50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Two

I read that yesterday everysongbird it was really funny when he said it helped him put his problems into perspective - something like who cares what congress are doing, aliens have invaded! I'm reading it at the moment.

I wonder what Trump reads, other than Playboy and Twitter.

Cote

Have you seen were Barack Obama likes The 3 Body Problem?

That's company for you!

I still haven't read it and won't get near it til Easter.

Back to the likeable thing, which I related to the characters in The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I have been thinking a lot about why I have been struggling on more than one occasion to get to grips with this book. i have come to the conclusion that one trait I can't stand in people in real life is when they use their education or intelligence a way of sneering at and demeaning other people. The characters in this book all seemed to reek of this trait, with no one else there out to balance it out. I think I just found the whole thing distasteful.

I agree with the definition of "likeable" as "someone you want to spent time with". The narrator of John Lanchester's The Debt to Pleasure is not likeable in the sense you want him as a pal, but it's great fun to watch him in action.

The worst are books with a Mary-Sue and her fantasy boyfriend - Outlander series, I'm looking at you.

Just saw this on my FB newsfeed. Thought some of the SF fans here might be interested

radio 4

Excellent. Thank you. I am going to knock another one off my kindle list first though but have added one to my wish list

They are interconnected but with no reading order. Start with whatever you want, I read Bone Clocks first.

If I start on David Mitchell books should I go straight for The Cloud Atlas or try another one first? Are they a series?

And I like the sound of wallander books tormentil. Sounds right up my street.

Right. I have sat at my computer for several hours annoying everyone at work so now it is reading o'clock. What to start on now . . .

Thanks, I'll wish list it

I really liked The Rehearsal - it's weird but good. Centres around a sex scandal at a school. There's a lot of blurring between what is real and what is performance. Clever stuff especially for a debut novel.

Just finished No 6 - Cloud Atlas, and after a slow start it was EXCELLENT! And thank you Cote for your Cloud Atlas thread which I read after I had read the book, and which made much ion it clearer to me.

Have begun No7 - Closed Casket by Sophie Hannah (a Hercule point mystery). I red her first HP one (saucy!) - the mOnogram Murders - last year and rather enjoyed it. Sophie Hannah is quite a favourite of mine, I admit.

I am shocked Bestis - that only allows for 1 cuppa/day!

I can get through 360 teabags in a month- more if I have a biscuit with them (which could explain why I am grossly overweight and have beige teeth, now I come to think about it )

Books, the crucial missed out word!

I liked The Luminaries keith - is The Rehearsal good?

Very much enjoyed reading everyone's recent reviews. Been slow on my Hamilton biography but now have

5. Trust, Mike Bullen

This was on my TBR list on Goodreads so someone must have recommended it to me, or I read about it somewhere. It's by the writer of Cold Feet. It was awful. Pulled together many of those things we have been moaning about - boring people doing boring things in boring cities, pointless shagging etc.

I quite liked Cold Feet but this was the worst elements of it. Two male protagonists, one smug, unlikeable but has sexy wife and lots of sex. The other not doing well at work, worried, overweight, loveable, skint. Blah blah blah. Writing was awful. Gave up after a few chapters - life is too short.

5 Lucky Break, Esther Freud

Quite enjoyed this. It opens with a group of students on their first day at a prestigious, hideously pretentious drama school. I thought it would go the way of The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton and stay in this (entertaining) setting but after a couple of chapters we jumped forward two years, and then another year. Interesting people were introduced then dropped out of the story entirely. The book concentrated on three key characters and their lives over ten years or so after they leave Drama School. Freud can write, and her characters are wonderfully real. I did find it a bit disjointed and TBH was not hugely interested in the (not very original) tales of what it is like to be a jobbing actor. Not a huge amount happens but the characters and observation were enough to make it an entertaining read.

Still plodding through E is for Evidence as haven't had enough time this week but hoping to get through it today as am enjoying it so far.

As for the discussion up thread about 'likeable' characters i would have to say that for me i have to care about the character but not necessarily like them. There are some characters i disliked but yet still cared enough to want to know what happened next then there are some characters that i loathed and genuinely do not care what happens to them (looking at you Heathcliff and Cathy).

Vistaverde I felt the same about The Girl with the Dragon tattoo. Can i suggest you don't bother to read the 4th book in the series, its written by a different author and just didn't feel the same style.

1. One Step Behind, Henning Mankell I love the Wallander series - this is the seventh Wallander book. I've read it before - however, last year I started to read them all in sequence and this is how far I've got. I love the laconic, deadpan writing style and also that it's a big thick book that keeps me going for three or four days.

Finally finished 5. Four Dreamers and Emily, by Stevie Davies. I mentioned this upthread - it's a quirky little read which sees the four titular characters attending a Bronte conference and Haworth and having life-changing experiences of one kind or another. It takes a mildly satirical look at the industry (tourists, literary pilgrims, academics) surrounding certain writers. I didn't adore it, but I rather liked it.

Dribbling just felt lazy on Bryson's part. I like narratives about travelling around Britain, and I don't need them to be full of puppyish enthusiasm - splendidly dyspeptic is fine by me. But he couldn't even be bothered with that. It felt like he wrote a bit, sighed, checked his word count, then went back and shoved in another couple of lines and sighed again.

Poetic - I bought this a few days ago. It's my next read after I've finished Mad Girl by Briony Gordon and Dadland by Keggie Carew. I have fallen off the no book buying thread well and truly. Honestly there's no point in my struggling to curb my addiction :) DH justifies it by saying that he often reads what I buy too, so that halves the cost of the book. I'm happy with that thinking :o

Dadland will appeal to anyone who has an interest in SOE operatives in WW 2. Keggie Carew's father was a member of the Jedburghs, operating firstly in France and subsequently in Burma. It is interesting but I'm finding the in depth accounts of action in Burma very hard to follow (audio book) though. At the time of writing, her father was 87 and suffering from dementia so she has pieced the book together from his own accounts recorded and written many years before, together with what accounts there are held by the Imperial War Museum etc.

Wow this thread is moving at some pace.

4. A Calculated Life – Anne Charnock. The setting for this book is Manchester in the 21st century where many individuals have been genetically engineered resulting in society where there are fewer addictions and incidents of crime. Through the main character Jayna, the concept of what it really means to be human and what is normal are explore. I liked this.

5. 1984 – George Orwell. I picked it up on an audible daily deal a few months back and was eager to reread it given recent political upheavals. I found it unsettling this time round and quite depressing. Not much difference between ‘newspeak’ and ‘post-truth’ really.

6. Angel – L.J. Ross. I read the first three books in this series towards the end of 2016 and have realised that I quite like police procedural books so when this popped up in a kindle deal I snapped it up. In this one, bodies of a few murdered women have been found in open graves in graveyards around Newcastle over the Easter weekend. All victims have red hair and are laid out to look like an angel. Nice and pacy with a cliffhanger that has been looking forward to the next in the series.

I am still working my way through Bryson's Made in America which is plodding along but not engaging me as much as I had expected and am about half way through Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay which is wonderful so far but a bit of a slow read.

Poetic this is on my to buy list!

1. Everything I never told you by Celeste Ng. Someone lent me this book and I read it in just over a day. Found it extremely sad. Now that I have kids I find myself reacting to books about family relationships in a much more emotional way.

1. So a friend lent me this and I read it into the small hours as I couldn't put it down. Told in simple, straightforward almost conversational language, it is nonetheless a compelling story. I kept thinking 'it can't be true' but remembered Rotherham and the 'grooming' of disadvantaged, vulnerable white girls by Asian gangs....and thought 'I bet it is 120% true'. I could barely read some chapters detailing the abuse so a warning in advance.

So many interesting discussions. I was getting On The Beach mixed up with On Chessil Beach - another over-hyped, ridiculous book. I think Nevil Shute has garnered mass popularity by being one of the first Australian writers. I tried a couple of them many years ago but could never get into them.

I don't need characters to be likeable but I do like them to be believable and learn something. The narrator in Swing Time annoyed me becasue she didn't seem to develop or learn from her mistakes. I wanted to shake the narrator of The Goldfinch too but still enjoyed the book. I loved The Secret History at the time but was kind of living that world - university student studying classics, but hopefully was a bit nicer than her characters.

1. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie. I think I'm right in saying this was the book that really made her famous. It's a classic Poirot novel of the 1920s, think you'd either love it or hate it.

Cold seems to be improving so am going back to "real" books now.

2. When Breath Become Air - Paul Kalanithi

Raced through this book in a day and finished it a weeping snotty mess. It is a beautifully written look at the author's journey dealing with terminal lung cancer. It is not a spoiler to reveal that Paul died before he could complete the book (this is revealed in the foreword), and it is concluded by his wife.

From his life as a resident neurosurgeon to the day his chemotherapy fails, Paul maintains an authenticity that is breathtaking. Similar to what was said upthread.....what decisions would you make if all decisions were irrelevant? How would you live your life.

The prose is magnificent. He talks of "the monolithic uncertainty of his future" and anthropomorphises his cancer as a crab that has its claws in him.

Read it. You will not regret it.
Unless you are in a vulnerable position at the moment. Leave it for another day, in that case.

1. Sidney Chambers and the Forgiveness of Sins by James Runcie This was OK. Sidney Chambers is a vicar in Grantchester who also has time to solve mysteries on the side. I like a good mystery story so this should have been right up my street. First, though, some of the mysteries weren't really mysteries or were so obvious that there was no tension in finding out what happened. Secondly, I thought there were some anachronistic attitudes - things I'm not convinced that many people thought in the early 1960s - particularly around domestic violence. Thirdly, some of the characters weren't that well drawn or were a bit of a cliche - here's the policeman, here's the pushy local reporter, etc, etc. This book was a gift and it turns out it's a long way through a series so maybe the earlier ones are better on the mysteries side of it.

4 The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan Another mystery story. Inspector Chopra retires from the Indian police force and inherits a baby elephant from his uncle. He decides to investigate a possible murder when the police won't do anything about it. Enjoyed this one, it was a good relatively easy read and kept me reading to get to the end.

Talking of dystopian futures The Last Policeman by Ben H Winters is a good imagining of what might happen if you know that the world is ending in 6 months time.

Just finished number 2 The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo. This is not the sort of thing that I usually read but I loved it. Whilst almost unbearably grim in parts it had me hooked all the way through. Looking forward to reading the 2nd and 3rd books in trilogy but I think I need to give something a bit more uplifting a go first I think.

I have now started How to Be Both by Ali Smith and am listening to The Observations by Jane Harris for my book club. I tried reading it but couldn't get in to it so thought I would give the audio book a try.