50 Books Challenge Part Eight

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the eighth 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 , the sixth one here and the seventh one here .

What are you reading?

I eventually got round to reading The Time Traveler's Wife. It was published in 2004 when I was busy giving birth, being pregnant (not in that order) and running around after children so I guess I missed it. It's way less schmaltzy than I assumed by its title. I'm not really sure what to make of it. I's almost obsessively detailed, intricate and complex and has some excellent writing. I felt very smug when I spotted a typo on a date!

But I often felt disorientated and bewildered especially at first. It's overly long, has too many sex scenes for my liking and some of it is -ermmm- weird. Even the male protagonist references Lolita at one point.

I also didn't find myself caring about them with their art and music and coolness and fancy families (although I liked the motif of lost spouses and parents). When the inevitable end came I felt not one scintilla of emotion.

But as a book it will stay with me , definitely.

For Robert Harris fans : I just went to see Conclave. It's very good. Excellent sound and magnificent set design. All the dialogue clear as a bell, so unusual these days.

I love TTTW, I re-read it often. I think it comes across much better as a book than on screen and I think Henry, of necessity, walks a tough line between being caring/paternal/avuncular to a child and being aware from the beginning that that child is his future wife.

Sex-scene wise: like running, sex helps keep Henry in the here and now, and there's probably more running in there 😀

I did similar @PepeLePew . Picked up A Lesson In Cruelty’ because I thought I’d read Blood Orange and was surprised at how rubbish it was compared to what had actually been Bitter Orange*.

True, but no graphic descriptions of the actual runs!!

I haven't seen the film either. Perhaps I time traveled (sic) and missed a whole chunk of my life out.

Really, don't bother.

Nor with the NowTV version (which was well written but Moffat didn't leave enough 'story' for a second series and then a second series wasn't commissioned anyway, so if you didn't already know the story, you would be left wondering why the hell these disembodied feet started appearing)

I hate audiobooks anyway but I can’t imagine anyone’s voice doing it justice.

I also dislike books that have been translated and books set in Australia. I think that’s the limit of my irrational literary opinions. Translations, Australia and being read at.

Is TTTW to blame for kicking off all the books called the bishop's/ fishmonger's/optician's/prime minister's/ undertaker's/binman's wife ??

@Piggywaspushed I loved Conclave, good to hear they've made a decent job of the film.

I haven't read the book so not sure how it is as an adaptation but it pleased me as it was 2 hrs long unlike so many bloated films these days!

I loved TTTW at the time, but subsequent rereads have made me think that what happens to Claire over the years as a result is tantamount to emotional abuse really

Hoping to see Conclave this week if I can persuade DH that he’ll enjoy a film about Popes and Cardinals. After all I went to see Gladiator 2 with him last week (don’t bother).

I think TTTW is still on my shelf.
I read it years ago and I don't have a clear memory of it any more. Probably read it during the hazy days of pregnancy and tiny babies!

I've seen that too! I didn't mind it, which is damning with faint praise....

I’d like to see Conclave too- haven’t read the book though so wonder should I read it first?
I did read The TT Wife when it first came out and remember enjoying it but beyond that couldn’t tell you anything else.

I hadn't read it so I can't see that it does matter. I am sure people who have will get distracted by changes. Having now read a plot synopsis on Wikipedia, otehr than the main character's nationality, I can't see that there are many.

I'm taking DS to see Conclave on Saturday to get him out of the house and expand his cultural horizons. I've sold it to him as "like Gladiator 2, but with priests and less physical violence". I am strictly speaking not wrong - it's a contest for supremacy set in Rome - but I reckon I'll have some explaining to do afterwards. I love love love a papal conclave, and I enjoyed the book very much, so am excited for it.

(Should have said he made me accompany him to Gladiator 2, so it's not an entirely random sell-in).

like Gladiator 2, but with priests and less physical violence

This is brilliant marketing.

Not sure I spotted CGI rhinos or Paul Mescal in The Vatican but, hey ,you can't have everything.

@BestIsWest The Agatha Christie flounce was bemusing! Somebody took offence to me not liking a book about iirc a detective in India (maybe China?). In retaliation, when I wrote a lukewarm review of a Christie book she decided I was a racist merely for reading Christie at all. Then there was a dramatic flounce because this wasn’t a nice place. Bonkers.

I’m not leaving as I’d miss you all too much, but I do have to be more disciplined on here. Having said that, if I do see transphobia/ageism/misogyny (from women fgs!!!!) I do feel duty bound to call it out on other threads.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie ahhh, I didn’t comment but I did see a thread in S&B that took a turn the other day. I once got deleted for telling someone to get lost with their misogynistic ageism. I might have put it less politely.
Yes, that flounce was truly bonkers!

I didn’t like TTTW. I knew there would be a massive Highlander Moment at some point and I thought he was very selfish and a tiny bit creepy. Who wants their destiny popping up randomly in the buff throughout their life? Ugh.

Yessss… but he had no ability to “steer” and they do both muse somewhat on free will in a situation like theirs, and the mobius strip nature of time for Henry.

I do get the “creepy” point, I just personally like the constraints Nifenegger set herself and how she wrote within them.

I really want to see Conclave, not least because Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow are both in it - they showed the trailer at our local (lovely) art house indie when we went last week to see Small Things Like These (definitely recommended) but to my annoyance, I can’t make any of the dates it’s on this month. Hopefully they’ll put it on again in January.

@Sadik hilarious story about your DH, I love it!

I'm not a fan of the TT Wife, I can't pinpoint exactly why, but it felt too gimmicky to me. My doula (yes, I was hippee enough to have a doula with DC2!) told me it was her favourite book in the world. So I duly read it and thus realised that we had different literary tastes 😂

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie thank god you're not leaving, that would be such a loss! I also feel frustrated when I venture onto other parts of MN that I think should be conflict-free, and then conflict arises. It's true that sticking with the books threads is the safest route to maintaining good mental health.

I remember the Agatha Christie episode, though I think that dates back to a time when I was still lurking rather than actively posting on the 50 Book threads. It was a shame. As I recall the issue was, given that Agatha Christie is sometimes racist, is it ever OK to read Christie? To which I would say yes, it's absolutely OK to read her. I teach premodern literature as my day job, and if I tried to teach only texts free of racism, I would literally have no texts left to teach. IMO you have to deal with each text in its cultural context. Part of this is calling out racism whenever it appears. Not excusing it. But if you ban texts due to racism, you'll be banning a huge chunk of the Western canon. It's about reading in a thoughtful/critical way. There's also a danger of assuming that racism exists only in the past and not now (it absolutely continues to exist now! it's not confined to the past!). Anyway, I can see why the poster who left the threads found Christie's racism upsetting, but I don't think banning Christie outright is the only ethical solution. You can read her with a critical eye.

If you find Christie unbearably offensive, don't read her. I respect that. But don't issue a universal ultimatum and say that no one else should read her either. Reading books of the past and acknowledging their blind spots and limitations is part of how some of us can learn to be better people today.

(end rant) 😳

I forgot to say that I was delighted to learn that @cotedazur is still around! How can we lure her back to the books threads?