50 Book Challenge Part Five

whippet, pull up that armchair! I think we have quite a lot of overlapping taste, so you might enjoy it, and it's the kind of book you can sample when you're in the mood rather than have to charge through end to end.

48. Notes from a Very Small Island, Anthony Stancomb
Non-fiction from Englishman about his move to a small island in Croatia. He's no prose stylist, and this is heavy on the quaint locals, but in fairness, he seems to have cobbled together enough understanding of the language to get a sense of what life is like for local people there. A reasonable holiday read if you're visiting the area.

49. The Various Haunts of Men, Susan Hill
The first in the Simon Seraillier crime series. As a pp said, it's better to read them in sequence - I knew what awaited a central character, which lessened the impact. The author always seems to have an axe to grind - beware complementary medicine! Assisted suicide is wrong! And frankly, I don't get why Simon S. is so irresistible to women. Getting a bit grumpy with this series.

It's always nice to see spinets mentioned Cote. My grandfather loved obscure muscial instruments and played the spinet, the serpent and the hurdy-gurdy. I am devoid of musical talent, but I used to love trying to play the spinet when I visited them and feeling how hard it was to press down the keys compared to a piano.

I have finished 16. The Return by Hisham Matar and have started 17. Bring Up the Bodies. I really enjoyed Wolf Hall but it's been a while since I read it and it's taking me a while to remember what was happening where Wolf Hall left off.

I'm reading 4 books per month. For last month (May) I read the following:

1. The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker.
2. Underground by Haruki Murakami.
3. The 3 Mistakes of My Life by Chetan Bhagat.
4. Eternal Bread by Alexander Belyaev.

28 The Misremembered Man - Christine McKenna - this has been on my kindle ages, thinking it must have been a deal as it doesn't seem like something I'd really buy. Presents itself as a sort of gentle romantic comedy looking at life in rural Ireland in the 70s - despite making most of the characters seem like simpletons, I was sort of enjoying this bit, but then it's suddenly interspersed with chapters detailing the main male characters horrific upbringing in a catholic orphanage - with some truly gruesome depictions of abuse that I had to skim over in the end. It turns out not to be a romance at all, and has a heartening and quite satisfying resolution if you can overlook the very many coincidences the author relies on to get us there. Overall didn't quite work for me.

bibliomania can I pull up another armchair and join you? It sounds lovely. We're staying with my parents in glamorous Essex and my dad has a copy of the manuscripts book! I am highly tempted now...

23. Le Clavier: Techniques, Factures, Interprétations by Cahier de la Société de Musique Ancienne de Nice (see photo)

I've been yearning for another book about dead Baroque musicians and settled for one about Baroque instruments instead. Sadly, it's in French so some of the more technical parts were a bit beyond me, but I did learn about some fascinating (and odd) early instruments such as the clavichord, spinet, and of course the harpsichord which yours truly has been working on for the past year or so

I doubt if anyone is looking to read a book about ancient musical instruments, so this won't be a long review but I thought it would be interesting to mention here one little fact I learned in this book: Yamaha has been manufacturing organs (since 1887) and pianos (since 1890) long before they went into the fast motorcycles business

25. The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender - Leslye Walton

Quite the change of pace and oh how I loved it. With a plot which features a girl who turns herself into a bird, one who cuts her own heart out and another who is born with wings, it could be seen as a bit daft. But actually, the magical realism for me was really just an interesting plot device for a story about love and relationships. I absolutely loved this - one of my standout reads so far.

Now to go back and catch up with the thread!

Just managed to get Philip Kerr's new Bernie Gunther novel in Oxfam for a fiver. It's still a tenner on Kindle, so I'm chuffed!

26. The Power by Naomi Alderman. Part sci fi and part feminist novel, this imagines a world in which women gain the power to perform electric shocks with their fingers. The underlying theme is an exploration of the extent to which the existing patriarchy is due to the physical strength of men. I thought this was absolutely brilliant - a cracking story, and thought provoking too. Many thanks to those of you who recommended it on this thread.

A few more to add.

35. Wyoming Trail Cheryl Moskowitz. A slightly unsatisfying meander through a woman's lifelong effort to make sense of her father's departure and to create a relationship with him.
36. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. This was cheap on Kindle the other day. Not as good as Into Thin Air. It was rather repetitive and tried to spin out a few facts into a gripping psychological exposé which didn't really work; I didn't really have much sympathy for Chris McCandless. The facts I found out online afterwards about the family etc were more interesting.
37. Phineas Finn Anthony Trollope (audiobook). Still enjoying Timothy West's leisurely narration of these. This one took me longer to get into than others and I found PF himself rather irritating. Enjoying Trollope's discussion of the frustration of the life of the 'ordinary upper class woman'.

Not sure what's up next.

Finished 47. Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, by Christopher de Hemel

Loved this. In each chapter, the author takes you on a tour with him to a different institute around the world to examine a particular manuscript. He comments on the parchment (see the curve of the original animal skin), the handwriting, the illustrations. It's a beautiful book - wouldn't work on Kindle. I felt I should have been reading it in a leather armchair in a gentleman's library, with a crackling fire, a brandy snifter at my elbow, and shadowy ranks of books and busts massed around me. A book to savour, although I had to plough through it fairly quickly as it was due back at the library.

Oh, I also read the Pottermore Presents ebooks mentioned upthread. I'm not counting them in my tally, because I ended up skimming rather. I think I've perhaps read too much fanfic covering the same ground . . .

I'm struggling a bit at the moment (with books, not life) as I'm trying to make a proper go at reading some of the books that have been mouldering on my to-read shelf for years and - er - have been remembering why they've been mouldering. Currently ploughing my way through Stella Gibbons' Here Be Dragons but everyone in it is irritating me. (I rather think they're supposed to be, but even so.)

47 Running Blind by Desmond Bagley. (actually read a little while back, but I forgot to include it in my updates)

Thriller set in Iceland during the cold war. I've been distinctly underwhelmed by the thrillers I've read recently, and wondered whether it was me or the books, so thought I'd go back to this one which is an old favourite from my teens.

It was written in 1970, and the main character has some rather period attitudes to women (a bit problematic given it's written in the 1st person and he's the hero!). But apart from that it's head and shoulders above the various cold-war set thrillers I've read recently, even despite the fact that I knew the ending.

26. Ship of Magic - Robin Hobb
27. The Mad Ship - Robin Hobb
28. Ship of Destiny - Robin Hobb

This is the Liveship trilogy which I hadn't read before as I sped through all the Farseer/Fitz and Fool books first.

Really glad I read these although I wish I had read them in sequence as it would have helped with the later stories. The background and characters are richly drawn and the world she has created is quite compelling.

A great read if you like immersive fantasy which is rich in detail but not flabby (George R.R.Martin, take heed!).

Thanks, Sadek. I probably won't bother with it then.

Oh and by on a real case I mean on one of many theories as obviously it's not fact

33. The Cry - Helen Fitzgerald

A baby goes missing on a quiet road in Australia. The parents have just arrived from Glasgow. Where is the baby and why did the parents leave him alone? As they turn against each other the lies get more tangled.

This was a gripping book I read in one day. It broke my heart at times to think of what the characters went through and then at times I thought they were getting what they deserved. A good read where I couldn't decide how I felt for the characters as they were flawed. Just like real people of course.

Maybe a little taken from real life case or maybe it's just me that sees the connection

DNF Karoo by Steve Tesich. 400+ pages of a rich script doctor from New York behaving like a selfish cowardly twat. Meant to be hilarious, which I suppose it might be if you find the pathetic drunken antics of an American arsehole amusing. Saul Karoo and I parted ways about a third of the way in when he justifies a particulary spineless and unwise shag by imagining he's having sex with a 14 year old

53. The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss.
    Already reviewed on here I think. Loved it. Just the brain cleanser I needed after the utter shiteness of the preceding book. Really well written, clever, poignant and properly funny in parts. Possibly my favourite book of the year so far. Why this wasn't long listed for the Bailey's prize I have no idea.

54. Undying: A Love Story by Michel Faber
    Poetry collection written in memory of Faber's wife Eva who died of myeloma in 2014. The first half of the book contains poems written about her diagnosis leading up to her death, and the second part follows his grief for a year afterwards. These poems are so raw and intimate sometimes I felt like I was intruding on something that should have been kept private. Absolutely extraordinary poetry, punch in the guts poetry. For those who have read Being Mortal I would recommend this book to accompany it. An unflinching look into the reality of dying and grief.

55 House of Names by Colm Toibin
What happens to the family of Agamemnon after he returns from Troy. Follows three characters Clytemnestra his wife (who is narrated by Juliet Stephenson in the audible version and who does such a good job or reading grief, rage and vengeance that at one point all the hairs on the back of my arms stood up), Orestes his son and Electra his daughter.
Retelling of a proper juicy Greek tragedy, which he does very beautifully, although by the end there had been so much murder and secrets and stalking about angrily and stealthily in corridors it all got a bit OH COME ON NOW for me.

Enough books about death for a while now I think.

I'd be interested to know what you think, Remus. I have to say Berlin doesn't feature very much, though.

Sadek - Have ordered the sample of Red Love. Might be my sort of thing, since my obsession with Berlin isn't showing any signs of abating!

I've given up on My Japanese Lover 30% in. I like Allende's non-fiction (Paula is sublime) but her novels are getting worse and worse. This one was definitely from the 'Tell don't show' school of writing. Bloody awful.

12. The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu

Excellent collection of short stories mostly touching on ideas of being alien or different in some way. I enjoyed almost every story, really can't recommend it enough.

13. My Time, Your Time by Mary Torjussen

This had been sitting on my kindle for ages and I've told myself that I can't buy more books until I clear the backlog, so I thought I had better get started.

I was pleasantly surprised by this. It was a quick easy read and would be good for a beach holiday or if you have a couple of hours to kill at an airport. Rachel and Alice are two women in their thirties, who met online and have become very close despite never having met in person. When Alice goes missing on her way to meet her new boyfriend, Rachel travels to the UK from her home in Australia to find her friend. There were a couple of twists that I really enjoyed, though I felt that the main one came out of the blue and wasn't really connected to the first half of the story. I also disliked the excessive focus on clothes and makeup and the really soppy ending, but overall it was a fun read.

14. Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree
15. The Book of Saladin both by Tariq Ali

These are the first two books of the Islam Quintet. The first novel takes place in and around Grenada a few years after it fell to the Christian forces of Isabella and Ferdinand. It depicts beautifully many of the customs of al-Andalus, with lots of romanticising, nd also touches on the struggle within the Church between those who wanted to restrict or eliminate the practice of Islam and its followers and those who were happy to allow more freedom. It was predictably sad, but never really had the feeling of a novel to me. It seems like an extended imaginative history essay rather than a carefully crafted piece of fiction.

The second novel, as the title suggests, follows the story of Salah elDin elAyoubi through the eyes of a Jewish scribe from Cairo. I enjoyed reading it, but it suffered from the same earnestness as the first novel, and retained the history essay feeling.

I am not sure how much artistic licence Ali took with the details, but both novels feature lots of drinking, prostitution, gay sex and bestiality. For a laugh, I recommend checking out the reviews of "The Book of Saladin" on goodreads from very religious Muslims thinking they were reading a biography of a great Muslim leader and upholder of the faith.

I am now reading Hisham Matar's The Return. I'm really struck by his writing, and some passages have moved me to tears. It is wonderful to have a book that has gripping subject matter, real emotional heft and is also incredibly well written and structured.

Chessie I have both books by her sitting next to my bed waiting to be read! Very much looking forward to them!

73. I See You by Claire Mackintosh

I loved this! I found it especially creepy as I commute to work on the train every day. I didn't see the twist coming, in fact I was convinced I had worked out who was behind everything, thought at one point I was being proved right, but I was completely wrong! I would definitely recommend this, although it's not quite as good as her debut I Let You Go.

27. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - after the discussions on here earlier on I thought I should read this one. Good plot, although a bit waffly in places.