50 Book Challenge Part Five

48. Daughters of The Grail by Elizabeth Chadwick . Really disappointed with this book. Read her Eleanor of Aquitaine trilogy earlier this year and enjoyed them. This one concentrates on the Catholic Crusade of the 13th Century to destroy the Cathars. The heavy focus on the Supernatural and Mystic elements really grates. Also it seemed full of heaving bodices and fiery loins. Very Dan Brown. I am actually interested in this period of history but have been disappointed not just by this but also by the Kate Mosse books too. Would love to read a good and accurate novel set in this time.

Just started Quantum, A Guide for the Perplexed on Audible. So far I think I am becoming more, rather than less perplexed, but hopefully this will change as things progress.

I have to say I don't get the Waugh / Adrian Mole connection myself, Remus. Love his books though - Scoop in particular.

Ooh - just got the sample of To Say Nothing of the Dog, which I'd never heard of. It looks like something I'll either love or loathe.

Evelyn Waugh can be very, very funny. Vile Bodies, Scoop and The Loved One spring to mind. Speaking of Waugh, Decline and Fall cheap on Kindle today and I have a feeling it's one I've missed. If I have read it before, it's so long ago that I've forgotten absolutely everything about it.

Also speaking of Waugh, am I the only person who can't think of Waugh without immediately thinking of Adrian Mole too?

Enjoying The City and the City so far, by the way.

There aren't that many of them - I just know it's the sort of thing you lot would take to heart (like me) so thought I should be upfront about it early. I usually can't forgive it, and I do for Willis, so that says something. I do agree though - she's obviously done her research, so why she just couldn't get a Brit to read them is beyond me ...

I love Zelazny Sadik, and the Willis does sound like a possibility Cheerful- I do get annoyed by fanfic that isn't Britpicked though, so could be problematical. I imagine I just don't notice inappropriate British words in American fic written by Brits- there must be just as many mistakes.

"you have to forgive it talking about the railroad to Oxford and featuring characters majoring in something at Oxford"
Cheerful - I've looked at Connie Willis in the past, she looks like just my sort of author but was put off by reviews saying exactly that. Maybe I should give her a go anyway? Somehow I can forgive clunky writing more easily - perhaps because I feel that's just lack of skill, whereas any published author ought to be able to get their work checked over for inappropriate Americanisms (or at the very least read one of the many, many, many Britpicking guides online . . .)

Do a little dance...

I'm getting back into the swing of it, only problem is my chosen genre wasn't very wise. But I'm pleased that I've managed 2 books in 3/4 weeks. Hopefully it means I'm getting back in the swing of things.

For those who don't have an over active mind, I've been reading Tom Slemen, Haunted Liverpool as he has about 30 books out ranging between £3&4.

I fancy something classical next. In the hopes I don't drive myself insane.

So 2 down 48 to go.

Well done to everyone else.

20. Tracks , Louise Erdrich Having just finished and very much enjoyed LaRose by Louise Erdrich, I am giving this one another go having given up on it several years ago. The setting is North Dakota again, but this time it's set in 1912, and the Ojibwe people are decimated by sickness and starvation and struggling to survive. There are two narrators, taking it in turns to tell the story in the first person, one of whom I like much better than the other. This may be why I gave up on it on my first attempt.

In spite of the potentially harrowing subject matter, there's a lot of humour in this book - for example a snare is constructed using piano wire swiped from the local church piano, on the proviso that the priest only plays the keys in the middle so won't miss it anyway. There are also lots of interesting, strong and capable women.

This book fills in a lot of the back story for the characters in the earlier book Love Medicine which I have found interesting. So far, Tracks is not as polished or gripping as LaRose but I am still finding it a satisfying read and glad I gave it another go.

Fatowl I completely agree re The Cazalets - wanted to love this series but felt lukewarm about them, even after reading all 5 books. Too many characters, and yes the governess was fascinating, but not given enough space in the book as I think she deserved.

(And you have to forgive it talking about the railroad to Oxford and featuring characters majoring in something at Oxford and so forth, which is the sort of thing that usually makes me go all Hulk Smash, but I love the book so much I excuse it. But you may not.)

1. The Wolf and The Raven - Steven MacKay

1. Greenwitch - Susan Cooper

1. Crosstalk - Connie Willis (Audible)

26: The Light Years (The Cazalets 1) - (Audible) - ho hum, I did post up thread how I was struggling with this, which disappointed me because I know so many people love these books. A couple of the storylines just about held my interest enough to finish it, but I can't see myself rushing to read the whole lot. The only character I was really interested in was the governess. There was a maid introduced at the beginning who was promising, but her story wasn't picked up again for the rest of the book.
The daughter Louise featured fairly heavily in the first half, and almost disappeared for the last half, and I had a number of other issues.
I think it was written from the point of view of too many characters- I jsut started engaging with one, and then it shifted to someone else for an indeterminate amount of time.
Also (and this is a problem only with listening on Audible) - the narrator was very soft spoken and I found I missed stuff and she was quite monotone, so if you missed the (Softly spoken) name of who we were with this chapter, the name was never said again and I spent large amounts of time listening to narration and having no idea which character was speaking as it was all "he" and "she" and "they".
2/10

On the other hand - thoroughly enjoying The Handmaid's Tale on Kindle for my Bookclub
Trying to decide what to put next on Audible

If it's time-travelling historians you're after, can I re-recommend Connie Willis's 'To Say Nothing of the Dog'? Won the Hugo and the Locus and was nominated for the Nebula.

The batshit quotient is pretty high. (It’s basically late-Victorian England as written by an American openly and unashamedly using ‘Three Men in a Boat’, Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie as her primary research points.) But it is gloriously bonkers if you like that sort of stuff.

Thank you everyone

Sadik sounds like you'll be fine with St Mary's then! Personally, I found the overall idea of it interesting enough to ignore the dodgy writing and slightly irritating main character. It depends on my mood. Sometimes I can look past flaws in a book if there's something else in its favour. Sometimes I can't, or choose not to. In this case, time-travelling historians and dinosaurs were enough to keep me happy!

A good friend of mine once described my reading habits as alternating incredibly long and boring books with ridiculously trashy lightweight ones. (TBF at the time IIRC I was reading The Making of the English Working Class interspersed with Roger Zelazney's Amber series )

I remembered the reviews were quite mixed (to say the least), but figured at 99p it was a good time to try the St Marys books. I have quite a high tolerance for trashy-but-amusing if something happens to catch my fancy. (Your description of the heroine isn't making me that optimistic though Remus)

Agree Georgette Heyer at her best can be very, very funny.

Right now I'm in full-on planting out mode at work, so I'm working my way through an umpteenth re-'read' of the Mortal Instruments books on library audio - plenty of laugh-out-loud lines there amongst the teenage angst.

I read the first St Marys book, but didn't really think it was very good, there was a good idea in there, but just not done very well. Didn't feel the need to read any others.

Yes to Bryson- although I found the Road to Little Dribbling much sadder and less funny. Maybe Britain is sadder! Have never clicked with Wodehouse or Sharpe. There should be more classifications for humour so it is easier to find the right thing for you!

Wilt by Tom Sharpe makes me laugh. There's 4 or 5 of them but the first one is the best.

I really like the St Mary's books! I agree that they're not great literature but I think they're funny and easy to read and I enjoy finding out about historical events from them.

Lucky Jim is funny. James Herriot. My dh gets in hysterics at the Flashman Papers but they are perhaps something of an acquired taste. Wodehouse.

Bill Bryson best for proper belly laughs.

Just dug out my review of One Damned Thing after Another
Great concept – secret historians backed by teams of researchers, tech-people etc etc do lots of time travelling for the worthy cause of historical research. In reality though, this was absolute tosh. It didn’t help that it’s narrated by the most irritating female driveling idiot known to literature since Emma Bovary. It also didn’t help that it was dreadfully written, so that even when it was about potentially seriously exciting stuff like being chased by a tyrannosaurus rex, or threatened by a time lord-esque psychopath, it was all just mind-blowingly, excruciatingly boring. Just awful – I’m astonished that it was ever published.

Sorry terrible spelling and punctuation am on crappy phone!

Congratulations Monty.

I didint enjoy the St Mary book I read either Remus, I didn't find it funny- on that subject: Does anyone have any books that really do make them laugh? Some Georgette Heyers are really funny (imo); The Land Of Greeen Ginger is probably my favourite laugh out load read; Howls Moving Castle another favourite!

I went to a lovely second hand bookshop in Margate and I now have Cloud Atlas in the tbr pile!

I agree with Remus. I couldn't even finish the first St Mary's book. It was terrible.

No 51. The Monster in The Box - Ruth Rendell. Wexford again, and I am now reading another, Not In The Flesh

27. Roseanna (A Martin Beck novel) by Sjöwall and Wahlöö.

This was apparently (according to DH) the book that started Scandi Noir. Written and set in 1960's Sweden, it is very evocative of that time. There is a lot of traipsing around, waiting for phone calls etc, pre-internet and mobile phones. It was okay but a bit too bleak for me and the story has been copied in various books and TV series so I guessed fairly early where the plot was going.

28. The Sellout by Paul Beatty.

Listened to the audiobook which has an excellent narrator. This was a thought provoking satire of race in America. I wasn't sure I was going to like it at the beginning but the characters and probably the narrator won me over (with a few laugh out loud moments in there too). I liked the modern references and the raw honesty, anger and confusion that came through. No sitting on the fence here! It's great to read books that keep me thinking, questioning my beliefs and ways of thinking and perhaps invoking a change for the better.

EmGee - I also need a break between books particularly if they have been thought provoking. Or like Clueless I switch genres..

Welcome to all the new posters! 😄