50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Three

Museum - I read & reviewed Aric Davis's A Good And Useful Hurt on a 50-Book thread back in 2014. It had some interesting sub-plots (serial killer, tattoo parlor, tattoos made with a dead person's ashes, etc) but ultimately didn't go anywhere. It seems a common problem in his books.

Yay! New book by Neal Stephenson is coming out in June

12. Weavers by Aric Davis This was an impulse 99p offer, and a quick read, so I'm not going to be too hard on it. The concept is that a few people have telekinetic powers. They vary from person to person, but those that keep their powers into adulthood often turn bad due to the pressures. There is also a US agency who wants to round these folk up and put their powers to work. It opens with a girl in Dachau in 1945, then jumps to 1999 and a girl discovering her powers, and a young man who has already gone to the bad side. It was well written but I have two big issues with it. So much gore and unnecessarily high body count; we get that he's gone bad, enough. And from about 70% the threads of the characters were really coming together, it was working up to a good conclusion, and it just stopped. I presume to allow for a sequel, but the lack of ending was a big disappointment.

16: The Way of Wyrd by Brian Bates. This is half-novel, half-historical imagining of Anglo-Saxon shamanic sorcery. The author is an ex-university professor who has extensively researched the shamanic culture in Middle Earth. So it's a bit clunkily written (he's no novelist) and is also, if like me you are a hardened sceptic, rather unbelievable. I mean, I believe there were Anglo-Saxon shamans and that they believed in the things in the book and carried out spells and so on, but I don't believe that it really worked. But interesting and a really long bibliography at the back for anyone interested in researching it further.

11. Raven Black Ann Cleeves And another recommendation from here - thankyou. I have already read more varied stuff this year so far than I did in the whole of last year - and I thought I was doing well last year!! My first encounter with Ann Cleeves - and it was good. Just what I needed....

A murder mystery from the cold bleak Shetlands. I've got a stinking cold so read this from under my duvet in a couple of sittings. An atmosphere to rival any scandi-drama.... I enjoyed it - it rattled along with believable characters who had no need for off the wall exaggerated flaws - though there is interest and depth and I will read more to see how the characters develop. I haven't seen the spin off TV series but prefer to read my murder mysteries. There were clues to whodunnit but it was well written and unfolded with suspense ....good!

And I probably cant count it as 'read'- but I watched Spotlight after seeing it recommended here too. Well - what can I say. Real life investigative journalism at its best. Gritty, determined doggedness won out at the end of the day.

And I'm keeping my eyes straight ahead so that I dont pick up any more for my tbr pile. The Jane Austen is £22 for the kindle version on amazon at the moment!!

Carrie Fisher next maybe.....

It's taken me annhour to catch up with where I left this thread! I have refused to note any recommendations at all today as my to read pile is too big!

8. Love You Dead by Peter James. A Roy Grace detective story- number 12 I think of his Brighton based series. I quite enjoyed the first few, got half way through the sixth or seventh and just gave up- too wooden, too formulaic- but this one wasn't too bad, and I do like a British detective story as a change from all the Jack Reacher types I read!

My word you chaps are powering through.

I am on Ready Player One and I confess that it has been a slow burn. I am enjoying it very much now and t is properly tickling my geeky bone but at the beginning I was a bit .

Bought a shed ton of cheap thrillers from amazon the other day as well as I am slowing down and feel I need to revert to type to speed me back up again and get the juices flowing.

Have compiled my list and there is a lot of lighter stuff on there and some very short reads. 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.

1. Grayson Perry - Playing to the Gallery
2. The Emperor of All Maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee
3. The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins
4. Ready Player One -Ernest Cline
5. The Essex Serpent
6. The year of Living Danishly - Helen Russell
7. Misery - Stephen King

Satsuki - Hope you enjoy it. I thought it was excellent.

I was only on 16 this time last year (Stasiland) so I must have miscounted somewhere along the line.

Oh, sad I missed Postcards from the Edge - remember enjoying the film a lot years ago.

I've now got an embarrasment of books as I had to go to the optician in our county town & realised I could go into the library there. So I've filed Wishful Drinking for when they have to go back and am now reading Faulks on Fiction, with The Essex Serpent, On Liberty by Shami Chakrabarti and Being Mortal queued up for afterwards :) Enjoying Faulks on Fiction so far (had a suitably nice wait in the opticians to get it started).

Thanks, have got wishful drinking - I enjoyed Postcards From the Edge last year, that is a novel so interested to see the memoir.

The Language of Jane Austen turned up from Abe books today, for about two pounds, thanks for the recommendation, remus.

Just checked and I was at 26 this time last year, so am definitely on a go slow. Finding it harder and harder to find anything that appeals (or at least that I haven't already read!).

Think I might have a recount though just in case. I'm really enjoying the Agatha C's though. Haven't really read them since I was a teenager.

Fair enough! I think Age of Wonder slowed me down a bit, and I also haven't done much reading over the last couple of weeks, as I've been feeling a bit brain dead - maybe Agatha C is the answer!

I dunno Remus, I am normally way behind you. Mostly taking refuge in crap hiding from Trump and Brexit I think. I've read 5 Agatha Christies this year and they only take a few hours really.

Bloody hell, Best. HOW have you read so many??? Am in awe!

Forensics

Happy

29 Foresics- The Anatomy of Crime -Val McDermid - Excellent if a bit gruesome look at the different disciplines of Forensic Science with a chapter on each. Details the development of each and how they were used to solve some famous crimes. Really interesting.

*dragons, not dragoons, but now that the idea is in my head . . .

Tooth and Claw Jo Walton

Oh Fuckit!

That is what I was going to call my book that I have been writing for the past 37 years.

Finally got the last Three Body Problem book from the library - only for dd to swipe it and take it to her dad's

In the meantime, have just bought Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher for 99p on Kindle daily deal which looks like an entertaining quick read.

26. The Last Kiss Goodbye by Tasmina Perry

One of those books where someone in the present investigates a story from the past, this time based around a photo. I usually really like that type of book, but this one was just OK. It didn't help that I found the 'modern' heroine a bit annoying.

This thread is wreaking havoc on my Goodreads 'To-Read' shelf