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50 Book Challenge 2018 Part Eight

999 replies

southeastdweller · 17/10/2018 07:21

Welcome to the eighth (and probably final) thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2018, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, it’s not too late to and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.The lurkers among you are also very welcome to come out of the woodwork and share with us what you've read!

The first thread of the year is here, the second one here, the third one here, the fourth one here, the fifth one here, the sixth one here and the seventh one here.

How have you got on this year?

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10
Wildernesstips · 17/10/2018 19:14

22 Conversations With Friends - Sally Rooney

An odd story, which I did enjoy but I'm not really sure why! The characters aren't that likeable and it seems to be a massive tussle between the on again off again relationships of Frances, Bobbi, Melissa and Nick.

Matilda2013 · 17/10/2018 18:53
  1. Sisters and Lies - Bernice Barrington
  2. Her Husband’s Secret - Janice Frost
  3. Mount! - Jilly Cooper
  4. They All Fall Down - Tammy Cohen
  5. The Word Game - Steena Holmes
  6. The Good Widow - Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke
  7. Mummy’s Favourite - Sarah Flint
  8. The Paper Year - Avery Aster
  9. Gone - TJ Brearton
10. My Sister’s Grave - Robert Dugoni 11. Carrie - Stephen King 12. Based on a True Story - Delphine de Vigan 13. Every Last Lie - Mary Kubica 14. The Darkness Within - Lisa Stone 15. Anatomy of a Scandal - Sarah Vaughan 16. The Trap - Melanie Raabe 17. Flawed - Cecelia Ahern 18. Bring Me Back - BA Paris 19. Perfect - Cecelia Ahern 20. The Roanoke Girls - Amy Engel 21. He Said/She Said - Erin Kelly 22. 3,096 Days - Natascha Kampusch 23. Diamonds - K A Linde 24. First One Missing - Tammy Cohen 25. Lullaby - Leila Slimani 26. Just What Kind of Mother Are You - Paula Daly 27. Elizabeth is Missing - Emma Healey 28. The Fear - C L Taylor 29. My (not so) Perfect Life - Sophie Kinsella 30. The Roses of May - Dot Hutchison 31. The Serial Killer’s Daughter - Lesley Welsh 32. Then She Was Gone - Lisa Jewell 33. Never Let You Go - Chevy Stevens 34. The Mistress’s Revenge - Tamar Cohen 35. Don’t Close Your Eyes - Holly Sedden 36. Thirteen - Steve Cavanagh 37. No-one Ever Has Sex in the Suburbs - Tracy Bloom 38. The Idea of Him - Holly Peterson 39. Good Me Bad Me - Ali Land 40. The Trophy Child - Paula Daly 41. Watching You - Lisa Jewell 42. The Girl I Used To Be - Mary Torjussen 43. Clean - Juno Dawson 44. Open Your Eyes - Paula Daly 45. The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas 46. I See You - Clare MacKintosh 47. This is Going to Hurt - Adam Kay 48. Let Me Lie - Clare MacKintosh 49. Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng 50. Lethal White - Robert Galbraith 51. One Little Lie - Sam Carrington

Currently reading 52. The Break - Marian Keyes

SatsukiKusakabe · 17/10/2018 18:36

pepe yes biblio took thread filling duties very seriously Halo

I’m nearly at the top of the list for Swan Song looking forward to it as I also enjoyed Circe

ChillieJeanie · 17/10/2018 18:36

My latest read is:
81. Robert Harris - Munich

A fictionalised account of the meeting at which the British and the French agreed a means of Hitler taking over the Sudetenland in an ultimately vain attempt to prevent war. The events are seen through the eyes of two young men who had been friends at Oxford, one English, one German, travelling with their respective leaders. Good story - the sense of threat and fear that comes across from the German side of the tale is subtle and well done, while the futility from the British side is always battling with the forlorn hope that it will all be okay in the end.

My list is:

  1. Stephanie Garber - Caraval
  2. Jo Nesbo - The Thirst
  3. Mercedes Lackey - Magic’s Pawn
  4. Mercedes Lackey - Magic’s Promise
  5. Mercedes Lackey - Magic’s Price
  6. Neil Gaiman - Norse Mythology
  7. Lee Child - No Middle Name
  8. Sue Lloyd-Roberts - The War on Women
  9. Genevieve Cogman - The Lost Plot
10. Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory 11. Mercedes Lackey - Arrows of the Queen 12. Mercedes Lackey - Arrow’s Flight 13. Mercedes Lackey - Arrow’s Fall 14. Lucinda Riley - The Shadow Sister 15. Susan Hill - The Travelling Bag 16. Charlaine Harris - Midnight Crossroad 17. Trudi Canavan - Thief’s Magic 18. Sarah Bakewell - At the Existentialist Café 19. Ernest Cline - Ready Player One 20. Virginia Woolf - Orlando 21. Jordan B. Peterson - 12 Rules for Life 22. Mary Beard - Women & Power A Manifesto 23. Laini Taylor - Dreams of Gods and Monsters 24. Sergei Lukyanenko - The Sixth Watch 25. Cordelia Fine - Delusions of Gender 26. Natasha Pulley - The Watchmaker of Filigree Street 27. Ben Aaronovitch - The Furthest Station 28. Val McDermid - Insidious Intent 29. Oscar de Muriel - A Mask of Shadows 30. Andrew Taylor - The Ashes of London 31. Andrew Caldecott - Rotherweird 32. Ali Shaw - The Trees 33. David Lagercrantz - The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye 34. Lee Child - The Midnight Line 35. Hannah Kent - The Good People 36. Kelley Armstrong - Dime Store Magic 37. Kelley Armstrong - Industrial Magic 38. Tom Holland - In the Shadow of the Sword 39. Naomi Novik - Crucible of Gold 40. Naomi Novik - Blood of Tyrants 41. Naomi Novik - League of Dragons 42. Jean M. Auel - The Clan of the Cave Bear 43. Alex Grecian - Lost and Gone Forever 44. JD Oswald - Dreamwalker 45. John Le Carré – A Legacy of Spies 46. JD Oswald - The Rose Cord 47. VE Schwab - A Gathering of Shadows 48. Kim Newman - Angels of Music 49. Tom Holland - Athelstan: The Making of England 50. George Mann - Ghosts of Empire 51. Albert Camus - The Myth of Sisyphus 52. Kim Harrison - The Turn 53. Robert Harris - Conclave 54. Alan Garner - Boneland 55. Ragnar Jónasson - The Darkness 56. Max Adams - Ælfred’s Britain 57. Benedict Jacka - Marked 58. Carolyne Larrington - The Land of the Green Man 59. Edward de Bono - How to Have a Beautiful Mind 60. Kim Newman - Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters 61. Charlaine Harris - Sweet and Deadly 62. Sarah Hawkswood - Ordeal By Fire 63. Attica Locke - Bluebird, Bluebird 64. VE Schwab - A Conjuring of Light 65. Pierce Brown - Iron Gold 66. Evelyn Waugh - Scoop 67. Stephen Fry - Mythos 68. Lucinda Riley - The Love Letter 69. Terry Pratchett - Making Money 70. JK Rowling - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire 71. Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray 72. Susan Hill - The Small Hand 73. Susan Hill - Dolly 74. Mark A. Latham - A Betrayal in Blood 75. Wilkie Collins - Miss or Mrs? / The Haunted Hotel / The Guilty River 76. Robin Lane Fox - Pagans and Christians 77. Daniel O’Malley - The Rook 78. JD Oswald - The Golden Cage 79. Joanne M Harris - The Testament of Loki 80. Laura Purcell - The Silent Companions
PepeLePew · 17/10/2018 18:17

Did we fill the last thread, and is it safe to post here now? Grin

I’m going to attribute the fact I’ve already read nearly twice as many books already in 2018 as I did last year to this thread, which seems to generate some kind of accountability. It may also have to do with not reading War and Peace too, plus a few more than usual terrible thrillers. Stand outs are Circe and Swan Song for just being excellent, well written, absorbing stories, but looking back there have been very few shockers. There’s less non fiction than usual, so I’m going to browse these threads for recommendations - at some point over the long hot summer I decided a cottage in Wales would be a good place to spend half term. The DCs are currently stomping round shouting that they’ve read all their books and we need to divert via the library on Saturday morning or everything will be terrible (one of them got hold of the TripAdvisor listing for the place we are staying and discovered the WiFi signal is iffy, hence the panic).

1 A Life of My Own by Claire Tomalin
2 Exquisite by Sarah Stovell
3 The Marriage Pact by Michelle Richmond
4 Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
5 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
6 How to Read a Novel by John Sutherland
7 The Nix by Nathan Hill

  1. On Writing by Stephen King
  2. Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
10 The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown 11 A River in Darkness by Masaji Ishikawa 12 Just What Kind of Mother Are You? by Paula Daly 13 Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. 14 The Shining by Site King 15 The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene 16 How to talk so teens listen and listen so teens talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlisch 17 Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf 18 Mythos by Stephen Fry 19 Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie 20 Endurance by Alfred Lansing 21 Quantum Mechanics by Jim Al-Khalili 22 Night Waking by Sarah Moss 23 A Woman’s Work by Harriet Harman 24 Hiroshima by John Hersey 25 The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell 26 The Novel Cure by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin 27 Behind Closed Doors by BA Paris 28 Eve Was Framed by Helena Kennedy 29 Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi 30 a very dull but quite useful work related book. 31 The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton 32 Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift 33 Women and Power by Mary Beard 34 Vital Conversations by Alec Grimsley 35 You Don't Know Me by Imran Mahmood 36 Wasp Factory by Iain Banks 37 Map Addict by Mike Parkes 38 The Weight of Numbers by Simon Ing 39 Educated by Tara Westover 40 How to Hang a Witch by Adriana Mather 41 Bookworm by Lucy Mangan 42 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck 43 Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh 44 Ready Player One by Ernest Cline 45 Eat Up by Ruby Tandoh 46 Little Fires Everywhere by Cecile Ng 47 The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy 48 Mindset by Carol Dweck 49 East of Eden by John Steinbeck 50 Happiness for Humans by PZ Reizin 51 Who by Geoff Smart 52 Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race by Renni Eddo-Lodge 53 Strangers Drowning by Larissa Macfarquhar 54 The Private Lives of the Tudors by Tracy Borman 55 Gone by Min Kym 56 The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel 57 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou 58 Friend Request by Laura Marshall 59 Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman 60 The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer 61 Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann 62 A Constant Princess by Phillipa Gregory 63 The Only Story by Julian Barnes 64 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 65 Insomnia by Stephen King 66 Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward 67 American Gods by Neil Gaiman 68 World War Z by Max Brooks 69 From Russia, With Love by Ian Flemingn 70 In the Days of Rain by Rebecca Stott 71 The Secret Barrister by the Secret Barrister 72 Josser by Nell Stroud 73 Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King 74 The End of Eddy by Édouard Louis 75 Palace Pier by Keith Waterhouse 76 The Chrysalids by John Wyndham 77 How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie 78 Behind her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough 79 The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli 80 A Very English Scandal by John Preston 81 Circe by Madeleine Miller 82 House of Names by Colm Toibin 83 The Wild Other by Clover Stroud 84 The Anna Karenina Fix by Viv Groskop 85 This Is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay 86 Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan 87 Moondust by Andrew Smith 88 Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King 89 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque 90 Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny 91 The Hours Before Dawn by Celia Fremlin 92 The Cows by Dawn Porter 93 The Lido by Libby Paige 94 Tell Me How It Ends by Valerie Luiselli 95 Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice 96 The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons 97 How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran 98 The Woman in the Window by AJ Finn 99 The Course of Love by Alain De Botton 100 The Dark Net by Jamie Bartlett 101 Longbourn by Jo Baker 102 Bird Box by Josh Malerman 103 One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez 104 From Source to Sea by Tom Chesshyre 105 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 106 Swan Song by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott 107 The Idiot by Elif Batuman 108 The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin

109 Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor
Beautiful and unusual story of 13 years in a village after a girl goes missing. I loved this once I realised it really wasn’t the book you think it is going to be. I thought the way he drew together the threads of the human stories - mostly uneventful and unremarkable - with the cycles of nature was very well done and the writing style was an absolute joy. I’m really glad I found time for this.

Medianoche · 17/10/2018 18:04

Here goes:

  1. Toto - Michael Morpugo
  2. El Laberinto de los Espiritos - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  3. 101 Dalmations - Dodie Smith
  4. The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tyler - Gene Kemp
  5. Oliver and the Seawigs - Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre
  6. Persuasion - Jane Austen
  7. The Lark - Edith Nesbit
  8. What Could Possibly Go Wrong - Jodi Taylor
  9. George’s Marvellous Medicine - Roald Dahl
10. Pugs of the Frozen North - Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre 11. The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster 12. Women and Power - Mary Beard 13. Cakes in Space - Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre 14. Fortunately, the Milk - Neil Gaiman 15. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L’Engle 16. Their Finest Hour and a Half - Lissa Evans 17. The Book of Bright Ideas - Sandra King 18. Return of the Railway Children - Lou Kuenzler 19. Running on the Roof of the World - Jess Butterworth 20. Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin 21. The Hope Family Calendar - Mike Gayle 22. Pugs of the Frozen North (again) 23. The Element - Ken Robinson 24. It was a Dark and Stormy Night - Janet and Allan Ahlberg 25. Mortal Engines - Philip Reeve 26. Iron Man - Ted Hughes 27. Painting out the Stars - Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham 28. Friendly Matches - Allan Ahlberg 29. Alex Sparrow and the Big Stink - Jennifer Killick 30. Lies, Damned Lies and History - Jodi Taylor 31. Alex Sparrow and the Furry Fury - Jennifer Killick 32. Ottoline and the Yellow Cat - Chris Riddell 33. And the Rest is History - Jodi Taylor 34. Gaslight - Eloise Williams 35. Where the World Ends - Geraldine McCaughrean 36. No Such Thing as Dragons - Philip Reeve 37. Iron Woman - Ted Hughes 38. Nothing to See Here Hotel - Steven Butler and Steven Lenton 39. Notes on a Nervous Planet - Matt Haig 40. A Place Called Perfect - Helena Duggan 41. Goodnight Mr Tom - Michelle Magorian 42. Black Widow - Christopher Brookmyre 43. Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf - Catherine Storr 44. Polly and the Wolf Again - Catherine Storr 45. Tom’s Midnight Garden - Philippa Pearce 46. The Hodgeheg - Dick King-Smith 47. Tilly and the Time Machine - Adrian Edmonson 48. The Man I Think I Know - Mike Gayle 49. Tales of Polly and the Hungry Wolf - Catherine Storr 50. More Stories of Clever Polly and the Wolf - Catherine Storr 51. The Snow Spider - Jenny Nimmo 52. The Legend of Kevin - Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre 53. Varjak Paw - S. F. Said 54. Secrets of a Sun King - Emma Carroll 55. The Creakers - Tom Fletcher 56. Dotty Detective Super Agent - Clara Vulliamy 57. Fortunately, the Milk (again) 58. Art Matters - Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell 59. Pages & Co: Tilly and the Bookwanderers - Anna James 60. Woman on the Edge of Time - Marge Piercy 61. Coraline - Neil Gaiman 62. The Giraffe, the Pelly and Me - Roald Dahl 63. Armistice Runner - Tom Palmer 64. Poems to Live Your Life By - Chris Riddell 65. The Lost Magician - Piers Torday 66. The Outlaw Varjak Paw - S. F. Said 67. Wed Wabbit - Lissa Evans

The duplicates are where I’ve read things once, then read them aloud to the children later on. Probably wouldn’t have listed them twice here, but if I change the numbering of the list I’ve got written down, I’ll be lost forever.

BestIsWest · 17/10/2018 17:31

Thanks Southeast

Sadik · 17/10/2018 16:41

Just checking in with the new thread. Life has been a bit busy lately to get much reading done, but hoping that will change as autumn draws in. I've got a couple of interesting looking books from my birthday, but want to save them until I've got a chunk of time.

In the meantime I've started An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green (brother of the more famous John Green /The Fault In Our Stars) passed to me by dd.

She tells me it's not YA, but instead New Adult which is a new one on me, but in any event it looks to be soft easy-read sci fi, which will do me nicely just now.

Medianoche · 17/10/2018 15:55

Crawling out of lurkdom to say hello. It’s really interesting looking through all of your lists. I’m up to 67ish for this year, which is more than I’d normally manage, but probably more than half are children’s books. I’ll post a full list if I get a long enough gap in the chaos at home.

nowanearlyNicemum · 17/10/2018 15:44

Hello new thread!
Unlikely to hit 50 books by the end of December but have read considerably more this year than in the past few years so am delighted with that. Changing habits - Out with the rubbish telly and in with a good (most of the time!) book

  1. Birdcage Walk - Helen Dunmore
  2. Wonder - RJ Palacio
  3. Why Mummy Drinks - Gill Sims
  4. The Trouble with Goats and Sheep - Joanna Cannon
  5. The Rosie Effect – Graeme Simpson
  6. The secret life of bees – Sue Monk Kidd
  7. The Cupboard - Rose Tremain
  8. History of Love - Nicole Krauss
9. Two by two – Nicholas Sparks 10. Educated – Tara Westover 11. Any Human Heart - William Boyd 12. The boy in the Striped Pyjamas – John Boyne 13. Lion: A long way home – Saroo Brierley 14. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Anne-Shaffer & Annie Barrows 15. On Green Dolphin Street – Sebastian Faulks 16. A Patchwork Planet – Anne Tyler 17. The Heart’s Invisible Furies – John Boyne 18. The Endless Beach – Jenny Colgan 19. A Very Distant Shore – Jenny Colgan 20. Tin Man – Sarah Winman 21. The Talisman Ring – Georgette Heyer 22. An Equal Stillness – Francesca Kay 23. Spectacles – Sue Perkins 24. Then she was gone – Lisa Jewell 25. Dimanches d’août – Patrick Modiano 26. The Sea Lady – Margaret Drabble 27. Little Fires Everywhere – Celeste Ng 28. Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine – Gail Honeyman 29. The Snow Goose & The Small Miracle – Paul Gallico 30. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen – Paul Torday 31. The Outsiders – E H Hinton 32. The Red Tent – Anita Diamant 33. Faro’s Daughter – Georgette Heyer 34. The Pearl – John Steinbeck 35. Everything I never told you – Celeste Ng

Two books on the go at the moment: Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd and Les Fourberies de Scapin by Molière. Both in early stages.

SatsukiKusakabe · 17/10/2018 15:33
  1. I Love Dick by Chris Kraus
  2. The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy
3.Game of Thrones 1 by George R R Martin
  1. The Nix by Nathan Hill
5. This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson 6. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent 7. Mariana by Monica Dickens
  1. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
9. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 10. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers 11. You Play The Girl by Carina Chocano 12. Heartstone by CJ Sansom 13. Life Moves Pretty Fast by Hadley Freeman 14. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson 15. The Happy Prisoner by Monica Dickens 16. The Wild Other by Clover Stroud 17. My Favourite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris 18. Enigma by Robert Harris 19. I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron 20. The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie 21. Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood 22. You Think It I’ll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld 23. The Only Story by Julian Barnes 24. The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacClean 25. Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert 26. Crooked Heart by Alissa Evans 27. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng 28. The Soul of an Octopus by Anne Someone 29. The Chrysalids by John Wyndham 30. Days Without End by Sebastian Barry 31. The Rotter’s Club by Jonathan Coe 32. The Closed Circle by Jonathan Coe 33. The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney 34. Circe by Madeleine Miller 35. The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller 36. Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata 37. Things I don’t Want to Know by Deborah Levy 38. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling 39. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling (rereads with ds) 40. How to Break Up With Your Phone 41. The Mother of All Jobs by Christine Armstrong
IdblowJonSnow · 17/10/2018 15:32

I've recently discovered Hilary mantel and can very much recommend 'Beyond Black', although it's very dark, be warned. But excellent nonetheless. Also Pat Barker's 'Silence of the Girls' was a brilliant, tense read.

Annandale · 17/10/2018 15:14

31. Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers. I don't usually count rereads because i usually only read my favourite parts, but i suggested this for book club so read it properly. I love the way that Dorothy Sayers barely bothers getting the murder plot to make sense, to the point of getting the murderer to list some of the main plot holes in their final speech, but instead crafts vivid pastiches of 30s advertising campaigns and set piece scenes of office life. I first read it around the time i had my first office job and it made me laugh so much.

SatsukiKusakabe · 17/10/2018 15:12

Hello, thanks and checking in Smile

whippet Manhattan Beach went back to the library unfinished for me.

Agree about the long books. There are so many that I think 700 pages? you’re not Tolstoy pal. I love a long book if it’s worthy of the extra space but so many don’t really have enough to say.

whippetwoman · 17/10/2018 15:06

Thanks for that Welsh. Off in search of some Muriel Spark RIGHT NOW!

Welshwabbit · 17/10/2018 14:10

whippetwoman you want to be reading some Muriel Spark. Lovely short books with not a word wasted.

StitchesInTime · 17/10/2018 14:03

Checking in and thanks for the new thread southeast.

Cote I read Bag of Bones years ago and it’s not one of King’s better books IMO. It’s not terrible but I wouldn’t really recommend putting it near the top of any reading list.

whippetwoman · 17/10/2018 13:55

Thanks for the new shiny thread south.

Now someone tell me if I want to persist with Manhattan Beach as I've only read 50 pages in 3 days and have absolutely zero inclination to pick it up? I've spent what seems to be hours on social media avoiding it. I even started watching Riverdale with my eldest to avoid it. I seem to have fallen into a reading rut and am now completely stuck.

Also, why do people keep writing such long novels? I pick some books up and feel like i just can't be bothered. So many words, so little time. Write shorter books people and do us all a favour.

YesILikeItToo · 17/10/2018 13:41

I’ve got on great South, no doubt down to the benign influence of these threads. I’ve read 35 books and I’ve started reading books on my phone instead of playing tappy games.

I’ve got two on the go just now - The Overstory from the Booker shortlist, which is starting with a series of compelling vignettes to introduce the characters. (I’m assuming that’s what’s happening - although the lesson of Reservoir 13 is to assume nothing, maybe it’ll just random on like this for the entire volume...) and also The Seige of Krishnapur which had reached a critical mass of recommendations and so is now on my phone. It also starts strongly - the first sign of trouble at Krishnapur came with a mysterious distribution of chapatis. Who couldn’t read on?

bibliomania · 17/10/2018 13:25

....So starting on the new one.

Reading some crime fiction set in the Faroes: The blood strand by Chris Ould. So if you liked the Shetland series and want to go further north...I'm interested in the setting (always wanted to visit the Faroes) but I'm struggling a bit to get into it. The writing isn't quite doing it for me. Anyway, I'll keep going for a bit.

Tarahumara · 17/10/2018 12:54

Place marking on new thread - thanks south!

TheTurnOfTheScrew · 17/10/2018 10:34

Morning all. Thanks as ever South for the new thread.

My reads so far, favourites in bold:

1.The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale

  1. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
  2. The Descent of Man by Grayson Perry
4. What A Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe
  1. Death in the Clouds but Agatha Christie
  2. The Road Home by Rose Tremain
7. 21st Century Yokel by Tom Cox
  1. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
  2. Murder At The Vicarage by Agatha Christie
10. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry 11. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre 12. Keep on Keeping On by Alan Bennett 13. A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon 14. The Witch Finder's Sister by Beth Underdown 15. The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster 16. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier 17. The Last Tudor by Philippa Gregory 18. Conclave by Robert Harris 19. The Girl on the Landing by Paul Torday 20. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman 21. A Very English Scandal by John Preston 22. The Devil in The Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson. 23. London Under by Peter Ackroyd 24. Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie 25. Lullaby by Leila Slimani 26. Past Imperfect by Julian Fellowes 27. Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor 28. Left Bank by Kate Muir 29. Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton 30. Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie 31. Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott 32. The Party by Elizabeth Day 33. This Is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay 34. Moving by Jenny Eclair 35. Ragtime by EL Doctorow 36. Less by Andrew Sean Greer 37. The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith 38. Delight by JB Priestley 39. The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole 40. I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron 41. Heartburn by Nora Ephron 42. Fatherland by Robert Harris 43. Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan 44. The Dry by Jane Harper
ChessieFL · 17/10/2018 09:56

Thanks for new thread. Will come back later to bring list over.

CoteDAzur · 17/10/2018 09:28

Hi everyone and thanks for the new thread, Southeast. I thought I lost you all Blush

Stephen King's Bag of Bones is 99p on the Kindle. Do I want to read it?