50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Eight

Blue - keeping the peace and falling to pieces by John Sutherland

Memoir of a senior Met police officer who has a breakdown, and reviews his funny experiences and exposure to trauma. Having read some social media blogs from him, I was keen to read this. Very funny stories, sobering asides and inspiring leadership objectives made this an excellent read. It is an ode to London, and the frantic pace, and beauty of landmarks and people in the small hours. Can't recommend highly enough

83. The Bear and the Serpent by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Second in the series. Maniye is the Champion of the Crown of the World and child of both Wolf and Tiger clans, but the people of the north are not sure whether she is an asset or a threat. So together with the collection of misfits that have surrounded her she heads south with the Champion of the Crocodile clan to support Prince Tecuman's claim to the crown of the clan. But in the north an ancient enemy has returned and Loud Thunder of Bear clan must attempt to unite the tribes to defend their land and their very souls.

110. Underneath the Lemon Tree, Mark Rice-Oxley
Memoir by a man who was leading a busy life in his forties (job, 3 dcs) and was juggling it for years when he suddenly collapsed into a depression. Well-written, nicely self-deprecating about his career, not the kind of downer you might expect from the subject-matter.

111. Dead Rich, Katie Lief
Mindless thriller. Private investigator, family-in-peril, must solve mystery, yada yada. Some fairly dodgy leaps of logic, my favourite being a character who reveals a murky past by recognising (gasp!) the name of a poker game.

111. Men on the Menu, Bambi Smyth
Non-fiction. Australian woman decides to visit countries in alphabetical order, tasting typical local food and interviewing a typical local man (she rather optimistically refers to this as "dating", but as it includes a Catholic priest, various married men and her cousin, that's not entirely accurate). Intended to sneer, but she won me over by her willingness to laugh at herself. I wouldn't say it's highly recommended, but it was a reasonably amusing airplane read.

112. Sea and Sardinia, by DH Lawrence
His famously grumpy account of a brief trip around the island in 1921 with Frieda. He complains endlessly about the food, the accommodation and the Italians. I don't know how Frieda put up with him. The only thing that sparks his enthusiasm is the local peasant dress. A bit of an oddity.

113. Fight the Good Fight, by Catherine Fox
A novelist writing about how she worked to get her black belt in judo. I'm probably the right audience for this in that I love her novels, am interested to know more about her life, and I did judo for a few years so I have patience with lots of technical detail about holds etc. I wouldn't really expect it to have a very widespread appeal.

38. H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald Memoir of how Macdonald tries to manage her grief after the sudden loss of her father by training a goshawk.

I didn't fancy this in the slightest, but was given a hardback of this a couple of years ago by someone who obviously knows better. Beautifully descriptive nature writing. Loved the reflection on both the importance of, and the limits of relationships, between humans and animals.

37. Troublemakers Catherine Barter YA novel. Alena has been brought up by her brother and his boyfriend, who always seem reluctant to talk about her activist mother, who died when she was three. Alena decides she wants to find out more, and maybe follow in her footsteps. But the intersections between political and personal are more fraught than she could have imagined ... I liked this a lot. It's a sweet, angry, kind, sarcastic, anxious, adolescent book about trying to do the right thing, and not always getting it right. Probably best read over your Fairtrade organic latte and the Sunday Guardian.

And also 91 Occupy Me by Tricia Sullivan

Sci-fi thriller. A mysterious 'angel' is trapped in our dimension - a doctor working for an oil tycoon who has exploited his homeland is taken over by another intelligence - and the oil tycoon is seeking immortality, which he believes can be obtained from alien beings.

I really wanted to like this book, there were lots of interesting ideas, and some good characters. Sadly overall it didn't ever really come together for me - it felt like the author just kept throwing more and more stuff into the mix, without ever really making sense of it all.

90 Spectred Isle by KJ Charles

After court-martial and disgrace in the 1st world war, Oxford educated archaeologist Saul has taken the only job he can get - with an eccentric elderly major who believes in all things supernatural. Whilst following his employers various whims, he keeps bumping into the charming but reticent Randolph Glyde . . .

This was a recommendation from Ann Leckie's blog, and is an absolutely delightful paranormal romance. Great characters (including the various side characters) excellent worldbuilding, enough but not too much of the romance, and a good plot to carry the whole thing along. It's the first in a series, and I'll definitely read more when they come out. I'm also going to have a look at KJ Charles' other series.

104: Faro’s Daughter – Georgette Heyer
I needed some fun after Hitler’s bunker, and this was just right. It’s as frilly and frothy as a chorus girl’s knickers, blatantly rips off Austen’s portrayal of Elizabeth and Darcy and is just marvelously silly. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

LadyDepp, I also loved the Adam Rutherford book. If anyone's looking for a book about genetics, I'd go for that one over The Emperor of Maladies, which I didn't love.

Cheerful That was a review similar to the one I wrote for Robert Harris's Pompeii. With that one, I was actually quite impressed by how dull a book Robert Harris could make out of one of the most epic and impressive natural disasters in the history of humanity

59. The Dry Jane Harper. Found it in a charity shop for a pound last week when back in UK on holiday and remembered positive reviews from here.

Extremely readable and I liked the fact that it was set in the Australian outback which made it a bit 'different'. Quite similar to Ordinary Grace which I loved and think is a better book.

This was shockingly dull for a book about Somalian pirates getting their hands on portable nuclear weapons.

This wins review of the week for me.

I like the ideas of Patrick Ness but none of the books have ever quite come alive for me.

43. (I think) The Unfinished Clue by Georgette Heyer. Not a bad one, worth reading if you like a Christie or similar.

62. The Good Daughter - Karin Slaughter

Sam and Charlie’s mum is murdered and they are forced into the woods. One is left for dead while the other runs for her life. Twenty eight years later tragedy strikes again and the family are brought back together to discover more about the event that shaped their lives.

I was completely sucked into this book and didn’t see some of the twists coming! Well woth a read and another library book to be returned.

46. Exile by James Swallow

This was the sequel to Nomad which I read this summer. Nomad was nowhere near the best thriller I ever read but there were some interesting aspects to it so I thought the sequel would be worth a go. Big mistake. This was shockingly dull for a book about Somalian pirates getting their hands on portable nuclear weapons. Reading 2 pages put me to sleep, which is partly why it took me over 3 weeks to read it

Terrible book. Don't even think about it.

150. Fathomless Riches: Or How I Went From Pop To Pulpit by Richard Coles

Bought this cheap as a Kindle deal. I enjoyed the middle section, when he was in the Communards, but the end section dragged a bit.

151. Four Dreamers And Emily by Stevie Davies

Humorous novel about four Emily Bronte obsessives who meet up at a conference in Haworth. All a bit silly but good fun!

Welcome slywright

I really enjoyed Forsyth's autobiography, called The Outsider: My Life In Intrigue, and would like to recommend it to you. This was my review:

CoteDAzur Sun 16-Jul-17 10:22:36

31. The Outsider: My Life In Intrigue by Frederick Forsyth

I loved this! I started it as I went to bed the other night, thinking it will bore me to sleep in a few pages as most autobiographies do (at least until they get going). Tough luck. I stayed up until 2 AM, totally engaged shock

I didn't know much about FF except that he wrote The Day Of the Jackal and a few other spy books. It turns out that he is a RAF pilot, Reuters reporter out of East Berlin before the Wall came down, journalist who brought to light the starving children in Nigeria, and part-time spy for the MI6.

This isn't an autobiography as much as it is a testimonial to the places, pivotal events, and sometimes tragedies that the author has been witness to. There are huge sections on East Berlin and Germany under Communism, Middle East, and various places in Africa including a comprehensive guide to Nigeria's civil war.

And the writing is exactly how I like it - smart, lucid, witty, and with no cheap heartstring-tugging gimmicks.

"Knife Of Never Letting Go: Yet more YA dystopia. I would have loved it when I was 15, now not so much. The hero is a complete PITA"

You are too kind. This was my review.

CoteDAzur Mon 29-Feb-16 10:00:47
14. The Knife Of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

No use sugar-coating it: This was crap. I don't know how it compares to what people usually read as YA but it was shockingly stupid, dull, and badly written with a 200-word vocabulary, featuring what must be the dumbest and least inspiring protagonist in the history of literature. I can't even call it a coming-of-age story because he was as gormless at the end as in the beginning. Gah.

Don't even get me started about the pathetic excuse for a story. People who can't be bothered to worldbuild should not try to write sci-fi imo. Why couldn't he set his story at any point of the world's history when people have settled at another continent island, for example? Complete rubbish.

It didn't cross my mind to keep a list of the books I've read until I saw this thread. I have been working my way through our collection of Frederick Forsyth books the last few months. Just finished The Cobra so need to choose another one now.

Frederick Forsyth is a brilliant author and his books never disappoint.

Relatives visiting, 2 week half-term, weekends away etc... means I haven't been here for ages, but I have enjoyed a good skim read through your posts. Just putting it out there that I enjoyed The Snow Child and I loved No Country for Old Men, and the film is amazing but utterly terrifying.

I can't actually remember where I left off but here are my most recent reads:

40. Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner - clever, well-written YA dystopian novel. I liked it, didn't love it.

41. A Brief History of Anyone Who ever lived by Adam Rutherford, the scientist who hangs about on R4 a lot. He is a geneticist and this is a very accessible and for the most part enjoyable book about human genetics. I zoned out in a few bits but for the most part it was engaging and the science bits were light enough for me to follow.

42. Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith - audio book. Cormoran Strike number 3. God this was long, a few hours too long. Quite a good story but WAY too much detail for me, every murder lead is followed up to the nth degree and the characters' private lives are examined microscopically. In my final hours of listening I wished there was some way of skim listening to an audiobook.

43. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness - part 1 of the Chaos Walking trilogy. Yet more YA dystopia. I would have loved it when I was 15, now not so much. The hero is a complete PITA.

44. Dracula by Bram Stoker - I read this almost 25 years ago and loved it then. This time I enjoyed it but less so. The first quarter of the book is pretty great but there are many pages that lag and we get morally upright characters droning on and on about faith and love and duty (and pseudo-science) - yawn. I think Stoker would have done well to have a lot more Dracula in a book called Dracula.

Currently slogging through The Romanovs and have reached the start of Catherine the Great's reign. Cannot keep up with all the courtiers, lovers, generals etc. Finding it an interesting read although a lot goes over my head (read: constant stream of courtiers, lovers, generals etc). It's not as 'easy' a read as the Stalin book as it's so detailed and I know next to nothing about Russian history circa C16th - C18th. They are a gruesome lot though - thankfully Catherine seems a more civilised monarch - there are fewer impalements, death by spike up the bum and other such 'delights'.

The Red Rising series is one of the few works of fiction that Cote and I both loved, so maybe worth taking a chance on!

A note of caution though Re: Red Rising since it is liked and recommended a lot here by the majority - don’t necessarily buy all 3 in the series at once thinking you’ll love them, because you may in fact turn out to be one of the few who think it’s terrible and have lasting Kindle-clicker’s remorse when you barely finish the first one. I may know someone this happened to 😐

Ah, RMC, I did wonder whether the "Carol Ann" who JK refers to was the Carol Ann! I envied her hanging out with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as well :)

78. The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well, Meik Wiking

Darn, I was looking forward to this book setting me up for a cosy and mindful existence as the winter nights draw in. Sadly, it was a disappointment. The writer is apparently the CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen but he doesn't write like an academic (which makes me wonder what, exactly, the Happiness Research Institute) is. There's a lot of (occasionally funny) waffle and repetition, and little pictures of socks and unscientific graphs. I learned that Danish people use lots of candles, and that cake is hygge. Oh, and that social equality and a welfare state make people happier, but that's not just a hygge thing, is it?

Bah. If anyone wants me, I'll be curled up in a photogenic oversized jumper, eating cinnamon buns in a window seat.

Red Rising is £0.99 on the Kindle

Don't miss it if you haven't read it already.