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?

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

Huge bias from me for personal reasons but it is a great book and now on the syllabus (I believe)

I'm sure I've read a book called Birdsong, but not that one. I'll have to go and root around on the shelves and see if I still have it.

It's set after WW1 and a posh soldier boy marries a woman who was "on the stage" and clearly not good enough for him. Then she had his baby and he locked her up and tried to kidnap it.

Definitely not the same one

I've just bought an 8 volume set of Anne of Green Gables for 75p. I feel having this on my phone for emergencies can only be a good thing.

I'm overdue a reread. They really are perfect escapism @PermanentTemporary

99. The Close by Jane Casey

Maeve Kerrigan #10

Kerrigan and Derwent go undercover

Can't believe I've nearly finished these. Just one more novel and then 4 short stories. Truly addictive.

62. The Gunslinger by Stephen King Thought I'd start a re read of the Dark Tower series which is probably my favourite series of all time. This is probably the 4th or 5th time I've read this series and only on this reading did I realise that Roland's "yawing sensation" in the first chapter as he's crossing the desert is the foreshadowing of the finale. I don't know why this bit just went straight over my head on all my previous re reads

@satelliteheart I'm preparing myself for a re-read but trying to wait until November for ultimate cosy comfort.

158 Bird Box by Josh Malerman
I’m way behind the curve with this one. Majorie is living in a dystopian world where she and her 2 children cannot remove their blindfolds as something that people see makes them go mad and kill themselves or others. She has to make a journey. This also flashes back to how the whole situation evolved in its early days. This was so tense and anxiety inducing- read it really fast because I was so stressed to find out what happens- successful horror book.

159 A Lesson in Violence by Jordan Harper
I think in the Us this is called She Rides Shotgun going by the Storygraph reviews. Nate has just been released from prison but in his last couple of weeks he has angered the white supremacists who have put out a contract on him, his ex and his daughter. He and daughter Polly go on the run to save their lives and decide to hit back. This was very stylised and Polly is not at all believable as an 11 year old. Pacy and action bound- this struck me as being written for the movies.

160 Lublin by Marya Wilkinson
3 Young Jewish boys walk through Poland trying to find Lublin to trade some brushes. Elya (the sensible one) Kiva (the spoiled rich religious one) and Ziv (the troublemaker) get into all sorts of scrapes. There is a constant dark undertone and foreshadowing. I didn’t ‘get’ this book. It was trying to be funny (which it wasn’t) then dark (which it was but I didn’t care enough about the characters to be bothered).

38.Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson. I absolutely love the Jackson Brodie series and this edition continues to have some wonderful characters and her trade mark British cosy vibes. But it didn’t quite work for me. The blurb pitches it as ‘a boring case for Brodie that takes a turn and become more intriguing’…but that turn didn’t happen until the last 25%, before then it was a little…boring. Normally I love the coincidences in her books that are brought together for a big conclusion, but these felt very over done; saddly. I’ll still read another of course.

268 The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier

Orsola is born into a glass making family on the island of Murano near Venice. As a girl she’s not expected to join the family business but she wants to so learns glassmaking in secret. What’s odd about this book is that it then follows Orsola and her family through the centuries - starting in the 1400s and ending in the present day. The idea is that people in Murano/Venice don’t age but the world around them does. This was a useful device for being able to tell the history of Venice and glassmaking, but it didn’t work for me because there was no real explanation of it and whether anyone else was meant to notice that all these people in Venice just never die. I liked the characters and finding out more about glassmaking but the time skip device spoilt it a bit. Still a good book though.

269 Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller

In a small town in Georgia, a group of people try to ban books that they believe contain things that will ruin their town and the children. Half the town support this, the other half don’t. This is a satire so is inevitably over the top, but while it has an interesting message it goes too far cramming in every possible issue and there’s too many characters to keep track of.

@PermanentTemporary I'm currently listening to Anne of Green Gables** on audible, I managed to miss it when I was younger but am finding it very lovely so far. Good to know there are other volumes !

I'm partway through this series, I've had Wizard and Glass on my bookshelf for three years so it's been a while since the last one! I'm going to need a recap before continuing I think...

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy - Helen Fielding. A re-read of the fourth Bridget Jones book in which Bridget navigates life after the death of Mark Darcy. This was generally as enjoyable as it was when I first read it ten years ago, but the chapters set in the school were tedious. I'm really looking forward to seeing the film adaptation when it's released next Feb.

I'm also looking forward to reading my next book, Sally Rooney's Intermezzo - there was yet another rave review, this time in today's Sunday Times, and hopefully my copy should arrive on Tuesday.

@PermanentTemporary I love Anne of Green Gables. I have a copy ( green appropriately ) given to my mum as a Sunday School prize in 1935.

As a red-haired freckly little girl I so identified with Anne, especially when she was teased for her hair colour.

I must get it down from the loft and reread it this winter.

Did anyone see the series on Netflix? I got sidetracked and didn't watch it to the end but what I did see I thought was pretty well done.

The Good Thieves by Katherine Rundell
Another very charming children’s book from Rundell. If you’ve got a child aged around 9 to 12 who would enjoy a slightly old fashioned and quaint adventure story complete with a circus, peril and a happy ending, then I’d recommend this.

56. The Colour of Time - Dan Jones & Marina Amaral
This is subtitled A New History of the World 1850 - 1960. The premise is simple; the Brazilian artist Marina Amaral has taken a selection of some 200 historical black and white photographs over that time period, from the dawn of photography to the advent of colour, and using historical research has digitally rendered them into colour. Dan Jones has written a narrative accompanying each photo, placing it in its historical context, along with a chapter summary for each decade.

A picture tells a thousand words and these are stunning images. Some are famous, many less so, but they all tell the history of the world during this black and white period; returning them to colour brings the history to life in a way I’ve rarely seen. Sympathetically restored, unlike some of the colourised Victorian postcards, the photos show subjects from war to intimate portraits of the great and good, and obviously looking at that time period there are bound to be some harrowing images. With some of the photos you can tell they are old, from the camera shake apart from the historical setting; other faces from the past look stunningly modern and it’s hard to believe these are people who lived and died 150 years ago. I would say this is one which needs the physical book to do justice to the photos in all their colourful, grainy glory. A definite bold.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie
I was also a bit disappointed by In Memoriam. But I don't think anything lives up for me to All Quiet on the Western Front or memoirs like Good-Bye to All That.

@Southeastdweller
I'm #4 in the queue for Intermezzo at the library, with 10 copies on order. As that's in a queue of 57, I hope it arrives when I've got through a couple of the books I have out/awaiting collection at the moment. Islington no longer charges fines but I'm going to feel guilty if I end up with books weeks (or months) overdue.

Anne of Green Gables and sequels
I love the first few books - I remember being thrilled to find that I could borrow the sequels to Green Gables from the library, and then getting my own copy of Anne of Avonlea. But after Anne of the Island (about Anne as a college student), I'm not sure I enjoyed an adult reread of the later books so much - especially the patriotic response to WWI.

@ChessieFL
I've also just read The Glassmaker, courtesy of Netgalley, and I'm not sure how I feel about the "time works differently" thing - though it doesn't apply to Venice, just to Murano, in the novel.

@RomanMum that sounds amazing - have just reserved at the library

Love the Anne of Green Gables books. DD2 has the middle name Anne with an e because of those books.

@elkiedee All Quiet is incredible, isn't it?

I love Anne of Green Gables, although agree I’m less keen on the later books in the series. Also love the 1980s miniseries with Megan Followes as Anne and Jonathan Crombie as Gilbert Blythe. I did try Anne with an E on Netflix but didn’t like it. Anne will always be Megan Followes for me.

I'm another one who loved reading Anne of Green Gables as a young teen and read many of them from the library.
I have had the books on Kindle for a while. I really loved them way back then so would hope a reread wouldn't be a disappointment.

85. In Ascension by Martin McInnes
    Microbiologist Leigh becomes involved with a research expedition to investigate a mysterious, newly discovered deep sea trench. At the same time, there's a huge breakthrough in rocket propulsion, opening up the possibilities for exploration in the further reaches of the solar system. There's also equally mysterious discoveries of objects in the Oort Cloud.
    
    Leigh gets the opportunity to become more deeply involved in all of the above, while reflecting on her troubled childhood, violent father & her relationship with her sister & her aging mother.
    
    This had the potential to be fantastic, Leigh & her family were really well written, & the setup was intriguing. Unfortunately - avoiding spoilers - the SFF element of the story was a real let-down for me. Such a shame, as it could have been so good.

86. Deaf Utopia by Nyle Dimarco
    I can't remember where I saw the recommendation for this, but I really enjoyed it. The author was the first Deaf competitor on two US reality TV shows (America's Next Top Model, and Dancing With the Stars, which I think must be their version of Strictly). This memoir is a mixture of his life story growing up in a multigenerational Deaf family, historical context about Deaf experiences, particularly in education, and a celebration of ASL / sign languages in general.

87. A Three Dog Problem by SJ Bennett
    The second in the 'HM the Queen Investigates' series. I thought this was actually better than the first one, with the characters settling in and a good solid mystery. Recommended if you like cosy crime, & I've now got the third book on audio.

88. Bluebird by Ciel Perlot
    Member of a minority species on a world controlled by humans, Rig has escaped indentured life to become a Nightbird, rescuing others from the three competing factions that control the known worlds, while trying to discover the remains of her species' original culture and bring together historical artefacts. While on the run from her former bosses, she meets Ginka, also non-human, from a different species, and also in search of something.
    
    Although this is recently published, it's old-school space opera with no pretensions. The anti-colonialist aspect was worked nicely in with Rig's characterisation, and didn't feel over-played. Unfortunately there were a few too many fight scenes that didn't really move things forward, & the plot was just a bit too predictable. All the characters had fantastic back stories, and I'd have liked to have seen more of these, and a bit less of the present day story. It's the author's first novel though, there was plenty to like, & I'd certainly try another of hers.

@Palegreenstars mine's going back tomorrow...