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?

TimeforaGandT, I watched the first episode of Rivals last night and can confirm it is spot on. So Eighties! And so Jilly! I'm going to see her talk next week - very much looking forward to it. The later books haven't been that great but Riders/Rivals/Polo were terrific fun.

I’m going to see Jilly next week too!

@Tarragon123 I thought exactly the same about When the Dust settles, I want Lucy as my best mate! Though I doubt she'd have the time...

Thank you @PepeLePew. Currently in bed with COVID so good to have something to look forward to when I am feeling slightly better!

Oh, bad luck @TimeforaGandT. Stay warm and hydrated, sleep lots - and read! Hope you feel better quickly.

@TimeforaGandT

It's perfect for lying on the couch in your dressing gown

Get well soon @TimeforaGandT 🌺
Light reading, warm drinks and lots of rest. Take care!

Thank you all for your kind wishes. Yesterday I didn’t feel well enough to do anything but today I have managed some reading for short periods so hoping to feel better again tomorrow.

@Drachuughtty – yes, that could be a problem lol

@TimeforaGandT – get well soon 💐

96 That Bonesetter Woman – Frances Quinn. Another kindle 99p special and someone else just finished it this week. Enjoyable and I was interested to learn about the skill of ‘Bonesetting’. You don’t often get a clumsy woman (which I very much am!) taking centre stage. A bit predictable in parts, but still entertaining.

97 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens. This was an absolute slog. Even on Audio at 1.3 speed, it still look around 26 hours to get through. I disliked most of the characters, Murdstone and his awful sister, Uriah Heep (obviously), Micawber and his irritating habit of using 30 words instead of 3, Dora the drippy ‘child bride’, Steerforth yuck, Mrs Steerforth yuck, Rosa Dartle, I could go on.
Liked – Aunt Betsey Trotwood, Peggoty, Mr Peggoty, Traddles, Agnes and Barkis. Aunt Betsey was by far my favourite character. I just found it far too long, meandering and boring. I only read it to prepare for Demon Copperhead. Sigh.

I bought 3 kindle 99p specials last night, Rivals, A Marriage Portrait and The Secret of Flowers. My new Kindle total is 44 and I am happy with that.

That's a shame @CornishLizard . I remember reading this when it came out and loved it, I was living in London at the time so perhaps it resonated more with me because of that. Have you read Cleopatra's Sister which was her next novel, or her Booker winning Moon Tiger?

Get well soon, GandT. I think DS may have Covid - he's currently coughing and complaining of a headache. I'm keeping my distance and leaving the occasional cup of tea outside his door. As we had to cancel our plans for today I thought I'd get some reading done but all I've done is watch Rivals. Which is...kind of literary, right?

Of course @PepeLePew

Sending honey and lemon and best wishes to everyone with covid.

I read and really enjoyed Moon Tiger years ago @Philandbill and had always meant to read more of her work. Possibly I’d have enjoyed City of the Mind more another time but I had such high hopes of loving it and at first I thought I would, she’s such an artist, but I found it quite slow going for much of the book.

Feel better soon @TimeforaGandT

56 A is for Alibi - Sue Grafton
First read for my new book club - we’ve decided to read slightly older books that will be easy for people to get hold of in libraries etc. First in the Alphabet Series centred on California PI Kinsey Millhone, I didn’t realise when we chose it this was written way back in 1982! Kinsey is hired by Nikki Fife, who’s just done jail time for murdering her husband but now wants to clear her name. Not my usual genre but I was willing to give it a go. It was readable enough but could have been half the length if she hadn’t felt the need to describe every outfit, building and roads taken on each car journey in minute detail. The action/chase scene at the end was particularly daft, and it was pretty obvious who was going to turn out to be a bad’un. Almost certainly won’t bother with the rest of the alphabet.

Ha, I've read all the Kinsey Millhone books, @LadybirdDaphne (sadly, Sue Grafton died before she could finish the final one), and I can tell you that by the time she gets to 'Y', Kinsey still lives in her teeny-tiny converted garage, still eats peanut butter and pickle sandwiches, still goes for inedible Hungarian food at Rosie's, still drags herself out on punishing runs, and Henry and all his siblings are still hale and hearty, apparently aged approximately 120.

DH decided to start reading them recently and after the first one, his reaction was similar to yours. I had to tell him they don’t really evolve. He was 🫤

I have a few reviews to catch up on.

71. The Rich People Have Gone Away by Regina Porter. Pandemic set novel following two couples, plus a range of other characters. When Theo and Darla escape to upstate New York, following an argument Darla disappears prompting a police investigation and missing person hunt. There's a good novel in here somewhere but far too much going on, too many themes and characters, and most of it inconclusive sadly.

72. The Wedding People by Alison Espach. Loved this. Reeling from her divorce, Phoebe checks into a luxury hotel planning to end her life, but then discovers she's the only guest not part of the wedding party. She gradually gets drawn into the relationships and dramas of the people she's staying with. Really well observed and believable, complex characters.

73. God of the Woods by Liz Moore. Thriller following the investigation into the disappearance of a privileged teenage girl from a summer camp, whose brother also disappeared in the same woods 15 years earlier. Well plotted and came together well at the end, with a few unguessable twists, but I felt it was quite bitty and jumped around too much between different characters and time periods.

74. Headshot by Rita Bullwinkle. Booker longlisted, covering a weekend long teenage girls boxing competition. The book follows the structure of the tournament, focussing on the girls in pairs during their fights. A really good idea but ultimately disappointing for me, I felt like a never really got a grip on most of the characters. Could have fleshed out their individual stories a bit more I think.

I’ve a couple of catch ups too
171 The Stone Diaries- Carol Shields
This tells the story of the life of Daisy Goodwill from conception to death. It dips in and out of different people in her life’s stories too- parents, best friends etc. Parts are straightforward narrative and other sections are epistolary. This book made me think a lot- about others perceptions of us, the value of good friendships and how much do we actually touch the world. Parts were funny, others poignant. A great read.

171 How we Disappeared- Jing Jing Lee
Two timelines in. Singapore, one present day with narrator Kevin, a lonely teenage boy close to his grandmother and the other Wang Di which jumps from her present day grief at losing her husband and the past during the Japanese occupation. This was difficult to read as it was such serious subject matter. Want Di’s present day timeline was extremely moving, bringing me to tears at times. Her past was brutal. Kevin’s timeline not quite so good but I did love how much he loved his grandmother and the bond he had with her.

Either or both of these could be bold, I’m just waiting to see if they stick with me.

Hello everyone - I’ve been in a massive slump. So kuvc going on family wise and work wise - nothing terrible, just you know when it all takes over. I’ve also had covid this week. I haven’t really caught up properly, concentration a bit awry.

I am very behind with Les Liaisons Dangereuses but hopefully will catch up soon.

In reviews, very little to report:

Half a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I am sure most of you have read this book and I am late to the party. This is set in the Biafran War in the 1960s and follows a group of reasonably elite Nigerians(Biafrans at different points). It is, as you would expect, horrific. It alternates parts between before and during/after the war. I thought the structure was supberb and clever, just as it gets to much you flit back to before and the juxtaposition is all the more stark. The characters were incredibly well drawn and the writing was a perfect mix of matter of fact, description, inner thought and dialogue.

I have previously read her Americanah but I thought that this was vastly superior.

Cleopatra and Frankenstein Coco Mellors
I would not have bothered with this, and definitely wouldn’t have finished if it was my own choice. another that I suspect most have read.

Too much dialogue. Too much.

Cleo and Frank meet at a party - whirlwind romance, he is twenty years older, everyone does loads of drugs, gets smashed all the time, generally unlikeable. Whole thing was quite predictable.

There were moments I liked Frank, against my better judgement, he seemed the only really fleshed out one. I could see how he would draw people to him. I liked Eleanor - Frank’s secondary love interest - chapters. The way they were written was much more interesting, in short snippets, than the rest.

@AgualusasLover I agree Half of a Yellow Sun is incredible, I think it's probably a contender for the best book in English this century because of the combination of the quality of her writing and the importance of the story she's telling.

53 Borrower of the Night - Elizabeth Peters I really like the Amelia Peabody books so thought I would try this book by the same author - the first in a series about a glamorous historian called Vicky Bliss, set in the 60s or 70s with lots of old-fashioned attitudes to match. It’s a gothic adventure story with Americans being condescending about little old Europeans, and the main character is annoyingly smug, and lots of brilliant deductions ore made which look suspiciously like leaps of faith (or the author deciding it was time someone worked out another piece of the mystery). Silly but reasonably fun; I won’t bother seeking out any more in the series and will stick with Peabody in future.

67 Elemental Forces edited by Mark Morris.
Flame Tree Press anthology of horror short stories. There were only a couple that I found boring. The stand out ones are below:
THE PEELER by Poppy Z. Brite
JACK-A-LENT by Paul Finch
NOBODY WANTS TO WORK HERE ANYMORE by Christina Henry
EIGHT DAYS WEST OF PLETHORA by Verity Holloway
THEY EAT THE REST by Jim Horlock
MISTER REAPER by Annie Knox
I MISS YOU TOO MUCH by Sarah Langan
THE DOPPELGÄNGER BALLET by Will Maclean
THE SCARECROW FESTIVAL by Tim Major
THE ENTITY by Nicholas Royle
A REVIEW OF ‘SLIME TUTORIAL: THE MUSICAL’ by P.C. Verrone

33. The Kellerby Code, Jonny Sweet. Well. Thought this was great at first, but then it all went extremely violent and out of control, so now I'm not sure what I make of it! Thought it was realistic in it's portrayal of someone desperate to fit in and unsure who they are. But the violence was too much. What did others think of it?

90 Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford

I find the Mitford sisters fascinating and enjoyed this autobiography by the second youngest daughter, Jessica. I thought that the earlier years, focusing on her relationship with her family was much more open and revealing than the period when she ran away with her second cousin, Edmond Romilly, who she quickly married. The later section just felt very detached, but this may because she was revisiting difficult times, with devastating loss. I found myself feeling like Esmond was a bit of an idiot, with his quick rich schemes / cons but they were both very young and I wonder if, given the chance, he would have matured, or whether Decca would have tired of the instability of their life together. I loved the depictions of Muv and Decca's relationship with the infamous Unity.

91 Ten Little Words by Leah Mercer

I read this a week or two ago and couldn’t even remember what it was about, which is never a good sign. Ella’s mother promises she will always be there for her, but one day she walks into the sea, or does she...? This was so predictable you could see the ‘twist’ marching towards you from a mile away. It’s free on Kindle Unlimited, which is sadly its only saving grace.

92 Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs

The first in the Dr Temperance Brennan series, on which the tv series Bones is based. It was pretty graphic with a serial killer dismembering and mutilating women. Temperance seems to be a bit of an emotional mess, constantly forgetting that she is a forensic anthropologist and not a detective, going off doing her own investigations. It was ok, I’ll probably give the next in the series a go but if that’s not good I’ll leave the rest.

93 Happy Place by Emily Henry

Harriet and Wyn are the perfect couple - they go together like bread and butter, gin and tonic, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Every year, they take a holiday from their lives to drink far too much wine with their favourite people in the world. Except this year, they are lying through their teeth, because Harriet and Wyn broke up six months ago. And they still haven't told anyone. But the cottage is for sale so this is the last time they'll all be here together. They can't bear to break their best friends' hearts so they'll fake it for one more week. I quite enjoyed this, I have couple of others by this author that I will check out.

Yes, Edmond was definitely not worthy of Decca. He was more of an escape really. She did however go on to a more successful marriage but also lost a second child tragically. One of her sons from her second marriage was knocked off his bike and died.

A busy week so I’m just catching up with the thread. On the subject of reading, I’m a one-book-at-time person, unless it’s impractical (eg the book is physically too big to lug around). I should get into audiobooks but I have too many podcasts on the go at the mo.

<strong>60.	Under the Whispering Door</strong> - TJ Klune 

A modern, warm-hearted urban fantasy/fairy tale.

Wallace is dead. He was not a very nice person when alive, and when a ‘reaper’ collects him and brings him to Charon’s Crossing Tea and Treats he is understandably furious. Hugo, the tea shop’s owner, promises to help him on his journey, and Wallace’s redemption back to humanity begins. Despite his lack of a physical presence he is able to help, not only with the customers at the tea shop, but with those in his own situation, but how will he cope with the next stage in his afterlife?

This was an extraordinary book; it made me laugh out loud at times but also made me think deeply. The themes of grief, loss and what makes a family wound through the story, partly affected by the author’s own experiences. A definite bold and I’ll be searching out more by this author.