50 Book Challenge 2016 Part Two

It's not a race, though is it? Main thing I'd say, is to enjoy the book. Or at least be inspired/challenged/educated by it. Must say I've sped read a couple of my completed books and am now trying to slow down and be more mindful about the process.

Very jealous of those of you who have managed 15 books already! I was chuffed with my five so far . Very full on job and SN DC = never enough time. Ach well.

So far:

1. Rivers of London (Ben Aaronavitch)
2. The Book of Night Women (Marlon James)
3. The Patience Stone (Atiq Rahimi)
4. Broken April (Ismail Kadare)
5. The Fishermen (Chigozie Obioma)

Tonight, I'm starting:

1. By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (Elizabeth Smart)

16. Nobody's Baby by Penny Kline. Another psychological 'thriller' but sadly not remotely thrilling. A woman finds an abandoned baby outside her house. She hands it over to the police but then becomes convinced that the baby is her old schoolfriend's and starts investigating. Unfortunately nothing much else happens until nearer the end and there is no sense that the heroine is in any danger. The ending is boring too and there's no real explanation of why the person who abandoned the baby behaved in the way they did.

ElleSarcasmo I've lost my reading mojo too. The intention to finish books makes it feel like a chore... And the books I'm reading atm are not particularly gripping.

And to my shame, have ditched , albeit temporarily, Dickens' biography and Bleak House again. Shall return to both, but a lot on at the moment and need light reads, it seems.

Best- have just discovered those books, am really enjoying The Crossing Places in which she manages to incorporate loads of visual detail and literary references into a really pacy, engaging narrative. Am hooked!

I'm really impressed with how you lot can describe and dissect the book, this is why i could never go to a book club, i read a book and pretty much forget it straight away.

1. The Outcast Dead - Elly Griffiths. No 6 in the series about Dr Ruth Galloway, a forensic archaeologist based in Norwich and the police cases she gets mixed up with. As usual there is a host of supporting characters and I suppose the book is as much about the characters as about the plot. I really enjoy them.

Fat owl I'm really glad you enjoyed the last Kingdom. I'm on book 5 of the series and have really enjoyed the books so far. I also loved the winter king series.

I enjoyed The Shipping News when it came out, although I can remember very little about it now other than that it featured Newfoundland, which is why I read it! I'd definitely recommend it.

Book 14 is The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge. Bought this because dp had listened to an interview with the writer on the radio, and he said it sounded like my sort of thing. Then a Twitter ‘friend’ was raving about it too. It IS my sort of thing, and I did quite enjoy it but I didn’t love it. I thought it was a bit slow in places, and I thought the ending was really silly. I enjoyed the references to Victorian science, religion, attitudes to women etc. I think quite a lot of you would enjoy this, but not Cote!

Finished #3 today "The last Kingdom" by Bernard Cornwell.

I usually love his books, loved his Arthur trilogy and several others but never got into this series. Saw a few epiosdes of the BBC series and decided to give them another go, and really enjoyed it. Would go straight to the second one but have too much else stacked up on my kindle to justify it for the moment.

Now on #4 The martian
Dh and the DDs all read it and loved it, so have been instructed to read it

Satsuki that is lovely! We are TTC at the moment-it would be so nice to have a lovely book memory attached to the pregnancy if/when it happens

It really feels like a book you want to curl up on the sofa with, covered in a toasty blanket.

1. Jilliane Hoffman - retribution
2. Jane Fallon - Strictly between us
3. Blue Monday - Nicci French
4. Room - Emma Donoghue

Falling behind on updating but onto book four of 2016 which I purchased on my kindle a while ago and have now gotten round to reading. I am very engrossed at the moment!

elle Middlemarch is a great, great novel, gets better and more absorbing plot wise the deeper you are in, but it really is one where practically every other sentence you could stop and think about it. I started it in late pregnancy with my first dc and finished it with a newborn and the afterglow of the book and how it made me feel is inextricably tied up with that time for me.

Dragontrainer love the sound of the Shipping News-I will add it to my wish list.

Galaxymum I love the sound of the course you're doing. Do you mind if I ask where/how you're doing it? (I mean is it an evening class or a formal course-if that isn't too nosy!)

Dragontrainer are you a Middlemarch fan? I am loving it so far-it's just so beautifully written . I am trying to savour it and dipping into it while also reading undemanding non fiction books-I am stressed at the moment so my concentration is the best. I can normally escape into books but not quite managing it just now. Hoping to bury myself in it when things start to settle in a few weeks.

Book 3 - Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte. I have never read Anne Bronte's novels before so this was interesting to compare with her sisters' novels. Very quiet in tone, very observant and thoughtful on one young woman's experiences as a governess.I thought her details were more realistic in how Agnes was treated than in Jane Eyre. I am doing a course on the Brontes which I planned, along with rereading their novels and reading those I haven't read for the bicentenary of Charlotte's birth.

Book 4 - Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. A reread but one I haven't read in over ten years. This is a novel well worth returning to at different points in your life as I think your opinions change in how you react to different characters. I found myself reading with different life experience and considering Heathcliff, Catherine 1, then Hareton and Catherine 2 very differently. We are also studying context of the novels which adds a different layer. I really enjoyed this novel just as I did for different reasons when I studied it at A level.

Now am looking for a quick light read. I might read Spectacles by Sue Perkins next - a Christmas present.

13 The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

I don't know if others have reviewed this one, but it's the story of a man who lives his life over and over again, each time remembering the previous lives.

This made a nice change after Dark Intelligence, very easy to read with an engaging plotline. There's a bit of a 'thrillerish' side to it, but really it's about the character of Harry and what it's like to repeat ones life many times. Not too 'literary' - though I'm now tempted to read Life after Life.

11. The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

The premise of this was excellent. The first few chapters especially were involving, and at the beginning the characters and story were interesting. Parts of it were superbly written. There were some great meditations on art, grief and the preservation of beauty amid squalor and destruction. But. The writing quality was inconsistent, and fell into cliche disappointingly often. So too did the plot. Though it was tight at the start it resorted to far-fetched coincidences to keep it moving in the latter parts. The characters, for the most part, didn't really seem believable after a time. This lessened the emotional resonance some sequences should have had. There was a whole family of stereotyped characters, in fact, there to facilitate more unconvincing subplots. And what hackneyed coming of age story is complete these days without (pages and pages and pages of) teenage drug-taking and homoerotic wrestling. So dull and overdone. Also the whole Harry Potter thing got a bit much, certain plot points seemed to be paying direct homage to it, which was baffling at times. There wasn't much reference to the history of the Goldfinch as an artistic subject, or its symbolism, either, which was somewhat surprising. Overall a disappointment, albeit with flashes of brilliance.

Don't know what to follow it with, feeling a bit disillusioned with modern 'literature', think I need a classic or something from a different part of the world next.

Elle mentioning Middlemarch is tempting me to read it again - though that would probably be a huge mistake if I am to read my book group book in time for the next meet up! (Tempted just to abandon all pretence of running a tidy nurturing household in favour of some mega long reading sessions on the sofa - though the unavailability of one mine craft playing device per child probably means this would be unachievable without WW3 anyway!)

Book four for me is The Shipping News by E Annie Proulx. Plot wise , the main character has never amounted to much, suffers tragedy, moves to Newfoundland and begins to heal. I really enjoyed this and found the writing to be exquisite. There were so many layers to all the characters. It wasn't an easy read because there were some very unpleasant things in there, but overall it was uplifting. I'd definitely recommend this one.

1. The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood.

The first book in a children's series about a fifteen year old governess and her unusual charges. The writing style, with its omniscient narrator, makes the story a little twee and not very much happens in this book, it's mainly setting up plot points that I assume will be expanded on later in the series, so it's more like a long prologue than a novel in itself.

My list so far:

1. My brilliant friend by Elena Ferrante.
2. SPQR by Mary Beard
3. Perfume by Patrick Suskind

1. Expecting better by Emily Oster

1. The life changing magic of tidying by Marie Kondo. This book is based around the central premise that tidiness=happiness. Objects should be kept if they spark joy and discarded (and thanked for the role they've played in your happiness) if not. Intriguing and slightly bonkers (sorry Kondites). I am yet to put it to the test but will update you if so.

I seem to have lost my reading mojo a bit and I'm struggling to concentrate on books. I've been reading Middlemarch as well which I'm enjoying, but haven't quite got absorbed in as I was hoping to.

Pops head in, Have finished book no 3.

1. The winter children - lulu taylor. About a couple who had twins by IVF, the egg donor being the husband's friend, who it turned out, was obsessed with him in the past, a random inclusion of a dead child buried in the house. Too far fetched and too many inconsistencies.
2. The hobbit - I enjoyed this but found the ending just, well, it just ended really.
3. Raven Black - Anne Cleaves I enjoyed this, not sure if i will continue with the series as i didn't really empathise with any of the characters.

15 books? how????

11. Grandpa's Great Escape by David Walliams. Another superb story from DS's (and my) favourite children's author. This story involves the close relationship between a young boy and his grandfather who had been an RAF Spitfire pilot in WW2 but who is now suffering from dementia. As with other Walliams stories it is bittersweet, with some painfully sad bits about dementia, but also with some wonderfully uplifting and comic bits too. I loved it.

Haven't seen The Reduced Shakespeare Company for many years, but agree that they are well worth watching. Am not a big comedy fan generally (think I'm wired a bit wrong somewhere) but thought they were absolutely hilarious.