50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Two

1. The Autumn Queen - Elizabeth Chadwick

I loved Secret Life of Bees and it is on my TBRA list. I have bought someone else's Skin on audible daily deal, do I not bother?!

3. Repressed -Elisabeth Naughten - another don't bother. Annoyed with myself for even starting this and I don't know why I did.

4. Our Endless Numbered Days- Claire Fuller - Now this is more like it! I go this on the Audible Daily Deal and it was one of those books that I was always desperate to listen to. The narration was perfect and what made it for me, the plot was fascinating and believable and the story-telling beautiful. I didn't guess what happened at the end as the story was told so well I never felt the need to question it! But it all made perfect sense. A beautiful book.

Still reading The Sister, it's alright.

I now feel vindicated at abandoning NW and am thinking of knocking the Secret Life of Bees off my TBR shelf.
I used to love Maeve Binchy when I was 20ish. Along with Edna O'Brien. In fact the Edna O'Brien books have remained on my bookshelves after many a ruthless cull. It was so long ago I can't remember much about them and I don't re-read but feel a nostalgic affection for them.
In the spirit of Irish writing my book club did Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell last year. Much less fluffy than Binchy and I plan to read more of her books.

Tara

Oh I know she's not Binchy league at all, she's in the other category. Literary contemporary. But I went and looked at what I wrote at the time and it was basically "oh dear God woman, get a life, you first world probs bore"

I'd agree with Keith on Ian McEwen, also Julian Barnes, Martin Amis - although haven't read anything by him since chucking Money across the room a good few years back. And from the States, you could argue Philip Roth, Dave Eggers, Jonathan Franzen, definitely Douglas Copeland all write about everyday life to some extent.

Wilting I loved Peter Hamilton's Night Dawn Trilogy but haven't read any of the Commonwealth stuff I don't think. He's one of those writers whose books rarely come down on Kindle.

LadyDep you might prefer another book by Sue Monk Kidd called The Invention of Wings (inspired by the historical character Sarah Grimké - fought for the abolition of slavery in US). I read it recently and thought it was a good read, much better than the bees book. I didn't even know who Sarah Grimké was before reading it so was inspired to read up about her after finishing the book.

And she certainly doesn't write about contemporary women and their mundane lives. For example, Cold Earth is set on an archeological dig and Bodies of Light is set in the 19th century about a girl training to be one of the first female doctors.

Sorry will get over my Sarah Moss rant now!

Best

I've read the book you linked to - I loved Night Waking so much a couple of years ago that I've been looking out for her books ever since. I really enjoyed Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland and Bodies of Light but wasn't such a fan of Cold Earth (unsatisfying ending).

Her books are all quite different from each other but with a definite feminist flavour.

Honestly Songbird, you may not have enjoyed Night Waking but IMO Sarah Moss is in a completely different league to Keyes/Binchy etc. Try another of hers and see what you think!

1. Someone Else's Skin by Sarah Hilary

Just. Don't.

The Dark Net next. I'm afraid all my lofty reading is still waiting for my brain to reemerge from mush.

Just finished book 2 The Road Home by Rose Tremain. Now o to God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson. So far I prefer God in ruins

Hi everyone! I'm in my 6th book (I think- could be more) this year. I can't remember all the titles and most if not all have been borrowed from Kindle Unlimited. I can't check on my phone for the titles as it's a bit knackered from water damage and won't let me press the right tab. I'll have to do it tomorrow when I get my laptop out.
I've not RTFT but just wanted to drop in and say I was here.
About to start another KU called "Don't look at me in that tone of voice" by Alex Cotton.

@cote

If This is a Man - such an amazing book, harrowing and inspiring.

NW - I hated it so much, i can't believe I actually finished it. I hated every character and every plot line. My book club agreed. I thought On Beauty was ok but a bit pretentious. There's not much warmth or joy in Zadie's books for me, and I need a little of those to keep me interested.

Just finished book 2 The Road Home by Rose Tremain. Now o to God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson. So far I prefer God in ruins

Thank you all so much for the feedback re: Secret Life of Bees. From the descriptions given I think it's the kind of book I would have loved when I was a twentysomething but now it just is not floating my boat. I don't stop early with many books but this one definitely needs to be retired!

In a slightly different genre , the other audiobook I have to listen to is Catastrope 1914: Europe Goes to War by Max Hastings. This should take most of 2017 to finish . I'm enjoying it so far but it's very early days.

" Handel cost a bundle on the Kindle "

Now you're just teasing me

I've read Names for the Sea, Best. I thought I'd love it (good author / Iceland fascinating), and even bought it new - but here's my review:

"I was disappointed with this, it started well, but I felt that overall it was very superficial, with too much 'look at the funny way Icelandic people do things' without any exploration of why things might be that way. I also felt that the author didn't appear to have a very broad perspective on British life outside a south eastern middle class academic bubble; plenty of the things she sees as foreign didn't seem that surprising at all to me."

I've slowed down, due to inescapable and tedious real life crap, even if this thread hasn't.

1. Where the Bodies are Buried by Chris Brookmyre First Jasmine Sharp novel, the series having already been mentioned by crisps et al upthread. This was fun, once I'd broken through the Glasgow hard man bit at the beginning. I know, it is about Glasgow hard men, but he always seems to open on some shocking / violent scene. This featured likeable female characters, witty but believable dialogue, good plotting, and a punchline I really didn't see coming. Thank goodness I loved this because I always want to like him, but the last one I read of his was drivel (A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil - to be avoided unless you want to read a tedious account of Scottish schooling in the 1970s - I think he was going for the nostalgia factor in his target audience and hit the insomnia cure instead).

Keith - John Updike & Arthur Miller were a while ago, though. Can you think of any contemporary author writing bestsellers about boring men's boring everyday lives in boring cities? I can't.

Fair point. I think that someone like Zadie Smith could fairly be compared to Ian McEwan, for example - books domestic in scope but where unusual things happen, and where the lives and characters are portrayed so as to transcend their everyday settings.

There are a lot more boring domestic books about women these days than there are about men. Men like reading books about the SAS and retired intelligence agents who have to go undercover in the Middle East and all that stuff. Women, apparently, like books with shoes on the cover about scatty mums embarrassing themselves in front of hot men in the school playground.

Just started book 5 - "Cloud Atlas". Taking a bit of getting into, but better now I'm into the second "bit".

Re: "If This is a Man" - yes, it is harrowing. One of the bits that always sticks in my mind (though it may be in "The Truce") was where Levi writes of the barracks at night. When he was a "new" prisoner - before he was so exhausted that he collapsed onto his bunk and slept before he was supine - he would lie awake, terrified and in shock, wondering what the strange grinding noise was that went on all through the night. He found out that it was starving men chewing in their sleep,, their teeth grinding together as they dreamed of food.

There is hope in it, I think - though I agree that the hope that is there is the kind of the simple joy of a spring day heralding the end of the freezing weather. There is kindness between some of the prisoners though, and (apologise if this is "The Truce" again) Levi tells of a civilian "volunteer' (i.e. slave) worker from Italy who provided him with a petrol can full of soup whenever he could, made of whatever the man stole or found (one day it contained a sparrow's wing - feathers and all!) . Levi said that without this soup he would have been dead. after the war he also learned that this particular man had done the same for a number of other prisoners, at great risk to himself.

I couldn't help but compare this to Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales", about the Gulags, where it was every man for himself in another brutal environment. I think maybe the difference was that the Gulags contained more "career" criminals in proportion to the rest of the population that the concentration camps did.

So finally succumb to this virus that has been bugging me since Xmas and had an afternoon of lounging on the sofa. Managed to finish the Summer Queen . Book 3 As I suspected I have been completely sucked in and about to head of to bed with the second of the Trilogy when I have prised the middle teenager from the X-box. I think it is the escapism of this genre I enjoy and the fact that I find the role of woman in history fascinating. How Eleanor manages to manipulate her situation with what little power she has. And how her power lies many in her ability to have children. The book is well written, it's not going to win the Booker Prize but it is entertaining and actually informative. We were actually on holiday near Poitiers last year ( think that's spelt right but too knackered to look it up!)
wishing I had read this before I went .
Went to the Oxfam bookshop today for a look! Came out with 5 books!!

Sorry Handel cost a bundle on the Kindle cote

"Has cote set the record for the most expensive Kindle book of the year?"

Oh I wish it were just the year. It might be the most expensive Kindle book anyone on these threads has ever bought. I'm a mug

Has anyone read this?

Sounds similar to the Year of living Danishly (except set in Iceland) and Sarah Moss is an excellent writer.

1. Night Waking - Sarah Moss

Academic Anna accompanies her husband to a remote Scottish island where he is undertaking a study of puffins. She is supposed to be writing a book about childhood but finds her husband largely absent while she cares for their toddler and 7 year old. While planting trees with the 7 year old she finds the skeleton of a baby buried in a shawl in the garden. Anna's story is interspersed with the letters of an English nurse sent by the Victorian land owners t help the local women in childbirth.

I loved this, it was a slow grower but Anna's exhaustion and frustration at motherhood alongside the tragedy of the islanders existence was really well written.