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50 Book Challenge 2019 Part Two

995 replies

southeastdweller · 15/01/2019 21:31

Welcome to the second thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2019, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, it's not too late to join, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

The first thread of the year is here.

What are you reading?

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8
BonBonVoyage · 20/01/2019 16:39

Fortuna have you read Karen Maitland's books company of liars the owl killers. Medieval thrillers though maybe not quite the period you mentioned. How do you rate them? I really enjoyed them, and pillars of the earth and its sequel. I'd like to read more books set in that period. Have you any recommendations?

twiceinalifetime · 20/01/2019 16:38

Book no.3 finished - Small Island by Andrea Levy.

I must admit, I struggled with the first couple of chapters but after that it became very enjoyable.

Difficult to read how badly citizens from other Commonwealth countries who had fought in the war alongside us were treated in England once the war was over. Thought provoking.

BestIsWest · 20/01/2019 16:37
  1. Becoming - Michelle Obama - I am a fan and really enjoyed this which was just as well as two of my nearest and dearest each bought me a copy for Christmas (you’d think they’d check with each other- What are you buying for Mum - oh me too!)
brizzledrizzle · 20/01/2019 16:35

I have sometimes wondered if MN is where chick and up lit authors get their own plot ideas from!

I think that's highly likely.

Piggywaspushed · 20/01/2019 16:30
Grin

I have sometimes wondered if MN is where chick and up lit authors get their own plot ideas from!

brizzledrizzle · 20/01/2019 16:29

No reading update but just had to pop on to say I have found 2 unused £10 Book tokens in a drawer. I know the good people of this thread will understand my glee!

Manna from book heaven! Do let us know what you buy with your treasure trove.

BonBonVoyage · 20/01/2019 16:26

My list so far
No outstanding reads yet this year unfortunately

  1. Normal People by Sally Rooney
  2. The Core by Peter V Brett
  3. Murder never misses by Faith Martin (a Hillary Greene detective novel. I love Hillary Greene!)
  4. The Wife by Meg Wolitzer
  5. Cactus by Sarah Haywood. Fine, easy read. And I've started 6) Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver. I've read the first chapter but stalled there

Does anyone else frame plots as posts on MN?

"my husband is a famous author but I think I'm going to divorce him. AIBU?"

Or "my DM has died and her will says x. AIBU to think that my DM (the golden child)....."

Or is it just me?

Piggywaspushed · 20/01/2019 16:16

Can't take any unnecessary risks with such a blessed windfall!

toomuchsplother · 20/01/2019 16:13

Piggy I was on the National Book Tokens website like a rat up a drainpipe to check and seems they are all good. Might have to spend them soon though... just in case!

Piggywaspushed · 20/01/2019 16:11

I found two £10 Next gift cards last week splother... only to discover they had expired. The anguish.

Brizzledrizzle · 20/01/2019 16:10

I have promised myself that I can read one of the medieval series I like as every 10th book. Off to the 14th Century for a few days

That sounds intriguing, what series is it please?

I have just finished my second book which was a memoir called Name for the Sea by Sarah Moss about a year she spent living in Iceland.

This has been on my wish list for ages but has never come down to 99p so is still unpurchased. I've been to Iceland 4 times now and it's a wonderful country to visit, I wouldn't want to live there though.

I've just had a bit of a splurge in the kindle valentines day sale and bought each of these for 99p:

Mismatch: How Our Stone Age Brain Deceives Us Every Day (And What We Can Do About It)

Mismatch is about the clash between our biology and our culture. It is about the dramatic contrast between the first few million years of human history - when humans lived as hunters and gatherers in small-scale societies - and the past twelve thousand years following the agricultural revolution which have led us to comfortable lives in a very different social structure. Has this rapid transition been good for us? How do we, using our primitive minds, try to survive in a modern information society that radically changes every ten years or so?

Shadows on the Tundra

In 1941, 14-year-old Dalia and her family are deported from their native Lithuania to a labour camp in Siberia. As the strongest member of her family she submits to twelve hours a day of manual labour. At the age of 21, she escapes the gulag and returns to Lithuania. She writes her memories on scraps of paper and buries them in the garden, fearing they might be discovered by the KGB. They are not found until 1991, four years after her death. This is the story Dalia buried. The immediacy of her writing bears witness not only to the suffering she endured but also the hope that sustained her. It is a Lithuanian tale that, like its author, beats the odds to survive.

How to be happy (I might need this after Shadows on the Tundra)

^Annie has been sad for so long that she's forgotten how to be any other way. Until she meets Polly.

Polly is everything that Annie is not. She's colourful, joyful, happy. Because if recent events have taught Polly anything, it's that your time is too short to waste a single day.

Polly has one hundred days to help Annie find happiness. Annie's convinced it's impossible, but so is saying no to Polly. And on an unforgettable journey, Annie begins to realise that maybe, just maybe, there's still colour to be found in the world.^

The girl from lace island

^1989 When happy-go-lucky fifteen-year-old Leila is exiled from her exotic home on Lace Island to a cold English boarding school, it is just the beginning of her woes. Feeling that she's just too foreign to ever fit in, she's desperate to get back to her family and friends. But in her absence, her paradise island has changed beyond all recognition and the life she once loved is now just a memory. Worse still, everyone and everything she loves is now in terrible danger. 2016
Jess dreams of far off places, of white sandy beaches and warm tropical seas. When she gets her longed-for job as cabin crew, those dreams are suddenly realized - especially when she's swept off her feet by the handsome and charismatic Blaise. But Jess has a troubled past and her present is about to become complicated and dangerous . . .Two women, decades apart, their lives submerged in disaster and betrayal. Both are on a mission to find out the truth about Lace Island, but what if their search for paradise comes at too high a price?^

Owen - Book One of the Tudor Trilogy

^Based on the true story of a forgotten hero, OWEN is the epic tale of one young man’s incredible courage and resilience as he changes the course of English history.

England 1422: Owen Tudor, a Welsh servant, waits in Windsor Castle to meet his new mistress, the beautiful and lonely Queen Catherine of Valois, widow of the warrior king, Henry V. Her infant son is crowned King of England and France, and while the country simmers on the brink of civil war, Owen becomes her protector.^

toomuchsplother · 20/01/2019 16:09

No reading update but just had to pop on to say I have found 2 unused £10 Book tokens in a drawer. I know the good people of this thread will understand my glee!

Terpsichore · 20/01/2019 16:01

So sorry MrsA. We lost our beloved cat some years ago and I still miss him terribly. Haven't been able to get another as it still feels like a betrayal somehow. Silly, I know.

Anyway. 8. The Dark Room at Longwood - Jean-Paul Kauffmann

Kauffmann is a French journalist who spent 3 years in captivity after being kidnapped in Beirut. In this book he visits St Helena and immerses himself in the strange, evocative atmosphere of Longwood House, where Napoleon Bonaparte spent his final years as a prisoner of the English.

I found this book completely compelling and somehow very French in its emphasis on place, smell, weather and what might now be called 'pschogeography'. What it didn't do was draw any parallels with the author's own experiences of captivity - perhaps he decided to leave those unvoiced. It didn't really matter; he evoked so well the terrible, oppressive inevitability of Napoleon's exile, and his gradual descent into despair and hopelessness as he realised that he would never escape this remote rocky outpost; never see France again; never be reunited with his loved ones.

In between the 'history' sections, Kauffmann recounts his interactions with the various people he meets on the island, which made for a good contrast. It was translated well, too, by Patricia Clancy.

FranKatzenjammer · 20/01/2019 16:00

I have now finished

  1. The Tattooist of Auschwitz- Heather Morris

The ending slightly annoyed me, but at that point I discovered it was a true story, so that was the actual ending!

I've got about six other books on the go now.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 20/01/2019 15:55

Marking place. Nothing to add except I'm still reading Erebus.

likablum · 20/01/2019 15:50

I have just finished my second book which was a memoir called Name for the Sea by Sarah Moss about a year she spent living in Iceland.

I read Ghost wall by Sarah Moss last year and loved it so thought I would try this. I thought it would make me want to go to Iceland and if anything it put me off! It's very fascinating tho as she was there during the ash cloud and after the banks collapsed. It reads almost like a social anthropology piece on cultural differences.

I am now starting Never Mind by Edward St aubyn after the series being recommended on one of these threads.

SatsukiKusakabe · 20/01/2019 15:45

Yes we talk about books we didn’t finish but just don’t add them to the list.

PerksOfBeingNorthern · 20/01/2019 15:27
  1. Rhiannon Navin - Only Child
  2. Khaled Hosseini - And The Mountains Echoed
Became quite invested in story and enjoyed this. Negatives would be too many different story strands and just when you’re engrossed in one it skips and you have to figure out where new people fit in which I don’t like. Also spent a lot of time looking up cultural references I was unfamiliar with but learnt a lot that way!
  1. W.Bruce Cameron - A Dog’s Purpose
Easy to read. Made me laugh and cry.
  1. Alex Marwood - The Wicked Girls
Two women who were convicted of murder as children meet again as adults when one of them finds a dead body. I guessed a couple of twists early on but kept reading to find out what had happened in the original case which is revealed in flashbacks.
  1. Fiona Gibson - The Mum Who’d Had Enough
Read in an afternoon as something light after wicked girls. I liked the character of the son who had CP and would have liked more from him.
brizzledrizzle · 20/01/2019 14:55

brizzledrizzle how did you get a photo of my car?!

I've been stalking you Grin

Tarahumara · 20/01/2019 14:41

brizzledrizzle how did you get a photo of my car?! Grin

BookMeOnTheSudExpress · 20/01/2019 14:36
Grin I did wonder if I should include it! (I haven't in my own journal list) Worst dialogue ever!
FortunaMajor · 20/01/2019 14:36
  1. The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
A journalist on a luxury cruise ships thinks she hears someone being thrown overboard but the staff can't find anyone unaccounted for. Was she ever even on board?

Quite an ok thriller actually as far as these things go. I thought it may be one of these over-hyped popular books, but it had a good pacy plot and a decent twist. I agree with the last person who read it that it is screaming to made into a film. (Sorry too lazy to go back and look).

I have promised myself that I can read one of the medieval series I like as every 10th book. Off to the 14th Century for a few days.

brizzledrizzle · 20/01/2019 14:32

I don't include them in my totals but I'd like to see if other people have started and not finished a book so I don't waste my money on it or so I am not alone at still having failed to finish the latest must read book that is raved about elsewhere (Gone Girl I'm looking at you).

Tarahumara I think you were providing useful info. rather than acting as the book police who I believe turn up in this car if they even exist Grin The t'tinterweb tells me I need to acknowledge the creator of the photo so By Brocken Inaglory - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7903882

50 Book Challenge 2019 Part Two
Tarahumara · 20/01/2019 14:25

Sorry, I don't want to be the thread police Blush but for the benefit of the newbies I think we usually don't include 'did not finish' books in our totals?

BookMeOnTheSudExpress · 20/01/2019 14:15

Found you! Going a bit more slowly now back at work.
Books so far:
1. The Woman in the Window superior psycho nutty people story

  1. Good Friday. Lynda La Plante. Tennison prequel. Not bad for run of the mill "the latest installment in..." Kind of thing
  2. I invited her in Adele Parks.
Returned for a 99p refund. Yawn. Deeply unpleasant people and about 100 pages too long. 4. A Very British Christmas delightful snippets of people's lives.
  1. The Darkest Secret. Alex Manford.
Loosely based on M McCann. Very loosely.
  1. The murder of Harriet Monckton. Didn't finish. Hated stilted yet pervy sex talk.
7 You Let Me In Lucy Clarke Very good psycho thriller. One night literally kept me awake.

Am now:
Re-reading A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine- loved the series back in the 80s
Reading a chapter every so often of
Ghosts of Spain by Giles Tremlett (Spain is my "thing" (despite living in Italy))
Audibl-ing a chapter of GoT every so often.