50 Book Challenge 2018 Part Two

Random number generator ahs picked The Secret History for my next book. It is not looking kindly on me having never picked out one of the short ones!!!

Book 7 The Muse

Now this I really liked. It's ages since I have read a gripping well written book. I don't like The Miniaturist much but this is more modern in style.

As someone who has holidayed in Spain, I found the - to us very much untaught and hidden - details of the Spanish Civil War in Malaga fascinating. I liked the double time frame too. And the multiple connecting threads. I found the stuff about Odelle's race a bit forced and unconvincing though (although I am all for more books with non white protagonists). I did see the ending a mile off but that's an affliction of mine with all books and films!

I wasn't moved to tears or anything - the characters are all too flawed but I did enjoy it. And it has a proper ending which I wasn't expecting from Burton.

Popping in to say I'm quite enjoying The Nix so far, and agree that it could be compared to King in its evocation of the world of childhood. Since I've just watched the new It film again (yours to buy on DVD now, folks) I think I'm probably even more conscious of it (or It).

Toomuch - Interesting. Thank you for this insight.

I had no idea that having many detailed early-childhood memories recalling emotions as well as time & place is so rare.

Satsuki, I'm sure a handful of cashews would substitute very nicely. I'm tempted although I don't think my employers would be impressed.

Whippet - I couldn't get on with A Song for Issy Bradley at all. It looked like the kind of book I would enjoy, but I just found myself getting more and more irritated by the Mormons, which I know sounds very bad, but they were portrayed often in a way which made it easy to dislike them rather than understand and sympathise.

I haven't posted properly for ages and, in fact, had fallen off the Threads I'm On. This hasn't been a good week, reading-wise. I've been ill most of it and have struggled through one non-fiction book:-

1. The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck by Can't Remember and can't be bothered to look it up either. Tedious. I get the point - drop the stuff that makes you waste time and you don't enjoy doing, don't bother with all the useless meetings, the invitations to second cousin twice removed's godchild's sister's wedding etc - you don't have to care.

She wittered on for far too long. It was something that could have been said in a bullet-pointed blog entry, but that wouldn't have made her much money.

Currently reading The Reservoir Tapes by Jon McGregor. I'm on a waiting list for Resevoir 13 but this turned up first. It's good, and I'm looking forward to getting hold of Reservoir 13.

And, also reading some rip off of a Horrid Henry book by someone who can't be bothered to think of their own stories, with DS. He's enjoying it, but I'm not and won't bother recording it on here. It's shite.

Whippetwoman I read a song for Issy Bradley a couple of years ago. I think my reaction was similar to yours at the time but it had stayed with me. Which is not something I can say for all books.

biblio I’m allergic to eggs but wonder if I could adapt it...

9. A Song for Issy Bradley - Carys Bray
Not great, not dreadful (though very sad) and I read it quickly. It's about the aftermath of the death of the youngest child in a Mormon family in the UK, told from the perspectives of the different family members. It was the Mormon element that kept me reading actually, as it's a community that I know very little about. The characterisation didn't work for me very well; didn't ring true and was perhaps too black and white (good Mormon/bad mormon) but on the whole this was ok. I'm not really selling this. Perhaps it was a bit too "creative writing course' style for me. I hope that makes sense!

I've been reading My Absolute Darling for weeks now - a little bit here and there. Great writing but difficult to read for some reason. I never want to pick it up.

Cote, I rather enjoyed Sharp Objects too.

12. The Extra Woman: How Marjorie Hillis Led a Generation of Women to Live Alone and Like It, by Joanna Scutts

Non-fiction book about a mid-twentieth century American female writer who wrote advice books for women on how to live elegant and interesting lives without being married. Like Betty Friedan before her, she points out the change from the 1930s image of independent women (think Katherine Hepburn) to the 1950s image of domesticity. It's a lively enough read, though it feels a bit padded. I cherish the description of Helen Gurley Brown's recommended 2-day diet:

• breakfast: an egg and a glass of white wine
• lunch: two eggs and two glasses of wine
• dinner: steak and the rest of the bottle.

Weightwatchers, eat your heart out.

Cote no maybe you may be one of those people I love, who has very specific memories which encompass emotion as well as a time and place. This really isn't my experience with everyone. Lots of people can tell you where they were and what was happening but not how it made them feel. The loss of the child's perspective is a huge problem in my opinion particularly in education and social care. I will put my soap box away, as aware we are straying far from the realms of books.

Book 12: Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Mentionned a lot here already so won’t go over the plot. I liked this but I can completely understand why some people wouldn’t. The various voices are really well done and I liked the unique style of it. I quite like non linear books and also anything to do with death and the human condition (I’m great fun at parties) so those elements I liked. I think I will reread this at some point as I read it in bits, waiting at school gates etc and I think this is the kind of book that needs to be read in longer sittings.
Overall I enjoyed it but I’m not sure I would recommend it to others as I can see a lot of people hating it as well

"But is having personal memories the same as really having an understanding of what it is like to be a child? How a child thinks, feels and processes?"

Err... Is it not?

I remember windsurfing as a teenager so I don't need to read a book telling me about the wind on my salty skin, feet in the water, completely silence except for the waves etc.

Similarly, I remember very well what it felt like to be small and dependent, misunderstanding most adult conversations as had no frame of reference for them, wanting approval, admiring my mother, aunts, and all women really, who looked like mysterious creatures with special powers. I understand what it is to be a child because I remember being one, through my memories.

Am I misunderstanding something?

1. Restoration by Rose Tremain (audiobook).

Follows the life of Robert Merivel who starts the book as a medical student in London during the reign of Charles II. The story is told in first person as Merivel retells his life of entering into the King's favour and a position at court, becoming first the physician to his Majesty's dogs and then his cuckold as husband to one of the Kings mistresses. He is sent to live in great luxury to a great home in Norfolk where surrounded by everything he could possibly ever want fucks it all up by doing the one thing the King has forbidden him to do. Punishment ensues.
The second part of the book is his life restating again, returning to medicine, neglected relationships and his purpose in life.

I enjoyed this very much. The narrator was superb and the character of Merivel although insufferable and exasperating is a real joy, full of wit and pathos. I wanted much more from the story while he is at the asylum and felt that this part of the book and his insights into mental illness felt unfinished, although I see that audible has immediately recommended a follow up to this one, so maybe Tremain returns to this topic again and Robert is able to reach some more satisfactory conclusions.
Would definitely recommend as an audiobook for those wanting to listen to something that will lift the spirits.

Satsuki I think those successful children's writers are the rare people who truly haven't forgotten what it is like to be a child.

Yes agree toomuch

1. The Horse Dancer - Jojo Moyes

A 14-year-old girl is being coached in dressage by her French grandfather - in a scruffy urban stables and park in London, not where you would expect to see someone doing a levade. She ends up running away with her horse to France, chased by her foster parents. I enjoyed this, partly because I ride (although not dressage, and haven't got my own horse) and got into it more as it went on. The characters, both human and equine, were well-drawn.

6. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent A lot of people have already read this by now I think. It is the story of a woman sentenced to execution in rural Iceland in 1829, and is an imagining of her last days, and the events that led to her imprisonment, based on real historical evidence and documents. She waits out her last days with the family of the District Commissioner, visited by a young vicar who hopes to secure her confession and repentance, and bring her to God before her death. It is as bleak as it sounds! But well written, and though slow to begin with I found myself quite engrossed as it went on. There is some lovely poetic writing which evokes the unforgiving landscape and unforgiving society really well, and it is a slow, claustrophobic tale that builds gradually and inevitably. It reminded me a lot of His Bloody Project, perhaps without the quite the same vitality, but a good, original historical fiction nonetheless.

I want something lighter now so think I am going to start Mariana by Monica Dickens, and hope it fits the bill.

My first vivid memory is of around the time my sister was born, I was three. Then there is a big gap. But is having personal memories the same as really having an understanding of what it is like to be a child? How a child thinks, feels and processes? I often deal with families in crisis and we are constantly reminding the parents to look at something from a child's perspective. It's amazing how often we forget to do that.

I have lots of vivid memories from toddlerhood and up, whereas my husband only has scraps before the age of about 8. I was an early reader and he was later. I’ve wondered whether developing that ability has any bearing on retaining memory (speculation based on a sample of two ) Some of my preschool memories are based on getting certain books out of the library, and reading the letter that said I was going to School.

That’s interesting - my memories start from being 4. I remember moving into our first house (lived with Granny before that). DH, in the other hand, remembers nothing before the age of 8. My personal theory is that that was when he was sent to prep school and he blocked his earlier memories in his homesickness.

Cote thanks for the Flynn recommendation. I read Gone Girl and while I quite liked it I wasn’t overwhelmed so hadn’t bothered with any of her others. I still don’t think I’ll rush out to buy it but will pick it up in the library or a charity shop if I see it!

Cote, whereas I have hardly any memories from before I was about four, but can remember being nine very very vividly.
Brains are odd.

Toomuch - That's hard to believe for me. I have so many memories of early childhood, in a home we moved out of before I was 5, for example. Overhearing my parents talking about having to be careful with money and worrying myself sick about how we would survive (unnecessarily). Dreaming my parents were both dead and crying in the corridor at night, not daring to go into their room in case they really weren't there. Both of these memories are from before I was 3. Then DB was born and I "packed" a bag in a fit of jealousy and tried to run away. I was 5.

I really don't need to read children's books to remember how children think. Let me know if I can read a book to remember what I ate yesterday, though

21. Birdcage Walk - Helen Dunmore I enjoyed this but it wasn't a stand out for me. Story of a young wife in Bristol at the time of the French Revolution. She has been brought up by a forward thinking, radical mother. Her husband is a self made man, building beautiful but risky properties in Bristol. He harbours a dark secret.
There was lots of potential here for this to be a really compelling dark tale, along the lines of Rebecca. It seemed a bit underdeveloped and rushed to me. The conclusion was all too convenient as well.