50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Four

Fatowl, sorry to hear of your losses

Have been eyeing up Nothing Is True so may snap it up now after several recommendations here. It will go to the bottom of the TBR pile though so I won't be reviewing any time soon (sorry).

17. Our Endless Numbered Days
Read and reviewed everywhere so I won't say much. Really enjoyed this, it was a bit underwhelming at first but grew on me a lot. Reminded me of Laura Ingalls Wilder, but so dark.

18. The Likes of Us: A Biography of the White Working Class, Michael Collins
Have wanted to read this for ages but finding it a disappointment so far. Will finish it before I write a review.

13. Stone of Farewell - Tad Williams

Second part of the Memory, Sorrow And Thorn fantasy series and even better than the first - that took a little while to get into its stride, but this gets straight into the action. Really good writing and providing some much-needed escapism from the real world :(

Popping in the report, reeling from the news today and not really feeling like starting a new book.

Book 28
Black Out by John Lawton
The first Sergeant Troy novel, of a series set in the closing days of WW2 Britain. I’d never heard of this series and only bought this because it was on a Kindle Daily Deal. It began pretty well but unfortunately then went downhill pretty horribly. Sex was the first stupid thing to rear its ugly head (pages and pages and pages of it, with several women throwing themselves on Sergeant Troy, ripping their clothes off, smothering themselves in mayonnaise and screaming yes, yes, yes at him) and then the writer decided to try to pack in more ‘twists’ than Chubby Checker, making the plot increasingly preposterous and incredible. By the end I couldn’t wait for the damn thing to finish and suffice to say, I won’t be reading any more of these. A shame – because the setting is exactly my thing.

And...and...erm...whisper...shuffle...I read the free sample of Day of the Jackal and erm...I really didn't like it. Is it supposed to be fiction? I'm finding the relentless abbreviations and backstory pretty uninspiring, and really don't feel like a world has been created and is drawing me in - it's more like a rather dull news report. Perhaps it doesn't help that it's a period/place of history that I have no particular interest in. I don't think I'm going to bother with it. Sorry - shuffles off again.

Just realized I have not brought my list over

1. The Life Project by Helen Pearson
2. Gone to Ground by Marie Jalowicz Simon
3. The Dreaming Void by Peter F Hamilton
4. Mother of Eden by Chris Beckett;
5. The Churchill Factor by Boris Johnson;
6. Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson;
7. The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell;

new:
8) The Pure Gold Baby by Margaret Drabble; Hmm. Hmm. HMM. This was supposedly about a single mother in the 60s whose baby turns out to have serious developmental issues. Didn't really seem to be about the baby though. Or even the mother. It is told from the perspective of one of her friends. I thought at first it was going to be an unreliable narrator type device, but no. Nothing particularly seems to turn on using the voice of the friend to tell the story except to remind us that stories are fundamentally neither objective nor reliable. But the impact of that is v distancing. You have no visceral sense of their day to day lives, what Anna's limitations really are, how her mother copes or makes life decisions. There's clearly a contrast between her friends' children and Anna, but it's not really played upon very much. There's a bit of a tour around different types of intervention in mental health and management of people like Anna, over the years but the book doesn't really seem to be focused on that either. Lots of tangents but there isn't the emotional engagement that you would expect from a book that says it is about a pure gold baby. Some of the writing is great, incredibly observant and on point, there is a wry humour here about people, the way they go on, their flakiness, selfishness, vulnerablity. It is overall a quiet book, a collage of impressions, fleeting, a sense of life also pouring through our fingers, a sense of inevitability and sadness of aging, leaving your children behind. Not sure I'd really recommend as I was constantly a bit puzzled by where it was going and in the end there is no great conclusion. If you saw it at 99p, it might be worth it.

Have also read

9. Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann; which I liked! V enjoyable reader's digest type book, capturing 2 great scientists and bringing them to life very well. Not academic at all, I enjoyed the exploratory half more than the other, but a good read for £1.29 I think it was

Am currently reading Reamde by Neal Stephenson which is enormous and I am hoping to finish up tonight.

ps cote did you hear Eleanor Catton is apparently writing a sci fi book!

30. Where my heart used to Beat - Sebastian Faulks. I haven't read much Faulks. I read Charlotte Gray years ago and to be honest don't remember much about it at all. This one was a strange beast. It took me quite a long time to read considering it's not a really long book. There were points when I felt like I was forcing myself to read on but I rarely abandon a book. It's hard to review with out giving a major spoiler but within the last 50 pages all the things I found jarring and odd about the book started to make sense and I finished it with a sense I had actually enjoyed. A strange one but actually one that will stay with me for a long time.

Murine at your cave bear / cave baby confusion!

Composteleana I enjoyed your review too

Wait - found it!

oh and I can't find the kindle spring sale - is there a link?

I made the mistake of asking for book recommendations on Facebook at the start of the year, some of my dearest friends like some frankly shit books.

I've just abandoned a couple of books so no update. Managed to blag my way through a book club meeting for a book I'd throw back on the book shelf a third of the way through due to it's total crapness this week.

stokey - someone in real life has recommended "the Passage" - might give it a go...

I keep thinking "Cave Bear has shagging?!Thats a kids book!" but no, that'll be Cave Baby by Julia Donaldson my sleep deprived brain is thinking of

I finished no. 28 yesterday: Kill Someone by Luke Smitherd, a quick read, page turner of a thriller where twenty-something Daniel is woken one morning by a mysterious man in white knocking at his door who tells him he must kill someone or 5 people will die.
The victim Daniel chooses must not be terminally ill, suicidal or elderly, and he is not allowed to use guns or poisons. A bit of a daft premise, and the end where the reason for the deal is revealed is very silly indeed, but it was an enjoyable read which kept me wanting to find out what would happen to the hapless hero. It reminded me of Saw or similar in book form (but nowhere near as gory, thankfully)!

I'm now reading The Lie by Helen Dunmore and Red Bones by Anne Cleeves which I'm enjoying.

ontopofthesunset yes those lists do contain a lot of all time classic, brilliant books, which lures you in, but always seem to be filled out with popular books of the moment too. I saw the Shellseekers on one (2003 Big Read?) and it made me second guess myself because it is not the book I'd normally pick up (and ultimately didn't!) I doubt if a list was made now it would be on it.

joyless So glad you liked My Antonia. It's a real slow gathering around you until the end and then you're hit with this dose of nostalgia for something that has no resemblance to your own past, but which somehow represents it for everyone. Her writing really taps into something universal.

I definitely won't try The Name of the Wind!

Côte, I have long realised the 'popular/good' thing but thought that just perhaps a list of books voted for by loads of people might buck the trend. Why did I think that? Madness.

Stitches, even in the first volume of Clan of the Cave Bear Ayla or whatever her name was was working out the way babies were made and understanding the basic laws of genetics.

Thanks all for the heads-up on the kindle easter sale. I've picked up the Z for Zelda one and a Le Carre. I already have the Putin book, having paid full price sobs for it for the bloke, and have yet to read it myself. Also have read the Great War in Fifteen Players. Afraid to say Best that it was a bit of a disappointment (and I say that as a rugby lover). It was flat - more a recitation of facts than story-telling. fatowl my sympathies - a tough time for you which I hope will ease Aaaahhhh the Day of the Jackal! I wonder if I can squeeze in a re-read. Ha ha ha Satsuki just lurved your review of The Name of the Wind That's one that won't trouble my TBR list then ... Passmethecrisps* lovely idea until you realise what your present givers read (mine are far too much like your aunt), it's why we all flock here isn't it?

Book 14: My Antonia and I am soooo joining in the love for this one. Beautiful - achingly beautiful - descriptive prose. I was right there appreciating it - and I'm not a countryside lover.

The bloke has given me a short book on the Spetsnaz (Russian SAS) to read as "he'd value my opinion". I'd asked him to read an article I wrote on The Eagle Has Landed as to how much was fiction and how much fact, only because he provided so much raw material for it. Doesn't he understand the size of my TBR list? Bastard ...

Loved your Name of the Wind review Satsuki. I completely agree, no idea what DH loved about it (and the hundreds on Amazon). I also hated the Eggers book, mainly because he was such an arrogant git - I know it's meant to be ironic but it was like nails on a blackboard to me. I only got about a third of the way through, very rare for me.

18. The Passage - Justin Cronin. This was a reread for me before embarking on book 2. There's a virus that can make people immortal but also turns them into vampires. The US government decides to test it on death row criminals. Unsurprisingly it all goes horribly wrong, but there's a little girl who may have the answer. Still a ripping good story, in fact when I finished it I changed my GR review to 5 from 4. Impatiently awaiting the next, although it sounds like it's a drop in form.

I love Gail Carriger, Composteleana, such fun :)

I'm always particularly tickled by the fact that her werewolves have (unlike in so many books/films) to deal with the inevitable clothing issue - and the resulting number of times that they end up standing around back to a wall clutching a top hat . . .

15. Soulless Gail Carriger
Very far from my normal cup of tea - the goodreads reading challenge I'm doing has a prompt for a steampunk novel, a genre I know very little about and some googling led me to this. I think it's very steampunk light - set in an Alternate Victorian England, lots of sciencey mechanical contraptions etc which I understand to be facets of the genre. But then also vampires and werewolves etc, all wrapped up in a big romance bow.

Ashamed to admit how much I enjoyed such utter nonsense on this thread which seems to veer towards more weighty and high brow tomes, but there you are I did. In my defence, I've never read 50 Shades nor ever want to.

My very fussy young teenage son is reading Day of the Jackal. I tentatively asked how it was going and he begrudgingly said "yeah, it's pretty good". I'm so pleased, it's definitely in my lifetime top 20. I loved the Odessa File too but after that Forsyth's books got pretty silly.

stitches that's exactly what happened in Too Much Wind, sorry, The Name of the Wind, the main character is an impossible genius, unfortunately the author isn't and the book fell through the crack in the middle. Except on top of this he can carry a tune and is also the world's greatest musician. People are left weeping at the end of his songs. I was left weeping at the end of the book, and gnashing my teeth.

"I had a friend who offered/threatened to lend me her copy of Fifty Shades because it was such a brilliant book. Thankfully she never got around to it or I would have felt obliged to read the darn thing!"

Lots of friends recommended & offered to lend me their copy of 50SoG back in its heyday. My answer has always been "No, nope, can't do it, won't do it". Never read it, never even touched it.

As I said, trust only the 50-Book thread recommendations

"I realised that popular books are not necessarily what I consider to be good books"

Consider yourself lucky if you've only just realised that. It's been the cross I bear for as long as I can remember.

These past couple of years, I have only taken recommendations from the 50-Book threads.

River yes, having had 50 Shades of Grey pressed on me, I felt obliged to read it. It's a terrible, terrible book. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

I read the first 4 (or 5?) of The Clan of the Cave Bear series years ago. There's definitely lots of Stone Age rumpy pumpy.

But the really annoying thing - this got more and more annoying as the series went on - was the freakish competence of the main character, Ayala. Honestly. She could do anything you could imagine. Super memory, super healer (including herbal contraception to help with the above mentioned rumpy pumpy), fantastic hunter, constantly coming up with technological advances or new concepts, such as being the first person ever to think of taming a horse or wolf. The only thing she couldn't do was hold a tune.

And it was all very peaceful. This will probably make me sound terribly bloodthirsty, but given the way humanity has gone about waging war through all of our recorded history, I really struggle to believe that warfare among cro-magnons or neaderthals was so rare as to be almost unthinkable among the hunter gatherer tribes of the time these books are set in.

StitchesInTime I had a friend who offered/threatened to lend me her copy of Fifty Shades because it was such a brilliant book.
Thankfully she never got around to it or I would have felt obliged to read the darn thing! If I wanted to read crap porn, I'd visit AO3 and not pay for it!

Passmethecrisps I know what kinds of books my friends and family read. I'd only trust my parents and DD2 to give me anything that didn't make me want to bang my head off a wall!

SatsukiKusakabe "It was not lute-lite, that's for sure." I shouldn't have laughed at you and your lute infestation. But I did! Have some . With

Satsuki - " I like the idea of of a greatest hits, but feel you would dominate it Unless I get a knock on the head and buy the sequel."

You should. It's a team effort

36. The Monogram Murders Sophie Hannah's take on Poirot. Not too bad if over long. Not a fan of Sophie Hannah normally but it was a passable attempt.

Saving Jackal for the train journey as it's on Kindle and easier to carry.