50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Two

Just seen it's in present tense, so it's not looking too good.

Finished 6. Toast - the story of a boy' hunger by Nigel Slater. Enjoyed it more as it went on and as Nigel gets older. I think I'd have enjoyed the book a whole lot more in print, was using audible credits up but audiobooks not really for me I don't think, unless maybe I can figure out a way to get my phone to play them in the car as they might be good for the 45 min drive to work.

Started 7. Beauvallet by Georgette Heyer. One of the few of hers I've not read - using for the reading challenge mentioned in the original thread for the prompt of 'a book with a title that is a character's name'. From the first few pages not sure I'm going to love it to be honest, it's reading like bad mills and boon, but I'll persevere for a bit.

Spinning What's the whaling one?

I'll order the free sample of Country Road and see how I get on. Longbourn had me spitting feathers.

Finished book no 2 of the year, Exposure by Helen Dunmore. Post WW2 spy story about ordinary people getting accidentally involved in things that don't concern them and regretting it heartily.
By God it took me ages to get into this, and it felt rather plodding at times, but the second half was excellent as she cleverly built the tension up over time. I finished the last third very quickly as I was desperate to find out what happened. I really liked the sense of period and the little touches which bought it to life very evocatively. Helen Dunmore is a good storyteller and this has made me want to read more by her.

Thanks satsuki, I'll keep an eye out for your review. I also have Rush Oh! waiting to be read- it's a recent release and something to do with the whaling industry in the early 1900s, but I'll hold off on that one for now.
Remus - A country road, a tree was nothing like longbourn if that changes your mind at all. It is not a plot driven book though, which is surprising given the premise.

boldly in response to your request upthread for recommendations of the classics, my favourite modern classic is The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene. I'm also a Virginia Woolf fan - I loved The Waves in particular.

1. His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet, about a triple murder in a remote Scottish setting. Already reviewed by many of you upthread. I really enjoyed this.

I read North Water a couple of days ago spinning I'll try and review tonight if it helps you

Just got really excited by Samuel B, and then realised who Jo Baker is. I absolutely detested Longbourn.

every that review was a thing of beauty!! It is so long ago since I read it that I had forgotten specifics of why I hated it so much. You have reminded me beautifully. The comparison to the worst thread on MN is perfect.

How do we stand on novellas? I have two on my kindle - Turtle Boy and Sherlock Holmes. I shall count each of them as half a book

1. Arlington Park by Rachel Cusk

What an utter pile of gash, of the who thought that this was :

a) a book that needed to be written
b) a book that would be identified with
c) a book that ought to be published

Is lost on me.

A horrendous superior group of harpies, and snobs, who are utterly unself aware make disgusting remarks and are bitter of things and make points that ought to be feminist but come off as absurd instead.

"She would never have to go to a butcher if she wasn't married"

What?!

There is some dreadful classism, some lovely (and I mean that witheringly) and repeated, othering of people with disability, some massively unsubtle allusion to Madeleine McCann

There is some decent remarking about positive language for men vs negative language for women when describing the same thing eg forthright vs strident, passionate vs evangelical

The oft repeated references to the weather are i think meant to give it a literary air and the beginning is a bit like a copy of Bleak House but with rain not fog and annoying not eloquent.

It gives the effect of I KNOW IT'S FUCKING RAINING STOP FUCKING TELLING ME

I got to the point were I just kept writing Fuck Off on my copy.

"Dinky Smith said" - OH FUCK OFF??? DINKY SMITH??????!!

Wanky book about wankers for wankers tbh. If there was a book called "An Anthology of the Worst Threads On Mumsnet in novelised form" this is it.

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. This is a novel based on Samuel Beckett's time in France during WWII and his effort with the Resistance. He spent a significant portion of the war in hiding, in small villages on the outskirts of Paris, with his longterm partner Suzanne. I really enjoyed this book, probably more than I expected to. It is a slow moving book but the prose is simples and clear and it kept me hooked. Jo Baker also wrote Longbourn.

I'm listening to Before the Fall by Noah Hawley. It's fine, only about an hour in to it.

I need to step away from WWII now for a little while. What next? I have The North Water by Ian McGuire, Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier, and Nightwoods by Charles Frazier on the bedside table. Can't decide.

1. 'A Highland Christmas' MC Beaton

Finished book number one (hangs head in shame ) The Year Of Living Danishly - would rate this 2/5, picked up some quite interesting info about the Danes and Denmark, particularly as there is a Danish connection in my extended family, but overall I found it too formulaic and repetitive to hold my interest. The layout of a month per chapter covering one or other aspect of Danish life that 'just happened' to come to the fore that month and the constant relating everything back to an arbitrary happiness spectrum with the help of some or other expert was repetitive and a little twee. Does the author really expect us to believe that she stumbled across, for example, an adults only swimming night which involved heavy petting in the pool rather than seeking this out as part of her research or that she made up her mind whether or not to stay for a second year in Denmark on what sounds like a year to the day from arriving. Obviously plans for either leaving or remaining have to be put in place months before D day arrives.
It wasn't terrible but I wouldn't recommend it either. On to book number two The Complete David Bowie by Nicholas Pegg. A very long book I downloaded having found myself coming over all maudlin, yet again, when the anniversary of David Bowie's death, and what would have been his 70th birthday, rolled around. This isn't a biography and my intention was to dip in and out of its encyclopaedic style pages but with insights into his life, recordings, collaborators, lyrics etc I've found myself reading it cover to cover (and it was a welcome relief from YOL Danishly) I'm already 10% of the way through its bulk, but I may need to start a non fiction book for balance and light relief.

1. His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet. I liked the format and the unreliable narrator element. I felt it was still unclear at the end, and wondered if I had missed something. Will look for threads on here. Grimness of the Highland life at that time will stay with me.

Not sure what is next.

Satsuki

WOW!!!

Talk about "you couldn't make it up" and "Truth stranger than fiction" etc

Nutshell Ian McEwan.

I enjoyed this when I read it, too LadyMcM, but found the ending a disappointment.

Ladymcnet I loved the Miniaturist and also The Muse by the same author. Read nutshell really quickly too but wasn't blown away by it. Find McEwan a bit unpredictable. Really loved Atonement and Enduring Love ( which was an A level set text) but have struggled with others Chesil Beach for example.

Here you go HappyFlappy Gervase Fen

Not just us!

1. Nutshell Ian McEwan. I'm sure this book will soon be a set text on Eng Lit A level courses! I'm surprised that it was such a page turner, I thought I might need longer than the weekend to read it. It's a funny, "literary" crime story with a foetus (Hamlet) as the central narrator. My next read is The Miniaturist, which has been on my to-read bookshelf for over 2 years. I'd love to finish it before the end of January as this will place me well above target to read 20 books this year. Time may not be on my side though, rather like the protagonists in Nutshell!

1. The Sanctuary Seeker by Bernard Knight

Set in the reign of Richard the Lion Heart, Sir John de Wolfe is the first and newly appointed coroner to the county of Devon, where he finds his attempts to find the killer of a member of a prominent Norman family recently returned from the Crusades being hampered by his own brother-in-law, the sheriff of the county. It's only an averagely well-told tale, but it is interesting for the detail of how the law was practised at the time, and for the attitudes of the Normans to the Anglo-Saxon population.

It's a weird coincidence isn't it

It is Cote - and it's not as though he's called John Smith or something common popular.

Only so long I can go without the feel (and smell ) of a book . Anyone else or just me...?

Not just you RCM . . .

. . . not just you . . .

I looked at the cover and the title and declared it pish

Your literary instinct was spot-on, Crisps.

Re-gift it to the recycling bin now.

Gervaise Phinn wrote the little village school series. Which I only know anything about as my MIL presented me with a copy for my Birthday last year. I am ashamed to say that I looked at the cover and the title and declared it pish. Not very open minded.

I finished number 5 last night.

5. Dead Simple (Roy Grace Series) by Peter James
This is the first of Peter James's Roy Grace series of police procedurals set in Brighton. It opens with a stag do taking a horrifying turn and was a real page turner. It wasn't high literature but I enjoyed it and it didn't have that irritating last chapter of character exposition explaining all the complex twists and turns no one would work out otherwise. It was exciting and interesting without being overly complex. It has certainly encouraged me to try others in the series.

I was interested to read it actually as I saw Peter James and Ian rankin participate in a debate a few years ago. The topic of debate was supposed to be "should crime novels be classed as literature and be considered for literary prizes". It was a shite debate in that the two crime writers who, I think, were supposed to be arguing their case to be considered for the Booker prize were very clear that they did not want to be considered and were happy as things were. There was some cursory discussion of Ian McEwan but generally it was a slightly embarrassing chat.

Peter James played the game a bit more whereas Ian Rankin came over as a bit irritated.