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?

Thanks for the Rankin review Fortuna. Thought I was done with the series too as was bored of the fascination with Cafferty, but have reserved Midnight Blue.

17.The Maiden by Kate Foster
Oh I have enjoyed listening to this and am now just listening to the bonus of an interview with the author at the end. Not a bold but almost but I have enjoyed and recommend. It is Edinburgh 1679 and Lady Christian is accused of murder of Lord James Forrester. This story is based on true events. Actually loved this tale so changing to a bold. What led Lady Christian to murder and death by the Maiden? I thought it brought the sights, sounds and smells of Edinburgh during those times to life. Yes a recommend

Have you read Sarah Ogilvie's The Dictionary People, @DuPainDuVinDuFromage? That’s exactly what it’s about - a dive into the RL people who contributed to the OED, including quite a few of the interesting women. And it’s still 99p at the moment on Kindle.

88 Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong

Ruth moves home for a year to help her mother and her father, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I liked this book and the way it represented families, the different ways in which love is shown, the way that problems aren’t always neatly resolved with a big therapeutic heart to heart, but can be put aside, sometimes permanently and sometimes temporarily. It’s written from the perspective of Ruth, focusing on what her father has said and done, and it’s interspersed with entries from her father’s diaries from Ruth’s childhood on what she’s said and done, which worked really well.

89 I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

A woman who is thinking of ending things with her boyfriend describes a trip to his parents remote farmhouse to meet them for the first time. I listened to this on audible (it’s free in the plus catalogue for a few more weeks) and for 90% of the book I was intrigued, and often unsettled. Unfortunately I was not a fan of the ending at all. Not only was it cliched but having the cliche spelled out to me like I'm a toddler ruined what was a pretty good suspense novel for me.

As it happens, my parents gave me this for my birthday a couple of weeks ago! And I was aware of the subject matter but had put it aside along with my other birthday books until I had got through some outstanding library books - I re-noticed it on my bedside table this morning and realised it is just what I was after! 😊 good to hear you recommend it!

66 Midnight And Blue by Ian Rankin*

If you like the Rebus series you will like this. It’s not the place to start if you’ve never read any of the series. I was expecting a grimmer ending than it actually was. One plot twist stretched my credulity ever so slightly too much but on the whole it’s up to his usual standard. As I said upthread, I’m glad Cafferty is out of the picture and the scramble for control of his crime empire never disappoints. I hope Clarke and Essen continue and that Malcolm Fox gets more of a comeuppance in any future books. I started off feeling some sympathy for Fox, always turning up with a handbag to Rebus’s machete in any battle of wits, but by this book I was sick of the smarmy, double dealing knobhead.

92. Mary Ellen, Craterean! by Chaz Brenchley

Latest instalment in the Crater School series, set in a Chalet-esq boarding School on a 1950s pulp sci-fi Mars. Clever Mary Ellen is from a poor farming family, at the Crater school on a scholarship given by a famous author. Inevitably spills and upsets occur, especially when she gets drawn into the mischievous Crew.
This was just as much fun as the previous two, though personally I'd love a little bit more of the Martian element. Also worth noting that although very entertaining for adults, they're also totally suitable for children if anyone has dc who like boarding school books (I guess same sort of age as the Murder Most Unladylike series).

In the Ditch by Buchi Emecheta

Fictionalised account based on her real life experiences as a single mother of five young children living in a run down sink estate in 1960s London. Full of warmth and humanity, I adored this.

Mayflies - Andrew O’Hagan
I can see why people liked it but it wasn’t quite a bold for me. I’ve passed on to 80s obsessed DS who will love it.

Catching up on my reading from the past month or so...
39. The Perfect Golden Circle by Benjamin Myers
Short novel centring on two middle aged men, friends who live kind of alternative lifestyles, as they spend one late 1980s summer planning and creating increasingly elaborate crop circles in south west England. I'm not sure how much this will stay with me but I really enjoyed the writing as I read - beautiful descriptions of landscape and nature with observations of human nature and bursts of light humour that made me smile.

40. Go As A River by Shelley Read
Pinching an online blurb..."When a moment changes everything, how do you live the rest of your life? 1940s Colorado: Teenage Victoria Nash is the only woman in a family of troubled men. When she meets Wilson Moon, a young drifter with a mysterious past, on a street corner, their connection is immediate. And dangerous. When tragedy strikes, Victoria is forced to leave her home and face a decision that will change her life forever." We follow Victoria through decades of change in her life, change in her community and change in the US, as she lives with the choices she has made.
I feel like this had all the elements I love, and could have been a book I loved, but I somehow didn't connect with it. It may have been a question of timing, but I'm not sure - elements of character and plot didn't quite sit right with me somehow. Lots of descriptions of rural Colorado with a strong sense of time and place. Definitely had a "for fans of Where The Crawdads Sing" feel about it.

41. Going Zero by Anthony McCarten
The CIA and a major US tech company (think fictional Meta/Google or similar) have joined forces to run a undercover competition/experiment. Ten American applicants have been selected to 'go zero', attempt to vanish for a month in order to win a massive cash prize. Using all of it's online capabilities and with access to government resources, the tech company bosses believe that they can track down each individual, and that doing so could be their gateway to further lucrative government/CIA deals. Will any of the ten make it?
I don't read books like this often but this was an ideal change from my regular reading - propulsive and engaging, I was drawn in from the start and hooked throughout. Some suspension of disbelief required, but it didn't feel all that far fetched. A really good read.

42. The Boys In The Boat by Daniel James Brown
Fantastic narrative non-fiction. I listened to this on Audible (currently 'Included in your membership') and I thought the narration was excellent too.
"From the Great Depression to Nazi Germany, The Boys in the Boat is the astonishing true story of the 1936 American men's eight rowing team on their quest for Olympic gold."
The early part of this book focuses on incredible stories of abandonment, poverty, survival and resourcefulness from the early life of Joe Rantz - one member of the 1936 crew. This and the background stories of other key 'characters' were my favourite elements of this book and drew me in to the whole story so I was absolutely hooked. Highly recommended.

43. The Missing by Michael Rosen
This is another book in a mini genre I keep returning to - writers researching and writing about the experiences of their Jewish relatives before, during and after WWII. While it is a familiar premise, Rosen's target audience here is older children so this is a short read with clear language and short explanations of any terms that a child may not understand. While it is mostly non-fiction, Rosen also includes poems that he has written as he found out about the lives of his relatives. In the back, there are numerous sizeable lists of suggested picture books, children books and graphic novels which have themes around migration, refugees, WWII and the Holocaust, both non-fiction and fiction.

Currently rattling through Telling Tales, the second Vera Stanhope novel by Ann Cleeves.

59. Under Pressure - Lisa Damour

A parenting guide to helping with anxiety in teenage girls. The chapters tackled girls’ situations with home life, friends, boys and at school, while also looking at the wider cultural landscape as to how girls are perceived and expected to act. It was ok but didn’t provide any new insights; also was published pre-Pandemic so could do with updating. The author is American and the book has been amended slightly for the UK market, but the small editorial changes (eg mentioning GCSEs as school exams) grate a little when other parts are so obviously American.

71 Great-Uncle Harry - Michael Palin

A fascinating and moving book which shines a light on the short life of Harry Palin, who died age 31 in the battle of the Somme - not a great war hero but just one of the millions of ordinary people caught up in the horror and madness of WW1. The writing is of course excellent and I highly recommend this.

89 The End of Us - Olivia Kiernan

This was a bit of a Strangers on a Train style mystery, with secrets and lies left right and centre. Gripping, galloped along, lots of cross currents, easy to suspend disbelief.

Myles and Lucy have the big house in Wimbledon, but no longer have the good luck in investments to match. Gabe and Holly move in opposite, and it turns out Gabe and Lucy were at school together. The outline of a plot to solve the money woes is hatched, but gets dark and complicated very quickly.

91. Borrowed Finery - Paula Fox. A memoir of US author Paula Fox. Born in 1923 to an alcoholic screenwriter and manic depressive mother, Paula was left in a founding home initially and then rescued by her Cuban grandmother at 5 months old. A life of being passed from one house to another then follows with her parents making occasional appearances as well as various famous names from the 20s and 30s. The way she is treated is incredibly shocking - at one stage when she's about 10, her parents take her to Florida and then leave her there permanently with the housekeeper of the house she's staying in. Another time she gets asked to leave school as her father is so badly behaved around town. It's written in a very matter of fact style, with not much insight into how she feels. I preferred her fiction which I read last week, but this was an interesting insight. She's also weirdly grandmother to Courtney Love through her daughter that she gave up for adoption who may or may not have been fathered by Marlon Brando! She mentions her daughter but doesn't say who the father is.

DNFing Bonehead by Mo Hayder. I’d read several reviews that said this wasn’t up to the standard of her previous books so I waited until it was 99p. Sadly, they were right and I doubt it would have been published in its current form if she were alive. It’s repetitive, the age and careers of two of the main characters are unbelievable and the use of the word ‘squaw’ to describe another character’s physical characteristics was the last straw for me (not by another character, or even by that character herself).
It comes across as a nasty cash-in after her death in 2021, with none of the cleverness or vicious imagination of her other novels.

Have managed to finish a second book today, one on audio and one paperback for 2 different book clubs. I've still got a Kindle one on the go but it's quite a relief to have finished the other 2. I think only people on this group will appreciate the multiple, simultaneous book reading!

92. Playground - Richard Powers. Longlisted for the Booker, this was my first foray into Powers work but apparently it's the marine version of the Overstory. It has 3 main threads. For me the most interesting is about a female diver Evelyne Beaulieu who starts diving in Canada in the earliest days of diving, and who we follow through various battles as a woman in a man's world, and dives until she is a 92 year old in Makatea, an island in the South Pacific. The descriptions of her dives and marine life she encounters were easily my favourite part of the book. The second strand focuses on an unlikely friendship between rich white kid Todd, who goes on to become a billionaire tech bro, and poor black kid Rafi and bond over a love of Go. This part all felt a bit heavy handed and cliched to me, particularly the Rafi character. And the third section is the present day in Makatea where the different characters come together to make a decision about future investment or preserving a simple way of life. All the bits are drawn together very cleverly in the end, but the various stereotypes and some clunky language let it down for me. I also didn't think the audio narration was great, there may be a reason for it but it's potentially spoiler territory.

Still I would have preferred this to be shortlisted than Orbital!

I love having multiple books on the go but my limit is four. One - and only one - audiobook and two others, ideally one fiction and one non-fiction and all is fine. A fourth and I start to get twitchy; I'm working my way through a book about the collapse of Lehman Brothers, The Long Island Comprise, the new Nigel Slater (that's a dip in and out book) and the fourth book in the Covenant of Witches series which i discovered existed from a post here recently. I wouldn't be surprised if Nigel had witchy tendencies and it took a bit of time to remember that the bit about Long Island in the Lehman Brothers book was fact not fiction. Proof that three is the perfect number of books at any one time.

This Winter by Alice Oseman

Novella in the Heartstopper universe, this is covered in the Winter episode in the latest series on Netflix. I think the graphic novels are more charming than the novels.

I usually have two books on the go - one kindle and one audible. Plus possibly a third if I'm taking part in a readalong on here. I don't listen very often, so I tend to get through the audible one rather slowly.

65. Held: Anne Michaels

The book opens with a soldier lying injured on a battlefield during the first world war. He thinks back to a chance encounter in a pub where he met his wife. He thinks about life and death; 'We know life is finite. Why should we believe death lasts forever?' When he goes back home he sets up his own business taking family portraits. Unfortunately, his physical and mental scars are enduring and happiness is elusive.

Also...this book is elusive. It is a dreamy, enigmatic, fragmented tale that sketches the love stories of four generations of women in one family. The connections between generations are straightforward enough. There are also friends who are connected to the family and then Marie Curie comes into the story. This seems random. The themes of love, loss, hope and desire permeate throughout.

I'm left with questions, particularly in the case of the youngest girl Helen and her flat cap and a lad called Aimo who flits in and out as well. So, there are several vignettes some which are loosely connected, so it seems to me. It might be better not to think of it too much in terms of a novel but more like a series of interconnected short stories and to enjoy the lyrical writing and to go with the flow. There are some beautiful passages. There are also passages that didn't quite make sense (maybe just me).

Overall I liked the book. It requires patience on the part of the reader. While it's not a long book, it can't be rushed. It's an experience. An interesting one.

Re multiple simultaneous book-reading.
Yes. Three readalongs on here, one book from the library or on kindle and a book in another language either French or Italian. A bit of a juggling act :)

53 Human Origins - New Scientist
Short and straightforward account of the evolution of human beings, which has made me want to read up more on some of the ideas - the origins of cooking and religion, and the lives of hunter gatherers, for a start.

54 Impossible Monsters - Michael Taylor
Traces the discovery of fossils and development of theories of evolution, from Mary Anning at the start of the 19th century to the American ‘bone wars’ at its close. Straightforward and chronological - very readable, but perhaps a little naive in its faith in the triumph of science over religion. That fight’s still going on 150 years later.

55 A book on a controversial current subject that I don’t want to bring into the nicest corner of the internet, so it shall remain nameless

I usually have at least 3 books going on - right now I’ve got A is for Alibi (mystery novel) on Kindle, Stephen Fry’s Odyssey just started today on Audible, Martin Chuzzlewit for readalong and some books on decolonisation and project management for work. Which is a bit too many.

I find it hard to say how many books I have on the go, as I don't know whether to count those with a bookmark partway in, that I may or may not to go back to. It's fairly usual to have at least three - a library book, a kindle book for the train, and a book I physically own.

I've been having a pretty good run:

126. The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley
A different take on time travel. The government has brought people from their own time into the modern world. The main character is responsible for a Victorian explorer, and starts developing some unprofessional feelings. Her mother was a Cambodian refugee, and she muses about the commonalities of being taken from your home. And what dastardly plotting is going on in the shadows? I recall some dismissive reviews on here, but I liked it - I liked the characters of the time travellers, I liked the dialogue, and the light and shade.

127. Small Bomb at Dimperley, Lissa Evans
Valentine was never intended to take ownership of the Big House after the war, but somehow here he is. Can he find a way to make it work? This was a lovely warm-hearted book. I enjoyed the cast of characters and the setting. Good fun.

128. The Darkening Age, Catherine Nixey
Non-fiction about how early Christians attacked the pagan world. I've read reviews that say the author is biased and cherry-picks her evidence, and although I don't know enough to say for myself, I can well believe it - in the battle between dignified philosophers and crazed and filthy monks, she's very clear about whose side she's on. She tells the story with relish, and it's a reminder that things might have happened differently - the success of the Judeo-Christian religions wasn't a given. An interesting read. (This sat on my kindle for nearly six years, so I'm pleased I got around to it).

129. When the Dust Settles, Lucy Easthope
Disaster specialist gives an account of her career, with snapshots into her personal life. Justly popular on here - a compelling read, full of compassion for those whose lives have been affected.

130. Reading Lessons, Carol Atherton
An English teacher writes about books she has taught and what can be learned from them. I expected to love this, but it didn't quite hit the mark for me. It seemed a bit too heavily focused on books as morality tales - it did in fact feel like a school lesson.

131. Making it Up, Penelope Lively
The author looks back on her life and how a twist of fates means things might have turned differently, and she makes up stories about what might have happened, modestly turning herself into a bit part in each story rather than the focus. I've previously read a memoir by her, so there's inevitably some repetition. I liked it rather than loved it.

132. My Good Bright Wolf, Sarah Moss
Memoir by the author about growing up and her struggles with anorexia. I was enthralled by this - there's a critical voice that keeps breaking into the text in italics, ridiculing what she says - of course she was taken care of and privileged and how dare she claim to struggle? - and I thought that was very effective.

Going back to reading multiple books, the last four books all had elements of women looking back over the lives and there were times when they blurred slightly. I should probably go off and read something ruggedly masculine, although I don't really want to and I've got Mrs Tim of the Regiment by D E Stevenson to finish first (picked up for a pound in a charity shop in Pontefract).

Enjoying the simultaneous book-reading confessions. I ended up with two new books yesterday - one library loan just in, another bought secondhand for the Rather Dated Book Club. I’ve got a non-fiction ebook going and a novel. Not totally unusual for me but it feels slightly on the excessive side.

And I’ve just finished the novel….74. Same As It Ever Was - Claire Lombardo

Well. This was…long. A hefty 498 pages which could, imho, have used the services of a good editor, or any editor. It’s also told via multiple timelines and dips in and out of my hated continuous present tense, all of which was irritating. Add to that the presence of a very hard-to-like protagonist, and it became a somewhat trying experience, which is a shame as I liked Lombardo's previous book a lot.

The main character is 50-something Julia Ames, married to saintly Mark, mother of Ben and annoying 17-year-old Alma. In flashback we learn of Julia's early motherhood days (when Ben was tiny, a word Lombardo likes so much she uses it approximately 3 times per page and I started dreading its reappearance - where was that editor?). Julia had a slipshod upbringing and her mother isn’t really in her life any more as a result - the inference is that she can’t help the way she is because of that experience - but we don’t find out much detail of this until two-thirds of the way through the book, by which time Julia has been so relentlessly awful to her husband and various others at every opportunity that I lost patience with her negativity, her whining, her tantrums, her picking of fights and her general joy-sucking, not to mention one Big Bad Thing she does. It isn’t a good sign when you keep furtively checking how many pages you’ve got left and there are still 300 or so left, but I did plough on to the end and there’s a resolution that somehow fits in with Julia's overall pall of gloom.
I’m honestly not sure whether Lombardo meant it all to come across this way but a quick scan of Goodreads reassures me that I’m not alone. A pity.

Only two on the go at one time for me - one audio and one Kindle/paper.

51.This Family by Kate Sawyer. Slightly posho family saga. Matriarch Mary is preparing her Cambridgeshire country house for her own second wedding celebrations. Her family have travelled home for the wedding, and old dynamics are played out despite their efforts to put their differences aside for the weekend.
This was alright – not toe curlingly bad, not compellingly good. In fact it was so middle of the road that I can’t think of a single interesting thing to say about it.

52.Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan. David is a middle-aged, classically educated Catholic priest. He is lonely and seems displaced in a down at heel Ayrshire parish. He makes attempts to educate and entertain some of the disenfranchised local teens, until one day the police knock on the door. In the course of unravelling what happened between David and the teenagers, we find out about his own lost love of years ago.

This was nuanced and sensitive. It’s easy to see how David’s unworldliness and loneliness will inevitably lead to his catastrophic errors of judgment, even though he himself can’t. The post-industrial small town community is beautifully detailed, right down to a wedding party Slosh. Not as good as Caledonian Road or the pretty prefect Mayflies, both of which I’ve loved this year, but still a great read.

51 Scarlet - Genevieve Cogman Oh god, this was awful! I nearly DNF’d but it wasn’t very long and I thought I’d see if it improved, seeing as I really liked Cogman’s Invisible Library series. Unfortunately, it was all bad - so much tell-not-show; one-dimensional characters who make odd decisions; anachronisms galore; clumsy attempts at morality lessons which made it seem very YA; a plot line that jumped all over the place…I could go on. I couldn’t make myself care what happened and I skimmed a lot of it.

I should probably say something about the storyline so: it’s the French Revolution; the Scarlet Pimpernel co-opts a servant girl to help with a plan to save the French royal family because she looks like Marie-Antoinette; oh and by the way it’s an alternative reality where vampires are a well-established part of the aristocracy in both the UK and France. It could have been good! But no. It really makes the last book I read (The Dictionary of Lost Words) seem excellent in comparison (rather than just good). I’m so annoyed about how bad this was that I think I’m actually going to give it the italics treatment on my list - the first one this year!