50 Book Challenge 2019 Part Two

Read the last few pages before work of:

1. July’s People by Nadine Gordimer.

Loved this book, have read her before and was glad to stumble on her again. Not a long book, she gets a lot of meaning and feeling into few words.

I agree @StitchesInTime. I had read brief reviews that said they were disappointed with the ending but I didn’t want to spoil it so didn’t read it fully. Have to say I was disappointed too

Thank you for the new thread.
My list so far:

1 Family History by Vita Sackville West
2 The Aspern Papers by Henry James
3 To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
4 A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler

5 The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
Another Anne Tyler, this one I first read after the film came out. I did remember the basic plot but not all the subplots. She writes so well. Macon's marriage has broken up after the death of their only child. At the start he is descending into a breakdown - it is so well written - but things look up for him.

6 The Household Spirit by Tod Wodicka
This was a book which is set in similar territory to Anne Tyler's books but reading it straight after the previous two books it merely highlighted her skills as a novelist. This was OK, but I wasn't convinced by the main plot. And it was over long and could have done with editing. The main female character is described as being people's second best friend at school never a best friend. We then get several pages proving this point, full names of characters who won't appear in the book again and have no relevance to the plot. Tyler would have probably summarised the whole thing in one paragraph. This was a random library choice, glad I didn't spend any money on it.

7 Third Girl by Agatha Christie
Set in the swinging Sixties, Norma is the Third Girl in a flat share and tells Hercule Poirot that she has murdered someone then leaves before explaining anything else. There is no body. So has she murdered someone or not? Enjoyable read, various red herrings as usual and a good twist at the end.

6 The Fallen by David Baldacci

Two FBI agents on holiday get caught up in murder in a small town which is plagued by drugs. Baldacci focuses on what is plaguing America is the high use of prescription drugs and the increasing use of fentanyl, a drug commonly used in end of life care, but is increasingly being used as the drug of choice because of its potency. The town in question was a thriving town but all the coal mines and textile mills are now shut with the descendent of the towns founder living in poverty in the old house on the hill. A lot of implausibility, some mad guesses and off course a brilliant detective but an easy and quick read in the line of
Lee Child. I haven't read any of his for a while and it's good to see he doesn't seem to be falling in the trap of writing weaker books as a series moves on.

I hated the ending of My Sister’s Keeper. It ruined the whole book IMO.

I felt it was a very frustrating ending but it would be massively spoilery for me to go into just why I felt like throwing the book across the room into the bin because of the ending.

10. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult

This was a bit ‘meh’ for me. 13 year old Anna filed a lawsuit against her parents asking for medical emancipation so she does not have to donate parts of herself to held her older sister who is diagnosed with a rare type of leukaemia. Anna was conceived in the lab for this very purpose.

I didn’t really like any of the characters in this story. The mother was just irritating from start to finish to be honest. The two daughters were quite 2 dimensional. And the other characters I really didn’t care about. The sub plot lines were weak and uninspired. The ending is weak and felt a bit too neatly tied up. I wouldn’t recommend it I don’t think. Shame as the storyline had potential.

4. The Mistake I Made by Paula Daly

Roz is in serious financial trouble. Her ex-husband left her with loads of debt, her physiotherapist business went under, and she’s having to explain to her young son why bailiffs have taken all their furniture.
And then the husband of one of Roz’s sisters friends offers Roz a substantial sum of money if she’ll spend the night with him. Enough money to make a substantial dent in Roz’s debt.

Unsurprisingly , things don’t work out as smoothly as Roz hopes.

Overall fairly mediocre.

1. Bookworm by Lucy Mangan
2. The Cactus by Sarah Haywood

I enjoyed this. It is sold as for people that liked Eleanor Oliphant and the Rosie project. It was a tad predictable but that can be nice sometimes. I liked how the writer occasionally had reveals “off camera” and let us know what happened later. It took a while for me to get into the book but once I had I read quickly. I’ll look out for the author’s next book.

The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter is 99p at the moment, I've wanted to read it for some time:

"1916: the Western Front. Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong, and the wind in the leaves in the trees. Where has the mud, blood and blasted landscape of No Man's Land gone?

2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Cop Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive (some said mad, others dangerous) scientist when she finds a curious gadget - a box containing some wiring, a three-way switch and a...potato. It is the prototype of an invention that will change the way Mankind views his world for ever.

And that is an understatement if ever there was one..."

@ritzbiscuits that’s fantastic. I don’t doubt it will help a ton of people and I’ll recommend it loads. I think I was probably looking for another book and the people I know that resemble Catherine at her worst probably needed an extra section.

Thanks, Keith, it’s in the library and on my list for the future..

Keith, I missed your review on Bitter Orange - did you like it?

I did, a lot. It's not flawless - she has three parallel narratives going on, each in a different time period, and I thought the seams showed a bit. However, everything else was great - setting, characters and plot. Set a classic story of repression and possible ghosts in an abandoned country house during a long hot 1960s summer and you can't go wrong I reckon.

Thanks for the new thread South.

My books so far:

1. Fire and Blood - George RR Martin

2. The Book of Death - Anonymous (Book four in the Bourbon Kid series)

This is a completely bonkers, supernatural gunslinging riot of a book in the style of Quentin Tarantino with a pinch of Guy Ritchie. I read that the author imagined this series in a western setting which comes across really well. Instead of cowboys vs Indians, we have the Bourbon Kid (a serial killing anti-hero who made a deal with the devil) and his various sidekicks attempting to rid the grotty, crime ridden town of Santa Mondega from the undead.

There are vampires, mummified vampires, werewolves, zombies, monks, inept and corrupt policemen, and cursed jewellery. The story is fast paced, the dialogue is blunt and gritty, with some fantastic deliveries by the main characters.

Highbrow literature this is not, but it is certainly memorable and good fun.

And now moving onto an altogether different sort of beast:

3. Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton

Book 5 ended up being an audible book The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

Hmm, the opening chapter describes a woman going into an undertakers to arrange her own funeral and 6 hours later she was murdered. A murder to be solved by Horowitz and Hawthorne, an ex detective and now police consultant.

Although a work of fiction Horowitz is the narrator and is helping solve the above murder and then write a book about it with Hawthorne? confused yet? I was at first but then settled down into it and its not so complex a murder case with many twists and turns I can input invoices to pay at work but I did not guess the murderer. It really is a crossover off fact and fiction with Horowitz talking about books that he has written, due to write, meetings with producers and directors but all weaved in a work of fiction. I think Mr Horowitz is a frustrated private investigator. This is the first in the series and it engaged me enough to get the next one as I have an audible credit if my children haven't nabbed it first.

Forgot to say, I am currently reading I'd rather be reading by Anne Bogel. It's a short read (presumably the author would rather be reading than writing!) , it's a good read.

I've just started reading Ruth Goodman's How to Behave Badly in Renaissance Britain

That looks good, I've added it (and others of hers) to my wish list.

Just marking my place on the second thread, nearly finished book 3.

I’m late to the party but would like to give this a go . I will report back when I decide what my first book will be.

Sounds like you had a similar experience with The Chalk Man as me, Pepe. We had it as a reading club choice last year and I gave up after about seventy five pages as I just did not care about any of the characters :$

Palegreenstars I really enjoyed that book and didn't really think about the lack of coke or other drugs included in the story. It never crossed my mind!

Personally, I think the inclusion of that would have detracted from its overall message. I feel it was very much written as 'alcohol free' literature and it my case it was one of the books that helped me stop drinking for good, which I'm eternally grateful for.

I can understand if you were reading it more generally that you may have felt a dimension was missing.

12 The Chalk Man by CJ Tudor

This came really highly recommended, including by Stephen King whose recommendations I generally like. Like a lot of King's work it's heavily focused on childhood experiences, but for me it was a world away from King's ability to convey childhood. And that's despite the fact the childhood he paints (small town 1970s southern England) was far closer to my experience than any of King's narratives. It's the story of a murder and the consequences of that further down the line for the adults who were caught up in it. It was pretty dull - I never felt any tension, I wasn't in the least interested in who did it (and discovering who did in fact do it was underwhelming) and I didn't actually care very much about any of the characters. Very much sub par King, and I am slightly disappointed I paid money for it, even if it was a reduced Kindle purchase.

To whoever was asking about reading opportunities and length of lists (sorry, the thread is moving so fast I can’t keep track) I do read fast but this year has been a combination of finishing books I started in 2018, short books, and a holiday at the start of the year. I’m going to slow right down now as I’ve got a few quite substantial books lined up that I haven’t yet started.

7. Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary - Ruby Ferguson

Finished during a wakeful spell in the night. Ruby Ferguson's 'Jill' books were a much-loved element of my childhood reading but I'd never encountered any of her adult writing until I bought this Persephone reprint of her short 1937 novel.

A group of three tourists stumble across a once-magnificent house, Keepsfield, on a tour of Scotland, and are shown round by the elderly housekeeper, Mrs Memmary. She tells them tales of the beautiful and spirited Rose, Countess of Lochlule, who grew up and lived there in the 19thc, and of the events that led to her exile abroad, leaving the great house empty and crumbling.

At first I found this a bit simplistic and over-sweet - it's described as 'a modern fairytale' - but it did grow on me, and the flashback structure's quite effective. Not one of my top reads of the year, I suspect, but a very acceptable diversion.

1. The Unexpected Joy of being Sober Catherine Grey

Need more time to consider this one.

I will say that I find it absolutely unbelievable that someone working in the media industry in London in the last decade with alcohol problems shares nothing of her experience with other drugs . It felt like part of the ‘journey’ was missing, in a book claiming to be authentic. Perhaps the author felt it would detract from the focus of the book but the two are so connected that I felt like some of the social commentary stuff didn’t work.

Blimey these threads are whizzing by! Thank you for the new one southeast.

Only just finished my second of the year:

1. Dark Sacred Night, by Michael Connolly. I really enjoyed this - last year he published a book with a new protagonist, Renee Ballard, and while I quite enjoyed it, it didn't knock my socks off. This book combines Ballard and Harry Bosch, both detectives in LA, as main characters, which I found a great improvement. I've been reading the Bosch books for years and I still never get tired of him as a character. This was well plotted and whipped along at a good pace - I hope there are more of them in this crossover series.

I'm clearly going to have to read Milkman at some point but now I'm not sure if I should be going for the audiobook instead. I love listening to Northern Irish accents so that could be a deciding factor.

So far:

1. Cassandra Darke by Posy Simmonds.
2. If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino.
3. Milkman by Anna Burns - I absolutely loved this book. The author used language brilliantly to convey the double meanings behind that which was said and that which was unsaid, and it flowed so well, which made it pretty easy to read. I thought the book was funny, sad, inventive, scary, and wise. There aren't any chapters and I did find it hard to decide when to stop reading , so I fell asleep over it a few times.