50 Book Challenge 2016 Part Three

I've tried CA three times now, Cote. It just isn't meant to be. Ditto Jonathon Strange, which you also loved iirc. There's a line from a song by The Smiths which goes, 'I was bored before I even began' and I feel like that about them - I can feel them dragging me down even before I've finished the first 30 pages.

That was a low blow

I'm not saying you have to love books that others love, especially when those others are ignorant bigots Trump voters. (Case in point: 50 Shades of Grey, which I didn't even pick up.) These are not books written for dumbos, though. They are smart, exceptional books in their genres.

Just sincerely think that you would have liked Cloud Atlas and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo if you got to even 40% in either. Especially unbearable to me is the fact that you love dystopian and post-apocalyptic stories and you didn't read either in Cloud Atlas before you decided that you hated it

People adore Donald Trump - it doesn't mean I have to.

Of course I can - if it was good and I liked it, I'd have finished it!

Remus - This is exactly what you did with Cloud Atlas! You can't NOT read a book and still say that it was awful and you hated it

Surely with all the adoration surrounding both books, you must have thought that there just might be something fantastically special about them?

Northanger Abbey is a spoof really! I don't find it bears too many rereads.

I would say Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion are my favourite Austen. They're the ones I've gone back to most often. Followed closely by Emma - sometimes I find her interfering smugness too annoying, sometimes it is just what I want I do like saying "badly done!" In the stern manner of Mr Knightley. I must admit to laughing out loud at the idea of Mansfield Park making someone angry - can identify with that feeling exactly!

I'm looking forward to getting stuck into FB elle

Cote -
I didn't finish it but read more than the list - enough to know that it was really, really annoying me!

Mamabear my least favourite is Northanger Abbey I think.

Satsuki I loved Flight Behaviour-hope you enjoy it

M R James does chilling ghost stories joyless. They are short stories though and some are better than others. I also love Poe, not exactly ghost stories but creepy.

My dh read girl with dragon tattoo last year and has been on at me to read it as it's not my sort of thing on the surface but he's adamant I'll like it. More interested now after seeing cote's post.

Remus did you finish reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo? Just wondering if you read the beginning and hated the list of 100 different characters in the family.

Thanks Joyless . I've added To Say Nothing of the Dog to my to read list

Posted too soon - lapped up the trilogy in about a week.

Cote My daughter loved it and lapped up the whole series.

Remus - "HATED (loathed, detested, abhorred Dragon Tattoo."

We really do have completely opposite tastes in fiction. It's quite funny

I'm re-reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and it's even better the second time around, possibly because I now know that the original name (in Swedish) is Men Who Hate Women (i.e. misogynists) and I can spot the various little examples of casual misogyny that are scattered all around the story.

I also love how the story develops as I imagine many do in RL - journalist or police start investigating one thing and end up realising that there is a completely different, much more important story hiding behind it.

And Lisbeth Salander is my hero, of course

Joyless Am struggling to think of a really good ghost story. Do you like Sarah Waters? She did one - forgotten title - but I didn't love it. Assume you've read The Woman in Black? I don't like it but lots do.

Ditto The Turn of the Screw
The Haunting of Hill House is another classic, but I really disliked it.
I think what I'm saying is I'd love a really good classic ghost story, but that I actually don't like many of the classics!

16. Every Dead Thing by John Connolly

It's definitely not for the faint-hearted, a lot of gruesome and brutal things happen in this thriller. Charlie Parker, an ex-cop whose wife and child were murdered a few years ago, is asked to investigate a disappearance. There are two distinct storylines and it does make the book feel a little like two novels stapled together, but despite this and the goriness it is actually very readable.

Just starting The Girl in the Red Coat

I looked back at my list and of the 22 books I read this year so far, 19 of them were library books (2 of them audio books), 2 were on kindle and 1 a book I bought. I have a stack of actual books I own by my bed waiting to be read but the am reading mostly library books.

Joyless - How about The Witching Hour by Anne Rice?

Can't wait to see what you all think of HHhH!

Stitches I enjoyed the Doomsday Book but not as much as I absolutely loved To Say Nothing of the Dog, do give it a go. It has all the time travel and history ... but with humour added. Sadik I also loved How to be Both and read them in the same order as you did. I wonder if the reviews were influenced by the order in which they were written. I rather felt the publishers/author would try to establish if it made any difference, otherwise, why do it? I also have bought HHhH for that lovely low price, so thank you to whoever highlighed.

Am currently close to the end of The Woman in White. Thanks to Remus for the enthusiastic recommendation. I'm really enjoying it, but had hoped for a ghost story (oops). Can anyone recommend a good chilling (rather than horrifying) ghost story - preferably a classic but definitely not YA?

I didn't even realise Persephone published on Kindle as well - surely much of the pleasure in reading them is the beautiful binding and paper? There are bloody expensive though.

Hetty and Harpole not on Kindle.

Have read a lot of these. Some I loved and some I hated. HATED (loathed, detested, abhorred Dragon Tattoo. Don't like Marian Keyes. Have read all of the children's books mentioned iirc, and just about everything Wilkie has written. Read She Devil. Have bought Enchanted April although women wittering around in a castle doesn't quite sound like my idea of fun. I guess I'll either love or hate it!

Thanks all. I fancy more Persephone books but too expensive on Kindle and I'm only allowed to get real books fiction from charity shops or the library!

Just reading back through this thread and I'd missed the sad news about Margaret Forster. I wanted to echo what other posters have said about her background and what a marvellous writer she was. Hidden Lives is a marvellous book. She and her mother and her daughter are exact contemporaries of my own mother, grandmother and me and from very similar backgrounds so this book has a huge resonance for me. Unlike Margaret, my mother failed the 11 plus by one mark and had to leave school at 14. Didn't hold her back but I wonder what she could have achieved had she had the chance at a better education.

Also re the Lippizzaner love, I was lucky enough to visit the farm in Lipica years ago. Fantastic horses. Was just before the 1991 war.

Ooh, I'm tempted by What Hetty Did and The Harpole Report. I rarely buy full-price books, but may have to make an exception.