50 Book Challenge 2018 Part Two

(1) Witch is When Life Got Complicated by Adele Abbott
(2) Witch is Where It All Began by Adele Abbott
(3) Coming Clean by Kimberly Rae Miller
(4) Die Last by Tony Parsons
(5) Restaurant Babylon by Imogen Edwards Jones
(6) The Sugar Men by Ray Kingfisher
(7) The Hospital by Barbara O'Hare
(8) Fade Out by Rachel Caine
(9) Yellow Crocus by Laila Ibrahim
(10) Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
(11) Would You Like Some Magic With That by Annie Salisbury
(12) The Ride Delegate by Annie Salisbury

Yet another super fast read but actually quite good. Not so much from a Disney point of view but more how we treat customer services people and how much we expect when we are paying a lot of money.

1. An Old fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott. Needed something simple to read today and having enjoyed Rose in Bloom, went to the motherlode. This is just as sententious and preachy, but has the dark elements as well (attempted suicide, bankruptcy) which she handles amazingly well for children. It's great to have the chapter about the independent earning women as well, making it clear that the main problem with women working was not that it was new, but that women struggled to be paid a living wage that allowed any genuine independence. This is made into entirely a women's issue, in that what seems to make working respectable for women is to work for other women, whether in direct employment or in creative work which women buy, and it's the women who then decide the wages. Female landladies also decide the rent. No gentleman ever employs or houses a lady they're not married to.

I deliberately chose not to promote all these Victorian favourites to my nieces (and to ds) because they do have a peculiar effect. The endless moralising and guilt do remind me of my own childhood. It's a little comforting to read about how 'modern city children' of 1874 were considered to have just as unhealthy a lifestyle by older people as children now.

Thornbirds update - The priest just got naked but remained flaccid, so all is still well with the world.

Just wanted to update. Have now finished;

1. The Good People by Hannah Kent
2. The Burning Page by Genevieve Cogman
3. The Lost Plot by the same author
4. Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

(1) Witch is When Life Got Complicated by Adele Abbott
(2) Witch is Where It All Began by Adele Abbott
(3) Coming Clean by Kimberly Rae Miller
(4) Die Last by Tony Parsons
(5) Restaurant Babylon by Imogen Edwards Jones
(6) The Sugar Men by Ray Kingfisher
(7) The Hospital by Barbara O'Hare
(8) Fade Out by Rachel Caine
(9) Yellow Crocus by Laila Ibrahim
(10) Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
(11) Would You Like Some Magic With That by Annie Salisbury

This was a fairly quick and entertaining read about working at Walt Disney World Guest Relations. It was a glimpse behind the scenes and lets you see that Disney really does work hard to create the magic.

I really like the sound of that one, toomuchsplother, maybe because I am also in the stuck-with-a-toddler-when-actually-I'm-a-serious(ish)-adult-with-a-real-job-too-you-know stage of my life. And I love remote Scottish islands.

I adored Swallows and Amazons as a child - we used to go the Lake District every year and mess about on boats on the lakes (though my mother entirely unreasonably never let us camp out on islands for weeks at a time on our own). My grandad read us all the books over the years we were there and I wanted to be Nancy Blackett so badly.

I am reading Through the Looking-Glass which is slightly less awful than Alice, but only slightly. Sigh.

I loved it as a child, but am not sure I would if I read it for the first time now- I wonder if the class distinctions would jar.

9. *Murder in Ecstacy by Ngaio Marsh. This one I found a little dated, but still enjoyable- a woman dies during a cult religious ceremony, handily witnessed by Inspector Alleyn’s journalist friend Nigel Bathgate. Investigation ensues.

3 Think of England by KJ Charles

I needed a bit of light reading after How to Survive a Plague, and this hit the spot perfectly. It is set in 1904, where Captain Archie Curtis is just back from the Boer War suffering from serious injuries caused by faulty guns. Part country-house thriller (was it sabotage?) and part smutty m/m romance, a quick enjoyable read.

It's also conveniently got me back on track for my 1 book a week target for this year. I'm not sure whether I'll return to The End of Alchemy for my next book, or read The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin which dd got for Christmas.

museum they were based on real children and he used their real names. Titty was a nickname obviously, but she was called that, and Roger was really Roger. He gave them a different surname. They changed it to Tatty for the film and the family were annoyed about it.

5 Angelas Ashes Frank McCourt
This is an autobiography of the author growing up in poverty.
At times quite a distressing read but a really enjoyable coming of age novel. One of the few that will stay on my bookshelf and not get given away!

I don't think the names in Swallows and Amazons were supposed to be amusing - they were just names, like Dick and Fanny in Enid Blyton, that have assumed meanings they didn't previously have. S and A is a bit dull, to be honest. I enjoyed it (and all the other 11) as a child but have never wanted to re-read any of them.

"But what are DUFFERS IF NOT DUFFERS?" asked Susan. I notice that Stranger Things is produced/directed by The Duffer Brothers which tickles me and I have started to use it to refer to my sons.

The thing that always comes up from Swallows and Amazons is “better drowned than duffers” we said it the other day in fact, but otherwise don’t remember it as well as some.

Is the Wild Other Clover Stroud? I read an article by her bad thought her book sounded interesting but has been expensive on Kindle.

Chessie I also tried a children's classic I never read as a child Swallows and Amazons but didn't get on with it at all, so have had my first DNF of the year. I got it on audible for DS and thought I would listen myself but, perhaps as I have no childhood nostalgia for it, I just found it dull. And because I am very mature I did not find characters called Titty and Roger the ship's boy at all amusing.

Ellis, thanks for the recommendation. I really like the look of The Wild Other and have added it to my wish list.

ScribblyGum - not only posh crisps but homemade cake and scones too depending which of us is hosting

Had a busy week so only 100 or so pages into This Thing of Darkness. I’m enjoying it so far.
I now seem to be starting a virus so think a quiet weekend reading by the fire is just what is needed 😷

12. The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend

Listened to this on audiobook. Have read this a few times over the years and still find it funny!

13. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

I never read this as a child. I really enjoyed it - it’s a bit preachy in places but most children’s books of that period were. I loved the four girls though.

*3/50 My Name Is Leon - Kit de Waal
*
I bought this last year and just got round to reading it, so I don't know if it features heavily on last years thread.

Joyful and heartbreaking in equal measure. Told from Leon's perspective throughout. Leon is nine years old and him and his baby brother are taken into foster care as their mum can't look after them properly. As a mother to a nine year old boy, I found some chapters really hard to read.
Leon is also mixed race and the story is partially set against the backdrop of the Brixton riots. There are themes of abandonment, family and racial identity.
I discovered afterwards that the author is an expert on fostering and adoption, which explains why the book feels very genuine.
An excellent, if somewhat difficult read.

boldly, thanks. I'll leave that world for a bit then. I was happy to see that The Ladies of Grace Adieu featured, well, ladies, as one of my few disappointments with JS was the lack of any seriously developed female characters.

plus3 I gather from comments on this thread last year that JS & MN is rather a marmite book. I can understand why.
It’s long. The text is peppered with footnotes (which I personally loved and made the experience much richer), but I can imaging for some constantly being pulled out of the story to read, what can be in some cases, an entire mini short story about the history of English magic, could be rather tiresome. The pace is slow, there are lots of characters, and sometimes you feel like you have been reading for ages and really not a lot has happened.
It’s still wonderful though. Rich, immersive, clever and funny (it’s really funny. I have so many highlighted passages of little ripostes that are just wonderful). I loved the story and I loved the characters.
There is a tiny fragment of a scene where Mr Norrell is trying to give one of his beloved books about magic to Mr Strange and he is such an impossible imposssible exasperating man that all he can manage to do is tip his hands up and let the book slide out of them into Strange's. I don’t think I'll ever forget that scene, it captures his personality so beautifully and I had a huge smile on my face while reading it.

I am still feeling sad that its finished. Picked up and put down about seven books yesterday and couldn’t get into any of them. Had to watch the tv mini series of The Thorn Birds instead as a book mourning balm.

Does anybody else out there get stuck in mid book limbo? Am reading Marjorie Morningstar sort of want to know the ending but can't be bothered to pick it up. Help !.

16. Night Waking - Sarah Moss Anna is an Oxford fellow with a book to finish. She is also a mum to a very bright but death and disaster obsessed 7 year old and a demanding sleep avoiding toddler. She and her husband are living temporarily on a remote Scottish Island he has inherited from his father. Her husband is counting puffins and she is left to do everything else. They then find the skeleton of a baby in the garden. Lots of dark humour. The feel focus is on the relationship between mother and child, how we should parent and conflict in families. This isn't perfect, quite a bit feels unresolved at the end, but I did enjoy it. I could relate to lots of her feelings about being with small children 24/ 7. I also felt nostalgic for the picture books that are peppered throughout the text. I too could, and probably still can recite the Gruffalo from memory!

clash I really enjoyed the series but then it's such a long time since I read American Gods that I didn't remember that much so I wasn't constantly spotting bits they'd changed or characters that didn't feel right. Might be different for someone who has recently reread it. Spectacular to watch though.

Just adding my first few of the year:

1. pet semetary by Stephen King. Very scary and gruesome. I loved it! I only discovered King last year and I intend to read some more this year.
2. Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by GAIL Honeyman. Entertaining easy read. Well set for a sequel I suspect.
3. All the little children by Jo Furniss. My favourite genre of dystopian fiction. However this was poorly written and quite frankly too unbelievable to really work. And the ending was shite.

I have had such a slow start to the year for reading, so have only just finished my second book (have a couple of quiet weekends coming up though so should be able to catch up a bit)

1. Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell (Saxon Series #6)

1. *The Pagan Lord by Bernard Cornwell (Saxon Series #7)

This was the immediate follow on from "Death of Kings", the sixth book of Bernard Cornwell's Saxon series. It is a series I have enjoyed, but after Death of Kings thought it might have run its course.
However, I think I enjoyed this installment far more than the previous couple.
It's Uhtred at his best, gritty and finally making a move on his ancesteral home, which is rightfully his, but occupied by his uncle and family. But as usual, the Saxon cause distracts him.

The fact that I enjoyed this one means I probably will complete the series.