50 Book Challenge 2018 Part Two

Mo I also have A Discovery of Witches on my tbr book shelf. I have no idea if it's meant to be good or not, picked it up years ago and never got round to reading it.

I also loved The Virgin Suicides I've read it many times now.

Finished City of Ashes - your usual teen angst drama that I can't seem to stop reading!

Book 19 is A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness - a bit late to the game with this series but it's been on my TBR list for a while.

(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
(13) The Magdalen Laundries by Lisa Michelle Odgaard
(14) Just What Kind of Mother Are You by Paula Daly
(15) Amber Earns Her Ears by Amber Michelle Sewell
(16) Breathe by Sarah Crossan
(17) Kiss of Death by Rachel Caine

As mentioned before I had got the full set of the Morganville Vampire books and do want to read them but I can't seem to read a series one after the other, I am attempting the next in the series now but can feel myself getting bored with it already and I am only about 50 pages in.

I’ve slogged my way to the end of 12. The Time Traveller's Guide to Restoration Britain - Ian Mortimer

A certain amount of over-committing went on here; this was a library ebook and I didn’t fully appreciate how long it was. It suddenly dawned on me that the page count was over 700 and to be perfectly honest, it felt like a bit of a worthy slog, even though history is my subject. It’s one of a series in which the idea is that you're placed within the daily life of the period in question. It’s not dauntingly academic, is told engagingly and quotes some interesting sources (though inevitably good old Samuel Pepys looms large) - but it’s very heavy on facts and figures and is therefore a long and dense read. I felt compelled to finish it, in the spirit of this thread, but have to admit that I’d have given up otherwise - partly because I’m pretty familiar with the period anyway. It did make me want to go back to browse Pepys's diaries at my leisure, though, so a partial win.

Lots of waiting around today at dentist, teenage clubs so finished 28. The more you ignore me - Jo Brand. And it was truly bloody dire. Bought it in the Kindle Sale because I thought Jo Brand might write well about mental health given her background. How wrong I was! Story of a girl with a mother who suffers from serious mental illness. Said girl copes with this by immersing herself in Morrissey. Simplistic, cliche ridden and down right dire. Some cliches just rankle others are more offensive. The image of the typical local teenage girl is 'hard faced girls, who seemed only to be interested in drinking, cackling and being penetrated so hard they were almost unable to walk' !!!!
Any book that thinks a triple wedding is s convincing way to end it....
How this got so may 4 and 5 star reviews on Goodreads I will never know.

Ugh Remus, hope you feel better soon. I’m on week three of this horrible flu and it’s affected my reading - can’t concentrate. May have to dig out Bill Bryson’s Down Under to cheer myself up.

10.) Women & Power: A Manifesto, by Mary Beard -- This probably doesn't need much introduction, since quite a few of you have read it already. A very short examination of how women have been silenced throughout history, with reference to the classics. Horribly relevant at the moment.

11.) Wychwood, by George Mann -- Mediocre. Elspeth, a journalist who's returned to her home town after being made redundant, gets involved in a series of ritualistic murders based on pagan folklore. Not terribly well written, with shallow characters, dull dialogue, and too many moments which just didn't ring true and left me .

It feels like everything I've read has been leaving me underwhelmed lately. I haven't been really properly hooked by a book in ages.

Going to pick up Sleeping Beauties next. SK's normally always a safe bet, although reviews for it have been mixed.

11 Cold Comfort Farm

I really didn't like this at the start and really really hated flora.
Then I started to get into it and get that it was meant to be funny and ended up enjoying it a fair amount

So glad you can read them now Remus!

18. Death at the bar by Ngaio Marsh. Another well constructed story - I think she has hit her stride now and I am enjoying them (after enjoying a couple mentioned on here I am now in chronological order). Not Sayers, but still enjoyable.

Book 15 -Everything I know about love by Dolly Alderton

Memoir by the journalist and podcaster. The first half of this book covers her growing up and experiencing relationships for the first time. It’s funny and would appeal to anyone born between 1983-1989 as it gets very specific with msn messenger and aol internet remberences. The second half though gets more serious and covers her friendships that have meant so much to her

Essentially this book is about the importance of female friendship. How often women sacrifice these for men and how a good friend can get through almost anything. Alderton writes really well and I enjoyed the book and the message. I will be recommending it to my friends but I think this is very much aimed at late 20s - early 30s and if you don’t fall in that category I could see this being seen as self indulgent.

It worked! Thanks again, Cheerful.

Fab, thank you Cheerful. Looks like the first three are available via Overdrive from our local library - might treat myself over half term!

God, I am a sucker for a good old bit of UST. Precious little of that in my life these days, old married woman that I am :)

Whose Body? is the first one (also available on Gutenberg Canada). It is much less well-written than the later ones - very, very much a first novel, to the point where she almost feels like a different writer. But it does have the advantage of setting out a lot of the key facts about Peter - his experiences during the War, his ambivalence towards the criminal justice system etc - which are useful to know when you read some of the later ones.

Keith you don't need to read most of them in any order. Peter does get older across the series; he's early thirties in the first one and forty-five in the last, so it's quite interesting to see him develop, but the stories themselves basically stand alone.

However, you MUST read the four Harriet Vane novels in order: Strong Poison, then Have His Carcass, then Gaudy Night, then Busman's Honeymoon.

Gaudy Night particularly is the glorious culmination of five years of unresolved sexual tension, to the point where just Harriet watching Peter reading becomes massively erotic. That book should come with a PART THREE warning, honestly.

Thanks for all the tips on kindle stuff!

I've never read any of the Peter Wimsey books and I know that Gaudy Night is beloved by many people here. Do you have to read them in a particular order?

On Gutenberg UK it's even easier, as it gives you the option to download the book as a kindle book. You then save it to your computer and simply email it to your kindle. I read loads of Gutenberg books on my kindle (and work documents, as it's easier than lugging a laptop abou) - I bloody love it.

Ooh, ooh, ooh, You can also download books directly from Project Gutenberg by using the (slightly rubbish) experimental browser on your Kindle. No need to email

Yet??? I meant MUCH!

Didn't like Middlesex or The Marriage Plot yet, but love Virgin Suicides.

Thanks, Cheerful. Will give that a go.

Piggy - I did think it was a bit odd that there wasn't a 'fun' male/male relationship, just the one that didn't even seem to have much point, was unnecessary to plot/character. I'd have liked there to have been a male equivalent to Mercy, for example, or a couple of Lords living the love that dared not speak its name.

Satsuki - glad you appreciated that line; it was the best I could do in my flu-fuddled haze!

keith I read The Marriage Plot and found it a bit nothing, not been bothered to read Suicides but I did enjoy Middlesex. Different than I expected, very good read.

No I am sure you didn't. I am just excited to read it! You made it sound worth it! :}

Piggy don't think I gave an spoilers. Was trying really hard not to...

Oh highlandcoo, you just inspired me to go away and watch this.... glorious...

Jeremy Thorpe book sounds good. I also found The Virgin Suicides almost unreadably boring (I read it with my normal head on, not my English Lit one, so most of the stuff about the male gaze etc went over my head) and I haven't been able to go back and give him another go, even though I have Middlesex here on my shelf and everyone says it is good.

10. Them: Adventures with Extremists: Secret Rulers of the World by Jon Ronson

Very readable though a bit of a mish-mash. Written in the late '90s (so pre-9/11), this is Ronson's account of hanging out with, and interviewing, a variety of extremists and conspiracy theorists, from Islamic fundamentalists to white supremacists. They all seem to share this theory that the world is being run by a shadowy elite, who meet in secret, and bizarrely (apologies for spoilers) Ronson actually finds that this is true and infiltrates one of their meetings. Frustratingly lightweight for a book that touches on serious content.

11. Women and Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard

Blimey, she's good, isn't she? I've seen Mary Beard on the TV but not read any of her writing before. She knows her stuff and she writes clearly, and entertainingly, without dumbing down. V interesting and some great points about how our cultural heritage feeds into the way that women who speak out are treated, including her own awful experiences of Twitter.

*of

Southeast I enjoyed Never Let Me Go as well. But it has been roundly dismissed on these threads. I'd say read it and see what you think.

I didn't enjoy The Buried Giant. I could see what he was trying to say in the themes but I just didn't like it. Perhaps I ought to reread it and see if I change my opinion.

Have got A Pale of Hills and When We Were Orphans tbr.