50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Two

I have been promised stokey that BF is the way to get lots of reading done. Sadly bottle feeding uses two hands and my brain was like mushy peas even if I had octopus hands.

I am going in prepared this time. If I can't use my hands then I will use audiobooks.

I remember the first book I read from cover to cover after having dd1 was French Children Don't Throw Food. I really enjoyed it and it gave me an excellent grounding and common sense talking to when I was in the midst of anxieties. I was given both Hurrah for Gin (two copies - don't know what that says about me) and The Unmumsy Mum. I think I will hang on to those until dc2 arrives and use them as emergency brain mush reading.

I have downloaded GoodRead app but am finding it a bit strange. It keep recommending very odd things which I have no idea where the link is. Jilly Cooper? There is no way that I can see of saying I am not interested. I felt that a lot of the recommendations were a bit America focussed. I know lots of people on here use it - do I just need to stick with it? Does it use my To Reads as data to suggest books?

Yay, new thread :)

southeast I thought the first hundred pages of Born to Run was dull too, it does get better though!

Meanwhile, picked up the oft-mentioned on here Cloud Atlas from the library today...

Thread 2 already?! 😱 I've been in hospital the past week so thought it would be perfect opportunity to get through a few books. But no, failed epically. Swear those places just turn your brain to mush. Could just about cope with this weeks Real People 😂

Anyway just finished my first book Time Travelling With A Hamster . It's a teen book but it's really sweet I enjoyed it. Now off to start my second. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

RMC I enjoyed The Summer Queen and the next one in the series when I read them last year. Hope you enjoy it. You've reminded me to have a look for the final one in the trilogy.

Oh, The Heart Goes Last looks like an interesting development of the themes in A Handmaid's Tale RMC. Thanks for that recommendation.

I've tried other Atwoods, but there was one that freaked me out. I think it was The Robber Bride maybe? There was something about one character being dead - I seem to recall - that for some reason I found creepy in the extreme.

I'm one of back up, don't read Armada I wonder why it was a bit shit in comparison to Ready player one...I would say but I honestly can't remember a thing but disliking it and being bored. My boyfriend felt the same.

I've had Ready Player One on my Amazon wish list forever but its price never drops!

I'll have a look in the library but if they don't have it I think I'm just going to have to buy it full price!

Highlandcoo I love The Handmaids Tale It is a simple tale with a stark message - very powerful. I am a big Atwood Fan. I have The Heart Goes last on the 'to read' pile!

Still listening to Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? on audio, and reading a bit of Le Petit Nicolas now and then, but that doesn't really count.

Need to choose between American Gods, The Book of Night Women, The Lacuna and The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists plus about seventy others for my next book and not quite sure which way to jump

Perhaps The Book of Night Women would follow on well from The Handmaid's Tale (has anyone read it?) .. or American Gods might. I like following themes in my reading sometimes.

Found you all! This is one fast moving thread! I haven't just finished Plainsong can't remember the author off hand! And the book is downstairs! It is set in rural American and is about the breakdown of relationships and the formation of unlikely alliances. It was on of those books that I wasn't sure how I felt about it until right at the end; when I decided I had enjoyed it! I think the problem for me was I found it quite hard to identify with one particular character, so I wasn't really emotionally involved. But somehow it came together in the end.
Have just down loaded The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick . It's the first in a trilogy about Eleanor of Aquitaine. I am a sucker for historical fiction so I am hoping it is good and I can get stuck into three great books.

1. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

I read this when it was first published, couldn't remember much about it and think I'd also got it a bit confused with Brave New World. ( In contrast, I remember 1984 very clearly ) so it was good to revisit it before the new series appears.

I haven't read much dystopian fiction .. apart from the books mentioned above, only The Hunger Games, Divergent etc and the series Tomorrow When the World Began - all YA and read with one of the kids, so I don't have much to compare The Handmaid's Tale with.

I enjoyed it and there were some chilling ideas explored, but not in great detail. Atwood's questioning of how women are treated in today's society - some of the costs that come with our relative freedom - would give much food for thought if it was the first time I'd come across those ideas. It was a powerful tale, simply told, and that's not a bad thing.

So is it a book of its time? Maybe the same arguments have been better explored since? Would be interested to hear some opinions from people who've read more of this genre.

One thing though.. reading it in the context of Trump and his henchmen imminently taking power in America meant that this account of a group of men controlling women, stopping their freedoms and using them as breeding machines and household slaves, reached a whole new level of horror. Much more chilling than it would have been a few years ago

Place-marking. Woken up wth a filthy cold. I may have to comfort read Agatha Christie till I feel better.

I remember reading Wolf Hall in the wee hours of the morning while bfeeding Dd1 passme. It was the hard back and she acted as a kind of book rest . I should probably re-read it to be honest.

Cote Maybe we should start a separate thread of books that both of us loved? Do you think there'd be a market for it?

Seconding Cote's advice to avoid Armada.

The entire concept behind it was ridiculously implausible.

And that's so disappointing to hear that Armada isn't worth reading . I did wonder a bit when I read the blurb for it, something about a boy looking out his classroom window and a UFO flying past?
Mind you, couldn't really expect him to match RPO.

Hi chaps.

Thanks for the new thread.

I have loved this thread and really hope to stick at it. The challenge will be in June when dc2 is born. After dd1 was born it took me a full year to finish the book I was half way through when I was induced

Adding Ready Player One to my TRL

"Special" is the word for it alright. It was bloody marvellous. I've had a near-constant internal monologue going around and around in my head since I finished it, gushing over how good it was.

Monty - I'm glad you loved Ready Player One I saw it recommended on Reddit and brought it over to MN 50-Book threads, where quite a few of us read it since 2013. I think there has been an unprecedented near-100% approval for it. It is one of the very few fiction books both Remus & I have loved, so it really is special

Now, whatever you do DO NOT read his next book Armada.

Signing in.

Got two books on the go and at 50% on both -

How to be a Tudor - Ruth Goodman and
Misery - Stephen King

No prizes for guessing which I'll finish first.

Monty Great review!

I love The Virgin Suicides so much that I've read it four or five times. Wasn't so fond of Middlesex.

Missed that there was a new thread. here's my American Goods review on the new thread, as well as the old (I was annoyed by it so much I want to say it twice).

Book 5
Ugh. I enjoyed this on first reading but hadn’t realised that Gaiman now insists on publishing it in its’ truly intended’ original, bloated, pre-edited version. Clearly the man is an idiot because this has changed a half-decent read into something so ridiculously over-long and padded that it loses track of itself. This felt like hard work. A shame, as there’s a decent central character and some good ideas hidden inside. Not quite as annoying as The Fifth Heart but almost.

Looks like my 2017 reading is getting progressively worse. Started with two 5 star books, then a 3 and a 4 with reservations, and now a 2.

New thread already, good going everyone!

1. Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

This is 4 separate stories. For me, they got better as they went on. I didn't really like the first story but did like the last one and the middle two were good too. I haven't yet read enough King to know how this compares to the rest of his work but I would say it's worth a read!

1. A morbid taste for bones by Ellis Peters. The first Cadfael book. Read several a few years ago and enjoyed them. This is the first time I've read this one and it's as good as I remembered the others to be. A nice easy murder-mystery read that tells the story of how St Winifred ended up at Shrewsbury Abbey (sort of anyway ). The only problem is reading the description of Cadfael because in my head he now looks like Derek Jacobi!

Thanks for the new thread southeast

1. Ready Player One, Ernest Cline. Oh good lordy I loved this. Every word. I loved it in a "Now that I'm done I've got to go back to the beginning and read it again, immediately" sort of way. You know how some people feel when they shake hands with a famous person they love? Where they never want to wash that hand again? Well I kind of feel like that, but a book version. If I don't read anything else, ever again, then my last book will have been the most "me" book I've ever come across. I'm not going to do that of course (the very thought )...but it has occurred. If you like 80s music, tv, or films, or you're a gamer, read this.

Checking in on the new thread - thanks southeast