2023 - 50 BOOK CHALLENGE

Enjoying Blood on the Strand up to now.

19 Hungry - Grace Dent

Excellent memoir from food writer Grace Dent cataloguing her life in food from her early growing up years through to her adult life as an esteemed food critic and writer. . Grace introduces herself, aged around 7 when her beloved father is preparing "sketty" his version of Spaghetti Bolognese a concoction of onion, mince and most importantly a tin of tomato condensed soup. Grace describes her upbringing with her close knit, working class family through the prism of beige convenience foods. The hungry of the title referring to wanting more from life rather than the Oliver Twist hunger of "can I have some more"

After being identified as a bright child at a junior school, Grace continues on to her comprehensive where nothing much is expected of its pupils. Grace is given the impetus to realise a career in writing could be a possibility when she manages to get a letter published in the NME. This is the time of Julie Burchill, a working class role model who cut her teeth writing for that publication. With that in mind Grace gets the requisite number of A levels to gain a place at Stirling University to study English. On graduation she hot foots it down to London to hopefully get her feet on the bottom rung of career that will take her into the world of publishing, only to find for a girl without money or connections many doors remain closed to her. Through luck and tenacity she manages to become a freelance writer for "Chat" magazine, not what she was hoping for as the articles she delivered were along the lines of "My hen weekend punch up" but later graduates on to better things eventually ending up as food critic for the Guardian and appearing on Master Chef. Her success is bitter sweet tinged with her beloved father's descent into dementia with more frequent trips home to Carlisle to support her family with his care. An excellent read full of humour and pathos really enjoyed it.

20 Brixton Hill - Lottie Moggach, I liked one of her previous books not so keen on this, day release prisoner about to come up for parole after a 7 year stretch meets glossy estate agent, they form a relationship, but neither are what they appear on the surface.

21 A Stranger City - Linda Grant. Have loved every one of her books, bar this one. Starts off with a female body pulled out of the Thames. A range of incidental characters in ensuing chapters, typifying the diversity of London's population and some of the difficulties encountered living there ,such as the impossibility of buying a property and the gentrification of certain areas. It came across as rather fractured with a gripe about Brexit at its core. I've read better state of the nation books on this subject particularly by Amanda Craig and Jonathan Coe. I think Linda Grant is a wonderful writer but I did find this one rather dreary.

22 Restless - William Boyd this is a tale of a young woman who discovers her mother was recruited as a spy during WW2, The narrative switching between the daughter in the '70s and her mother in the late 30s and throughout the war years. As with most of Boyd's books, which are hardly ever on the same theme, very good.

23 The Lost Child - Julie Myerson, Julie Myerson got a lot of stick when this book was released as it is partly, a from the heart depiction of her actual son's descent into drug addiction. Brutally honest and I think this book gives explicit examples from her and her husband's experiences of how their son goes from an agreeable, happy child to an impossible self destructive teenager who destroys family life. Consultations with psychiatrists occur in the book who reinforce the detrimental and irreparable effect skunk has on many a young person, worse than heroin allegedly. Taking medicinal marijuana out of the equation it's hard to know why anyone in their right mind should think skunk should legalised it's not like the stuff that was around in the sixties and this book emphasises that. I could feel Julie Myerson's palpable anxieties as a parent I remember those feelings when I knew at least one of my kids around the same age was smoking the stuff but whilst it didn't take hold the way it did with the Myersons' son it did make him an impossible person to deal with and that will be many a parents' experience which is why this book resonated so much.

24 Raven Black - Anne Cleeves The first Shetland/Jimmy Perez. Love her Shetland series, sometimes the plot, in this case teenage girl found murdered on a snow covered bank close to her home, is secondary to the landscape she evokes. I find myself continually Googling Shetland and Lerwick when I'm reading her books. Fascinated by this far flung outpost island at the northern most part of Britain steeped in Scottish Gaelic and Norse culture and mythology.

25 Wrong Place, Wrong Time - Gillian McAllister Massive best seller so I thought, it must be good when I grabbed this at the library recently and so many 5* reviews on Amazon. I'm obviously swimming against the tide in saying I just didn't like it, I can't put my finger on why, maybe it was the writing, the characterisations, the implausible time travelling element to the plot where the main character goes back in time to try and prevent the crime her son commits at the beginning of the book. Crime travel rarely appeals to me, so maybe that was it, but I just didn't like it and was very glad when I finished it.

Thank Goodness for Val McDermid just started "Place of Execution" by her yesterday, my first book for May, and like Ann Cleeves enjoy her writing.

TerriBull
I remember the hard time Julie Myerson received when this book came out.
But I thought at the time, and still do, that anyone reading the book couldn’t have failed to feel the pain and heartbreak behind her words.
She was absolutely between a rock and a hard place. Should she just give every ounce of her time, energy, love to one very damaged boy, or consider the whole family.
Whatever she did, it couldn’t be totally right for everyone, I think she made a courageous decision.

Yes I agree Sarah. I think at a later stage in retrospect I read that she regretted writing about what was a personal experience and her son's response to that. Possibly you have to live a little bit of what she was writing about to understand it. She pretty much bared her soul as to the anxieties she and the rest of the family went through. As you say, between a rock and a hard place, his out of control behaviour and the impact that had on his parents and siblings was unsustainable, given he'd already perforated her eardrum, stolen from them, passed a spliff or two to younger brother and damaged the home by the time they evicted him, albeit paying for numerous places he stayed
in. A bright boy with loads of potential who ruined his future. He just drained her Sadly skunk is everywhere and so readily available, particularly to that young teenage demographic.

“36 was Homecoming by Kate Morton. A sweeping blockbuster of a book set in Australia about a family with secrets going back decades. I loved it.

Musicgirl

“36 was Homecoming by Kate Morton. A sweeping blockbuster of a book set in Australia about a family with secrets going back decades. I loved it.

I'm so pleased Musicgirl, I've just bought it, I do love her books

Musicgirl/TerriBull
I’ve just bought it as well

But I’ve got such a pile of unread books it could be ages before I get to it.

42 Erica James-A Secret Garden Affair. I've been waiting patiently for this order from the library and I wasn't disappointed. A heartwarming story about a garden designer's life and loves, with her ladies maid by her side. They have been through shocking losses in their lives and now in their 70's they are the best of friends/companions. They know one another's secrets and heartaches and when a young relative has her own heart broken they come to her rescue. What a lovely story, based over several decades. Great read.

Enjoyed Blood on the Strand, have just started book 64, another Susanna Gregory, The Butcher of Smithfield.

Just finished book no. 35 Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris.

Very well written as are all his books. This one is about the English Civil War and I've learnt a lot as this isn't a period in our history I knew much about, and I enjoyed it.

#37 was The Memory Collector by Fiona Harper. This is a beautiful story about a young, damaged woman who is dealing with the aftermath of her late mother’s compulsive hoarding. Ultimately, it is a tale of forgiveness and redemption.

It’s good to see so many others are Kate Morton fans, I hope you all enjoy Homecoming as much as I did.

Yes, Musicgirl, I've read The Memory Collector, and thought it was an unusual subject sensitively handled.

I've now started on No. 36 Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel. Only on page 41 but already thoroughly enjoying it. Her writing is exquisite. This is an old book written in the late 1980s.

Sparklefizz

I've now started on No. 36 Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel. Only on page 41 but already thoroughly enjoying it. Her writing is exquisite. This is an old book written in the late 1980s.

I read Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel years and years ago Sparklefizz, I do remember enjoying it!

I also have Act of Oblivion on my shelves, I'll get round to it, my husband tells me it's excellent and I like that period of history, but I'll need to skip the execution in it, that's what's stopped me picking it up really.

#24. Casting Off by Elizabeth Jane Howard.

TerriBull I also have Act of Oblivion on my shelves, I'll get round to it, my husband tells me it's excellent and I like that period of history, but I'll need to skip the execution in it, that's what's stopped me picking it up really.

Yes, I skim over anything gory.... but it's a very good read.

26 Place of Execution - Val McDermid, I always considered Val McDermid a really good crime writer, but possibly didn't realise just how good until I read this early one of hers published in the late '90s and deservedly winning a lot of accolades at that time. The setting is a small rural hamlet in the Peak District in '63/64 when the first three children who fall victim to The Moors Murderers begin to disappear. When a young 13 year old girl goes missing from the tight knit community of Scardale close to Buxton, it is mooted that she could also be linked to those other disappearances not that far away in and around Manchester. The plot is multi, layered, complex and quite brilliantly constructed in that nothing is quite what it appears to be on the surface. The final part of the book which fast forwards to the late '90s delivers a killer blow twist. Val McDermid in creating DI George Bennett heading up the investigation has painted an almost definitive picture of a sympathetic, small town, honest detective doggedly trying to pursue the truth as to what happened, to the enth degree, a slow process, the discovery of DNA was still years in the future. Val McDermid paints the backdrop of the early '60s through the advent of the British groups, and how their music captivated the youngsters featured. More bleak was the fact that capital punishment was still on the statute book in 63/64, possibly making the point no matter how heinous the crime, executions almost trounces that.

I've loved her Karen Pirie series, some of the others she has written less so, but I don't think I've ever read anything better than this one an excellently crafted 5* crime book imo, at 600 pages it didn't seem too long at all.

My next two, a slim volume, Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These and a rather thicker one One, Two, Three Four, The Beatles in Time by Craig Brown, which I shall read intermittently because I intend to start my newly acquired Kate Morton when I go away in a week's time.

Book 21
The Chalk Man - C J Tudor
A good read, a group of children uncover an horrendous crime scene, which stays with them through to adulthood, there were other deaths which the children had to deal with, and which they may have unwittingly had a part in.
The book goes between the children and the grownups, and there are some unexpected twists.
The last paragraph in the book is rather chilling.

Book 22
Saving Missy - Beth Morrey
I know a lot of people have loved this book, for me it just wasn’t believable enough.
Missy, a bitter crabby old woman, is suddenly swamped with all these amazingly kind people who want to help her.
If only life were like this, but it really isn’t, too much of a fairytale for my liking.
Even the ending isn’t satisfactory, Missy won’t live for ever, and then what will become of her tenants?

Loved The Butcher of Smithfield. These books are great insights into life in the 17th century. Have just started book 65, an early Harlan Coben, Drop Shot.

Book 31 Another Man’s Poison by Ann Cleeves. One of the Molly and George Palmer-Smith series which I hadn’t come across before. Enjoyable but not as good as the Vera or Shetland books.

Book 11- Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult. I approach her books with a certain apprehension. They're always engaging,but I grit my teeth at the ( inevitable) tying- up -in- pretty- ribbon endings. This was good, however, and , as others have said, I enjoyed learning about bees and honey.
12 Graves End by William Shaw. I like the interesting setting of his books - Romney Marsh- and his flawed police officer heroine. An interesting plot, and , as with Mad Honey, I appreciated a bonus in learning about other creatures, in this case,badgers.
13 Wait for Me by the Duchess of Devonshire. It takes real talent to take such fascinating people ( she was one of the Mitford sisters) and turn them into such dull reading..

43. Margaret Dickinson-The Miller's Daughter. Saga of 4 generations running a windmill in Lincolnshire, through 2 world wars and beyond. An interesting read, learning about life in those times. Especially interesting as my distant ancestors had a windmill in that area.

I've just finished my book 36 Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel and it was brilliant !!!

It's set in Saudi Arabia (a place where HM lived herself for several years) and tells the story of a couple (husband is an engineer and wife a cartographer) who have worked in various hot dusty places around the world, and are now in Saudi where he has a contract.

Life there is appalling for women and the wife has great difficulty experiencing it. The writing is so exquisite and atmospheric that I felt I was there, and the tension builds until I couldn't put it down.

I have known two husbands of friends who have worked in Saudi and so have heard stories of the lifestyles there for Europeans.

This book is absolutely gripping. I don't want to say any more so as not to spoil it, but I can highly recommend it.

#24 The Turn Kim Harrison.
This is a prequel to the best selling "Hollows" urban fantasy series. I read some of them a few years ago and am tempted to revisit the series. Very enjoyable.