50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Eight

Jackie Kay is a wonderfully talented woman. Her debut novel Trumpet is delicious. She was in a long term relationship with Carol Ann Duffy for many years I believe. Slightly irrelevant but possibly interesting fact!
110. H is for Hawk - Helen MacDonald have had this on my Kindle for an age, but never seemed to ‘get into it’. A story of a woman trying to come to terms with her fathers’ sudden and unexpected death, by training a Goshawk. Runs her story parallel to the story of tortured author White (whose first name escapes me now!). This device is semi successful, I found myself skim reading the passages about White and his tortured soul.
The book is a personal and often moving account of grief which I think many will find lots to relate to. I liked it but didn’t love it. May it was a case that I read it at the wrong time. My life is currently jam packed and stressful. I could have done with something lighter and more engaging.

30. Man with a seagull on his head by Harriet Page. Another one off the not the booker shortlist. An isolated man is hit on the head by a seagull on the beach. He then starts obsessively painting the woman’s face who was standing near him. The story is about him, the woman and the art collecting family he moves in with. I really enjoyed this short book. There were some delicious sentences. It was quite a gentle read and I found it relaxing but intriguing.

Marking place. No updates, currently enjoying some strange times In Patagonia with Bruce Chatwin and wondering why I have never heard of Jackie Kay .

I bet you all love No Country just to spite me!

Keith - MWYT is so much better than The Ivy Tree. Silly but knowingly silly. I thought Ivy took itself a bit too seriously in comparison.

Just popped back on here to mark my place on the new thread, only to find the two recommendations by Cote in the Kindle sale ... sigh, my poor TBR, but how can I miss Emperor of all Maladies and No Country for Old Men at those prices

Mine so far this year ...

1. The Skeleton Cupboard: stories from a clinical psychologist by Tanya Byron
2. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
3. Where the Eagle Landed: Mystery of the German Invasion of Britain, 1940 by Peter Haining
4. The Sellout by Paul Beatty
5. A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
6. The Great St Mary’s Day Out & My Name is Markham by Jodi Taylor
7. Golden Hill by Francis Spufford
8. Straight by Dick Francis
9. The Universe vs Alex Woods by Gavin Extence

Reads since I last updated ...
56. Assassin’s Arrangement: a Victorian novelette by Jette Harris - rubbish, was really disappointed in it as was recommended by a writer I like.
57. Rat Race by Dick Francis - old, reliable, re-read
58. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline - chosen from my list for book club from recommendations on here. I rather enjoyed it - and forgave it its YA-ness - until the final gate, when I found the gaming detail just too much. Ended with 3/5 stars, because of that.

Thanks for the new thread southeast and I am also looking forward to Cote's review of Brideshead with a degree of trepedition and enthusiasm ...

Sorry I meant to add a thank you for the Jackie Kay recommendations above. I also saw that she's done some work inspired by The Broons - will have to search that out!

77. The Ivy Tree, Mary Stewart

I missed MWYT? when everyone else was reading it, but picked this up instead. My first Mary Stewart so nothing to compare it to so far.

A young Canadian woman, Mary, is approached by a man who mistakes her for his long-disappeared cousin, Annabel. When he realises his mistake, he recruits her into a plot in which Mary will pose as Annabel and "return" to the family estate in order to get his elderly great-Uncle to change his will.

From the beginning it's obvious that all of the characters are slippery, none of them are quite telling the truth, and they all know rather more than they are letting on. The story twists and turns quite a few times, and Stewart is very clever in hiding her clues - they're all there but she drops them subtly and you're never quite sure what's significant. She writes with impressive deftness, although the story itself is rather Gothic and very silly.

The pacing was a bit off at times - it moved ever so slowly in some places then suddenly jumped to high drama. A good entertaining read nonetheless - I'll probably splash out a couple more 99ps and get some of her others :)

Thanks for the new thread.

Bringing the list over with the latest additions. I've definitely slowed down, but hoping I can still get to 50 by the end of the year.

1. Dictator by Robert Harris
2. Conclave by Robert Harris
3. Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin
4. Murder As a Fine Art by David Morrell
5. Longbourn by Jo Baker
6. The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly
7. The Owl Killers – Karen Maitland
8. When she was good by Laura Lippman
9. Company of Liars by Karen Maitland

44. Ariel by Sylvia Plath. I went for the restored edition as recommended and have been dipping in and out of it since I read The Bell Jar. I don't read much poetry and find I can't sit and read a whole book at once, I have to do a few poems at a time and let them roll round my head.

45. An Unholy Alliance by Susanna Gregory. Second in the series that sees Matthew called in to investigate when a string of prostitute murders leads to satanic cults operating in medieval Cambridge. These are simple reads but they don't give it away too easily.

89 Living Nonviolent Communication: Practical Tools to Connect and Communicate Skillfully in Every Situation by Marshall Rosenberg

A compilation of six short books taking the principles of nonviolent communication and applying them to different areas of life (including parenting, relationships, dealing with conflict).

Having kicked around intentional communities / co-ops / autonomous spaces for the last 20+ years I've run into plenty of approaches to conflict resolution, consensus decision making, improving interpersonal skills et al. I've found nonviolent communication to be one of the more useful for me.

The author is always very American in tone, which can be difficult from a British perspective (stop telling us how amazing your approach is and what wonderful results it's had - just get on with explaining it already) but if you can ignore that the underlying messages are simple and useful.

This compilation definitely isn't the place to start if you've not run into NVC before (Nonviolent Communication: A language of Life is good), but it's a useful resource - I've got lots of notes and highlights all over it in my phone for referring back to.

Thanks for the new thread. My list stands at:

1. Paul Cartledge - The Spartans
2. Rae Beth - The Hedge Witch's Way
3. Terry Pratchett - Mort
4. Phil Rickman - Mean Spirit
5. MJ Carter - The Printer's Coffin
6. Karen Maitland - The Raven's Head
7. Bernard Knight - The Sanctuary Seeker
8. Rachael Weiss - The Thing About Prague
9. Neil Oliver - Master of Shadows

And I've just finished:
82. Pierce Brown - Morning Star
Final book in the Red Rising trilogy in which the war to free the colours from the tyranny of Gold continues, venturing across space as it does so. This has been a brilliant series and it seems that there will be another trilogy to follow, so I will look forward to those.

Thanks, Cheerful, for confirming my fear. Will give it a miss. What the heck am I going to read now though?

I shan’t bother then remus.

The Snow Child is twee. Did not finish.

I was also underwhelmed by The Road which I didn't think did anything that King hadn't already done better, but even The Road is substantially better than No Country.

Agree the Snow Child is definitely on the twee side. I did read it all the way through, but only because a friend lent it to me.

I do have The Emperor Of All Maladies and Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, although I haven’t gotten around to reading them yet

Just seen remus hated No Country maybe not then!

Thanks cheerful that’s helpful, might keep in mind but hold off for now. I did quite fancy the Blue Day but non-fiction has to be really good to suck me in these days. I didn’t think the Road was all that and haven’t been tempted to read any others by McCarthy. I do like Western type stories though so interested if anyone loved it.

Lots of people have told me they liked The Snow Child. Have got the sample, as I think I may find it a bit twee. Does anybody who 'knows' me well think I might like it?

Second The Adoption Papers. Brilliant poem.

Thank you, south.

Keith I really recommend The Adoption Papers by Jackie Kay if you at all lean toward poetry, or want to see another side to the story. I think it was her first collection. She writes about the adoption from the points of view of both mothers and the child of adoption, and well worth it.

I enjoyed Cold.
Breakfast of Champions is one of the worst books I've ever read, and I also hated No Country for Old Men. I couldn't find anything at all that I fancied.

Book 103
The Last Days of Hitler by Hugh Trevor Roper
Written in the aftermath of WW2 after enquiries to try to find out what had happened to Hitler. I read this because the Guardian had it in its 100 top non-fiction books of all time, but I was disappointed with it. I found it oddly structured and also it assumed a lot of knowledge of events and people which, even though I’ve read extensively about the period, I didn’t always know. The writer also seemed oddly fascinated by Albert Speer, whose behaviour is seemingly excused to some extent. The book picked up substantially in the latter half, and I enjoyed the ending much more than the beginning but overall I think there are far better books about this period.

Cote, I think you’d like The Emperor of All Maladies. Quite brainhurty.

I've read A Year of Magical Thinking. Didn't love it, but can't remember that much about it so maybe it's better than I remember. (Also disliked The Snow Child and was massively underwhelmed by Born on a Blue Day.)
What's No Country for Old Men like? Is it as good as the film?