50 Book Challenge 2013 -The Sequel!

[CardiffUniversityNetballTeam]

Morning all,

As the old thread here is nearly full, I have created a shiny new one for your delight and delectation.

Sign in and update your progress here!

I'm Cardiff and I've nearly finished book 16, so I'm very behind as to be in track we should be approaching 25 by now. Where is everyone else up to?

36. 1984 - George Orwell

Brilliant, concise, merciless, pertinent and even urgent. I read 1984 in my teens and loved it. Not sure why, since it would seem I didn't understand much of it.

Much of its predictions are eerily accurate. Doublethink, Newspeak - unfortunately these are tactics currently in use, and are being used against us.

We won be discussing this in book club soon. My examples of Doublethink from everyday life will probably be: "Jesus is human and he is God" and "Jesus is God who is also Holy Spirit"

Some excellent books currently on this thread (and Breaking Dawn )

Circassian, I found that comment about expressing sadness and love better in Turkish and humour/satire better in English really interesting. My Grandma was Russian, she was a fluent English speaker but she continued to cook, pray and swear in Russian!

39. The Newlyweds by Nell Freudenberger, about a woman from Bangladesh who meets an American man on a dating website and comes to the US to marry him. Good stuff.

As I have Russian blood I suppose I should join the War and Peace club... Anna Karenin was enough for me tbh!

I have a three volume lovely edition of War and Peace sitting on my desk. I fear it may stay there for a while.

I did read Peasants by Anton Chekhov the other day it is a short story in a collection so not sure if I can add it, what do you reckon? That's my Russian contribution.

tumble

77. The Last Runaway, by Tracy Chevalier. Just wonderful.

BOF - I want to read that soon! Glad it was good.

45. Kitchen by Barbara Yoshimoto. Two stories inside 150 pages but boy does it pack a punch. Brilliant.

36. twilight breaking dawn. finished last night. the ending was quite boring... am very pleased they changed it for the film and can now understand all the gasps and faces from the cinema go-ers love having the extra info that you get from a book but quite glad ive finished it now and bella still pisses me off

37. harry potter #3

47 A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

I've got a bit further with Kafka's The Trial, but often read at the end of the day and I'm finding it a bit hard going then. I read A Monster Calls, which is a teen/young adult book, as a bit of light relief, only to find it is about a boy who has a terrifying nightmare every night and whose mother is dying of cancer. It is an excellent book, but not one for younger readers, despite the picture book format.

86 - Black Dogs by Ian McEwan. Audio book. Short, but rather good :o

47. Darkness Unmasked - Keri Arthur
48. The Replacement - Brenna Yovanoff
49. Margaret's Ark - Daniel G. Keohane
50. Caged - Amber Lynn Natusch
51. Haunted - Amber Lynn Natusch
52. Framed - Amber Lynn Natusch

I thought it would be really difficult to read 50 books in a year, but I don't really feel like I've read much more than normal and I've finished early. I've still got a few letters to go in my alphabet challenge, I need an L, O, T, U, and Z. I quite like having challenges so I diversify in my reading, as I had definitely become stuck in a rut, I've read loads more different genres of books this year than I have in the past few years.

53. Sons of the Wolf - Paula Lofting. Historical fiction again, but from a far earlier period than I'm used to. The story started out really well but the last few chapters seemed a little pallid to me. This may be because there is (I believe) a follow up planned, but to be honest, I'd have rather had a few more chapters and a more conclusive ending. Oh, and the names confused me!

57 This is England - Michelle Flatley
58 Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
59 Moon over Soho - Ben Aaronovitch
60 Traitors Gate - Michael Ridpath
61 A Dog with Destiny - Isabel George
62 Snobbery with Violence - M C Beaton
63 Game of Thrones - George RR Martin

just back from holiday and that's why they are all added at once

87 - Instructions For A Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell.

78. The Poison Tree, by Erin Kelly

How long have we got left? About ten weeks? I'm going to see if I can make it to 100.

Couldn't take it on holiday so finally back home and finished Americanah

It was ok, readable etc but nowhere near what I was expecting from Adiche so a bit of a disappointment in the end

Can't remember the number but somewhere around 38. The Children's Book - A S Byatt

64 The Fall of Shane McKade - Nora Roberts

How long have we got left? About ten weeks? I'm going to see if I can make it to 100

BOF I'm at 75 and had the same thought last week. Although with number 75 being The Sunne in Splendour - a great read, but not a quick one - not sure I will make it to 100. Next year!

27. The Shining - Stephen King 8/10 I loved the film but can see why King hated it as it doesn't do some bits of it, and especially the wife's part, justice.

I'm really struggling with "Ivanhoe" I'm about a quarter of the way through. Can anyone tell me whether it's worth persevering?

48 The Trial by Franz Kafka

Finally finished this book after various diversions into other reading. I'm glad that I persevered with it as it's one of those books that is widely referred to in other contexts, rather like 1984. It is about a man, Josef K who is arrested but who does not know what he has done wrong and is caught up in a nightmarish bureaucracy as he tries to establish his innocence. I found it quite disturbing to read, but it is one of those books where the questions it raises stay with you.

Very impressed with those who have reached and gone past the 50 book finishing line already!

46. Remains of the Day
47. Instructions for a Heatwave

Book 88 - The Blackwater Lightship - Colm Toibin. Harrowing, upsetting, but so good.

54: A week in December - Sebastian Faulkes. I've not read anything by him before and I was very pleasantly surprised. Really well-executed book, plot was well-developed and events did not unravel at all how I anticipated. I recommend this one!