50 Book Challenge 2016 Part Two

Goodness, Cote, really? So no Sarah Waters, Rebecca West, Austen, Atwood, Elliot.. I don't know, Byatt, Angelou, Mantel etc??? They're hardly all one feely genre..

Best - Yes, I notice spelling mistakes in Kindle books, too. I report them all.

I'm not criticising the author's gender sex. It's my sex too, and I'm quite partial to it

It's just that I don't get along well with female authors' books. At all. They talk too much about feeeeeeliiiings (insert violin here). Well, there have been notable exceptions like The Goldfinch and The Luminaries, but they are few and far between. It's personal preference, not a judgement on the female sex.

And first books! A very good first book is rare imho and ime. More often, you see these hyped up and heavily marketed 1st books that get talked about, go up in bestseller lists etc. Then you read them and they are, well, rubbish. I try not to read 1st books.

Grrrr, I'm being increasingly irritated by spelling mistakes etc. in Kindle books. The last 4 have all had errors of some kind. Is anyone else noticing this? Even Bill Bryson's Little Dribbling had a hyphen half way through the name Marlborough. Cryptonomicon had a character's name spelled wrong at least twice and a book I read about Bletchley Park had the spelling Jugganaut for juggernaut (may be valid but I've never seen it before). As Kindle books seem to cost more than paper books these days, you'd think they'd proof read them properly.

Ok rant over.

Cote, you could just criticise the writing instead of the gender of the author ??? !

I loved the daughter of time. It was quite a different take on a historical novel.

Book 10: The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey.
Set in the 1950s, a policeman is recovering from an accident and while in hospital starts reading history books. He becomes fascinated with the story of the Princes in the Tower and with the help of a researcher he delves in to the historical sources to see whether Richard III did it. I won't say what the conclusion was for anyone who wants to read it.
Despite nothing much actually happening in the book (the main character remains in hospital so most of it is him either thinking about or talking about what he's read) it is still very readable. It does help if you already have a vague understanding of the time period under discussion. The problem with historical fiction is that unless you are an expert you can never be sure that what you're reading is actually true or whether it's been twisted to fir the story, and also you don't know what historical evidence has been left out because it doesn't fit the story!

Biblio You have confirmed what I have remembered reading about the Faulks. I don't think I'll bother.

5. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Lovely - a delight. A quirky, gentle, funny, moving story. Really enjoyable read.

Now listening to I Am Malala on audible and not sure what to go for next - I have :

Garden of Evening Mist
All the Light we cannot see
Americanah
The Separation

all teed up on Kindle.

I'm 10% into Ancillary Justice and wondering what I have done in previous lives to deserve page after boring page of landscape descriptions.

Then I realised:

• a 1st book by
• a female author

When will I learn?!?!

1. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit - Judith Kerr

Autobiographical account of her family's flight from Berlin as the Nazis came to power and their life as refugees in Switzerland, Paris and finally London. Gripping, poignant and funny, and a brilliant insight into a child's view of how it feels to be a refugee.

5. The Exclusives by Rebecca Thornton

This was not one I would usually pick up, but saw a recommendation online. I really recommend it if you want something gripping. I read it in about a day because I just had to know!

Freya and Josephine have been best friends since childhood, and now Josephine is Head Girl at the elite boarding school they both attend. Against a background of family dysfunction, the pressure on the girls rises as there are scholarships to compete for, interviews for Oxford coming up, and exams looming. On their last night out together before the school year gets underway, something happens that has far reaching consequences for both their friendship and their glittering futures. A bit of a lightweight Secret History, or a heavyweight Gossip Girl. Engrossing and enjoyable.

'Deformed' is a reference from the novel, by the way. August has a rare recessive genetic condition which has affected the development of his facial features.

Book 5: wonder by rj palacio.

A ya novel about August, a 'deformed' boy and how he navigates his first year of final schooling aged 10. How he copes, how his family and new and old friends cope, and ultimately how he - of course - triumphs.

A bit cheesy but enjoyable - I started this on Tuesday afternoon during a library lesson and have just finished it. So I sped through it. I'd recommend if you like ya fiction.

I see the thread is still racing along!

Book 3: The Garden of Evening Mist Tan Twan Eng. Based in Malaya after the Japanese occupation and during the communist uprising, Yun Ling - survivor of a work camp wants to create a Japanese garden in memory of her elder sister who loved them. Aritomo, once gardener to the Emperor but a long-time resident in the Malayian highlands, refuses to design it but offers to teach her. She grows to know, respect and finally love him. Beautiful descriptive passages and very evocative of colonial life in the tropics. I really enjoyed this one.

Book 4: What I Talk about when I talk about Running Murakami. I'm not a runner, so slightly lost on me, but the book did deliver some insights.

Book club tonight - so book 5 will be chosen then!

I've read all three Southern Reach books and agree it is weird - you are not sure what is real or not, if your narrators can be trusted, what is happening, even the environment is unreliable. I looked back at my review and I said they was disturbing, fascinating and provocative and a damn good read Ultimately, I suppose it is all a bit unsatisfying in that there are no clear answers, just hints and suppositions.

I tend to like a bit of weirdness in my books though!

Getting on ok with The Unconsoled. 18% in now. Another definitely weird book , I'm constantly scouring the text for clues as to wtaf is going on...

Am 70% of the way through War and Peace now - steady but slow progress. Have had to slow down a bit as I needed to get stuck into the work reading I need to do by the end of the month so have just finished 'book' 4:

1. The Tempest - Shakespeare - technically a re-read from university years ago, but am teaching it for the first time this term. I saw it performed recently but really enjoyed reading it again. I know Shakespeare's meant to be seen but it's hard to appreciate so much of the detail of the language when it all goes so quickly on stage. A quick read, in comparison to lots of the other plays.

Hamlet next - have read this many, many times but not taught it for a couple of years so need to re-read again. Am also reading 1599 by James Shapiro at the same time to get a better sense of the contextual influences when it was written.

Just realised my last post was about book number 6, not 5 -- left off one from the first thread!

I've now finished number 7: The Martian by Andy Weir. I listed to this as an audiobook and loved it, even though it's not at all the kind of thing I normally read. It got me through 2 long drives, and I stayed up late to listen to the last couple of hours as I was desperate to hear the finish. The story is about an astronaut whose crewmates, believing him dead, leave him behind on Mars. With no way to contact Earth and limited food/other resources, he has quite the battle to survive. You have to (a) suspend disbelief and (b) get through a fair few detailed discussions of chemistry and botany, but it's a fantastic story. I can see why they made a movie out of it.

Now reading Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt.

*

1. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
2. Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig
3. The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson
4. The Whites by Richard Price
5. Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume
6. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
7. The Martian by Andy Weir

Book 3 - Our Endless Numbered Days, Claire Fuller I'm normally a speed reader but I found myself reading slowly and often re-reading sentences to remember the snippets of info we are drip fed. I absolutely loved this book and its definitely a storyline that will stay with me, long after I've finished. Highly recommed.

I'm leaving a couple of days before I start my next book as I need to digest and think about this book before starting a new one.

Dinosaursroar, sorry, I never answered a question you asked days ago about the M R C Kasasian books. I'm enjoying them - someone else on here (Remus?) had a go at one and loathed it. You can get a preview on Good Reads and I think you'll get an idea fairly quickly about whether you like the tone or not.

Most recent books:

1. The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth. By the author of The Etymologicon and The Horlogicon - if you liked either of those, you'll probably enjoy this, more because of his style than the content. If you haven't tried any of his books, I'd start with The Etymologicon. He writes non-fiction about language, but the real charm lies in the jokes.

10. Life Moves Pretty Fast by Hadley Freedman. Musings on the delights of 80s movies. I'm of a similar vintage and vaguely remember many of these films. She doesn't say anything particularly profound, but it was an easy, nostalgic read.

Can I join? I have been doing this for the last few years. So far have read:

1. The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennesey - enjoyed it as much if not more than Harold Fry, but it doesn't stand alone as a book in itself
2. The Versions of Us Laura Barnett - loved this but found it a tad confusing! Interesting idea
3. A Year of Marvellous Ways Sarah Winman - absolute pants. Loved 'When God was a rabbit' - this was terrible
4. Alice and the Fly James Rice - excellent but unsettling
5. Road Ends Mary Lawson. Love love her. Not her best but still good.

Eagerly waiting for A God in Ruins to arrive!

Will read through thread properly to get some ideas!

Bursting in to say I nearly bust a vein over Faulks on Fiction It was the most male-centric view of fiction I have ever had the misfortune to read. Pride & Prejudice is entirely about Darcy's journey, according to him. With regard to Marian Halcombe in The Woman in White, he remarks that Wilkie Collins points out her ugliness, and remarks that it would be fine, you'd just have to do her from behind. (Not an exact quote).

From time to time I quite like a book that exercises my spleen, so Faulks admirably fit the bill in that regard. I was practically choking with rage.

2000 cotton buds might be a special case :) stitch. I'm clearly a hopeless case because the thought of throwing something away then having to buy it again, even a few years later, for the sake of having some empty shelves in the meantime, just doesn't feel right to me. I will continue chucking it all in the garage.

Not even if you found 100 boxes each containing 200 cotton buds scattered around your house, big bad?

But yes. Most people aren't likely to have so much toiletries stockpiled that it would quite literally take years to use them up.