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50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Seven

999 replies

southeastdweller · 02/08/2017 22:26

Welcome to the seventh thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2017, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, it's not too late to join, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

The first thread of the year is here, the second one here, the third thread here, the fourth one here, the fifth one here, and the sixth one here.

What are you reading?

OP posts:
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SatsukiKusakabe · 02/08/2017 22:48

Thanks South

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MegBusset · 02/08/2017 22:52

Thank you South Flowers

Currently on book 34 - Andrew Marr's History Of The World.

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Murine · 02/08/2017 23:00

Thank you for the new thread, southeastdweller.
I haven't posted for a while due to the madness involved in moving house, I'm currently reading The Sport of Kings by C.E.King and The Owl Always Hunts At Night by Samuel Bjork, very different but both very enjoyable.

My list of books read this year so far:

  1. Frog Music by Emma Donaghue
  2. After the Crash Michel Bussi

3.Work Like Any Other Virginia Reeves
  1. The Kept Woman Karin Slaughter
  2. American Gods Neil Gaiman
  3. Everyone Brave Is Forgiven Chris Cleave
  4. Detour from Normal Ken Dickson
  5. The Comfort of Strangers Ian McEwan
  6. Our Endless Numbered Days Claire Fuller

10. The Lewis Man Peter May
11. The Testament of Mary Colm Toibin
12. Deceived Wisdom David Bradley
13. Silent Child Sarah A. Denzil
14. This Thing of Darkness Harry Thompson
15. The Detectives Daughter Lesley Thomson
16. Burning Bright Tracy Chevalier
17. One Little Mistake Emma Curtis
18. Lie With Me Sabine Durrant
19. Golden Hill Francis Spufford
20. Them Jon Jonson
21. Raven Black Ann Cleeves
22. The Tidal Zone Sarah Moss
23. Bodies of Water V.H.Leslie
24. Do No Harm Henry Marsh
25. White Nights Ann Cleeves
26.Nora Webster Colm Toibin
27. The Men Who Stare At Goats Jon Ronson
28. Kill Someone Luke Smitherd
29. The Lie Helen Dunmore
30. Red Bones Ann Cleeves
31. The Psychopath Test Jon Ronson
32. The Power Naomi Alderman
33. Night Waking Sarah Moss
34. The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared Jonas Jonasson
35. Remember Me This Way Sabine Durrant
36. The Good People Hannah Kent
37. Island of Wings Karin Altenburg
38. Good Me, Bad Me Ali Land
39. The Crow Trap Ann Cleeves
40. The Siege Helen Dunmore
41. The Dark Circle Linda Grant
42. Capital John Lanchester
43. Commonwealth Ann Patchett
44. The Radium Girls Kate Moore
45. Dead Certain Adam Mitzner
46. The Return Hisham Matar
47. Apple Tree Yard Louise Doughty
48. Burial Rites Hannah Kent
49. First Love Gwendoline Riley
50. The Woman In Cabin 10 Ruth Ware
51. Stay With Me Ayobami Adebayo
52. I'm Travelling Alone Samuel Bjork
53. The Good Neighbour AJBanner
54.Black Water Louise Doughty
55. Lincoln In The Bardo George Saunders
56.The Book Collector Alice Thompson
57. A Girl Is a Half Formed Thing Eimear McBride
58. Birdcage Walk Helen Dunmore
59. A Man Called Ove Fredrik Backman
60. Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone JKRowling
61. Still house Lake Rachel Caine
62. No is Not Enough Naomi Klein
63. Telling Tales Anne Cleeves
64. The Dry Jane Harper
65. See What I Have Done Sarah Schmidt
66. New Boy Tracy Chevalier
67. Leaving Time Jodi Picoult
68. The Farm Tom Rob Smith
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TheTurnOfTheScrew · 02/08/2017 23:00

thank you south

I continue to read at a far slower pace than most. My modest list is:

  1. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell
  2. Mothering Sunday - Graham Swift
  3. Under the Skin - Michel Faber
  4. Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood
  5. The Muse - Jessie Burton
  6. Swing Time - Zadie Smith
  7. The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith
  8. A Question of Identity - Susan Hill
  9. The Vows of Silence - Susan Hill

10. A Kiss Before Dying - Ira Levin
11. The Shadows in the Street - Susan Hill
12. The Gate of Angels - Penelope Fitzgerald
13.The Spy Who Came In From The Cold - John Le Carre
14 The Book of Daniel - E.L. Doctorow
15. Different Class - Joanne Harris
16. The Gustav Sonata - Rose Remain
17. Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
18. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
19. Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
20. A Call for the Dead by John le Carre
21. The Birds in the Trees by Nina Bawden
22. The Sellout by Paul Beatty
23. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
24. Moving by Jenny Eclair
25. The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss
26. Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

Currently reading A Perfect Spy by John le Carre, but struggling a little with limited reading time and a slightly opaque split narrative.
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TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 02/08/2017 23:05

Marking place!

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CoteDAzur · 02/08/2017 23:08

Ooh shiny new thread! Thank you South Smile

We are on thread #7, with 5 more months to go! Shock

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slightlyglittermaned · 02/08/2017 23:13

Currently reading *How to Bake Pi" and enjoying it. I haven't tried the recipes but the maths is great Grin

Recently finished The Hanging Tree Ben Aaronovitch. It's been reviewed in the last thread (I think) - I enjoyed this latest instalment in the Rivers of London series. Peter Grant seems to be growing up a bit and we get a bit more of an insight into a couple of characters.

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Tarahumara · 02/08/2017 23:17

Thanks south Smile

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VanderlyleGeek · 02/08/2017 23:21

Thanks, South. Smile

I've not updated in a while, so:

26. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum: a cracking history of poison and the evolution of the NYC medical examiner's office. Blum is a science journalist and a professor of science writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and her writing is a fantastic blend of chemistry, medicine, and social history. Highly, highly recommended.

27. The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine: a re-visioning of Sense and Sensibility featuring a 70-something woman and her two 50 something daughters, which is set in NYC and a fancy town in Connecticut. It's fine but ultimately fleeting for me.

28. Fitness Junkie by Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza: a not-fat woman is fat-shamed into believing she's fat and taking a leave of absence from her company so that her "best friend" can sell it out from under her. Why did I read this? I honestly don't know. Please don't judge me.

29. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry: much reviewed here, so I will simply add my vote to the loved it! contingent.

30. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows: also much reviewed here; a solid ok from me.

31. Out of Africa by Karen Blixen: chosen for book club because of the allure of lots of coffee and romance. There was little coffee and no romance. Instead, it was chockablock with colonialism and big game hunting. I understand that people love this book. I just don't understand why (though I know that Blixen was in many ways a trailblazer and that her attitudes were some of the most generous of her time and position, but.).

32. The Unseen World, by Liz Moore: when 12-year-old Ada's brilliant computer scientist father develops Alzheimer's in the 1980s, she discovers that she knows very little about the truth of his life. She sets out to discover it at the same time as adjusting to life without her beloved single father and in a world that is largely unknown to her. While a bit slow at times, this book ultimately deals with a period of American history that's largely ignored by the mainstream and is ultimately a worthwhile read.

I'm on holiday for the next bit, so I'm hoping to have the bandwidth to be able to read some more substantial books.

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CheerfulMuddler · 02/08/2017 23:45

Ooh, thank you!
My list:

  1. The Light Years Elizabeth Jane Howard
  2. Marking Time Elizabeth Jane Howard
  3. Peter's Room Antonia Forest
  4. Run Away Home Antonia Forest
  5. The Thursday Kidnapping Antonia Forest
  6. Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
  7. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding Julia Strachey
  8. Good Evening, Mrs Craven Mollie Panter-Downes
  9. Unpublished manuscript

10. An Episode of Sparrows Rumer Godden
11. Confusion Elizabeth Jane Howard
12. Private, Keep Out! Gwen Grant
13. Hillbilly Elegy JD Vance
14. Nurture Shock Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
15. Grass in Piccadilly Noel Streatfeild
16. Fell Jenn Ashworth
17. The Hate U Give Angie Thomas
18. Beasts and Super Beasts Saki
19. Nobody Told Me Hollie McNish
20. The Girl Who Saved Christmas Matt Haig
21. Casting Off Elizabeth Jane Howard
22. The Guggenheim Mystery Robin Stevens
23. Pottermore Presents JK Rowling
24. Autumn Term Antonia Forest
25. To The Edge Of The World Julia Green
26. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Agatha Christie
27. The Summer Book Tove Jansson
28. All Change Elizabeth Jane Howard
I am reading Wolf Hall, another moulderer from my tbr pile. This is the third time I have started it. Each time I go, "Oh wow, wonderful writing, really brilliant", and each time I lose momentum about halfway through.
I am about halfway through. I am losing momentum. Too much politics. Too many characters. Too few women. Which is a shame, because holy crap, this book is a masterclass in hire to write a historical novel. Such assured writing. Such a sense of place and time.
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ChessieFL · 03/08/2017 05:50

I can't remember most of the books I studied at A Level. I know we did some Shakespeare but can't now remember which one - probably A Midsummer Night's Dream. We studied W B Yeats poems (all that bloody gyring) and Mansfield Park which I really didn't enjoy - I intend to reread it at some point to see if I get more out of it as an adult. I think we did A Streetcar Named Desire, which I liked. I know we DIDN'T study Wuthering Heights - it was on the syllabus and I really hoped the teacher would choose it but no, she went for Mansfield Park, one of the most boring books ever written with the drippiest heroine ever. I remember studying Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Great Expectations at school, quite liked both of those.

105. A Million Years In A Day: A Curious History of Daily Life by Greg Jenner

This covers the history of aspects of our daily life - time, alarm clocks, writing, pet owning, drinking, food, clothes etc. It's all structured round the course of a typical Saturday (we wake up, he talks about time. We have breakfast, he talks about that. We have a shower etc). It was interesting, but I was listening to it on Audible and I think I would have got more from it reading it as a text. For some reason I find it hard to concentrate on audiobooks - I think it's because I'm usually doing something else at the same time (walking, housework) and it's too easy for my mind to wander, then it's fiddly to rewind to the right place. I find it much easier to concentrate on a text as I'm not doing anything else at the same time and if my mind does wander it's easy to scan the last few paragraphs again. Does anyone else find this with audiobooks? I love them for the walking bits of my commute and when doing jobs at home, but maybe I'll save them for re'reads' of books I already know fairly well so it doesn't matter if my mind drifts a bit!

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BestIsWest · 03/08/2017 05:53

Thank you South. Will update my list later.

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BestIsWest · 03/08/2017 05:54

Chessie I can't do audiobooks at all. My mind wanders.

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ChessieFL · 03/08/2017 06:40

Glad it's not just me!

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SatsukiKusakabe · 03/08/2017 07:48

cheerful push through the middle bit of WH, I got stranded there too briefly but it does pick up and no such trouble with BUTB. As for the women thing this is an instance where I disagree - all the power, such that there is, is with the men and focussing on the female characters any more would make it a different kind of book, and wouldn't ring true from Cromwell's perspective which is largely what we're seeing. BUTB has Anne Boleyn as more central and this fits with the story Mantel is telling.

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RMC123 · 03/08/2017 07:54

Thanks for the new thread. Moving my list** across . I think my highlights might have changed as I managed to mess them up last time but I have redone them in the context of everything I have read so far this year

1.My name is Lucy Barton
2.Plainsong
3.Summer Queen
4.The winter Crown
5.The autumn throne 
6.The Heart Goes Last 
7.Twelve years a Slave
8.My Husbands wife 
9.The bolter
10.Winter ghosts 
11.  Essex Serpent
12.Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 
13. Everyone Brave is Forgiven
14. His Bloody Project
15. Forgotten voices of the Great War
16. Love letters of the Great War 
17. The trouble with goats and sheep
18. Victoria A life
19. The tales of Beedle the Bard 
20. Dear Amy 
21 Crown of blood
22.The food of love 
23. Elizabeth and Mary
24. Last Train to Memphis
25. The silkworm
26. Apple Tree Yard 
27. Young and Damned and Fair 
28. the Missing 
29. Three sisters Three Queens 
30. Where my heart used to beat  
31. First of the Tudors
32. Do no harm 
33. Dark fire
34. Dissolution
35. Sovereign
36. Revelation
37. Heartstone
38. Lamentation
39. The Keeper of Lost Things 
40. The Lesser Bohemians
41. The Cuckoos Calling
42. The Ashes of London 
43. The child in time 
44. The private lives of the Tudors 
45. The Hare with the Amber Eyes 
46. Love all
47. Just Henry 
48. Daughters of the Grail 
49. The Northern Clemency
50. The light years
51. Her perfect life 
52. Take Six Girls 
53. The Silent child 
54. Georgiana - Duchess of Devonshire 
55. The Love Letters of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn 
56. Anne Boleyn: The Kings Obsession
57. The Crow Trap - Ann cleeves
58. Telling Tales - Ann Cleeves
59. Hidden depths 
60. Silent voices 
61. Marking time
62. Nella Last's War
63. The Glass room
64. Girl A : My Story
65. Harbour street 
66. The moth catcher
67. Lincoln in The Bardo 
68. The Witches
69. A Dangerous Inheritance
70. Confusion 
71. All the light we cannot see 
72. Reconstructing Amelia
73. The last runaway
74, Holding
75. The Underground Railroad 
76. The wonder
77. The Romanovs
78. A street cat named Bob
79. Casting off 
80. In to the woods
81. The Power
82. Cousins
83. Swing Time 

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CheerfulMuddler · 03/08/2017 07:56

Okay, that's good to know, thanks.
I didn't mean the lack of women made it a bad book - I quite agree with all that. More, I think, that I found it easier to get sucked in when Kat and Liz and so forth are more central. Will persevere.

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RMC123 · 03/08/2017 08:00

Cheerful morning echo everything Satsuki has said about Wolf Hall. It is a stunning book but yes, the middle is quite 'dense' for want of a better word. BUTB is an easier read and equally as well written. Does any one have any idea when the third one is due out?

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Greymalkin · 03/08/2017 08:03

Hi everyone, I have been on this thread before and quite a while ago.

I find that it moves very fast and that my reading lists are pitifully small compared to some of yours!

I'd like to join you again if I may, currently reading Dan Davies' In Plain Sight: the Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile

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SatsukiKusakabe · 03/08/2017 08:12

Oh of course cheerful I see what you mean and its personal preference. The third seems to keep getting further away, and nothing official, but I read an interview with Mark Rylance who was Cromwell in the TV adaptation, and he mentioned they were readying to film the third installment in 2019, and that it was going to be a huge book, so it looks promising for next year based on that perhaps?

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SatsukiKusakabe · 03/08/2017 08:12

It's

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SatsukiKusakabe · 03/08/2017 08:16

Hi grey there's a few of us on a slower track, and everyone else is too busy reading everything in sight to care, so do join in again! I hear that Dan Davies book is very good and read a great article by him on it.

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SatsukiKusakabe · 03/08/2017 08:24
  1. All the Light We Cannot See
  2. The Essex Serpent
  3. His Bloody Project
  4. Golden Hill
  5. 11.22.63
  6. The North Water
  7. Three Body Problem
  8. The Vegetarian
  9. The Long Goodbye

10. Revelation
11. Wishful Drinking
12.Ready Player One
13. Name of the Buggering Wind
14. Heartburn
15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
16. Madonna in a Fur Coat
17. Elinor Oliphant is Completely Fine
18. Conclave
19. Lincoln in the Bardo
20. Today Will Be Different
21. My Name Is Lucy Barton
22. The Handmaid's Tale
23. Bossypants
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BestIsWest · 03/08/2017 08:41

In Plain Sight is very good and and manages not to be salacious. Quite horrifying. I'd recommend it.

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RMC123 · 03/08/2017 09:01

Satsuki fingers crossed for 2018 then.
Hello grey. My list is long this year but only because my husband has started working away and I seem to have given up watching TV in the evenings! About to start a full time job in September having done part time for a while so suspect my reading will fall off a cliff!!
Have been looking at In plain sight. Somehow felt a bit 'grubby' considering it so interested to know it's not salacious.

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