50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Four

17. The White Goddess by Robert Graves

Dear god, this was a slog! It's like a 500 page crossword puzzle! Basically, Graves was trying to unite mythologies, folklore, and religion, arguing back to the original White Goddess, the inspiration for all true poetry according to Graves, who is eventually replaced in her various incarnations by different gods leading down to the patriarcal deity of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims - although the Goddess still appears in modern belief in the form of the Virgin Mary. He sees mythological stories as records of tribal disputes and one faith system overcoming another, so Apollo overcoming the Python for control of the Oracle at Delphi would be an instance of a people worshipping a god overcoming a goddess sect, for example. It's quite interesting but it's hard work and some of the time he just drops things in out of nowhere claiming it to be truth.

18. December by Phil Rickman

Another re-read. Four musicians with psychic abilities are brought together to record an album in the ruins of a medieval abbey in the early 1980s - the night that John Lennon died. The abbey has a bloody history which affects the group and leads to more death before the four go their separate ways, having burned the session tapes. But 14 years later they discover the recordings weren't destroyed after all, and reluctantly the four are drawn back to the abbey to finish what they started.

But don't you just hate yourself for ploughing through it Diva?

Well - kind of grubby

biblio If you like WW2 Persephones, try Doreen. A charwoman's little girl is evacuated to an upper-middle-class couple who desperately want a child of their own and see her as a surrogate daughter. Really interesting on the dynamic between the mother, the child and the couple.

I love The Little Prince.

I didn't realise that My Week with Marilyn is a book. The film is excellent.

1. I let you go- Clare Makintosh. Fantastic. Really really enjoyed it. Am going to start her other book - I see you now because the first chapter preview has already got me hocked.

Thanks, Cheerful! I'm glad you mentioned it.

It also made me realise I could do a search on my library catalogue for books published by Persephone, so I've added a few more to my list on the strength of that, including another one by the same author.

A load of total bollocks. The whole is-she-isn't she story of the Romanovs throughout the 20th century does really interest me, but this was a pile of horrendously-written, ill-thought-out shite. And the constant "she is so gracious and wonderful that she just be royal, because, well, ROYAL. And ARISTOCRACY. And ROYAL." I only finished it because I'd bought it!

But don't you just hate yourself for ploughing through it Diva?

I did with the Alison Weir crap! It was like a compulsion - the sort that makes you look at an accident even though you know you will be sick and wake up screaming every night for the next three weeks. And the more time I invested in it, the less inclined I was to give it up.

I was a fool - I should have just closed the sodding thing after the first 30 pages (you have to give it a chance) and buried it in a shallow unmarked grave somewhere desolate and far from my my home . . .

That was me, biblio - and yes, sounds like we pretty much agree about it. It's a very particular slice of wartime life, which isn't always agreeable, but it's very well-observed, and she can definitely write.

Goodness, I keep coming on this thread, adding lots of books to my "to read" list, and forgetting to post myself!

14. The Burning Land - Bernard Cornwell - book 5 in the Last Kingdom/Saxon series. Life was all a bit too settled for our Uhtred, but it all goes a bit tits up, and King Alfred pushes him too far. Uhtred decides to go off to find Danes and have a crack at getting his castle back, but life gets a bit more complex. For those who enjoy the series, another good one.

15. 84 Charing Cross Road/The Dutchess of Bloomsbury - Helene Hanff - these are really 2 books, but both short and counting as 1 for the list. 84 is a lovely book, it's the letters between Helene Hanff, a writer in New York and a book shop in London she first contacted just after the war trying to source rare books. She continued to correspond for 20 years. In the early 70s she published this book, and The Dutchess of Bloomsbury is her diary of her time in London when she came over to promote it. I would recommend any book lover reads this, it's just lovely.

16. The Hanging Tree - Ben Aaronvitch - this is book 6 in the PC Grant books. 2 very rich teenagers overdose in party a posh flat, the wizard police get called in because one of the other party goers is the daughter of Lady Ty, the godess of the river Tyburn. Faceless man turns up and then things get a bit messy. I've enjoyed this series, but the books definately need to be read in order.

Now I need to read my book club book for next week, have been putting it off because frankly, I don't want to read it.

23. Mothering Sunday - Graham Swift
I polished this off in a day which was appropriate as all the action is set over an unseasonably hot March Mother's day and how the implications of the events of that day shape the life of the heroine, a servant for a well-to-do family in 1924. It's quite claustrophobic and closely written but overall pretty good.

24. The Revenant - Michael Punke
I rate this highly and found it extremely readable. It is very different to the film in lots of ways but the essential core of the story remains the same. I didn't realise it's based on real people and events, nor did I realise what a revenant actually was - despite having studied French. Good writing - it brought the life of trappers and their interactions with Native Americans very much to life.

25. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I hope I can count this - it took me about an hour to read? I know it's meant for children but does have plenty of text. I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about! I have a feeling that I wouldn't have particularly enjoyed this as a child and I am afraid I have consigned it to the same group of shame that includes Jonathan Livingston Seagull and The Alchemist. Sorry! Feel free to tell me I am wrong.

Should finish Ready Player One this week - finally.
Am also reading My Week with Marilyn by Colin Clarke which I am loving.

21. Good evening, Mrs. Craven : the wartime stories of Mollie Panter-Downes
Sorry, blanking on who mentioned this previously and gave a very accurate review of it. As the name implies, it a series of short stories set on the Home Front. I enjoyed it, although I'm not clasping it to my heart as a new-found favourite. Lots of upper middle-class fretting about the inadequacies of the working class, which is hard to love, but I really enjoyedthe incidental observations - a character observes his exhausted wife applying make-up with the tired cynicism of a witchdoctor applying juju to a dead woman; another character remarks with equanimity of her illegitimate baby: "He must take me as he finds me".

22. Game of Throw-Ins, Ross O'Carroll-Kelly
Latest in a series of satirical books set in Ireland. Not one of the stronger books in the series - too much rugby. For existing fans only.

23. Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho
This is inevitably going to be compared to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, as it imagines magic among the upper ton in Regency England. Its tone is lighter, though - more reminiscent of Georgette Heyer and even Terry Pratchett. Good fun.

Just popping in as this had dropped off TIO.

Halfway through a new Cordelia Fine - fascinating and as well-researched as ever.

bookmarking

Just checking in to keep this on my TIO list. Part way through Death's End, but not going very fast as I'm ridiculously busy this month and by the time I get to sit down on the evening I've not got much concentration left for proper reading. I'm also working my way through the Haynes Bee Manual which is actually very good with excellent clear photographs/diagrams (unlike many of those in their Vauxhall vivaro manual, I have to say).

12. Player Piano - Kurt Vonnegut

His first novel, written in 1952 and set in a future dystopia where automation has made most men redundant apart from an upper class of engineers and managers. Understandably dated in some respects (the women are just there as wives and secretaries, for example) but still a thought-provoking and moving read filed with typical Vonnegut black humour.

28. The Missing - C.L Taylor A book group book. Not one I would have chosen myself and have to say I hated it. Billed as a thriller it just felt like an excuse to write about every dark thing going. Affairs, suicide, alcoholism, child abuse, online stalking, hard core porn - you name it, it was there. Only took a day to read but it was a day I won't get back!

11. Confusion - Elizabeth Jane Howard
Cazalet Chronicle no. 3 (thanks, Keith). Further adventures of the Cazalets and extended family. After a run of short books, it was good to get my teeth back into a long, complicated, meaty story. There did seem to be an awful lot of affairs in this one though, which got rather repetitive. I found myself turning into my mother when The Archers gets exciting - "Why can't everyone just be happy?" I also thought it was amusing that everyone was so pearl-clutching about Edward's inability to keep his penis in his marriage when about half the rest of the cast were shagging someone they oughtn't to be.
Anyway. Am looking forward to book four and finding out what happens to everyone and if anyone gets anything approximating a happy ending, or if it's just going to be more secrets, shagging and spam fritters to the bitter end.

1. A House Full of Daughters - Juliet Nicholson - a family history/memoir of the females in the Sackville-West family. I enjoyed this book, well told with just the right level of detail and very touching/poignant in places.
2. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. Well reviewed on this thread, WW1 told through the eyes of a young German soldier. Definitely one of the best, if not the best, World War One books I have ever read, I felt like I was in the trenches.
3. Ashes of London - Andrew Taylor, murder mystery/family saga set in 1666 after the Great Fire of London. Enjoyed it well enough but slightly dull storyline and not one of his best. It felt slightly lacking compared to the Shardlake series but I may be being slightly unfair.

15. The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain. Set in Switzerland and spanning the second half of the 20th century, this book tells the fictional story of Gustav Perle, always in control of his emotions, and his friend Anton, a musical prodigy - from their first meeting at nursery school until they are in their 60s. I really enjoyed this; it is well written and unusual. Thanks for the recommendation, Phoenix and Happy.

24. Do No Harm by Henry Marsh I thought this was great: an extremely readable, interesting insight into brain surgery by one of the NHS's top neurosurgeons.

I can't quite believe I'm on book 25 and it's only March: this thread is definitely helping, as well as providing me with recommendations for books I would not otherwise have read such as This Thing of Darkness, thanks all!!

I love that balcony. It's where I naturally belong, I think.

LadyDepp - If you have any interest in the story of Genghis Khan, watch the film Mongol. It is very well done and reflects both his story and the atmosphere of the period in a far better way than the book Wolf Of The Plains. Both are based on the book Secret History of the Mongols.

I just realised that , so enjoy

Oh dear, my mention of Pollyanna started it all up again. Let us consign her quickly and quietly and gladly to oblivion

(Still want to throttle her for being so bloody and grimly cheerful though, curmudgeon that I doubtless am.)

27. Young and Damned and Fair by Gareth Russell Detailed biography of Catherine Howard, ill fated 5th Queen of Henry VIII. Very detailed and has some really thought provoking detail about the workings of Tudor England. As usual I come away horrified by the thought of what a dangerous age it was. As is probably obvious I have a bit of an interest obsession with Tudor history!

Cote - Wolf of the Plains was fine for me as I knew less than nothing about Genghis Khan before I read it. I do wonder why the author took so many liberties with the truth? Although, I personally have no issue with the name change, I can't remember exactly what Eeluk's real name was but I recall a lot of consonants!

1. A Better World by Marcus Sakey - book 2 of the Brilliance trilogy. This is rather airport thriller style sci fi, and not as good as the first book in my opinion. The premise is that 1% of humans are gifted in some way, which creates a rather tricky relationship between normals and abnormals. The book's hero is gifted and is tasked with trying to find peace between the violent factions on either side. I find him rather one dimensional, but I did enjoy the descriptions of some of the wacky "gifts" that some of the abnorms have. This is one of those books that feels likes it has been written for a movie deal, but I'll still go ahead and read the third one just to see how it all pans out.