50 Book Challenge 2019 Part Four

I'm one of the very few people on here who wasn't a big fan of Owen Meaney. I found it far too long and rather annoying, although there were some truly excellent bits in there too (the car scene iirc). I thought it would have been better as a novella.

I am not going to pretend to review Owen Meany or to steal Fran’s thunder but it is an outstanding and very unusual book. I read it as a teenager and it blew my mind. I’m long overdue a re-read.

FranKatzenjammer I would welcome a review of Owen Meany, a copy of which is in my house, unread by anyone, and no-one is sure who bought it/borrowed it/left it there. I know nothing about it, so you might persuade my to dust it off.

queen, I know exactly what you mean - I have a “my (ex) MIL would love this” pile of things I’d read and she loved The Light Between The Oceans. I can generally predict with confidence what she’ll love - it’s usually a Richard and Judy slightly literary fiction type novel. I accidentally gave her The Wasp Factory once and she preserved - bless her - because “I always give her such nice books”, but she wasn’t a fan.

@BakewellTarts - oooh thanks for the info, I’ll definitely read more, might try the William Monk ones then.

Thanks Southeast.
I'm actually on target to make 50 books this year for the first time ever.
I'm also in awe at the amount of books people read on here, I read more than anyone else I know IRL, and I'm an amateur compared to some of you!
My list so far:
1. The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
2. Bookworm by Lucy Mangan
3. Just William by Richmal Crompton
4. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo translation by Catherine Doughton
5. Bird Box by Josh Malerman
6. All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
7. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
8. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
9. Everyone Brave Is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
10. The Hearts Invisible Furies by John Boyne
11.^ T^he Green Road by Anne Enright
12.^^ A Month In The Country by J L Carr
13.^^ Not My Fathers Son by Alan Cumming
14. After You by Jojo Moyes
15.^^ The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

Currently struggling through the audible version of Milkman, and reading Yellow Crocus on Kindle.

queen, for some reason "My MIL would like it more than I did..." strikes me as the ultimate in damning with faint praise!

Not going to retype my list, sorry - it's kept a handwritten version because I'm old skool.

Have started reading The Wandering Vine, by Nina Caplan, which I'm enjoying so far. She talks about wine, about the Romans and about her family history (Jewish forbears forced into exile) and meanders around visiting vineyards. I love a travel/memoir/history mash-up, so this is right up my street.

27 Notes from a Small Island
28 Neither Here nor There

Two Bill Bryson re-reads which were perfect for a week where I’ve felt pretty unwell and not very clever. Reading them so closely together makes it more obvious where he’s just rehashing some of the same rants though.

Thank you southeast, just checking in.

My list is:

1. Bird Box- Josh Malerman
2. Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool- Peter Turner
3. The Road- Cormac McCarthy
4. The Tattooist of Auschwitz- Heather Morris
5. Why Mummy Drinks- Gill Sims
6. Memory Songs- James Cook
7. Read All About It- Paul Cuddihy
8. The Boys are Back- Simon Carr
9. How to Make Great Radio- David Lloyd

On further reflection, I have now upgraded Scrublands to a stand-out.

I have recently finished:

33. A Prayer for Owen Meany- John Irving I won't attempt to review this, as I am the last person on earth to have read it, but I thought it was lovely.

I now have several non-fiction books on the go and hope to have finished one or two of them before March is out.

My list so far:

1. The Anxiety Solution - Chloe Brotheridge
2. Me - Tomoyuki Hoshino
3. Arlington Park - Rachel Cusk
4. The Beast - Alexander Starritt
5. A Sense of Direction - Gideon Lewis-Kraus

1. The Lady and the Little Fox Fur - Violette Leduc
2. The Dead Ladies Project - Jessa Crispin
3. Cassandra Darke - Posy Simmonds

14. The light between oceans A baby washes up on a remote island and a childless couple take her in and end up dealing with the fall out.

It’s a touch contrived but very readable. My MIL would like it more than I did..,,

@bestiswest thank you
@palegreenstars it's not my usual style of reading material but it seems so important to read it, I'll be interested to hear what you think of it.m

Wee fact, Anne Perry lives near my PILs. I see her tasteful and fabulous house every couple of months. Never read one of her books!

Hi, updating here:

1. The Essex Serpent- Sarah Perry

1. Let Me Lie- Clare Mackintosh

1. I See You- Clare Mackintosh

1. Everything Under- Daisy Johnson
2. Manhattan Beach- Jennifer Egan

Lanny is the best thing I've read recently. Kinder than Solitude is the worst- really struggled to finish. Currently reading A Place for Us as I've seen it mentioned here. Enjoying the writing but finding that the jumping-around timeline is killing the pace

*Brizzle The world I fell out of is a retelling of the story looking back over the years rather than just the columns.

@brizzle thanks for that recommendation - have picked it up. Reading the Good Immigrant at the mo and was looking for something to follow it.

@AliasGrape I love Anne Perrys detective stories. The William Monk ones are my favourite but I also enjoy the Thomas Pitt ones. Worth reading them in order as I enjoy the character arcs. Although you can read each as a stand alone. Her annual Christmas stories have also become a tradition. I start each new one on Christmas Eve. After all you need a good murder story at Christmas.

@MogTheSleepyCat so far so great with The Blade Itself, I'm now about half way through and the rest is living up to the opening scene. I am liking the older folks scared by life themes, certainly a change from young person on a voyage of discovery. I also like Glokta. Very well written character and as I am aging I can understand his frustration with his bodies failing (although have obviously just got age to blame). I will definitely be reading the other books he’s written not just in this trilogy. Kindle 0.99p deals strike again another great new (well new to me) author found.

I forgot The Only Story- Julian Barnes in my list above.

Apologies for the errant apostrophe in Ruins, above.

My modest list:

Educated-Tara Westover
The Tattooist of Auschwitz- Heather Morris. Hated this- thought it was very poorly written.
Pieces of Me- Natalie Hart- very good debut novel.
Normal People- Sally Rooney- think she is a very good writer.
No Further Questions- Gillian McAllister
A Ladder to the Sky- John Boyne- loved almost as much as THIV.
Travelling in a Strange Land- David Parks- beautifully written.
The Hunting Party- Lucy Foley- good fun.

Currently reading Transcription by Kate Atkinson, which I'm enjoying, but don't think is as good as Life after Life and A God in Ruin's.

I've just stumbled across The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write, 98p and it looks like a must read:

Selected as Emma Watson's Jan/Feb 2019 pick for her feminist book club, Our Shared Shelf

A Guardian Best Book of the Year

Shortlisted for London's Big Read

From established literary heavyweights to emerging spoken word artists, the writers in this ground-breaking collection blow away the narrow image of the 'Muslim Woman'.

Hear from users of Islamic Tinder, a disenchanted Maulana working as a TV chat show host and a plastic surgeon blackmailed by MI6. Follow the career of an actress with Middle-Eastern heritage whose dreams of playing a ghostbuster spiral into repeat castings as a jihadi bride. Among stories of honour killings and ill-fated love in besieged locations, we also find heart-warming connections and powerful challenges to the status quo.

From Algiers to Brighton, these stories transcend time and place revealing just how varied the search for belonging can be. Alongside renowned authors such as Kamila Shamsie, Ahdaf Soueif and Leila Aboulela are emerging voices, published here for the first time.

Thanks for the new thread. Here is my list so far

1. Birdcage Walk - Helen Dunmore
2. Devil's Day - Andrew Hurley
3. Ghost Walk - Sarah Moss
4. Unsheltered - Barbara Kingsolver
5. The Murder of Harriet Monckton - Elizabeth Haynes
6. A House of Ghosts - W.R. Ryan
7. Wolf Border - Sarah Hall
8. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
9. Zennor in Darkness - Helen Dunmore

No real stinkers so far

25 Europe in Winter by Dave Hutchinson
Continuing my re-read of the Fractured Europe series of SFF thrillers. It's very hard to review these without giving massive spoilers for the previous books in the series, but this one is as readable and gripping as the others.

Even with the re-read & knowing what's coming, I'm still not entirely sure I've nailed down exactly what is happening when (and I think I also picked up a rather substantial plot hole in book 2), but it's such an enjoyable ride it doesn't really matter.

Thanks for the new thread South. This is also the first time I have stayed on the thread to the fourth instalment FiveGoMad!

My paltry list so far, thankfully no stinkers:

1. Fire and Blood: A History of the Targaryen Kings from Aegon the Conqueror to Aegon III as scribed by Archmaester Gyldayn – George RR Martin
2. The Book of Death – Anonymous
3. Jurassic Park – Michael Crichton
4. Marilyn Monroe: A Life from Beginning to End – Hourly History
5. Whispers Underground – Ben Aaronovitch
6. All Creatures Great and Small – James Herriot
7. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – John Boyne

@BakewellTarts
How are you enjoying The Blade Itself ? I love Joe Abercrombie's books and I am a little envious that you get to experience the 'First Law' books for the first time. Please read Before They are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings afterwards to wrap up the characters stories. Despite him being an evil twisted torturer (literally), I luffs Glokta!

Thank you for the new thread southeast.

Here's my list and some updates. I'm a couple of books behind but hoping to catch up soon.

1. Diary of a Bookseller, by Shaun Bythell

1. Dark Sacred Night, by Michael Connolly
2. Fear: Trump in the White House, by Bob Woodward

1. Reading Allowed, by Chris Paling

6. The Art Of Gathering; How We Meet and Why It Matters, by Priya Parker This was entertaining and useful for anyone that has to organize meetings, workshops or events. Parker is a professional facilitator, working with global clients including private companies and diplomats working on peacekeeping missions. She clearly knows her stuff and talks about how to organise events more thoughtfully so that it's not just another boring conference or meeting that everyone grits their teeth to get through. Not sure how much of this I'll put into practice but it was thought provoking.

7. The Great Deluge, by Douglas Brinkley The reason I'm behind. This is brilliant but depressing - 600 small print pages about Hurricane Katrina. It's a modern history, using hundreds of different sources to describe the seven days before, during and after Katrina hit the southern Gulf Coast of the US in 2005. In places it reads like a thriller or memoir but it's quite distressing, particularly describing how this event was inevitable and yet so badly planned for. I had to keep putting it down and doing other things, but still heartily recommend if this is a subject that interests you.

8. Hollywood's Eve, by Lili Anolik A quick and fascinating read - this is the biography of Eve Babitz, a Hollywood girl from an artistic family (her godfather was Stravinsky) who spent some of her teens and twenties as a groupie and artist before becoming a writer. Anolik became obsessed with her and profiled her for Vanity Fair, leading to her books being rediscovered and reissued. The gossip and name-dropping throughout is extraordinary - Jim Morrison, The Beatles, Joan Didion - and the style is very lush and breathless, not at all a 'usual' biography. I think I'm going to have to seek out at least one of Eve's books to see the other side of the story.

9. The New Iberia Blues, by James Lee Burke The 22nd in the Dave Robicheaux detective series. I had read some of these many years ago and picked this one up at the library - Robicheaux is a great character and the descriptions of Louisiana and the South and sense of place are wonderful, but the descriptions and sheer number of murders in this were too gritty and upsetting for me. I think that may be why I gave up on the series before so I probably won't be returning to them. Very well done though, for people who have stronger stomachs than me.