50 Book Challenge Part Five

Best - I read Love in a Cold Climate years ago, and didn't like it. Maybe I just caught it on an off day?

Meg - the mountain book sounds wonderful.

Remus you've never read The Pursuit of Love? I can't believe it. All those times you've longed for something lovely to read and you had that waiting for you! If only I'd known. Plus, you've got Love in a Cold Climate to follow. Not so keen on the Alfred one.

21. Mont Blanc To Everest - Gaston Rebuffat

A treat to myself having won an Amazon voucher by filling in an MN survey :) long out of print, it's a collection of stunning, mostly b/w plates of mountains with annotations from the famous climber, and a couple of essays on mountains. He's a joy to read if you're a mountain geek like me, plus this has that wonderful old-book smell and feel.

Sovereign does take a while to get going, but is worth it for some terrifying, bum on the edge of the seat and white knuckles stuff later on, imvho.

Book 48
Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh
Glorious. I absolutely adored this and it’s definitely one of my stand puts of the year, so far. It’s completely irreverent, completely ridiculous, completely hilarious and gloriously, stupidly over the top. There’s a section of pretty horrible racism, but you sort of need to look beyond it and see how Waugh is actually making points about the uncivilised white upper-classes far more than he is about race. The introduction to the novel in the version I read (which as always, should have been an out-tro not an intro, and should definitely not be read before if you don’t want the (very silly) plot spoiled was also excellent, and considered the racism thing v sensitively, I thought. Highly recommended.

I'm now reading The Pursuit of Love, which is also hilarious. HOW have I never read this before? I think in my head I'd got it all tied up with Cold Comfort Farm, which didn't do a great deal for me.

I bought Sovereign (Shardlake 3) £1.29 on Kindle this morning despite buying the book last month. Couldn't get into it in book form so going to give it another go in kindle format when I get fed up of Wexford

18. The Worthing Chronicle by Scott Orson Card

This is a SF book from the author of Ender's Gamr, often cited as one of the best SF books ever written. (I liked it but not that much, tbh)

As in Ender's Game, the book is partly about a young boy and its narration style is quite "young" and unsophisticated. There are some interesting ideas that are explored but I would call it YA. I'm thinking DD might like it, actually.

61. Her Last Breath by Linda Castillo

American police procedural. What drew me to it was the setting within an Amish community. It was ok. I don't think I would rush to read more (I found out after reading it that this was the 5th in a series featuring the same detective) but might pick one up from the library sometime.

62. Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough

Louise starts an affair with a married man, David, and also separately makes friends with David's wife, Adele. David appears very controlling of Adele. The story is told alternately from Louise's and Adele's POVs. I did like this, but I can see that some people would find the ending really irritating - you do need to suspend disbelief.

I try, Satsuki

Romanticism is exactly how Into The Wild portrays his ill-prepared stay into Alaskan wilderness "to live off the land", though.

Re Into the Wild : I've not read it, but I know that when the book first came out, McCandless was criticized for what many considered to be foolish decisions. His sisters have since given interviews detailing the awful emotional and physical abuse they suffered as children, which led to his life and death in Alaska. Romanticism didn't drive him, sadly.

21. The Jewel by Amy Ewing

Dystopia. Poor young women with special abilities (auguries) are auctioned off to become surrogates for the ruling class, whose women are unable to have children. This follows a surrogate called Violet, who is purchased as the surrogate for one of the most important royal houses. Luckily for Violet, there's plans afoot to undermine the surrogate system, which may give her a chance of escape.

I had some serious issues accepting the central premise of this. The initial explanation of the reason for the surrogacy system made very little sense to me. The explanation of the auguries was also flawed (caused by a genetic quirk that only affects girls, and only girls from the lowest social caste at that, and isn't tested for until puberty, despite the importance of the surrogates to the ruling class). Violet also seems to have a surprising deal of freedom under the circumstances - enough to manage an extremely reckless affair.

First in a trilogy. I don't think I'm going to bother reading the rest of the trilogy.

Oh cote great summing up of Into the Wild. I enjoyed your second paragraph very much, so funny.

52 Not In The Flesh
53. End In Tears
54. The Babes in The Wood

All by Ruth Rendell, Lovely, lovely Inspector Wexford.

Thankyou, I know very little of Chris McCandless and am intrigued now, despite it sounding a disappointing read. I think I may have had him and Timothy Treadwell confused in my tired mind

• Alright = All right !

Matilda they certainly don't!! Will give it a go.
50. The Light Years - Elizabeth Jane Howard . Have read this many times and listened to it on Audible this time,inspired by Fatowl. I know it divides opinion but always love coming back to these books.
51. Her Perfect Life Sam Hepburn
Alright thriller , read in super quick time and has the obligatory twist at the end which I had half worked out. Reviews on the blurb compared to Gone Girl and Girl on the Train. Falls way short .

'Affable idiot' exactly right.

I liked Into the Wild too, although not as good as Thin Air.

Into The Wild was very disappointing: A very long-winded, repetitive, ultimately less-than-enlightening account of a young man's very ill-prepared attempt to live off the land in Alaska, within 120 days of which he managed to kill himself of starvation. I had high hopes for this book because I had loved the author's book Into Thin Air, his personal account of the 1997 Mt Everest disaster, but its only truly interesting part was where he talks about his own climb of The Thumb.

What I got from this book was that Chris McCandless was an affable idiot, and that I must get the DC's youthful energies channeled into some relatively safe sport or hobby before the end of their schooling, lest they find some exciting, romantic, creative, and possibly delusional way to quickly kill themselves.

Have you read Into the Wild too, Cote and Remus? I spotted it in a charity shop last week but my tantrumming 3yo thwarted my shopping attempts, I may pick it up tomorrow!

Into Thin Air is excellent, even though I've recently decided that Jon Krakauer falls into my 'arrogant tossers' list, at least in part. That doesn't come across in the book though - 99p is an absolute bargain for it!

RMC I would say it's definitely worth a read just to learn more about it. I was slightly horrified to hear that the victorians performed similar for a while to stop excessive masturbation in women and tries it for a cure for epilepsy. They don't teach that when you learn about victorians at school!

Well, I seem to have got a bit stuck reading What's Bred in the Bone, which is the first of the Cornish Trilogy by Robertson Davies. I've seen the series recommended here, and when I read the first few chapters I thought I was going to love it (university setting, mystery manuscripts, super-brainy female student secretly in love with aloof professor). But I've got a few more chapters under my belt now and I'm finding it all a bit tiresome - the troublemaking alcoholic ex-monk is really getting on my tits and as for the mad gypsy mother and the scientist classifying the human race by the content of their excrement.....

Can anyone convince me that it's worth keeping going? I don't think I will give up now I've got this far in but let's just say it has some hard work to do to get a positive review from me :)

Sorry I can't remember who posted above about Jeanette Winterson. I am ashamed to say I'd read Oranges, when it was on the telly and everyone read it, and I'd never gone back to her. She was on the telly in the 90s being a bit pretentious and shouty and I thought "no thanks". Last year I read Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal and it was beautiful. Flawed, yes, but so human and so wonderfully written. Gut Symmetries has gone onto the TBR list.

Oh, and I also bought Ordinary Grace for 99p as I am a sheep - bah bah.

Matilda saw Cut on Kindle deals yesterday and was interested. Will download it.

28. Cut - Hibo Wardere

This was a read recommended by a colleague. Hibo tells the story of her own experience with FGM at the age of six and the problems she has afterwards. She then goes on to highlight the problems throughout the world and the education required.

It's fair to say I didn't know much about this before reading but it opened my eyes to it and made me squirm with the details of the procedures.