50 Book Challenge 2019 Part Two

13: Miss Silver Comes to Stay – Patricia Wentworth

I particularly enjoyed this one. I guessed the killer but was tricked for quite a while into thinking it was somebody else. And it’s always nice to have a detective story in which only unpleasant people die.

bibliomania I can't stop thinking about your review of The Cactus. I haven't read the book but your review has really struck a chord.
I like spiky heroines, but am heartily sick of the Shrew being Tamed, the woman learning to conform to social norms and thus finally to be happy....I want the heroine to evade the clutches of the hero and run, cackling, towards the wide blue horizon.
I read a chick lit novel last year and found myself thinking something similar, but couldn't have described it as eloquently! Now if you wrote up a novel with that ending I think I'd like to read it and use it as an inspiration for my own life!

Finally finished Tangerine

Started so well but got very dull. Should've been about 80 pages shorter.

Moving onto

1. The Last - Hannah Jameson

Just catching up with the thread!

I read Mister Tom when I was about ten, same as ChessieFL and have loved it ever since. I remember being outraged in Year 8 when my teacher described it as “boring”. I agree from an adults POV it’s a little clunky in the sad-happy-sad-happy plot, but I think Magorian got it spot-on for that age group. Interestingly A Little Life as someone mentioned (sorry can't recall who) is also a favourite of mine. Turns out I've always loved a sad story

4 The seven deaths of evelyn hardcastle by stuart turton. I don't usually read crime and (whispers) I've never read an Agatha Christie novel, but I really enjoyed this. Described as a "body-hopping, time-travelling, murder-mystery", I felt this cracked along at a great pace and I was able to keep up as long as I didn't try to keep every detail in my head. Much more fun than the current trend of psych-suspense where the "twist" is always so predictable, or if it isn't, it's because it's so out of base that it's been created so the front cover quote can read "I never guessed the ending". In summary - I'd recommend!

15. The silence of the girls - Pat Barker A modern retelling of the myth of Achilles but from the perceptive of Briseis. Briseis was once a Queen but when Achilles sacks her city she is handed to him as a trophy of war and becomes a slave.
This was stunning. I love Barker's work. Her portrayal of the futility of war, the bravado of men and the unbearable grief of lost children.
5 stars on Goodreads and highly recommended.
Now about to carrying on riding the Greek wave by reading The song of Achilles- by Madeline Miller. Loved Circe and many 50 Bookers has said this is better so I have high hopes.

Thanks, Meg, for making me feel better - I promised I would not buy any more books until I had made a decent dent in my TBR pile but that I would make an exception for Stephen King. Have downloaded The Talisman with a clear conscience!

Bought The Talisman by Stephen King/Peter Straub for 99p in the Kindle deals as it's in my top 50 reading list for this year but I don't have a copy. It's a brilliant book, so if you haven't read it and like King, fantasy, horror, YA, just great storytelling or any combination of the above then it's 99p well spent.

14. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett Two families torn apart and thrown together by infidelity. Follows the fall out over several decades and weaves all of the threads together beautifully. Patchett is quite the storyteller. Marvellous.

1. Eve of Man Giovanna and Tom Fletcher

I have a soft spot for these guys having followed them on Instagram and had kids around the same age. A similar soft spot for Dystopian teeny bopper fiction. However, I need to acknowledge that my reading tastes have changed in the last decade and these days surface only books just don’t do it for me. An interesting concept that in more competent hands good have been great. It also frustrated me that in a world dominated by men they couldn’t have one non-Hetro relationship. Bland.

1. On Palestine Noam Chomsky & Ilan Pappé

The structure was quite odd to me, a mixture of commentary, articles and conversations not necessarily in chronological order. There was quite a lot of repetition and my biggest issue is that it was written 5 years ago and much has changed now (I think). I’d be interested to read something more up to date.

On the subject of the monthly Kindle deals, I’d fairly strongly recommend Adam Nevill’s Ritual for horror fans. Four English friends go hiking in Sweden and unwisely decide to take a short cut through a forest. Creepy as hell, and well worth 99p.

And The Terror is in there too, which I loved, although I think opinions of it are a bit mixed here.

ritzbiscuits look forward to reading your review of The Cut Out Girl, I heard an interview with the author yesterday and it sounded fascinating.

Have been looking at Monthly Deals again - haven't seen so much I want in a long time.

Has anyone read The Moscow Trilogy by Simon Sebag Montefiore? The first one is on offer at 99p. Any good?

Erebus is one that I really want to read when it comes down in price.

Re the kindle, Amazon expect me to believe that two kindles and the kindle app have all developed the same technical fault on the same day. I have managed to get it to actually show the books in my library now and will just have to download them all manually from the kindle as sending them from the amazon page doesn't work. As it's wifi only it's not much of a hassle.

I just bought a book to test it out and see if it worked (what a hardship!) and got The Last Wolf: The Hidden Springs of Englishness from my wish list - might as well stick with the current thread theme.

thanks for all the advice, a mixture of things worked.

14. The calling - Alison Bruce. The third of a series of detective novels set in Cambridge. Still enjoying this series. Several young women disappear while another young woman knows who the perpetrator is and tries to warn other victims and the police.

15. The tattooist of Auschwitz - Heather Morris. Not sure enjoyed is the right word to describe the subject matter but I did. I read it with a mix of horror and anger and sadness at the way humans can treat each other. I read it on Holocaust Memorial Day (unintentionally but the library emailed to say it was available for download and then saw what day it was later) and was saddened to read of the numbers of Britons who claim that the holocaust didn't happen. I do worry about the human race sometimes (a great deal, actually).

16. Inside/outside - Jenny Hayworth. To top off my subdued feelings about the holocaust I then read this; not a good combination of books tbh. This was the story of a Jehovah's Witness who has been disfellowshipped following her questioning of the way the Witnesses dealt with her sexual abuse and grooming. I have a friend who was disfellowshipped and am familiar with the isolation that it brings but was still shocked by some of the reactions and thought processes and beliefs she describes. A difficult read as she and her four children were subjected to almost unbelievable abuse (not all by Witnesses). The book could also have benefitted from a bloody good edit.

17. Erebus - Michael Palin. I freely admit I only read this because it was written by Michael Palin but I loved it. It was well written, well researched and I felt totally blown away by the immensity of undertaking polar exploration in wooden boats when no-one knew where you were and a rescue party could take months/years to arrive. Were they brave or foolish? I enjoyed the brief mention of how women would sometimes travel undetected on explorations by disguising themselves as men. I now intend to seek out further books about exploration and travel and derring-do (especially by women) if any one has any suggestions. I'm considering the Lansing book about Shackleton if my library has it on e-book.

18. Sleeping in the ground - Peter Robinson. The latest in a long series of detective stories that I've been reading for many years. I like the main character, DS Alan Banks. A mass shooting takes place at a wedding and the shooter kills himself shortly after. But is everything as it seems? A good read.

Reporting in to the group as I've just finished:

2 - Dear Mrs Bird It was a light read but I enjoyed it very much. It's set in WWII about a young woman going to work as typist for a formidable agony aunt. I did agree with an Amazon reviewer that not much happened and now the scene is set for book 2. I definitely want to find out what happens next, so that a good thing hey!

On to book 3 - The Cut Out Girl. I got the last copy in Waterstones yesterday and really looking forward to it after hearing some commentary on Radio 4 this week.

Emgee good review, I'm adding My Thoughts Exactly to my 'Want To Read' List, sounds like more than your standard celeb bio, I'm interested in her relationship with her father, Keith Allen, too who's always come across a thug who got lucky to me. Maybe she'd convince me otherwise.

Bird Box is 99p on Kindle. I've heard mixed reviews of the film but the book seems to get largely positive reviews.
I enjoyed The Girl With The Pearl Earring far more than I expected to and that is also 99p in the monthly sale.

3. The President is Missing - Bill Clinton and James Patterson

America is under threat from a cyber terrorist. The president is under suspicion. And then he disappears. Can America be saved from a threat that would change the world?

This was good but not brilliant in my opinion. I wanted more White House inside info. It may have also struggled because I seem to be in a bit of a lull. Three books in a month is just not like me! But it was alright and an interesting terrorism concept on how it would damage civilisation as we know it.

Up next is another James Patterson on loan from the library and I have a long weekend off so will try get my reading mojo back and get it finished!

1. My thoughts exactly by Lily Allen.

I enjoyed this. I always thought Lily Allen came across as a bit of pain in the backside. Remember seeing her on Graham Norton's show with Dominic Cooper and Miriam Margoyles. She was, I felt, dismissive and sneery of Miriam Margoyles. Having read her book, I wonder now if she wasn't under the influence of something.

She comes across well in the book. Very truthful and upfront about her childhood, relationships (dysfunctional) with her family. The section post fame/post marriage/post children is pretty shocking. She had a lot to deal with - one thing after another. I didn't know about George and my heart went out to her at that point; she wrote very touchingly about it.

bobinks I read Jane Austin at Home earlier this year. Hope you enjoy it I did.

weebarra I read the second in that series last year The Curse Of The House Of Foskett last year I'm not going to be reading any more of them...

Off to check out the monthly deals. I reduced my reading backlog by 5 books last month so it's OK to buy a few isn't it?

15. The Cactus, Sarah Haywoood
Prickly woman ( the cactus metaphor is unsubtle) with few social graces faces up to childhood traumas (less lurid than Eleanor Oliphant's, thank the good Lord) and is rewarded by being tucked up cosily into nuclear family by the end of the book. We'll be seeing lots more of this plotline, thanks to the success of Eleanor Oliphant.

I like spiky heroines, but am heartily sick of the Shrew being Tamed, the woman learning to conform to social norms and thus finally to be happy.

If Orwell had been more of a feminist: "But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. She had won the victory over herself. She loved Big Hubby".

I want the heroine to evade the clutches of the hero and run, cackling, towards the wide blue horizon.

Thanks for The Rosie Project / Eleanor Oliphant comparison Tara. I liked the concept of Eleanor Oliphant but thought the execution was a bit hit and miss. The Rosie Project doesn't need me to read it, but I'll see what mood I'm in towards the end of the month when I have another look through the deals before they go off.

Oh damn, that’s weird. More potentially silly questions (sorry): do the details of the kindle on your amazon account match the details on your kindle itself, the email address you can use to send documents to and the serial number?

So many brilliant wolf books! Thank you fantastic book lovers - there are loads I hadn't heard of or thought to read and I am going to try and read them all
I did laugh when I noticed a wolf book in the daily deals.

I'll stop going on about wolves now...

MuseumOfHam did you enjoy Eleanor Oliphant? The Rosie Project is of the same ilk IMO.

How annoying, brizzledrizzle. I haven't had this issue, hope you sort it out.

Loving the wolf chat!

1. Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted by Andrew Wilson. This is not the first biography of Sylvia Plath that I've read, but it added significantly to my knowledge of her. So much has been written and speculated about the Plath/Hughes relationship that it was refreshing, not to mention fascinating, to read one which focuses on her as a girl and a woman rather than a wife (the narrative ends in the spring of 1956 when Sylvia has just met Ted). Plath was a prolific letter writer and journal keeper, so there are numerous sources to draw upon (many of them previously unpublished). Highly recommended to those of you who like this sort of thing.

1. The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Seer Green. Set in the 1950s, Pearlie Cook is married to her handsome childhood sweetheart Holland, and is living in San Francisco with him and their child. Their lives are calm and ordinary until a man from her husband's past turns up on the doorstep. Why has he come, and what does his presence mean for their marriage? I loved this. Similar vibe to Anne Tyler.