50 Book Challenge 2016 Part Seven

vanderly I love Middlemarch, bear with it for the first 100 pages!

Oh, and of my 116 books, 55 were by women. On the balance, I have preferred female authors this year, but it's close.

Hey lovely book peeps! Although I don't post as much as I'd like I still read every word and have enjoyed the thread so much this year. I have got so much out it in terms of recommendations and have loved the book reviews/discussions plus the friendly disagreements between Remus and Cote

These are my final books of the year - not quite finished the last but will have done by this evening.

110. Claxton: Field Notes from a Small Planet - Mark Cocker
It's nature writing, and it's good nature writing. A thumbs up from me.

111. 2 a.m at the Cat's Pajamas - Marie-Helene Bertino
Set over 24 hours around Christmas Eve in Philadelphia the novel centres on 9 year old Madeline, who longs to be a jazz singer after the death of her mother. Will she get her chance? A pleasant, light read but nothing special.

112. The Old Ways - Robert Macfarlane
Behold the King of nature writing. The best of the lot - academic but accessible. In this one he literally and metaphorically follows and explores the concept of paths and path making. Total quality but every time I read a book like this I think these men must have a long suffering partner at home to allow them to crack on with their 'nature-ing'...

113. The Country of the Pointed Firs - Sarah Orne Jewett
Coastal Maine in the summer of 1896 is described in much detail by the author during a sojourn there. Nothing much happens but it's an interesting description of an isolated coastal community.

114. The People in the Photo - Helene Gestern
An epistolary novel that starts with a simple photograph and ends with the uncovering of hidden secrets. I enjoyed this actually, although it's not always entirely plausible.

115. The Cellist of Sarajevo - Stephen Galloway
A short novel that explores in raw detail what it was like to live in Sarajevo under siege conditions - where every bridge crossing means facing a potential sniper and possible death. Gripping and sad.

116. Foe - J. M. Coetzee
A retelling of Robinson Crusoe but more a study of what makes a story and storytelling itself. Good, though strange.

Here's to more reading in 2017.

I think women wrote 33 or 34 of the 50 books I read. My top 5 are:

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Grief Is The Thing With Feathers by Max Porter
The Master by Colm Toibin

I'd like to up my essay reading this year; I already have Zadie Smith's and Siri Hustvedt's on the pile. Also, I'm going to read Middlemarch, probably a chapter or two a night.

47 male authors to 78 female (some novellas in that total).

4 non-fiction, which is a lot lower than the 25 I was aiming for.
Roald Dahl Going Solo
Atul Gawande The Checklist Manifesto
Henry Marsh Do No Harm
Benedict Carey How We Learn
(All male non-fiction, I did buy some books by female authors rec'd on this thread, so will prob go into 2017).

Probably last book of the year:
Genevieve Cogman The Burning Page
Third in the Invisible Library series - fantasy series much reviewed earlier in this thread. I enjoyed this - if you liked the earlier books this is much of the same.

Me please! Sounds right up dp's street.

And my last book of the year is.....

63. A book about ultramarathon running by Someone I Know

Sorry about the secrecy but I fear being outed big time if I write about it publicly on here..

I loved this book. It is a sincere and quite surprisingly emotional account of the author's journey from couch potato to doing double ultra marathons in several sleepless days & nights in the space of a few years. It is a cross between Born To Run and Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. It goes into great detail about what it is like to scale steep mountains in the dead of night in some of the most hostile trail ultras like Western States 100 (miles) and Ultra Trail Mont Blanc, and the human stories interspersed in the book are just beautiful.

I would be happy to share details of this book by PM with those of you interested in it (I'm looking at you, Tarahumara )

Book 132
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human cadavers by Mary Roach#A good book to end 2016 on, considering how many wonderful people have died this year (still sad about Alan Rickman). This is an informative, interesting and amusing, whilst not being irreverent, look at things that have been done, can be done or might ultimately be done, with dead people in the name of science and perhaps ultimately ecology. I enjoyed it immensely.

For my list, 32 out of a 132 were women, I think, based on a v quick tot-up.

53. A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy, Book 1) by Deborah Harkness.
54. Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, Book 2) by Deborah Harkness.
55. The Book of Life (All Souls Trilogy, Book 3) by Deborah Harkness.

My last books of 2016 is a re-read of the All Souls Trilogy. Vampires, witches, demons and humans in intrigue, battle and love. Fabulous escapism and has cheered me up!

Very happy reaching over 50 books this year with my non-fiction picks much more engaging than the fiction. I wonder what 2017 will bring.. 📚📚

I received three books for Christmas:

1. A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin.
2. Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter.
3. Tigana by Guy Gavriel Gay.

Out of the 55 books I have read this year 23 were written by women. Similar percentage to you two, Sadik and Tarahumara.

"how annoying that the author can clearly weave a complex plot together, but doesn't think his readers are worthy of a bit of research and fact checking."

My thoughts exactly, Museum. I hate that sort of thing. If you are writing about a foreign city in a foreign country, it's not enough that you have maybe been there once on holiday. The manuscript must be checked by a local for errors.

In my previous book Mongoliad #2, it really jarred to see a Mongol overhearing someone say she rather he and understanding the woman was there or some such. There is no he/she in Mongolian, just like in Turkish, and there never was.

In another book about a near-future Istanbul, one character refers to the robot as "he" and the other says "Isn't it interesting that we tend to talk about robots as male?". No such conversation is possible in the Turkish language! You literally would not be able to say these sentences.

Mine is almost exactly split 50/50 too which I also find very pleasing.

I have a few to update which I will do later but I suspect I haven't quite made the 100 I was hoping for this year.

Fair enough, Sadik. I would say mine is always weighted towards women, as it includes a few chick lit books and I read a bit of (mildly) feminist literature too.

Fair point, Tara - I reckon it wavered back and forth around the 50% mark through the year though (tend to have a run of one author) - and all the books I have lined up right now are by men.

Yeah, about that perfect balance thing. Your list Tara reminded me I have definitely read Wild by Cheryl Strayed this year, but have clearly forgotten to put it on my overall list. So I think I read 76 books with the women very slightly in the lead. Apologies for false gender balancing claims.

Cote interesting that you picked up all those errors in I Am Pilgrim but still thought it was a pretty good thriller. I know nothing about Turkey, but the wide range of subjects covered by the book included one I do know a lot about, and I noted errors of terminology, as well as the whole handling of the subject not ringing true. I decided to let it go, along with other improbable plot points, for the sake of entertainment. But how annoying that the author can clearly weave a complex plot together, but doesn't think his readers are worthy of a bit of research and fact checking.

I did not like the roles assigned to women of all races. I thought for the most part the attitudes to foreigners reflected the characters' attitudes, but I could not forgive the inclusion of the 'comedy foreign' character who spoke funny English. That he felt the need to include this sub-Enid-Blyton device to 'amuse' his readers suggests he doesn't think a lot of those readers.

Interesting Sadik - I wouldn't say that mine is an even split, but it's actually a similar percentage to yours. (Mine is 60/40, yours is 57/43.)

Mine were 64 by women out of 112, so roughly even.

Only 4 out of 62 books I've read this year were written by women. I'm about to finish another one, which will make it 4 out of 63.

2/4 were non-fiction that I enjoyed: The Epigenetics Revolution & The Year Of Living Danishly

2/4 were fiction, one of which was awful (Dauhter Of The Winds) and the other so-so (Ancillary Justice).

Mine was 33 women, 22 men.

35 out of 66 were written by men. Quite interesting because I would say my choices are quite random in that way.

muggle it's taken me a while with All the Light, but halfway through now. It's so stop start that you need to give a good chunk of time to otherwise I find I just don't pick it up.

museum I might go and look at my gender balance now

Have recently enjoyed His Bloody Project!

Other highlights if the year for me have been some of the psychological thrillers by Paula daly and Clare mackingtosh.

-nothing to envy
-the thread by Victoria hislop
-the secret history
-the goldfinch is my absolute favourite
-the little house by Philippa Gregory
-things we have in common by Tasha kavannah I raced through
-the snow child - would never have read if I hadn't seen it on here!
-every single Sabine currant book, particularly lie with me
-the lie tree
-the trouble with goats and sheep
-company of liars - would also never have read if I had t seen here
-rubbernecker- Belinda Bauer
-disclaimer
-hausfrau (loved this)
-the year of the runaways was my first book of the year and I enjoyed that

Next year I really want to read commonwealth, a place called winter and get into Sarah waters books. I own all the titles so no excuse! Also need to persevere with all the light we cannot see.

Thanks, Tara! I was determined.

Satsukiand Stokey, I'm really curious to know how you'll find Swing Time. The book isn't cheap here, either, but I was lucky that mine was 40% off in a bookstore promotion. I ended up paying roughly £12 for my copy.

And hello to all the new and returning posters!

I'd just like to say thanks as well -as a lurker on this thread. I've enjoyed several books as a result of recommendations on this thread and will endeavour to post more on the 2017 thread.
I've set myself an ambitious target of 75 for next year (provided Audible counts!- I always have one on the go on Audible and one on kindle (and fairly often a real book too!)

Hi all, I posted briefly back at the start of the year - I used to be a big reader years ago but had fallen out of the habit and wanted to get back to it. I didn't do brilliantly at the startof the year but did read a good few as the year went on, I don't have my list handy (it's on my work PC) but will post it next week if that's OK.
Most of the books I read are on the lighter end, I love crime and thrillers, but interested in trying other stuff too.
I just wanted to thank you all for the posts and discussions and recommendations, I've really enjoyed the threads and I promise I'll come out of lurker mode and post a bit next year!
I bought The Essex Serpent too so am interested to see whether I like it!

Welcome okkito and welcome back muggle