50 Books Challenge 2024 Part Seven

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the seventh 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 , the fifth one here and the sixth one here.

What are you reading?

83 An Officer and a Spy - Robert Harris

I loved this. I always get the heebies jeebies when there is a long list of historical figures at the start - especially if I’m reading on kindle - but I didn’t end up needing it as the characters were very clear.

A dramatisation of the Dreyfus affair, when a Jewish soldier in the French army is convicted of spying and sent to the tropical Devil’s Island. But it is really the story of Georges Picquard, who knew him, didn’t like him, had a hand in his conviction… and, following his promotion to a leadership position in the “Statistical Section”, becomes increasingly convinced of his innocence and of a cover-up. Robert Harris is always great, and he is on good form here.

I read all the Flowers in the Attic Books, plus another series which began with a book called Heaven???
Terrible books when I look back on them now but compulsive reading for teenage me!

Finally managed to copy my list over

1. A spell of good things- Ayobami Adebayo
2 mist over Pendle - Robert Neill
3 The familiars - Stacey Hall
4 Prophet song- Paul Lynch
5 Wintering - Katherine May
6 Giving up the Ghost - Hilary Mantel
7 Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries - Heather Fawcett
8 Fifteen wild Decembers - Karen Powell
9 Politics on the edge - Rory Stewart
10 The Amber Fury - Natalie Haynes
11 Witchcraft : A history in 13 trials - Marion Gibson
12 Christ on a bike - Orla Owen
13 The Glutton- A.K. Blakemore
14 Confinement- Jessica A Cox
15 On Beauty - Zadie Smith
16 Write a great synopsis- Nicola Morgan
17 Wahala - Nikki May
18 Dear Agent - Nicola Morgan
19 Tom Lake - Ann Patchett
20 After you’ve gone - Maggie O’Farrell
21 Instructions for a heatwave- Maggie O’Farrell
22 The shepherds life - James Rebanks
23 Lobster - Hollie McNish
24 Dark Pines - Will Dean
25 The Rachel Incident - Caroline O’Don
26 Solider , Sailor - claire Kilroy
27 The Wren The Wren - Anne Enright
28 Restless Dolly Maunder - Kate Grenville
29 Ordinary Human Failings - Megan Nolan
30 The maiden - Kate Foster
31 Gillespie and I - Jane Harris
32 Western Lane - Chetna Maroo
33 And then she fell - Alicia Elliott
34 This much is true - Miriam Margolyes
35 Thunderclap - Laura Cummings
36 8 lives of a Century Old Trickster - Mirinae Lee
37 Enter ghost - Isabella Hammad
38 River East River West - Aube Rey Lescure
39 Oh Miriam - Miriam Margolyes
40 Nightbloom -Peace Adzo Medie
41 Acts of desperation- Megan Nolan
42 Quickly, while they still have horses - Jan Carson
43 The covenant of water - Abraham Verghese
44 Brotherless night
45 Rizzio
46 Cuddy - Benjamin Myers
47 Imposter syndrome- Joseph Knox
48 Notes to self - Emilie Pine
49 Birding - Rose Ruane
50 The light years
51 Marking time
52 Confusion
53 Enlightenment- Sarah Perry
54 Frank and Red - Matt Coyne
55 Piglet - Lottie Hazell
56 You will be safe here - Damian Barr
57 Grief love and fury - Salena Godden
58 The lost man Jane Harper
59 My family and other rock stars
60 The dictionary of lost words - Pip Williams
61 Wild embers - Nikita Gill
62 The painters daughters - Emily Howes
63 Casting off
64 Why don’t you stop talking - Jackie Kay
65 Fair Rosaline - Natasha Solomons
66 Clairmont - Lesley McDowell
67 1914 and other poems - Rupert. Brooke
68 All change
69 Night side of the river - Jeanette Winterson.
70 Motherhood - Pragya Agarwal* *
71 My husband - Maud Ventura
72 Newborn - Kerry Hudson
73 Night Crawling - Leila Mottley
74 One boy, two bills and a fry up - Wes Streeting
75 Blue Sisters - Coco Mellors
76 On earth we are briefly gorgeous- Ocean Vuong
77 The goldfinch - Donna Tartt
78 Difficult women - Helen Lewis
79 empire of pain - Patrick Radden Keefe
80 The Bee sting - Paul Murray
81 The house on Vesper Sands - Paraic O’Donnell
82 11.22.63 - Stephen King
83 A mudlarking year
84 The whispers - Ashley Audrain
85 Wild houses - Colin Barrett
86 The safekeep - Yael Van Der Wouden
87 Openings - Lucy Caldwell
88 James - Percival Everett * *
89 Orbital - Samantha Harvey
90 Stoneyard devotional - Charlotte Wood
91 The echoes - Evie Wyld
92 Claire Morris is completely lost - Kristina Thornton
93 The Victorian Asylum- Sarah Rutherford
94 Wandering stars - Tommy Orange
95 Caledonian Road - Andrew O’Hagan
96 My Good Bright wolf - Sarah Moss
97 My friends - Hishami Matar
98 The Dark Wives - Ann Cleeves
99 Handle with Care - Louisa Reid

Last bold was the Sarah Moss. Thought My Friends Was very good but there was an emotional distance to it that stopped it from being a bold. I know lots of people are surprised it didn't make the Booker Short list but I can kind of see why.
I have Held and Creation Lake left to read from the short list but honestly not really that inspired by either.
the Dark Wives is the latest Vera book. Crime is my go to when I am in a reading in funk and this one was enjoyable. Ann Cleeves can tell a good story

@splothersdog I'd forgotten about those, but I also read that Heaven series, Flowers in the Attic and My Sweet Audrina. I wasn't some kind of Virginia Andrew's mega fan, but when I was younger I would read pretty much everything and those were to hand.

Gosh I read so much, dont think I can remember everything I've read this year! I'll have to start keeping track!! Off the top of my head, to get me started..

My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante
The Story of a New Name, Elena Ferrante
Those who leave and Those who Stay, Elena Ferrante
The story of the lost child, Elena Ferrante
The lost daughter, Elena Ferrante
The Days of Abandonment, Elena Ferrante

(Had a bit of a reading love affair with her after reading the top four , and looked for what else she'd written..)

Hey Nostradamus, Douglas Coupland
Weirdo, Sara Pascoe,

Hags, Victoria Smith
Your Life in my Hands, Rachel Clarke
A Song for Issy Bradley, Carys Bray
Girl A, Abigail Dean
The Lion Tamer who lost, Louise Beech
Children of Paradise, Camilla Grudova
Bad Fruit, Ella King
A Woman is No Man, Etaf Rum
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
The Book of Eve, Meg Clothier
The Red bird Sings, Aoife Fitzpatrick
Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin
Really good Actually, Monica Heisey
Confessions of a 40 something &£& Up, Alexandra Potter
A House for Alice, Bernadine Evaristo
Tidelands, Phillipa Gregory
The Marriage Portrait, Maggie O'Farrell

And a few by Marian Keyes and some other trashier ones ! 😂 there are probably some more!

Currently Reading.. North Woods by Daniel Mason, which is good, but not mind blowing.

I usually read books by women or other lesser heard voices. Prefer to hear from the woman's voice. Rare for me to read a book by a white man, but not unheard of! (Am currently and it's rather good..)

Phew! Exhausting, but good to see it all written out. Off now to look back through for recommendations ! X

I’m now feeling I missed out on a whole phase of teenage development by not reading Flowers in the Attic!

70. Anglo-Saxon Attitudes - Angus Wilson

I ferreted this out after the recent reviews of The Dig (which I read ages ago and enjoyed) because in my head I thought it followed a very similar kind of narrative - a sensational archaeological discovery happening among a group of people etc etc. Well, it just goes to show what an odd thing memory can be, because while I definitely went through a big Angus Wilson phase years ago and definitely read it, I didn’t remember anything about this storyline. Weird.

Anyway. Wilson is very overlooked nowadays and not much read, though he’s got some passionate devotees. It’s a proper, meaty, old-fashioned multi-layered novel that I just can’t imagine being written now - first published in 1956. The central character, 60-something Gerald Middleton, is a historian whose life seems to him a failure and a sham. His over-riding torment is that, as a young man, he failed to speak up in 1912 when a pagan carved figure ( complete with 'large member') was discovered during a dig in the tomb of Bishop Eorpwald, who died in 695. This was hailed as a unique archeological discovery, but Gerald - and only Gerald knows this - has good reason to suspect that the archaeologist's son placed the figure there as a practical joke, á la Piltdown Man.

The fun of the novel is in watching Gerald wrestling with his conscience as to whether he should confess what he knows, all these years later. Wilson marshals a huge cast of characters with great gusto, with some hilarious and wickedly cutting writing - Gerald's wife, huge Nordic goddess Inge (they live apart, with good reason), is a monstrous creation. All of Gerald's adult children are also awful in their own ways, and there are lots of other side characters in what feels like a very late-Dickensian panoply - Wilson was a big Dickens fan and I’m sure this is intentional. A serious, but also hilarious, read.

I slowed down a bit as I have had my first DNF for years - the pretty awful 1795 by Niklas Natt og Dag. I thought the first two were OK in this series but he seems to spend the whole of book three reminding us of the other books and the pursuit of a baddie is dull and then it got nasty and I didn't have headspace.

I have just been in hospital having my gallbladder whipped out (yes- ouch!) so plenty of time to read. Just finished Kjell Ola Dahl's Lazarus Solution. Compact and interesting to read about the war from a Scandinavian perspective but the ending was so obvious (note: don't put big clues in a title!)

Also aiming to make my way through this month's bit of Martin Chuzzlewit this week while off work and have A Place of Greater Safety to fill in gaps. Enjoying it so far!

I love the sound of the Angus Wilson @Terpsichore and have downloaded a sample.

Best wishes for a good recovery @Piggywaspushed, hope it’s not too sore,

Have given up on Craig Brown - A Voyage Around the Queen for now because although it’s very entertainingly read by Harriet Walter I was just finding it too bitty on audio. I suspect I would get on better with it in book or Kindle format. I might see if it’s on BorrowBox.

Instead I’m listening to Kingmaker by Sonia Purnell about Pamela Churchill Harriman which I suspect is going to be riveting (I hope).

@Piggywaspushed

I was 18 when I had mine out enjoy the reading time

@BestIsWest

A new Sonia Purnell you say?? Excellent news. Pamela was mentioned during her Clementine bio

Best wishes for a speedy recovery Piggy. Hope you have someone to bring you cups of tea while you're reading.

18? Wow!

It's now just very sore.

The awful bit was not being allowed home because I was tik dehydrated, and discovering I react very badly to anaesthesia.

Thanks for the well wishes, all.

Hope your recovery goes speedily now you’re home, @Piggywaspushed (assuming/hoping you are?)

Yes, home now!

Hope you have a good recovery, @Piggywaspushed and have the chance to read some enjoyable books while doing so!

Best wishes for a speedy recovery @Piggywaspushed ! Enjoy the time to catch up on reading! 📚 Chat with you on the Martin Chuzzlewit thread!

@Piggywaspushed

Yeah I was very young but if runs in the family apparently

Recover well @Piggywaspushed
I had mine taken out a few years ago and my life is so much better- no more gallstone attacks!

Hope you're doing OK @Piggywaspushed

A catchup of re-reads as I indulge myself on holiday.
41. The Happy Prisoner by Monica Dickens
Another great read that I can't recommend due to the racist epithets, sexism, implied homophobia and class-based jokes. Just after WWII, Oliver is at his childhood home in Shropshire with his widowed mother, his sisters, nephew and cousin, recuperating from a severe injury. A new nurse arrives. That's it, really. To me this story, published in 1948 and passed on to me by my mother, doesn't feel a million miles from my own 70s childhood, good and bad. It has charm because of its characterisation and vivid

engagement with the physical details of the countryside and the house the family shares.

42. Anne of Green Gables and 7 sequels by L M Montgomery Just emerged from reading ths 75p bargain set. Though I'm not sure I'll quite recover from reading Rilla of Ingleside for the first time, a rather shocking story of the Canadian home front in WWI which describes a nationalist pogrom with approval.

Picking one thing only to talk about, reading these books as an adult is so different after immersing myself in the Child Migrants story in the mid-90s (Empty Cradles, The Leaving of Liverpool, Oranges and Sunshine etc). Writing of the 90s presented the entire episode as a shocking hidden story, and it certainly felt that way to me. But it's front and centre in the Anne books. Anne is sent to Green Gables in the first place because Marilla Cuthbert refuses to have 'a Home boy' instead because they will be 'a London street arab'. There's the abused 'Home boy' later in the book who sleeps most of the way through a prayer meeting because he is so exhausted and starved. And Mary Vance, a fairly significant character in two of the later books, is another abused child on the same scheme. I suppose what was hidden was the fact that large numbers of the children involved were not orphans at all, and were sold for labour overseas without the consent of their parents. I think the Anne books, with both the intensely reactionary focus on the spirituality of motherhood, the presentation of children as effectively adults -and teachers! - from 15 years old, and the rather casual attitude to who would 'take' any child without a home, give a good picture of how the scheme sustained itself for so long.

100-104. Stranger In The Family
Left For Dead
One In Custody
Love Lies Bleeding
Silent Kill

By Jane Casey

I have now finished the Maeve Kerrigan series including the four shorts. I found the shorts a bit rubbish if you ask me but I'm fuming about #11 because it ends on a major cliffhanger and the next one isn't due til April (sob)

There is a standalone featuring Rob Langton which I will definitely read but I just need a break first.

Wishing you a speedy recovery @Piggywaspushed

I read Anglo Saxon Attitudes years ago @Terpsichore , probably about the time of the TV adaptation in 1992. I remember loving it.

Hope you feel better soon @Piggywaspushed .

Fingers crossed for a speedy recovery @Piggywaspushed.

Can I join? Very late in the day and I've only read 29 but maybe I'll have a big push to get to 50!

This year has been a bit thin on titles I really loved but I did thoroughly enjoy Lessons in Chemistry, The Wager by* David Grann, Soldier, Sailor by Claire Kilroy and Sea Bean by *Sally Huband.
Can anyone recommend anything along similar lines?

That's a great review of Anglo-Saxon Attitudes @Terpsichore I know I've read and enjoyed several Angus Wilson books back in the day, however the only one I remember anything about is The Old Men at the Zoo and what I do vaguely recall is a woman having sex with an Alsation. I think. It struck me because it was a completely unfamiliar concept to me at the time. (Not that it's a familiar concept now I hasten to add.)

@PermanentTemporary It's chilling to think that the events depicted in Oranges and Sunshine were still happening in my lifetime. Forced emigration with children being told their parents had died, and vice versa. And then to often suffer abuse too. Beyond appalling.

All best wishes for a speedy recovery @Piggywaspushed .

And welcome @Drachuughtty, looking forward to your reviews.