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?

@GrannieMainland @Stowickthevast i read The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store last year. It was very hyped as a Pulitzer contender. Thought it was just okay. Was also puzzled by the dancer.

Finished Butter but didn't love it, it felt a bit long. It was a nice enough read with some lovely descriptions of food but not sure I would recommend.

Onto God of Small Things

I think I have two James McBride as long standing TBR and I've never had the urge to get to either.

91. Ammonites and Leaping Fish - Penelope Lively

This has been on my wishlist for a good while then turned up as a 99p deal. It’s very much a late looking-back on Lively's part - she calls it 'the view from old age' rather than a memoir - and it was published when she was 80, in 2013; she’s now 91.

It’s a discursive, thoughtful series of essays, often going off unpredictably in directions that interest her, covering many aspects of her life - from her idyllic sun-filled childhood in Egypt to her arrival 'home' to postwar England (a bitterly cold country she barely knew), marriage and motherhood, writing, the operation of memory and much else, with a particular focus on the strangeness (including the benefits as well as indignities) of ageing. I’d call this a scholarly piece of life-writing and not a quick, easily-digested read, but it rewards the effort if you decide to commit to it.

Good afternoon all! As discussed, I've started a separate roundup thread. It's probably a bit early (at least for me!) but it's there.

Sadly I'm not technically competent enough to link the thread 😊

The view from old age is a lovely phrase!

link to round up

www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/5225795-50-books-challenge-2024-roundup

Thank you @SheilaFentiman, I'm seeing "the view from old age" a bit myself today...

Sorry not been back to the thread for a few days! Yes the audio was well done I'd say. I think I would have got more out of it if I'd read it though tbh

This made me laugh 😂

108 Scaredy Cat by Mark Billingham
109 Lazybones by Mark Billingham

Next two in the Tom Thorne series. I found the first, where Thorne has to hunt a pair of serial killers, who kill simultaneously in different locations, a good read, albeit one that stretched credulity. The second, where Thorne has to hunt a serial killer who is taking out recently released rapists, to just be a bit grim and unbelievable. I have a few more of these but not sure whether to continue. I’ve been disappointed recently by some of the long running crime series.

110 Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS epidemic by Richard A McKay

This book explores the origin of the story of ‘Patient Zero’ Gaetan Dugas, a Canadian flight attendant who was blamed for bringing the AIDS epidemic to North America. The author examines the veracity of the claims, first made by Randy Shilts in And the Band Played On, delves into the life and character of Gaetan, and sets his story against the context of gay liberation, gay sexual mores, politics, as well as the historical ‘othering’ of those with diseases. I found this really interesting, and fairly well rounded, I would have liked to hear a little more about Gaetan but I feel the author did a good job of showing all sides, while ‘rehabilitating’ Gaetan's reputation. I’ve decided to now revisit And the Band Played On, which is a book I have read a couple of times and loved, so it will be interesting to see if what I learned here colours my perception of that book this time round. Patient Zero is free on audible plus.

111 Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor

Mrs Palfrey is a widow who moves to the Claremont Hotel, a kind of half way house for many older people before they have to move on to care homes. Mrs Palfrey forms a friendship (of a kind) with Ludo, a young writer who lives nearby. I found the book interesting but didn’t really feel it touched me emotionally, although the ending did come near.

112 Just Date and See by Portia MacIntosh

Rom-com where the main character somehow ends up with a houseful, including her divorced parents, ex boyfriend, sister, and new step mum. To get away from the house she joins loads of events on a dating app and meets Rocco. This was all a bit silly and although I do like a happy ending to a romance it was all tied up way too neatly with a twee little bow.

113 Sometimes People Die by Simon Stephenson

The main character moves is a Dr who moves from Scotland to a London hospital when his opioid addition and stealing from hospital supples to feed this addiction comes to light. He isn’t there long before people start to die unexpectedly… I really enjoyed this book, even though I could see the ending coming, I enjoyed the journey so much that I just didn’t mind.

334 Begin Again by Helly Acton

36 year old Frankie doesn’t feel like she has the most fulfilling life, but when she suddenly has an accident she finds she has the ability to go back and revisit crossroads events in her life and see what her alternative life would have been like if she’d made different decisions. Will she choose to go back to her actual life or one of her alternatives? I like the idea but this didn’t quite work for me for some reason. I found Frankie a bit annoying and none of the alternate lives felt very realistic.

335 Strange Journey by Maud Cairnes

Recommended by someone upthread (sorry, forgot to check who it was before I started typing and it’s on the previous page so can’t go back and check now!) and agree with everything she said. Body swap that’s good fun.

It was Terpsichore - thank you!

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I think I'm in the minority in that I love The Gunslinger. That along with Wizard and Glass (which I know is also unpopular on here) are my two favourites from the series so I must get something different from it than the rest of you

84. Elephants can Remember by Agatha Christie Final book in the 2024 read christie challenge and quite a weak offering from Poirot. Poirot and Ariadne Oliver investigate the cold case of the Ravenscrofts who apparently died in a suicide pact many years before

I found this book interminable. There were huge huge chunks of awkward and stilted conversation that were hard work to wade through and Poirot barely featured. Ariadne seemed to do most of the work while he just popped up at the end for the final reveal which was frankly predictable and I'd worked out long before

I checked the other day and it didn't look like the 2025 challenge had been released yet. Not sure when it normally comes out but I'll wait for the theme before deciding whether or not to join in again

61.The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell. Kim's daughter Tallulah and her boyfriend have disappeared the night after a party, and a year later are still missing. The narrative splits between the current time, where the once cold case is reopened, and Tallulah's story in the months leading up to the party.

This was another decent mass-market psychological thriller from Jewell. The pacey plot was balanced by believable and engaging characters. I'm going to keep going with these I think, as lots are available on BorrowBox audio. Switching it up with Mansfield Park first though.

Read my next Christmas book, altogether more satisfying than the last one. This was The Christmas Jigsaw Murders the latest puzzler plot from Alexandra Benedict. It gallops along, is very silly , but entertaining. And there are Dickensian anagrams and Fleetwood Mac songs to spot along the way!

Predictable denouement but who cares?

I have 2 reads to review, taking me to 200 books for this year. A kind of ridiculous number and next year I intend to reduce my reading goal to 120 which is quite enough. I probably have spent too little time socialising and exercising this year so I’ve broken my Read what you Own challenge (I reached 19) to invest in a few good audiobooks (big Audible sale on this week that finished today) to get me out walking while reading.
i intend to try another Read what you Own challenge in the new year once the Christmas sales are over.
My two reads are
199 Broken Bay by Margaret Hickey
Margaret Hickey is a writer of Australian outback detective fiction in the mould of Jane Harper but just hasn’t made it over here yet- I had to have this and her most recent book (which I haven’t read yet) sent over by a friend in Australia. Decent police procedural in which our protagonist investigates the accidental death of a diver in a sinkhole on a farm, and the historic death of the body she found in the sinkhole. Decent read.

200 Henry VIII King and Court by Alison Weir
I intend to try the Wolf Hall trilogy next year and bought this (in a 99p deal of course) hoping it would give me a little more insight into Henry and Thomas Cromwell before starting into that. However the focus was a bit too much on artists like Holbein and the building and decorating of palaces. It was interesting at times but not exactly what I was looking for. I do have Weir’s non-fiction about the wives of Henry also and may give that a pre Wolf Hall whirl.

I’m still finishing my current audio which is very long but very entertaining (Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Damned) and just started Precipice by Robert Harris (about Asquith’s affair with Venetia Stanley) and Jamaica Inn on mt kindle and am thoroughly enjoying both.

Weir’s non fiction about Anne Boleyn was very good - essentially running through all the dates that AB would have been in the right place with one of the accused to commit adultery, and demonstrating why for practically all of them, she wasn’t there (or none of the men were), she was in confinement, was already pregnant etc.

I stopped reading Tracy Borman’s history of Thomas Cromwell to read The Mirror and the Light, and never went back to it. Must do so!

67. Real Tigers - Mick Herron

More shenanigans with the Slough House crowd. Catherine has been kidnapped and the team mount a rescue operation while trying to work out who did it and why. A real page-turner, and I have immediately reserved the next in the series.

The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides
Meh psychological thriller. Not for me. I think many have read this. Alicia shoots her husband in the face multiple times, is incarcerated and then doesn’t speak. I don’t really see twists but this one I saw coming in various forms and it fell a bit flat when all was revealed.

Any particular audiobooks you recommend in the sale @ÚlldemoShúl ? I find it annoying that your wishlist doesn't carry over to Audible.

I've just finished the audible of There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak which I thought was brilliant. I've found her books a bit heavy handed in the past but I think she has the balance spot on here. It follows 3 stories - Arthur, a slum dweller with an amazing memory who becomes obsessed with translating the tablets is Gilgamesh, an ancient poem from Mesopotamia in Victorian London; Zaleekhah a water scientist living on a river boat in London in 2018; and Narin, a young Yehzidi girl who lives by the river Tigris and who is being persecuted by all around her in 2014. Arthur and Narin's stories are stronger, the plight of the Yehzidi is particularly moving, and I think the research sits more comfortably here than in Shafak's previous book - although bits of Zaleekhah's story are a bit heavy handed, and this was the section I felt lies engaged with - and on the whole, I think this is very good. I expect to see it on the Woman's prize list, and am quite surprised it didn't make the Booker.

@Stowickthevast I picked up the Elvis biography, Charles Spencer’s memoir, 2 books by Shankari Chandaran (won the Aussie Miles Franklin prize a couple of years ago), the first three St Mary’s books that everyone raves about on here and Salman Rushdie’s Knife. I made up for my non- buying month with aplomb 😂
@SheilaFentiman thanks for the Thomas Cromwell biography recommendation- adding that one to my wishlist.

It's £2.99 at the moment...

<enabler face>

amzn.eu/d/f7vQgRt

92. One Year’s Time - Angela Milne

Another in the British Library’s excellent Women Writers series. Angela Milne was a niece of AA Milne and a contributor to Punch from the 30s through to the 50s, but this was her only novel, published in 1942 and set just pre-war.

Single girl Liza lives in a flat in Chelsea and works in a dreary office (entertainingly conjured up in all its Groundhog Day-sameness). On January 2nd she's gloomily contemplating another lonely evening when the phone rings and a man she's met once at a party announces he’s inviting himself round. Within ten pages - remarkably for a novel of the period - they’ve leapt into bed together, and so begins a year of Liza being agonisingly in love with Walter, desperately longing that he'll ask her to marry him, yet having to readjust her expectations literally moment by moment as the affair she thought would be The One turns out to be something of a drawn-out torture.

I started this thinking it was going to be quite fluffy but it gradually deepened into something very touching and sad and truthful - modern readers need to look past the campy affectedness of Walter's way of speaking (he’s very keen on addressing Liza as 'ducky'), and their arch love-talk did often make me want to throw the book across the room, but Liza's constant panicky projection of possible futures, reckoning with every new setback as Walter deals her another little emotional blow or behaves yet again like the entitled shit he is, just reinforced that there’s nothing new in suffering when it comes to affairs of the heart. We really have all been there, done that, and I for one cheered inwardly when she got to the end of the novel with a whole new maturity and understanding, painfully hard-won. I thought this was quite extraordinary for its time in its frankness and genuine understanding of a woman's emotional life.

The Scold's Bridle - Minette Walters
Local doctor gets caught up in a police investigation into a suspicious death that looks like a staged suicide. She's implicated when it's discovered the victim changed her will weeks before.
Interesting whodunit, a bit too long but an easy read.

Season of the Raven - Denise Domning
Late 1100s medieval murder mystery. A crusader returns home and is appointed as the new Crowner, a position to curb the powers and corruption of the role of Sheriff. A couple of monks thrown in for good measure.
I've been looking for something to fill the gap of my Susanna Gregory habit when I got to the end of the Matthew Bartholomew series. These will do nicely.

Poor Deer - Claire Oshetsky
A child is involved in the death of her friend and while nobody else really knows what happened, she's plagued by an imaginary being which follows her through life forcing her to confront her role in the incident.
Oshetsky's books are a bit out there and odd, but I found this very readable despite not really being into magical realism.

The Undertaking - Audrey Magee
A soldier on the Eastern front choses a bride from a catalogue so he can get some leave. He arrives in Berlin to meet his new wife whose family are less than impressed with her choice. He returns to the front to match on Stalingrad. As the bride's father tries to scramble higher in the Nazi party, she is left with a baby trying to make ends meet in a country losing the war.
This is really well written and while not enjoyable in terms of topics, it's a captivating read.