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?

76 None of This is True - Lisa Jewell

Unlike @elspethmcgillicudddy this is a bold for me. But I also love Outlander 😀

Alix makes podcasts about successful women, has two school aged kids and a husband who drinks a little too much. Her life changes when she meets Josie at a restaurant where they are both celebrating their 45th birthdays. Josie has two grown up kids and is married to a much older man, her life is very dark and she is ready to make a change, and for Alix to document this in a new podcast series. Their lives become too entwined through the course of the book.

I’m a fan of Lisa Jewell and I inhaled this one!

@elspethmcgillicudddy welcome back! So funny you should mention Paul Temple, I’m listening to a couple of the 1950s series atm and absolute adore them - the accents, the acting, the comparative lack of intrusive music…wonderful period pieces.

Interesting to read the Anne Tyler discussion. I would once have counted myself a big fan but there came a point where I just thought…..no, NO, I’ve had it up to here with handsome-yet-hopeless men who can’t look after themselves, and kooky girls who happen to come past and rescue them, ie do all the hard work. They’re very variable but I’d still recommended some. I think Breathing Lessons is probably her best. I didn’t even have the will to finish A Spool of Blue Thread, though I did read the couple after that. I'll probably still end up reading her latest when it's available, on the 'oh, might as well….' principle!

Hi @elkiedee thank you for your thoughts on Mauriac and the English translations. I was thinking of reading a few of them but it might be worth while to spend time reading the original texts instead.
Yes. Maupassant is best known for his short stories as far as I know.

52. Undoctored - Adam Kay

A sequel (of sorts) to This is Going to Hurt. Not diary entries as such, more a series of episodes in the author’s life where he is starting his new career in writing/comedy, with some flashbacks to his time at medical school. Many of the incidents are medically related and go into some pretty personal physical and mental health issues (including sexual assault) so read at your own discretion.

@Terpsichore I love Paul Temple "That's not a hat box... it's a bomb" is a staple saying in our household. I have heard them all numerous times but can never remember exactly who did it or what happened. It often seems to hinge around a clue gleaned while shopping for gloves and it the grimy underworld only ever involves 'drugs' as anything more sinister as a motive (eg sexual shenanigans) is unthinkable.

@TimeforaGandT I agree about the attitudes to homosexuality reflecting the times. It's still shocking. Glad it is so startling now.

I just caught up on the English A Level chat. I am a sensible STEM type person in my professional life but took English as a 4th A Level. Hamlet, Much Ado, poetry of Emily Bronte, Frankenstein, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, William Blake. I enjoyed it hugely and nearly applied for English at Uni but my sensible mother persuaded me into medicine- a good choice, a good career but ultimately a job and not a passion for me personally. I am now indulging my hankering to study English with an OU degree part time- and very much enjoying it so far. I'm just hoping it doesn't turn reading into a chore. That being said my reading material for pleasure is very different from reading for analysis and they both give me different things so fingers crossed...

@elspethmcgillicudddy 'By Timothy!' 😂 Yes, I’ve just listened to one in which the dastardly criminals swapped Steve's handbag for a lookalike in the back of her car (which she left unlocked - innocent times) and rigged it so that a revolver would shoot the driver once it was opened. Seems a rather complicit way to kill someone!

I tried and failed to search for my review of Outlander after a friend insisted I borrow it and that I would love it. Reader, I did not. I seem to remember a woman being raped and ending up liking it, and being furious that an actual woman could write that, although I could be mixing it up with something else.

Thanks everyone for your Anne Tyler favourites. Of course none of them are the ones I have on my kindle 😁
I can’t seem to find the book deals on Amazon this morning and since they’re my only buying outlet on my current ban I’m. Or at all pleased about it! Anyone else had any luck?

Can't find them either @ÚlldemoShúl Think they're just late updating them.

No that sounds exactly like Outlander my review included NEVER AGAIN I'm pretty sure

Found my Outlander review
Outlander - A friend lent it to me, thinking I'd love it. Essentially it's 600 pages of shagging a geezer in a kilt, or thinking about shagging a geezer in a kilt, with a few pages of plot to tie the shags together and pretend it's not just about shagging a geezer in a kilt.

<record scratch> I have to rescind my recommendation of Monique Roffey - Passiontide sorry @Stowickthevast ! While I didn't hate the ending (literally the last 10 pages), I did find the entire second half bafflingly bad. Plot, characters, writing - all underwent Babel-levels of enshittification after such a promising first half. Never know how to star-rate this type of thing - averaging ends up so milquetoasty
Will try to refrain from posting mid-book in future 😅

Back to Martin Chuzzlewit

@ÚlldemoShúl I liked Clock Dance though haven't read that much Tyler (lots on TBR, but she keeps getting bumped)

Hi
Been lurking - life is still a bit meh but getting better .
Thinks this is the link to deals
Orbital by Samantha Harvey is on there from the Booker long list. I thought it was beautiful

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?i=digital-text&rh=n%3A341677031%2Cpnndealtype%3A26901100031&s=featured-rank&dc&fs=true&qid=1725179343&rnid=26901097031&ref=issrppndealltype_1&ds=v1%3AGIteUzwzeo6O%2Fj6NS061RmKdUc6zPEfe9P6ncRS892A

You really have a way with words 😅

Back to Martin Chuzzlewit

In which task , you are obliged to post mid book

Thanks for the link @splothersdog

I got

Riders
Unruly
Thunderclap
Stella Maris
8 Lives Of A Century Old Trickster
Bewilderment

Good list
Good people by Hannah Kent is also on there

Not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult! 😂😂😂

Haha yes @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie, I remember your scorn when I read the sample and asked if I should continue. Thank you (and several others) for saving me.

in full bloviating confidence, but that's method reading donchaknow! 😁

@BestIsWest I really think you should read and review it. Your review would be a thing of beauty and wonder.

Oh no, how disappointing @inaptonym

I can't get the deals link to work. I just have loads of books at £5-6 and a few off my wishlist at £9-10 when I follow the link above.

If anyone has another tip, please let me know!

Gosh, I’m having a bad day with autocorrect. Not one but two typos in today’s posts alone 😡 The pedant in me feels compelled to state that Seems a rather complicit way to kill someone should, of course, be complicated.

I'll now go and wrestle with the Kindle deals.