50 Book Challenge 2019 Part Five

Oh forgot my most recent:

The Mother-in-law- Sally Hepworth- quite light but thought provoking- a good holiday read.

Updating my 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.
The Only Story- Julian Barnes
I Am, I Am, I Am- Maggie O'Farrell (usually love her writing, thought this was a bit self-indulgent)
The Burning- Jane Casey- good police procedural
Transcription- Kate Atkinson
State of Wonder- Ann Patchett
The Lost Man- Jane Harper (her best book yet)
Crooked Heart- Lissa Evans
When All is Said- Anne Griffin- loved
An American Marriage- Tayari Jones- really enjoyed
Ordinary People- Diana Evans- really enjoyed
The Burning- Jane Casey
Ghost Wall- Sarah Moss
Old Baggage- Lissa Evans
Blood Orange- Harriet Tyce- too derivative
Hush Hush- Mel Sherratt
Big Sky- Kate Atkinson- KA back on great writing form

@Terpsichore I read (and loved) Bad Blood earlier this year so it might have been me. One of my friends had been recommending it for ages and I was sure it couldn't be as good as she said, but I too found it absolutely jaw dropping and completely gripping.

Last night I finished reading A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin to dd as her bedtime story. She seemed to enjoy it and kept pretty good track of what was going on. We had some good debates about how to pronounce the name of various twiddly named islands. I have to confess it was a bit of a slog to read aloud though.

Blood Road by Stuart Macbride
A policeman turns up dead which is bad enough except he was supposed to have already died years ago. At the same time children are being kidnapped and rumours of a selling ring are growing.
I picked this up randomly in the library not realising it was number 12 or something in a series so some of the relationships and backstory rather passed me by. That said I did enjoy this. It was well written, dark but still genuinely amusing in places. I've discovered that most of the rest of the series are on borrowbox so have reserved the first one.

Oh good! I think I was saying it right!

I learnt it as 'Briz-AY- is' at uni

piggy, the audiobook narrator says "briss-ay-is".

I know quite a few have read The Silence of the Girls by now and there have been a few reviews. This part of Achilles' story (as the central character herself calls it) is not something I am very familiar with (Fry's Heroes obviously didn't stick in my head too well then!) so I didn't have the knowing what would happen issue. I liked this book. I enjoyed the dual narrator technique and appreciated why barker only used first person for Briseis (oh, for someone to tell me how to pronounce this word!). the ending in particular was stark and quite moving. Barker is an excellent writer, of course, and I liked this as much as Circe but in a different way. I like the point both writers are making about writing these female voices into mythology so they become more than outcasts , victims, or silenced. I ma astonished this did not make it beyond the women's fiction prize longlist.

I am looking forward to reading Natalie Haynes' book as I feel underinformed about Helen of Troy, in general.

Just finished When the Floods Came by Clare Morrall. It's a post apocalyptic novel set in Birmingham and was about as bad as that sounds. Really very silly. The ending was stupid too - I think maybe she has a series in mind, but I definitely wouldn't bother with any more.

Book 16 (not quite at your standards @Terpsichore ) was The Cornershop at Cockleberry Bay. DO NOT waste your life by attempting to read this utter pile of dirge. 🙄

I have now taken the plunge into all things Rebus.

Sorry - after that epic post I just had to add.....out of curiosity I looked up where I'd got to at this point last year, because I wondered whether I'm slower with my reading than I was in 2018.

Turns out that on July 24th I noted finishing book number.....49

So I think this must be my natural reading pace, if there is such a thing.

49: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Start-Up - John Carreyrou

Thank you to whoever jogged my memory about this by posting a review a while back (I'm sorry but I can't now remember who it was). This was an absolutely terrific page-turner and I spent almost the entire time with my jaw almost literally hanging in disbelief (when I wasn't reading bits to Dh in ever-mounting incredulity).

Elizabeth Holmes was a high-achieving young prodigy who excelled in school and eventually dropped out of her prestigious university (Stanford) to patent what she hoped would be a groundbreaking new medical device. This became the basis for her start-up company, Theranos, which claimed to be able to run a huge range of blood tests from a single finger-prick's-worth of blood - a game-changer in the medical field.

The problem was that her devices didn't reliably work and the single finger-prick was hardly more than a wild marketing boast; the claims were snake-oil. But somehow she persuaded investors to sink millions of dollars into the company and dazzled her - mostly elderly, male - board members (including the likes of Henry Kissinger ) into swallowing her spiel hook, line and sinker. It didn't hurt that she was young, blonde, blue-eyed and had a 'hypnotic' manner, with a weirdly deep voice (it pays to google here).

It all came crashing down when Carreyrou, of the Wall Street Journal, got a tip-off about the shonky nature of the enterprise, and Holmes and her second-in-command (and one-time lover) are facing trial next year with a possible 20 years in jail. But not before they'd tried to sue and intimidate everyone concerned into silence.

A truly incredibly story that shows how you can indeed fool a lot of the people a lot of the time by sheer force of personality (and a lot of expensive legal muscle) But I'm still astounded that they got as far as they did, and were potentially on the verge of perpetrating a massive healthcare scandal.

Tanaqui - I'm glad you liked Evening in the Palace of Reason. I can imagine your DH's face as you listened to some of the music at home

For your Cornish holiday Pepe I recently belatedly discovered Patrick Gale and enjoyed A Perfectly Good Man which is set in that part of the world. It was thoughtful and compassionate, if a little bleak in places, and would make a lovely holiday read.

Piggy I really enjoyed the Doll Factory. I felt the title was referring to the way characters are trying to create the ideal woman; a woman that does not exists - a dark fantasy maybe.
Have been reading but not much time for reviewing. Have enjoyed keeping my eye on the thread.
Will update properly tomorrow, now school is out!

81. Tangerine - Christine Mangan Straight laced Alice moves to Morocco with her new husband and is struggling to adjust. The last person she expects to see is her outgoing, controlling ex-roommate Lucy, whom she hasn't spoken to since an incident at college the year before. Lucy starts to take over and soon Alice is questioning everything about her life.

Mediocre psycho-thriller. Mercifully short.

82. Strangers on a Train - Patricia Highsmith Two men meet on a long distance train journey. They get chatting and each discusses a person who is a thorn in their side. Bruno suggests they commit murders for each other which will be unsolvable due to lack of motive. Guy dismisses this as fantasy, but a few weeks later when his wife is found strangled, he realises he is expected to uphold his end of the bargain...

Bloody brilliant!

Pepe I enjoyed the film version of Let the Right One In - it's definitely worth seeing, I'd say. I haven't read the book (though I think I've got it, somewhere....)

We saw the stage version of Let the Right One In in London a few years ago - it was really well done. I liked the book a lot, except I thought the ending was a bit silly. Not seen either of the films, but dp rates the first one.

The Five: the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the ripper is the daily deal on audible today £1.99.

The Spy & The Traitor is 99p daily deal on kindle today

Pepe, Let the Right One In, the original Swedish film, is excellent (I also enjoyed the novel very much). Let Me In, the English language remake, is OK too, but is a bit lacking in comparison to the original.

78 The Antidote by Oliver Burkeman
Like Fran upthread I thought this was very good. Lots to ponder and a great debunking of most self help philosophies. I too thought “do
I have a problem right now?” a very useful prompt when worrying about things.

79 Dear Ijeawale by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie
Set of short essays to a friend’s daughter on how to raise a feminist. Nothing earth shattering there but a good reminder and one I’ve shared with dd as I think her teen sensibilities will appreciate it very much.

80 The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
This was (I think) a recommendation from here as I can’t think why or how I’d have come across it otherwise. A detective, stuck in hospital, enlists friends, friends of friends and the medical staff to help him explore whether or not Richard III murdered the Princes in the Tower to secure his claim to the throne. Odd but engrossing.

81 Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau
The same story told 99 different ways. This was playful and challenging and a brilliant translation. I’ve gone back to the French and am in awe of the skill with which this was done.

82 My Sister The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
I’m disappointed by this. Not because it was terrible - it wasn’t - but it felt very lightweight compared to the other Women’s Prize shortlisted books. I thought it promised much but didn’t quite deliver. It was fine for filling gaps while I was away for a few nights at a conference but I couldn’t quite love it.

83 Let The Right One In by John Lindqvist
Recommended by a friend as a “must read Swedish Salem’s Lot”. A boy is bullied and lonely in a bleak housing estate until he befriends a strange girl who seems to have come from nowhere and only appears at night. This is unbelievably brutal and dark and although it meandered a little in places it was a well done vampire tale, and perfect for a long flight at the end of a tedious work trip. Has anyone seen the movie? And would they recommend it?

Off to Cornwall next week. I plan to lie around watching the children on the beach and do lots of reading. Any recommendations for that part of the world? I have read most Du Maurier, I think, apart from Frenchman’s Creek, which is packed and ready to go.

40. This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson.

Dark, depressing and uncomfortable fictional story centred on the famous journey of Captain Fitzroy and Charles Darwin in the 1800’s. It packs a lot in - sea-faring, colonialisation, science, racism and the destruction of the indiginous populations of South America and New Zealand. I felt let down by the characterisation although not enough to feel disappointed that I’d read this book but neither is it one of the best books I have read this year.

41. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik.

Enjoyable fantasy.

Just finished Elizabeth Macneal's debut The Doll Factory which I think a couple of other have reviewed. It is better than a lot of the glut of historical fiction with female protagonists but I found the stuff about women in art undeveloped . The nastier bit of the book (which I won't say too much about) is actually more my cup of tea but it is very much a book of two halves. The thread that ties it together is the objectification/ imprisonment of women. The author is clearly interested in Victorian literature and has studied Victorian love of 'clutter' so that comes across in the book definitely. She is yet another alumna of UEA Creative Writing Master's!

I am perplexed by the title! There is a doll factory in the book but it is certainly not the most important location or central to the narrative!

DD has just this minute give me a copy of Women and Power.

48: The Lost Man - Jane Harper

I'd been keeping an eye on this and pounced when it came down to £1.99 on Kindle the other day. The body of Cameron Bright is found in an isolated spot on the family property. Under the brutal Australian sun, miles from any source of help and without shade or water, death was inevitable - but why was he there, alone and without any of the safety precautions he would never have ignored? Cameron's brother Nathan reluctantly returns to the family property as secrets start to be revealed.

A short and fast read, and while it's not especially complex (I guessed the twist fairly quickly), I enjoyed this. The setting, with its vast distances and punishing climate, was mind-boggling and well-evoked.