50 Book Challenge Part Five

22. Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance - a rags to riches memoir of a hillbilly from Appalachia. I've just seen that Bill Gates has been recommending it, as the author had a completely different upbringing to his own very middle class advantaged childhood. The central theme is that the white working class in America are in desperate straits, the author only escaped incarceration, drug addiction etc.. due (mainly) to his kick ass maternal grandmother. Vance doesn't have any simple solutions and he is quite scathing of feckless layabouts, but he also has a lot of sympathy for the children dealing with absent fathers, alcoholic and drug addict family members and the revolving door of stepparents that he and many children deal with. An intriguing read.

Aaaaages since I posted. Was away for a bit and the following list might offer some ever-so-subtle clues regarding the region.

I think the last update I did was when I was catching up on the Simon Seraillier series by Susan Hill, so:
37. A Question of Identity, Susan Hill
38. The Pure in Heart, Susan Hill
39. Vows of Silence, Susan Hill.
Enjoyed them all as a family saga as much as a crime fiction, although rather regretted I didn’t take a pp’s advice and read in chronological order, as I missed the impact of some major turns of events.

40. The Pedant in the Kitchen, Julian Barnes.
    Essays about the joys and perils of getting to grips with recipes. I wasn’t sure whether I’d read it before, but it didn’t seem familiar, so maybe it only rang a bell from discussions on a previous thread. Reasonably enjoyable but slight.

41. Freya Stark, by Caroline Moorehead.
    Bio of female explorer. Was halfway through when I realised I’d got her muddled up with Gertrude Bell, the person I actually wanted to read about. This was fine, although I wouldn’t rave about it.

42. Built on Bones, Brenna Hassett.
    Survey of the field by osteo-archaeologist. This is one of my fantasy alternate careers, so I loved this – she explains what we can know about the past from the human remains we discover. She’s not the best prose stylist, and she goes in for jokey footnotes which can be a bit hit and miss, but I was enthralled anyway. Loved the anecdotes about life in the trenches as a working archaeologist.

Reread Catherine Fox’s books Acts and Omissions and Unseen Things Above. I think she is great and criminally underrated. She starts with the kind of plot you’d see in Anthony Trollope (who will be the next bishop?) and adds in some surprisingly dirty humour and a huge amount of warmth. Love her.

43. Balkan Odyssey, Jason Smart. Travel narrative. Sample insight: Bosnia is nice because they give you little dishes of crisps with your beer. He doesn’t write well and doesn’t know much about the places he visits. But as I’ve said before, I like hokey travel narratives when I’m in the right mood.

44. Land of Eagles, Robin Hanbury-Tenison. Author travels through Albania by horseback with wife and back-up Landrover driven by recalcitrant locals, standing in for native bearers. Very old-school – he quotes John Buchan and there are lots of stories about our boys in WWII. I actually thought it was pretty good. He’d read widely, and gave a good account of the place, although his reading focused on previous British travellers to Albania rather than anything Albanians might say. He doesn’t go in for a sensitive disquisition on the works of Ismael Kadare, for example.

Reread The Thirty-nine Steps, by John Buchan. Because Robin H-T made me, and his complete works were only 49p on Kindle.

45. The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry. Much reviewed on here. I liked the characters and wished them well. Thought there was possibly a bit too much Plot and too many Big Themes. There’s not a lot of point saying “Hey, religious and scientific beliefs were in conflict in the 1890s!” Well yes. It’s been pointed out quite a lot. But I liked the account of a woman emerging from a horrendous marriage. Reminded me a bit of The French Lieutenant’s Woman in conveying a sense that what is now the past was still very much the present to the people in it. It’s rarer than you think – writers get so absorbed in the period trappings that they point excitedly at them (“Look! A bustle!”), instead of letting them be the normal boring background stuff to people’s lives.

46. Greenmantle, John Buchan. Reprehensible attitude about other races aside, there’s something likeable about seeing the world as full of possibilities for adventure and exoticism, and the chance to stand shoulder to shoulder with your equally brave pals, pulling off the great coup against all the odds.

Currently in the early stages of Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, which I’m absolutely relishing.

26. Strictly Between Us by Jane Fallon

Tamsin suspects that her best friend Michelle's husband, Patrick, is sleeping about. So, she talks her trusted assistant Bea into acting as the bait in a honey trap so she can try and catch Patrick in the act.

The whole thing turns into a great big tangled out of control mess for Tamsin, with all sorts of bad decisions and lying and betrayals and blackmailing going on.

A bit slow to get into but enjoyable on the whole.

26. Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton I picked this up in the library because she wrote the Just William books and I was curious about her adult fiction. This is the story of two families headed by two matriarchs (the fathers are both dead) who live in the same small town. One family is 'new money' dominated by the mother who controls everything - including her married daughters' lives. Other family is 'old money' where the mother is more diffident about imposing on her children. The families become intertwined through marriage and the book follows the fortunes of the various children. Enjoyable read although I did get confused in one or two places about the characters. I think some were better drawn than others and some faded in and out of the story.

27 Miss Ranskill Comes Home by Barbara Euphon Todd
Miss Ranskill has spent four years stranded on a desert island. She returns to England in the middle of World War 2 - a war she didn't even know was happening. There is a lot of comedy around the misunderstandings that arise from this. Ending was little contrived but overall this was a good read.

Thanks for the pic though south, won't do any harm

He's one of those I wouldn't look twice at in pictures but I saw him in something and found him quite attractive. Kevin Bacon also an example of this

I've fancied animated characters before now though so I don't expect anyone to be on my wavelength generally with this kind of thing.

20. His Bloody Project - I think practically everyone on this thread has read this, and it's been reviewed many times. I thought it was great, gripping and well written. I'm becoming rather fond of books where you mostly know what is going to happen right at the start.

21. In the Cold Dark Ground by Stuart MacBride. I got this for free with my newspaper subscription. It's the 10th in a series of Scottish police thrillers starring a very endearing character called Logan McRae. I haven't read the first 9 in the series but I thought this was great. The main characters are brilliant, Logan's boss is hilarious and the crime is intriguing. If you like a good crime novel then try this series, but maybe start with the first one .

I am sitting on my hands to not buy the Oliphant thing. I suffer terribly from FOMO in these situations...,

Hmmm. Nope - not doing it for me. You can keep him.

Link to said hot actor, please, Satsuki.

On the subject of hot - it really is. And guess who had planned sausage and mash for dinner.

I need a cold bath with a book. But I am reading and hating Howard's End is on the Landing so putting it off.

The only association I have with Oliphant is that actor who is quite hot.

So weird - had a recommendation from a friend today about Oliphant and come here and it's quite the topic. I've had a weird busy few weeks so will update soon and going to library tomorrow.

I've always thought that Mrs Oliphant = one of the best names ever (unless I had to be the owner of said name).

I haven't read the city book or oliphant! Trying to clear my backlog of books and have been requesting some books that have been on the wishlist for too long from the library... then I have to keep up with the due dates! New recommendations will have to wait on the wish list

Me too (Though I have also read at least one novel by Mrs Oliphant - admittedly a long time ago.)

I'm also feeling the peer pressure to buy the Oliphant book!

So I seem to be the only person on this thread not to have read The City and the City and now there's Oliphants! I can't keep up. I have read a novel by Mrs Oliphant if that counts?

59. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

I can't better scribbly's review so won't do so. I liked this very much ( though agree that the comedy was over egged a bit and I'd guessed the 'twist'.
It will be a massive hit I think.
A film is in the offing apparently.

23. Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron. Mentioned upthread, this is an account of his experience with depression by the author of Sophie's Choice. The writing is incredibly powerful. I've never suffered from depression myself, but family members of mine have, and I think this gave me more of a genuine insight into what they are going through than any other book I've read.

24. The City and the City by China Mieville. A cross between crime thriller and sci fi. I really enjoyed this - well paced and quirky.

25. Running High, Running Low, Running Long by Ben Rolfe. This is a personal account of the author's journey from obesity (as a result of a desk job and too much wining and dining) to ultra marathon running - proper hardcore runs like the Marathon Des Sables in the Sahara Desert. It's written in a nice friendly, chatty style and I enjoyed the first 50-60% but then started to get a bit bored. If you want a book about ultra marathon running (a subject I find curiously compelling, despite never having attempted more than a half marathon myself), this isn't a patch on Born to Run.

31. Dear Amy - Helen Callaghan

A young girl, Katie, goes missing and the police are beginning to think she just ran away from home. At the same time an English teacher in her school receives letters from Bethan Avery, a girl kidnapped twenty years previously, asking for help through her agony aunt column. Can she figure out whether Bethan is alive and whether this is connected to Katie's disappearance?

This was an enjoyable read. I hadn't actually guessed the twist to right when it was happening. Maybe a little bit unbelievable but it depends on how powerful you believe the mind to be.

I really like Eleanor Oliphant so far. Funny but very sad too.

ontop thanks for your review of The City... I am listening to it on audio at the moment, and enjoying it, with similar fence sitting qualms to yours, but beginning to wish I'd read rather than listened, because I think the semantics and the imagined languages of the two cities are an important part of it, and sometimes as I'm listening I would like to see the names and phrases written down.

34. Beck, Mal Peet and Meg Rosoff

Another one from the Carnegie shortlist. This book has really divided reviewers - I thought it was beautiful, but very difficult to pigeonhole. Lots of people saying that it's unsuitable for young readers - I agree to some extent but maybe not for the same reasons they have given.

It's the story of a mixed-race orphan, born in 1907 and shipped over to Canada as a teenager for a "new life". His early years are a catalogue of misery and abuse - neglect, physical, sexual. This is described unflinchingly although not at length, and I can see why some people are uneasy about younger readers being given this book by the school library.

The second part of the book deals with Beck's coming of age - both his physical journey across Canada and the emotional journey that takes him from a spiky, silent scarred child into a young man. This story, for me, was realistic and beautiful - it twists and slips out of your grasp. Beck isn't likeable, he doesn't do the right things, the people who he meets are a mixture of good and bad. But slowly he starts to emerge from the trauma of his childhood and the book ends (sorry if spoiler!) with hope. It made me cry, twice.

Book 52
The Three by Sarah Lotz
Bought because it was on offer and reviews said it was a bit like Stephen King and ‘The Passage’. This began really well for me – more like ‘World War Z’ than those previously mentioned, made up of interviews/news reports/Twitter feeds etc. Unfortunately, I didn’t think it anywhere near lived up to its early promise, and by the end I thought it was really stupid. I don’t think she actually knew where to go with it so it became more and more repetitive in terms of lots of insane religious ramblings, before just completely falling to pieces. Assume it was being set up for a sequel, but, if so, I certainly won’t be reading it.