50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Two

Abecedario my car is very low tech so I just play audiobooks through the phone with the volume turned right up! I have the phone on the passenger seat. Works for me unless I have the heaters on full blast which can drown it out.

Just read almost the whole thread and have** bought

Cold comfort farm
The waves
Lolita
The abyss beyond dreams

Also added a heap to my price watch wish list. Thanks all

Thanks Grifone, googling now.

I love a good book so belatedly joining! Reading Another Life by Sara Macdonald. Not sure I'd recommend it as I'm 1/4 in and it's verrry descriptive but a nice story. I've loved things like The Rosie Project, I am Pilgrim, Never Let Me Go. Going to look at The Dark Net now!

Just seen that the reason Lolita is cheap on Kindle at moment is because it is part of the "Valentine's Day" sale. Um...

best I took against White Teeth because she mentioned a Jehovah's Witness wearing a cross.

Ridiculous Pedantry. What a time for a typo.

best that's exactly the kind of thing that would put me off a book too, though I am safe with horse chestnuts, having no clue about their relationship with Britain!
I will probably join you on the Bench of Ridiculousness Pedantry soon though.

Abecadario if you don't have bluetooth in your car you just need an FM transmitter to listen to your audiobooks. You just plug it in and it finds a free FM frequency through which the device can then be played. I would be lost without mine.

I took against Pillars of The Earth because it mentioned Horse Chestnuts centuries before they were introduced to the country. Petty, Moi?

I loved Pillars Of The Earth Diva now that's a propah book none of this Arlington Park pish.

Waves to mog

Oh dear Stitches! I might abandon it whilst I'm still only a few pages in, any more and I'll feel compelled to finish!

Welcome, sprog and mog

Thanks ladydepp. I was debating getting another bookcase the other day, sounds like I definitely should now

Welcome mogloveseggs, there's always space for another book lover!

Lots of different genres are popular on here so don't worry about that, but be warned that your pile of unread books may increase rather quickly after joining this thread!

6. The North Water

I enjoyed this and read it quickly. Set on a 19th century whaling voyage, it centres on the conflict between Sumner, the ship's surgeon seeking to escape a traumatic past, and Drax, a degenerate whaler who lives only in and for the present. There is a crime committed on board, and other plots afoot; it is a mystery but the question is not so much whodunnit, but rather, why does it matter? Sumner, flawed himself, and battered by his own conscience, struggles to hold on to the idea of morality in a sea of iniquity, and is pushed to the limits of his mental and physical endurance. This was a good read, darkly comic in places too, but also a violent, grotesquely detailed one, and my criticism would be that this was often just too much; not for reasons of squeamishness, but of style and credibility. There were several occasions towards the end where the descriptions were so excessively grisly that I laughed out loud, which, I don't believe, can have been the author's intention. There are only so many times you to need to read about the precise texture of excrement, for instance, or the exact scent of a man's nether regions. So, yes, I liked the themes and setting of the tale, and it was well written, with powerful imagery , but it could have done with a bit more subtlety and restraint in the telling, I thought. It was a case of over egging the pudding, but if the pudding was made of entrails, and in place of eggs...more entrails. It ended a little abruptly, as well, I'd have liked some more, but a minor quibble.

I am quarter way through the 3 Body Problem not completely sucked into the story yet, but it's ok so far.

Abecedario - I like most of the Georgette Heyer books I've read, they're among my favourite comfort reads.

But I thought Beauvallet was terrible. Nowhere near her usual standard IMO. I read it all the way through in the hope it would improve. It didn't.

Have you room for another? Have read one book this year so far and just started another but have many that I want to read. Quite into light and fluffy stuff though hope that's OK?

1. Trish Ashley twelve days of Christmas. Liked it, easy read to get me back into reading.

So every - did you like Arlington Park or not?

I am reading Pillars of the Earth. It's a tome! But am really enjoying it.

Also must reread The Hobbit. The film is on right now and is annoying me.

Arrgh, can't keep up with these threads! So far:

1. Kate Atkinson, A God in Ruins - enjoyed, but maybe not quite as much as Life after Life
2. Evgenia Ginzburg, Into the Whirlwind - one of the Persephone books, a true story about a woman sent to the Gulag in Soviet Russia. Interesting, but not nearly as good as A Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich (and much longer).
3. A Notable Woman. The Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt. This is a diary from 1925 to the 1980s, so one woman's view of the twentieth century. Some of her diaries from the 1940s were kept for Mass Observation, which was a kind of research project trying to find out about ordinary lives and how ordinary people thought and felt about things. The part from the Second World War and just before and after is the most interesting. She writes well, but there's quite a lot of her being depressed, usually over a man, and the editor has used this to turn her into a bit of a Bridget Jones character, which annoyed me. There are lots of interesting observations. I read it because I love diaries, but that's possibly the historian in me.
4. Noel Streatfeild, White Boots - read it out of curiosity as it was one of DD's Christmas presents. I had read it as a kid, but didn't remember much about it. Like a lot of her books, except with ice skates instead of ballet shoes. She's terrible with plots - things just suddenly happen, or tail off in ways that aren't very satisfying, but she does emotions well, and I like the way she writes about how it feels to be poor. There's a fantastically pushy aunt, who is also a real snob.

9 How to be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman

I found this a bit patchy. Some sections really worked for me - for example where the author talks about her own experiences of wearing Victorian clothing for extended periods. Other parts I found rather superficial. Overall TBH I felt I'd have got more from a re-read of say Mary Barton (free plot thrown in ) and MV Hughes' Victorian Family autobiographies. (Anyone who has an interest in this period and hasn't read the latter series, I'd thoroughly recommend them, she's a wonderful writer and it really brings to life what it was like to be a middle class girl at the time.)

Can I join in? A bit late, but so far this year I have read:

1. Under a Pole Star - Stef Penney
2. My Son's Not Rainman - John Wiilams
3. The Way Home - Rose Tremain
4. The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry.

1. A little life by Hanya Yanagihara

I loved this book. It's a long one. Can anything beat getting engrossed in a chunky novel in the winter? It's like a family saga but the family are four men. I was a bit muddled between them at first but then got drawn in. Loved the author's writing. She really made you care about the characters.

Think I'll try the Essex serpent next. I saw the author on a panel at greenbelt a couple of years ago and really enjoyed her contributions. I immediately bought her first book but haven't read it yet.

Ok doke south. Each one is about 100 pages.. which given I am going back to work tomorrow may just take as long as a whole book!

You've just reminded me about Rush-Oh was intrigued by that a while ago.