50 Book Challenge 2018 Part Two

tanaqui there are a few copies of Saplings for 3 or 4 pounds on Abe books. Greenbanks seems to be harder to get hold of second hand. Worth checking library too.

Tanaqui - you can get Saplings at least cheap on ebay (copies for under £3 inc postage)

Ha! Ellis I was going to post practically the same message about toomuch’s review of PriestDaddy. It’s on my tbr list too!

The film of The Talented Mr Ripley is pretty good too iirc Alias.

Remus, my local library has some Sayers on Overdrive so that might be worth a look?

I really really want to read Noel Streatfeilds adult books but they are £££. I did hope they would come up on Project Gutenberg, but I guess not if Persephone are publishing them- and it’s not the kind of thing that hits our charity shops :(

8 Good Cop, Bad War by Neil Woods

An account of the 14 years the author spent as an undercover policeman infiltrating the drugs trade.

He ends up seeing his role as part of an arms race between police and gangsters, resulting in more rather than less violence on the streets. He has since left the police & has become a campaigner for legalisation & regulation.

I picked this up from the library, having seen an interview with the author linked from the spycops website. I've run into a few people who've been on the other side of police surveillance (activists rather than addicts), & it's fascinating to read the other side of the story. Even leaving that aside, it's a gripping book & he makes an excellent case for ending the war on drugs. Definitely a stand out read for me.

I guess as it’s Oscar month they’ve got for that as a theme. I wasn’t that keen on Into the Wild but hadn’t realised it was same writer until I read Thin Air.

I've bought into the wild too terpsichore. Haven't read Into thin air yet so have no expectations.

Thank you cedar I’d heard of Greenbanks, have made note of all.

terpsichore there is a new film (movie, not doc) coming out shortly about Crowhurst, with Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz. There was a feature about Crowhurst in the paper at the weekend.

I'm not sure why I picked up the first one bibliomania - it's really not my usual style at all! But in spite of the fact that everyone is beautiful/talented/rich as they tend to be in this sort of thing, I did find the story well told and it managed to draw me in enough to continue the series.

15. The Travelling Bag by Susan Hill

Four short ghost stories. The title story is told by a paranormal detective in a St James' club recounting one of his most memorable cases. 'Boy Twenty-One' is the tale of a lonely boy who makes a friend, although the friend is not quite what he seems. 'Alice Baker' is about a new office worker who is accompanied by a lingering smell of decay, and 'The Front Room' is the tale of a devoutly Christian mother trying to protect her children from the malign influence of their grandmother, both before and after her death.

They're okay, not really that spooky. MR James is better at this sort of thing, although The Woman in Black was very good.

I liked the other John K book, but it's not another Into Thin Air.

I bought the one about that bloke on a boat.

Oops. I just bought several things in the not-very-good Kindle sale. Plus two charity-shop books yesterday (John Guy's biog of Elizabeth I, and a novel I’ve been stalking on Kindle for ages without success).

The Kindle things - a different Jon Krakauer book (not the MN favourite), plus Nicholas Tomalin's book about the last voyage of Donald Crowhurst (v interesting - there was an excellent film about it a few years ago too). Oh, and after enjoying The Party, I was pleased to see Elizabeth Day's first book is on there - Scissors, Paper, Stone.

NCed from ghostiechicken.

9.) Republic of Thieves, by Scott Lynch -- The third book in the Gentleman Bastards sequence. Locke Lamore, close to death after the events in Red Seas under Red Skies, is dying. When they receive an offer from the very last faction they expected to help, the bondsmagi they fucked off in the first book, they have no choice to accept, and are hired to rig an election in the bondsmagis' city of Karthain. Only there's a complication: the other side has hired Sabetha, Locke's ex-lover and fellow thief.

I'm so torn about this. I wanted to like it (and I did for the most part), but it's a too long, and dragged a bit at times. The stakes aren't all that high (they really are just trying to win the election, not fighting for their lives as they are in the first two novels), so it's tricky to see why it matters. I was also torn between finding the relationship between Locke and Sabetha adorable and deeply, deeply irritating although it did improve towards the end. The epilogue was great though -- I just wish it had got there a bit quicker.

Next up, I'm not sure. Probably the Mary Beard Women and Power one, since it's so short.

IndigoSalt if you liked the Varoufakis book, you might also like "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism" by Ha Joon Chang. It's easy to read & thought provoking (despite the title, the author isn't actually anti capitalism, rather looking at the political choices that underlay economic decisions).

12. The Attenbury Emeralds – Jill Paton Walsh – This was okay – not as enjoyable as the previous one. I don’t think it had enough plot to hold it together, and the wittering levels were higher than in the previous one. I definitely want to read some of the real Harriet Vane ones now.

I also bought the Nora Ephron in the kindle sale and the latest Elly Griffiths and Little Deaths by Emma Flint. Some very odd things in there this month, very slim pickings.

@Indigosalt that sounds interesting! Adding it to the list.

I just finished 6. The Talented Mr Ripley Patricia Highsmith on audio. Really enjoyed this despite not expecting to at first, the audible narrator had such a flat voice to begin with and I thought it would be a slog, but things picked up and I found myself still sitting in the car in the drive at times wanting to listen to more. I’m not quite sure what it says about me that I really wanted Tom to get away with it all (despite stretching the boundaries of credibility fairly often).

8.Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism – Yanis Varoufakis

Accessible and interesting description of how market societies came to be, and why they contain the seeds of their own destruction. Designed to be read and understand by the author's teenage daughter, the style worked well for me as this is a topic I'm not very clued up on. If you are an expert economist, this is probably not for you. Many references to Greek myth, works of literature such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and contemporary culture such as Star Trek and The Matrix, used effectively to illustrate different view points. A thought provoking read.

Will report back in due course, Terpsichore!

I’ll be interested to hear what you think about What She Ate, @Biblio**. It didn’t quite grip me as much as I thought it would. I heard Laura Shapiro on 'Open Book' on R4 and her talking about it was somehow much more entertaining than the book itself, iyswim.

I'm a bit late but of Persephone books that I've read I've enjoyed:

The Village by Marghanita Laski Set at the very end of WW2 it explores the changes society is facing.
Greenbanks by Dorothy Whipple The story of a family through a couple of generations.
Miss Ranskill Comes Home by Barbara Euphon Todd (about a woman who was shipwrecked on a desert island just before the outbreak of WW2 and comes back to a very different England in the middle of the war.
Miss Buncle Married by D E Stevenson This is a sequel to an earlier book which I haven't had a chance to read now. She's an author and is inspired by her friends - and puts them in her novel.

I was also disappointed by Death comes to Pemberley. It was neither one thing nor the other - not a proper sequel or a proper crime novel. I wouldn't have bothered to read it - because I disapprove of sequels written by other authors - but someone lent me a copy so I read it sort of out of politeness.

Satsuki I should have headed your advice about Roanoke Girls it really didn't get any better.

Cote Glad to see I am not alone in my opinion of Harold Fry. My review was quite as scathing as yours though.

Toomuch Glad to hear that you are enjoying The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock and looking forward to reading your review.

7 The Roanoke Girls - Thankfully this was a quick read so didn't waste much time on it. Badly written with two dimensional characters. It felt very much like a badly written young adult book rather than a book written for grownups.

Really looking forward to my next read Archangel by Robert Harris. I read three of his books last year which I really enjoyed so hoping this lives up to those.

Seconding southeast's recommendation of the Nora Ephron. I read it a couple of years ago. It was very good.

Couldn't find anything I fancied from the Kindle sale, which is probably just as well as I have plenty to keep me going.

Not sure quite what to make of Three Things About Elsie yet. A bit slow going so far. Will press on though.

Toomuch me too (re The Mermaid & Mrs H)

Thanks southeast think I will definitely get it.