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?

So sorry about your cat @Piggywaspushed I have two too so get how awful it must be

Thanks for flagging the deals. I haven't had time to look at anything apart from my wish list but have picked up Wandering Stars, the Clare Chambers and West Heart Kill which someone on here recommended, I think last year, and sounded really interesting.

Thanks @ChessieFL The last link worked for me. There was nothing there to tempt me, but these three were there and I’d recommend them:
The first Bernie Gunther
Heartburn
A Woman in Berlin

@Piggywaspushed I’m so sorry about your cat.

Thanks all. It's genuinely heartbreaking.

So sorry to hear about your dcat @Piggywaspushed. Sending love.

Super pictures @RazorstormUnicorn, and what a feat. Very impressed.

54. Rivals by Jilly Cooper. Our antihero Rupert Campbell-Black from Riders returns, this time as an MP come media mogul bidding to takeover a television franchise. A first time read for me, this was silly and largely joyous. It's quite nice to read something so deeply focused on pleasure, whether food, sex, or business success, and even with the inevitable heartbreaks no one stays sad for long before hopping into bed with someone else. Although many of the 80s attitudes are very dated I found it less problematic than Riders.

If it makes sense , I'm glad I read it anyway.

Ugh, nightmares indeed

Sorry about your Dcat @Piggywaspushed

Oh, and if whoever had started Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' Dynasty series, it looked like it had stopped at #35 in the series on a bit of cliffhanger. I've forgotten what that cliffhanger was but #36 was published earlier this year, and is now on offer at 99p (yes, Reader, I bought it too.) The title is The Gathering Storm.

Sorry to hear about your cat @Piggywaspushed hope you're ok

@elkiedee Goodbye Eastern Europe looks really interesting, I don't have a Kindle but have added it to my wishlist.

I'm so sorry to hear about your cat Piggy, it must have been a terrible shock.

I'm sorry to hear about your cat Piggy.
It's a terrible shock.

It’s horrible when you lose a beloved family member, which is what a pet is. Sorry you’re having to cope with that, @Piggywaspushed 💐

Thank you. There is certainly a Clyde shaped hole in our family.

@MandyPand – I love that about this thread too! I have just read 101 books by the end of October. I am also at the season in my life where its just me and OH at home. I don’t have to rush about or look after children. I read every day on my kindle. I have the kindle app on my phone, so if I am attending any appointments and I have a wait, I will sneak in a few chapters. I listen to audible in my car. I always end the day in bed with a physical book, either from the library or a book that I have read. I certainly wasnt reading this amount of books as a single mum working full time!

@Piggywaspushed – I’m so sorry about Clyde 💐

102 The Ghost Fields – Elly Griffiths (Ruth Galloway 7) Loved. The thing I really enjoy about this series is that I learn so much. This time is was about the American Airfields in Norfolk, including the ‘fake ones’ to trick the Nazis, known as the Ghost Fields.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit – I absolutely get what you are saying about Ruth and her internal body shaming. I ignore it now, although it think its not as obvious as the earliest books.

113. Rivals by Jilly Cooper (Audible)

Another one crossing the finish line. Much preferred it to Riders and I think @StrangewaysHereWeCome use of the word "joyous" is quite apt.

Found the ending very abrupt and would have liked a bit more of them as a "happy couple" at the end and a bit less of the franchise bollocks

RCB I did end up rooting for so she did a good job there because I absolutely loathed him in Riders. Not sure if I'm going on to Polo. I've survived characters changing already but they are very long and I think I need a break.

Read by Georgia Tennant, I didn't much rate her Irish accents.

@Tarragon123

It was the "I'm 12 stone and so I'm a heifer" that reminded me of Jilly Cooper and then you have the I'm nearly 40 and that's too old to wear jeans malarkey. Odd from a female writer.

I think that in the last few books, Ruth has become more accepting of and confident in herself, her appearance, age etc. I think Ruth was actually born a year or two before me but in the books, she's often a year or two younger than I am at the time I read it, so the series makes me feel that we're going through middle age together. Ruth is older than most crime series women, a few years younger than her author - early in the series she either became pregnant (not planned) or gave birth at nearly 40 (after more than 12 years I don't remember exactly!) and I'm assuming her age was set according to this. Her DD Kate is similar in age to my DS2.

We must be similar vintage then @elkiedee as Ruth is only slightly younger than me

I really like Ruth Galloway (have finished the series ) and didn’t really think of it as fat shaming. I think she’s a great character and I have Katy Wix in my head should they cast the series.

Piggy so sorry to hear about your cat- it’s like losing part of the family.

I’ve been enjoying the Ruth Galloway’s too. I don’t think it’s body shaming- it was the culture at the time they were written to feel ashamed of being overweight- I reckon I’m not a million miles away from Ruth’s age and still feel guilty about my extra poundage. I think it’s a realistic picture of how she would feel.

I’ve finished number 180 Stasiland by Anna Funder
This is an excellent look at the people who belonged to or were investigated by the Stasi in Cold War East Germany. Looking at the individual stories really makes you see what it was like on a human level but Finder still puts it in its wider context. A bold for me.

Interestingly, my current fiction read (which I’m nearly finished) The Wall is about defenders of a coastal defence war in a dystopian future so as a pair they’re working very well.

. I think it’s a realistic picture of how she would feel

Perhaps, as a larger person, I'm just more sensitive to it as an issue. I'd love to be 12 and a half stone myself

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit you and me both

@Piggywaspushed I'm sorry to hear about your cat. Hope you and Bonnie are finding comfort.

45. Good Girls by Hadley Freeman
I've lost track of who said this was in the deals yesterday, was it @TattiePants? Thank you, because this was another bold for me. I like the style and structure of Freeman's writing. This story of her own anorexia, mixed with a survey of how it is thought of and treated now, is visceral without being gross and personal without being navel gazing. I haven't had an eating disorder but Freeman makes the experience very human.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit @ÚlldemoShúl Amen to that. 12 and a half stone would be wonderful. I like the books but one of the things I disliked about Ruth is I don't think she's really a girls girl, which is fine, but I think she is disrespectful of established relationships / marriages.