50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Three

I've read quite a few of Ian McEwan's novels and really liked Enduring Love, Atonement and Sweet Tooth particularly, I've surprised myself by not enjoying Nutshell southeastdweller
I usually make myself finish books I've started, Im not entirely sure why! In this case I realised that Golden Hill by Francis Spufford and The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss were both due back at the library yesterday, so I need to prioritise my reading time so my late fine isn't too awful!

It's definitely lighter to listen to than to read!

Maybe Passage is a bit like Thomas Hardy - appeals to teenage girls, but grown women get a bit impatient with it? I'll try to dig out the review of my re-read - iirc my biggest gripe was that precisely nothing happens in it.

Sunset - will definitely give it a go at some point, but not convinced it meets my needs for something light and feel good, right now.

I really loved The Warden - though it was being soothingly read to me by Timothy West. He is very good as he reads characters distinctly and has a lovely Trollopian voice - perfect for the archdeacons and country squires. It was my first Trollope for years and I'm so glad I've discovered them.

I had exactly the same thing with Passage remus. Loved it as a teenager, reread some years on and found it somewhat lacking and not even as well written as I remember

I have abandoned Nutshell by Ian McEwan, it's only 200 pages long but I can't get on with it.
It is narrated by an eight month old unborn baby who is remarkably articulate as a result of listening to radio four and listens to his mother and her lover plotting to do away with his father. It seems to take a half page to say what could've been said in one sentence and in less meandering, complicated language. I gave up shortly after a faintly nausea inducing description of the mother and her lover having sex written from the baby's viewpoint (ick!) Some reviews I read explain that it is a modern take on Hamlet so I bet it's actually very clever but this ones not for me I'm afraid!

I've just started Golden Hill instead which is much better!

River - I'd be interested to hear how you find Passage - I really liked it the first time I read it and then positively despised it on a re-read many years later. Weird!

Satsuki - Ooh yes. Thanks for the reminder!

RMC - Thanks. Will have a look.

Remus I am not sure if it counts as 'feel good' but a book I read three years ago and I still recommend to people is Gillespie and I by Jane Harris. Not idea whether you have read it or not but that's my humble contribution

I've never walked away from those either, river

remus I have nothing, but just to remind you that the new kindle monthly deals should come on tomorrow, so may we all find intelligent cakes

satsui I haven't read the others, I picked up Only You...somewhere! Some day I will learn to walk away from signs that say, "Books 50p" but judging from the copy of A Passage to India that found its own way into our house on Sunday, it won't be anytime soon!

I will have to get my hands on the rest of the Johnny books sometime!

I need recs, please (don't all groan at once).
Just coming to the end of a re-read of It and still reading three or four non-fiction books, but I want a novel - something feel-good but not trite. Would I like The Warden? I want something that feels a bit like a hot chocolate and a chocolate eclair on a rainy day, but intelligent hot choc & cake!

Not cheating at all Ontop, lots of us include audiobooks!

17: The Small House at Allington (audiobook): Kind of cheating by adding my audiobooks in here but I listen to them a lot when walking/exercising. I am loving Timothy West's reading of the Barsetshire books and have read very little Trollope before. This wasn't my favourite because I was so annoyed with Lily's ridiculous posturing, but I still loved all the De Courcy antics and the travails of the young clerks in their boarding houses. So I have only The Last Chronicle of Barsetshire and then I'll be onto the Pallisers! Plantagenet was introduced in The Small House at Allington.

27. Fat Chance by Nick Spalding

The diary of a couple which enters a radio contest to see which couple can lose the most weight. Lightweight and a very quick read. Mildly amusing but the couple in question was a bit annoying.

And yy re: a good children's book by a good writer beating a poorly executed adult one.

river I was just talking to my dh yesterday about Only You Can Save Mankind I'm reading Ready Player One and it made me think of it with all the 80s arcade games and the mix of the real and the virtual world. I said I really wanted to find the trilogy and reread them before my ds gets to that age. I think the others were Johnny and The Dead and then one about a bomb? Cheered to hear you enjoyed it, anyway

7 The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul by Douglas Adams.
Hadn't read one of his books since I was a teenager and had this sitting on a shelf having picked it up somewhere or other secondhand. A Dirk Gently book I mostly enjoyed it. I enjoyed the surreal style and his turn of phrase, for example regarding one author a character says, "I don't know why I still read his books. It's perfectly clear that his editor doesn't." I couldn't help thinking of this thread! The plot was a great idea but it felt like Adams ran out of steam and rushed the conclusion. It also irked me that the FTSE quoting girl appeared to have just been abandoned by the protagonists. I was really disappointed so next I read:

8 Only You can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett. Another secondhand 50p purchase. This is definitely a children's book but written by one of my favourite authors. So my contribution to the children's book debate would be that a choldren's book from a loved author beats and adult book that's badly executed! Interesting central concept but it's the children themselves and the considerations of war in real life that are the best parts. Manages to convey things to the reader without talking down to them or feeling like moralising. It sadly solidified for me what I felt about The Shepherd's Crown as well; for a Pratchett book it felt like less than it should of been but I feel churlish for that because the fact is the author was dying! Would recommend it for any DCs, just get them to read briefly about the Gulf War and Stormin' Norman first or they will be seriously confused!

9 4.50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie. Love a good Christie, doesn't hurt that I hear Joan Hickson as Miss Marple when I read it. Amused by the idea that the two boys were allowed to see the corpse. "AIBU To object to Police showing DS and his friend a weeks old dead body?" Surprisingly gentle murder story as per usual but with Miss Marple sending in someone else to find evidence of the murder her friend witnessed. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

I've read the first two Elena Ferrante books and enjoyed them but they are so slow moving and detailed that I am basically reading one a year!
So I'll be on to number 3 sometime in 2017...

I enjoyed the Elena Ferrante books but felt that they do suffer a bit from 'translater-ese'. No spoilers...... They feel rather stilted quite often. The guy who translated Karl Ove Knausgård was pretty good apart from the speech which just wasn't right. People constantly saying stuff like "How long have you been going out with her by the way?" There must be some particle in Norwegian that represents 'by the way' which just isn't directly translatable.

Well I have slowed right down and for that I can only blame Sapiens and My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante that I am reading at the same time.

It's got to the point with Sapiens that I am reading 10-20 or so pages a night but it still feels a chore. I am disappointed so far with My Brilliant Friend. I have coveted it for ages and just assumed I would love it. I'm sticking with it in the hope that, like the Cazalet books, something will just click and I will be enthralled and on fire to read the remaining three in the quartet. I know life is too short to read books you don't like but I feel strongly that I need to stick with these two to the bitter end martyr.

16. Snow Country – Yasunari Kawabata
Goodreads describes this as “a powerful tale of wasted love set amid the desolate beauty of western Japan” but I would describe this more as "man faffs about with Geisha’s in the mountains and nothing really happens”.

17. Perfume: The Story of a Murder – Patrick Suskind
The idea of this book is clever and unusual; that of a man who navigates the world primarily by smell. I also thought this was an extremely well written novel, set in 18th century France, but I was not compelled to pick it up – probably because the character of Grenouille is just so (deliberately) unlikeable. So good, but also somehow not good. I think I am the only person left alive on the planet to have never read this.

18. My Heart and Other Black Holes – Jasmine Warga
YA book about suicidal teens which sounds awful but I loved this. However, I am partial to a good bit of YA. It was only 99p on Amazon and worth every penny. For fans of YA only as it is very YA-ish. You know what I mean.

19. The Examined Life – Stephen Grosz
The psychoanalyst looks back over some of his cases and describes his patients and the outcomes. I really enjoyed this and found it to be an interesting insight into both the process of psychoanalysis and some of the outcomes of treatment.

Catching up a bit - again...

Book 9 the food of love' by Amanda Prowse. A MN giveaway. The first I'd read by this author. Covers the topic of a mother dealing with her daughter's battle with anorexia. I thought it dealt well with the initial denial and the fallout and effect on the rest of the family as a lot of attention was focused on the younger daughter. The style was a bit light in parts but it was well-researched. Some other reviewers felt that not enough was written from the younger daughter's perspective but I felt that was intentional as the novel
was showing the effect of 'anorexia arriving' into a household on family life.

Book 10 The Woman Who Went to Bed For a Year - Sue Townsend i really enjoyed this book. Tempting as it is to take the odd afternoon off Eva takes this to full extremes and literally spends a year in bed. Again it is interesting to see how this affects other family members in her life.

Books 11 and 12 are Mansfield Park and Jilly Cooper's Wicked! both on the go due to forgetting a book on half term break.

"I've also remembered that Cote got me to read Cryptonomicon and the Turing biography last year which took about a month each. Both excellent but challenging."

Part of my cunning plan to slow down you fast-readers