50 Book Challenge 2018 Part Two

10. Why I Am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto by Jessa Crispin An angry ranty look at popular feminism and why it isn't achieving anything. Or rather a whiny strop that feminism is no longer cool since all the cool kids started doing it and they've ruined it.

Offered no real argument or insight, lacked substance and research and was very inconsistent. Read like a teen essay rather than anything else. It might have made for a spirited article with some serious editing but lacked the depth and analysis required for a credible book.

Murine

I've finished book number 15 the warsaw anagrams Richard Zimler. It took me a while to get in to it, so it took a while to finish. A man living in the warsaw ghettos nephew is murdered, quickly followed by a girl being murdered in a simillar way. He sets out to find out who killed them, and why.

I'm not sure what to read next so I'm on the amazon hunt.

Gah, I wrote a message and lost it.

Anyway after a positive start I have struggled to find a book that is engaging me to read continuously so I have about 4 on the go.

8 Elenaor Oliphant is Completely Fine
Got this as have heard good reviews about it and sadly I just found it a bit meh, I don't know whether its because it is on the kindle and I don't read much on the kindle or just whether it wasn't my cup of tea.

I'd love there to be another Shardlake. C J Sansom, I believe, was being treated for cancer when he was writing Lamentation. I hope he's on the mend. He seems to be a very private person unlike some other authors who are all over social media all the time.

Satsuki I love your DH's description of Thousand Autumns - not sure that I would have recognised the book from the description, but he's got it pretty much all there. It's my favourite of David Mitchell's more recent ones - I wasn't that blown away by Bone Clocks.

Can I assume from your user name that you have a general interest in Japan, or is it more that you're a Ghibli fan?

murine! Get out

Fortuna dh is reading Lamentation at the same time as me, so it’s about to get pretty sardonic in our house. Yes, when is a new Shardlake coming? I’m trying to stretch the old devil out, but it may be even beyond my eking powers, she said with a shudder.

I couldn’t do the random choice thing, my reading is too dictated by mood and what I fancy. I nearly picked up Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet but I’ve just read about Japan so going to leave it a bit. I had asked my dh what it was about and he said “Trading. At the, er, trading place. In Japan. Or is it Japan? The place on the end where they go. There’s double crossing, love, and a monkey. It’s good”. So I do have an extremely random review generator, it seems

I think splitting the randomiser pile is fair enough : I should have done that to be honest!

I allowed DS1 to pick the next number and he has chosen 17, which is A Tale Of Two Cities. Sigh. That's a duty read and am currently teaching Dickens to year 10

I'll bet Murine , was it a great disappointment that the Bennet sisters are not bad ass sword masters when you read the original?

A confession: I read P & P with Zombies well before the actual P & P because DH had left it in the bathroom. That was my only knowledge of P & P for a loooong time, making reading the real thing last year revelatory

Book randomiser employed thanks Piggy although I have adjusted it for my own giant TBR pile into 'classics' and ' non classics' and I'm going to alternate between the two. It has chosen for me The Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho, which is possibly a little unfortunate coming so soon after Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell but hey ho The Randomiser has spoken.

Going to need a lot of convincing about P&P and Zombies Remus opened the graphic novel to a scene where Mr Bennet is shouting “FORM THE PENTAGRAM OF DEATH LADIES!” and had I not been in the quiet zone of the library might have spoken an ungenteel profanity.

I am desperate for a new Shardlake. :(

14 Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

I was given this for Christmas so thought I should read it before I see the person who gave it to me. I wouldn’t have chosen it based on the blurb and it took me a little while to get into it but once I did, I was in their world. I’m not 100% sure about the “story within a story/a famous novelist stole my life” aspect to it but the relationships between the siblings and step siblings were so well drawn. And I was interested - for personal reasons - in the way in which forgiveness played a large role and people found ways to build their own family networks out of situations they didn’t choose. It definitely inspires me to pick up more Ann Patchett as she writes so well in this.

1. The Game Theorist’s Guide to Parenting by Kevin Zollman and Paul Raeburn. I was looking forward to this book, because I like reading about game theory and I’m a parent to three DC (age between 8 and 12), but I found it a little disappointing. I’m not quite sure which audience the authors were aiming for - someone interested in game theory and its application to mutual cooperation within the parent/child relationship, or someone with a passing interest in game theory who is looking to pick up parenting tips to make their kids better at sharing. I think the authors tried to appeal to both groups, and ended up falling between two stools and not really satisfying either. Some interesting bits though.

Have just bought Shardlake no 1 for £1.58 on Kindle. I have high expectations after reading these threads for a couple of years!

In awe of those who have rationed Shardlake. I discovered them and devoured them all last year.

29. The Reservoir Tapes companion book to Reservoir 13. Really enjoyed this. Short but beautifully formed.

Have just started The Bone Clocks . Not my usual thing at all...

I've already read

1. Never Let You Go by Chevy Stevens
2. Good me bad me by Ali Land
3. Don't Wake me up by Liz Lawler
4. One Little Mistake by Emma Curtis

I'm currently reading

1. Anything you do say by Gillian McAllister

Satsuki Add sardonic to the Shardlake bingo. Since it stuck out in Shardlake it's pervaded everything else I've read recently, I notice it everywhere.

I do it with Austen, I read one book and it alters my speech pattern. Then I get an urge to flounce about in a frock.

Yes, just - mine has no autism but likes the number 11, Google was more random (but still never picks 1...)

Satsuki - I’m so pleased to have discovered Shardlake and to have so many left to read, although I will try hard to ration them!

I like the numbering system idea, Piggywaspushed, I would love to geek out and make myself a spreadsheet of them but I'm a bit scared of the sheer number of books involved!

I'm currently reading my thrillers to clear some shelf space (I can't reread them once I know whodunnit so they will be donated to a charity shop):

1. Dead Sky by Tami Hoag a bit cheesy and predictable, but an entertaining enough thriller. Judge Carey Moore is viciously attacked following her ruling that an accused murderer's past wrongdoings cannot be used as evidence, on the same night that the accused escapes from prison: can detectives Lisca and Kovac save her?

1. The Fever by Megan Abbott I finally got round to this mumsnet giveaway after this went missing in our house move! Many of the high school girls at Dryden school begin having seizures, and it is a race against time to work out what the cause might be.I wouldn't bother with this to be honest, it wasn't great.

I'm now on The Son by Jo Nesbo and enjoying it.

Piggy, Going to give it a try as I got about 8 new ones for my birthday and I just know I am going to pick those first...lol. Have to choose my own numbering system though as if I let my little boy pick he will keep picking 6. He has autism and 6 is his favourite number at the minute, it will change to 7 as soon as he has his birthday though...lol

just : mine are in the hall too! For the same reasons. You definitely need a numbering system!

fortuna I know, partly it’s because I don’t want to run out as I don’t have much go to light fiction, and partly it’s because as much as I’m fond of Matthew, we need our space, or else I find myself counting how many times he uses the word “stink”, or has a shudder go through him, or gets a twinge in his back. I wish my husband had rationed them more as there were a lot of exclamations of “hell’s teeth” and he also started calling me “goodwife” when he read too many in one go.

ladydepp you’ve spurred me to reading the Shardlake, and I’ve also reserved Endurance at the library.

Marking my place - will share my '2018 reads so far' later on