50 Book Challenge 2018 Part Two

Oh, and thanks Terpsichore, I quite fancy The Dig.

Hope you managed to sleep, TooExtra!

Satsuki, not sure if they're Persephone or not, but a couple of mid-century "women's books" I enjoyed were The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer and The Tortoise and the Hare, by Elizabeth Jenkins.

Satsuki, re Persephone - I bought a lot of them (far too many) when they first got going but have lost track a bit now because they publish so many titles and started straying away from their original remit somewhat. But one that definitely stayed with me was 'Hostage to Fortune' by Elizabeth Cambridge. It’s a quiet and beautifully written book about having children and how they bring you joy and pain and transform your life beyond imagining.

Actually my next book will be a Persephone because someone chose it for our book group, but unfortunately it's one of the ones I wouldn’t really choose to read off my own bat. So a spot of light teeth-gritting may be required...

ellisisland thanks i will check out the virgin suicides movie, not sure if DP would enjoy it or not.
turnofthescrew I know what you mean about it being boring, I definitely felt that a bit at times it just was so focused on the small details and captured moments with no certainty in anything - weirdly enough by the end that is what I liked about it.

I finished Mariana last night and loved it, a real palate cleanser after some of the heavier stuff. Does anyone recommend any other Persephone books?

I am now starting Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, about a Korean immigrant family living in Japan (if ive remembered correctly!)

Cote I get that! I did an anthropology masters on post colonial Africa and still read 3/4 really heavy really academic books on it a year, I adore them, most other people including people who I did my course with think they are like wading through treacle and would never read them for fun.

It certainly is, lastqueen. Most people go at the books I find fascinating.

Case in point: Someone told me that Oxford University Press has a quarterly publication called "Early Music"and I just subscribed to it. It's thick, dense, and will take me ages to read. Each "book" is basically research about a certain composer or musical style.

I think I'll count them as books and will cover & keep them in my library as books, too

Cote oh dear!! I really loved it. Different strokes for different folks and all that!

Best remove Survivor Type from my count then!

Looking forward to the film of A Very English Scandal as some of it was filmed locally - we weren't allowed to park at DS's school because all the film crew were there - caused great excitement on the school run! Sadly no glimpse of Hugh Grant though - although from the pictures I saw in the press, he looked pretty ropey. Sounds like another one to add to the TBR list and then inevitably be disappointed because the film is never as good

I don't know whether I'd dare read Stephen King books again. I used to love them, but some bothered me for years. I'm too much of a wuss for horror. And now I'm going to have to check the bathroom for clowns again.

1. Revelation (Matthew Shardlake, #4) by C.J. Sansom. Set against the court of Henry VIII. Matthew gets drawn in to investigate a serial killer after one of his friends is a victim.

I know these were done to death last year. I wasn't in a hurry to move on with the series as I found Sovereign hard work and a bit boring. I would say I have enjoyed this one most from the series so far.

I'm adding A Very English Scandal to my list. I have a rule that I have to read a book before watching any adaptations of it. I feel cheated if I do it the other way round.

lastqueen - I just looked for what I've said on that Ukrainian Tractors book and it goes something like this:

"It didn't make me laugh at all, by the way. Except maybe a pained grimace at the state of the world where that book makes it to the bestsellers' lists."

(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

I deleted a lot off free books on my Kindle but want to read the ones I actually paid for even if they were just 99p as otherwise a waste of money. This was both a waste of money and a waste of time. Don't bother with it.

1. The End of Alchemy: Money, banking and the future of the global economy, by Mervyn King

I've been working my way through this one slowly since the start of the year. Overall I found it reasonably worth reading, with some interesting insights but not particularly earthshattering. Although supposedly aimed at a lay audience, I felt that it veered from overly superficial (given that realistically, anyone reading this book is going to have some prior knowledge/interest in the topic) to overly technical (some of the details of MK's proposals for reforming the lender of last resort role really could have done with setting in a wider context).

There are certainly better books out there about the financial crisis and the future of money/banking (eg The Shifts & the Shocks by Martin Wolf), about the impact of the 'unknown unknowns' (Nassim Taleb / The Black Swan - irritating and hard to read though it is), and about banking crises (Reinhart & Rogoff's This Time is Different).

I’ve read 3 stories from Skeleton Crew on my own (DH is away for work) with the rain lashing down outside and the wind howling. I’ve scared myself silly!

10 A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka

Basically about the family fall out when an man in his eighties marries a 36 year old woman.
Funny and sometimes really heartbreaking

I'm amazed to see this have such mixed
reviews on good reads, I really really loved it.

Crampton has just downloaded Reservoir tapes. Really enjoyed Reservoir 13

1. The Reservoir Tapes by Jon McGregor. Really really good. This is a prequel to Reservoir 13 but I don't think it matters reading this one first. I'm still on the waiting list for Reservoir 13.

1. Hardcore 24 by Janet Evanovich. This series is going down hill. They used to be good but have become very same-y now. Will still read them as they are light and easygoing but I think it's really about time Janet Evanovich brought the series to a conclusion. Morelli or Ranger? It's getting a bit old now.

Next up Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon. The cover is gorgeous. Makes me really want a slab of Battenburg cake :)

Tanaqui I have just read the follow up book to The reason I jump. I think on balance he is a little less prone to over generalisation but think some of that may be linked to the way he sees the world. Very interesting though.

You calling me jaded Tanaqui ??? How very dare you!?

Thanks for the recommendation highlandcoo

The trouble with people who have only taught for a few years is they don’t have a decent overview- but once you have taught for years and years you become jaded!

16. An Old Fashioned Girl by LM Alcott. There is a ghost of a lovely story in here- particularly in the second half with its early feminism and Pollyanna-ish heroine, but the characters never come alive as they do in Little Women, and so it’s hard to care so much about them. I wonder if it was an influence on Pollyanna as it must have been written 40 odd years before. Still, Alcott voice is still surprisingly fresh, and her observations of girlish behaviour are still sometimes spot on!

1. The Tin Drum - Gunther Grass

Phew! This has taken me three weeks - it's just so dense and had to be read in short bursts. I enjoyed it a great deal, though I'm sure there are many allusions that went over my head. It's the story of Oskar, who's born in Danzig (now Gdansk, in Poland) just before the outbreak of WW2, stops growing at the age of three and interacts with the world by playing his tin drum. By turns deeply moving, bizarre, and darkly comic, it's a kind of shaggy dog story that bears comparison to Thomas Pynchon and is recommended to those who like that kind of thing.

Yes remus like a first draft, that could have been sent for rewrites. He was very good at writing the different character perspectives I thought but didn’t seem to know where he was going with it all.

I suppose I didn’t really see the Nix as first half good/second half bad, rather the whole thing seemed a big jumble with some good writing and some dull/weird stretches, but actually looking at it that way, perhaps if it had picked up some other threads in the second half it might have evened it up. The thing is nothing in the mother’s backstory came anywhere near motivation for acting as she did, and the way he tied it all together was weird, and like it had been written by a child. I forgot I’d read it the other day when I was writing my list out, took me ages to remember it. It was very lightweight, but how did it all get through? There were whole sections that could have been lost without causing a ripple.

Clash - Agree entirely re The Nix. I just don't understand why the author made the choices he did, and why an editor didn't tell him they were stupid choices. Such a shame it didn't anywhere near live up to its early promise.