50 Book Challenge 2018 Part Two

Trying to bring my list over - copying from Excel so I hope it works!

1 Night Study Maria V Snyder
2 Dawn Study Maria V Snyder
3 The Dark Tower Stephen King
4 The Common Years Jilly Cooper
5 War For The Oaks Emma Bull
6 The Falcon Emma Bull
7 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood
8 The Lost Plot Genevieve Cogman

Coincidentally, coming just after Chessie's post but I finished Rebecca (book no. 3) last night.
For some reason I had never got around to reading it before. I really enjoyed it and have been thinking about it all morning.

I'm really bad at saying what I think about books until I've had plenty of time to consider. I may come back with more of my thoughts later.

Next book is To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

1. Mrs de Winter by Susan Hill

This is a sequel to Rebecca. It has had mixed reviews on goodreads, but I liked it. I think she’s done a really good job at capturing du Maurier’s style and the characters. I can’t say much about the plot without spoiling Rebecca for those who haven’t read it, but not much happens for a while then there’s some coincidences where you need to suspend belief a bit, but overall I thought it was a good attempt at telling what happened next. Not a patch on the original Rebecca though, of course!

Coincidentally, having just read Rebecca then the above book, I went to a second hand book sale yesterday and found The Rebecca Notebook and Other Memories by Daphne du Maurier, which includes her original notes when she first thought of the story, an epilogue which was never used, and her thoughts looking back at the book, plus some other non-Rebecca related writing. Am reading this now!

Feel like I am book stalking Toomuchsplother

3. Fingers in the sparkle jar a memoir - Chris Packham I thought this was a vivid, raw, heartbreakingly sad, yet fantastically detailed book. Missed his documentary on BBC but knew that he had been diagnosed late with Asperger’s. (But that is never mentioned) I liked the 3rd person stance, the time line does jump around a lot but you settle into it very quickly. Hugely emotive, has made me quite sad yet uplifted. Another to recommend to everyone.

mamapants william burroughs an acquired taste - Naked Lunch probably the most well known. I took a literature class once with a group of 7 or 8 mature students who were all horrified by it. It was a difficult discussion day...

Might check for our endless numbered days at the library.

I was thinking of doing the popsugar challenge after hearing so many of you talking about it. Think I'm not going to do it this year as I am trying to read through the unread books in my house before buying new.
Anybody read much William Burroughs?
DP seems to have a lot of his books and I've never read any, thinking of giving them a go.

1. Our Endless Numbered Days - Clare Fuller

I think this was reviewed frequently on last year’s threads so I am coming a bit late to this.

Peggy is a young girl growing up in London with her concert pianist mother and survivalist father.
One summer Peggy’s father leads them both to a cabin deep in the woods of Germany and tells Peggy that the rest of the world population has gone.
The story then follows their survival and how their relationship with each other and their situation changes.

A dark but extremely compelling story.

1. Dream Hunters by Neil Gaiman

4. What A Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe. Struggling novelist Michael receives a well paying commission to write a warts and all biography of Britain's most horrific aristocratic family, the Winshaws. The family features an investment banker, an arms dealer, a Tory MP, a tabloid journalist and a battery farmer amongst its figures of 1980s excess. The more Michael researches, the more he discovers how his own life has been shaped by the assorted Winshaws.

This was fun and pacey, the satire effective without being hammered home too hard. I felt Michael could have been a more rounded character to make a better foil for the caricatures that were the Winshaws. I found the gothic horror ending a bit nuts though, however clever it was.

3. Fallout- Sara Paretsky. I've been saving this for ages because I love Sara Paretsky's VI Warshawski P.I. I felt I needed her company in my life at the moment and, so far, I'm not disappointed.

I'm also doing the Popsugar reading challenge .

2. In a Dark, Dark Wood, by Ruth Ware. I may be the last person in the world to read this, I think it was really popular last year or the year before - but I really enjoyed it. A crime/thriller about a woman who is invited to the hen party of a friend she hasn't seen for 10 years. We know from the start that something terrible happens, and the rest of the story unravels what happened and why. You definitely have to suspend some disbelief but it cracks along at a good pace and I enjoyed the writing.

Next up is Logical Family by Armistead Maupin.

Marking my place, though I've not caught up with the end of the last thread yet!

1. Live Your Best Day Ever - Anne-Marie Faiola
2. Golden Age by James Maxwell

I really like The Secret Garden, Iris1 it's a real comfort read for me!

The Last Hours sounds really interesting, I'll put that on my never ending wish list FiveGoMad.

1.Norse Mythology - Neil Gaiman
2.North and South - Gaskell
3.one damned thing after another by Jodi Taylor

1. The Book of Dust - Phillip Pullman
2. The Lady of the Rivers by Phillippa Gregory

Satsuki ha yes. In the book he plays a flute, so does spend a fair bit of the novel ‘getting his rod out’. He also plays a piccolo, so perhaps his rod isn’t as impressive as we are led to believe...

Tanaqui - i’ve got no idea about Mark Lawrence and Riven I’m afraid.

The author biography at the back of Red Sister says that “Mark is married, with four children, and lives in Bristol.”, but it unaccountably fails to mention whether his wife is a mumsnetter

I just finished book no 16. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

It's about a Parisian concierge who hides her intelligence and love of the arts from her clients, and an equally intelligent suicidal 12 year old from a wealthy family, who lives in the same luxurious apartment building that the concierge works in.

It was readable enough and I did enjoy parts of it, but it's one of those books that's overly pleased with itself, as I find many modern French books are. I enjoy reading about philosophy but much of it was just rambling and had little real meaning. The characters were as smug as the book, though I enjoyed the concierge's chapters more than the young girl's.

The ending left me infuriated and was completely unnecessary.

Would lovebto join in as trying to read more.
So far have read :
This is going to Hurt by Adam Kaye - this is diary entries by a junior doctor who eventually left the profession. It's really really good and quite an easy read.

Call the midwife - by Jennifer Worth. I've started this before but never finished it. The xmas special drew me to it again and ive really enjoyed it.

The secret garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett. I've never read this before and I really loved it.

Next up is Exit West by Mohsin Hamid after seeing it recommended here I got it from the library.

I have lots on my list and would like to read a fair mix of modern and classic fiction as well as some children's classics I've never read bit wished I had.

My list so far...

1. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
2. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
3. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
4. The Land Where Lemons Grow by Helena Atlee
5. The Jungle by Pooja Puri
6. Everyday Sexism by Laura Bates
7. One Night In Winter by Simon Sebag Montefiore
8. Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories by various authors
9. English Animals by Laura Kaye
10. Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
11. The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler
12. Snowblind by Ragnar Jónasson
13. My Son's Not Rainman by John Williams
14. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
15. Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak

3 1916 the Easter Rising by Tim Pat Coogan.
Basically what it says on the tin. Interesting and well researched but perhaps a little dry?

Still reading What a Carve Up! on kindle, but in the meantime have finished the past fortnight's (paper) bath read:

3. The Descent of Man by Grayson Perry Short treatise on the pitfalls and perils of modern masculinity. Light but still purposeful. The stuff on clothes and uniforms was especially good - I liked the concept of masculinity as very performative.

I read the Lizzie Borden book last year, raced through the first half and then ran out of steam but finished it, it is on my donate to charity pile to happy to post on to anyone who wants it.

Bringing one my 5

1. Old Filth - Jane Gardam
2. Hollow City - Ransom Riggs
3. The One from the Other - Philip Kerr
4. D is for Deadbeat - Sue Grafton
5. The Last Hours - Minette Walters

1. The Child - Fiona Barton

Reallly liked it, written from several different points of view. although I got the ending very early on. I liked the other one she has written too. The Widow.