50 Book Challenge 2014 Part 2

[juneybean]

Thread 2 of the 50 book challenge. Here is the previous thread...

The idea is to read 50 books in 2014 (or more!)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/adult_fiction/1951735-50-Book-Challenge-2014

Was previously Foosyerdoos.

40. Raising Steam - Terry Pratchett.

18. Hereward, Last Of The English - Charles Kingsley

A kindle freebie, 1865 novelization of the life of Hereward the Wake, who defied the Normans from his stronghold in the Fens after 1066. Pretty thrilling stuff - apparently he was the inspiration for some of the Robin Hood legends.

33. A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. Betty Smith. Yet another re-read

I first read this when I was 14, must have read it twenty or more times. The original copy was inherited from my beloved aunt along with many other American classics. That copy fell apart and DH replaced it for me as a surprise so it is a book that has a lot of associations for me as it brings back memories of reading it at various times of my life.

It's the story of a young girl growing up in Brooklyn in the early 20th century and the struggle to survive amongst poverty and squalor. Wise, sensible, funny, sad as the blurb on the back says.

I have been doing a lot of re-reading lately so next book is going to be something new.

Oh my goodness, just seen that Michael Cunningham is doing a talk at a Waterstones in North London in a few weeks about his new book! Will be sure to report back.

16. A Little Night Magic by Lucy March

This was a good book. It's a sort of crossover between chick lit romance and paranormal fantasy. It's well written and accessible. The characters are really varied and well drawn. I would definitely recommend it.

(But it was a bloody library book and has not helped reduce my ever growing To Read pile down the side of my bed!!)

16. Déjà Vu - Ian Hocking

A "techno-thriller " I thought I would like but was totally unimpressed with,

17. Dance Of The Happy Shades - Alice Munro

Dull short stories about the lives of some very dull people - poor, uneducated, living in the sticks. This was published in 1968 and the author must have considerably improved her style in the half-century that passed since then to have received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Book 1 - Carrion Comfort by Dan Sims
Book 2 - A Perfect Proposal by Katie Fforde
Book 3 - Loot, Inside the World of Stolen Art by Thomas McShane;
Book 4 - Wool by Hugh Howie
Book 5 - A Feast For Crows by George RR Martin - Game of Thrones
Book 6 - A Dance with Dragons, Part 1 and predictably
Book 7 - A Dance with Dragons, Part 2
Book 8 - The Brightest Star in the Sky by Marian Keyes.
Book 9 - The Rosie Project.
Book 10 - Road to Rouen, Ben Hatch
Book 11 - Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
Book 12 - The Light Years, Elizabeth Jane Howard
Book 13 - Marking Time, Elizabeth Jane Howard
Book 14 - The State We're In, Adele Parkes
Book 15 - Confusion, Elizabeth Jane Howard
Book 16 - The Last Letter from your Lover, Jojo Moyes
Book 17 - Casting Off, Elizabeth Jane Howard
Book 18 - HHhH, Laurent Binet
Book 19 - The Taliban Cricket Club, Timeri Murari (very good, a bit let down by the ending which tips into farce. Delivers great insight into what it must be like to live under one of those burkas, and the value systems that perpetuate them)
Book 20 - The Trouble with Marriage, Debby Holt (a light read, enjoyable)
Book 21 - Confessions of a Sociopath, ME Thomas (interesting)
Book 22 - The Sky's Dark Labyrinth, Book 1, Stuart Clark (interesting read, would definitely buy the others, thanks to whoever recommended it up thread!)
Book 23 - This Book Will Save Your Life, AM Homes (really enjoyed this, though I guess some of his experiences were a bit unlikely)
Book 24 - The Speckled People, Hugo Hamilton (great read, sometimes disturbing about growing up in 1950s Ireland with a fanatic Irish father and a German mother)

and now

Book 25 (I think, losing track a bit!) - The Borrower, Rebecca Makkai (very very good so far, lots of reader references, very interesting dynamic being set up between the librarian and the young boy, could be one of my top books of the year)

Book 53 - The Plague (Camus) - the fact that it's now Thursday and I started it on Monday shows that I didn't love it. Occasional phrases/passages were exquisite, but the plot and characters just didn't have enough depth, and sections of it (especially the preacher bits) were really boring. I'm so disappointed, as I'd been looking forward to it.

Remus Re: Camus. I remember having to read 'L'Etranger' for French A Level and being similarly unimpressed. We did have to read it in French though which didn't help.

45. Nicholas Best "Five Days that Shocked the World " an interesting and engaging account of the final days of the Naziso. Certainly worth a read for anyone interested in that period of history.

46. Deborah Harkness "Shadow of Night ". Enjoyed this but the romance is getting in the way of a great story.

I liked, 'The Stranger' as a teenager, but tried re-reading it either this year or last year and found it interminably boring.

41. The Eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliff

No idea when I last posted so:

1. The Last Runaway
2. The Age of Miracles
3. The Rosie Project
4. Life and Laughing
5. Hercule Poirots Christmas
6. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
7. 1984
8. The Hare with Amber Eyes
9. Life after Life

10. The Chaperone 11. A Commonplace Killing 12. My Animals and other family 13. The Colour Purple 14. Trash 15. The Good Father 16. The Man Without A Face (Putin) 17. The Spy Who Loved 18. The Reason I Jump 19. Love, Nina 20. How did all this happen 21. Apple Tree Yard 22. The Pedant in the Kitchen.

Plus numerous Radio 4 abridged readings, most Book of the Week/Book at Bedtime and others.

Finished no 17. The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price Purveyor of Superior Funerals - very enjoyable book about a South Wales community after the First World War.

Here are my numbers 21-30:

21. The Patient Paradox by Margaret McCartney
22. Rabbit, run by John Updike
23. Raven, seek thy brother by Gavin Maxwell
24. Appletree Yard by Louise Doughty
25. Thursday’s Children by Nicci French
26. Stoner by John Wiliams
27. Maxwell’s Ghost by Richard Frere
28. Picasso: A life by John Richardson
29. The White Island by John Lister-Kaye
30. Under another sky by Charlotte Higgins

The Patient Paradox - a great, provocative book by a GP arguing that the NHS spends far too much on healthy patients (e.g. through screening tests that have little value) and not enough on people who are actually sick.

Rabbit, Run - had never read any Updike, felt I ought to, so started with the most famous one. A bit of a struggle to start, but very moving towards the end. Worth persevering.

Have become something of a Gavin Maxwell obsessive, so there's one book on the list by him, two about him - all worth a read if you're a fan. And if you're not, please do give him a go. A wonderful writer, and this year is his centenary.

Stoner - glad I finally got round to this. A beautifully written book.

Very much enjoyed Appletree Yard - a cracking read - and I always gobble up the new Nicci Frenches as soon as they come out.

After putting it off for many years, I finally got round to reading Richardson's biography of Picasso - again, worth reading if you're a fan.

Finally, the Charlotte Higgins book is a non-fictional account of visiting Roman remains in Britain. Am interested in ancient Rome, but strangely I struggled a bit with this.

hackmum looked up Gavin Maxwell on amazon and saw that he wrote Ring of Bright Water which I read and loved years ago

42. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion

39. A Life Life Other People's - Alan Bennett. 5/5. Poignant, and sad but interspersed with humour. One that's going to stay in my thoughts.

Have you read his Untold Stories Duchess. I loved that. < Adds Alan Bennett books to Amazon wish list. >

47. Ian Rankin "Tooth and Nail". Pretty solid Rankin. Had some good twists.

Best - no I haven't read Untold Stories, yet. Apparently this is from it but published separately as a smaller book. My DF has a copy of Untold so may borrow that but does look quite a huge book - several week's worth of reading. Am a bit of a fan of his writing.

#17 Blood Sucking Fiends by Christopher Moore.
First in a vampire trilogy set in modern San Francisco. Somehow I'd read numbers 2&3 before, but not this. So I kinda knew what was going to happen.
But I loved it anyway. Moore's characters are vividly written and his style is irreverent and funny. Can't wait for his new one to come out in the autumn.

23. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy I'm trying to read some old classics that I haven't gotten around to and this was one of those. I read a very funny but scathing review on Amazon so I was a little dubious but actually I loved this book fast-paced, not too much description, fantastic main characters and great story. Absolutely loved it.

Just starting Parenting: 50 tips on Building your Child's Self-esteem by Jenny Loveless. It's a short book and I just feel the need to read it at the moment.

45. Love Lies Bleeding, Edmund Crispin
46. Dogstar Rising, Parker Bilal (crime fiction - detective is a Sudanese refugee in Cairo, very evocative)
47. The Outcast Dead, Elly Griffiths (great series. I love the heroine and the cast. Not exactly a police procedural, as the outcomes owes more to psychic flashes rather than anything else, but fun all the same).
48. How to be a Victorian, Ruth Goodman. Detailed and interesting. The fabric of everyday life, and good analysis of how experiences differed based on class, region and over the early/middle/late Victorian period. If you were writing a novel set in Victorian times, I'd recommend keeping this by your side...
49. The Moving Toyshop, Edmund Crispin
50. Making it up, Penelope Lively. Short stories based on the different directions her life might have gone in if things had gone differently at significant moments.
51. Reconstructing Amelia, Kimberly McCreight
52. Lolly Willowes, Sylvia Townsend Warner. Pleasingly weird.