50 Book Challenge 2016 Part Five

Remus - If you haven't read K2: Life and Death on the World's most dangerous Mountain then it might fulfil your death and disaster requirement, here's the blurb "A thrilling chronicle of the tragedy-ridden history of climbing K2, the world's most difficult and unpredictable mountain..."

"tragedy-ridden history" sounds like just what you want

Musical namedropping, then?

I don't think it plays a serious part cote, it's mentioned as music characters are listening to. Maybe it has a deeper meaning but I am not familiar enough to say. Janecek's(?) Sinfonietta is mentioned more often I think and may be more significant for an understanding of the characters.

Here is a link to a blog about it. And here is part 2 .

I think there are playlists on Spotify mapping the music too. It's an angle I would be interested in must do something about that

ChillieJeanie That's a good idea. I had to read it in Old English for university, but there's an excellent glossed edition (editor is Michael Alexander) from Penguin Classics. George Jack has also done quite a famous edition but I think that's only glossed as well. Frederick Rebsamen's translation is meant to be good too, if you want more versions to compare!

18. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - JK Rowling Another re-read which i finished a few days ago but didn't have time to update. Enjoying the series again but had forgotten how dark the chamber of secrets was for parts of it.

Have a trial of Kindle unlimited so using it to reread the series as the books are in my parents loft (i should deal with this).

Sadik - yes I think the first half of Just Vegetating is more interesting than the second half. Although the final part which is about their move to Ireland and the challenges of starting up a new garden was good. I dipped in and out of it while reading other things rather than trying to read the whole book in one go.

wilting - Ooh, really? How big a part does Rameau's music play in 1Q84?

57. Ghosts of Karnak by George Mann

The Ghost is a vigilante in George Mann's Steampunk vision of New York. He is also Gabriel, a playboy type living a dissolute life in a never-ending party. Following the events of Ghosts 0f War, Gabriel's friend and lover Ginny Gray took herself off to Egypt for a while and ended up visiting the site of a recently discovered tomb of Sekhmet. Its contents are to be shipped to New York for an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and by coincidence the relics are travelling on the same ship Ginny is due to be on. But when Gabriel meets the ship, she is not on it. Meanwhile, the body of a woman has been found on the streets of New York with ancient Egyptian symbols carved into her flesh, a ghostly figure is seen floating above the city's roofs, and local crime lord The Reaper appears to be ramping up his bid for control.

Rameau? Is that the guy whose music is referred to in 1q84? I always meant to look it up but of course didn't

GrendelsMother23, have you read Tolkien's version of Beowulf? I wonder if that might be the best of both worlds - authentic translation and someone who can write literature as well.

I am reading a dreadful spy book that was a Kindle daily deal the other day. At 38% through, I feel as I might as well carry on now, but I am really not enjoying it. Having got anything else and need to wait for pay day before I can buy anything for over 99p or so!

40. Dissolution - C.J. Sansom. Already well reviewed on here, first Shardlake book. Must admit I was a reluctant reader having had more than one previous failed attempt. I struggled to get into it but glad I did and eventually ended up enjoying it. Will probably read another.

Grendel - I am wondering if I should not attempt to read Rameau's book on the Kindle, in case there are diagrams, music scores, etc which will only be readable on a print copy. Especially since the Kindle copy is as expensive as the actual book.

I'm actually giddy about that book now. It's the guy who wrote after all, and where you can actually hear the birds calling to each other on the piano so I'm really interested to see what he has to say about harmony and order in music.

I started playing Rameau, too, and managed fairly quickly today, but it is one of his easier pieces

Tanaqui - I'm not in the UK, sadly, so have to actually buy the books I want to read

Cedar03 - Joy Larkcom is a real hero of mine, and I love her gardening books, but I only got about half way through Just Vegetating. I really enjoyed the sections about the Grand Vegetable Tour, but the second half seemed to be mostly reprints of articles, with not that much new inbetween.

Cote, that's incredible. You have to get it and tell us all about it. Maybe take a picture of any diagrams or figures

A book about Baroque music that has mathematical formulas! I would have to save and buy it even if it were 100 quid I'll give it a few days to drop in price until I finish my current book.

Poor Cote! Can you use the library app (overdrive)? (Sorry if you are not in the UK!)

I know that you've all been waiting with bated breath to find out what happens with my quest to find a Rameau book so thought I'd tell you that I found Rameau has written a book. It's about harmony in music. AND it has mathematical formulas I have to read it now but it's £14.20 on the Kindle

Quartet in Autumn is a lot better, at least in my opinion.

bibliomania the Barbara Pym was funny in parts. But also strange. I think a lot of it seemed very inconsequential. I've got Quartet in Autumn lined up to read next.

34. The Ice Twins by SK Tremayne creepier than I expected from the cover, but slightly marred for me by a lack of differentiation between the two narrative voices- although that did allow a bit of suspense in the last chapter. Also found the letter from the doctor (trying to avoid spoilers!) a bit unbelievable. A page turner though.

I've been reading quite a few books simultaneously, so have finished a few at the same time.

57. Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
Next title in this urban fantasy series, and it's the turn of ghosts and vampire instead of werewolves. The books are a bit one note - supernatural battles all the way, oh no, how can he possibly escape, but oh look, he has! That said, I enjoyed the fact that our hero fought the climactic battle in this volume while clad only in boxer shorts with little duckies on them.

Cedar, I'm a big Barbara Pym fan, but I've never got on with A Glass of Blessings. I just can't connect with it all, for some reason.

Wilting Enchanted April is definitely the lightest of her books, in terms of the relationships between husbands and wives.

I seem to read a lot but don't get around to updating on here. Anyway, this what I've been reading recently:

29. The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell this has been reviewed a lot on here so I won't say much. I really enjoyed this one, although I did feel that the last section of the book almost felt like a different novel. And I wasn't convinced by the final rescue.

30. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields the story of Daisy Stone's live during the 20th Century. Enjoyable.

31. Beloved by Toni Morrison Set in the post Civil War north USA it tells the story of Sethe and Paul D - freed slaves - and her family, and Beloved her dead child. Well written, magical realism.

32. Just Vegetating by Joy Larkcom a collection of her writings on growing vegetables and the different ways this is done around the world. Was a good book for dipping into.

33. Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel Again, I know this has been reviewed several times on the thread. I enjoyed it overall. Although I do have questions about how and what happened to all the bodies when everyone died off at the start. And how things like toilets apparently went on working even though everyone was dead so couldn't man the pumping stations and sewage plants. And also what did the travelling players do for food, etc. But it was a good read if I didn't think about those things too much.

34. A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym Wilmet is a young married woman, bored with not much to do. She tries to become more involved with the local church, volunteering and also with her best friend's brother. Very similar set of characters to some of her other books. Not my favourite but for a book written in the 1950s surprisingly modern in its attitudes towards gay men.

35 The Two Pound Tram by William Newton this is a slight book with a fantasy about two teenage boys who leave home and go and buy a tram for two pounds. There's not much depth to any of the characters but it was a fun read.

AG Riddle's The Atlantis Gene is 99p today. It's one of three, typical sci fi tbh, with a bio/medical twist, cannot speak for the plausibility of the science, but it was good enough for me! I really enjoyed it. If you like this kind of thing, it's definitely worth 99p...