2022 50 BOOKS - OR AS MANY AS YOU CAN MANAGE

I've just finished This Much is True by Miriam Margolyes. Blimey! I agree with SueDomin's advice. I have now started 'Be Good, Love Brian', an account of how Brian Clough took two disadvantaged boys under his wing. Written by one of the boys. Fascinating.

Does anyone read novels or crime books or romance or fantasy? Or it is just worthy books?

I’ve just given up halfway through

10. The Killings at Kingfisher Hill, Sophie Hannah

It’s written as an Agatha Christie, starring Poirot. It seemed promising at first, but dragged so much. I checked the reviews - a lot were saying this, and it sounded as though the plot didn’t get any less daft, so it’s winged its way back to the virtual library I borrowed it from. I’m a bit disappointed as I’ve enjoyed some of Sophie Hannah’s books, and have read every Agatha Christie.

After Anna was very good, now on book 10, Close My Eyes, by Sophie McKenzie.

No 5 This Much Is True by Miriam Margolyes. It’s her memoir. Do not read if you are sensitive about swear words and frank sex talk.

She really is quite a silly woman but there are also some v interesting bits.

#10 Bernadine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other - enjoyed this; felt it was a bit earnest to start with and ‘educational’ but soon drawn into the kaleidoscopic stories. Loved the fresh, light writing style.

Book 3 From Shetland with love by Erin Green. An easy enjoyable read. Very predictable but undemanding to just relax with.
Book 4 A Change of Circumstance by Susan Hill. This is book 11 in the Simon Serrailler series - just didn’t realise there were that many until I counted them up to write this. Have read them all and think this latest is one of the best. Had to read it quickly as a loan from the library and can’t be renewed as lots of reserves for it. This series of books seem to be both crime and family and I would recommend the whole series but best read in order.

Persevere Juno, they`re great!
The Stranger turned out to be very good. Just started After Anna, by Alex Lake.

#8 A Minefield Full Of Penguins T B Carter.
A review of the book calls it a mix of James Bond and Game of Thrones with a nod to Terry Pratchett. That's pretty accurate. Quite bonkers but very enjoyable.
#9 Along Came A Spider James Patterson.
My husband is a huge JP fan and recommended that I try the author's Alex Cross books; this is the first in the series. I enjoyed it very much but am somewhat daunted by the fact that there are over 30 books (and counting) in the series ?!

#8 finished yesterday - The Dressmakers Gift, by Fiona Valpy.

I really enjoyed the ones I’ve just finished, and would certainly recommend them:

7. Somebody’s Mother, Somebody’s Daughter, Carol Ann Lee
8. The Beekeeper of Aleppo

They were both very thought-provoking and illuminating in very different ways. One the story of Peter Sutcliffe’s victims and their families, and the effect that his awful crimes had on them all, the other about Syrian refugees, their lives in their home country and their journey across Europe to England.

#9. Wednesday’s Child by Peter Robinson.

I've lost track!

The last one was Both of You by Adele Parks
Not an author I'd read previously so it was different, unsettling.

The Legend of FireMountain:
I've just started the third in a trilogy, The Fire Blossom series, by Sarah Lark about New Zealand in the 1800s/early 1900s. It's translated from German so slightly clunky and it's a while since I read the first two so I'm having trouble sorting out all the very many characters. Will persevere for a bit longer.

One month in already, how times flies! I've read the following:

1 Magpie - Elizabeth Day Themes of psychosis and Surrogacy quite good
2 Hanging Hill - (audio) Mo Hayder, started this last year, missing teenager found murdered, quite dark, glad when I finished it.
3. Unheard - Nicci French, Separated couplie's 3 year old daughter brings home dark and disturbing drawings after she has been staying with her father.
4 Anything Is Possible - Elizabeth Strout. Read "My name is Lucy Barton" last year and really liked it. In this book the writer returns to the fictional home town of the impoverished upbringing of LB to revisit some of the other residents who knew the Barton family, interlinked stories. LB herself returns from New York and her successful life as a writer for a chapter or two to visit her brother. Thoughtful book about small town America, similar to Ann Tyler.
5. Mrs England - Stacey Halls. Loved this book. Set in Edwardian England of 1904, it tells the story of Norland Nanny, Nurse Ruby May who takes up an appointment as Nanny to wealthy mill owners Mr and Mrs England's 4 children in rural Yorkshire. It becomes apparent that Mrs England, who initially appears detached is a troubled woman and Mr England is not all he seems. Has been described as bit Jane Eyre like, even with a slight touch of The Go Between at one point, although I think Stacey Halls has very much created her own story.
6 Frostquake - Non fiction by Juliet Nicolson Again really liked this book. The writer is the granddaughter of Vita Sackville West and she has chronicled the events of one of the worst winters on record including memories of growing up partly in London a partly at her grandparents' home of Sissinghurst, beautiful but freezing!

On Boxing Day 1962 it started to snow and didn't stop until April '63. Still being at junior school I have memories of being trussed up in mac, scarf on head, beret on top and wellies trudging to school through mounds of snow. However, most of what was going on in the world went right over my head. Being the same sort of age as the writer though. what did touch children of our age, was the meteoric rise of The Beatles and she includes much of that in this book.

She also covers the political landscape, the "clapped out" Harold MacMillan, she describes him as suffering from terminal tiredness, his close relationship with JFK, the Cuban missile crisis. The death of the much respected Labour leader, Hugh Gaitskill and the emergence of Harold Wilson. Inevitably the Profumo affair was covered in detail and the throwing of Christine Keiller under the bus.

Sylvia Plath's unhappy relationship with Ted Hughes and her eventual suicide, she was someone who I wasn't aware of until years later. Coming from the US her observations of how in Britain we didn't seem able to cope with extreme weather, imo was spot on, everything seems to pack up. Sadly there were a couple of really bad train collisions around this time that resulted in a number of deaths.

Culture wise, as well as The Beatles, London, Liverpool and England per se were also on the brink of becoming a place to be reckoned with on the world stage, after years of American domination. Mary Quant as a designer with a burgeoning following for her shop Bazaar in the King's Road was beginning to make a name for herself and gain momentum. sweeping away the stiff petticoats and hair of the late '50s and early '60s. As were London's new breed of photographers, David Bailey, Terry O'Neill. Rudolph Nureyev had recently defected and was performing with the Royal Ballet. By the mid 60s London had reached it's zenith as the place to be. I remember that time the best, I enjoyed reading this book because the memories I have of the years before that were vague.

AliBeee
What a great start to the year for you, loved all those books, specially the Julie Myerson.

Fool me Once was brilliant. Now reading book 8, another by Harlan Coben, The Stranger, OK so far.

At the end of January I have finished 5 and am on my 6th, not a bad start for me. They are:
1. Something Might Happen by Julie Myerson
About a murder, but told from the viewpoint of and impact on those around the victim. Very good 8/10
2. Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
Excellent, as all hers are 9/10
3. Monogamy by Sue Miller
About a long married couple and secrets that come out following a sudden death. 8/10
4. A Sweet Obscurity by Patrick Gale
Written about 20 years ago, but as good as all the other works of his I’ve read 8/10

The one I have just started is The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow. It’s a novel focussed on Mary Bennet, the middle and unlovely sister in Pride and Prejudice. So far it’s very good.

25Avalon, I`ve been buying at 3 for £5 at The Works for several years now, am just amazed that the price still hasn`t gone up! I haven`t bought a book for quite a while now though, as my daughter buys and sells secondhand books, and she brings me loads to read before she sells them on, so I`m still ploughing through them all.

^ I Know A Secret^ by Tess Gerritson. I enjoyed this and will now read more of her Rizzoli and Isles novels.

Lots of good books 3 for £5 at The Works. I’ve bought Louise Penny “All the Devils are Here” which I nearly paid full price for, “Trust Me” T M Logan, “Meet me at the Cupcake Cafe” Jenny Colgan. Lots to choose from.

Books 7 and 8
Both really enjoyable
Book7 The Blind Light - Stuart Evers.
Begins at the end of National Service, two young me from completely different backgrounds forge a friendship, which lasts a lifetime.
I don’t want to give too much away, but it carries the two families through the next fifty years, the children picking up the narrative in the second half of the book.
It’s a story of friendship, dysfunctional children, and a social history of the times.

Book 8
A Change of Circumstances - SusanHill
The latest Simon Serrailler, the usual likeable cast of characters, this one dealing with county line drugs. Very good.

5th book this year is : The Coffin makers garden by Stuart Mac Bride…

Haven’t read anything by this author before so looking forward to finding out if he’s my type of read.

Fatal was good, a bit brutal to say it was qritten by a woman, but still good. Book 7 is Fool me Once, by Harlan Coben.

#8. 31 Dream Street by Lisa Jewell.

#4 was Wayland Babes by Judy Deakin, which was stories about sightings of the ghosts of the Babes in the Woods. I really enjoyed it.
#5 was Medea’s Curse by Anne Buist. I quite enjoyed it but there was too much bad language for my liking.
#6 was The Garden of Lost and Found by Harriet Evans. A sweeping story set over the course of a hundred years. I could not put it down and will look for other books by this author.