50 Book Challenge 2019 Part Five

35. Cursed (An Alex Versus novel) by Benedict Jacka.

Second in this urban fantasy series. Good fun and I will be continuing on to the next one.

36. The Legacy of the Bones by Dolores Redondo.

Atmospheric crime novel set in the Baztan region of Spain and the second book of The Baztan Trilogy. Crime is not really my genre but I liked this. Strong female lead, dark childhood, dysfunctional family, solves crime.

19. The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas
YA début novel about a teenage girl whose world is shattered when a police officer shoots and kills her unarmed childhood sweetheart. Standing up for what you believe in and not being ashamed of where you come from are strong themes throughout this book.

Thanks everyone who replied, it makes more sense to me now if she published as George Elliot her entire career by choice whilst the Brontes were unmasked relatively quickly 👍

Just bought The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs on kindle daily deal so I can keep one step ahead of DD

Thanks for crediting me but it's not my theory Terpsichore : it was bold fail for a copy and paste

The stuff about Lewes (who was really a George!) is all so sad and Victorian if you read further.

I always like the sound of George Eliot : and for that reason I have always thought being a George kind of suits her!

Interesting question about George Eliot. I always just assumed it was because she chose the name, and it was the one she was always published under during her entire writing career, by her own wish - so George Eliot she remains.

Piggy's theory is persuasive though - she did have various names, or a choice of them, so it made sense to stick with 'George Eliot', especially after she became a known, popular author.

Jane Austen was never published under her own name during her lifetime, only after death, and the Brontës chose to break cover and ditch the 'Bell' pseudonyms.

X-post piggy!

desdemona I think we have to assume it was her choice to continue with the pseudonym, I think it was known to be one fairly quickly. I believe she took on the name of the man she was living with in her personal life and then later married another so perhaps she wanted to preserve the name for professional purposes.

Found this which helps:

*A few other women writers are still known by their male pseudonyms: Isak Dinesen, for example, and George Sand. Perhaps the reading public has never much seen the necessity in "fixing" them. There are, after all, a lot of male writers who continue to be known by their pseudonyms: George Orwell; Voltaire; Molière; Lewis Carroll; Stendhal; O. Henry; Saki; Gérard de Nerval; and so on. It didn't take long for Boz to be known as Charles Dickens, but Marian Evans remains George Eliot. Could this be due to the circumstances of their lives?

There's some dispute to this day, for instance, as to George Eliot's birth name: was it Marian, Mary Ann, Mary Anne? Then, too, although the Victorians esteemed George Eliot, they may not have wanted to be reminded of Marian Evans, who was living with George Henry Lewes for decades but didn't (couldn't) marry him. She insisted on being addressed as Mrs. Lewes in real life, but this would have been problematic. Could reviewers have been comfortable with calling her Mrs. Lewes, knowing the facts of the matter? By the time of her death she was Mrs. John W. Cross; but this never caught on, either, even though she was Cross' wedded wife.

A question of habit? At the time of her death Marian Evans had been known as George Eliot for quite a while. The Brontës were known only briefly by their pen names; nor did Austen preserve for long her identity as "a Lady," as "The author of Pride and Prejudice," etc.*

I read this somewhere recently and can't recall where. I'll get back to you!

I think Georges Sand is still called that, too, and Robert Galbraith - even though we all know it's JKR!

Piggy (or any other 50 bookers) do you know why Mary Ann Evans is still referred to as 'George Elliot' when all the other women who wrote under male pen names (Probably most notably the Brontes writing as Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell) are now published under their actual names? I've always thought it was a bit odd but never been able to find a reason for it.

Just finished Silas Marner. It is extremely short for a Victorian novel and I can't believe George Eliot wrote this and Middlemarch really!

It actually took me a while to read because oft eh small print and the copious rural dialect. However, it is a sweet tale of the redemptive innocence of children and of love , with Silas as a king of benign and maligned Rumpelstiltskin.

Part 2 was better than the longer part 1, once Eppie comes into the plot. Too much other stuff before that really! Including the irritating Dunsey.

I agree , by the way, that Waterland is great.

Thanks all. Have got samples of the ones you've all mentioned - eels, plague and insanity all sound right up my street. Some of you lovely lot 'know' me too well!

Been awol for weeks and this is likely to continue as am about to go to the UK and do 6 weeks' residential college.
I have abandoned The Northern Clemency at 300 pages. I will pick it up again in the autumn. I just haven't the energy for it at the moment. I like it. I understand what someone (sorry, can't remember who) said about it being wry observations rather than a plot. That's it exactly. It almost reminds me of Virginia Woolf at times with the more modern and less highbrow stream of consciousness musings.

I am rewarding myself for the hard work I am about to do by rereading my favourite light comfort reads. Neither Here Nor There Bill Bryson on Europe still is making me literally laugh out loud.

Remus I don't know you and I'm not on the thread that often, but something I'm doing recently is just to ask people about their very favourite books. That way I'm reading really amazing stuff. I'm in that mood though; it may disappear. Nowt wrong with a change of culture for a while- visual art?

Checking in as on my hols and just catching up with everyone.

I'm not exactly recommending this to you Remus because I don't really think it's your cup of tea, but I'm currently reading Bird Therapy by Joe Harkness and finding it refreshing and unpretentious. It's also currently £1 on Kindle, which I know is your cup of tea.

31. A Perfectly Good Man by Patrick Gale The good man is Barnaby, a priest in rural Cornwall, whose life is told in snapshots jumping back and forth through time, each focusing on a key person in his life. This worked really well, as a picture of his character and the events that shaped him built up. It was emotionally intelligent, sad but life affirming at the same time. I've already reserved Notes from an Exhibition from the library, as apparently there is some overlap with the character set, and I'm keen to visit this world again.

I remember reading Waterland for uni many years ago now, Meg. Was one of the ones that has really stuck in my mind. Some amazingly vivid imagery and I kinda loved all the stuff about eels.

Thanks for the welcomes :)

Children of Ruin only came out last month Sadik. I would definitely recommend.

temporary yes I loved Milkman too - one of the best recent books I’ve read for a long time.

Lost track of numbers but rushing on to rave about Milkman by Anna Burns - all over the thread I'm sure but OMG I loved it. Clearly inspired by Tristan shandy which i must read one day. Glorious, complex, intense and funny. Real characters and situations anyone can relate to despite its very individual setting in NI of the ?late 70s and early 80s?

Talking about a ‘reading reset’ - I had one with Lord of the Rings twenty years ago. Part of it was that I had a good bit of time to race through it, but part of it was just feeling the storytelling powering along and remembering how childhood reading felt.

Welcome, powerbadger

Oh remus awful predicament. Backlisted recently did Daniel Defoe’s Journal of a Plague Year which might be up your street “it’s got plagues in it” she said temptingly.

Alternatively I’ve just started reading Words Best Sung which May yet turn out to be about love and loss but is purported to be about coming of age in the Midlands in 1960s to the soundtrack of the Kinks et al. It was cheap on the Kindle.

Remus - I really felt like you last year, hence taking a year out to revisit some old favourites. It's helped to reset my reading head and I've been putting aside a list of books to look forward to next year. Meanwhile if you haven't read my next one I guarantee it won't bore you:

22. Waterland - Graham Swift

One of my very favourites and just such a fantastic book. With the setting of the East Anglian Fens playing a major role, it's a bleak, very clever but very readable kind of family saga that's also about the brutality of history on a grander scale.

Remus - I feel just like you re books & that is why I've dropped off posting on this thread (but still lurk).

I want to read books that thrill, challenge & provoke me & the only one this year has been This Thing of Darkness - and that is not the usual type of book I go for.