The Not So New 2024 50 Books a Year - Thread 2

TerriBull Your synopsis on Patrick Gale's "Notes from an Exhibition" has made me want to read it again. Thank you.

Just finished Book 52 Running out of Road by Cath Staincliffe.

11 year old Scarlett is looking forward to dancing in the school talent show ... except that she doesn't make it because she's abducted by a man she never imagined she'd ever see again ... her dad!

Ron has made a living as a house sitter since quitting his career on the front line in the Fire Service. He's currently looking after a remote place in the Derbyshire Peaks.

17 year old Dylan is a "cuckoo", dealing drugs on a county line, moving from nest to nest, picking out people who are afraid to say no. He's been keeping his head down, one step ahead of the law .... so far. Now everything's falling apart.

DS Laura O'Neil is exhausted after nights dealing with her teething toddler, but she is leading the hunt for Scarlett and knows that every minute counts.

#54 was Knife Edge by Simon Mayo.
Over 27 minutes early one morning, 7 journalists are murdered across London. They are the Investigations team at the news agency where Famie Madden works. No one knows what they were working on that could have resulted in their deaths. When Famie starts to receive mysterious messages, she has to find out if she is being warned of the next attack, or if she is the next victim.
Enjoyable thriller from the DJ Simon Mayo. 7/10

Book 37: Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett. I have just reread this book after many years and has reminded me that I love his writing."Clayhanger" is about the trials and tribulations, loves and hates of Edwin Clayhanger, a progressive printer in the Stoke-on-Trent area at the end of the 19th century. Edwin is hopelessly intelligent, refreshingly optimistic if sometimes naive, has a powerful sense of duty, and combines an almost total inability to understand women with a refreshingly frank and unconditional acceptance of his love for Hilda Lessways. I found him an extremely likeable character, totally empathetic. Throughout, there is a conflict between his business acumen and his innate timidity - which leads him into the most heartbreaking problems in his personal life. This book compels the reader to find out why certain things happened, and what happens next.
This book is the first in a trilogy. The next book"Hilda Lessways" covers much of the same ground as "Clayhanger", but also provides some background on Hilda, the love of Edwin's life.

Book 132, The Innocent, by Harlan Coben, a brilliant read with a surprising twist at the end.

Sparklefizz sometimes it's worth revisiting a book, I couldn't remember much about the plot, I must have read Notes from an Exhibition well over a dozen years ago, it was good to read it again.

I must add that I recently got hold of The Silence Between Breaths you recommended from our library, it will be my next book, in the meantime my husband read it, intermittently exclaiming "this is so good" you must read it. He loves crime, positively devoured that one in a day. I look forward to reading it too as soon as I finish my current one.

43 The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (Audible)

This is a book that I probably would not have read or even listened to for that matter, if I hadn't read Kristin Hannah's "The Four Winds" last year. My husband, having read this one years ago, said something like "it's the defining book on the plight of the Dust Bowl farmers" I think I quite wrongly I had it in my mind it was one of the worthy books that make up those tedious suggested "100 books"people should read in their lifetime, but could be boring.

It took me longer to appreciate it than Kristin Hannah's version of events. I'd say the scene setting and initial preamble wasn't as easily accessible as hers, but this of course, given the author lived through these troubled times is a first hand account. The time setting is the 1930s Depression, when the Joad family, poor tenant farmers from Oklahoma are forced to leave their land, like many others, due to continued drought, agriculture failures and bank foreclosures are therefore no longer able to eke out a living. They join the many itinerant farmers heading for what they perceive to be the land of plenty in California picking crops. They depart their home, with little money, meagre rations in an old jalopy merely held together on a wing and a prayer for the long journey west. Although all this happened some 90 years ago now, it was hard to conceive just how little state aid there was for such people who found themselves in dire straits. The masses arriving in California meant an over supply of labour which had certain parallels with today in holding down wages which of course suits business very well. The unscrupulous employers having the whip hand to keep reducing the meagre amounts paid to the bare minimum every time a new wave of workers rolled up, by which time they weren't even receiving subsistence levels, these people were starving, often without shelter exposed to the elements at times. They endured Dickensian conditions in the most developed country in the world. Steinbeck conveys all this to great effect and his palpable anger jumps out continually throughout the story.

The Joad family encompasses several generations, grandpa and grandma, ma and pa and a multitude of children, varying in ages, from the adult Tom one of the main protagonists who has experienced skirmishes with law. I was surprised to find English actor, Richard Armitage, doing the narration of such an American classic, but he did a sterling job switching from character to character in deep croaky voices for the men, at time sounding like an old warbly Bill Clinton for some of the older men, lighter voiced for women and children, as if he was inhabited bu multiple personas.

The sheer horror of what the dust bowl farmers lived through left quite an impression. I can quite see why John Steinbeck's book, published in 1939 was considered such a defining one, winning the Pulitzer Prize. Yes definitely a masterpiece.

TerriBull, I read The Grapes of Wrath about thirty years ago, I have enjoyed all his novels, but this is my favourite, so sad, your synopsis has made me want to read it again

Sarah, I was greatly moved. I think in some respects the narrative transcends time and parts of it still resonate today, there are parallels for sure, although it's fair to say there are more safety nets now. The sheer abandonment of those people by the state was nothing less than shocking and the banks well their behaviour hasn't improved much with time. The unfairness of how any attempt to set up some form of unionisation to represent the crop pickers was thwarted in the most brutal of ways. He portrayed a flawed capitalistic society who only wished to protect the status quo and any opposition to that was deemed to be a form of communist subversion. My husband has got all of his books, I will read some more, maybe Cannery Row next.

@ Terribull, this was a novel we had to read for A level English. The shock of the ending has never left me. I like to think that more safety nets are in place and in UK this is almost certainly the case. However, in the USA, there are still far too many people who fall on hard times and lose everything.

Such a good book for A level Music girl, the content presents much for discussion, all the spins off from The Great Depression, bank foreclosures, mass migration, suppression of wages due to over supply of labour, unscrupulous business pratices, unpredictable weather, it definitely has a resonance in the right now. The ending, as you say shocking, but then much of the book was too.

Definitely stays with you, as I said it must be thirty years ago I read it, and I still remember the shocking ending, I’m definitely going to have to read it again, although I’m not usually a re reader

Me too.... I'll have to read it again!

Book 40
Moonflower Murders - Anthony Horowitz
This is a very clever and rather complicated crime novel. A book within a book.
I started detailing the plot, but it sounded so complicated that I deleted it all, so just to say it’s a really good read, keeps you guessing till the very end, would definitely recommend.

I also enjoyed both The Moonflower and Mayflower Murders, Anthony Horowitz has created a very clever Agatha Chrisie pastiche with his Poirot inspired character Atticus Pund.

Correction the other book was The Magpie Murders not Mayflower.

Book 133, No One Saw a Thing, by Andrea Mara. 2 very small girls get on a London underground train, but the doors close before their mother and baby brother can join them. Checking at the next station, the 2 year old is found, but the 6 year old has disappeared.

Yes TerriBull, he’s a great character, if I ever had to be arrested and questioned, I’d like it to be by Atticus Pund

63-Blow Back-James Patterson/DuBois-President Barrett is America's most brilliant president ever, but he is a psychopath! I felt compelled to read this as I am concerned with those competing for this role at the moment. A complex story with so many characters that I gave up writing them down, but with CIA, FBI and other groups I suppose that's expected. It was worth the 500 pages though.

Book 134, The Fortune Tellers, by Maggie Mason. Set in Blackpool during WW1. Quite enjoyed it.

#62. Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey.

#55 was The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell. I hadn’t read any of her books before, but they were being discussed here recently so when I spotted this at a book exchange I decided to give it a go.
Teenaged mum Tallulah heads out on a date with her boyfriend Zach, leaving their baby son at home with Tallulah’s mother. Neither Tallulah nor Zach are seen again. They were last seen heading to a pool party at the home of a college friend, a place called Dark Edge. A year later a sign is spotted, nailed to a fence that says “dig here”.
This was quite a page turner, but I found the ending very disappointing. 7/10

64-The Quiche of Death-M C Beaton-A little light relief after the complex 'Blow Back' I've just read. This is the very first in the Agatha Raisin series written back in 1992, and it has given me the background behind the characters in the rest of the series. As always a murder has to be solved, but with a touch of comedy.

Book 38: The Nidderdale Murders by J. R. Ellis -a light read!

My previous book was Book 39: Nidderdale Murders-have got the sequence muddled up!!
Book 40 : University Tales by Jack Sheffield -A feel good read

Book 135, The Fortune Teller`s Secret, by Maggie Mason, a sequel to my last book. Set in Blackpool in the 1920s, I enjoyed it as much as the last one.