50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Three

wex my copy of Papillon was stolen years ago and I was so upset. Have downloaded it on the Kindle when it was on a deal in case I want to reread.

Halfway through Revelation and get the "Tudor Se7en" comment now cote I'm enjoying it more than I did Sovereign and it seems to have fewer of the textual 'tics' that annoyed me in the first three.

Cote - I got the free sample yesterday, as soon as I saw it mentioned.

Am half way through Age of Wonder - it's good but am currently on a chemistry bit, which is never going to be my favourite thing in the world.

Also halfway through left For Dead by Beck Weathers, one of the (v v lucky) survivors of the 1996 Everest disaster, which I picked up for a song in a charity shop at the weekend.

Thanks for the new thread southeast.
Every time I look at this thread I have to add new books to my TBR pile!
Thanks boldly for that review, have to add that one too!

MegBusset That takes me back. I must have read Papillon in the 70s. Just checked and it's survived many a ruthless cull. Perhaps it should go on my TBR pile. I seldom re-read but there are a few books that have remained on my shelves because one day... Others I have put on the re-read pile that I read in the 70s (my early 20s) are The Womens Room and The Magus

Oh Remus I hope you like it.

Halfway through book ten Anne Frank The Diary of a Young Girl. I am wishing at times that I read the whole thing as a teenager to see what I thought of it then. It's hard to read the descriptions of such mundane arguments and irritations when something so big was happening outside but it does prove that life does continue and it's terribly difficult to live in such close quarters to people when there's almost not respite and no change! I'd definitely struggle!Struggled with the bits with her talking about becoming a mother and being more loving than her own mother and her feeling guilty about friends that may not be as safe as she is.

I also wish we had it from her mothers point of view too as she seems to come across the worst from Anne's point of view and I'd have liked to know what she was feeling and her story.

Remus - Please check out The Mask Of Dimitrios.

Thanks - she looks v young in the pic I found of her! I'll let you know if I like the sample. :)

Checking in!

Yes joyless I enjoyed Golden Hill, but wasn't quite there for me either.

She's actually not that young, if that helps - probably mid 50s? She was certainly working as a US intelligence officer in Berlin before the fall of the Wall.

Thansk, Sadik - I'll have a look but am not terribly optimistic based on the title and the fact that the writer is a young female. Sorry if that makes me a horrible person! Will get the free sample.

Have also got the free sample of Night thanks to Every.

Joyless Agree entirely about the ending of Golden Hill.

PhoenixRising thanks, I'll avoid Leap Year if it's more of the same format as The Year of Living Danishly!
I have A Place Called Winter in my many TBRs on my kindle.
Finished 7. Magpie Murders Anthony Horowitz last night. Liked the book within a book concept but found it a bit slow. I don't know what to start next!

Papillon is a great read, meg, agree

Hi all and thanks for the new thread

I'm on book 7 at the moment, which is Papillon - a reread but haven't read it in 20+ years. I love it, it's a tremendous book.

Sorry for rubbish formatting, forgot that pasting across from excel doesn't work too well.

Many thanks for new thread, SouthEast.
Bringing my list across to the new thread (with highlights starred)
1 The Hacienda: How Not To Run a Club
2 The Thriling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage **
3 A Closed and Common Orbit **
4 How to be a Heroine
5 Breakfast at Tiffany's
6 Forty Autumns
7 The Dark Net **
8 The Dream Thieves
9 How to be a Victorian
10 Europe in Winter **
11 The Skeleton Cupboard
12 Poor Economics
13 Mutton (India Knight)
14 Development as Freedom
15 Blue Lily Lily Blue

Looking at the list reminds me Remus that Forty Autumns by Nina Willner is set mainly in East Germany between the 2nd world war and present time. I found the subject matter fascinating but didn't get on with the writing style - but I think we have very different tastes, and you might like it if you've not read it?

Currently got a few things on the go - Living Danishly by my bed for when I need putting to sleep, A Very Expensive Poison for 'proper' reading and then I'm also reading the second Cassandra Clare Draco fanfic when I fancy something trashy.

9 The Adventurous Seven: Their Hazardous Undertaking - Bessie Marchant I like reading early twentieth-century children's books - often such escapism and wonderfully silly plot twists. This one was no exception. A family of seven children hop on a boat from England, bound for Australia. They arrive and set off to find their father. There is no culture shock, real hardship, or comprehension of real life. I enjoyed it in th midst of a few grim life things going on!
10 No Kiss for Mother - Tomi Ungerer very short, but I'm allowing myself to count it, partly as it is a classic, partly as recompense for Pillars of the Earth! I didn't really like it. I'm not big on books about brats!
11 Detour from Normal - Ken Dickson this has been reviewed already unthread. I agree that the stuff about Utopia makes it a very tedious read at times. I'm afraid that also, despite his insisting that he is entirely recovered, (and that anyone thinking otherwise just doesn't get how wonderful his ideas are), I think either he isn't recovered, or he is guilty of utter arrogance. He clearly had a dreadful time, and I have no difficulty in believing that the treatment was dreadful and/or nonexistent, but some things just don't add up. And if I were his wife, I would bloody well divorce him for writing about me like that.

Now. I need to find another book I am really going to enjoy. There haven't been too many yet this year. In which case, Dickens may have to wait...

Checking in, thanks for the new thread. I'm almost finished with The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin and am a few chapters in to This Thing of Darkness at the moment. I just picked up a glorious stack of books I'd reserved at the library too: Nutshell by Ian McEwan, The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss and Golden Hill by Francis Spufford so they should keep me busy for a while!

Dickens does have a wordy style but he has some fantastic characters and some great stories. I've enjoyed Our Mutual Friend, Martin Chuzzlewit, Nicholas Nickleby, Bleak House and Tale of Two Cities. Of the Christmas stories I've only managed to read A Christmas Carol. The other ones in the book I've got just left me cold.

I studied Great Expectations for GCSE and it put me off I think. Didn't really like the ending at the time and it's interesting because had a different ending. I can't remember now whether he changed the ending or whether he wanted to change it.

New thread and I've only read two books
Everything has got in the way this past few weeks but I'm on with Joanna Trollope's the choir now.
Discovered a book token too so am going back to the other thread to find something different to buy for a change

checking in
going to start Swing Time later although I;m not sure it will be my cup of tea...

Marking place. Am getting a bit bored of Love, Nina. It's all a bit same-y now. Not sure I will get it finished so might put it on hold and grab a nice bit of fiction then go back to it.

Just marking my place on this new thread.

Hoped to finish Anna Karenina tomorrow, but I am out for "woo" evening tonight so won't get any rating done.

I dropped off the last thread
6.Those we Left Behind by Stuart Neville
It’s a long time since I was so gripped by a book that I was kept up reading into the night.
The first I have read by this author who I discovered via Adrian McKinty another writer of Belfast based crime fiction.
Set in Belfast it’s a dark, disturbing crime /psychological thriller. My usual preferred crime fiction style injects a little humour into the proceedings but not here. Detective Serena Flanagan is haunted by a child killer she helped convict ten years earlier. He is released along with his brother and she is confronted with them both again.