50 Book Challenge 2015 Part 4

I'm so sorry it's by alice Jolly

No 63

Sue Jolly Dead babies and seaside towns

This is another one I've been dipping in and out of as the subject matter is so bleak
It's autobiographical and tells of the protagonists journey to have a second child
The stillborn chapters are heartbreaking
It's not a pleasurable read but by the end you do get a sense of Hope literally
I think people who have struggled more than I have to have a family would get more out of this book than I did to be brutally honest

Biblio - Billy C is v good, and it's one of the few Judi D films I've seen that hasn't made me shout at the screen in frustration. I don't like her much, but she's good in this.

Book 98
Am on a mountaineering roll! 'The Beckoning Silence' by Joe Simpson
I really, really enjoyed this. It isn't about anything in particular, and is a bit meandering, but it's beautifully written and has some really powerful passages - one about the death of a friend was particularly moving; another about a storm on a mountain was just a stunningly poetic piece of prose which I will almost certainly be using in my teaching next term. Highly recommended.

Remus, haven't seen that film, although I've been vaguely meaning to. My concentration for films/TV is much poorer than for books. Would like to see it - I'm sure it will be on TV one of these Christmasses...

Duchess, I also read The Victorians (confusingly, The Victorians and Victoria, both by A N Wilson, are two different books, although with a lot of overlap). Again, I had to skim it. The Victorians had quite a few enjoyable nuggets, but all the detail is overwhelming. Come to think of it, I nearly always end up skimming books by this author.

32. The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archives Bk 1) by Brendon Sanderson
    The first in a proposed series of fantasy novels. Epic fantasy of the magic, swords and intrigue type. Really enjoyed this. The second one in the series is currently £10.99 so watching until it comes down in price till I dive into the second.

33. A Town called Alice by Neil Shute.
    Classic novel written in 1950. Follows Jean Paget, a girl in her late teens, caught in Malaysia in the Second World War. After the war she inherits money and goes in search of life, starting first by returning to Malaysia. I liked this book; the female protagonist is a great role model and although the start of the book is sad the book has a go-getting positive attitude. However the reason I didn't love it is that I found the style of writing quite stilted. Still recommended, though.

I have tried the first of the Lemaitre books (managed one chapter) - and it was already too gruesome and gratuitously graphic, never mind adding newborn torture. How horrific.

Hi I seem to have been away for a long time. It's very nice to be back .

28 The Lie by Nora Roberts
29 Cesar Vallejo' s Season in Hell by Eduardo Gonzalez Viana. This was a book about a chapter in a poets life when he was put in prison. Cesar Vallejo is a very well known Peruvian poet. It was a beautiful book in many ways, the man's poetry is wonderful. Not a book that you could skim read. After every chapter I had to take a break and really think about it before I was ready to move onto the next chapter. Thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it. However other people in the book club didn't like it as much.

29 The Final Minute by Simon Kernick given to me very kindly by mumsnet. A fast paced thriller that left me breathless.
30 The All Girls Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg. Loved this book. A woman whose children have grown up. All she has to worry about it her batty mother and whether she will end up in the same mental health hospital as other relatives. Then she discovers she is not who she thinks she is.

31 A Hunger like no other by Kresley Cole. Quick romance read
32 The Goldfinch by Donna Tarrt loved this very much
33 sleepyhead by Mark Billingham. Serial killer on the loose in London
35 Death on The Nile by Agatha Christie
36 Highlander Betrayed by Lauren wittig
37 A Man of Some Repute by Elizabeth Edmondson. An earl disappears on a snowy night in the middle of a dinner party. Years later a body is discovered
38 The Viper by Monica McCarty
39 The Ranger by Monica McCarty
40 Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie
41 The Shadows by ,J R Ward.

40 Noah’s Ark – Barbara Trapido
The main character is Ali. She has been married three times. The first husband is barely mentioned. The second husband Mervyn Bobrow who was a very controlling and bullying, left her for another woman and still tries to interfere in Ali’s life. Ali is still with her third husband, Noah, a scientist. She is also still in love with her first love, Thomas Adderley, who unexpectedly comes back into her life and rocks the foundations of her marriage to Noah.
The book is set in the 1970’s and feels quite dated. I didn’t really feel any sympathy with the characters and it took me a while to get through it.

41 Disgrace – J.M. Cotezee
Set in South Africa, 52 year old Professor David Lurie lives in Cape Town. He has been divorced twice and now lives alone. He starts a relationship with one of his students. The student then files a complaint against him. After an investigation David loses his job. He goes to visit his daughter, Lucy, in the Eastern Cape, where she lives alone on a small holding, growing vegetables to sell at the market and running a kennel for dogs.
Then one day a terrible thing happens. David and Lucy are out walking the dogs when they meet three strangers, two men and a boy. When they return home the strangers are waiting for them and say that they need to use the phone. When Lucy lets them in they are attacked and robbed and Lucy is raped.

42 The Wrong Knickers – Bryony Gordon
This book has been reviewed several times already on this thread. I wouldn’t say that it is a real life Bridget Jones or that it is particularly funny.

43 The Lady in the Van – Alan Bennett
A homeless lady, Miss Shepherd, lived in a van on Alan Bennetts driveway from the early 1970’s until her death in 1989. The book was created from notes he had made in his diary over a number of years. Strangely the book Love Nina, see 44, below mentions Alan Bennett being a neighbour and often coming for dinner but never mentions the lady in the van, apart from once saying that Alan Bennett driveway was being used – but did not say what for.

44 Love Nina – Despatches from Family Life – Nina Stibbe
The book is a series of letters written by Nina to her sister Victoria. It is set in the 80’s and Nina has escaped to London from Leicestershire initially to become a nanny to Mary Kate Wilmer’s two sons and later to study at Thames Polytechnic. This book has also been reviewed several times already on this thread, I enjoyed it.

Biblio - I bought DH A N Wilson' book on The Victorians. He should have loved it. Just his kind of book but he struggled to read it and gave up. Maybe it's his style of writing that's quite difficult?

No 62

Caitlin Moran How to be a woman

Been meaning to read this for ages after several friends have recommended it

Very witty although I did skip a few bits
Not as good as I was expecting it to be

Biblio - Have you seen the film, 'Mrs Brown'? It's v good.

88. The Girl of His Dreams, Donna Leon. Another Venice-set detective novel. This was interesting for its portrayal of the Gypsy community - not what you might call sugar-coated.

I'm not going to count Victoria: A Life by A N Wilson, as I skimmed most of the political part - wasn't really in the mood for 19th century debates on electoral reform. I am interested in the family psychodrama side, and little anecdotes like Victoria downing whiskey with John Brown.

Thanks southeast. That was on my To read list. Just got it.

Thanks southeast - have snapped it up for holiday reading

Posted too soon.

It is an incredible book, breaking all the rules of plot, arc, detail ( boy is this book detailed). Yet it's not boring, in fact it's oddly compelling. And I admire Knausgaard for his commitment to truth and rejection if artifice.

Will I read the other 5 books. We'll see.

Book 30 My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard.

Don't line what to say about this one. It was a huge sensation last year. A six book epic piece of life writing with the author just riffing about everything from his breakfast to why having children doesn't make him happy.

Zadie Smith described these books as crack.

I dunno .

Thanks, Froglet. Have come to the conclusion that I like my climbing books with plenty of added disaster though. :)

Remus, have you read Al Alvarez's Feeding The Rat? A short and very well-written biog of climber Mo Anthoine. Not at all gung-ho, more about what drives people to climb.

38. The Shore, Sara Taylor A collection of linked stories set on The Shore, an small group of islands off the coast of Virginia. The stories move in time (but not chronologically) between the 1870s and 2043, and many of the characters are related - the Shore is isolated from the mainland, has its own ways and a fair amount of interbreeding, and is sometimes portrayed as a sort of Eden and other times as backward, insular and brutal. The snapshot-like structure is both clever (if this were a novel about all the characters it would be much longer) and frustrating because the stories are tiny glimpses into a fascinating world where traditional medicines, folklore and even supernatural powers rub up against modern life. I loved the brevity but also wanted more of the characters. Highly recommended.

Book 97
'No Way Down - Life and Death on K2' by Graham Bowley
Another mountaineering disaster, but this time one I'd recommend. Bowley is a journalist, not a climber, and wasn't involved in the events described - one night in 2008 when a collection of expeditions from different countries were all caught up in a series of problems and avalanches which resulted in 11 deaths. For me, it was a far better read than the Ratcliffe book I criticised below - for one, Bowley is a far better writer, but I think the main reason is that, as he was not involved and had no stake in the events and their aftermath, he had nothing to prove and no axe to grind. It was also far more focused and succinct than Ratcliffe's. I haven't read much about K2 before, and I really enjoyed this. It was also a very quick read - I finished it in one day.

59 I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes

A thriller in which a retired US intelligence agent is summoned back to track down the most difficult of all terrorists to find - a so-called 'clean skin' acting alone and seeking to unleash mass murder on the continental US.

I thought this was really good. There's a huge amount of detail, lots of threads interweaving, and a detailed backstory for both terrorist and intelligence agent. A few too many coincidences, perhaps, but a cracking read.

Thank you Duchess for recommending the film The Hours. DH and I watched it last night and both loved it! For once, the film lives up to (maybe even improves upon) an excellent book.

Cote - I agree that the newborn baby section was really a step too far. I naively assumed that both mother and babe would be rescued at the very last minute after a complicated chase. I was pretty shocked when that didn't happen. It does make me wonder what taboos are left?

As my mother often comments, what's wrong with a nice quiet murder that needs solving, like a poisoning or a single gunshot wound? Everything needs to be so gruesome, and the misogyny is just tedious.

Anyhow, I'm still enjoying Kolymsky Heights and have also started The Shock of the Fall which a friend recommended. so far I am enjoying both.

Remus - have you read The White Spider? A classic climbing book.

ladydepp - I don't mind reading books about serial killers and quiet enjoy watching series/movies on such subjects, but truly disgusted me about Irène was the torture and murder of not only the pregnant woman but the fetus she was carrying. I can read just about everything but not baby torture