50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Eight

Not rock bottom cheap, but 'Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia' by Peter Pomerantsev is £2.89 in the monthly deals - well worth reading IMO.

Thank you south for the new thread. I didn't finish reading the old one, will try to catch up with it.

75. Red Dust Road, Jackie Kay
I'm ashamed to say I hadn't heard of Jackie Kay until I heard her on the radio talking about this. It's a memoir about growing up adopted, and finding her birth parents, including a trip to Nigeria to find her biological father. She writes interestingly, generously and movingly about families, race and adoption.

76. Burial Rites, Hannah Kent
Was lucky enough to read this while on holiday in Iceland last week :) Agnes Magnusdottir has been sentenced to death for her part in the murder of two men in 19th century Iceland. While she waits for the date of her execution, she is sent to live in isolation with a farming family. The book vividly and viscerally portrays the members the household living in close proximity to one another as winter approaches, and also explores the issues around Agnes's life up to that point, her sentencing and the way that she is treated by society. I didn't know that it was a true story and didn't know how it would end - the last couple of chapters left me trying to hide tears on the flight home.

Both of the above get the thumbs up from me :) Currently reading The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart.

The Emperor Of All Maladies - A Biography Of Cancer is £1.99

No Country For Old Men is £1.19

Cold: Extreme Adventures at the Lowest Temperatures on Earth by Ranulph Fiennes is £0.99

Born On a Blue Day - Inside the extraordinary mind of an autistic savant by Daniel Tammet is £0.99

I enjoyed The Snow Child when I read it a couple of years ago but I imagine that most people on these threads will have read it already.

Not much is grabbing me...

Anyone recommend anything from the monthly deals? Lonesome Dove is there which I own in paper copy - it’s 900 or some pages. I also bought The Winter Book by Tove Jansson as I enjoyed the Summer Book. There are some Kurt Vonneguts and the second Shardlake: Dark Fire.

Otherwise slim pickings I thought. Maybe they are saving some for December. Also Joan Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking which I’ve heard of - is it any good, anyone read?

67. Trial By Fire by Josephine Angelini

YA fantasy. Teenager Lily is pulled from our Salem into an alternate-world Salem by her alternate world self Lilian. Alternate world is ruled by witches and runs on magic. Lily’s identical other self in this world, Lilian, is the top witch and doing all sorts of nasty things. Mainly banning science and executing anyone who so much as thinks about science.

More or less readable enough. My main grumble was that the reason for Lilian bringing Lily across worlds isn’t explained at all.

Tanaqui - Yes! I would definitely recommend Snow Crash.

It’s not literature so don’t expect great character development etc but OMG the original ideas in that book! I have read a lot of great books, some of them SF masterpieces, but I don’t think any of them match the brilliance of that story that brings Sumerian legends & deciphered cuneiform tablets together with modern technology and hatches a plot that involves hacking the brain.

It’s the book that introduced the word Avatar to the English language. And it invented the concept of Google Earth (called “Earth”). And surprisingly foresaw the masses of refugees coming onto the shores of developed countries in makeshift boats.

I love that book & might be due a reread

Thanks for the new thread, South.

Bringing my list over. Highlights in bold, italics for the unsatisfactory.

1. The Story of a New Name (Book 2 of Neopolitan Novels) by Elena Ferrante.
2. Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter.

1. Beauty by Robin McKinley.
2. Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall.

1. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote.
2. Any Human Heart by William Boyd.
3. The Pure in Heart (Simon Serailler Book 2) by Susan Hill.

Number 53 is Sunshine by Robin McKinley.
Urban vampire fantasy. Fairly strong female character and good for this genre imo.

Still listening (and enjoying) Sapiens on audiobook. But have practically stopped reading otherwise. I’ve started several books but nothing is grabbing my fancy. 😱 Life, work and TV have got in the way!

Hello, and thanks South.

Cote, I think it was that review of Seveneves that made me want to read it! I am looking out for Snow Crash now- would you recommend?

If Owen King is to Stephen as Felix Francis was to Dick, I wouldn't bother reading any more Remus!

1. The One We Fell in Love With - Paige Toon
2. This Is Where It Ends - Marieke Nijkamp
3. The Girl Who Lied - Sue Fortin

1. Forget You Had a Daughter: Doing Time in the Bangkok Hilton - Sandra Gregory
2. Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell
3. Trust in Me - Sophie McKenzie

Have put bold on the ones I remember enjoying most!

61. Pet Sematary - Stephen King

I don’t ever read horror so settled down with this and wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy it. This book was unsettling and a little disturbing at times. Does leave you with a “what would you do?” to ponder although I know exactly what I wouldn’t do. Towards the end I was just desperate to read more and find out what happens. Definitely another Stephen King novel I enjoyed!

I will copy my list over on my next post and thanks for the thread!

Thanks for the new thread South.

Cba to compile my list from all the previous threads! Will have to be more organised next year and keep a spreadsheet

Anyway, I've just finished...

47. These Darkening Days - Benjamin Myers

Sequel to Turning Blue, reviewed on previous thread. Enjoyed this 'rural noir' tale of a series of slashings in a small Yorkshire town - prose trying a bit hard, and dialogue clunky, in places, but I do like the main protagonists Mace and Brindle, and hope there's a third book.

Moving my list over:

1. Only Daughter by Anna Snoekstra
2. Viral by Helen Fitzgerald
3. The Last One by Alexandra Oliva
4. The Atlantis Gene by A.G. Riddle
5. Good Me Bad Me by Ali Land
6. The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
7. ADHD Nation by Alan Schwarz
8. The World's Worst Children by David Walliams
9. Starborn by Lucy Hounsom

I've heard a few people criticise Essex Serpent for being overhyped - I read it early and fairly "blind"; I hadn't read much about it and chose it based on the subject. I wonder if expectations worked against it a bit after it picked up momentum. I loved it, anyway - it is a quiet, thoughtful novel - and I enjoyed it a lot. I also read it at the beginning of the year and have read little to match it.

Moving my list across. Given up on bold as every time I cut and paste it seems to lose the bold. Really can’t be bothered to go through it all again. Sorry

1.My name is Lucy Barton
2.Plainsong
3.Summer Queen
4.The winter Crown
5.The autumn throne
6.The Heart Goes Last
7.Twelve years a Slave*
8.My Husbands wife
9.The bolter
10.Winter ghosts
11. Essex Serpent
12.Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
13. Everyone Brave is Forgiven
14. His Bloody Project
15. Forgotten voices of the Great War
16. Love letters of the Great War
17. The trouble with goats and sheep
18. Victoria A life
19. The tales of Beedle the Bard
20. Dear Amy
21 Crown of blood
22.The food of love
23. Elizabeth and Mary
24. Last Train to Memphis
25. The silkworm
26. Apple Tree Yard
27. Young and Damned and Fair
28. the Missing
29. Three sisters Three Queens
30. Where my heart used to beat

31. First of the Tudors
32. Do no harm
33. Dark fire
34. Dissolution
35. Sovereign
36. Revelation
37. Heartstone
38. Lamentation
39. The Keeper of Lost Things
40. The Lesser Bohemians
41. The Cuckoos Calling
42. The Ashes of London
43. The child in time
44. The private lives of the Tudors
45. The Hare with the Amber Eyes
46. Love all
47. Just Henry
48. Daughters of the Grail
49. The Northern Clemency
50. The light years
51. Her perfect life
52. Take Six Girls
53. The Silent child
54. Georgiana - Duchess of Devonshire
55. The Love Letters of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
56. Anne Boleyn: The Kings Obsession
57. The Crow Trap - Ann cleeves
58. Telling Tales - Ann Cleeves
59. Hidden depths
60. Silent voices
61. Marking time
62. Nella Last's War
63. The Glass room
64. Girl A : My Story
65. Harbour street
66. The moth catcher
67. Lincoln in The Bardo
68. The Witches
69. A Dangerous Inheritance
70. Confusion
71. All the light we cannot see
72. Reconstructing Amelia
73. The last runaway
74, Holding
75. The Underground Railroad
76. The wonder
77. The Romanovs
78. A street cat named Bob
79. Casting off
80. In to the woods
81. The Power
82. Cousins
83. Swing Time
84. Days without end
85. All Creatures Great and Small
86. Autumn
87. History of Wolves
88. All things Bright and Beautiful
89. The improbability of Love
90. Reservoir 13
91. Hot milk
92. The Kings Sister Stone
102. The last Tudor
103. The seagull
104. Anatomy of a soldier
105. Exposure
106. Your life in my hands
107. The dry
108. Civilwarland in bad decline
109. Not Thoma

First posting all the books I've read so far this yea starting back in January, the good ones in bold, rubbish ones in italics.

1.The Muse Jessie Burton

1. I'm Travelling Alone Samuel Bjork
2. Golden Hill Francis Spufford
3. The Girl Before - JP Delaney
4. Her Every Fear Peter Swanson
5. The Scent of Death Andrew Taylor
6. The Breakdown B A Paris
7. Cold Earth Anne Cleeves

I had high hopes for A Prayer for Owen Meany given it's so lauded on MN, but I found it unremittingly tedious. I also feel quite bad putting wonderful Margaret Atwood's Hagseed down as a very dull read, given The Blind Assassin and Alias Grace would be in my top ten of best ever books, but I really didn't like this one. Autumn by Ali Smith, might be Booker nominated, can't understand why, definitely not for me, seemed to comprise of a collection of dream sequences relating to the unusual relationship between a young girl and her elderly neighbour, with random bits of history thrown in and the writer's devotion to an obscure artist set against a theme of Brexit but devoid of any narrative. Thank God it was fairly brief at just over 200 pages. Discovered two authors I really liked, Helen Dunmore who sadly died in the summer, really liked Birdcage Walk a lot and will definitely try some of her others. Amanda Craig, who's only written 5 or so books, but the two I read were excellent. Three books on the list, that I thought, although perfectly readable, massively over hyped. The Essex Serpent, The Girls and The Dry, although I think the latter would be quite filmic in the slow unfolding way that the first Broadchurch was.
3 more to go before I hit the magic number one of those will definitely be The Miniaturist because I've read it's been filmed and will be on tv in December so I want to read the book first.

Me too!

"The concept is fine – most of the world’s women fall asleep, and if woken, go crazy and attack people"

Yawn. That sounds like me in the evening (DH is nodding emphatically)

Stand outs in bold; stinkers marked as such.

1: The Essex Serpent – Sarah Perry
2: Fatherland Robert Harris
3: Stasi Child – David Young
4: Golden Hill – Francis Spufford
5: American Gods – Neil Gaiman
6: The House by the Lake – Thomas Harding
7: 84 Charing Cross Road – Helene Hanff
8: The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street – Helene Hanff
9: Magpie Murders – Anthony Horowitz STINKER
10: Warm Bodies – Isaac Marion
11: Ashes of London – Andrew Taylor
12: Left for Dead – Beck Weathers STINKER
13: The Burning World – Isaac Marion
14: Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science By Richard Holmes
15: Ghosts of Everest: The Search for Mallory and Irvine – Jochen Hemmleb
16: An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth – Chris Hadfield
17: Measuring the World – Daniel Kehlmann STINKER
18: The North Water - Ian McGuire
19: Berlin: Portrait of a City - Taschen
20: It Stephen King
21: On her Majesty’s Secret Service – Ian Fleming
22: White Boots – Noel Streatfeild STINKER
23: A Place Called Winter – Patrick Gale
24: The Painted Dragon – Katherine Woodfine
25: Black Plumes – Margory Allingham
26: The Nine Tailors – Dorothy L Sayers
27: Plague 99 – Jean Ure
28: Black Out – John Lawton
29: The Companion Guide to Berlin – Brian Ladd
30: Sex and Punishment: Four Thousand Years of Judging Desire - Eric Berkowitz
31: The Seven Dials Mystery – Agatha Christie
32: One – Sarah Crossan
33: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
34: The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole
35: Friday’s Child – Georgette Heyer
36: The Grand Sophy – Georgette Heyer
37: The Descent of Man – Grayson Perry
38: South Riding – Winifred Holtby
39 Madonna in a Fur Coat STINKER
40 Our Endless Numbered Days Claire Fuller
41: The Man in the Queue – Josephine Tey
42: Grey Mask – Patricia Wentworth
43: The Singing Sands – Josephine Tey
44: The Cornish Coast Murder – John Bude
45: Murder in Stained Glass – Margaret Armstrong
46: The City and the City China Miéville
47: Agatha Christie – Endless Night
48 Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh
49: The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
50: A Christmas Party – georgette Heyer
51 The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café – Alexander McCall Smith
52: The Three – Sarah Lotz
53: Persuasion – Austen
54: Prussian Blue – Philip Kerr
55: The Lost City of Z – David Grann
56: Call for the Dead - John Le Carré
57: Lincoln in the Bardo
58: A Man of Quality – John Le Carre
59: Wild – Cheryl Strayed
60: Howard’s End is on the Landing – Susan Hill STINKER
61: A Convenient Marriage – Georgette Heyer
62: The Literature Book – Dorling Kindersley
63: Oscar Wilde & the Vatican Murders – Giles Brandreth
64: Oscar Wilde and the Murders at Reading Gaol: A Mystery Gyles Brandreth
65: A Clockwork Orange
66: Mort – Terry Pratchett
67: Cogheart – Peter Bunzi
68: Dirt – Wellcome Collection
69: Elephants Can remember – Agatha Christie
70: Soul Music – Terry P
71: Germany: Memories of a Nation – Neil MacGregor
72: Thin Ice – Michelle Paver
73: Martyr – Rory Clements
74: Revenger - Rory Clements
75: Prince – Rory Clements
76: The Silent Boy – Andrew Taylor
77: Everyone Brave is Forgiven – Chris Cleave
78: All Things Bright and Beautiful - James Herriot
79: Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer
80: Hangman’s Holiday – Dorothy L Sayers
81: Little Novels – Wilkie Collins
82: Forensics: The Anatomy of Crime – Val McDermid
83: Beyond the Body Farm - Jon Jefferson
84: S.T.A.G.S.by M. A. Bennett
85: Denali's Howl: The Deadliest Climbing Disaster on America's Wildest Peak – Andy Hall
86: Heroes of the Frontier – Dave Eggers
87: The Dry - Jane Harper
88: Madame Will You Talk – Mary Stewart
89: The Queen’s Man – Rory Clements
90: Powder and Patch – Georgette Heyer STINKER
91: Nine Coaches Waiting – Mary Stewart
92 Thunder on the Right – Mary Stewart
93 The Ivy Tree – Mary Stewart
94: In the Land of the Long White Cloud – Sarah Lark
95 Library of Souls (3rd in Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series)
96: Song of the Spirits – Sarah Lark
97: Call of the Kiwi – Sarah Lark
98/99/100 – Jeeves and Wooster Omnibus Volume One – PG Wodehouse (first 2 were standouts)
101: The Fever Tree – Jennifer Mc Veigh
102: Sleeping Beauties – Stephen and Owen King

102: Sleeping Beauties – Stephen and Owen King
This alleged collaboration between Stephen King and his son feels as if it’s actually mostly his son, with the dad’s name tagged on. The concept is fine – most of the world’s women fall asleep, and if woken, go crazy and attack people. Unfortunately, the rest of the book doesn’t seem to really know what it’s doing. There are too many characters, too few of whom we’re asked to actually care about and it gets increasingly disjointed and silly. Not recommended.

Will bring my list over now. It has not been a good reading year. The best two fiction books I've read were right back at the beginning of January, and nothing has really come close since.

Bringing my list over:

1. The North Water by Ian McGuire
2. The Snowden Files: Inside Story Of The World's Most Wanted Man by Luke Harding
3. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
4. The Cambridge Companion to Handel by Donald Burrows
5. Revelation by C. J. Sansom (Shardlake #4)
6. The Mask Of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
7. The Ladybird Book Of Mid-Life Crisis
8. The Schirmer Inheritance by Eric Ambler
9. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgkin Burnett

1. Christmas Days - Jeanette Winterson
2. Fate of the Tearling - Erika Johansen

1. The Wine of Angels - Phil Rickman
2. Midwinter of the Spirit - Merrily Watkins
3. The God Instinct - Jesse Bering
4. The Edge of the World - Michael Pye

51. The Bear and the Nightingale - Katherine Arden
This is a Russian fairy tale in novel length. Very atmospheric with lots of great fairy tale elements. It reminded me a little of Uprooted due to the setting. Beautifully written, lovely to read in these darker evenings. The ending felt a little rushed compared to the rest of the novel but this didn't detract too much. I'm looking forward to the next instalment.

Would recommend to fans of myths and fairy tales.

Thanks for the new thread!

1. The Light Years Elizabeth Jane Howard
2. Marking Time Elizabeth Jane Howard
3. Peter's Room Antonia Forest
4. Run Away Home Antonia Forest
5. The Thursday Kidnapping Antonia Forest
6. Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
7. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding Julia Strachey
8. Good Evening, Mrs Craven Mollie Panter-Downes
9. Unpublished manuscript

Cote, it is a good book - just don't say we didn't warn you that "But I'm a Catholic!" is a major plot device. Repeatedly.

Currently reading La Belle Sauvage - I'm enjoying it but I do have Issues. What's our Pullman spoiler policy on this thread? Obviously won't give away actual spoilers, but are we of the Don't Want To Know Anything About It Whatsoever Until I Read It brigade, or more of a Well, Don't Say Whodunnit lot?

Marking place. Will bring list over later - am trying to finish another book before I do it.

Nothing to add. Still reading s-l-o-w-l-y.
Bringing my list over - favourites in bold:

1.The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell

1. Mothering Sunday - Graham Swift
2. Under the Skin - Michel Faber
3. Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood
4. The Muse - Jessie Burton
5. Swing Time - Zadie Smith
6. The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith
7. A Question of Identity - Susan Hill
8. The Vows of Silence - Susan Hill