50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Four

Right, based on the revelation further up this thread, I've just paid £10 to get rid of the screensaver ads on my Kindle Fire and go back to the cosy kindle screensavers I know so well.

The unsubscription (is that a word) has gone through, had the confirmation email, but I still have bloody Candy Crush ads when I start up.
I'm connected to wifi, and have restarted.
Does it take a while to go through?

Just popping in to defend Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I thought it was excellent!

Satsuki

*live rurally, not love rurally. I'm not a Jilly Cooper character.

Oh dear. Tears on the 7:05

spinning I haven't finished either of the Safran Foer books I've started, so you're not alone. I like "clever" books but they veered in to pretentious for me.

I am very tempted by JL Carr now best and sadik

passme I am signed up to the daily deals emails so I glance at them every day. There is rarely anything in them for me though. Reminder though that there will be new monthly deals tomorrow, and I often find something in there. I get as many as possible out of the library but I love rurally and have to pay 50p to reserve but I'll do that if my wish list isn't moving.

I picked up both Dark Forest and Death's End yesterday so will get onto those soon.

""Do I really want to spend seven hours on a train for this?" Then went, "Hang on, seven hours alone WITHOUT CHILD. Holy crap, yes.""

Ha! I'm on a business trip now and can TOTALLY relate to this

How Steeple Sinderby Won the FA Cup

I want to read that from the title alone.

34. Dissolution- what can I say! Still loving Shardlake. Tudors and mystery- in heaven!

I'm going through a phase of re-reading books I first read as a teenager at the moment so they should suit me down to the ground .

Just checked - it was a Quince Tree Press edition.
I'll definitely look out for more of his books.

All of my JL Carr recommendations do come with the caveat that I read them first as a teenager a very large number of years ago, so I'm perhaps not the best person for an unbiased viewpoint.

My personal favourite is "What Hetty Did", though it's one of those books that I find hard to disentangle from the time when I first read it (I was 18, around the same age as the heroine). A Day In Summer would probably be a good choice after A Month in the Country, though it's more different than the titles would suggest. I also love How Steeple Sinderby Won the FA Cup. And yes, they're all beautiful, especially if you have the editions published by his own Quince Tree Press. The little pocket books are lovely too.

Sadik, which of his other books would you recommend? Are they all so lovely to look at?

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a bit like Room in my opinion. Overwritten, unbelievable narrative in the voice of the child, but deeply emotive subject matter that encourages people to think it is a good book.

I'm reading Sapiens at the moment inspired by this thread and enjoying it very much.

Best - happy to see JL Carr love on here. I had a moment of glory when an older lady in my library group was telling me about her favourite author - who no doubt I'd never have heard of - and I could tell her that not only did I love his books, but I'd even met him (he used to bring his pamphlets into the bookshop where I worked when I was a teenager) :)

Spinning I tried reading Extremely Loud either last year or the year before. I thought it was awful, and didn't finish it.

Vera series is excellent. I'm disappointed that I've read them all.

I check Kindle daily deals every morning, although it's rare that I buy anything. I haven't used the Kindle at all this year. I have as many library books out as possible at a time and every time I finish one I take out another. It has completely curbed my spending on books this year. Even if they are only 99p..

Hi all, have finished two books today and I'm not sure but I think they are 23 and 24. Anyway...

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. I really really did not like this. I thought it was overwritten, cloying and just not believable. Am quite disappointed as it has a very strong rating on goodreads. Not my style and I can't think of other similar books off the top of my head but I do know that whenever I encounter this style I either struggle, start talking to myself, or just give up.
Not a wonderful review... not even half a sentence on the storyline. I think i may be in the minority with my negative opinion.

The second book I finished today was The One in a Million Boy by Monica Wood. This was quite good. I'm surprised it didn't get more attention when it was first published. It's about a young boyscout who becomes friends with a 104 year old lady he is assigned to do yardwork for. We don't hear much from the boy himself, instead we learn about him through those around him - his separated parents and the elderly lady. I don't want to give away any of the story. But I liked this, there were quite a few threads throughout, particularly to do with his father Quinn who, by his own admission, is not a good father but you know is not a bad person.

Started Rules of Civility by Amor Towles this evening. Already liking it. I'm years late with this one.
I have The Mountain Story by Lori Lansens ready to go on Audible, will start that tomorrow.
I hope all of you booknerds are having a nice evening and if not, then a nice weekend ahead!

Thanks for the Vera heads up. Never heard of this series but worth a punt given my usual reading.

Do people generally check the deals every day? I glance through my wish list every week or so but the books on their are sticking stubbornly at their prices. Mind you, almost none of them are over a fiver but I am still hanging on . . .

I also bought the reduced Vera books today. I'm hoping that book 4 onwards of the Shetland series will be reduced one day soon, I've read and enjoyed books 1-3 recently in quick succession after these were reduced to 99p.

Popping in to say 'Hi' before popping out to read more of the book about the history about sex and punishments about sex I got in the Kindle spring sale. I'm really enjoying it!

Every time I have a medical appointment at the moment I am secretly overjoyed at the reading time. I had a midwife appointment then whooping cough vaccine a few weeks ago and they had to do them 1.5 hours apart. It was blissful.

My 4 year old is just starting to get into chapter books and it is lovely. The only issue is that I am finding I want to keep reading. We are doing James and the Giant Peach which I have never read before so I genuinely want to keep going. Not ideal really!!

People ask me how I cope with an hour and a quarter each way train commute. They are not 50 bookers.