50 Book Challenge 2016 Part Three

16 Stasiland - Anna Funder. A Remus recommendation and an excellent one. Just the kind of oral history I love.

The authour tells the stories of people whose lives were affected by the Secret police service in East Germany before the Berlin Wall came down and those who were members of, or informed for, the Stasi. She has an engaging, warm style and her empathy shines through, even when she is interviewing the former Stasi.

Some of the stories are harrowing and its hard to believed that this is all recent history, some of these people are my contemporaries.

Quog, I think this is one you would like if you haven't read it.

Yes remus (the penny just dropped re Harry potter thing) I am a lotbit sad to be thinking ah yes I really must read ulyeses when I can be fantasing about a Viking warlord (see comments from grey and myself re uhthred ) or Harry Potter ( my reasoning for HP is that the films were on sky a lot over half term dd got fed up of me asking questions and told me to read the book which is what I usually tell her). In my defence however I promised myself I would try and read some stuff out of my comfort zone and decided to re try James Joyce as I failed miserably with him when I had to study the Dubliners. I have the Dubliners, portrait of an artist as a young man and ulyeses on my list. I did do the Dubliners a few weeks back (hated it but did finish it this time). So ulyeses is due. However I have decided to go with book 5 of the Saxon Chronicles by Bernard Cornwall as I need a bit of mental eye candy in my life right now and then I'll be ready for Harry Potter and then Ulyeses will be waiting for me.

quog don't worry about calling me musket it happens a lot (dammed auto correct)

Oh no I've been away for a fortnight and a whole new thread! Marking place to catch up later, but did do lots of reading, so:

5. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegar. I am sure this has been reviewed before, but basically it just isn't a patch on The Time Traveller's Wife!

6. We are all completely beside ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. I read this because I enjoyed Daryl Gregory's We are all Completely Fine, and I liked the title match, but it was pretty entertaining!

7. A Time Travellers Guide to Medieval England . Read because of reviews on earlier thread, very good.

8. A Man Named Ove also recced on here- made me cry!

9. The road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson- I was a bit disappointed by this, and I think he is disappointed in England!

10. The Torment of Others by VAl McDiamud- a competent mystery, most amusing because Amazon regularly recommends it by the title!

11. They Found Him Dead by Georgette Heyer*- not as funny or accomplished as her romances, but a good holiday read!

12. The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Fillion- I got this as a free kindle book but if you like Mark Haddon's work I would definitely recommend this.

Off to read threads now!

33. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire JK Rowling

Another reread and the best of the series so far.

27. Changes for the Chalet School, Elinor M Brent-Dyer. The Chalet School is my ultimate comfort reading and has been since I discovered my granny's unabridged originals aged about 8. Changes is the last book before the school returns to Switzerland - the last term at St Briavel's. Nothing much happens, just a lot of reminiscing.

myironlung I didn't know you could use it for Kindle books, never thought of it Thanks!

satsu I keep everything I want in my wishlist and check it often so I don't miss the price drops.

OK Blue and Satsuki - Anna Karenina has been pencilled in for April on the strength of your recommendations.

I'm looking at the Rosamund Bartlett OUP edition which was recommended by someone (can't remember who, sorry) on MN a while ago. But I am drawn to Marian Schwartz's translation purely on account of the cover. Shallow, I know.

If anyone has read either (or both!), I'd welcome some guidance.

Speaking of Dissolution if anyone sees the next one dark fire drop in price on the Kindle I would be delighted to know, as have been waiting ages to read it!

Just a quick heads up.
The heart goes last by Margaret Atwood is only £1.49 on Kindle at the moment.

Cote
The Janissary Tree is 99p on Kindle. Have bought.

Cote - I know. We'll have to be careful or we'll be hitting a baker's dozen before we know it.

Muskey - Sorry but I really laughed at your need to choose between Harry P and the P's Sone or Ulysses. You do realise there's no contest, right, and that one is infinitely superior to the other?

PS: I mean HP

Yy natasha Anna Karenina is a page turner.

16. Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

This was a lovely little book, read in a day. This novel created an atmosphere that was a pleasure to be in. Just as when I was a child I used to read Enid Blyton and want to immediately pack a picnic hamper, after this I just want to sit in a bar, drinking hot sake and cold beer, eating delicious spicy morsels with chopsticks, and have a sparse yet meaningful conversation about food and poetry, whilst waiting for the cherry trees to blossom. Tsusiko and her former schoolteacher, 'Sensei', meet again around 20 years after they were first acquainted. Nothing much happens in it, except that two lonely people develop a friendship, and that's plenty, really.

Black Swan Green next and still enjoying The Moving Toyshop whilst waiting for the kids to fall asleep.

Natasha - "Anna Karenina" is a much easier read than W&P! Go for it!!

I am ploughing through Terry Pratchett's Raising Steam - never thought I'd say that. It still has some good lines, but much more rambling than his earlier books.

Well done Natasha and Looking! So impressed. W&P still waiting untouched on my kindle...

Thanks, tumble. Honestly, go for it - it really is worth the effort.

Only thing is I'm worrying myself a bit. I keep thinking things like: "Anna Karenina isn't that long" and "I've never read Don Quixote". I think I may have the beginnings of a Big Book habit...

Joyless - I am also very happy (nay, aquiver ) at the thought of having loads more of Dissolution-like books ahead of me. I love a good series

If you like that sort of murder mystery that takes place in a different time/place with good local and/or historical research that shines through the details, I would recommend the following:

Child 44 (murder mystery in Soviet Russia under Stalin)

Skull Mantra & sequels (murder mysteries in contemporary Tibet under Chinese occupation)

The Janissary Tree & sequels (murder mysteries in Istanbul, during the last days of the Ottoman Empire)

I did, of course, mean to write Muskey not Musket. I am at war with the autocorrect on my Kindle Fire. It changes words at random without asking first, frequently leading me into potential embarrassment :o

Thanks moving and Quog I will read those links when I get home from work.

Remus - Another fiction book we both like?

news.yale.edu/2016/02/02/did-henry-viii-suffer-same-brain-injury-some-nfl-players - this recent research on Henry's several cases of traumatic brain injury are intriguing. Love to see a work of fiction explore this.

And want to fly the flag for our library service for those who are not yet in the know! Loads of good ebooks and audiobooks accessible for free using your library card from the comfort of your own home! Could've saved a fortune had I realised earlier..

thread link here

Musket - That book about Henry VIII sounds very interesting. Did you read this thread on MN from a couple of weeks ago? There's a link somewhere on that thread to an article by Hilary Mantel in the LRB where she looks at that theory too, although iirc she's not entirely convinced. I think it seems plausible

Satsuki, oddly my experience is that I'm in the minority in liking Dark Road ... But I do seem to have an affinity for Booker winner/favourites (see my loving of A Little Life which is almost universally regarded as misery porn - a category I've avoided like the plague ).

Cote, I am envious of you having all those Samsons ahead of you ...

TooExtra, that last read of yours sounds fascinating. Another for the TBR list.

I've seen many of the currently unread content of my kindle mentioned on here, so need to get a move on but seem to be flailing around at the moment and wasting what little time I have to read ...

I think grey I have a bit of a crush on uhthred.

book 9 the blood will tell by Kyra Cornelius Kramer this book suggests that Henry v111 had a kell positive antigen in his blood which developed into something called McCleod syndrome. This antigen explains his terrible reproductive history with his first two wives (possibly as many as 15 pregnancies between Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn) and his almost over night change in personality in 1536 from a thoughtful and enlightened monarch to tyrannical king who got rid of his enemies through judicial murder.

This book covers a lot of new ground and is a very interesting read definitely one for fans of Henry although it is rather academic. The only down side of the book imo was that the author did go into a rather long and unnecessary defence of Anne Boleyn. Whilst I agree that Anne was almost certainly innocent of the charges laid against her she certainly was more than a willing participant in her family's machinations
Book 10 I am yet to decide. It's a toss up between Harry potter and the philosophers stone, Ulysses by James Joyce and book 5 of the Saxon chronicles by Bernard cornwall. I'll let you know tomorrow when I've slept on it.