50 Book Challenge Part Five

Just added Ordinary Grace to my never ending TBR list and reserved it at the library, sounds like I would enjoy it.

EmGee, I was surprised at just how beautiful I found Ordinary Grace. I rather expected not to like it very much but was so moved. I recommend it to friends all the time.

Going to have to put The City in The City on my to-read list. TBH, the idea of a city that's divided reminds me of Neverwhere - London Above doesn't "see" London Below - in this case it's "because magic" but also because they see them as tramps. And you can see the "tramps/beggars are invisible" effect in almost any big city every day.

Recent reads:

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Excellent read that I have no idea how to review - but it was recommended by Cote so you can probably find an extremely detailed and brilliant review from her somewhere . Part of my difficulty in reviewing is that this was enjoyable because I liked the cryptography discussions in it, so I have no clue how well it would read if you skip them. It's basically two timelines, WW2 and 1990s, following several characters through the war, and the grandson of one of the characters through the modern part. Or, um, more recent history to younger readers. I did find the presentation of computing/mathematical thinking as exclusively a male preserve rather teeth grinding. I suspect without the cryptography stuff (there's an appendix by Bruce Schneir discussing an encryption system used in the book) I would have found that seriously detracted from the enjoyment.

I am intrigued about The City after the discussion on here so have added it to my to do list.

30 Me before You - Jo Jo Moyes - Having finally got round to reading this i am not sure what all the hype is about. Whilst, I did enjoy it I didn't love it and guessed the ending well before the end.

31 Words In her Hands - Guinevere Glasford - This is set in 17th century Netherlands and tells of the love been Helena a maid and the philosopher / mathematician Rene Descartes. This is a sad and poignant book in which the author captures so wonderfully the constraints faced by Helena and women like her in terms of class and status.

I have just started Birdcage Walk by Helen Dunmore

YY Still Sophie's Choice is a wonderful, wonderful book. I first read it years ago before I had kids. Now that I have kids of my own, it's a book that always come back to me especially when I read fiction about that era.

I have just finished 27. Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger which I devoured. It's set in 1960s Minnesota and follows a summer of tragic events experienced by 13 year-old Frank Drum whose father is the town pastor. It's a story of compassion, hope, human frailties, love and death and how we deal with them, how we move forward from tragedy. It is written beautifully; simple yet descriptive with endearing characters. Superb!

ChessieFL I listened to History in 21 Women on Audible too, and I thought Jenni Murray's narration was really good except when she was in Scotland, mispronouncing place names and putting on a Scottish accent that made me laugh out loud!
Finished book 17. A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr which I hadn't heard of until this thread and picked up on a whim when I recognised the title in the library. I struggled to get into this at times as I keep falling asleep whenever I sit still, but I don't think that has been the book's fault! I loved the setting, both the location and the time it portrays at the end of the horse-drawn, lamp-lit era. It made me think of my ancestors lives in 1920 and, in one of the themes of the book, made me nostalgic of a time I didn't live through.

I loved The Ruby in the Smoke too. I must have been about 11/12 when I read it. I know I read the sequel, but I must hunt down the rest.

28. The Ides of April by Lindsey Davis on audiobook. This is the follow up to her brilliant Falco series, about a Roman private investigator during the time of the Emperor Vespasian. The new main character is the adopted daughter of the original PI, and has taken over his business.

I had really high hopes for this as I loved the Falco series and have long since read them all. I always felt with those that I was walking the streets of Ancient Rome. It took a long time to set the scene (12 years later and a different emperor) and build her up as a character, so it felt very slow to get going. I thought the plot was a lot weaker than usual and it was easy to guess 'whodunnit'. It was ok, but I would like to read the next one before deciding how I feel about them. It felt like a shadow of the previous series and I missed the character from that. Hopefully she gets back on fine form with the next one.

I've also been dabbling with a bit of poetry, but don't want to count it as one of my books. I read Ariel, by Sylvia Plath, but found I prefer her earlier work in Collected Poems. I'm still drifting in and out of that at the moment.

1. Bee Wilson, 'this is not a diet book'
2. Harry Potter & the chamber of secrets (with DC)
3. Jennifer Weiner, 'all fall down'
4. Lauren Sandler, 'one and only'
5. Rene and Goscinny, the Nicholas Book (children's book)
6. Katja Rowell, fussy eating book
7. Nicola Yoon, 'everything everything' (YA book)
8. JD Robb, 'echoes in death'
9. JD Vance, 'Hillbilly elegy'
10. Jonathan Kellerman, Heartbreak Hotel
11. Haemin Sunim, The things you can see only when you slow down
12. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie We should all be feminists
13. Sarah A. Denzil Silent Child
14. Anna Bell The bucket list to mend a broken heart
15. Elin Hilderbrand The Rumor
16. William Styron Sophie's choice

Here I am again, after a long disappearance from the thread. I return after having read a wonderful, wonderful classic book Sophie's Choice by American writer William Styron. I imagine most of you will have already read it-- as it was written back in 1979. If you haven't read it already, and you are up to it (as it's a harrowing read) go get it now, it is truly a remarkable novel.

The story is well known but here goes. A young author from the Southern US, living in a guesthouse in Brooklyn after the second world war, meets and is drawn to a couple who live in the same guest house & have an extremely intense love affair. They are Nathan, a jewish man who suffers from what appear to be mental health difficulties (although it's unclear in much of the book what exactly his difficulties are), and Sophie, a beautiful Polish holocaust survivor. The book jumps between the 50s in Brooklyn and the experience of Sophie in Auschwitzh. I will not say more in order to experience this remarkable book on your own. I am sorry I hadn't read it earlier.

On a side note, I have previously read William Styron's memoir on his experience of depression, which is also an excellent read.

The Virgin Suicides and Mortal Engines (this one YA) are 99p on Kindle today. Both excellent.

59. A History of Britain in 21 Women by Jenni Murray

Reviewed upthread, this is Murray's choice of 21 women who have had an influence on British history. I really enjoyed this, as there were many people I hadn't heard of or only knew a tiny bit about. My only issue was that I listened to it on Audible read by Murray herself, and when quoting people she has a habit of doing so with a vague attempt at the appropriate accent which I found offputting.

60. You Are Awful (But I Like You) by Tim Moore

Travelogue, where Moore visits all the places that feature inBitain's worst places to live polls. He also stays in the worst hotels and eats the worst food. Occasionally the prose is a bit overblown, but he's an entertaining writer. There's a lot of focus on places from the Midlands upwards, with very little in the south of the country. Inevitably the book is critical of the places visited so you might not like this much if you come from any of them. I thought he could have made more effort to try and find the good in these places instead of focussing only on the bad.

I read the sample of Ready Player One and I agree, liked the premise to start with but soon lost interest and didn't enjoy the writing 😕

I was more hopefull about all our lost days but about halfway in it got clichéd and I gave up
I read Karl Ove A Death in the Family: My Struggle Book 1 really enjoyed it and have samples of his other books ready in my kindle app

Currently reading Homo deus and really enjoying it 😊

Finished book 5 Ready Player One - started promisingly, liked the dystopian future and 80's references, but I'm not a gamer and didn't enjoy the descriptions of video games, epic virtual battles, robot transformers etc. Also found the ending a bit twee. Agree with the poster who thought it was more of a YA novel, will be interested to see what the film is like next year though.
Onto book 6 A Man Called Ove, read nearly half of it in one day yesterday, excellent going for me!

Welcome Gregorie

I've got another Wexford to finish but then will give The City a go. Lots of challenging work stuff going on ATM - my concentration is not great so I may be a while.

Ruby in the Smoke is brilliant. A rare example of historical YA done properly.

Ironically I've just looked on the library audiobooks service with that in mind and the only two of his they have are Perdido St Station and Embassytown.

I think I gave up on Kraken, Chillie (or if I didn't, it made no impression on me). I found Embassytown interesting - but I do like books that think about how language works, so it was right up my street.

Perdido Street Station is fantasy/steampunk, and I thought had a lot of good things about it but rather too long and not quite enough plot for it's length. I think I'd have liked it more if I was reading it on a long train journey or listening to it on audio while working - both cases where I'm happy to enjoy worldbuilding and not worry so much about actual plot.

Oh, and I loved The City & The City as well. Unfortunately the only other China Mieville book I've read is Kraken which I thought was awful.

MissEDashwood and InvisibleKittenAttack Cornwell's Arthurian trilogy are my favourite of his novels, and I'm a big fan of his generally. The first book is The Winter King and the series is the Warlord Chronicles trilogy.

30. The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

I read this in a day, having been recommended it by someone at book club. Warning - do not read if you're in any kind of romantic personal crisis, you will be in bits! Or at least I was, having had something of a let down yesterday. But it is a lovely story and well told, of a 50 year old man working through the loss of his first love 20 years previously. Jean Perdu runs a 'literary apothecary' on a barge on the Seine. He has a talent for sensing which books will sooth his customers' souls, sometimes refusing to sell them what they have chosen because it is the wrong book for them and offering an alternative. He himself has a closed off portion of his own heart after Manon, his lover, left him suddenly 20 years previously. He has kept himself apart from other people but the arrival of a new neighbour in his apartment building, a woman reeling from the sudden end of her marriage, inspires him to unmoor his bookshop and go looking for his past, along with a motley collection of people he picks up along the way.

LadyDepp - The Ruby in the Smoke is lovely, isn't it? The others in the series are v good too.

Sadik - I am a reader like you! Longer literary "boring" books interspersed with short trashy ones.

I've been rubbish at keeping up with this thread this year, luckily managed to speed up a bit by refusing to be drawn into the debate about NLMG! Been there done that.

15. Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman. This is a fab little adventure about a kick ass 16 year old called Sally Lockhart who gets herself involved in a Victorian murder mystery. Great YA novel, first in a four book series.

16. You've been publicly shamed by Jon Ronson, interesting but rather unsatisfying book about people (sadly mostly women) being savaged on social media for saying or doing something a bit inappropriate. People do seem to love being outraged and social media gives them a great forum for their craziness.

17. Seven dials mystery by Agatha Christie. No Poirot or Marple and the book is the worse for it. I didn't really enjoy this one much, not her best.

18. My Italian Bulldozer by Alexander McCall Smith - insubstantial and blessedly short novel about a man's search for love and meaning in Italy. Pleasant and instantly forgettable. This was a gift and I reckon it was purchased because the cover was pretty .

I'm really looking forward to reading all your reviews of The Cuty & The City

Oh and I've also added The City and The City to my reading list

Grifone I've read the first Demon Road and really enjoyed it, but haven't got round to the other two yet. He cracks me up too. Another fan and I managed to crack him up, when we got to the front of the signing queue and he saw us again - it was the third signing in less than a week the person I was with had gone to, and this day we'd been at the start of the queue and then hung around to rejoin at the very back Absolutely no regrets though, he drew a cartoon Scapegrace in one of my books as well as signing everything.

1. The Girl With All The Gifts by MR Carey

1. The Time Traveller's Guide to Restoration Britain by Ian Mortimer

I've just started Auschwitz and After (Charlotte Delbo)

Will DM you!

Thanks Remus I am very excited as I have never been, so am going to run around doing unashamedly touristy things. What else should I read (apart from The City and the City )?