50 Book Challenge 2021 Part Eight

40. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

I was convinced that The Martian was a one off, and that its author had exhausted all his ideas in his first book. Not quite. Andy Weir has written another cracking story, this time one astronaut tackling an existential issue for the human race. Interstellar travel, "first contact", calculations galore, and much more can be found in this book.

I definitely enjoyed it and would recommend it to everyone here. Well, maybe not to Remus

39. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

This was the fascinating story of how the author's life started spinning out of control due to an initially undiagnosed brain condition that presented with psychosis, manic episodes, and epilepsy. Over a week or so, the author goes from being a competent and articulate 24-year-old newspaper journalist to a hallucinating, paranoid, violent wreck of a person who cannot string two sentences together.

What follows is a desperate race against time for a diagnosis, and one doctor's simple insight into what turns out to be a hitherto unknown auto-immune disease that was attacking her brain.

This was a great story and I would recommend it to everyone here. Especially interesting was the réalisation towards the end that this could very well be the problem with all those people, young and old, who were thought to be "possessed" by evil spirits in the old days, or just left to rot in asylums.

Hello princessRussianname. We are pondering doing Hard Times next.

My latest I really enjoyed (well not sure that’s the world) Dreamland by Rosa Rankin-Gee

A sort of dystopian novel but based in a future that feels worryingly close.

Chance and her family are given an incentive at the start of the story to move out to Margate from London where they are living in temporary accommodation.

The story that unfolds feels incredibly real, yet it’s a world we don’t quite recognise. It reminds me somewhat of the tv show Years and Years but with a far harsher element to it.

Welcome PrincessMayraBolkonskaya. Looking forward to you joining us next year. I suspect we share a love of War and Peace

Hello everyone. I love this thread, I’ve had some great recommendations from it, and have lurked for ages. It’s been one of the things that’s spurred me to read a fair amount this year which has been great for my mental health.

I’ll be joining you properly for next years threads, under a different user name as I talk about what I’m reading to loads of people and wouldn’t want other posts linked

@Piggywaspushed can I ask what the read along will be from January 1st? I’ve read the Little Dorrit thread (I mean I could have spent the time reading the book ) and would love to join your next thread.

Have a lovely December reading everyone

If anyone hasn't read it, The Dispossessed by Ursula le Guin is on for 99p, it's a SF /utopian / anarchist classic (and incidentally the source of my username).

We Need to Talk About the British Empire - Afua Hirsch
Found in the audiobooks at the library, but really a series of podcasts. Afua speaks to people who were directly affected by the Empire and it's legacy. Interesting, but ultimately a bit lacking as it only briefly touched on the history and could have easily been part of something meatier like her excellent book Brit(ish).

Imperfect Women - Araminta Hall
After the murder of a woman and the following investigation into her death, her two best friends realise they didn't all know each other quite as well as they thought.
Engaging sort of thriller. Enjoyed although the twist was fairly easy to spot.

The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls - Ursula Hegl
Historical Fiction. Late 1800s Germany. Women of different generations bond after a tragedy.
This was over long, rambling and very jumbled. Had promise, but lost it in trying to cover too much with too many characters.

The Lincoln Highway - Amor Towels
1950s Nebraska. Released early from a juvenile correctional facility due to bereavement, Emmett returns home to collect his younger brother and to set out for a new city and fresh start. His plans are significantly interrupted when he discovers two of his fellow inmates have managed to escape and hitch a ride to his home.
I wanted to like this more than I did. Told from too many different POV and dragged on.

I've managed to comb through the deals and find quite a lot of goodies that I didn't have as well as some that others may have missed. I snapped up Homeland Elegies too.

I was also pleased by looking at my wishlist to see if anything had come down to find a book which I'd never have found otherwise, The Usual Santas, down from over £11 to £1.43. This is a collection of Christmas crime stories from Soho Press, an American publisher of crime fiction set around the world, some in translation but also US and UK writers. They are the American publishers for Peter Lovesey (who writes the foreword) and Mick Herron. This is a publisher whose books I always have a look at when I see them in charity shops or on Kindle offers, as normal prices can be quite high.

In recent months I've discovered that the best deals are often really well hidden. I wonder if they're promoting particular books and publishers at the expense of others, as you do have to hunt through a lot of rubbish to find the interesting things.

And they also seem to have some books at mid price rather than cheap, and some which seem quite expensive, as if they hope readers won't notice that the new book they've been wanting to read is actually being sold for more than £5 or £6, and not really an amazing deal.

Maybe they're holding some offers back for daily deals and bargains over Christmas, though they seem to have stopped doing the regular sales which were additional to daily and monthly offers.

I've bought 2 books about Germany: Gile Milton's one about the aftermath of World War 2, Checkmate Berlin plus The Broken House by Horst Kruger*.

As a general shoutout my latest is

114. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

A short one for some festive cheer and I am shouting it out to everyone with Audible credit that its Hugh Grant

This review in the Guardian made me put The Great Mistake by Jonathan Lee on my Wishlist, and I found it for 99p the other day. Well, I loved it and devoured it in just a couple of days. It tells the story of Andrew Green who planned Central Park, amongst other things, and his murder at the age of 83. I found it really gentle and compelling - it's a book about dreams, ones that come true and ones that don't; about a man at the heart of New York society but also on its fringes; about a man who is both known and unknown and a murder that is tragic not only in its victim but in its villain, and its total pointlessness. Just beautiful.

Robert Macfarlane - Underland is on Kindle daily deal today. IIRC it as had good reviews on this thread.

piggy I'm so far behind with Little Dorrit that I'll be steering clear of the chat again this month but I'm still plodding on and steadfastly bringing up the rear!

54. Erebus - Michael Palin

The story of the ship Erebus, which along with Terror disappeared on the doomed 1845 Franklin expedition to find the North-West Passage. Palin tells the story in a very light and readable way, finding (appropriate, tasteful) humour in the accounts of the men who sailed on her. I’ve been fascinated by this story since reading (and more recently watching) The Terror, and it was very compelling to read a non-fiction account and realise how cleverly Dan Simmons wove his story around the known facts. I’m sure DP will be very glad that I’ve now finished it and will stop interrupting his work to say things like ‘Crozier really did propose to Sophy Cracroft!’ ‘They really did have a monkey and a dog called Neptune!’ ‘Someone really did do an autopsy on John Hartnell!’

Palin also covers the earlier voyages of Erebus and Terror to Antarctica. The surgeon McCormick, who spent a lot of time admiring and even empathising with seabirds, before nevertheless shooting and eating them, was very good value.

Completely agree with your review for Weather, bibliomania.

I was actually wondering if they were the new deals or not - didn't buy anything. I did see Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, which has really stayed with me. It's a time travel book set partly within a future Oxford (drawing heavily on old-fashioned cliches, so the overall portrait is one that I found inept but oddly endearing) and partly centuries in the past, in a small manor house as a mysterious illness takes hold. Like other books by this author, I found it frustratingly slow-moving at times, but this adds to an immersive experience.

The only thing I spotted was the latest Steve Cavanagh book Devil's Advocate (Eddie Flynn). It's the follow on from Fifty Fifty which was very popular in the last year.

I read it last month and its a solid 4 star legal thriller - really pacey and would recommend.

Thank you @Terpsichore!

It's not very comprehensive this month, is it? But for anyone who hasn't read it already but would like to, The Only Plane in the Sky is reduced to 99p.

I bought a few bits Homeland Elligies by Ayad Akhtar and the newest Eddie Flynn by Steve Cavanagh.

Very disappointed in the monthly deals - I usually find something but there’s nothing this time that I haven’t already got.