50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Two

14. Slade House - David Mitchell

This is quite a short book so managed to read it in about 3 hours. Every 9 years a guest is invited to a house in Slade Alley and greeted by a stranger who appears to fulfil their wishes. However all is not what it seems.
There is a cross over with some of Mitchell's other books, especially The Bone Clocks but it does work as a stand alone novel. Enjoyable.

1 The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
2 Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
3 Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (audible)
4 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
5 Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
6 Still Life by Louise Penny (audible)
7 A Country Road, A Tree by Jo Baker

8 The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett. I feel like this is already a very well known book and I'm a latecomer. It's very short, a novella really. About the Queen discovering a love for reading and as a result developing a growing dissatisfaction with the demands of her role upon her time and attention. I did enjoy it but have to be honest, I found myself reading in autopilot mode and not focusing on the story or thinking about it too deeply at all.

I have started Nightwoods by Charles Frazier. He wrote Cold Mountain which I loved. Nightwoods is starting off very well so far.

Does anyone else find they get distracted from what they're reading by a pile of books waiting to be read? I certainly do - there's not enough time! I returned some to library today and borrowed Dark Matter by Blake Crouch to add to my pile. I heard it get a very good review on a podcast yesterday.

Not really loving Before the Fall by Noah Hawley on audible but I will definitely finish it - it's easy listening while walking the dog.

Apart from this thread and amazon recommendations, how do you all choose your next book?

Agree with lots of what Cheerful has to say. Having read Elizabeth Jane Howard's autobiography last year I can see how much of her own life she poured into those books. They feel very 'British Upper - Middle class' though and it does take a while to put that to one side. I found the way they start out as an idyllic portrait of between war life and then the underbelly is slowly revealed quite fascinating.

That's interesting tanaqui. I got so bored by the Cazalets I gave up after book one just found it all really dull. It is pretty universally loved though so hard to say why it didn't work for me. The writing itself perhaps, hadn't enough edge or wit to elevate it.

And I like that the underbelly is right up there, IYSWIM. You have something that starts out feeling like Malcolm Saville or Noel Streatfeild or something - children running around in the countryside building camps in woods and eating strawberries and cream and going on bike rides. And then you get further in and you discover housewives bored out of their minds, and lesbians not allowed to admit that they're anything but best friends, and small boys packed off to boarding school, and people going on about how great Mussolini is ...

Tanaqui. Hmm.

They have a great sense of place and time. And a wonderful sense of all those books I spent my childhood reading - picnics and games and everything being jolly ripping, which I love.

I also thought they really capture what it's like to be a teenager, and how awful it is a lot of the time.

She's also brilliant at character. I like how human they are, and I like how she approaches her morally compromised characters. I don't want to spoil the books, but lots of the adults are having affairs or wanting to have affairs. Antisemitism is rife. And at least one character (so far) is doing something generally considered unforgivable. And the book doesn't excuse any of it or shy away from the consequences - we see exactly why those are awful things to do, and what effects those actions have on the other characters (and the characters who do them). But more-or-less everyone remains human and almost no one is an out-an-out villain with no redeeming features. (Well, very few people are.)
Take Zoe. She's written up as about as shallow and selfish as you could imagine at the start of the first book. But you rather like her now.

There are definitely things I don't like about it. The working-class characters are mostly awful. I'm getting a bit annoyed with most of the women hating sex. Zoe's redemption arc is ... less feminist than I would have liked. And it's wartime - it would be nice if one woman at least could have a job she likes.

But generally I'm loving it.

5. Help by Oliver Burkeman. Another of Burkeman's books was recommended on last year's threads, but Overdrive only had this one! It's kind of a round up of all sorts of self help books and advice, quite funny and with lots of links if you want to read anything in more detail. I think you might get different things out of it depending on how you feel when you read it, but I liked "its better to be kind than to be right".

I enjoyed the Cazelets when I read them, but they get a lot of love that I didn't feel- I am not sure I rated them above any similar family saga/war time story- can anyone put their finger on what makes them special to them?

Whilst the spine is broken on my books by the time I have finished reading them I still look after them and would be really annoyed if I split something on them.

The Observations - Jane Harris - This book is set in 1860's Scotland and tells the story of Bessy an Irish girl who finds herself working in a rural country house where all is not as it seems. Bessy, as narrator has a quirky and amusing style which makes this an enjoyable read.

Cheerful I love the Cazlet books. Was thinking the other day that I might reread them !

Good to know, Highland too. I may have to read it anyway though. I felt just like that about the sequel to Catch 22, and then I read it and wished I hadn't bothered.

I love other people's dedications in books. I always try to write in books I give people. It's such a personal thing, a book present, isn't it? That intersection between a book that is a bit you and a book you think will be a bit them. It's like saying, here's the place we have in common. #isabitofatwataboutbookssorry

1. 'Death of Dustman'- M C Beaton

Yes kindle is great for reading everywhere. I have a lot of hair and used to detest drying it, now it's 20 mins more reading time, props up nicely against the mirror. I also read while prepping dinner, my knives are all blunt

I read while eating, cooking, brushing my teeth, waiting for nail polish to dry, etc. Kindle is great for all that as you don't have two hands to hold the book & change page. I don't read while cutting vegetables anymore, because I managed to slice into several fingers rather deeply and concluded that sharp knives and no eyes are not a good combination.

I read whilst eating too. Still feeling guilty over the accidental marmite fingerprint I left on a brand new library book. I wiped it up as best I could but the shame of it . And my new Christmas present copy of Alan Bennett's Keeping On Keeping On has a soup splash on one page. I feel so ashamed of my messiness. DH is horrified.

I'd always be very careful with someone else's book, as with anything borrowed. I once bought a replacement copy of a friend's book when I dropped her one in a puddle, despite it drying out tolerably well, but I don't mind how they come back if I lend them out as I wouldn't lend something that was special to me in any way. I also buy very battered copies from charity shops, and love it if they have written dedications. I might draw the line at someone using one as a jotter though, with your dh there, best

This is why I hate borrowing books. I'm a messy reader. I eat when I read, I read in the bath and my books always look battered. DH on the other hand has never forgiven my dad for writing a phone number on his copy of The Godfather when he had no paper to hand. Needless to say, I hate reading DH's books.

Welcome to the thread Cheerful

I love the Cazalets too, although family sagas aren't normally my favourite genre. EJH is a proper writer, though, and the characters are so interestingly and individually portrayed it just works for me. I also find the time period - the twenties up until and throughout WWII - makes for an interesting background to the family relationship stuff.

A word of warning though .. you might know that EJH wrote the first four books in the early nineties and followed them up almost twenty years later, just before she died, with All Change, the fifth volume in the series. It isn't anything like as good IMO as the others sadly. I had to read it but I almost wish I hadn't .. I wish she'd left well alone. Volumes three and four are great though!

12. Funny Girl - Nick Hornby Nostalgic look at the world of 1960's sitcoms. Really more about the writers than the young Northern girl of the title. Sweet enough but no real depth. Did remind me a bit of a drama documentary I watched about Dad's Army.

13. Mockingjay 2nd in The Hunger Games trilogy. Enjoyable enough really. I can see why teenagers love these books.

Am poorly today with some kind of winter virus so about to go back to bed with Slade House

It's funny isn't it, it would never occur to me to deliberately break the spine, but I always hold my books crooked open in one hand, never flat, just habit and they happen to come out untouched; I'm not trying to read especially "carefully". My dh is the same. I'm pretty sure I've still read them though whatever they look like!

Mine definitely do, but not through choice - it's just what happens when they get lugged about at the bottom of my handbag ...

Yes there. I think my books look 'lived in'.

I like my books to look like they've been read :) I tend to crack the spine as I read so I can open the book properly, and have the pages flat. DD is very careful with her books and never cracks the spine, so they always look pristine even when finished. DS takes after me - his books look well and truly read :o

1. Nation Terry Pratchett

1. The Power of Habit Charles Duhigg

Can I join in, please? I've only read nearly two books so far though:

1. The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard
2. Marking Time also Elizabeth Jane Howard

I am not sure what I do to mine. The spine gets broken though as I like the pages wide open. This looks like it hasn't been touched. She must read terribly gently