50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Four

Ah, I liked them, in small doses though.

I actually think she should have stopped after two or maybe three, Best.

Love Mole Remus. Pity there won't be any more, I feelnI've grown up with him.

43. The Life Changing Magic of not giving a Fck - Sarah Knight*

The asterisk is not mine. Attempts to do for the mind what Kondo does for theWardrobe. Whiled away an hour on the train. She'll probably make a mint from it.

Satsuki - I did join the library. I got a book by some woman called Evelyn Waugh and another by a bloke called George Elliot, but, frankly my dear, I prefer the Norwegian leather industry.

Books 33 and 34 The Secret Diary of AM and The Growing Pains
These were 2 for 99p on Kindlle this week, and I was so tired that I thought they’d make perfect light reading for the bus. They did!

24. The Essex Serpent: Sarah Perry Enjoyed this, well written, good if slightly over-constructed plot. Stayed up far too late last night to finish it so I was definitely engaged. Slightly irritated by the first chapter of each section being a more 'poetic' present tense narrative, then the shift to the past for the rest of the story. Not quite sure what that achieved. Lots of interesting background detail. Pretty good characterisation, though some of them (Cora and Luke especially) were real 'novel' characters rather than real people characters. Will browse through this thread now to work out what to read next.

20 1984 - George Orwell - Chillingly perceptive. This is a book that will remain with me for a long time.

21 Her - Harriet Lane - This is about the most disappointing thing I have read so far this year. The basic premise is that Nina spots Emma in the street and recognies her as someone she knew 20 year ago. Quickly the two women strike up a friendship but it soon transpires that one of them has sinister motives for their renewed interest. This book started out very promising with alternating chapters between the two women and the suspense gradually building but the ending was such an anticlimax. It felt that the booked just stopped. It felt so rushed and ambiguous.

Currently reading The Essex Serpant which I am really enjoying and as said before on this thread I don't want to take my time to enjoy so I am also reading Everything But The Truth.

18. It Didn't Start With You - Mark Wolynn
This was an interesting psychology book exploring inherited family patterns related to trauma. It had an intriguing premise and I could certainly see how certain events in my family tree had influenced behaviour in later generations. I found it a useful tool to help me examine why I felt and behaved particularly strongly about certain things. Some of the analysis seemed a bit of a leap and I'm unsure exactly how it worked in cases where the traumatic event was kept secret from later generations. I imagine it's to do with the silence and also how that drove behaviour/language around the events.

19. Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
I'm sure this will have been reviewed before as it's an old book but this was the first time I had read it.
I enjoyed it - I love books set during this period- however I'm not sure it is worthy of the high praise heaped on it. Perhaps if I had read it when it first came out, it might have been fresh and exciting? As it was, the story felt a bit formulaic and had a real pantomime villain in William Hamleigh. It just missed a certain subtlety for me to rate really highly.

Isn't Philip Reeve the author of the Mortal Engines series, Keith? I remember DD saying that her English teacher had recommended him to her a couple of years back as one of his favourite YA writers, she really enjoyed the series.

27. One for the Books, Joe Queenan
I like books about the pleasures of reading. This meandered around repetitively without any real structure - he'd clearly taking some articles written previously and mashed them together. He's extremely proud of the time he spent in France reading obscure French writers despite what he regards as a deprived Irish-American background. Not sure I'd really recommend it, but I did like his sections about the idiosyncratic reading choices of friends and family and the pleasures of agreeing on a beloved book.

21. Railhead, Philip Reeve

This is not a book I would ever have picked up off the shelf - it's YA and Sci Fi (ish), two genres that I normally avoid. However, we're reading the Carnegie shortlist at work (I work in a school) and this was the book I was allocated in this round.

And I loved it! It's set in a distant future world, recognisably descended from our own. Refreshingly, this is not a dystopia but a much more balanced and imaginable world with good and bad. The richness of imagination pulled me in in a way that I had not expected, and I found the bittersweet storytelling much more skilful than I had (snobbishly) expected from either genre.

I did feel like I was reading a kids' book but it was a lovely bit of escapism after the hard slog of the Ismail Kadare reviewed further up the thread.

remus you should join the library and see what happens I already got the first two AM on Kindle when they were cheap ages ago, despite also having hard copies, for when I'm not reading Engels

Satsuki - I also bought Adrian Mole for when I'm feeling intellectual.

20. Eleven - Mark Watson - Aussie working in London as a DJ, hosting a late night phone in radio show. Clearly he has 'a past' and issues around why he left Australia, it's alluded too a lot for the first half. The author is trying to make a point about how small actions we take have a knock on effect on others, which can make a string of events. But from the start, the idea is shoved in your face somewhat. The string of events clearly was the author's focus, so it sort of took over from the story. Was all a bit 'meh'. Completely forgettable book.

No remus but was intrigued enough to buy it

Have just started Madonna in a Fur Coat which I've been eyeing up for months and is currently cheap on Kindle. Has anybody read it?

Book 32
One by Sarah Crossan
A YA book which won the Carnegie last year. This is a book about conjoined twins, teenage girls, who’ve defied medical expectations to reach 16 years old and, due to family finances, now have to go to school for the first time. This is written as a prose-poem which didn’t add an awful lot to it until approaching the end, other than to avoid the load of waffle that can be the curse of some novels. It also had the YA ‘issue’ problem of not being satisfied with just one issue but feeling the need to shove issue on top of issue on top of issue, so not only did we have the twins, we had alcoholism, anorexia, HIV, possible parental divorce, financial problems too. It’s also very American, On the whole though, I found this both gripping and rather moving and enjoyed it far more than some of the rubbish I’ve read previously this year.

The follow up to Cuckoo (have forgotten title) was nonsense. Third one better, but nowhere near as good as first. Can't decide whether I'll bother with the next or not!

42. The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie agree with Remus this was great fun with some great characters and very funny. I didn't mind the ending, it was agreeably daft.

Will catch up in a bit. New book. . .

1. The Muse - Jessie Burton

1. Gone Without a Trace - Mary Torjussen
2. Flesh Wounds - Christopher Brookmyre
3. Phantom: a Harry Hole Thriller - Jo Nesbo
4. Dead Simple (Roy Grace Series) - Peter James
5. All Good Deeds (A Lucy Kendall Thriller) - Stacy Green
6. The Turtle Boy - Kealan Patrick Burke

1. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion

16. The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler

Written in the 1930's, this is one of the (if not the) original private dick books. Private detective Philip Marlow takes on the job of finding out who is blackmailing the Sternwood family. Endlessly diverted by the two ruinous daughters, Marlow ends up in the middle of a story of power, corruption and sex.

I love crime novels but I found this really hard going. There were so many characters and so many nicknames that I was losing track of who was who. The language can be old fashioned with violence towards women being casual and par for the course. Probably no worse mind you than book 15 which does not have the excuse of being written in the 30s. I am glad I stuck with it but will not being reading another.

Thanks @stilllovingmysleep - that's good to know! Looking forward to number 2, though will have to order it from the library as I've promised myself not to buy any more books for a while!

Composteleana I love the Galbraith books, all of them good for easy reads.

18. The Cuckoo's Calling Robert Galbraith/ JK Rowling

Am sure this has been reviewed many a time already. I really enjoyed it, though thought the writing a bit clunky in parts which pulled me out of the story a little. I will definitely go on to read the others in the series.

Thank you all for warning me against A Heartbreaking Work of Wotsits. Not that I was feeling the desire to read it but it's still good to know for sure that I shouldn't ever try

I liked bits of ASWOHG - i liked the stuff about his family and his brother, and he can clearly write. But all the naval-gazing and all the stuff about his magazine didn't come off for me. I didn't care about any of it.
And if i was his editor, I'd have made him cut about a fifth of it.