50 Book Challenge Part Five

20. The Fixer by Joseph Finder

Out-of-work journalist discovers millions hidden in the walls of his dad's old home, and mayhem ensues. Dad can't help or explain as he is incapacitated following stroke 20 years ago, which it now seems was brought on by a heavy beating.

This was a quick & light read with the right dose of suspense & intrigue, although the ending was rushed, I felt. I like Joseph Finder's books in general and would recommend his stuff to anyone looking criminal investigation / corporate espionage etc type stories.

A weekend with loads of reading time...a rare treat for me!
18. At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier
Set in the mid 1800s, this novel opens in the Black Swamp area of Ohio as the Goodenough family try to scrape out a living against a backdrop of feuding and violence between parents James and Sadie. Following an incident, not revealed until later on in the book, son Robert heads west to leave his family behind, and this novel is really his story as he makes a life in California in the 1850s.
I loved this! Having time to get absorbed in it definitely helped compared to some of my recent reading. I found the setting fascinating, both in time and place, and as the book developed I was drawn in by the characters. References to trees, particularly the apple trees the Goodenoughs grow in Ohio and the redwoods and sequoias of California, are threaded through the story beautifully and central to the plot. I enjoyed the plot, forgiving a brief soap opera type episode as it enabled the author to wrap the story up with a conclusion that I liked!

26. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver Took a while to get through this as, despite her marvellous writing, I just wasn't gripped in the early stages. This story of a half American, half Mexican novelist who works in the household of Frida Kahlo in Mexico and later falls foul of 1940s / 50s anti communist witch hunts in America, is told in the form of extracts from diaries and articles, and I think it is this format that made me feel a bit detached from it initially, but in the later stages was used to great effect (don't want to say more...spoilers). Also novels which have a novelist as the main character always have to work hard to convince me they are not just navel gazing. This one certainly worked hard enough and I ended up loving it by the time all the threads were pulled together at the end.

27. Scaredy Cat by Mark Billingham Good well paced cop / murder thriller set in London. Second outing for DI Tom Thorne. The murder descriptions are too graphic for me, but otherwise really enjoyed this, and didn't guess who dunnit until just before the reveal. This was on my dad's kindle, and there's one more from this series on there, which I'm definitely going to read.

Stitches. That sounds familiar. DD regularly raids the recycling and she came home from a week away with a rucksack full of rocks, and is insisting on keeping them. She will never give away any toys ever, or clothes she has grown out of. I think this will be a slog.

DS is ok as long as he has his sword and his cowboy costume, but he drew stripes all down his legs yesterday so he could be a tiger and they won't wash off. Argh. He also is convinced that at nursery they told him that he can fly like a bird, and has been practising over the weekend by jumping off the back of the sofa. I am glad that his French comprehension is improving but clearly some things are lost in translation.

As a result I have been taking refuge in my kindle and am continuing with The Paper Menagerie. I love it and don't want it to end.

Fortuna - Alone in Berlin is a great book. I think that the translation is perhaps a little clunky. It is however a compelling story with profoundly moral questions. It struck me as very 'contemporary' despite being written in 1946.

52. Take Six Girls: The lives of the Mitford Sisters by Laura Thompson
I have certainly read better books about this family. This one jumps about all over the place and it times is really hard to follow. It is primarily focused on the girls lives in the 1930's and throughout the Second World War, inevitably focusing on their widely opposing political beliefs. The author is favourite sister is clearly Nancy; she quotes from and draws parallels with her novels throughout the book. I was no surprise to find that she has written a stand alone Nancy Mitford biography.
She has little time for Jessica (Decca), dismissing her as a silly privileged girl who never stopped rebelling. In fact she has much more sympathy with fascist Unity and Diana.
The latter years of their lives are glossed over in a matter of pages.
Mary Lovell's biography is a much better book.

26. Uprooted - Naomi Novak 'Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.'

Fantasy not totally my thing, I read this for a prompt on a reading challenge. I actually quite enjoyed it in a twisted fairy tale kind of way, but some irritating aspects and I had to skim past the battle scenes in the end they got tedious. Started better than it ended definitely.

Has Theban actually been confirmed? Can't find it anywhere in the news.

You can carry Kindle/ laptop in the hold. A bit annoying as you can't have it on the flight but no reason that you can't take then with you.

Laptop and Kindle Ban bascialy confirmed now So I am going to have to Look at covers for my Paperbacks as I am to Embarrassed to be seen reading books that are not supposed to be read by a man while on the Beach.
Plus I will have to find a computer there which is impossible now as while I am away I have to pick my uni options and it cant be done on a phone so I will have to do it via a computer somewhere there.

29. Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada. Set in 1940s Berlin it details the interwoven lives of ordinary people under the Nazi regime and one couple's small resistance to it.

I don't know how I feel about this one yet. It took me ages to get through as I have had limited reading time recently, it's quite slow burning and harrowing to read . It was well written and interesting. I hadn't realised that some of the characters were based on real people. Largely it just made me very sad about humanity despite the redemptive qualities of many of the characters.

Frederick Forsyth's autobiography The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue is 99p just for today

15. The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, by Heather O'Neill
16. All Our Wrong Todays, by Elan Mastai
17. The Unquiet Dead, by Ausma Zehanat Khan
18. My Name Is Lucy Barton, by Elizabeth Strout
19. Fifteen Dogs, by Andre Alexis
20. Party Girls Die in Pearls, by Plum Sykes

I'm still on The Woman In White - feels like I've been reading it for about a year

41 Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor

Much reviewed on here. I didn't think it was terrible, but wasn't particularly taken with it. I doubt I'll bother with more in the series.

22. The Dark Flood Rises by Margaret Drabble. Fran is in her early 70s, a widow living alone, still working and in good health but feeling old age creeping upon her. This follows the lives of Fran and a few of her friends and family members over a two month period, and explores the themes of old age and eventual death. It's so unusual to read a book in which the septuagenarians are the main characters and the younger generation have the bit parts. Thoughtful and well written.

I hope she has a chapter on convincing small children that grotty toys/feathers/leaves/rocks/pet snails don't spark joy.

Sadly not. She suggests that organising your own stuff will inspire your family. This is not working with my small DC yet. DS1 (5) got very cross yesterday after I told him he couldn't make a "collection" of cardboard circles from the tops of Cornetto cones

Remus.

Sorry for reposting my list so often, but I keep losing it so want to keep myself right!

1. A Brief History of Seven Killings
2. Doubts and Loves: What is left of Christianity by Richard Holloway
3. The Essex Serpent
4. The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin
5. American Gods by Neil Gaiman

1. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
2. The Seventh Scroll by Wilbur Smith
3. Ada's Algorithm by James Essinger

Welcome to Night Vale was meh. Probably good for fans, I suspect the podcast format suits the stories better.

Now reading Ken Liu's Paper Menagerie. I have had to stop after The Literomancer because I felt too sad. I have dipped in to Marie Kondo's Spark Joy because the flat is awful and I can't take it. I hope she has a chapter on convincing small children that grotty toys/feathers/leaves/rocks/pet snails don't spark joy.

Regarding the Into The Wild controversy, I used to agree that Chris McCandless was a numpty after reading Into The Wild as required reading in high school, but over time it seems that there was rather more going on than was apparent in the book. There have been suggestions that the berries McCandless was relying on as a staple food, and which were not previously known to be toxic, played a part in his death in addition to the revelations about his father's abuse of his mother. We all seem to agree than John Krakauer is a bit of a numpty though.

I found my review of Moz's autobiography, from 2014.

"I finished the pile of steaming poo that was Morrissey's autobiography.
Reader, don't bother."

Cote - It was brilliant. You wouldn't like it at all!

Fascile - we will have to agree to disagree. I liked about the first six pages only. After that I thought it was dull for a while. And after that, I thought it was complete crap. I only finished it because I was told by two people whose taste I usually trust that it was worth persevering with.

22. Occupy Me by Tricia Sullivan

Features an amnesiac angel with wings folded into higher dimensions, chasing a killer possessing the body of another man, who's carrying a mysterious suitcase containing a hole in the universe.

I struggled to get into this one, and some of the higher dimension stuff went over my head, but I think that's mostly to do with the number of interruptions I had reading it (including a couple of longish breaks where I'd put it down somewhere and didn't find it again for a few days ).
It's one that would have benefited a lot from me being able to devote an uninterrupted stretch of reading time to it. Maybe one to try again properly in a few years once the DC are all in school and I've forgotten the ending.

23. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman

I'm pretty sure this has been reviewed on one of the 50 book threads. There's a mysterious library that harvests stories from alternative realities. Librarian goes off to collect a book and finds it all far more dangerous and adventure filled than expected.

Undemanding and an entertaining read.

Johnny Marr has been returned.

29. The Mistake I Made - Paula Daly

Roz is a struggling single mother left with debt after her husbands affairs and collapse of her business. And things just keep getting worse. And so when a gentleman approaches her and offers to solve her debt for one night with her she finds she cannot resist. However she cannot foresee the chain of events this kicks off.

This was a fairly easy read and quite predictable at times but was a good book to wonder what you would do in that situation. Would any amount of money be worth it?