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?

I have never watched The West Wing but like Remus I don’t watch much on TV and it’s not something that has ever really appealed to me. Maybe I’ll give it a go after the love here!

I have fallen very behind again on my reviews so won’t say much about these.

221Plague by Jean Ure - a reread of a teenage favourite. A plague wiped out almost everyone except a few hardy survivors.

222 Come Lucky April by Jean Ure - a sequel I didn’t know existed, set 100 years after the original plague. It was OK.

223. Nancy Mitford: The Biography Edited From Her Letters by Harold Acton - a good read but he was a friend of hers so this is inevitably biased, sometimes in a good way and sometimes not!

224 The Housemaid’s Secret by Freida McFadden - very similar to the first book but not as good.

225 Watchers At The Shrine by Jean Ure - the final part of the Plague trilogy. Really didn’t like this much.

226 1982: A Year In The Life Of Wendy Wood by Jason Ayres - continuing the series of people going back in time for a year. This was interesting about someone trying to make it in the pop industry but there wasn’t much of the ‘fish out of water’ time travel stuff that I like.

227 The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable - based on the true story of an orphan being taught to play the violin by Vivaldi. I enjoyed this.

228 Corfu Banquet by Emma Tennant - memoir of life on Corfu interspersed with recipes. OK.

229 A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike - Tudor vagrant Tibbs has to live on her luck - but will she go too far trying to trick people? I found the style of this a bit annoying by but loved the story and characters.

230 Perfect Remains by Helen Fields - detective series set in Edinburgh. OK but won’t bother with the rest.

231 Tales From The Tower by Sally Nicholls - YA set in 1986, about three friends’ lives all told through letters. Good although told with a bit of a modern lens.

232 Normal Rules Don’t Apply by Kate Atkinson - reread of last year’s very good short stories while waiting for the new one!

233 A House In The Country by Jocelyn Playfair - set and written during the war, a woman keeps her big country house going by taking in lodgers. This was OK but never really engaged with any of the characters.

234 The Betrayal of Thomas True by A J West - another historical fiction, this one about Molly houses in the 1700s. It was OK but not really my thing (was a subscription book so not one I would have chosen myself).

235 Looking For The Durrells by Melanie Hewitt - chicklit about a woman visiting Corfu to look for Durrell-related places and find herself at the same time. Average chicklit but I do like the Durrell references.

236 The Wrong Hands by Mark Billingham - second in the series about dancing wisecracking detective Declan Miller. I like this series and hope there will be more.

I am on holiday in Corfu so there will be several Corfu set books coming up (which mainly means either chicklit or Durrells!).

@PepeLePew hope things are getting better and you're having a nice weekend. I agree with your Caledonian Road review, it's ambitious but there's something that doesn't quite hit the spot.

70. Family Lore - Elizabeth Acevedo. A friend got me a book subscription for my birthday and this was the first book. I hadn't heard of it which was good. It's an intergenerational family saga following 4 sisters and 2 of their daughters from the Dominican Republic. Each chapter follows a different woman and starts of in present day New York but then flashes back to their childhood in DR. There's a healthy dose of magical realism as each woman has a power of some sort, including a magic vagina! I quite liked this at the start but there isn't too much plot and it can be hard to keep track of whose viewpoint you're in. There's also a lot of Spanish in the text which isn't always translated. I speak reasonable Spanish but did have to look up a few words which was a bit annoying. I think the author was originally a poet and writes YA, with this as her first adult book. It didn't really have quite enough to keep me engrossed.

71. The Housemaid - Freida McFadden. The complete opposite, a thriller which I read in a day. I think I picked this up as Marina Hyde was talking about the author and how impressive she was as she's a neurological doctor and writes this best-selling thrillers in her spare time. The book was fine for what it was but as @ChessieFL said, I won't remember it in a week!

I agree @EineReiseDurchDieZeit. And I think the other thing that bothered me was the way that, although they had built this loving way of being together as a family, it was as if all that was treading water until the youngest brother could start speaking.

In other news, Under Your Spell by Laura Wood is 99p today, I thought it was an absolutely delightful and perfectly written romance.

58 The Midnight News by Jo Baker

A wartime mystery and psychological thriller. Charlotte is the daughter of an upper class diplomat, a cold, manipulative man. She takes digs in London and works transcribing ordinary conversations between people so they can be sifted through for signs of espionage. She has a background of treatment for mental illness (or treatment for it, whether she needed it or not) and when women close to her start to die they come back as voices in her head. She tentatively befriends a young man who illicitly feeds the birds in a park; Tom, who has cerebral palsy affecting his right side, works as an undertaker for his father and is losing hope that his university dreams will ever come true.
It’s nicely written and stays the right side of melodrama considering it involves cruel fathers, asylums, spies, murders and the nightly devastation of the Blitz. Charlotte has a wry and often amusing take on the people around her and an admirable survival instinct. Her comfort in men’s clothing was a bit obvious but the way it was set up was sweet. One plot twist stretched credibility just a smidge, but then we’re back on track with derring-do and a slow burn love story. Not quite a bold but an enjoyable read.

83. Failed State by Sam Freedman
    If you want to understand why the tax take in the UK is at a historical high, while services are falling apart this is definitely the book to read (spoiler: it's not all the fault of one party). I suspect not much individually will be new to anyone who follows politics, but the collection of problems are brought together in a coherent whole, and sensible solutions proposed. Definitely a bold, and read well on audio by the author. Let's hope lots of our political leaders (of all parties) are reading it too, though I'm not tremendously optimistic.

84. A Little Luck by Claudia Piñeiro
    My bookswap book from the Manchester meetup, and another bold - very many thanks to @JaninaDuszejko Mary Lohan - formerly Marilé Lauría - left her home in a Buenos Aires suburb after a terrible accident twenty years before the start of the book. As she returns to her former home for a work assignment, we gradually learn about what happened, her attempts to rebuild her life as an entirely new person and her need to finally confront her past. The translation by Frances Riddle is also really good, & I'll definitely read more by this author - her previous book Elena Knows particularly.

King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett

Thorfinn the Mighty, Earl of Orkney and Macbeth, King of Scotland were contemporaries but no historical record mentions both of them. What if they were the same person? This is the premise for this superb historical fiction which follows Thorfinn/Macbeth from early childhood to his death. Dunnett's Thorfinn is as intelligent and compelling a character as Mantel's Thomas Cromwell. I am now bereft.

@Sadik, so glad you enjoyed it. Elena Knows is fab, enjoy!

44 (I think) Wifedom by Anna Funder

Still not quite sure how I feel about this one. It is, as many of you will know, an exploration of the life of George Orwell's wife, Eileen. Parts of it are factual, drawn from a variety of sources and in particular from a small number of letters written by Eileen to her friend Norah. Other parts are Funder's "imaginings" and they are woven in with musings about her own "wifedom", even as a successful lawyer and author in the 21st century. On one level, I was intrigued and sometimes a bit horrified about the erasure of Eileen from Orwell's own writings and biographies. On another, the "imaginings" about how Eileen felt and acted at various points felt a bit false to me. And the equation of Funder's own very privileged situation with Eileen's really stretched a point. But I did enjoy learning more about this remarkable woman, and about Orwell himself (much of it unpleasant).

45 Past Lying by Val McDermid

Latest Karen Pirie novel, set in lockdown. Reasonably enjoyable but Karen is still rather stuck in limbo after Phil's death, and I guessed the "twist" too early to satisfy me. I was carried along, though, and enjoyed the milieu in which the story was set (Tartan Noir writers, about whom McDermid no doubt knows a great deal).* *

46 The Wind through the Keyhole by Stephen King

A later insert into the Dark Tower series (sandwiched between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla. I found this fortuitously in an English Heritage bookshop. It's been a while since I finished the original series but it was very easy to slide back into the ways of the Beam. A story (a tale told to Roland by his mother) within a story (an adventure from Roland's youth) within a story (Roland's ka-tet shelter from the starkblast), this was pure pleasure from start to finish. I am not in general a fantasy or sci-fi reader but I love King's creation and I am always in awe of how easily he conjures up a world that is like ours and yet not.

83. No Time Like The Past by Jodi Taylor

St Mary's #5

This is the first one where I've found it not as good as previous and its pissed me off.

Without spoilers, the trouble with doing the kind of Great Reset she does in #4 is that it has to be believable as its own world and it isn't. There are too many coincidences, plot holes, contradictions and contrivances that I can't elaborate on why they annoyed me because it's all spoilers.

I, of course, still have 9 books to go. I will still read them all because I bought them, but this is the first sign of trouble for me, the first weak book.

@ChessieFL I'm in awe at how fast you must read !

191. When The World Went Silent. Ellie Midwood
     Set in Germany in the 30s and 40s, a fictional story, but based on true events, of a young deaf woman who hides her deafness and is picked up by the Nazis to help make the first nuclear bomb. She and some of her colleagues realise that giving that much power to the Nazis is the worst thing they can do, so they secretly sabotaged their own work to make sure it never happened.

192. The Cage. Danielle Bannister
     Read with caution! It features sex trafficking, kidnap, abuse. I never usually pick up this kind of book, but it was actually really good. A young woman is tricked into thinking an apartment is up for rent. Once there she is locked in and kept as a "pet" whilst being trained so she can be sold.

193. Love and Other Sins. Emilia Ares.
     A coming of age story with a girl who's family is in trouble with the Russian mob, and a guy who's selling dodgy tech.

194. Season For Murder. Anna A Armstrong
     Cozy crime murder, the FitzMorris ladies are back. I actually can't remember any thing more specific!

195. Here Lies A Vengeful Bitch. Codie Crowley
     A bold for me. A young woman wakes up in a river with no memory of how she got there. She does however know that she was in a abusive relationship. Did her boyfriend put her there? Where is her best friend? This was honestly so good but without giving spoilers its hard to say much.

196. Benidorm, Actually. Jo Lyons
     Chick-lit about a wannabe singer who gets offered a job in Benidorm. Standard chick-lit fare really.

197. Spencer Edwards: Emperor of the Galaxy. Alex Prior
     Technically a children's book. Spencer is randomly selected, at the age of 14, to become emperor of the entire Galaxy. We're on the cusp of an intergalactic war which Spencer needs to try and stop. As well as being a 14 year old earth boy.

198. The Library Girls of the East End. Patricia McBride
     Book 1 in the series. I read book 2 earlier in the year. Set in London in the blitz.

199. The Self-Education Manual. Gary Dean Peterson
     A self help book about different ways to learn.

237 The Holiday by Erica James

This was fine, nothing particularly original or exciting. Some British people are on holiday in Corfu and various dramatic things and romances happen.

@BlueFairyBugsBooks I do read quickly but I also don’t do a whole lot else in my spare time which helps with getting through the books! I also tend towards easier, shorter books (I’m a sucker for a 99p psychological thriller) although there are some more literary efforts within my numbers.

@BlueFairyBugsBooks I'm in awe of you! 199 books! I'd love to read that many, would get through my wishlist in three years at that rate (well theoretically, no doubt it would keep growing and growing as I'd be less stringent about keeping the wishlist 'shorter'!) 🤣

Does anyone else find it difficult to switch off and just read, especially at home? I keep thinking "ok that kitchen needs sorted" or I just faff about doing not a lot instead. I sometimes have to force myself to stop whatever pointless thing I'm doing and make quality time for myself instead.

@InTheCludgie

I go through peaks and troughs - I'm on a consistent roll now, but for the first time in about 4 months. Phone is a distraction so is TV...

@InTheCludgie I can truthfully say I would choose a book over sorting the kitchen any day. I can't say that's down to iron discipline though.

InTheCludgie this is why I use audio books. I can sort the kitchen at the same time. Only replace sorting the kitchen with knitting

Just updating with a couple of rereads.

37. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
A small family of women, used to high expectations of life, lose nearly everything. Rescued by relatives they barely know, they settle down to find a new way through life. The elder sister values virtue, thrift and good manners, the younger emotion, authenticity and spontaneity. In their circumstances, the latter is a risk they may not have the resources to survive.

38. Most Secret by Nevile Shute In 1945 Shute published this tale of wartime derring-do as a motley group of officers volunteer for a raid on occupied France. It's hardly his best (spot the paragraph using 'intimately' three times) but it's very readable.

So, The Horse by Geraldine Brooks, I’m just not gelling with it. Possibly because I’ve just had some great reads back to back. I’m finding I’m scrolling on my phone instead of reading. I’ve decided to put it to oneside and find something else! Not saying I won’t give it another go as I do like it!

Just catching up on reviews on my return from holiday:

<strong>50.	The Invisible Library</strong> - Genevieve Cogman

Irene works for the Library, a mysterious organisation which seeks out books from different realities. Her latest mission takes place in an alternate London: tasked to retrieve a book with a new assistant, Kai, she finds it has been stolen and there are underground factions prepared to go to any lengths to get hold of it. An additional complication is the supernatural creatures and old magic which seem to be an acceptable part of London life here. Kai is keeping secrets, Irene is battling the internal politics of the Library and there is a murderer on the loose. Can she succeed in her quest?

This was a great read, just the right side of wry humour to counteract the steampunk/urban fantasy elements. I was rooting for Irene all the way through. The set pieces were wild, and though at times the peril felt unrelenting, it was a solid start to a series which I may well continue with and wasn’t expecting to, so not good news for the TBR/wish list. I’m still thinking about the book days later, the sign of a potential bold.

<strong>51.	Necropolis: London and its Dead -</strong> Catharine Arnold

A completely different read: the history of death and burial rituals in London. A lot of the book was rightly spent on the Victorian period, with the development of the great urban cemeteries, funeral practices, and the growth in “the cult of mourning”, but it looks at the capital from prehistory all the way up to recent history with the death of Diana and the 2005 bombings. An unusual view of the history of London.

Thanks for the good wishes everyone. I spent most of yesterday morning on the sofa reading and then - by coincidence- in the kitchen tidying cupboards. That's definitely my stress response - when I'm anxious or unhappy I find it hard to concentrate on reading. So yes, audiobooks for the win there. Unfortunately said audiobook was The Ministry of Time which started with so much promise and then became long and rather dull before moving into stupid. But I have tidy clean cupboards now so that's something.

37 The Lost City of Z - David Grann This is the third book of Grann’s I have read, and for me the most interesting topic - exploration of the Amazon, searching for ancient civilisations. It was really interesting although it didn’t quite hit the spot as perfectly as I would have liked, as the focus was mainly on the missing explorers who went looking for the city rather than on the ancient civilisations themselves (until the last chapter or so, which was the bit I liked best) - on the other hand, plenty of people will be more interested in the explorers, I’m sure! I learned a lot ago the Amazon and will be searching out more books about its pre-European civilisations (in particular, Grann refers to a book called 1491, which I’ve put on my wish list). I’ve deliberated about whether this merits a bold - on balance, I think it does.

Sorry to hear you've had a difficult time @PepeLePew

57. Where Water Lies by Hilary Tailor Another amazon first reads freebie. Eliza is a teacher in London, living in a cottage she inherited from her great-aunt and swimming in the local Ladies' Pond. She lives an extremely solitary life, her only friend being her boss at school, Lucas. One day she crosses paths with Iris, another swimmer at the pond, who is much older and also lives a fairly solitary life. Iris and Eliza are both hiding secrets from their pasts and those pasts come back to haunt them This book was fairly enjoyable. But I felt the ending was just too neat and perfect.

Back on track with my list now, having slightly messed up the numbering.

62. Too Late to Turn Back - Barbara Greene

This has been on my wishlist for ages but surprisingly my library still had a 1982 hardback copy - it was republished around then, following its original publication in 1938. Barbara was one of the huge clan of Greenes that included her then-30-something cousin Graham, and it was his plan to make an expedition through Liberia which Barbara - slightly recklessly - agreed to join (they didn’t actually know each other that well). With a retinue of 'carriers' , a cook and 'boys' Laminah, Amadu and Mark (to whom she dedicates the book) they proceed to make a journey on foot through highly-challenging terrain with ever-diminishing food and the risk of serious illness - Graham does become ill and Barbara fears he might die at one point. Inevitably some attitudes of the time are expressed but overall Barbara is so full of good humour, amusement and pin-sharp observation that I was completely charmed.

63. The Librarianist - Patrick DeWitt

This was a strange one but I liked it. Bob Comet, retired from his job as a librarian, lives a quiet and ordered life in his neat, mint-green house, alone since his wife Connie left him many years before to run away with his friend Ethan. By chance, Bob is drawn into helping out at the Gambell-Reed Senior Center when he returns one of its residents, runaway Chip, and starts to engage with more of its eccentric characters and with perpetually-harassed nurse Maria. In flashback we learn of Bob's own unhappy, fatherless childhood and his experience of running away, as he comes to terms with ageing, loneliness and how to fit in.

There was something oddly Anne Tyler-like at times about the writing here, or maybe like a Wes Anderson film, but it morphed and shifted into a different, more fantastical register. I wasn’t sure whether it was meant to be funny or sad but in its low-key way it was definitely both.

And a rare DNF…Life in a Cold Climate - Laura Thompson
After enjoying Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love I felt I wanted to pin down how much of it was autobiographical - unfortunately this was the wrong biography, wildly over-written and gushing about its subject. When I got to page 80 and realised that the actual facts about Mitford thus far could probably have filled 10 pages, I decided it was time to call it a day. Selina Hastings has also written a biog so I might get on better with that.

@PepeLePew sorry timed are tough, sending all good wishes. Keeping my reviews short as I'm away and am rubbish at typing on my phone.

39.Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson. Two girls disappear into the seedy world of the 1920s nightclubs, and a family friend's quest to find them. Pacey and plot heavy, although it fizzled out rather at the end. Not one of her best, but I am generally a fan of Atkinson and her bog-standard stuff is still pretty decent.

40. Ghosts by Dolly Alderton. The trials and tribulations of a 30something food writer Nina dating in London. Didn't enjoy this. To be fair to Alderton I am both too old, and not posh enough to identify with lots of the experiences in Nina's circle, so it's unsurprising that I didn't connect with it. There was far too much snarking at life in the suburbs and people there who do terrible things like drinking sachets of instant cappuccino.

Next few reads are also likely be low-stimulus beach fodder.

Unfortunately said audiobook was The Ministry of Time which started with so much promise and then became long and rather dull before moving into stupid

Indeed, @PepeLePew interestingly enough, it turned up on Barack Obama's Summer Reading List. I have to conclude it wasn't one he'd got around to yet.

And yes to cathartic cleaning

84. The Stranger You Know by Jane Casey

Maeve Kerrigan #4

Maeve is put on a murder case where the MO matches an historic killing.

Derwent is not allowed on the case but that doesn't stop him.

Again, I really enjoyed this but still find Derwents behaviour unbelievable. It's very made for telly, I think.