50 Book Challenge 2013 -The Sequel!

Book 97 - The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan. Quirky, unusual, experimental little book depicting a relationship through defintions of various words. Definitely unusual

42. The Psychic Tourist - William Little

Interesting enough idea - the author meets various psychics, fortune tellers, gypsies etc and tries to get an idea of whether any of it based on reality. Of course it's not, so while it's all entertaining the author comes across as a bit of an idiot. There are some interesting exchanges with true believers, especially of "the world's most famous psychic" who lives in America, Richard Dawkins, and a theoretical physicist who talks about the possibility of a time machine through which we may receive messages from the future.

50. Transatlantic by Colum McCann. It was good, it didn't blow me away like As the Great Worlds Spins did, but it was good. And interesting, all about the relationship between Ireland and the US.

51. SuperFreakonomics - VERY interesting, and I liked that it didn't have the cheesy extracts about Levitt in between each of the chapters. But, I think Freakonomics was better.

My next goal is to finish all the books I have out from the library, which isn't helped by me taking out more books from the library

So at the moment I have: The Price of Inequality (Stiglitz), The Decay of the Angel (Yukio Mishima), Wolf Hall (Hillary Mantel), Revolutionary Road (Richard Yates - LOVED the movie, so would like to see how the book compares), The Prague Cemetry (Umberto Eco), Visit Sunny Chernobyl (about polluted places), Before I go to Sleep (SJ Watson). For the last one, someone on here had read it, and given it has a similar premise to one of my favourite movies (50 First Dates), I thought I'd give it a try. I also have a book by Camus that my SIL gave me, so I think I'll try and finish that before the end of the year.

59 A Possible Life by Sebastian Faulks

• this book is well written, as you'd expect from this writer, who certainly doesn't lack talent, but I wasn't sure what the point of it was. It consists of five chapters/novellas/short stories (I'm not sure which) concerning different characters in different settings and times. It was a bit like a poor man's Cloud Atlas, but without the link between the stories being made explicit. At the end of one of the stories the central character has a vision or memory of people playing a game with sticks and in a previous story the central character was a keen cricketer, which made me wonder if the main character was being reincarnated, but I suspect that there are just supposed to be common themes to the stories.

Faulks is a very good writer, but with his mix of radio quiz shows, parodies, serious novels and copying the style of other writers (he's written both James Bond and Jeeves and Wooster novels) I feel that he rather lacks focus. I felt that this book could have been better.

24. Love, Stargirl - Jerry Spinelli

60. Was "The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole" by Sue Townsend. It was alright. Made me laugh in a few places.

Started Louisa Young "My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You" last night, so that will be my next read.

51. Men And The Matterhorn - Gaston Rebuffat

A great mountaineering book (out of print but got a copy from the library which had date stamps back to 1974!). The story of the first & notable subsequent ascents, with lovely photos and drawings.

52. War Horse - Michael Morpugo

A quick read for train journey to London, very well written I thought, simple but effective.

96 - The Stepford Wives - Ira Levin. Really enjoyed this little novella. just 139 pages long - far too short. Now I want to watch the film again.

43. Crossed by Ally Condie

65. Life after Life - Kate Atkinson. Really liked it.

95 - Room by Emma Donoghue. Did not enjoy it at all.

Congratulations to everyone who has reached 50 or 100!

47. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I've heard mixed reviews of this but it is definitely my kind of thing. Really enjoyed it.

59. D.L.Christopher "Immemorial". Really enjoyed this one, but the end was a bit odd. I'd have liked some more resolution to some of the issues.

97. James Herbert - Fluke
98. Alex Gerliss - The Best Of Our Spies
99. Jonas Jonasson - 100 Year Old Man…
100. Linda Green - The Mummyfesto

Going to spend rest of year re-reading some old friends - and lurking on this thread for some Christmas Buys

52 The Night Watch - Sarah Waters. Possibly my book of the year. She is such a great storyteller and I felt really involved with all of her characters. An excellent read set during WWII, I definitely recommend it.

I'm still plodding through The One Hundred Year Old Man...it is taking me months, I rarely give up on a book, but I'm seriously thinking of abandoning it.

42. Matched by Ally Condie

InLove I just couldn't get on with Cassandra Clare, I think I stopped at the third book.

44. a vintage affair - isabel wolff. loved loved loved this book. couldnt put it down and read it in less than a day.

45. i heart new york - lindsey kelk. book #1 in the i heart series. ive heard good and bad things about this series so cant wait to see which side im on

Cote: Super Freakonomics is one of the library books I have out. can't wait!

59. Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde. Loved every page of it!!

Meg glad you liked This Thing of Darkness - it was recommended to me a while ago by a new friend. Have you read any Stuart Clark? I read a few of his earlier this year, and am waiting for the third in the trilogy from my library now. They're quite heavily science-based, but gripping.

apologies for not updating. had surgery 3 weeks ago and still recovering. anyhoo... ive been relaxing, watching boxsets and reading so im quite happy

40. the secrets of crickley hall - james herbert
41. please forgive me - melissa hill
42. city of fallen angels (tmi #4) - cassandra clare (she so should have just left the first 3 as a trilogy, then started a new set) so dissapointing
43. city of lost souls (tmi #5) - cassanda clare. worse than book #4

just about to start...

44. a vintage affair - isabel wolff

41. Doctor Sleep - Stephen King

One of the most eagerly-awaited sequels of all time (in certain circles ), Doctor Sleep is about Danny the little boy in The Shining. It starts off really slowly and frankly made me think SK has lost his touch a bit, but then gets going and gets very good. It would make a fantastic movie, too.

Abs - That book has a sequel you might like to read called Super-Freakonomics.

41. Insurgent by Veronica Roth