50 Book Challenge 2016 Part Three

Your DD is lucky that someone takes an interest in her reading cote. I had no one and my reading was ridiculously random and dependent on local library as a result.

Oooooohhhhhhh

Emily of New Moon my favorite childhood book EVER. Have it and the sequels on my kindle permanently too!

28. Emily of New Moon, LM Montgomery. Following the death of her father, Emily goes to stay with her aunts at New Moon, her mother's childhood home. I love this book - more easy reading for when I'm tired.

I'm having a go at The Knife Of Never Letting Go or some such because DD is into YA now & I want to find some new books for her. Finding it dumb and boring so far. Can't believe I would be fascinated by this one even as a teenager. I'm at 10% and all that happened so far is the boy walked a bit, kicked his dogs 10+ times just for the hell of it, and told us everyone can hear each other's thoughts all the time and there are no girls/women.

I would expect people & society to change significantly if we could hear each other's thoughts all the time. And there would be some massive differences in how society works re future (or its lack thereof, really) if there are no girls or women around - if we know that ours is the last generation ever, what would change?

Maybe a 14-year-old with the apparent mental capacity of a 6-year-old is not the best narrator for a post-apocalyptic story but anyway. We will see.

Yay just received my paperback copy of the lost Tudor princess by Alison Weir. I have been waiting for this book for ages. This is a book about Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox Henry v111 neice. I can't wait to read it.

Sorry, bolding didn't work. Favourites have an * instead...

I haven’t posted since the first thread as I just couldn’t keep up but I am back and am reading this thread from the beginning.
This is what I have read so far, with highlights in bold. I am going to try and keep up with this now.

1. An American Nomad – Stephen Braxton Thompson
2. The Hours – Michael Cunningham

1. The Wolf Border – Sarah Hall
2. The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
3. The Childhood of Jesus – J.M Coetzee

1. Homeland and Other Stories – Barbara Kingsolver
2. A Place Called Winter – Patrick Gale

Currently reading We Are Called to Rise by Laura McBride (not good) and In the Heart of the Country by J.M Coetzee (very good).

I have missed hearing from everyone and getting your recommendation.

Elle good to hear a review of Tess Gerristen's Playing with Fire. I was wondering whether it was worth reading as i love the Rizzoli and Isles series (and the Tv show which is nothing like the books). Have you read any of her other one off thrillers? I picked up a couple cheap in the works and found Under the Knife great but wasn't too fussed by some of the others i read which are so memorable i've forgotten them.

I'm still plodding through with The girl caught in the spider's web and also started listening to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone, I've read it before and listened to it when i was much younger and my mum bought it for me on tape so is nice to have it portable!

DinosaursRoar its a long time since I'd read anything by Daphne Du Maurier and it reminded me that I like her writing and should probably try to read some more. I liked the fact that the more drawn in he became the more impatient he was with his poor wife and the children. I thought she portrayed his selfishness very well.

20. Anatomy of a Soldier by Harry Parker--a novel about a British captain in Afghanistan who loses his legs in an IED, but told from the point of view of objects around him. Some of them are obvious things, like the tourniquet, the bomb, his prosthetics, but there are some less obvious ones: the bike and the trainers belonging to the teenage insurgent who plants the bomb, a snowflake, a razor. It shouldn't work, but it does. The only objection I had was an awkwardness to the sentences: stringing two clauses together with the word "and", then repeating 47 times in a page, only works if you're Cormac McCarthy and sometimes not even then. But, basically, this was ace. If you've read and liked The Things They Carried or Phil Klay's collection Redeployment, this should be your next stop.

Also, Broken, I really must read more Morrison. Beloved and The Bluest Eye were both devastatingly good. I'm thinking maybe Sula next?

cote that book sounds equal parts fascinating and terrifying.

I read Whicher some years ago. It was quite good, but remember it tailing off in the second half. It was very interesting but I think if I'd been fully aware of the subject matter I wouldn't probably wouldn't have read it as I usually avoid that kind of thing, but it was lent to me by a friend.

17. The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin

This is a well written, witty little murder mystery, which I really enjoyed. It is both erudite and silly, which is not a bad combination. An 'impossible' crime, poetic riddles, and eccentric Oxford dons all feature. I would read another in the series.

It was recommended on here I think when it was 99p, so thank you to whoever highlighted it.

13. Hot Zone - The Chilling True Story of an Ebola Outbreak by Richard Preston

This was fan-tas-tic! I picked it up when it was Kindle deal of the day, after reading that it was the book that the movie Contagion with Dustin Hoffman was based on. Although written very much like a thriller, this book is non-fiction - according to the author, with even the thoughts of the characters are what they said they thought at the time in interviews.

It is the story of 1989 Ebola outbreak in a Washington suburb, at an animal facility housing monkeys and the details are fascinating. I can't say I was that worried about Ebola before, but I have to say that I am now terrified A multitude of shocking mistakes were made during that outbreak, not least of which was that two people sniffed the super-contagious Ebola-filled blood sample to see if it had a bacterial smell Quite a few people were infected and the only reason why no human died during this outbreak while the monkey population was decimated (i.e. literally melted into monkey soup) was that by some twist of fate, this particular new strain just made people a bit sick and they got over it.

One thing that stood out for me in this book was just how similar the procedures and preparations of people working in "hot zone" of Level 4 infectious agents are to astronauts. There were parts of this book that were very similar to the book An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth - e.g. how slow they move because the slightest tear to their suit (called 'space suit', even) means certain death.

I was a bit at the last section of the book where the author goes off to visit the cave in Africa where the patient zero of this particular Ebola strain is thought to have caught it from. Why, FFS?!? Apparently, just to say "That spider could give me Ebola. And it could be that stalactite. Or that rock" etc. I can imagine the main characters of the book catching him at it and giving him a good walloping for risking contamination & spreading it around the world.

I loved this book, though. Highly recommended.

Night Women is 99p on Kindle at the moment. I've just bought it off the back of this thread, even though I told myself I wouldn't buy any more until I've caught up on unread ones. Ah well...

Elle - I've read Whicher and really enjoyed it.

Oops bold fail!

I like the sound of Night Women-have just added it to my wish list. I randomly picked up The Suspicions of Mr Whicher - has anyone read it?

1. My brilliant friend by Elena Ferrante.
2. SPQR by Mary Beard
3. Perfume by Patrick Suskind
4. Expecting better by Emily Oster
5. The life changing magic of tidying by Marie Kondo.
6. Friends of the dusk by Phil Rickman
7. A god in ruins by Kate Atkinson.

1. Playing with fire by Tess Gerritsen. I love Tess Gerritsen's Rizzoli and Isles series so was excited to see this was available as an ebook through my library. It is a standalone story which follows Julia, a violinist, whose daughter Lily begins to behave strangely-is she trying to kill Julia and how can Julia stop her? Tess Gerritsen writes a good 'page-turner' type of narrative and I raced through this in a few hours. I enjoyed this but the Rizzoli and Isles series is slightly less frothy and more enjoyable in my opinion. Sometimes an undemanding read is just what you need though

1. Wreckage by Emily Bleeker. Light kindle impulse buy. Lilian and Dave are the only 2 survivors from a private plane that crashes in the Pacific with 5 people on board. Somehow they have survived 2 years, against all the odds. But how did they survive? And what exactly happened to everyone else? They have a dark secret that they are desperately trying to keep. Enjoyable enough, but ultimately forgettable.

Haha Remus you'll be amused to hear that what immediately popped into my mind when I read the 1st line of your post was "What? No! There is no coriander in tripe soup!"

Cote

Soup = 'The notion that a good tripe soup needed the addition of a pinch of powdered coriander was the kind of innovation which, if left unchecked, would gradually undermine the whole guild...the confusion would have entered men's minds....Patience, yes. Impatience led to coriander and hell fire.'

'Coriander and hell fire' might be my favourite quote ever. Forget Shakespeare, Austen, Morrissey etc.

GrendelsMother23 - yes! I actually read Seven Killings first - can't believe I'd never even heard of Marlon james until he won the booker. I really enjoyed it. Very violent, a bit Tarantino-ish, but I was impressed with his writing, which led me to Night Women. Loved it so much! It was one of those books that left me bereft when it was over .

I wrote my uni dissertation on Toni Morrison .
My favourite book of hers was Paradise, which was slated quite widely by critics. I adored it, though. I must re-read some of her stuff - its been a while! .

Cedar - you summed up "the house on the strand" so much better than I did!

I've read quite a few books since I last updated on here.

6 The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver Reviews in previous threads reminded me that I had this book on the shelf and I finally read it. It was very good although I found - like others - that the last part dragged a bit. Also wasn't convinced about how the family broke up as they left the Congo.

7 An Academic Question by Barbara Pym This was OK not my favourite book. It wasn't really finished properly by her which might be part of the problem.

8 The Woman who walked in sunshine by Alexander Macall Smith Another in the Ladies Detective Agency series. Perfect book for cold winter days. Mma Ramotswe is persuaded to have a holiday but can't quite stop herself from interfering at the Agency. Funny and lots of talk about fruit cake.

9 The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett Thoroughly enjoyed this one. Had no idea about what was going to happen at the start (can't say any more than that because of spoilers). Sorry that it's his last ever book.

10 To Bed With Grand Music by Marghanita Laski Set during the Second World War it is the heroine's change from a bored housewife and mother stuck in the sticks to a young woman sleeping her way across London. Entertaining and quite light in tone. It was published just after the War ended and disapproved of by some critics who didn't find it very edifying because it didn't fit with the image of women staying stoically at home for their husbands to come home. But it talks honestly about the behaviour of a lot of people during the war.

11. The House on the Strand by Daphne Du Maurier The narrator has found a way of time travelling and finds himself back in the 15th Century. He is fascinated with the past and increasingly annoyed with his family and modern day commitments. Really well written very atmospheric.

12. High Wages by Dorothy Whipple Rags to riches story about a young woman who starts working in a shop. Very enjoyable.

Am currently reading a book about Lebanon where nothing very positive happens to anyone so finding it a bit depressing. Trying to break it up with other books. It's a book group read so want to get through it if I can!

Aaahhhh BrokenApril isn't The Book of Night Women amazing??! So violent and brutal but so gorgeous. Have you read A Brief History of Seven Killings yet? (Also, would recommend Toni Morrison's Beloved as being in a similar vein to Night Women, though the violence is less constant.)

Also, I loved A Tree Grows In Brooklyn too--I read it for school one year, and am pretty sure it contained the first scene of men-being-creepy (/attempted sexual assault) that I recognised as such. An eye-opener.

1. The Good Children - Roopa Farooki I had no expectations of this read having picked it up at a book sale for 10p! It tells the story of four siblings brought up to be 'good children' in 1940s Punjab. For the boys this means beatings and lots of study in their quest to honour the family name by bettering their father's achievements and studying medicine abroad, for the daughters this means learning to be the perfect wives and pandering to their manipulative mother's moods. The novel follows the children lives through adulthood and shows how they each deal separately with the emotional baggage they each carry from their childhood. Quite a good read, I'll look out for some others by this novelist.

1. Saplings - Noel Streatfield This was recommended on another Mumsnet thread and until I saw it I wasn't aware the Streatfield had written adult novels as well as her renowned children's books. This was a very good depiction of how many English family lives were turned upside down during World War 2. Popular culture often focuses on the camaraderie and 'make-do' spirit but this novel really touches on the emotional well-being of a happy affluent middle-class family and shows how their everyday lives are ripped apart by the decisions made by their parents to ensure their wartime safety. Great concern is taken over their physical well-being but little thought is taken over how the adult's decisions will affect the children. The changes on the personalities of three of the four children is hard to read as a modern parent as no-one appears to fully appreciate how badly affected they are by the changes. A really good read.

1. The Lady in the Van - Alan Bennett. The book which the current film (and original play) were based on. Written as a series of diary entries it tells the real life story of the homeless Miss Shepherd living on Alan Bennet's property for over 15 years. Written in Bennet's distinctive matter-of-fact style it is both comic and sad. A quick read but one that will stay with me for a while.

Hi all.

I've worked out I can fit in about 5 novels a month so far, so am aiming for 60 books this year. Below is what I've read so far, in reverse order, as sure I have bored on about some of them before.

10. The Outsider (Albert Camus)
I've just started this, as I was recommended The Mersault Investigation by Kamel Daoud but apparently you have to have read The Outsider to get it.

9. The Farming of Bones (Endwidge Danticat)
Haitian writer, story of a house maid and a farmhand set in Haiti/Dominican Republic in the 1930s/40s. Interesting read, liked her characters.

8. The Buried Giant (Kazuo Ishiguro)
Promising start but all got too weird and allegorical for me in the end.

7. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
Really enjoyed this, although not my usual thing at all. Story of a young Irish-American girl growing up in dirt-poor Brooklyn in the early 20th century.

6. By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept (Elizabeth Smart) – I wanted to like this, as it came highly recommended and has a great title, but it frustrated and bored me in equal measures. Poetic prose = hard going for me.

5. The Fishermen (Chigozie Obioma)
Slow start and clunky writing in places, but ended up loving this. Story of a group of young brothers growing up in Nigeria in the 90s. They are ‘cursed’ by the town madman and the story follows how the curse pans out for each of them.

4. Broken April (Ismail Kadare) –
Been trying to read more international writers, and this is apparently an Albanian classic. Haunting and beautifully written.

3. The Patience Stone (Atiq Rahimi)
Very simple in its style and very short, but powerful. A young Afghan woman tends to her husband who is in a coma and pours out all of her secrets, thoughts and feelings that are taboo and must be hidden within their culture.

2. The Book of Night Woman (Marlon James)
Hands down my favourite read so far in 2016. The story of a slave girl growing up on a planatation in 18th century Jamaica. Brilliant writing, beautiful characterisation. He really is a fantastic writer.

1. Rivers of London (Ben Aaronavitch)
A fun read which took me out of my usual thing of proper ‘literature, daaaahling’ comfort zone, as neither detective novels or mysteries are my thing, but I didn’t love it enough to read the follow-up, put it that way

I've found you all again! Haven't been reading much recently, so have only 3 to add:

1. Broken Homes - Ben Aaronovitch - Another of the "Rivers of London" series with our magical police man. This particular installment didn't seem to have the pace of the others, and the main story didn't grab me, although the personal storyline of the main characters was good (with a 'twist' I didn't see coming, although looking back, it was signposted).

10. Telling Tales - Ann Cleeves - 2nd of the "Vera" books, a girl was murdered 15 years before, a woman was convicted, although protesting her innocence, she committed suicide just before new evidence proved she couldn't do it, Vera is brought in to look into the case. Interesting story, works well as a stand alone book. Good murder mystery.

11. Agent Zigzag - Ben Macintyre - thanks for the recommendation Cote - this is the true story of Eddie Chapman, a bank robber turned double agent in WWII. Very entertaining read.

Now I have to get back my reading bug. Think I might check out the Saxon series.