after being caught in an upturned pillbox with Winter, a German soldier.

This could have been a feverish, purple prose mess, but it definitely isn’t. It works on several levels - gritty WW1 saga, historical fantasy, allegory for the mental toll on people caught up in war……or pure Faustian horror story. Who is the mysterious, sardonic Faland, who welcomes in the torn-apart soldiers to various decayed yet compelling drinking dens? Just what is his music communicating and where does the dreadful inspiration come from…..?

A pleasing bold for my 50th book this year.

Thank you for the new thread @Southeastdweller!

Not bringing my list over but waving to you all👋

Also v glad to see @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie on the thread, was wondering if your reading slump continues. Poetry sounds like an excellent remedy.

First time in 2024 I've added a list to the thread....Read so many great books this year, don't think there have been any I haven't enjoyed thoroughly

1. Abide With Me by Elizabeth Strout
2. Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart
3. Berserker by Ade Edmondsen
4. Demon Coppertop by Barbara Kingsolver
5. The Last Days by Ali Miller
6. The Lonely Life by Bette Davis
7. The Last Days of Disco by David Ross
8. Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
9. Cloud Cuckoo Land by Antony Doerr
10. My Name is Barbra by Barbra Streisand
11. Cloistered by Catherine Coldstream
12. Washington Square by Henry James
13. City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
14. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
15. Why is this lying bastard lying to me by Rob Burley
16. The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe
17. Gay Shame by Gareth Roberts
18. Making It So by Patrick Stewart
19. The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
20. None of this is True by Lisa Jewell
21. Yellowface by RF Kuang
22. Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
23. The Maiden by Kate Foster
24. The Jewel Garden by Sarah and Monty Don
25. Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce
26. The Red Road by Denise Mina
27. The Happy Manifesto by Henry Stewart
28. Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd
29. The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne

I've only bolded the ones I absolutely loved - some of the unbolded were great reads. I had a wee city break in New York hence the number of books set there. Off to Center Parcs next week - any good books set there? 😂

72 Verity - Colleen Hoover
A writer is asked to cowrite the end of a very popular series as the author has been in an accident. She stays at her house and finds a diary/manuscript that gives her insight into the woman she is cowriting with. And falls for her husband.
I was enjoying this. Felt like an easy read which well fleshed out characters. Until the last chapter when I rolled my eyes so hard I gave myself a headache. Shame, but that spoilt it for me.

Thank you @Southeastdweller . I’m not copying my list over. The formatting does my head in!

73 White Bones – Graham Masterton. Book 1 in the Det Supt Katie Maguire series. This was a 99p Kindle buy from July 2020, eek! I read that the author was from Edinburgh and assumed that the books would be based in Scotland. I was wrong, the books are set in Ireland, near Cork. I liked Det Supt Katie Maguire and while I didn’t see the huge twist at the end, I did think that she was rather trusting and had suspicions about one of the characters and felt that she would have a relationship with another. As ever, there is the Detective trope. Katie loses a baby and her marriage in on the rocks. One day, I would just like to read a detective series with a happy detective who has a normal family life. Back to the story, there is a lot of myths and legends and religion and I did like that part of the book. But then, I did find it quite gruesome and upsetting, not quite my taste. I may go back to Katie Maguire, but I have many more books TBR first.

I have 54 books on my kindle TBR and various piles around the house of actual books. And of course, I see books from you guys discuss that I think sound good and want to read. My kindle is the one that I want to really crack down on. Plus the audio books. I think I have 7 on there, but one of them is David Copperfield and its 30 hours. So my plan is to read 15 kindle books by the end of the year and read at least 3 audio books. Lets see how I get on.

Thank you @Southeastdweller as always for the new thread! I won't bring my list over this time, but instead will post some catch-up reviews:

40. Revelations of Divine Love, Julian of Norwich, trans. Barry Windeatt 5/5
    The kind of book best read in short doses, I think, because the language can be quite repetitive. However, it was fascinating to discover the ideas of this 14th/15th century anchoress, the first known English woman writer whose work survives. I was impressed by the fact that she takes her own visions so seriously, returning to interpret them in more depth over the course of many years. Theologically speaking, she seems quite radical: there is enormous emphasis on God’s love and how human sin pales in comparison. And Jesus is portrayed as a mother figure (long ago I read the historian Caroline Walker Bynum’s famous book, Jesus as Mother). The vivid descriptions of Christ’s suffering body, which becomes an object of fascination and beauty, reminds me of how entwined sacred and erotic discourses can be in the Middle Ages. Although most of the language is abstract, there are a few concrete images: e.g. Julian comparing the dried blood on Christ’s face to herring scales! Her visions and meditations reminded me of modern practices of mindfulness and self-acceptance. ‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.’

41. Cloistered: My Years as a Nun, Catherine Coldstream 4/5
    It was interesting to read this so soon after reading Julian of Norwich. My takeaway impression was that it may well be better as a nun to live on one’s own in a cell rather than to subject oneself to all the petty rules and bickering of a convent community! A well-written book, though the tone is very serious; there is no humour in it. The story illustrates how an authoritarian religious structure can shift from comforting to toxic. It is remarkable that Coldstream held onto her religious faith after everything she experienced.

42. A General Theory of Oblivion, José Eduardo Agualusa, trans. Daniel Hahn 4/5
    An inventive, quirky short novel about a woman who spends decades locked in her flat as the Angolan War of Independence comes and goes. There is a cast of motley characters (of different genders, ages, social classes and political persuasions), who end up crossing paths and influencing one another’s lives in unexpected ways. The narrative reminded me a lot of magical realism, even though technically it’s not a magical realist plot; there are just a lot of uncanny coincidences. Wise and witty, this book shows that literature can explore traumatic events in many different ways: stories about war and trauma don’t always need to be recounted in solemn realist style. I’d like to read more of Agualusa’s work. Thanks to @Agualusaslover for this recommendation!

43. The Château, William Maxwell 4/5
    A very perceptive, convincing account of a young American couple travelling in France shortly after WW2. The Americans find French ways baffling, despite their love for the country, and I must say I identified with their experiences a lot at various points. Maxwell brings cultural difference to the fore in almost painfully forensic detail. There is not a lot of plot, and the epilogue (recounted by a suddenly obtrusive narrator) is decidedly weird. But the descriptions of people, places and food are quite simply fabulous. Many thanks to @TimeforaGandT and the other 50 Bookers who recommended this.

44. La Mémoire de Babel, La Passe-Miroir Livre 3 [The Memory of Babel, The Mirror Visitor Book 3], Christelle Dabos 4/5
    I’m still immersed in this wonderful French fantasy series, which does not disappoint (with the exception of some ethnic stereotyping in this one in the case of a minor character, which was a shame). If you like Harry Potter, Philip Pullman and the like, Dabos (published in English by Europa Books) is definitely worth a try. I’m reading them in French, but have now bought the series in English (partly in the hope that I can get my DS to read them, but mostly because I was interested in how a lot of rather tricky passages would be translated), and the translation (by Hildegarde Serle) is excellent.

45. Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens 5/5
    I loved this novel. I first read it as a teenager and I enjoyed it even more rereading it on the MN Dickens read-along. Thanks @Piggywaspushed! It’s vibrant, theatrical and often very funny. There are so many great characters: Mrs Nickleby with her mad tangents of random information, poor abused Smike, John Browdie the honest Yorkshireman, Newman Noggs the gentle alcoholic, the entire Crummles family and their theatre business, young Kate Nickleby who stands up to unscrupulous male predators, and many more. I also rewatched the 1980 RSC stage production and fell in love with it all over again.

46. The Load of Unicorn, Cynthia Harnett 4/5
    Harnett never fails to impress with how much historical info she can cram into a children’s story, and how effortless she makes it all seem. This book is about the transition from manuscript to print in 15th c. England – William Caxton is a main character! The plot twist about Thomas Mallory’s manuscript of Arthurian tales was also fascinating. I didn’t know that Mallory was such a dodgy character, or that his compilation of Arthurian fantasy became one of the first books ever printed in England. I’ve never read Le Morte d’Arthur … maybe I should one day.

Thanks @noodlezoodle
Poetry, cookery books and travel guides are all I seem to be able to manage at the moment! I’m going to try some rereads next, as am hopefully gentle reminder of how to read.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie if you like travel guides, have you tried Michael Palin? I love his audiobook versions of Pole to Pole etc, and his diaries are also amazing.

Thanks for new thread @Southeastdweller but disappointed you haven't renamed it "the darker side of Mumsnet"! 😂

Thanks @SheilaFentiman I’ve read most of Palin’s stuff.