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?

@RazorstormUnicorn – thank you! I do like a podcast, so I will check that out. I hadn’t thought about podcasts on ADHD. I’ll tell my daughter too.

112 The Dark Angel – Elly Griffiths (Ruth Galloway 10). Ruth, Katie, Shona and Louis head of to Italy for a holiday that involves some work for Ruth. Nelson and Cathbad also turn up because we need Nelson to be there for the plot. Bones, deaths, threats, Ruth feeling self conscious in the heat etc. There was a particularly sad part in the book. Like everyone else, I’m not reading these books for the plots, I’m reading to find out what happens with Ruth and Nelson.

106 The Dark Angel – Elly Griffiths (Ruth Galloway 4).

This one was a bit too woo for me. Dream snakes and digeridoos. Not to mention privilege and animal cruelty.

Anyway! By the end of it, Michelle is coming round a little to Kate's existence. I am going to quickly reread (but not re-count) the First Christmas novella and then leave Ruth for a bit and have another crack at the stalled Conversations with Friends

You mean A Room Full Of Bones @SheilaFentiman

I do - I nicked and incorrectly edited Tarragon’s post 😀

I was in London this week, I was on Charing Cross Road but couldn't work out where 84 would have been!

I've been waiting for ages for that book from the library, '84 Charing Cross Road'.
It feels like 84 weeks ago since I reserved it!

Eine, google maps says it's a McDonalds just north of Shaftsbury Avenue. There's a (not blue) plaque to commemorate the bookshop on the wall.

84 Charing Cross Road is where McDonalds is now. There is a plaque up outside.

A maccies?! For shame!

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh very happy to post you my copy of 84 Charing Cross Rd.

Is nothing sacred? Have the shades of Charing Cross been thus polluted?

In other news, I’m going in again.

:)

I like the combination of black talon and black bird beak.

I just read The 12 Days of Murder by Andreina Cordani. Tosh. Stuff and nonsense.

That's so kind of you! 😊😘

The talons are actually very dark blue, but yes. I hadn’t thought of them coordinating so nicely!

LOL! I did think it was odd that you had caught up so quickly and I hadnt seen your other reviews! A Room of Bones was actually one of my favourite Ruth books so far. A bold for me

Insomnia means I’ve finished this in an evening. It’s a strange one, even in its revised version. At its heart, King introduces Roland and Jake, both central to the series, and makes clear Roland’s compulsion to reach the tower. There’s some great stuff in there- the opening line; Roland’s occasional tenderness; his early trial to become a gunslinger.

However, it remains very flawed. The attempts to make this very early novel better fit the much later ones are clunky. The nineteen thing was really badly done, in particular. Lots of it is really quite boring- the journey under the mountain; the interminable conversation with the man in black; eating beans with some dude in the desert.

I haven’t re-read this one for a very long time and it’s definitely not a great introduction to what becomes imo a really great series. Nearly all of it could be skipped without much loss, for anybody planning to give the quest for the tower a go.

84. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. This was upsold to me in Waterstones as a book of the month, as well as being Barack Obama's book of the year, but I'm afraid I couldn't stand it. A sprawling, messy story set in a small town in Pennsylvania around the 50s, focussing on the Jewish and African American communities who integrate with each other pretty well. The main story was about their efforts to protect a black orphan from being taken away into state care. It was well intentioned but I just found it too messy, too many plots that didn't go anywhere and a whole section I didn't understand with a mysterious Hasidic dancer who kept turning up.

85. Bear Town by Frederick Backman. Friday Night Lights on Ice. Which is a compliment, I loved Friday Night Lights. The first in a trilogy about a tough, snowy ice hockey town where all that matters is the junior team's success or failure. The town is divided after one of the players assaults a teenage girl. This did feel quite YA - not just because a lot of the characters are teenagers, but it was very issues heavy - I don't know if adults in the 2020s really need to be told it's not ok for sports players to rape girls they go to school with. But perhaps I am naive. Anyway despite that it was really well done, strong characters, frozen atmosphere, very violent. I will read the next ones for sure.

Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan

Book 3 in the Percy Jackson series. Ths time the stakes get higher as the prophesy states two of the five heroes on the quest will die. Still lots of fun, DS is reading them before me and is whizzing through them.This one takes place at Christmas as well although there's no Christmas cheer.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I swerved the Dark Tower series for years, despite being a massive Stephen King fan, because I just could not get past the fist book. Like you I love the first line, but I just found it so dull. In the end I thought I'd try the audiobook and that worked for me. In face I ended up loving it, the guy who reads it has a great voice and just makes it sound like poetry.

@GrannieMainland oh that's disappointing. I got sent the Heaven and Earth book in a book subscription I was given, so obviously the book shops are pushing it. I read another Obama reads last month that I wasn't overly impressed by - The God of The Woods.

Great nails Remus!

@MamaNewtNewt Lots of it is very poetic. I just think he doesn’t handle the, ‘I’m trying to be very literary and stylised’ and, ‘Here’s an exciting adventure’ balance terribly well. In trying to be Tolkien, he hasn’t quite learned how to be King yet. As he says, he was young and he’s very aware of its flaws. I just think his ‘fixing’ could maybe have been fixed a bit better!

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie agreed I think he was definitely trying to be something he's not. It's funny though I didn't see it as poetic when I was reading it, just dull, but when I started listening to it that's when I found it poetic.

@Stowickthevast it has had rave reviews from everyone but me, so I'm sure I'm missing something!