50 Book Challenge 2015 Part 4

Biblio - I tried to order it from the library but it wasn't in stock ! Keep meaning to put it in as a suggestion & forgetting !

I started listening to the audiobook of Fingersmith yesterday, tessie :) So far really enjoying it. This is my third Sarah Waters. Have also read The Little Stranger and quite liked the idea of personalised haunting - playing to the worst fears of each victim - not scary, but interesting from perhaps a psychological view.

Have you read The Paying Guests? I enjoyed that one, although thought it could have done with a little tighter editing. Have got The Night Watch lined up to read later on this year.

Took me what seemed forever to finally finish The Girl on the Train - I didn't enjoy it, I'm afraid. Silly plotline and characters I just didn't care about. I really wished I hadn't been taken in by the hype and at least waited for it to come out in paperback...sigh

Reading Fingersmith by Sarah Waters now. I have previously read The Little Stranger and was so disappointed in it so that has put me off reading anything else by this author for a long time. However, I keep seeing Fingersmith especially being highly recommended on many book forums so I thought I would give her another chance....am enjoying it so far although it is a little slow...

I agree, Best, she writes well, and I think Big Little Lies was constructed cleverly.

Esio, you mentioned ages back that you were thinking of reading Cutting Up Playgirl - interested to know what you make of it when you do! Not surprised AH felt she was judged on Mumsnet - can't stand the woman myself. Inappropriate if posters made judgements about her medical situation though.

has

I've been dipping in & out of Amanda Holden autobiography & sad to see that after she went back to work after she nearly died giving birth she writes

"women on mumsnet judged me especially harshly , some saying that I couldn't have been that ill"

:-( God this site as a dodgy reputation

Biblio, I really like Liane Moriarty. I think she writes well.

Not on Mumsnet much these days, so a quick catch-up:

72. An Evil Eye, Jason Goodwin. Murder mystery set during the Ottoman era. Harems, eunuchs, ambassadors - all very colourful, although I'm not sure I totally followed the denouement.

73. The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters. Liked the first half - set in the early 1920s, families still reeling from the loss of loved ones in the ward and the changing of old certainties. The usual sapphic pleasures. But the second half - a murder investigation and trial - drags and overburdens the story with weighty plot.

74. Aftermath: on marriage and separation, Rachel Cusk. Awful. Clunky, portenous prose. Author tries to claim that her selfishness ("The children are mine!" "Why should I have to support my H just because he was a SAHP"!) is really some profound point about gender. Nope. Awful.

75. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, Elizabeth Taylor. It's the kind of thing I like - not a million miles from Patrick Hamilton's The Slaves of Solitude, which I enjoyed earlier this year - but I didn't really fall for this version of it. Life for elderly residents in a hotel. Published in 1971, but feels post-war, with the main characters feeling very out of step with Swinging London. A bit like Barbara Pym's bleaker efforts, but it lacks the consolations she manages to find.

76. Bit Little Lies, Liane Moriarty. Enjoyed this - mothers at school makes friends and quarrel. It's not going to persuade anyone who doesn't like mummy lit, but this is a really good example of its genre. Funny, teasing - there's a Greek chorus of parents, teachers and police who let you know that there's been a murder, but you don't find out till the end who and why (I didn't guess). Dealt sensitively with serious issues such as DV. Guzzled this down with pleasure.

77. Running Free, Richard Askwith. Non-fiction about the joys of rural running. Author debunks the commercialisation of the running industry. Some good nature writing (if a bit repetitive). Not sure it needed to be book-length - it started life as an article and shows it. But overall, an inspiring read, even for someone who can barely slog round 5km like me.

26. High Sobrioty by Jill Stark Binge drinker gives up the booze for a year. Not a bad read and read it quite quickly but since I don't really drink I couldn't relate to much. When she was talking about feeling pressure to drink by her friends I was thinking, really why don't you just say no.

#39. The Color Purple by Alice Walker - story of an abused and downtrodden woman in an America governed by segregation. Although I think I am swimming against the tide of popular opinion, I did not enjoy this at all. I found the ending, with all its neatly tied together plot strands, incongruous with the gritty and harrowing beginning.

#40. My Family and Other Superheroes by Jonathan Edwards - a collection of poems. It is a long time since I have read any poetry (if you exclude children's rhyming books like Dr Seuss!!) and I'm glad I made the effort with this.

I'm only 19% through Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World but may I just say....

OMG the lives those people led And the stuff GK did before the age of 19

This book has an eery resemblance to Red Rising!

Ooh, great to hear from Bsh. I too was wondering where you’d got to.

Everyone is reading such interesting things at the moment and I am in awe. I am just trying to read through my stack of library books at the moment.

So, 55. A Spool of Blue Thread – Anne Tyler
Good quality, insightful writing about a large, intergenerational family and the dynamics between siblings and parents. I did quite enjoy this, but I can’t help feeling a little underwhelmed really. I was interested in the characters but I just wasn’t grabbed. Not her best, but still pretty good.

However, I am loving Sophie’s World on my Kindle, but tend to read it when I can’t get to sleep, so I am only 15% through.

No, I haven't Cote, I think I remember that Russell Crowe was in it. Good casting for Jack Aubrey.

Best - The film "Master and Commander" was very well done. Have you seen it?

mumslife - Huge congrats to your DD

Congratulations to your DD, mumslife!

I am halfway through Master and Commander by Patrick o'Brian. Turn of the 19th century seafaring novel. Absolutely loving it though not a clue what all the nautical terms mean, topgallantsails on the larboard bow at four bells on the Fo'c'sle and all that but it doesn't seem to matter. Great stuff.

I was a bit meh about Stardust, WordFactory. Reminded me of Enid Blyton.

31. Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
    A lovely, funny novel about a boy during WWII who is evacuated to a family in St Albans. This makes it sound like a typically heartwarming children's story but in fact it's quite dark in places - the family (a mother and her adult son) are engaged in criminal activity of different kinds and the boy's own personal situation is very unorthodox. Was really surprised I had never heard of the writer before.

32. Being mortal by Atul Gawande
    An excellent non-fiction book by an American doctor about how we deal with people who either very old and infirm or have terminal illnesses. Very moving and thought-provoking. I could relate to a lot of it. For example, he says that for people who are elderly, remaining in their own home and having some independence is more important than being "safe" but stuck in a home where your entire life is regimented. For dying people, quality of life left is more important than quantity of life.

33. The girl on the train by Paula Hawkins
    You all know this one. Quite enjoyed it, though worked out whodunnit very early on and was a bit surprised to find there wasn't a twist.

34. Bedsit disco queen by Tracey Thorn
    Memoir of a life in pop. Enjoyable, well-written and gently humorous. Didn't pack the same punch as the Viv Albertine memoir but worth reading.

35. The soul of the marionette: a short enquiry into human freedom by John Gray
    This is a short work of philosophy. He takes a rather bleak view of free will, arguing that essentially we are the product of other forces. And he's absolutely opposed to the notion of human progress, taking apart the Steven Pinker idea that humanity is becoming less violent. It's interesting and well-argued, taking a lot of its ideas from fiction, including science fiction. I find it difficult to summarise, tbh, so you're best off reading it. Definitely worth a read, I think.

Book 25 Stardust by Neil Gaiman.

An adult fairy tale. But not particularly dark and not particularly magical. All a bit random really.

Fab news is she your eldest?

Mums life -ooh exciting which uni is dd going to ?

I've just started no 56

Tamar Cohen The Broken

Has anyone read it?
It's a psychological thriller about a disturbed woman whose husband leaves her
It's tangled up with her best friend & their two daughters
Can't stop reading so far . Am half way through