Just noticed that Mislaid was actually book 8
Good Morning Wednesday 13th May 2026
Sometimes it’s just the small things that press the bruise isn’t it? 😢
Being asked for an honest opinion
To be really irritated by chefs over praising their own food?
Gransnet forums
Books/book club
THE BRAND NEW 2024 50 BOOK CHALLENGE
(1001 Posts)Good Morning and a Happy New Year to all.
Well here it is on this new year's day, the brand new 50 book challenge and hope that all our regular posters will continue to contribute and anyone new who enjoys their books will consider joining us.
For the benefit of anyone who isn't familiar with this thread, I will run through my introductory spiel. Firstly I would like to point out that if you are someone who thinks that you wouldn't read 50 books in a year but would still be interested in joining in, don't let that number put you off, do come here and join us anyway, particularly if you think you would enjoy ongoing discussions about books which is the essence of this book challenge. This is a thread that I filched from MN, over there they have two threads running concurrently, one for 50 books a year and one for 25. Our reading community here on GN is relatively small so I think it's preferable to keep us as one group allowing for the fact that we all read at different rates, given time constraints or whatever else we have going on in our lives.
The choice of books you opt for is entirely up to you, anything is permissible, fiction, non fiction and I would particularly like to stress your reading material doesn't have to be a novel if you want to opt for something factual, biographies, memoirs, even a children's book if you want to revisit a childhood favourite maybe, audio/Audible. Again how you post is down to you, merely list your books, maybe a brief description, or feel free to waffle on, I do, particularly if I've been enthused about a book I've read. Sometimes we interject and comment on other posters choices, more often than not agreeing with their opinions, and taking up recommendations, occasionally interjecting with our own dislike of maybe one they have favoured, but always with a view of agreeing to disagree. Books as with most other forms of entertainment are subjective and will of course divide opinions as well.
I hope I have outlined all the relevant points for anyone who is contemplating joining us and I would like to wish everyone a happy year's reading and all the best for 2024.
Yes absolutely agree Sparklefizz the unfolding and very complicated relationship between Ruth, Nelson and Michelle, Mrs Nelson are an integral component of the series, in fact I was sometimes more hooked on what was going on there than the crimes. There are some great supporting characters in the books such as Cathbad. I think there are many here who lament the fact that Ellie Griffiths wound the series up.
I am one of those TerriBull ^ I think there are many here who lament the fact that Ellie Griffiths wound the series up.^
I felt quite bereft to hear that the series had been ended.
Bletchley Park Brain Teasers- I like the puzzles, but the information in there is fascinating. I took a break to read
A Crooked Tree by Una Mannion
Thanks for that recommendation Maggierose. I read the first 3 chapters on Amazon yesterday, then bought the book on Kindle. It kept me awake through last night.
On my chicklit list The Magnificent Mrs Mayhew by Milly Johnson is my absolute favourite.
This year I’ve been rereading books on my bookshelves to see which ones I can jettison. Return to Eden by Rosalind Miles is a keeper, as is Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer. I enjoy reading the Comoran Strike books, but I’m not sure if I’ll reread them.
Book 4
American Dirt - jeanine Cummins
I know I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time.
A whole family is massacred in Acapulco, sixteen family members at a barbecue, only Lydia and eight year old Lucca survive.
Knowing they need to disappear they set out to get to America, the journey is full of danger, no one can really be trusted.
But there are friendships formed, and small acts of kindness from strangers, most of all Lydia’s love for her boy that pushes her on.
Pretty sure this will be one of my top books of 2024
I read that last year Sara1954 some heart in mouth moments, a great read.
Brilliant book! I loved American Dirt, Very filmic I imagine, I could see it turning up on Netflix.
TerriBull
You could be right, but if you are I hope they don’t mess it up.
I’ve had it on my pile for ages, so pleased I eventually got to it .
I’m halfway through ‘Brazen’.
Just saying.
🤣
Book 3 - Managed to finish The Marriage Portrait whilst sitting in the hairdressers this morning. Reading through the notes at the back of the book, it seems Maggie O'Farrell built the story around some sketchy details and a certain amount of embellishment on the brief life of The Duchess of Ferrara, inspiration it is thought for Robert Browning's poem "My Last Duchess".
The hapless Lucrezia, daughter of Cosimo de Medici was fodder for a dynastic betrothal to Alfonso Duke of Ferrara, who was previously engaged to her older sister before she died suddenly. Lucrezia, her replacement, was barely a teenager on her marriage and died in questionable circumstances, allegedly of pulmonary tuberculosis but with suspicions that she had been poisoned on orders of her husband. Lucrezia upon her marriage soon finds out that she has married an arch controller who turns from the benevolent to the malevolent in a heartbeat and inspite of her young age has quickly to learn how best to manoeuvre around his two personas. She greatly fears the influence of her arch nemesis his cruel consigliere who wields much power and has the ear of husband more than she does, his veiled comments also suggest Alfonso has never sired any children and hints as such she will never produce an heir, kind of rendering her redundant. As time goes on and no pregnancy is forthcoming and with Alfonso's increasing exasperation, she fears that she is to be expendable and therein hangs the tale. Her early death comes a mere 3 years after her marriage at the tender age of 16. Alfonso goes on to have two more marriages without issue, so it would seem the infertility problem lay with him. I won't say I disliked the book, I do enjoy her writing and she evoked the settings and atmosphere of the courts during the Renaissance very well. At times I found it quite ponderous. The books I really remember liking a lot more about Renaissance Italy, would be Sarah Dunant's The Birth of Venus which I really loved.
I did love Hamnet more than this one, I'm wondering now if Maggie O'Farrell is trawling the 16th century looking to find early deaths of young people from prominent families. I always look forward to her books, it will be interesting to see what she produces next.
Sticking with an Italian setting, but with a contemporary flavour book number 4, The Three Graces by another favourite author of mine, Amanda Craig
A book that was mentioned further back, Songbirds, is 99p on Kindle today, so I’ve bought that. I wasn’t that struck by The Beekeeper of Aleppo, it seemed strangely distant and I couldn’t get involved with it, but I’ll give the author another shot.
Terribull your review of The Marriage Portrait reflects my thoughts entirely!
TerriBull
Reading your post on The Marriage Portrait reminded me of how much I enjoyed it. It wasn’t Hamnet, but Hamnet was special, and would have been a very hard act to follow.
MayBee70
I’m trying to read Sue Townsends The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year, because I liked her other books but I’m not really liking it.
I read a load of reviews about it yesterday and have decided to give up on it. I thought it would be the sort of easy to read book that would get me back reading again but it seems that most people agree that it’s awful. And it isn’t a short book, either. I bought Rory Stewart’s The Places Inbetween the other day although I was going to listen to it on audio.It didn’t help that the bookseller told me that he only listens to books on audio these days too! I think my brain has gone lazy in much the same way as I used to be able to work mathematical things out when I worked at a Labour Exchange but when calculators were invented that part of my brain ceased to function…
Book No. 3: “Q” by Christina Dalcher. This is a novel set in a dystopian future USA where all that matters for individuals and families is that their Q score remains high, otherwise educational and social oblivion awaits. I read this book because it was selected for my Book Group, however I did not enjoy it. I found it rather implausible and the characters were unrealistic.
Thank you, Sparklefizz, I've ordered The Crossing Places, I'm looking forward to having a whole series to enjoy.
Thank you, SueD, I've also ordered Songbirds.
This is a great thread, thank you TerriBull.
TerriBull The books I really remember liking a lot more about Renaissance Italy, would be Sarah Dunant's The Birth of Venus which I really loved.
I really loved that book. Apparently Sarah Dunant lives in Florence.
Yes I think I read that Sparklefizz living there must be a wonderful inspiration for her writing which is predominantly about Renaissance Italy I believe. Surrounded by all that beauty and Sarah Dunant probably knows the quietest time, if that exists, to visit the Uffizi Gallery for example. The Birth of Venus stayed with me for quite a while after I'd read it, in a way so has the Marriage Portrait, I had to remind myself this morning when picking up my latest book I'm no longer at the court of Ferrara but in the Tuscan hills amongst ex pats of today!
Book 7. House of Wolves, by James Patterson and Mike Lupica. OK, but not great.
3-Dead Ground-M.W.Craven-I've not read this author before and was pleasantly surprised. Detective Washington Poe is a bit of a rebel in this investigation to a murder. He is told by MI5 to not dig too deeply , so he does the exact opposite. He is an ex soldier and is digging up secrets about other ex servicemen, making himself very unpopular. A fast moving thriller with a surprise in the last few pages, just when you think it's finished.
I shall watch out for more of his stories in our book-swap kiosk.
#8 The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen. First of a planned series, introducing a a group of retired CIA agents, now living in coastal Maine. In this one, an old case come back to threaten one of them. Its quite slow - at the beginning, I thought this was possibly because the author was scene setting for the whole series, but even later, when the tension should be ramping up, it never quite does. I'll probably give the next one - due out in March 2025 - a read, and if its no better, I will stop there.
Yes, TerriBull I had to remind myself this morning when picking up my latest book I'm no longer at the court of Ferrara but in the Tuscan hills amongst ex pats of today!
I have to make sure I choose a follow-on book that's totally different otherwise I find myself thinking "Where's x?" before realising that they were in the previous book. Senior moment, I know. 
Book 1: Love over Scotland bu Alexander McCall Smith. I like this series though one aspect of this story, where a 6yr old boy goes to Paris as part of an orchestra for teenagers is slightly far-fetched!
Book 2: Theodore Boone by John Grisham. Aimed at teenagers, but still enjoyable.
Book 3: Back When We Were Adults by Anne Tyler. Loved this. As with all her books, it's set in Baltimore, Maryland, where she is from. Always sad when I get to the end of her books.
Finally finished Miss Bensons Beetle by Rachel Joyce...it was ok, not as good as her Harold Fry stories.
Next to start is Tough Crowd by Graham Lineham.
Book 9. The New Wife by JP Delaney
Quite a good read in the genre of psychological thrillers but not recommended if you don’t like ambiguous endings.
Book 7 Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
I am not a great fan of BK as the only book of hers that I enjoyed was "The Poisonwood Bible" but a friend recommended "Prodigal Summer" so I decided to give it a try, and at first I enjoyed all the descriptions of nature but after 160 pages I found myself thinking "Just get on with it!"
With nearly another 300 pages to go, I've put it aside for the moment.
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