50 Book Challenge Part Five

Evening all, I've finished 2 this weekend, and I can't find my list so not sure what numbers they are.

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn. Easy non-braintaxing thriller with a good twist at the end. I listened to this on Audible and the readers were quite good. I will probably listen to another one of hers in the future. I think crime/thriller genre my favourite when it comes to Audible.

The Wangs Vs the World by Jade Chang. This is about a 1st generation Chinese American family who fall on hard times after a series of bad decisions by the patriarch of the family, Charles Wang. So they go from extreme wealth to bankrupt and embark upon a road trip across the US, LA to NY in order to reunite with the oldest daughter, a struggling artist. This story started off strongly - well observed, light hearted and funny, with each chapter told from the point of view of an individual family member. Unfortunately it started to flag around the half way mark for me and by the end I wasn't particularly interested in any of the characters but kept going.

Have started The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather on my kindle. Listening to The Sellout by Paul Beatty.
As for my library books it will either The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom or The Nix by Nathan Hill.

Cheerful - what a fantastic review you wrote. It makes me want to eat a blackbird.

Satsuki - you really should read Rush-Oh! I know this much is true.

The Essex Serpent is also cheap on Kindle again.

southeastdweller
The paperback of The Essex Serpent is just £2.99 at the moment on Amazon!

And £3 at Sainsbury's. (Bought a copy this week and felt a little bad that it was so cheap.)

Bringing my list over.

1. The One We Fell in Love With - Paige Toon
2. This Is Where It Ends - Marieke Nijkamp
3. The Girl Who Lied - Sue Fortin

1. Forget You Had a Daughter: Doing Time in the Bangkok Hilton - Sandra Gregory
2. Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell
3. Trust in Me - Sophie McKenzie

23. You Can't Have My Daughter - Elizabeth McDonnell

Book number 23 was some non-fiction as I'm trying to read a bit more. It's the story of a woman who adopted a troubled ten year old girl only to struggle from a very young age to protect her from herself and from what turned out to be a gang of men in oxford who were trafficking young girls for sex. It's not a pleasant story but an insight into the world that lives in the shadows and to how some services such as police and social work are ineffectual at dealing with it and turn a blind eye if they believe the youngster to be a delinquent.

Now for book 24!

Happy birthday Screw. Sounds like your family/friends are well trained!
Just went into our (teeny tiny) library today and they had a display of all the Baileys prize shortlisted books :) Came away with The Power by Naomi Alderman which I've been wanting to read for ages. I just need to either finish or definitively abandon my current book first . . .

Satsuki
I honestly have no idea. Maybe it's actually really deep and meaningful and we are far too stupid/intelligent/interesting/dull/insertotheradjectiveofchoicehere to realise it.

Just why is it so popular, remus? The many good reviews are leading innocent, hopeful readers like ourselves into the abyss.

Happy birthday, Screw.

Gods, I hated (really, really hated) The Loney.

Book 39
Madonna in a Fur Coat by some dull person whose name I have forgotten and cba to google
Gods, this was dull. Dull to begin with, then it got even more dull, then he met a woman, then it got even more dull, then she disappeared and he was dull on his own, then it was dull some more. If you think this review is dull, believe me it is much, much less dull than the book it is reviewing which was, if you haven't yet realised, very, very dull. I loathed this book and wish I hadn't bothered finishing it. It makes The Loney look really good in comparison (and *The Loney is not good at all).

Thanks southeast now looking at treating myself to something else too to make up the £10 for free delivery. Thinking of Rush-Oh!.

turnofthescrew that's exciting, you will love your Kindle I'm sure. Also I really like E.L Doctorow and especially the Book of Daniel so hope you enjoy it

I am still reading the excellent The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.

It's my birthday today and I was lucky enough to be given The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain, plus Ragtime and The Book of Daniel, both by E L Doctorow. More excitingly, DH got me a Kindle, so I'm now eagerly awaiting any recommendations for 99p specials.

1. The Wolf and The Raven - Steven MacKay

1. Greenwitch - Susan Cooper

1. Crosstalk - Connie Willis (Audible)

23. Saigon by Anthony Grey. One of those epic multi-story thread novels spanning 50 years. Starts with an American hunting party, with their French colonial hosts and their local guides/servants in 1925. One of the Americans is killed on the trip, and the rest of the novel follows what happens to all the characters, and their subsequent children, as what is now Vietnam struggles to free themselves from French colonialism and ultimately ends up following their fates up to the end of the Vietnam war. It's a format I enjoy (Like Ken Follet etc), and it was OK. Some of the stories were far more interesting than others, and some character who were potentially a lot more interesting were not fully developed. Also in country of a decent sized population, the amount of time people co-incidentally ended up in the same place was a bit unbelievable but I was sufficiently interested to finish it. 7/10

Now Listening to the Cazalets on Audible and reading Charlotte's Web (have a list of children's classics to should have read)

No worries, Cote.

Not read The Loney so can't speak to that.

Museum- mention of The Loney brought me up short. Still resent the hours I gave to reading that rubbish. However think the idea of Grange is still winning me over. Currently immersed in The Private lives of the Tudors. Loving some of their mornings sickness remedies - elderberries in ale with 'sparrow's grease' anyone? Or maybe ants eggs and virgins hair for pain relief in labour?

Sorry Cheerful, the first paragraph of your review looked (to me) like you were describing the sort of story that you then called 'trashy'. My mistake

I stand by my blackbird comment though. Baked by Netty in a pie with lots of mash, while Tim tells you a story about the history of blackbird-eating which you aren't sure is real or not, and Annette can't work out whether this is supposed to be a dish to set before a king or a gypsy's dinner.
And Ashworth knows it's both.

It's definitely not 'trashy'!

There really isn't much plot, so if that's a problem for you, be aware. And it's about a woman dying of cancer, so there's that.

There's a surprising amount of hope in there though, given the subject matter. It's a very ... noticing book. She's obviously spent ages researching all sorts of odd things from 1960s cancer treatment to Saville Row tailors to the changing face of Morecambe Bay to tree surgeons ... It's a book that's interested in all sorts of minutia, which I liked.

I must be reading a different review than everyone else re Fell, and am not terribly inspired to read a book that is "trashy" and feels like "eating a blackbird"

Cheerful you sell Fell very well, that's one of the best reviews I've ever read on here (or anywhere). However, one of the top reviews on Amazon basically says 'if you liked The Loney you'll like this. I HATED the Loney. So I'm undecided...maybe I'll just appreciate your review and skip the actual book.

Thanks Sadik I wasn't planning to

I love the sound of Fell. Very interesting premise. The review certainly sells it to me!

Ooh, ooh, ooh, I must read Fell. I was on a writing weekend in Grange-over-Sands last May and walked around the bay several times. Can't say I really got to know Grange but I already know of Jenn Ashworth in that she is a friend of a friend on Facebook and so I often see her comments on threads (all writery stuff).

Cheerful might read it before we do our cross bay walk then!

RMC It is very set in Grange-over-Sands. It's practically another character! Lots about the bay, and the quicksand, and the lido, and a bit about the fells ...