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?

Engineering for me @SheilaFentiman!

Another scientist here who reads literary novels for pleasure with a sister with an English degree who likes low brow books. I suspect that reading scientific papers for a living (all written in the passive tense) means I have a higher tolerance for dry writing than most.

Also another Scot who did Sunset Song which I loved. Since I also did my Highers back in the 80 I'm vague about what was studied for O grade and what was studied for Higher. We did no women, my younger sister did for SYS but there was a new female head of the English Dept by that point. We did a lot of twentieth century books/plays/poems that reflected the politics of the teachers: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Juno and the Paycock by Sean O'Casey, The Horses by Edwin Muir. Macbeth and Julius Caesar were the only Shakespeares, we did some Wilfred Owen but no 19th century classics and no Burns. What else? LOTF, Animal Farm and 1984. DH went to a Scottish private school and they studied a Shakespeare play and a Dickens novel each year for 5 years (up to equivalent of Y12). Can you imagine!

If I was in charge of the English curriculum I'd make everyone do English for longer than you do in England (only the weakest students in Scotland don't do the Higher), I'd have half male and half female authors, and I'd have everyone study writers from the UK and the Commonwealth (not the US).

Speaking of which...

Ducks. Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton
Graphic memoir about working in the Canadian Oil Sands in Alberta where men outnumber women 50 to 1. This melancholy but nuanced book touches on class, environmental damage and sexual harrassment. I learnt so much about the oil sands, and indeed the economic decline of the east coast since Beaton comes from Nova Scotia and goes to the Oil Sands for two years after her humanities degree so she can pay back her student loan because there are no work opportunities for her in the east. A version of Canada we don't often see.

87. Born A Crime by Trevor Noah

Autobiography of the South African comedian

Read in one sitting, many thanks for the recommendation and the heads up it was 99p

What a fascinating childhood he had but one underpinned by an absent disinterested father and a very abusive stepfather.

His mother sounds like a tour de force

To give a bit of warning to would be readers, in addition to the racism and violence that abounded there is also a truly horrible scene of animal abuse which was just not a good visual to have.

A bold, I think.

Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford
Having liked Golden Hill and hated The Light Perpetual I thought this was worth a shot for 99p. It’s very different again, this time a crime novel in an alternative American city. I found it quite gripping overall but was disappointed by the last ten percent or so and thought the ending was a combination of really silly and really unnecessary. I find Spufford a strange combination of some really good writing, a tendency to bang his own drum a bit too much and not know when enough is enough and what I suspect is a rather inflated sense of his own presumed cleverness, which made me feel a bit cheated at the end.

Worth a read and I’d be really interested to hear what others think of it,

I remember once uttering the words "badly written" about Lord of the Flies when I was very shiny new on the thread and was very robustly put right on the matter by Remus and Piggy. I read it again and agree I was off the mark. Oh the shame!

I did English, French and German A Level… for English we did Macbeth and Othello, John Betjeman and Seamus Heaney, Jane Eyre (blee) and Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads (wonderful). Maybe some others I’ve forgotten. French was Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, German was Andorra and Der Besuch der Alten Dame.

60 1983 - David Peace

Last of the Red Riding quartet, and the most stylistically challenging- jumping between years and narrators, and increasingly dreamlike/ impressionistic. I found a useful Reddit post that explained quite a lot of what had happened, though much is ambiguous and open to interpretation. Still quite brilliant if you enjoy this kind of thing (I do!).

@FortunaMajor

Im sure I admitted to not being blown away by LOTF and got away with it!

I definitely didn't. It was the politest internet pile on I've ever been under.

I feel terribly uneducated! I didn't do A-levels. I started them, but dropped out for personal reasons. And i can't remember what I studied for GCSEs (year 2000) I know that whilst I was at school we did
Lord of the Flies.
An Inspector Calls.
Romeo and Juliet.
We had a poetry anthology with loads of different poems in. I think we also studied the war poets.
We must have read more than that though!
We had to do a presentation on our favourite book and I did Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary. Which wasn't my favourite book, but I thought I'd get teased for Ballet Shoes.

I've never read a book in a foreign language, although I've picked up French and German again on Duolingo, having done them both for GCSE and reading a book in them is my dream. Maybe I'll read Ballet Shoes or Harry Potter! I know the stories well enough that it might help my languages.

Oh, did I?

Oh , I apologise in retrospect!

Oh Piggy, please don't apologise, you were very right in what you said at the time, it made me rethink and reform my thoughts and it was absolutely the right thing for you to do. I really didn't articulate my thoughts very well initially either. I'm glad you all gently pushed me to reflect on the book better. I remember the experience fondly.

I love that most about this thread, we can disagree, discuss and challenge one another without it being a negative thing.

Lots of crossovers between my a level texts and others here

Frankenstein
A streetcar named desire
Keats
Othello
Keats (again) / wordsworth comparative study
Much ado about nothing

I'd already done much ado for gsce and felt I had an advantage going into that one (schools in our area didn't have sixth forms so everyone had to move to the local sixth form college for a levels) and it's still my favourite Shakespeare.

My latest read is
59) The Other Husband by Kathryn Croft
This was a 99p kindle and I'm glad I didn't pay more than that!
Two couples, Abby and Rob and Sienna and Greg become close friends, spending evenings together regularly. One night, after a few too many drinks, they start talking about reality TV and the show Wife Swap comes up. Sienna suggests a husband swap for a night (not in a sexual way) and everyone agrees. From that night onwards everyone's lives begin unravelling and the cracks in their relationship begin to show. Eventually Greg disappears and Sienna is convinced that Abby knows something about his disappearance

I didn't enjoy this. The storyline basically just went through each character one at a time convincing the reader that person was responsible for Greg's disappearance until they were proved innocent so it moved to the next person. Several plot points were never explained (why did Greg book two weeks leave without telling Sienna? Why was Abby completely ok with being stalked for months?) The final resolution was frankly difficult to believe

The only school essay I remember was about The Lord of The Flies.

"Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy." Discuss.

That line has stick with me for the last 30 odd years!

@BlueFairyBugsBooks I went to college 3 times and got kicked out/left. Education comes in many forms.

😂😂😂
Glad you learned to enjoy the book and also glad to hear I was polite! It’s strange to think that you were shiny and new- I always think of you as one of the, ‘Founding Mothers’ of these threads.

This is year 7 for me, I think it's been going 11 in total. I lurked but didn't post for a good chunk of the year before joining the following January.

I've been very underwhelmed by the Booker list this year. I think there's only My Friends that I'd really rate. I've only got the two are pending release in September to go. I'm looking forward to Rachel Kushner, but not Richard Powers.

I did find a cheeky little gem while I wait in The Hypocrite - Jo Hamya
A young playwright waits outside for her father as he watches the play in which she skewers him and his behaviour. She hits very close to the bone. He reflects on the times in their lives that the play covers and how changing times and attitudes can cause generational divide.

I liked this a lot, flawed characters and good writing.

I’ve started reading the first of The Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley, it was recommended to me by a friend - but I’m not really enjoying it! I’m about a quarter of the way through. Is it worth persevering? I usually finish everything but as well as not really enjoying it, it’s very long!

For English Standard Grade and Highers (1994-96) read Lord of the Flies, Romeo and Juliet, Of Mice and Men and Merchant of Venice. My personal pick was Tess and was left feeling slightly traumatised by it, never been tempted to pick up another Hardy since.

Glad you liked My Friends @FortunaMajor , that's next on my Booker reading list. Not long finished The Safekeep and preferred it to Wandering Stars. Also have Enlightenment on my shelf. Did anyone enjoy that one?

@OdileO

I've heard those books raved about by a lot of people but I haven't read them myself

That's where my user name comes from! He didn't fall through the air, dear Ralph. Piggy Was Pushed.

Sorry to hear you’ve been having a rough time Pepe - I hope things are turning round and the reading weekend helped.

I enjoyed Born a Crime too Eine, I listened to the audiobook which worked really well.

Like Piggy I’ve been enjoying Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson. Like a big box of chocolates, most deliciously an eligible veteran who lost a leg in Afghanistan and whose favourite paintings include The Rokeby Venus. I would say it perhaps doesn’t ascend to the dizzying heights of previous Brodies, but then it doesn’t plumb the same underworld depths either (no people trafficking, thankfully). Bliss.

I’ve fallen behind on the Liaisons read along, going to catch up on that next.

@Piggywaspushed

Enlightenment didn't really do it for me @InTheCludgie. Some lovely nature descriptions and timeless Essex scenery, but the characters and plot just didn't draw me in.

@FortunaMajor I've only read three but none of the others are really calling out to me - I've heard very mixed reviews of most of them. RoroReads has done a scathing review of this year's list on YouTube which I quite enjoyed. I will read Wandering Stars, James and the Kushner but think will wait till the shortlist for any others. Agree that My Friends is the stand out.

My only Booker read so far is My Friends which I’m almost finished and loving. I also have The Safekeep but haven’t read it yet.
@Stowickthevast I too love Roro Reads- he and BenReadsGood have become my only ‘can’t miss’ booktubers.