50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Two

Daphne

I've got Bone Clocks to red after Anna Karenina, Really looking forward to it.

Remus - Sorry you didn't like Fallada - I found him avery moving and perceptive writer, but we are all different.

Remus - if you've not read it, Three Men on the Bummel was published in 1900 - and actually amongst the comic set pieces is actually quite interesting from the POV of seeing how British people viewed the Germans (if that makes sense). It's also hilarious, funnier than Three Men in a Boat I think.

(I particularly like the description of German language education vs British language education . . .depressingly, it would appear little has changed in 100yrs wrt their relative success in enabling the pupil to actually speak the language being taught.)

Thanks, Happy.
Sorry to hear that, WhiteWine.
Relieved to hear all the Muppet love. I can cope with Dickens hate, but Muppets hatred would be SERIOUS.
Songbird. Young Wether? Really? Didn't you spend the whole book wanting to punch him?
Anyway, I've finished:
4. Run Away Home - Antonia Forest
Another Marlow Family book. Forest's problem is that she's a bloody good children's author, but she always gets overlooked because she writes genre instead of litrachoor. This was on one hand a mad seafaring adventure novel about some children trying to reunite a boy with his father, and on the other hand a very well thought out book about family, and doing the right thing, and the line between bravery and foolishness ... Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Remus

Sorrows Of Young Werther

The Christopher Isherwoods

The Reader

HHhH

Night

nice to see all the Hamilton love upthread - I have tickets for April 2018 an no-one in real life to share my joy with.

5. The Muse - Jessie Burton Extensively reviewed so won't rehash the plot(s). I liked that this raced along at a pace. Preferred the 1960s story as I thought the 1930s one hung together far less well. Enjoyed overall though.

Next will either be Swing Time, or an Agatha Christie (the name escapes me) picked up from the library. I've not read any of her work before, but am a sucker for a detective novel, so see this as a serious omission!

WhiteWine Sorry to hear about your loss.

Every - don't mind the period, although ideally after 1900.

Great Expectations is one of the only Dickens I've ever finished, and then only because I had to. Old Curiosity Shop and Nicholas Nickleby are the others.

I feel like I've had a really slow start to this year's reading, but I'm just about to start book 4. That's quite fast by my standards

Favourites are in bold, ones to avoid in italics.

1. Slade House, David Mitchell Kind of David Mitchell lite, but as usual an interesting, interwoven collection of stories surrounding a house that doesn't exist, accessible only to a select few once every 9 years for sinister purposes. Much smaller in scale than Cloud Atlas and a spookier feel than usual, but a great read. The new voice of each character in each new chapter is done well, as usual for him. I read The Bone Clocks after this, so the appearance of one character meant very little to me. Had I read them the other way round, it would have had more of an impact.

2. The Secrets Between Us, Lousie Douglas. A woman on holiday, recovering from a traumatic loss and breakup, meets a mysterious man. Said mysterious man has lost his wife, but whether he's murdered her, or she's run away, nobody knows. After a quick shag at the top of a cliff, mysterious man invites sad woman to live with him and his son and the ghost of his wife too? (Or is it..) as their housekeeper. Possibly dead wife is the local rich and well loved woman, possibly suspicious husband is the the outsider. Intrigue and suspicion abound. Is mystery man a bad 'un, as most of the village suspect? Or is he just a heartbroken floppy haired softy? A pretty light holiday-ish read but there was lots to keep you wondering. You'll probably yell at the heroine to get her act together a lot though.

3. The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell Another amazing, interwoven-story heavy book. I finished it today, and I just feel empty, and like I'll never love another book in the same way. The story starts in 1984 with 15 year old Holly Sykes running away from home and ends 60 years later in a post-apocalyptic (and worryingly plausible) nightmare. Via good immortals, bad almost-immortals, love, heartbreak, illness, survival. I know a lot of people preferred Cloud Atlas, but this is far better to me. Possibly because of the protagonist, possibly because the connections are closer and stronger than in CA, possibly because the post-apocalyptic ending in this one felt much more immediate and sadly very plausible. Either way, DH found me clutching the book to my chest, rocking and muttering that it was going to be fine, the Chinese would save us all. Loved it.

Next up is The Dark Forest, Cixin Liu to follow on from The 3 Body Problem which I finished last year. Highly recommended here, so I have high hopes!

Dickens haters : have found him hit and miss. The one that is always held up as amazing is Great Expectations I think it's dull as fuck with an improbable twist. Not that gone on Tale Of either. Couldn't finish Nickleby didn't get far with Dorrit

LOVE LOVE LOVE :

David Copperfield
Bleak House
Hard Times

Flipping love the Muppet Christmas Carol and agree completely that it is worth Dickens existing just so I can see Michael Caine converse with a frog

Remus

WW2 or not world war 2?

1. A Song For Issy Bradley I have suffered a terrible family bereavement and not feeling much like reading picked this at random which turns out to be about a family dealing with an unexpected death, whoops!

Anyway, I kept going to the end. A Mormon family where the father is a Bishop and the mum who converted when she 'married' in. We hear from all the family members about their lives in general and dealing with the aftermath of the death. As the book progresses you learn more about the faith but it is all quite sympathetically dealt with. I found the ending a little underwhelming but the author can certainly write well. Apparently she was bought up as a Mormon.

I didn't get on v well with Hans F (have only read two). Not shit like Dickens - just found them a bit soulless.

Would love to hear of more novels set in Germany though, especially Berlin!

Agree that Etymologicon is brilliant!

Read it when it first came out (i like words, me ) and thoroughly enjoyed it.

if it wasn't for Dickens, we wouldn't have The Muppets Christmas Carol, and THEN where would we be?

A good point well made Muddler

"Dickens = shit."

That's the kind of high quality thoughtful reviewing you just don't get on other book sites ;)

This is why I'm proud to be a MumsNetter Waawo

Muddler

Glad you're enjoying All Quiet on the Western Front. If you want to read novels (good, well-written novels) set in Germany between the wars and during the war, try Hans Fallada - Little Man, What Now, Alone in Berlin (this one based on actual events) and and Who Once Eats Out Of The Tin Bowl. They are superb - there are a couple of others, too but I read them many years ago and can't remember the titles (I think one was Once We Had A Child, but not sure). He didn't write many books as he was an alcoholic and died comparatively young, but they are very, very good.

Dickens = shit. Read Wilkie Collins instead.

Totally shit Remus.

Wilkie Collins, Anthony Trollope, Mrs Gaskell, Mrs Oliphant - all FAR superior writers.

I read Hillbilly Elegy, didn't listen to it

I'm here to stick up for Dickens too you horrible lot. I blitzed his work in my late teens (admittedly when I prob had more time for ponderous literature) and a tale of two cities and nicholas nickleby are still two of my favs of all time

I just finished listening to
5. The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood. I hated the readers so I think that tainted the experience for me. Normally Atwood can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned but this was repetitive and laborious even though the subject matter was fascinating and well developed. I'm going to step away from audiobooks for a bit I think

6. Hillbilly Elegy brilliant memoir of a bloke who grew up very white working working class poor and eventually made it to Yale Law School. Very interesting in these times particularly to read about the plight of poor white people in the rust belt, and no holds barred about the violence he grew up in, the addictions and incarcerations but how difficult it is for this section of society to escape. He didn't go into politics at all, I wonder how different it would be if he were to right it now....

Just given up on Beloved by Toni Morrison.

Welcome back Joyless

4. The Atlantis Gene by A.G. Riddle

Thriller filled with secrets, mysteries about humanity's origins, double crossings, and numerous death defying escapes for our heroes, as they find themselves embroiled in a struggle to stop a secret organisation from unleashing catastrophe on the world. It's the first in a series of 3 books.
An entertaining read.

10. The Lewis Man by Peter May a crime thriller set on the Isle of Lewis where a well preserved body is found in a peat bog. They are initially presumed to be an ancient "bog body" like Lindow Man, until an Elvis tattoo is found on their arm and it becomes evident that a brutal murder took place in the last century,and that the perpetrator could still be alive. The novel follows a ex policeman, Fin, who has recently returned to the island, and his attempts to discover who the victim was and solve the vicious crime. An engaging page turner, I enjoyed this and read it very quickly. I seem to have jumped in on the second novel of a trilogy but felt it didn't make much difference.

I'm working my way through the old books on my kindle during night feeds (I'd purchased this one in 2012 apparently!) and intend reading The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin next on there.
I'm also about 100 pages into This Thing of Darkness on paper which is fantastic.

10 In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park

Finished this morning. Feel I need some time to recover - a shocking but heartbreaking and engaging description of a North Korean family and their bid to escape what is the most appalling life under a dictatorship. Don't want to say too much as someone upthread has it as a "to read". I'm glad I read it, and gave the book 5 stars, but doesn't feel right to say I "enjoyed"

Now have to choose between two classics that have escaped me but highly recommended on this thread (thank you!) A Town Like Alice or All Quiet on the Western Front.

Am in awe at how many books some of you are reading. Must prioritise an early night with a book over wine and crap TV that I'm not really watching anyway. Not least because I have a huge TBR pile from a recent library trip as recommended by people on here!

Gave up on The Power - Naomi Alderman I can see why people would enjoy this book but it just wasn't for me. Too bleak and not gripping enough to make me keep going back to it plus someone else has reserved it at the library so I couldn't renew it