50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Eight

What did you think of Eileen, whitewine (and anyone else who read it?)

I found it well written in parts but switched off part way through.

“a very thrill-less techno-thriller”

Hi everyone,

Another one sloping back in before the end of the year. Checking when I last posted it was in April!! 2017 has been truly awful for me (bereavements and ill health) but I have been reading so here goes:
12. Stay With Me - Ayobami Adebayo
13. Liar Liar - MJ Arlidge
14. Cold Earth - Ann Cleeves
15. Mr Briggs’ Hat - Kate Colquhoun
16. The Mysterious Affair At Styles - Agatha Christie
17. The Siege - Helen Dunmore
18. Birdcage Walk - Helen Dunmore
19. Their Finest Hour - Lisa Evans
20. Story of a New Name - Elena Ferrante
21. Carol - Patricia Highsmith
22. The House By The Lake - Thomas Harding
23. The Humans - Matt Haig
24. Funny Girl - Nick Hornby
25. A Week in Paris - Rachel Hore
26. The Snow Child - Eowyn Ivey
27. Need you Dead - Peter James
28. Hot Milk - Deborah Levy
29. The Couple Next Door - Shari Lapena
30. Bodies of Life - Sarah Moss
31. The Chessman - Peter May
32. A History of Britain in 21 Women - Jenni Murray
33. The Enemy Within - Edward Marston
34. Eileen - Ottessa Malfegh
35. The Silver Locomotive- Edward Marston
36. Stuart- Life Backwards- Alexander Masters
37. The Hypnotists Love Story-Lianne Moriarty
38. A House Full of Daughters-Juliet Nicholson
39. The Bees-Laline Paul
40. Small Great Things-Jodi Piccoult
41. The Essex Serpent-Sarah Perry
42. The Improbability of Love-Hannah Rothschild
43. The Chilbury Ladies Choir - Jennifer Ryan
44. My Name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout
45. Abide with Me-Elizabeth Strout
46. Restoration-RoseTremain
47. Music & Silence - Rose Tremain
48. Take Six Girls - Laura Thompson
49. House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
50. Oranges are not the only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson
51. How Not to be a Boy - Robert Webb
52. The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead

I have posted my highlights of the year on Southeasts other thread.

Love reading the threads and picking up recommendations and hopefully joining in a bit more again next year.

Just gone back and read Keith's review and see she's said something very similar! It is really very good on being a teenager.

I've never really got on with those British Library Crime Novels, but there MUST be some festive Agatha Christie, surely?

45. Invitation to the Waltz Rosamund Lehmann Reviewed by Keith upthread. It's 1920. Olivia is seventeen, and has been invited to her first ball. She knows she's not as pretty as her sister Kate, but even so ... It will be all right, won't it? It took me a while to get into this one, but once the dance started I really began to enjoy it. Sadly, nobody ever invited me to 20s dances in country houses, but this brought back real memories of being a teenager, going to parties where you don't quite know enough people to feel comfortable, being worried the whole time that your clothes are wrong, and being aware of all this drama happening almost off screen that you don't quite understand. I loved all the little sketches of the people she meets. There's also a real sense of her coming into contact with some of her possible futures, which was very well done. Like ... She gets entangled with this truly awful undergraduate and ends up feeling like she has to befriend him ... And you can just imagine them ending up married and it all going horribly wrong. But then she sits out a dance with the son of the house, who is lovely, and you could imagine them ending up together too and living a completely different life. Or - since it's 1920 and men are so scare that they have to drag up a distant connection to bring as a partner - it's possible this wallflower existence is going to be the rest of her life. There's a real sense of her on the edge of something and not knowing where she's going to fall. It's very well observed. Think there are more books about the same family - might have to investigate.

102 Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

Although I do see what Cote means about pointless plot, I still very much enjoyed this. It's not sci-fi at all, more a very thrill-less techno-thriller. But - it's so very, very stylish that I couldn't help forgiving him. It was written in 2003, set in 2002, and rather than feeling dated, it just feels perfectly of it's time.

I suspect it will be bedtime very soon!

I put the dustpan in the bin earlier along with the crumbs and spent too long wandering around with the brush trying to find it. See also: pouring milk in the bowl instead of washing up liquid. One of those days

That really made me laugh. If it's any consolation, I put a load of important letters in the bin today instead of a folder, and then managed to spell my own name wrong.

he does write construct sentences beautifully unlike me!

TheTurnoftheScrew that’s exactly what I thought about Noise of Time, really disappointing. I’ve still got Arthur and George to read; I keep trying but the print is so small in my copy I keep having to give up.

He does write construct sentences beautifully, but, agree remus.

@“sub-zero shagging”. There is no shagging in Rush Oh I don’t think. Off-screen, maybe. Or I was too innocent to pick up on it.

Blubber - yes
shagging - no

Checklist of reading interests -
blubber - yes
shagging - no
Arctic/Antarctic setting - yes
going at it hammer and tongs (or tongues?!) in Liverpool - no

I like reading about whaling, unless it's Moby Dick, in which I liked the blubber but not the story.

Julian Barnes - Flaubert's Parrot and Arthur and George both sublime, but agree entirely that a lot of his stuff just hasn't really got it right pace-wise. For me, that means it's not really well-written, even if he knows some words and can put them in an order that seems pretty.

I have no opinion on blubber, I'm afraid, so on with the list:
42. The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes. Fictionalised autobiography of Shostakovich, and his struggle to balance his art with survival in the Soviet Union under Stalin. Started almost like a thriller, with Shostakovich under direct threat from the powers that be, but lost pace and interest, despite being always well-written. Oddly little focus on the actual music as well.

Very curious to hear why Remus is so fond of blubber.

There is a touch of blubber in Under a Pole Star as the protagonist's father is a whaler. It’s rather fleeting though.

Well it’s potentially going to be nicely written shagging in the Arctic, so therefore falls into a couple of categories which I prefer to read in December, namely ‘forcefully diverting' and 'snowy'. I’ve yet to get to the sub zero bonking as currently they are going at it hammer and tongs in Liverpool. About 9 hours left of listening so there is still hope.

I take it “nicely written shagging” is your idea of festive, scribblygum?

No not festive as such. But there’s a lot of cooking weird things for large groups, and making do, and of course, the aforementioned blubber, which remus is rather fond of.

Bought.

Well I loved it, in Top 3, but I got it from the library so loathe to say yes in case you hate it. Maybe if we keep mentioning it periodically it will come down?

Whales

It’s not very festive though. All those wales in Australia.

I am rather fond of blubber, as regular readers will know.

I hate reading about shagging, and didn't like Pole Star woman's other book, so I suspect that would finish me off!

Is Rush Oh £4.99's worth of cosiness and blubber?