50 Book Challenge 2016 Part Three

No worries, I was genuinely curious what you found in it.

How old are Year 8 kids? Is that 1st year of middle school (age 11)?

I'm surprised to hear this nonsense is taught in schools, whatever the age. For what conceivable purpose? Seriously. What about it considered worthy enough to be part of the curriculum?

Talking animals got on my tits. Dog goes Todd? Todd? Oww, Todd? etc, sheep only say sheep, sheep, sheep and crickets say sex, sex sex sex sex sex

I can't believe this book is actually taught in schools. Whatever happened to Lord Of The Flies? I despair.

29. Daddy-Long-Legs, Jean Webster. I love this book for its exuberance. Judy is always so cheerful. Slightly disturbing to modern ears - an orphan girl is sent to college by a mysterious benefactor who asks only that she write him letters. She writes to him about her life and the man she falls in love with. But it wasn't intended to seem creepy and I try to read it in the spirit in which it was meant! I mostly succeed.

Cote It's a long time since I read it tbh. I remember liking the dog, and the dialogue, and the idea of a child discovering that his entire life has pretty much been a lie, and found it pretty gripping, as did Yr 8 when we taught it a few years ago. Sorry!

36. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows JK Rowling

Last reread of the series, do love them even though they're for kids!

Book 37 is Little Lies by Liane Moriarty.

Remus - What? No. You break my heart so soon after we agreed on another rare fiction book!

I know our tastes in fiction don't really overlap, which is fine, but I'm really curious about this one: What was it that you liked about The Knife Of Never Letting Go?

GrendelsMother and bigbadbarry

I also loved Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland by Sarah Moss. I wasn't so keen on Cold Earth, which was let down by a poor ending IMO.

Book 15 Skeleton Road by Val mcDermid. A woman is celebrating her birthday with friends but missing her husband, who she thinks left her to return to his home in Croatia. Then a skeleton is discovered in Scotland. The story then goes back to when they met in Dubrovnik, the Balkan wars and who murdered him. Very good story.

Book 16 The Apprentice by Tess Gerritson. A murder scene looks very like the scene set by the surgeon,the previous serial killer the detective caught in the first book. Very readable good fun

I liked The Knife of Never Letting Go and its sequel, but hated the final one in the trilogy.

I also do a whole series in a gulp! Obviously this doesn't apply if not all the books have been published yet. I remember reading all the Diana Gabaldon Outlander books back to back (up to Drums of Autumn, which was as far as the series had got at that point) at uni and not going to any lectures until they were finished. I re-read a lot so I particularly love series. Last year I read just about every Sherlock Holmes story in a row.

I am struggling my way through The Sword of Shannara. It is derivative crap, but I persevered because I bought it for DH's Christmas and I wanted it to be good. I'm nearly there! This is one series I am not going to continue reading.

Grendel - Possible but plot and "construction" went to pot in his later years, too, not just grasp on tech industry zeitgeist. It really is sad to see one of my favorite authors churn out one relatively crap book after another.

I can only compare his decline to David Cronenberg whose fantastically weird and brainhurty earlier films like Naked Lunch, eXistence, and Dead Ringers seem to have given way to vanilla stuff like A History Of Violence and Cosmopolis. Why?

tumble and grendel I loved Night Waking but for some reason hadn't ever thought to see if she'd written anything else so thank you for this! Will wishlist it immediately.

GrendelsMother No, I think it's fine to read them in any order. The link is not necessary to improve your enjoyment.

Cote Maybe he sort of stopped being able to grasp the zeitgeist, technologically speaking. Like, Pattern Recognition is about trendhunters, and Neuromancer was this amazing exploration of VR, but maybe he just got a bit old and stuck in the computer culture of the '80s instead of adapting to how tech culture is now? (Total guess in the dark as have never properly read him, though Neuromancer and Pattern Recognition both on my TBR.)

Re Peripheral: That book defeated me. And I say that as someone who almost never gives up on books and normally reads even the most ones to the bitter end. I came to about 15% and realised that I have no idea who any of the characters are, what they are doing, or why, and frankly couldn't care less about any of it.

Have you read any of William Gibson's earlier books? I used to be a big fan - read Neuromancer in 1980s and then read & loved all his books until All Tomorrow's Parties (2000?) which was a bit of a garbled mess. Still, I went on to grab Pattern Recognition as it came out and was truly surprised at how awful it was. Spook Country was even worse. I don't remember if I tried Zero History but had a go at Peripheral because I read reviews saying it was a "return to form" for Gibson, a book in the style of his previous classics. Well, it wasn't.

My theory (voiced often enough on here ) is that Gibson got dementia someone else started writing his books, maybe with some ideas from him. I can't explain the huge decline in the scope, innovative quality, and plot in his books any other way.

Stokey - DD had a go at Lord Of The Rings but found its vocabulary a bit beyond her. That was 1-2 years ago though. Maybe it will be OK now. Thanks for the reminder.

Red love sounds excellent, Joyless, many thanks for the recommendation

tumble Do you think I ought to read them in order, since they share characters? I know the plots are basically separate but perhaps it would help...

GrendelsMother yes I have read Night Waking by Sarah Moss and loved it. Would highly recommend.

Book 9: Mrs Hemmingway - Naomi Wood. The story of the 4 Hemmingway wives is told based on surviving correspondence. The great author comes over as a weak and petulant man who is entirely incapable of being alone, despite being described as a handsome and charming man who is adored by all (with the sole exception of Zelda Fitzgerald). An entertaining read.

Book 10: Red Love: the story of an East German family - Maxim Leo. A fascinating read about 3 generations of the author's family, spanning the time before, during and after The Wall. We share his mother, Anne's idealogical struggle from firm believer, through lover but doubter, to finally resigning from the party. If it sounds dry, I promise you it is anything but.

Book 11: Just One Damned Thing After Another - Jodi Taylor. First in a series about St Marys, a time-travelling historical part of Thirsk University. It was a fun but decidedly fluffy romp & I expect the series to provide a suitable palate cleansing task for the future. To provide a proper critique: far too much telling rather than showing, sketchily drawn characters and the sex scene was positively

My book club didn't pick HHhH sadly, but it will be added to the TBR, along with Stasiland. The bloke (who's a cold war expert) also recommended Man without a Face. And I've picked up more recommendations from reading the thread ...

Has Dd read Lord of The Rings Cote? Think I was about 10 or 11 when I first read it and loved getting sucked in to that world.

15. The Peripheral - William Gibson. This follows two different threads - a near future which is a bit more down at heel than ours but with 3d printing at the fore and a more distant future about 100 years ahead mostly set in London. In the near future, Flynne has been hired to play a computer game where she acts as security for a party. While playing the game, she sees a murder. This links the plot to the far future where there is a publicist, rich Russians and an uber-reality type star. Typical Gibson world, he shows rather than tells. I enjoyed it and liked the fact that it isn't really a dystopian world just one gradually changing.

I've also been reading Gobbolino - The Witch's Cat by Ursula Moray Williams with DD1 (6), and had forgotten what a lovely book it is. Well worth a read, and a good starter chapter book as each chapter is it's own episodic adventure.

Updating my list:

1. The Versions of Us - Laura Barnett
2. All the light we cannot see - Anthony Doerr
3. Red Rising - Pierce Brown
4. Golden Son - Pierce Brown
5. Flash Boys - Michael Lewis
6. There's Only Two David Beckhams - John O'Farrell
7. Authority - Jeff Vandermeer
8. Blue Monday - Nicci French
9. Mockingjay (reread)

I didn't get on with The Knife of Never Letting Go either. I ploughed through about a fifth of it before deciding it probably wouldn't get any better and giving up on it.

Glad your dd enjoyed Gone, Cote :) I've never understood the love for Patrick Ness myself. Tbh I think the unashamedly trashy and amusing YA authors are a much better bet.

(A bit like fantasy / sci-fi - I try to avoid the 'literary author-does-genre-fiction' as it can be a painful experience.)

tumbletumble Spotted that you read Bodies of Light and enjoyed it--have you read Night Waking? Same author, about a woman and her husband who move to the island of Colsay to do research; they've got small children who aren't sleeping, the woman finds the skeleton of a child in the garden, and the whole thing is interspersed with letters from May Moberley, sister of Ally in Bodies of Light. Apparently it's very good.

14. The Knife Of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

No use sugar-coating it: This was crap. I don't know how it compares to what people usually read as YA but it was shockingly stupid, dull, and badly written with a 200-word vocabulary, featuring what must be the dumbest and least inspiring protagonist in the history of literature. I can't even call it a coming-of-age story because he was as gormless at the end as in the beginning. Gah.

Don't even get me started about the pathetic excuse for a story. People who can't be bothered to worldbuild should not try to write sci-fi imo. Why couldn't he set his story at any point of the world's history when people have settled at another continent island, for example? Complete rubbish.

17. Ice - Gillian Clarke This volume of poetry was a pleasure to read and felt rich with the natural imagery of the Welsh countryside, of snow, ice, birds, rivers and the sea and all imbued with a rich sense of Welsh history. Really accessible, beautiful and sometimes moving poetry. At the moment it's only £1.69 on Kindle which is an absolute bargain in my opinion.