50 Book Challenge 2015 Part 4

Dinosaurs - I loved The Hours, much more than Mrs Dalloway. I would say, even if you don't like Mrs Dalloway, give The Hours a go. It's very good.

Have got The Wake on my tbr pile for reading soon. I love novels set around WW1. Really enjoyed Strange Meeting by Susan Hill and My Dear I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young.

I doubt that very much, you merciless devourer of the printed word

:) I only really read the Kindle on my commute tbh, unless it's something that I can't put down, so I suspect you'll be well ahead of me!

Ooh, how exciting. We'll read it at the same time. I'm only 11% through and that because I sat up until 2AM reading it last night

Bought!

Thanks, Cote. Yep - that's definitely my sort of thing.

Remus - I think you would enjoy the non-fiction book I'm reading about Genghis Khan at the moment:

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

It's £1.89 on the Kindle at the moment.

It's very interesting. I'm only just realising that the entire area where Genghis Khan was born & considered home was closed off after his death and then declared a no-go area during Soviet times. So when Soviet Russia ended and research became possible, it was basically no different than it was at the time of Genghis Khan. Also, after Soviet regime fell, it became possible to collaborate to translate and interpret the much-fabled "Secret History of the Mongols", about the life of Genghis Khan. The author was involved in all this research. The book is really interesting. I think I may have found another book that we both will like

I'm bookless and frustrated. I got two out of the library the other day, and they were both so bad that I didn't give either of them more than ten pages each. I'm okay for Kindle reading for a few days (although it's all academic stuff, so not really calling to me) but I have no physical books at all. I pity my family.

Has anybody got any recs for (pre-1930 ideally) mountaineering books that I might not have read? Or does anybody know a decent book about post-war Germany and the Berlin wall etc? Please help!

Another 2:

34. Red Bones - Ann Cleeves - this is the 3rd in her Shetland series, and I think the one they started the TV programme with. It's a good detective book, not quite clear if it is a murder or not for a while, although compared to the first 2 books, didn't seem to convay the uniqueness of the Shetland location - I think perhaps the timing might have affected that, in the first book it was set in the time after Christmas, so when it's barely light, before the Fire Festival on the Islands, it was set at the time the environment was the harshest, then the second ws set in the "simmer dim" - the time round mid-summer when it doesn't really get dark and the effect having no night has on the mental state of the Islanders - again, the environment felt like it was shaping people's behaviours. This book is set in April time, so it could be any remote rural community, it's a bit miserable and rainy and foggy, but not different to other parts of Northern UK. It does, however, touch on a lot of the more recent Shetland history, but would give the story away to mention how! Good read, not as impressive as the earlier 2 books. (I'll still probably continue to work my way through the whole series as nice escapism!)

35. Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf. I read this as I was recommended "the Hours" on here, but told that I would get more out of it if I read Mrs Dalloway first. I really didn't enjoy this, I can see that it was an unusual way of telling the stories, but I didnt find I cared at all about any characters. Left me cold. Now not sure if I want to read the hours!

Eleanor - I think i'll add Wake to my "to read" list, sounds good!

It's the end of June and halfway through the year and I have just finished book number 26. So if I stay on track I should manage to read 50 by the end of the year

22. Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins. This is the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy. I didn't enjoy this as much as the first one. Far too much time spent on the 'love triangle', with Katniss endlessly analysing her feelings between the 2 boys. This second book felt much more YA than the first (which it is of course!). This sentence made me laugh out loud and sums up the book for me. After yet another monologue from Katniss on whether she loves Gale:
    I really can't be thinking about kissing when I've got a rebellion to incite
    

23. The Ocean at the end of the Lane - Neil Gaiman. This is the first Gaiman book for adults which I've read. I read Fortunately the Milk with my DD.
    Wow, how to write a synopsis of the plot for this book! Very basically it tells the story of a boy who befriends a family of 3 women (girl, mum and gran) and he unwittingly unleashes a strange and evil being. Loved this, very unlike books I usually read and I am keen to read more from him

24. Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue (author of Room). A great read, set in 18th century London and tells the story of Mary Saunders, a girl from a poor family who falls into prostitution. She is desperate to better herself but doesn't seem to be able to. I did not see the end coming at all and was quite shocked by how things turned out for Mary. Reminded me of The Crimson Petal and the White ( but not so long).

25. The Girl in the Red Coat - Kate Hamer. This is the story of 8 year old Carmel who gets lost at a festival. She is found by a man who tells her that her mum has been in an accident, that he is her grandfather and has been asked to look after her. The story is told in alternating chapters by both Carmel and her mother.
    I have an 8 year old DD so I thought twice about reading this as I thought it might be too emotionally difficult to read. Since having my own dc I have avoided watching films and TV programmes about missing children. But I felt strangely detached from this book. I read it fairly quickly as I wanted to find out how it ended but I never really connected with it.

26. Wake - Anna Hope. Another great read, one of my favourites so far. This tells the story of 3 different women and the men in their lives trying to re-build their lives in 1920, 2 years after the end of WW1. Each women has lost a loved one or has a loved one who has returned from the war very damaged: physically and emotionally. Beautifully written and very moving on the futility of war, and the after effects of war on both men and women. Very poignant when you think that just 20 years later WW2 would start and those women who lost husbands/fiancees/brothers/fathers in the first war would very likely go on to lose sons in WW2.

I have just started Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch after seeing it in my local library. I remembered reading good reviews of it on this thread!

Meanwhile, I'm on to the non-fiction book Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by anthropologist Jack Weatherford, which is going really well so far.

Might be topical this coming week
Good read in the garden

55. Maggie O'Farrell Instructions For a Heatwave It's July 1976 and London is in the grip of a heatwave. It hasn't rained for months, the gardens are filled with aphids, water comes from a standpipe, and Robert Riordan tells his wife Gretta that he's going round the corner to buy a newspaper. He doesn't come back. The search for Robert brings Gretta's children - two estranged sisters and a brother on the brink of divorce - back home, each with different ideas as to where their father may have gone. None of them suspects that their mother might have an explanation that even now she cannot share.

I really enjoyed this book, great characterisation , plot very moving & gripping , love Maggie O'Farrell , it did take a while to get into but once I did couldn't stop reading

54. Celeste Ng; Everything I Never Told You. Beautifully written and very sad. I read most of it one sitting.

I wouldn't say that, and there are interesting books about seniors but this wasn't one of them.

Gosh yes, old people are so boring.

37 Stone Mattress: Nine Tales - Margaret Atwood

I didn't find this terribly impressive. All about old people doing old people stuff, which was all very boring. There was no effort (none!) to develop the few potentially interesting ideas to any meaningful level. Is this woman supposed to be a sci-fi/fantasy writer? The fantasy elements were just add-ons to some very dull & geriatric stories. I kept hoping that the stories would somehow come together (as indicated by the shared characters of the first two stories indicated) but was disappointed.

If anyone is interested in the sort of social phenomena that Atwood explores with the story where young people are burning down old folks' homes with cries of "It's now our turn!", "Burn the dusties!" etc, check out J G Ballard's books. He does this sort of thing much better.

Right - here's The Guardian podcast interview with Eleanor Catton where she talks about the structure of The Luminaries and explains the astrology references - Podcast link :)

Thanks Cote :o. Hope I can still find the podcast I'm thinking of. Was either Guardian or BBC Radio 4.

Well done, Duchess. Here's your medal

Astrology references went over my head, too. When you find out what all that was about, give us an abridged version, please.

68. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. I finished. Where do apply for my medal? :o

Actually it wasn't that bad. Pretty good story, which really does need to be read in huge great chunks otherwise it could be quite easy to lose the plot! On the whole I liked it, but really don't understand the astrology references. Off to listen to some podcasts where EC explains it all.

50. The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman

Thomas Cale is a fighter, brought up from childhood to be a holy warrior by the Redeemers in their brutal Sanctuary where life is hard and frequently violent. After rescuing a girl about to be dissected to death by a Redeemer and escaping with two friends, he ends up in Memphis and eventually becomes the bodyguard to the daughter of the city's ruler. Then the Redeemers start to move against the empire, and battle comes to Cale and to Memphis.

It's an okay read. The setting seems to be a kind of alternate medieval Europe - either that or Hoffman couldn't be bothered thinking of his own names for cities since the geography seems rather off kilter. This is the first in a trilogy but I'm not entirely sure I'm interested enough to seek out the other two books.

Book 82 - 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons From the Crematorium' by Caitlin Doughty. I found this really interesting and engaging. One of the books I've enjoyed most this year so far.

Not read, 'The Good Soldier' for years. Excellent book.