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?

@Drachuughtty welcome and don't worry about the numbers. 50 is just an aim some of us meet, some of us don't and some of us exceed. It's all about the reading, reviews and chatting!

@Piggywaspushed get well soon! I had mine out a few years ago and I felt so much better after.

Hi @Drachuughtty

Since you've read The Wager which is about a ship, one book that went down well on this thread is Harry Thompson's This Thing Of Darkness

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit thanks, will give it a go! The Wager certainly gave new meaning to the phrase "worse things happen at sea".

I've still got The Wager on my bedside table 'To read' pile.

Always good to see This Thing of Darkness mentioned. I count it as one of the few small triumphs of my life that so many people have now read it since I discovered it in a charity shop one day long ago!

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.)

@highlandcoo that made me snort

105. Small Bomb At Dimperley by Lissa Evans

A down at heel aristocratic family struggles in a post-war environment.

I read this in one sitting this evening. I was among the posters who raved about the Old Baggage trilogy and I've seen positive reviews of this one already. Very disappointed to find this was not for me : too great a Barbara Pym vibe and I really couldn't have cared less about any of them, I'm sorry to say.

@Drachuughtty would thoroughly recommend David Grann’s other books I have read Killers of the flower moon and The lost city of Z if you haven’t read them yet, although The Wager was my favourite of the three.
I also think Patrick Radden Keefe has a similar vibe and am a huge fan of what I’ve read of his, Say Nothing and Empire of Pain being absolute standouts for me.

Wishing you a speedy recovery and lots of comfortable reading time piggy.

@StrangewaysHereWeCome , as @FuzzyCaoraDhubh said , that's a beautiful review of The Bee Sting. I agree with everything you say. I loved that book.

@PermanentTemporary , that's very interesting about the Anne of Green Gables series. I loved those books as a child and wasn't aware of that dark historical background at all. I'm thinking I should reread them now...

Wishing you a speedy and book-filled recovery, @Piggywaspushed !

Get well soon piggy but hope you enjoy lots of reading time whilst you’re recovering.

Flowers in the Attic was passed around my school in the 80s too along with all the others of that era: Princess Daisy, Lace, Riders, Chances etc which got interspersed with the books on our school reading list so my list in those days veered between classics and bonkbusters….

67. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont - Elizabeth Taylor

I am late to the party in reading this which has been much-reviewed - but what a delight.

Get well soon Piggy, and anyone else dealing with health issues!

I have a mini birthday book haul to show off - DH didn't realise I had already read the Richard Osman, unfortunately, but the other two were on my wishlist so I'm looking forward to reading them!

@Piggywaspushed best wishes for a smooth recovery.
@highlandcoo @PermanentTemporary that was how I felt about Oranges and Sunshine too

I've just had a refund on Amazon to a gift card. That can only mean one thing - 'free book money' so I have bought The puffin diaries by Rich Shapiro because it's about travel around the Arctic circle including Alaska which is a place I'm fascinated with.

I also got The Flow by Amy-Jane Beer about rivers and Journeys in the Wild by Gavin Thurston who was a wildlife photographer for David Attenborough.

Best wishes @piggywaspushed for a speedy recovery.

Did anyone happen to see the Great British Bake-Off Last night? I think we have a new candidate for this thread - the final show-stopper cake was a pile of 'illusion' cakes in the form of books, made by a contestant who waxed lyrical about his love of reading and said he'd read 50 books in a year…!

Ha! I saw him!

I thought that! DD was very pleased because one of his cakebooks was Heartstopper which she loves.

There was also Mythos, Gatsby and Maurice I think.

Wishing you a speedy recovery Piggy.

I read Flowers a few years ago and was more agog at how terrible the writing was than the incest. I really couldn't understand how it was so popular.

Just finished the latest Elizabeth Strout - Tell Me Everything. Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton are introduced and become tentative friends. Meanwhile someone local is accused of murder.

Typical Strout and it won't disappoint if you've enjoyed the previous ones.

Gratitude - Delphine de Vigan
Short novel and an absolute gem. This was a book club pick and universally enjoyed which rarely happens. It's a translation from French.

An elderly lady is moved into a nursing home where she struggles with her loss of language. Her speech therapist finds she has a secret past which he tries to get to the bottom of.

I Who Have Never Known Men - Jacqueline Harpman
40 women are kept caged in an underground bunker, with no understanding of why they are there. The youngest has no name and doesn't remember her life before. After a security breach, they all escape and need to learn to survive in a world none of them recognise.

Dystopia lite, but much enjoyed. I was hooked from the start. Great writing.

Same, best thing I did getting mine removed, the pain from gallstone attacks was on a par with childbirth. Wishing you a speedy recovery @Piggywaspushed

Thanks! Will definitely check out Patrick Radden Keefe. I have read the Lost Cory of Z but didn't think it was as well written.

@FortunaMajor never read any Elizabeth Strout but was thinking of giving her a go, what's the best order to read them in?

44 The Mortal Word - Genevieve Cogman Next in the Invisible Library series which - fortuitously - BorrowBox has in full, and I liked this one so much that I’m giving it a bold (which has been rare this year, for me!). This one is set in (a version of) 1890s Paris, where the Fae and Dragons are negotiating a peace treaty, with Librarians acting as mediators and humans caught in the crossfire as usual. None of that will make sense unless you have a vague understanding of the world-building but suffice to say that this series just keeps getting better and better, with great characterisation and exciting plot lines. Straight on to the next one despite other library books waiting for me…

She's written 2 separate character series, which later collide. I initially preferred the Olive Kitteridge series to the Lucy Barton one, but I know others on the thread were the other way round. I skipped number 2 in the Lucy Barton series and jumped back in at 3. I loved 3 and 4, this latest one is number 5, pulling both characters together.

It's hard to say where to start. Olive is a dislikeable cantankerous old woman and Lucy starts as a younger woman with a strained relationship with her family. It later goes on to explore her marriage issues. I'd check the blurbs and see which floats your boat more.

Welcome @Drachuughtty
The first Elizabeth Strout I read was Olive Kitteridge and I have read 3 now which I’ve loved. Want to read them all!

Finished another audio
161 Ashes of London by Andrew Taylor
Historical crime set in restoration London, from 2 POVs, both adult children of men who had supported Cromwell but from very different circumstances. I enjoy a historical mystery and this was okay but I didn’t like it as much as Shardlake or even SJ Parris so don’t think I’ll bother with any more.

My new audio is A Girl is a Half-formed Thing to accompany the other 4 physical and ebooks I’m in and out of!

Ha, I’m just about to start on Lucy Barton as a nice quick, easy fiction read - having read Olive Kitteridge a few years ago. Had a preview from Borrowbox and it looks promising.

I enjoyed the others in the 'Ashes' series more than the first one. Not Shardlake level but I preferred them to SJ Parris, although I found the first one rather laboured.