50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Four

Cote reads Chandler if Remus reads Cloud Atlas.

There are no losers in this one, both great imo

Cote reads Chandler if Remus reads Cloud Atlas.

There are no losers in this one, both great imo

Tarahumara - I'm glad you enjoyed it

"Cote reads Chandler if Remus reads Cloud Atlas."

Ooh that would be interesting!

13. Measuring the world by Daniel Kehlmann. This is a fictionalised biography of the lives of two great but gloriously eccentric Germans living in the late 18th / early 19th century - the mathematician Gauss, and the explorer and naturalist Humboldt. This was a Cote recommendation and I thoroughly enjoyed it (sorry Remus!).

Remus - a small taster of my TBR pile:

His bloody project
Golden Hill
Fingersmith
The Goldfinch
One Man's Everest
The Silent Deep
Conclave

And on and on....

Another huge Noel Streatfield fan here. Loved Ballet Shoes, White Boots, Thursday's Child and the Gemma series. Anyone remember Apple Bough and The Growing Summer?

I have very fond memories of White Boots. A childhood favourite.

I didn't come across Ballet Shoes until years later, so that doesn't have the same nostalgic pull for me.

The dad in White Boots seemed to be a terribly incompetent shopkeeper though. It's a wonder he kept his shop going long enough for his more practical son to reach his teenage years and implement improvements (funded by the teenage son's Saturday job IIRC correctly).

Just catching up. Maybe you could do a deal Remus and Cote.

Cote reads Chandler if Remus reads Cloud Atlas.

The rest of us will be hugely entertained by the reviews .

Here's my list so far:

1. This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson (kindle)
2. Where the Bodies are Buried by Chris Brookmyre (kindle)
3. Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick (kindle)
4. The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy (hard copy)
5. Thank Heaven Fasting by EM Delafield (kindle)
6. 11.22.63 by Stephen King (audible)
7. Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves (Dad's kindle)

1. The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (kindle)

Happy I see you really didn't rate the Alison Weir novel you read. I read Innocent Traitor last year, the Lady Jane Grey one, and thought it was great. I found the straightforward narrative style, with no attempts at literary fancy bits, very refreshing and moving, and liked that so much of it was from women's perspectives.

LadyDepp - What's on your tbr pile, and I'll tell you if Wolf is better than any of them!

LadyDepp

All I do is read. I have to have the lights on all day because the windows are so filthy that there is no light coming through them, and I wear wellies indoors so that I can wade through the dust without gettin caked. (I have lost two cats this week alone in the living room).

Thanks for new thread but OMG HOW DO YOU ALL READ SO QUICKLY? I am struggling this year for some reason, I think I need to choose a few shorter books next!

it's very nice to be reminded of books I've enjoyed in the past like Beautiful Ruins and Saturday.

But I'm rather shocked that someone liked NW by Zadie Smith, a truly terrible novel IMHO.

Remus - your info about the sequel to Wolf on the Plains will definitely help me put it on the back burner until I tackle my mountainous TBR pile! I was quite tempted to get stuck straight into Book 2!

I paid 79 whole pence of ready English money for this. Reader, I was robbed.

Some people have no shame Remus

Great to see Jerusalem in someone else's list Shake - I loved that book (even though it took a long time to read).

1. NW, Zadie Smith
2. A God in Ruins, Kate Atkinson
3. The Marble Collector, Celia Aherne
4. Did you Ever Have a Family, Bill Clegg
5. Lucky Break, Esther Freud
6. The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood
7. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
8. Longitude, Dava Sobel
9. Marking Time, Elizabeth Jane Howard

15. Today Will Be Different, Maria Semple
I liked this. Has some similarities to Bernadette (heroine is older mother, creative, reluctantly relocated to Seattle from somewhere rather more interesting where she had successful, well-respected career) but it goes in rather a different direction. It's rather beautifully entwined around a poem and a selection of artwork, both of which are lovely.

The wise-cracking and the constant talking-at-a-million-miles-an-hour with offhand US cultural references (some of which I read over and over again and still didn't really understand) can get exhausting. But I slowed my usual reading pace down and found that worked better. Seemingly lightweight but actually subtly much cleverer than you think it is. Ending - I dunno. Not what I expected.

My list so far:

1. The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
2. Our Endless Numbered Days by Clare Fuller
3. Ready Player One by Ernest Kline
4. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
5. Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
6. Still Life by Louise Penny
7. A Country Road, a Tree by Jo Baker
8. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
9. Nightwoods by Charles Frazier

Currently reading Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier, which I thought I had read as a teenager but I can't remember a single thing about it. I'm really enjoying it and will probably re-read Rebecca soon as a result.

I'm listening to This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell. Well read and it's flying by - I haven't felt the need to increase the reading speed to 1.25 which makes it sound like it's being read by cartoon characters, so that's a good sign that I'm enjoying it..

I love reading through the threads and remembering books I've read and what time and place in my life they are relevant to.

Thanks for the lovely new thread, south. I'm very much enjoying my reading this year!

18. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.

The first of Maya Angelou's autobiographies, this has been sitting in my tbr list for a while. I felt there was a cool detachment in the telling of her story from child to teenaged mum, except when she writes about her childhood friendship with her brother and when she meets her son. But that did not take away from its impact and I will be thinking of it for some time. The book prompted me to look at some superb YouTube footage of Dr Angelou performing her poetry.

Bringing my list over, stand-outs in bold, unimpressed in italics..

1. The Story of a New Name (Book 2 of Neopolitan Novels) by Elena Ferrante.
2. Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter.

1. Beauty by Robin McKinley.
2. Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall.

1. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote.
2. Any Human Heart by William Boyd.
3. The Pure in Heart (Simon Serailler Book 2) by Susan Hill.

Sample of Thursday's Children (had never heard of this before) also bought! Thanks.

Just got the sample of A Vicarage Family, thanks. :)

Think I'll stick to re-reads of Ballet Shoes (an utterly glorious cake book, if ever there was one) and not bother with any more of her fiction,though.

Rumer Godden's Thursdays Children is sort ofBallet Shoes meets Billy Elliot if that appeals?

Yy best don't even go into Watchman thinking it's going to be good - it's interesting as a draft and a fleshing out of some of her ideas, but TKAM is the finished product and it shouldn't be read as any kind of sequel, or taking anything away from the novel she went on to write.

Thanks Best. Resisting temptation to download them on to my Kindle as my to-read pile is huge! Will probably keep an eye out in charity shops .

Subset Oh yes, I read all of those!
I find it hard to be rational about Streatfeild as I read most of her oevre when I was nine, and they're such cornerstones of my childhood.