50 Book Challenge 2019 Part Three

OKAY, OKAY, I've bought A Month In The Country, even though the Amazon sample only covers the introduction and the descriptor 'poetic' make me a bit twitchy!

If anyone wanted a selection of 99p reads by female authors for IWD, Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans (reviewed by toomuch above), Polo by Jilly Cooper and The Wild Other by Clover Stroud are all currently on at that price.

I too have succumbed to the fervour for A Month in the Country. Haven't updated my list for ages. Will try to catch up over the weekend!

Yes A Month in the Country is delightful as is the Backlisted Pod devoted to it, I will add a slightly firmer but still friendly nudge to Terpsichore’s

And good point Toomuch

I have bought A Month in the Country which sounds fab.
Also added the Jane Seymour to my
wish list. I've suddenly fallen in love again with historical fiction/faction(?)

Just a gentle reminder to anyone who's bought A Month in the Country today that there's an excellent edition of Backlisted devoted to it.

(Recommended to everyone, not just those who are only now discovering the book!)

A manly clap on the back to exexpat for finishing IJ.

A Month in the Country is one of my favourite books. Highly recommended.

Now that you point it out, splother, that is a shame...

Add me to the list of people who abandoned Troubles. I don't remember hating it, and I may have vaguely resolved to go back to it in a different mood, but it wasn't grabbing me. I tend to feel a bit ambivalent about the Irish country house set-up, as my forebears are all among the revolting peasantry who are comprehensively Othered in these books. I liked the Irish RM books in my teens though, and every now and then I get a taste for some Molly Keane.

Finished 31. The Stranger Diaries by Ellie Griffiths.
If you like her Dr Ruth Galloway series, you'll like this one, which is along similar lines but with new set of characters, and the hook being English lit/Creative Writing rather than archaeology. It's crime fiction with a heavy ladling of Victorian Gothic, and it's good schlocky fun.

31. Crooked Heart - Lissa Evans Link book to Old Baggage . Easy to read, interesting story and great dialogue. Didn't enjoy as much as Old Baggage but still a good read.

Anyone else disappointed that on International Woman's Day the Kindle Daily Deals are exclusively male authors?

A Month in the Country by JL Carr is 99p on Amazon today - a favourite on these threads

1. This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
2. Paper Aeroplanes by Dawn O’Porter
3. The Glass menagerie by Tennessee Williams
4. Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler
5. Endurance by Alfred Lancing
6. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
7. Animal Farm by George Orwell
8. Hagseed by Margaret Attwood
9. Tin Man by Sarah Winman

16: Lamentation (Shardlake #6) by C.J Sansom
I am thoroughly enjoying the Shardlake series, enjoying each one more than the last one and this did not disappoint.
All the usual great characters are there - Matthew Shardlake himself, Jack Barak and his feisty wife Tamasin, the physician Guy Malton, and old adversaries - Richard Rich and Stephen Bealknap.

In the final months of Henry VIII's reign, Shardlake gets distracted from a difficult case of a brother and sister at war over their late mother's will, by a request from Queen Catherine Parr's uncle to investigate the theft of a religious book written by the Queen, which could see her condemned for heresy if it fell into the wrong hands.
While coming to and from the palace during his investigations, Shardlake witnesses how disabled and unwell the king is, and how the political powers are aligning preparing for a regency as Henry's heir, Prince Edward is only 9 years old.
I love these books as they are just the right amount of historical characters and politics and fictional narrative. It was a real page turner, worth ever one of the 600+ pages.
A bit sad there is only one Shardlake left to read.

17: Jane Seymour - The Haunted Queen by Alison Weir
This is another series I am thoroughly enjoying, this is the story of Henry VIII's third wife, Jane Seymour, the daughter of a minor noble family, who died in childbirth after delivering the long-awaited son (the failure to do so had resulted in the downfall of the two previous Queens, Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn).
The story of Henry's first three Queens overlap and are intertwined with each other. Jane was one of Catherine of Aragon's ladies in waiting, along with Anne Boleyn, and remained fiercely loyal to Catherine until her death, and then championed Catherine's daughter Mary's cause with the King after she became Queen. Apart from the first few chapters on the early lives of the queens, the first three books in this series largely tell the same story- Catherine's failure to produce a living son, Henry's obsession with Anne and his conviction she would bear him a son if he made her Queen, the break from the Catholic Church when the Pope refused to grant him a divorce from Catherine, and then Anne's downfall when, like Catherine, she produces just one living daughter (the future Elizabeth I). Jane's triumph of bearing the male heir, even though she dies, ensured the power of the Seymour family for decades.
Told from three totally different perspectives though, makes for very interesting reading. I understand it is largely fictionalised, but Weir's historical basis is sound and made it a real page-turner for me (even though I obviously know where the story is going.
Excellent read - the next one about Anne of Cleeves is out in May, really looking forward to it.

@weebarra I'm enjoying the Rockton series too. I'm about 50:50 guesing whodunnit so far. Watcher in the Woods is in my queue so maybe next after I've finished the current read.

@boldlygoingsomewhere I've discovered Shardlake this year too. Absolutely fab. I try not to read anything back to back and as I'm currently in Medieval Times I need something different next. But I'm planning to read all the CJ Sansoms this year. Have you read his others? I enjoyed Winter in Madrid and Dominion.

pepe - I've also been taking diversions into other books, particularly for reading away from home (the paperback version of Infinite Jest still isn't particularly portable) but when I got to the last couple of hundred pages I thought I should put everything aside and just go for it. I still found myself having to turn back to the first chapter to try and work out what had happened as soon as I had finished.

Just finished 8 The Observations as recommended to me by many when I enjoyed Gillespie and I so much. Jane Harris ceratinyl knwos ho to create lively characters and hads a real sense of voice. i found this entertaining but have read quite a seam of Victorian insanity books lately so it didn't feel fresh. Enjoyed it , but didn't devour it in the way I did Gillespie and I.

exexpat, very well done! I need to focus - dipping in and out and reading it in parallel with other books isn’t helping because each time I go back to it I have to get into the spirit of it all over again. Not that I am not enjoying it. I’ll await your review with interest!

12 A Woman in the Polar Night - Christiane Ritter

In 1933, Christiane Ritter spent a year living in the Arctic with her explorer husband. This is the story of her year in the wilderness living in a tarpaulin covered hut, living off the land. Ritter was an artist by profession, and her beautiful, vivid descriptions of the environment and animals are a pleasure to read.

This book had a cosy, gentle feel about it which reminded me very much of Laura Ingalls Wilder's prairie books. Given the gruelling conditions she encounters, Ritter is unremittingly calm and cheerful and spends a lot of time whipping up delicious meals using only a seal carcass and a rusty old stove and making cosy curtains out of an old sail. I felt the book lacked bite as a result. I wanted to know more about what she really felt and experienced, but despite the threat of starvation, 30 below zero temperatures and hungry polar bears, the threat level barely escalates beyond mild peril.

Overall an okay read, but a bit on the bland side. Nice and relaxing to read before bed.

After nearly two months, I am proud/relieved to say I have finally finished Infinite Jest (where's the champagne emoji?). I think I will leave it to settle for a day or two before writing a review, though. How are the other Jesters going?

Place marking.

Reading Cloudstreet by Tim Winton which is mostly good but odd, and a bit long-winded.

YesILikeItToo and SapatSea I too was disappointed by Troubles and gave up about a quarter of the way through. I also bought it on the strength of the lost Mann Booker but just couldn't engage with it.

11. Double Vision by Tricia Sullivan Bonkers sci-fi. It's the early 1980s and Cookie is a real psychic - or is she? Her day job sees her harnessing her powers by being plugged into the Grid, a mind-bending distant planet where a war is taking place, and sending back reports - possibly. By night she is learning martial arts, and rapidly losing weight, as she finds herself unable to eat after her trips to the Grid. Things become progressively stranger, and eventually even Cookie begins to question the true motivations of her employer and others. I've actually made this sound quite sane. It's not, it's bonkers. I enjoyed it.

I think my next read may have to be The Hunger Games. Those of you on the thread last year may remember my mini rant about my DS (P7, age 11, autistic) being upset about the class reading book Private Peaceful. A lot of water has passed under the educational bridge since then, and he's now got a 1:1 who can support him and do alternative activities with him. So he was in no way expected to read The Hunger Games if he didn't want to, but everyone's talking about it, and he really really wants to, so...

YesIlikeit I also was disappointed by Troubles. I read it several years back after it won "The lost Man Booker" I struggled on hoping it would improve but it didn't, no likeable characters either IIRC

25.) Wyntertide, by Andrew Caldecott -- The second in the Rotherweird series, set in the isolated, self-governing town of Rotherweird, where the study of history prior to 1800 is banned. Better than the first book in the series, I thought; it didn't bounce around quite so much, and the writing felt more even and easier to follow. I enjoyed it a lot, and I'm really looking forward to the third in the series, which I think is due to be released later this year.

26.) Different for Girls, by Louise Wener -- A memoir from the lead singer of 90s Britpop band Sleeper. The first half is all about growing up in the 80s, and the second half focuses on the Britpop scene. It had some funny moments, and was enjoyable enough.

27.) The Mystery of the Three Quarters, by Sophie Hannah -- the third of Sophie Hannah's Poirot mysteries. On his return home, Poirot is accosted in the street by an angry woman who claims he sent her a letter accusing her of the murder of a man named Barnabas Pandy, a name Poirot has never heard before. Inside he has a visitor who also claims to have received a similar letter, and they're not the only ones.

I enjoyed it well enough, but it's not a patch on Agatha Christie at her best. I find the best Christies are usually deceptively simple, with everything slotting neatly into place. These versions just tend to leave me thinking that it's really all a bit convoluted and unlikely. I probably will keep reading them though.

15 Agathat Raisin and The Witches Tree by M.C.Beaton

This was a 99p kindle book, they used to be a comfort read but unfortunately I think the series has very much run its course. What I used to find funny was just irritating and it jumped so much. Hey ho.

I've been reading Troubles by J G Farrell, and it's really slowed me down. I've read so many popular picks from these threads, I was trying to branch out so I could give something back, so to speak. Not a five star review, though. I did find in places that I just wasn't caring what happened next. A low point was when I realised that I was just going to put the book down and go to sleep, despite the fact that the next paragraph began "The body …" Who's body? Oh, I don't care!

I think everyone who's read his Seige of Krishnapoor has raved about it, so to set it in that context, the book is another on the theme of Empire. It is set in Ireland just at the end of the first world war. The Major travels to Ireland to meet a girl who he had rather inadvertently become betrothed to in the heat of the conflict. Her family of Anglo-Irish landowners live in a massive hotel, which is disintegrating both physically and as a business proposition. As the Major moves in, the troubles are just starting to make an impression on the residents and their way of life. The Major feels differently from the owner about the righteousness of the Nationalist cause, but somehow they rub along and his life becomes utterly invested in that of the hotel.

The hotel itself is a superb character, and a basis for much of the humour in the book. I think the reason I did not enjoy it as much as Krishnapur was that the Seige itself was just much more of a driver for the story than the Major's love life ever could be. There is the same brilliant writing of people's inner thoughts on the issues of the day, although in this one the perspective is more firmly fixed on a single character, the Major. All in all, only quite good.

I've also read thread favourite We have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (brilliant) and started listening to Backlisted.

15. Watcher in the Woods - Kelley Armstrong 16. The Wife Between Us - Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

Two quick reads. Watcher in the Woods is the 4th in the Rockton series. Rockton is a hidden town in the Yukon where people go when they have to hide. The books are all murder mysteries. I enjoyed this one, didn't guess whodunnit.

The Wife Between Us - for book group. Vanessa is apparently stalking her ex husband's new fiancée. But is everything as it seems? Of course not! And there's an extra wee twist at the end which is unexpected and probably too much!

They're not bad, boldly, but over and above either of those,, I'd recommend A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, by Adam Rutherford. Enthralling and really engaging.