50 Book Challenge 2016 Part Five

Remus - I love that SK quote

I've swapped their names round Well, I knew who I meant.

Remus what about Between Extemes by John Keenan and Brian McCarthy? It's been many years since I read it, but I remember finding it moving due to the whole backstory of them having been incarcerated together, and dreaming of trekking through the Andes etc. Probably helps if you've read An Evil Cradling / Some Other Rainbow, but not compulsory.

Tenar I really enjoyed The Name of the Wind too. Great book.

Remus Tissues at the ready!

Cote Completely agree about the tone of it - it's very neutral, almost detached, which I like. There's no need to bang on about how everybody feels every five sentences. It detracts from the atmosphere of the story. "Show don't tell", and all that.

Well, I've had a peer at my shelves, and Lost Crops of the Incas is a really excellent read, Remus (and freely available to download as a pdf) but possibly not exactly what you're looking for

Thanks, Tumble. Have read quite a few of Theroux's, but I find him difficult to love, I'm afraid.

Thanks for the Peru rec. What I'm actually after, and failed to say, is probably early 20th century-ish. Not sure what I want really but will know it when I see it!

Only joking, Cote.

Remus, I enjoyed Inca-Kola (non fiction set in Peru). Also The Old Patagonian Express - I have a feeling I've already recommended Paul Theroux to you on these threads? It's a while since I've read either of them though.

"anyone whose heart strings aren't tugged by poor Captain F hasn't got a heart at all!"

Erm...

I loved the book, though. And felt bad for Capt F, but didn't need tissues tbh.

oh you lot are just making my "to read" list even more rediculous! My most recent ones are:

33. The Wine of the Angels - Phil Rickman - first of the Merrily Watkins series recommended by someone on here back at the start of the year. Written at the end of the 90s (so just as woman were first becoming vicars for CofE) a woman becomes the vicar for a small village surrounded by an old orchard. She suspects the vicarage to be haunted, there's a contraversal play about a 17th C vicar suspected of witchcraft who hung himself in said orchard to avoid his persecutors, her DD seems to be getting a bit Woo - then a local teenage girl goes missing. All a bit silly but very easy to read.

34. The End of the World Running Club - Adrian J Walker - an end of civilisation book! Asteroids hit the northern hemisphere. There is virtually no warning, our narrator, Ed, manages to get his wife and DCs in the cellar of their Edinburgh home just in time. Eventually they are rescued and taken to the local army barracks where they remain for a few months, while he's out with a group looking for food in what's left of Edinburgh, a rescue team arrive and airlift everyone except one solider to Cornwall where big boats have been sent by unspecified southern hemisphere countries who are going to evacuate the UK. The group left with 3 weeks to get to Cornwall before the ships leave, finding all the roads distroyed have few choices, so decide to run. Ed is not a hero, but a very ordinary man. Gets a bit odd when he seems to be losing his mind at one point, but generally well written.

Another book that makes me regret we didn't buy the house with the airraid shelter under the garage...

Agree that it is v close to non-fiction, but anyone whose heart strings aren't tugged by poor Captain F hasn't got a heart at all!

Any recommendations for books about either Vietnam or South America, anybody? Non-fiction, ideally, unless the fiction is absolutely, unreservedly, brilliant.

Monty - Enjoy This Thing Of Darkness which I called This Hand Of Darkness for the longest time. It is truly brilliant. I love it that the author has chosen a neutral "tone" and just let the (shockingly, all true) events speak for themselves. No whining, no heartstrings-tugging. No droning on about how hurt everyone is by every event. It's my kind of historical fiction - so close to non-fiction in every detail that it can almost be called non-fiction. The opposite of HHhH

I visit Mumsnet rarely too, Tanaqui. Have been thinking of leaving again (left last year but came back. Doesn't seem such a great place to be anymore, apart from the book threads :)). Will stay on to complete my 2016 list but then may just keep my list on Goodreads, using their annual reading challenge.

Thank goodness for that, Cote. I honestly thought I'd missed something profound somewhere.

tumble - I'm glad you liked Born To Run. Isn't it brilliant? An absolute must-read for anyone remotely interested in running, and surely a great adventure to read about for the rest of us, as well.

Remus - I didn't like that book at all, and I am (or was, about 10 years ago) a massive PKD fan. I think his best are DADOES ("Blade Runner"), A Scanner Darkly, Martian Time-Slip, and his books of short stories.

Book 92
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick
Oh dear. I’d been really looking forward to reading this, having loved ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’. The premise is really interesting – Germany & Japan won WW2 and much of the world is divided between these two powers. The book is either really, really stupid, or I am really, really stupid for not ‘getting’ it. It shifts between a few central characters, without ever really aligning the reader with any of them, and the ending is completely and utterly preposterous. This really didn’t work for me. If anybody else has read it and loved it, I’d love to know why.

42. Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. Recommended upthread by Cote and others, this is a non fiction book about ultra marathon running in general and, in particular, a tribe called the Tarahumara who live in a remote canyon in Mexico and excel at endurance running. What is their secret? I absolutely loved this! Funny, interesting, touching and inspirational. Fab.

I've given up mumsnet for a bit so am way behind but wanted to keep my booklist going, so apologies that haven't caught up on recs and comments!

44. ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgewick. Another Carnegie shortlist, my least favourite so far, although an interesting idea, the 4 component parts were all quite short and I didn't get properly absorbed- sad though and I think I will remember it.

45. Leviathan by Scott Westerfield I am late to the steampunk party but I did enjoy this!

book 25 Robyn Hobb the mad ship book 2 of the river Wild Traders Triology I love these books. The triology is based on the adventures of the Vestrict family and their live ship Vivica. If you like romantic fantasy you'll love Robyn Hobb

83 The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani. I saw this and picked it up following Tenar's review of the sequel above, and because the blurb on the cover reminded me a bit of Uprooted by Naomi Novik & I was interested to see how it differed.

Children's fantasy - Sophie is the prettiest girl in her village, Agatha the plain oddity. Every year 2 children are kidnapped and taken to the eponymous schools - Sophie expects to be taken to the school for good, Agatha just wants to stay home.

Nothing particularly unexpected, the ending was unsurprising, but very enjoyable and plenty of twists and turns on the way. Reminded me somewhat of Diana Wynne Jones (always a good thing!), and I can imagine it would go down very well with tweens/young teens.

Sorry, just placemarking! Shall update asap!

Welcome, newbies!

Monty - you're in for a treat. Buy tissues.

Book 91
Nazi Women by Cate Haste
In theory, this should have been great. It’s an examination of the role women played in Hitler’s life, and in the Nazi party, as well as how women were affected by the Nazis. Unfortunately, it verged on sensationalism in places, and on failure to stick to the topic in others. Some of it was potentially fascinating – how ‘society’ women embraced Hitler in his rise to power, and how young girls were caught up in the excitement of girls’ groups (the female equivalent of Hitler Youth) but it suffered from poor writing and, at times, rather lazy research too, I thought.

67. Fool Moon by Jim Butcher

Second book in the Dresden Files series about a wizard P.I. I didn't really get into it. It was about a case involving werewolves, and it just didn't interest me.

68. Runners by Ann Kelley

YA near future dystopia set in Cornwall. It's about a teenage boy and his five year old sister looking for safety in a world where drastic measures have been taken to limit population growth. Quite a good read, though I'm not sure about the underlining logic of it all.

69. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Probably the best book I've read so far this year. It's the story of the great wizard Kvothe's childhood and youth, with occasional "present day" interludes. Really well written and captivating. The only problem is that it is the first in a trilogy, and the story is clearly unfinished at the end of the book.

70. The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende

Irina starts work in a retirement home and becomes close to resident Alma, whose life story is recounted throughout the book. I really liked the episodes in the past, but Irina's story seemed a bit tagged on. Liked the ending though.

71. Daylighters by Rachel Caine

Last book in the Morganville Vampire series. I wouldn't recommend it.

72. After Me Comes the Flood by Sarah Perry

Loved the writing and the set up, but wish it had actually gone somewhere with it.

73. The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill

The first in the Simon Serrailler crime series. It draws you in, barely seeming like a crime novel at first, with strands of different people's lives that gradually come together.

74. The Rose Petal Beach by Dorothy Koomson

A woman's life begins to unravel when her husband is arrested. It's a sort of chick-litty thriller that piles on twist after twist. Not a great work of literature, but perfect if that's the kind of thing you want.

75. A World Without Princes by Soman Chainani

The sequel to The School for Good and Evil. Agatha and Sophie now have to deal with the consequences of the story they created for themselves. Quite good, I preferred it to TSfG&E.

76. Flip by Martyn Bedford.

14 year old Alex wakes to find himself in the body of a boy called Philip (or Flip for short). It's a well written and quite thought provoking YA novel that follows Alex as he tries to find out what has happened and find a way to live as Flip.

77. The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg

When the body of her childhood friend is found, writer Erica finds herself drawn into the investigation. Decent crime novel, though at times Erica's life resembles a chick lit novel, she even references Bridget Jones at one point, but the plot keeps you moving forward.

78 Blood Harvest by Sharon Bolton

Thriller about a family who have just moved into a village with some strange customs and who seem to be haunted by a little girl. Creepy and gripping.

Welcome new joiners! It's never too late.

85. Shakespeare in Swahililand, Edward Wilson-Lee
How Shakespeare has been adopted and adapted in East Africa (Kenya, where the author grew up, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Sudan). Explorers and missionaries carried the plays as proof of civilisation and a defence against the Dark Continent; Indian indentured labourers put on the plays for leisure; future African politicians translated it and used the language to argue their case for independence. This is not going to be for everybody, but it happens to hit a confluence of my interests, so I enjoyed it.