50 Book Challenge 2015 Part 4

I hated A Prayer for Owen Meany. I wouldn't say it's controversial as such - just weird!

Lammy - I'd recommend The Night Circus, especially as you say you like quirky books.

28. Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson, from the point of view of a girl called Ruby Lennox, born in 1952 and living in York with her unpleasant parents and her sisters. Also side stories and flashbacks about other members of her extended family, mainly their war time experiences.

This is the second Kate Atkinson I've read. I enjoyed it a bit more than Life After Life, but I'm not planning to read any more. Her writing just doesn't seem to work for me for some reason.

I have never heard of the Owen Meaney book! Is it controversial?

Amazon mention it in the same breath as Robertson Davies whom I am a huge fan of. Anyone read The Cornish Trilogy? Fantastic books :) Ostensibly about the life of a wealthy man, the art he collects, it manages to delve into questions of philosophy, morality, war, medievalism, art, forgery, authenticity, gypsies, opera, tarot, courtly love; they have a wonderful sense of gothic magic. Really if you haven't tried him please do!

Sorry, I have just seen a separate thread about All the Light We cannot see! Sound like people have really enjoyed it, definitely next on the list.

I loved both a Prayer for Owen Meany and A Fine Balance (but yes it was pretty harrowing!). Life of Pi is another great book that someone has highlighted, highly recommended and I enjoyed the film too.

Lammy - I read the Secret History a very long time ago, and I really loved it. I would be quite interested to re-read it and see if I still thought as much of it. I hope you enjoy it.

I am now thoroughly immersed in Bone Clocks which I am really enjoying, but I love David Mitchell so I am heavily biased! I'm about a third of the way through and still have pretty much no idea what is going on, but that is pretty standard for his books I think, definitely not predictable!

Has anyone read All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr? It won a prize recently and a very enthusiastic Waterstones clerk highly recommended it to me. It might be next on my list.

My books so far...

1. City of Veils by Ferraris
2. Rabbit back literature society by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen

1. Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovich

Highlights in bold, italics for the not so good. I've found it quite hard to chose my favourites as I have really enjoyed a lot of the books I have read this year but I can't highlight them all!

Remus Thank you for the Steinbeck recommendations - I have added them to the long list of books to be read that I have on my Amazon wishlist..

Pinkglow Grapes of Wrath is definitely my favourite so far as well.

I'n not sure if I'll hit 50 but I will definitely read more than last year..

hackmum - I loved A Fine Balance - I love a good Indian family saga even if they are very sad.

Remus I thought Owen Meaney was overrated although I can't remember much about it now!

25. Home Fires by Elizabeth Day, story of a couple who lost their only son after he is killed by a land mine. Quite thought provoking, well written and moving.

On my must get/read list are:

Secret History
We Were Liars
15 lives of Harry August
some Patrick Ness books (Remus recommended)
Toying with getting the other two Delirious books

I like quirky books, nothing mushy or too descriptive, something a bit unusual for example loved the Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden and his other book about the 100 Year Old Man....so all recommendations welcome, thanks

Yes to the library - that's where I get most of my fiction (apart from those that cost 99p or are free on Kindle)!

Hi Remus: that one sounds good, I might try it thanks! No I haven't read the "Chaos Walking" trilogy. I will look at them on the Book Depository. I'm one of the old fashioned crew who still buys books and hates Kindles
Note to self: must join library !

Have you read the, 'Chaos Walking' trilogy?

Lammy A boy dies. The he wakes up, covered in bandages, in a place he thought he'd never see again. This place though is now deserted and decaying, and there's nobody around. He dreams a lot. And then things start to happen. Is he dead? Is this hell? Can't really say anymore yet, and I honestly have no idea how it's all going to wrap up!

Hi Duchess: Hope tomorrow goes well for you. Nothing worse than being in constant pain

Remus: what is More Than This about? Seems I like YA a lot

not sure what to start tonight: On my "by the bed pile" is The Night Circus hmmmmmm?

I picked up my audio copy of Red Rising from the library .

But it's in the queue. I've already got two audios on the go. Can't add more.

Thank you, Joyless . The pain's been getting me down quite a lot this week. Have got yet another hospital appointment tomorrow. Will be glad to get that one over and done with.

Lammy - I've got The Land of Decoration in my tbr pile. Will tackle it later on this year :)

I think I'm one of a very, very small minority on here who really doesn't like, 'Owen Meaney.'

Duchess: I really hope you like the Shardlakes - I'm a big fan.

YA folk - I'm currently reading Patrick Ness, 'More Than This' and will more than likely finish it tonight. Has anybody read it? I'd put it off because it's in the present tense, but having survived, 'Red Rising' I thought I'd give it a chance. There are some really good bits of almost poetic writing in it, but I'm not sure yet what I'll think overall - need to see where it goes in the final quarter!

My list c/forward ...

1. Hotel on the corner of Bitter & Sweet - Jamie Ford
2. The Last Tiger: A Novel - Tony Black
3. Pigeon English - Stephen Kelman

1. The Shock of the Fall - Nathan Filer
2. Casual Vacancy - J K Rowling
3. Death comes to Pemberley - P D James

1. Waiting for Sunrise - William Boyd

I've emboldened the ones I really loved ...

Duchess, may I be un-MN-etty and offer a big squeezy hug over the back shite. Agree with *Remus/ that Dominion was pretty rubbish - feel no guilt whatsoever! Thank you for the recommendation on Alan Cumming. I like a good biography but haven't been able to find one that wasn't arse-achingly dull or obviously ghost-written. I'd steered away from this assuming it would be a typical misery memoir, so delighted to have the recommendation. On to the to-be-read list it goes ...

Backmum, A Fine Balance is the one book I really wanted to read that I've been unable to finish - and I've tried more than once. It has also entirely killed my love of reading each time. It wasn't even the harrowing nature of the content - I've read similar and worse - it just weighed me down.

Book 29: When a Crocodile eats the Sun by Peter Godwin was a very slow start. The author is a journalist who's grown up in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. He returns as an adult after his father nearly dies and promises to himself that he will visit more often if his father survives. He does so and through his visits tells the tale of Zimbabwe's disintegration under Mugabe, of the author's father's secret history, of his love for his parents and for the country of his birth and childhood, or feeling rootless and terribly sad. It was only when we were allowed into those emotions that the book became alive for me. Prior to that it was just stories - factually correct, - but journalistically reported upon. I really enjoyed this book, despite the fact that I shed tears over the final pages. It reminded me so much of my childhood overseas and the complexity of emotions that arose from that life.

I'm not including in my list, books that I read for (academic )work ( though some of these May be used, but that wasn't necessarily my intention in choosing them.

Book 22 - we were liars by E.Lockhart.

A smart little book this.
I wish so much hadn't been made of the twist as that's possibly the least interesting element of this book.

The voice and style are what make this book work.
Both extremely in your face ( which might irk some readers).

I liked this one a lot.

Finished The Land of Decoration (number 34 for me) I really enjoyed it which surprised me as it is quite religious. I think the strong, very likable characters (Father and 10 year old daughter) made me love it all the more.
I was extremely shocked at the level of bullying done by 11-12 year olds. Has anyone else read this book?

14. The Rosie Effect - follow up book to the Rosie Project which I really enjoyed as it was very funny and a bit different. I enjoyed this second book but not quite as much as the first as the novelty of the main character's personality had worn off. He is still very endearing and I do like the other characters too, plus there are some new and interesting characters in this one. A good read but not a great one. I would recommend it if you really enjoyed the first book.

28. Us by David Nicholls

I'm afraid I really disliked this book and skim read much of the second half. It is the story of a marriage and the first half is very much focused on showing the contempt and dissension between the couple and Douglas and his son. I found it hard to read and heartily disliked all the characters. Douglas to me did not appear deserving of the contempt piled upon him. Connie is self absorbed and childish and encourages similar behavior in her son. All really v tiresome. The second half is better as we come to examine their years together and you begin to have a better sense of what went wrong and slightly more sympathy for those involved. Given all that had gone before i found the ending a bit unlikely.

Overall, it's a well written but unimaginative book of a marriage of two opposing stereotypes and to be honest, I didn't find the dynamic interesting or original and it all played out a bit like a bad US melodrama. Next!

That's pretty much how I felt about The Iceberg too, Hackmum

Here are my numbers 26-30:

26. A God in ruins by Kate Atkinson
    We've discussed this elsewhere - it's a companion volume to Life After Life. A wonderful read - heartily recommended.

27. Alex’s adventures in Numberland by Alex Bellos
    This is a book about the joy of maths - everything from statistics and probability to Mersenne primes and Fermat's Last Theorem. I really enjoyed it, though I did get a bit lost once or twice (mainly in the chapter about proving Pythagoras' Theorem with origami - never been good with shapes).

28. The Iceberg by Marion Coutts
    This won the Wellcome prize recently. It's a memoir about her husband, the art critic Tom Lubbock, from the time he was diagnosed with a brain tumour to his death. It's not an easy read - it's beautifully written, but I didn't warm to her as a person. I know that sounds harsh in the circumstances but I'd have preferred less about her and how she was feeling and more about him - I didn't get a sense of his personality shining through.

29. Blood Brothers by Willy Russell
    DD did this for GCSE, so I read it out of curiosity, having never seen it performed. Thought it was quite amusing but a bit schematic. Not entirely sure what the fuss is about but I'm sure it comes alive when performed.

30. A fine balance by Rohinton Mistry
    Several people - some of them on this forum - have said that this is their favourite book, so I decided I must read it. Blimey. What a harrowing read. It's set in 1970s India, at the time of Indira Gandhi's emergency rule which included, amongst other outrages, forcible sterilisation of the poor. Very gripping and enjoyable for the first few hundred pages, but it became grimmer and grimmer as it went on. The last couple of chapters are almost unbearable. I googled what other people had said about it and came across a discussion on the Guardian in which someone said it had left them feeling depressed for weeks afterwards. I can understand that.

Remus- I feel more reassured that I gave up on Dominion if it wasn't that great. I do still plan to read his Shardlake novels. They sound more my kind of thing.

Southeast- I thought Alan Cumming's memoir one of the best I have read too. I am interested in memoirs but am wary of them too. I expect good writing, like Alan Bennett's which I think were the absolute best