50 Book Challenge 2016 Part Three

37. Every Which Way But Dead and
38. A Fistful of Charms, both Kim Harrison.

Carrying on with the Hollows series, still enjoying it, but starting to get a bit annoyed with the way Rachel leches over every guy around her. In book 3, Rachel becomes Algaliarept's familiar and the character Ceri is introduced, who I really like. In book 4, we go on a road trip to rescue Nick and wind up with a creepy werewolf 'focus'. I'm now on book 5 and will have to take a break after this one because I can't buy any more books until payday.

"I got fed up with the technical problems/solutions and would have liked to know more about how he actually felt. Yes, I wanted feelings and reflections. And some psychological trauma!"

Funny how different readers can be I would have hated it to be a navel-gazing novel... on Mars!

I think we all know how it would feel to be stranded alone on a hostile planet and I give The Martian cookie points for not belabouring that aspect of the "psychological trauma".

The way he just keeps working the problem is apparently very realistic. I watched a YouTube interview with Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut who wrote An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth, where he was saying that is exactly how an astronaut faced with danger would be. "You just work the problem" were his exact words. Remember that astronauts are not only trained to act that way but they are also chosen among people who are not prone to depression and are not terribly emotional.

On the new font: I don't like it much. It's too tall and it's rather dull and corporate.

Stokey - Good to hear that Acceptance moves along the story. Thanks for letting me know.

whippetwoman you might enjoy the film more - has slightly more of the emotion and less of the problem solving. I did find the ending of the book moving though I have to say, but yes it is quite dry (and dry-eyed!) for the most part!

Gosh that does sound bonkers Grendel'smother, I may have to try it.

21. White is the Coldest Colour -John Galbraith. I didn't enjoy this at all. It starts off with a seven year boy being molested by two paedophiles, and quite bit of the book is told from the POV of one of the paedophiles, who is also a child psychiatrist. His voice is particularly unpleasant. I also lost track of all the "goodies", various members of the police and social services, oh and the end was pretty rushed.

22. A question of identity - Susan Hill. I got this from the library, I think I'd read teh first in the series years ago and thought I'd try another. Well it doesn't seem to work that well as a stand alone. There was loads of stuff about the detective's family, Hill doesn't really explain who anyone is so it took me a while to work out how they're all related and it has no bearing on the actual crime, which doesn't happen til about 100 pages in. One for fans only.

Moving on to the third of the Southern Reach trilogy Acceptance. It already (3 chapters in) seems to have moved the plot along far quicker than the previous one Cote

This is making me very glad I have HHhH lined up on my Kindle! I'm really looking forward to reading it now.

In the meantime I slogged my way through no.23 for me which was The Martian by Andy Weir. I started off really liking this, as it's a great idea, but I ended up feeling really indifferent. I know there have been loads of discussions and reviews of this but I got fed up with the technical problems/solutions and would have liked to know more about how he actually felt. Yes, I wanted feelings and reflections. And some psychological trauma!

I know where you are coming from cote, I find it so hard to give up on a book. The first quarter of a book is usually scene setting, so sometimes they can start to get good after this point even with a slow start (I always think of Middlemarch when I'm struggling through a slow beginning), so I like to give them a chance. However, I really loathe wasting precious reading time on something I'm not enjoying, so if you really think it's not going to change, then I would put it aside and move on.

Cote If you're not enjoying it, chuck and move on! There won't be a quiz, we promise.

Just finished 28. Radiance by Cat Valente. Think the Golden Age of Hollywood, but in SPACE. With whales. And told through a bunch of different media: documentary transcripts, home film reels, some "straight" novelistic prose but fragmented into different sections. It sounds confusing but somehow it isn't and I utterly loved it; the plot is to do with a documentary filmmaker whose father became famous making Gothic/noir-type movies, who disappears on Venus while researching for a film about the previous disappearance of a village called Adonis. The book is really interested in how you tell stories after the fact, particularly stories about yourself: your life, your friends' lives, your love affairs, etc. How you choose to frame your story and whose voices get to be heard. Lots of camera/eye metaphors. (This universe is one in which the Edison family hoards patents, including patents for sound and amplification, so that most films are silent because it's prohibitively expensive to pay for mics.) The whales come into it eventually, too. It's quite bonkers and very beautiful.

Yes museumofham, I know what you mean. I remember offhand there was a china plate, a rabbit's foot, and necklace that were links to the past, but they did 'disappear' into the background of story rather than provide the focus.

I'm already wondering how I'll follow HHhH so will watch with interest!

I'd also like recommendations of history books covering the period of European history between WW1 and WW2, as although I have a reasonable knowledge of them both, I don't really understand the politics that led from one to the other!

Satsuki I hadn't picked up on the objects or artefacts in Behind the Scenes . Maybe because I was finding it quite an uncomfortable read, with human nature and happiness not coming out too well, and just wanted to race through it.

16. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie I did not want to rush through this one, as I love her writing style so much. This is really an extended social commentary on race. As a story, the premise is very simple: young Nigerian woman moves to America, lives there for over a decade, becomes a successful blogger, moves back to Nigeria, meets back up with her first love. The author gets away with hanging a long string of observations on race on this framework because of the quality of her writing. I felt that many of the characters only existed to illustrate a certain viewpoint or type of person. The main character, Ifemelu, was not always likeable, sometimes selfish, unkind to others, opinionated, and it was through her eyes that the issues were explored, particularly through her blog. Hair recurs as a theme; we keep returning to a scene where Ifemelu is getting her hair braided just before she returns to Nigeria, and how black women choose to wear their hair is seen, by Ifemelu at least, as a statement. I really enjoyed this, not as much as Half of a Yellow Sun but it would take a lot to top that.

It's not remotely like HHhH but have you read Krakatoa by Simon Winchester? It's got a mountain in it !

I really enjoyed it. Pretty gripping account of the catastrophic volcanic explosion in 1883.

If anybody can recommend anything that is as good as HHhH, I would be v happy!

I have had such a slow week or two for reading that I have put aside Flight Behaviour for now as it's just not grabbing me and am now 20% into HHhH and reading it is all I want to do - so good to come on and see from your review meg that it continues that way.

southeast re: Behind the Scenes Thank you for that - I was only giving my thoughts on it, so I hope I didn't come across as didactic, because actually I think York as a museum is an equally valid idea to have taken from it, just not one I'd picked up myself. And even if Atkinson says it isn't directly her intention, it doesn't mean its not there ifyswim!

How many blood pages is it anyway? I can swear the % counter is stuck sometimes

Yes! If you're bored having given it that much attention, it doesn't deserve you any more.

I've only made it to 26% of Brief History Of Seven Killings. Argh. Should I give up?

Thanks, Meg. I am most definitely a 'Wolf Hall' hater - good story, badly told imvho.

Gaston Rebuffat - all his books but especially Starlight And Storm - not come across him, so will investigate
Lionel Terray - Conquistadors Of The Useless - have read most of this but got a bit tired of it and didn't quite finish it
Dee Brown - Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee - read and liked
Faber book of Reportage
Antony Beevor especially Stalingrad, Berlin and the one on the Spanish Civil War - read most of the first two but found them a bit exhausting - too much relentless bad news!
The Scramble for Africa - read
Roger Deakin - Waterlog - not come across this - will look
Anything by Iain Sinclair - not my bag
Peter Ackroyd - his history of Britain series - read most of Ackroyd's but I fell out with him after his ridiculous Frankenstein one

Remus you have read so many books that you've probably read everything I have and more! But here are my favourites in the history/non fiction line...

Gaston Rebuffat - all his books but especially Starlight And Storm
Lionel Terray - Conquistadors Of The Useless
Dee Brown - Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee
Faber book of Reportage
Antony Beevor especially Stalingrad, Berlin and the one on the Spanish Civil War
The Scramble for Africa
Roger Deakin - Waterlog
Anything by Iain Sinclair
Peter Ackroyd - his history of Britain series

I don't know if we have quite the same tastes in fiction,, apart from the Dark Tower, aren't you a Wolf Hall hater? [Grin] I also like rock memoirs and graphic novels...

Meg You and I definitely seem to have the same taste in books. I loved HHhH. What else have you loved that you think I might like and may not have come across?

DD1 sent me a book token for Mothers' Day and I've just bought this with it plus yet another book about the Titanic.

19. HHhH - Laurent Binet

I stayed up till 2am this morning to finish this book, which is high praise indeed as there's very little in life that can keep me awake past midnight. It is an utterly gripping account of the assassination plot to kill Reinhard Heydrich, the 'Butcher of Prague', in 1942; but it's also about the author's experiences in writing the book, and the responsibility history has to tell the stories of those who lost their lives. Highly recommended.

Finally finished a bunch of books. #10 a Scandi detective story, #11 non-fiction on marketing and social epidemics, and #12 a really good work-related book that I have slowly been reading over the past 1.5 years. And I read the opening chapter of Elena Ferrante's A Story of New Name and it was so good (wasn't compelled by the opening of the first book), and I've read about a third of it already.

Ooh - I love Jilly Cooper - Rivals is by far my favourite though!

1. On The Beach by Nevil Shute - I've never read any Shute before and have had this on my shelf for a couple of years, waiting for the right time to read it. I had a quick squiz through previous reviews and see that a lot of people are divided - I personally enjoyed it - I liked his writing style and, while I can certainly see why some people think that how his characters reacted to their post-apocalyptic fate is unbelievable, I found it touching and food for thought. I did sob a good bit of the way through.