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?

210 The Prime Ministers by Iain Dale
Interesting run through of Britain’s PMs. I tend to know most about those in my lifetime or those that touched Irish history like Gladstone and Lloyd George so this was a good intro to the others for me, but it really is an intro and in most cases the short entries (each by a different contributor- journalist/ historian/ politician etc) are written in with extreme bias.

211 England is Mine by Nicholas Padamsee
The story of two young men growing up in London and their different responses to traumatic bullying incidents and social media. Hassan feels guilty and retreats into himself while David becomes more and more involved in far right chat rooms, despite his Iranian heritage. This had a good premise and in some ways shows how young men can become radicalised but it’s too heavy handed a lot of the time and Hassan (imo the more interesting character) is neglected as the story focuses more and more on David. A debut with some promise.

Just bought the Susan Loomis @Terpsichore. I’m a sucker for the Peter Mayle style books.

That's very kind, I'll definitely take you up on it & see if I agree!

I'm interspersing my Solstice / Christmas books with Nigel Slater's Christmas Chronicles which I found in my Dad's kindle library. I'm actually really enjoying it, despite (or maybe because?) my domestic life being very,very un-Nigel!

In the meantime I've finished:

108. A Woman Like Me by Diane Abbot I picked this up in the library having seen it recommended in a list of politics books of the year. Regardless of how you feel about her politics, she's had a fascinating life & writes well, though as often with political memoirs, I found the parts about her early years and path into politics the most interesting. It's also good to be reminded just how far things have travelled from 1987 when she was first elected as one of only 4 Black MPs (and not just the only Black woman, but one of only 45 women in total).
     As a side note I hadn't previously registered that she'd been in a relationship with (and lived with) Jeremy Corbyn & I was very entertained by her stories about the youthful Jeremy's ideas of a good date - including a trip to see Karl Marx's tomb

51 North Woods by Daniel Mason. The main character in this book is a piece of land - a remote wooded area in Massachusetts. We follow its varied ownership over a period of a couple of hundred years (exact dates are left vague), and some of the stories tie together in unexpected ways. This is an original idea and I enjoyed it a lot. Not quite a bold, because I thought some of the sections were weaker than others.

52 The Wych Elm by Tana French. After a traumatic life event, 28 year old Toby moves into his sick uncle's house both to help out and to recover himself. Then a human skull is discovered in the garden, throwing the lives of the large extended family into disarray while the police investigate. This was okay. I liked the characters and it was a page turner, but I had some issues with the plot (one plot thread left annoyingly unresolved, and a key incident near the end that seemed incredibly unrealistic). I also felt that it was far too long for this type of book.

In that case, @BestIsWest, you might want to start with her first book, On Rue Tatin - very similar and equally Mayle-esque!

Thanks for the heads up @Terpsichore I’ve bought that one too.

I’ll just pop number 82 in here, probably my last one of the year.
Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
Surprisingly sweet, concerning as it does; cuckooing, drug dealing, gangs, kidnap and robbery. Doll English is dragged into his brother Cillian’s world and held hostage. Doll’s teenage girlfriend shows a tough resilience both when she thinks he has just fucked off after a night out and then when a gang member threatens her to warn Cillian of money owed. It’s beautifully written, with some caustic humour, a brilliant ear for the Irish turns of phrase and an understated poignancy and hope for some of the characters. I’d like to hear more about Dev and Nicky.

Season’s Greetings to all. See you on the other side of a pile of cheese and books 🎄 🍷

Merry Christmas from the land of hobbitses!

135. Long Island by Colm Toibin

Twenty years after the events of Brooklyn, Eilis and Tony's world is rocked by a knock at the door.

I loved Brooklyn it was a great audiobook and a definite bold.

This started well but was a dull, dull, dull affair. Particularly the POV changes did not do anything for it

What a disappointment

And that's me on 135, declaring myself done for 2024! MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

@Sadik
Glad to see someone else reading Diane Abbott's memoir. I do quite like her as a politician. I also read it a few months ago, after seeing a friend post on FB about it.

It was interesting to hear her side of some older controversies, such as her selection as a parliamentary candidate) as well as more recent events, as well as her more personal stories of her parents, her own experience of school (a girls' grammar school in Harrow - a young Michael Portillo was in the same year at the local boys' grammar school - then Cambridge University, joining the Civil Service as a graduate trainee after an interview with Mary Warnock who perhaps welcomed her answers/attitude more than some interviewers might, then later going into television.

Happy Christmas 50 Bookers.
Two more reviews to add before the end of the year but they'll have to wait till that dead zone between Christmas and New Year.

I think Diane Abbott is great and puts up with an unbelievable amount of shit.

Happy Christmas 50 bookers! Thank you for another wonderful year! 🎄 🤶

Merry Christmas one and all! Hope the book hauls are splendid. Wish I had requested Diane A. now!

I have not finished reading this year yet... have 200 pages of A Place of Greater Safety to go and determined to finish before the bells!

Happy Christmas to all of you! Have a lovely day and may the book-pile be tottering

Happy Christmas. After my children told me they'd be up at 7am I got up early to shower and now am waiting for them to get up. It does mean I've finished a book though!

Christmas Poems by Carol Ann Duffy

The ten Christmas poems she wrote as Poet Laureate. Perfect Christmas reading.

Merry Christmas, you bloody lovely Bookers. I think this might be the first year ever that I haven’t asked for any books, but I’ve got some Waterstones vouchers and plan to hit the cookery aisle.

Have a wonderful day, everyone.

Happy Christmas to the 50 Bookers, especial holly wave to @Southeastdweller for hosting us all year. Dp and I just did stockings for each other for the first time (we've only lived together for a fraction over a year) so it's nice that we of course each added a book to the stocking.

Merry Christmas 50-Bookers!
I hope you all have a wonderful day.

Happy Christmas 50 bookers- I’ve just used my Waterstones vouchers in the half price hardback sale so plenty of reading for the next while. May all you book piles be overloaded.

Happy Christmas 50-bookers!

I have a small but perfectly formed book haul, thanks to giving DH ideas - really looking forward to these 🙂

Happy Christmas everyone! No books here. My family are not gifted in the present-buying department, so we unwrapped our small piles to politely-concealed mutual horror, but everyone tried. Have a good one!

Love the way you put that @bibliomania ! I’ve had yet more hats and scarves from everyone else so had to put on a happy face, but at least it means I don’t feel guilty about my present-choosing skills, which never quite make the grade 😂

Happy Christmas 50 Bookers and thank you for being the best place on MN!

Ending the year with the polar opposite of a cosy festive read:

81 The Zone Of Interest - Martin Amis

The film was the best of the year for me, and though this had a very different plot, it’s still one of my bolds. Not for the faint of heart, it’s an unflinching examination of the obscenity of the concentration camp and the guilt and responsibility of those in the system - but very readable for all that. The only other Amis I’d read, decades ago are London Fields and Dead Babies and I’d kind of written him off as ‘books that men who consider themselves very clever like’, but on the strength of this I’d like to read some others by him if anyone has recommendations?

Anyway think that’s the last I’ll finish in 2024 so will head to the round up thread and see you all in 2025 :)

I gave my dad a book I had previously given him, and my daughter a necklace she disliked. She gave me After Eights, my least favourite chocolate, and my mother gave me fluffy pyjamas, a size too small, which is not the preferred nightwear of a peri-menopausal woman.

You'd swear none of us had even met before, judging by our knowledge of each other's tastes.