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?

31. Time To Depart by Lindsey Davies

Wry and cynical Roman private eye Marcus Didius Falco. One of my favourite crime series.

56 The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

A young adult book about a pair of teenagers, one a cancer surviver the other undergoing treatment. Quirky, sad and romantic.

57 The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

Set in 1920s Alaska, about a couple struggling to make a new life in a lonely and unforgiving landscape. They are visited by an etherial child who arrives and leaves with the snow each year.

57. The Longest Journey - E.M. Forster. I picked this up in a booksale, thinking that as I'd previously enjoyed 'Maurice' and 'A room with a view' I would like it. No. It was dull, confusing, and rather wishy-washy. I started out liking the protagonist, but by the middle of the book, I'd lost interest. Characters I thought were going to be instrumental were not, and everyone seemed very one-dimensional.

54. Sebastian Faulks : "Birdsong"

55. Allie Brosh "Hyperbole and a Half: unfortunate situations, flawed coping mechanisms, and other things that happened."

Book 93 - The Confusion of Karen Carpenter by Jonathan Harvey.

49. Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson

A subtle and poignant novel (actually more of a collection of interconnected short stories) based around the inhabitants of a small Midwestern town in the early 20th century. Apparently a big influence on the likes of Faulkner and Steinbeck, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes that kind of thing.

46. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. It took me a while to get into this, but by the end I was hooked. Quirky and funny.

39. QI: The Book Of General Ignorance - John Lloyd & John Mitchinson

First in the series, this is a book of trivia. Entertaining and generally interesting, but the moronic and at times shockingly misogynist little exchanges at the end of each entry almost did me in.

64. The Magus of Hay - Phil Rickman. He is one of my favourite authors but this wasn't one of his best. I think that he may be running out of steam on the Merrily Watkins series. Still enjoyed though, just not as good as I had hoped.

38. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

47. The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Meh - it's okay but not great. I don't get why it's so lauded, but anyway.
48. Collected Poems - Rumi. Really interesting. Had never heard of this poet until I read As the Great World Spins. It also had recipes at the back!

39. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald

18. The Fourth Bear - Jasper Fforde

76 The War of The Worlds - H.G.Wells

40. Measuring The World - Daniel Kehlmann

Brilliant historical fiction about the lives of legendary mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and aristocrat geographer Alexander Von Humboldt. I really loved this book. It's up there with This Thing Of Darkness, imho, and I heartily recommend.

58 Dear Life by Alice Munro

The latest collection of short stories from the Canadian writer who has just won the Nobel Prize for Literature. To my shame I hadn't read any of her writing before, but I absolutely loved this book. It isn't at all flashy but each story is beautifully crafted.

CoteDAzur This Thing of Darkness is one of my favourite books, if Measuring The World is of that calibre then it's going straight on my to-read list. Thanks for the recommendation.

(marking place for later ....as this looks a great thread....)

28. The Blackheath Seance Parlour 5.5/10
29. Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman 6-6.5/10

I so wanted to love Gaiman, but I just couldn't get into most of it!

58. Broken Homes - Ben Aaranovich. Fantasy novel picking up where Whispers Underground left off. Lots of twists and turns, and a good few red herrings. Very surprised by the ending though.

You're very welcome funambulist

Oh that book sounds good Cote & Funambulist. I enjoyed This Thing Of Darkness too.

50. Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk

This was a bit of a punt (I haven't read anything by him before, I think this was an Amazon suggestion) but it was really good in a kind of bleak, black-humour, Bret Easton Ellis type way. The story of the last survivor of a religious cult after the rest commit suicide, with black satirical commentary on religion, fame and the media.

Can't quite believe I got to 50 - that's the most books I've read in a year for, well, years!

dappledawn is your user name from the Gerald Manley Hopkins' poem?

MegBusset congratulations on reaching 50 books!

40. Divergent by Veronica Roth

Back after ages away. Have now finished my second lot of 50 and am into my third:

48. Georgette Heyer, Jennifer Kloester. Deathly dull, I'm afraid. No idea why I persevered to the end.

49. The Fishing Fleet, Anne de Courcy. Being Irish, I feel no particular nostalgia for the Raj, but this was okay as the focus was on young, female experience.

50. Winnie-the-Pooh, A A Milne. Missed out on this in my childhood, but enjoyed it.

And back to 1 again.

1. Wait for Me, Deborah Devonshire. Have read rather too much about the Mitfords and there was nothing new, but some time in their company always has its pleasures.

2. Dying Fall, Elly Griffiths. Reliable good fun.

3. Borrower of the Night, Elizabeth Peters. As profound and convincing as an episode of Scooby Doo, but sometimes that's what you want.

4. A River in the Sky, Elizabeth Peters.

5. The Ministry of Thin, Emma Woolf (non-fiction). I agree with her, but all fairly banal. From the "here's something I googled earlier" school of research.

6. Going Solo, Eric Klinenberg (non-fiction).

7. The Testament of Mary, Colm Toibin. Vivid but unpleasant.

8. Confessions of a Showbiz Reporter, Holly Forrest. Does what it says on the tin.

9. The Antiques Magpie, Marc Allum (non-fiction). A ragbag that doesn't add up to a coherent whole.

10. A Plague of Sinners, Paul Lawrence. Crime set during the Plague.

11. Red Dust Road, Jackie Kay (memoir). Endearing for her generosity and compassion.

12. A History of English Food, Clarissa Dickson Wright

13. Endless Night, Agatha Christie

14. The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Agatha Christie

15. Broken Homes, Ben Aaronovitch (I thought this was a return to form after not really liking his previous one)

16. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, Julia Strachey

17. The Bat, Jo Nesbo

18. The ABC Murders, Agatha Christie

19. Little Children, Tom Perotta (very funny, very compassionate to his characters)

20. The Secret Adversary, Agatha Christice

21. Wilkie Collins: A Life of Sensation, Andrew Lycett (biography. A bit duller than I hoped)

22. Restaurant Babylon, Imogen Edwards-Jones

23. Mad about the Boy, Helen Fielding (not good, alas)

24. A Very British Murder, Lucy Worsley (non-fiction. Good fun and she writes well)

25. The Crossing Places, Elly Griffiths

26. The Cuckoo's Calling, Robert Gilbraith. Not bad - reminded me of Barbara Nadel.