50 Book Challenge 2014 Part 3

[Southeastdweller]

Thread 3 of the 50 book challenge. Here are the previous threads...

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

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

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/adult_fiction/2000991-50-Book-Challenge-2014-Part-2?

30. Lolita - Vladimir Nabakov

It dragged a bit in the middle but I really enjoyed this on the whole. It’s been years since I read a novel so beautifully written on a technical level - I even re-read some sentences, incredulous that someone was capable of writing that well. I enjoyed questioning what was real and what only went on in Humbert’s abhorrent mind - this ‘unreliable narrator’ device Nabakov deploys reminded me of Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller. I also agree with Remus who commented upthread that she liked that there was no lengthy preamble into his sick vision - you're in there from the start and there's no let-up. I don’t feel I caught everything in the book, though, and plan to read this a few more times in the future. I’m glad I read it and glad it was never banned. The film adaptations are fab, too.

31. Lolita - Richard Corliss

A short critical analysis on the Kubrick film. Illuminating and very quotable mostly but a little too many 'flowery' opinions and not quite enough on technique.

Onto something lighter for book 32 - Love, Nina.

55. John Van Der Kiste - Queen Victoria's Children
56. Belinda Jones - The California Club
57. Jill Mansell - Nadia Knows Best Last two re-reads as needed something to numb the brain. Counting down to end of term to crack on with
58. Jean M Auel - Clan of the Cave Bear

tumble thank you for the recommendation, Fault in our Stars. Quick easy read, get me going again. I particularly liked the concern for her mother. I shall recommend this for my book club.

Perks what did you think of Clan if the Cave Bear?

72. Carlie Martece "Toxic Nursery". Got this from a steampunk fair I visited with a friend. It's a memoir of an artist but not in the way you'd think. It's hilarious and disturbing at the same time. Thoroughly recommend it - it's one of my favourite reads so far this year!

I joined at the beginning but haven't posted as I was going so slowly due to moving house. Anyway, I have managed 23 books so far so I am hoping to read 50. I had already set myself a Booker challenge so combined the two a bit. Sorry if it's a dull list!

Can You Forgive Her? - Anthony Trollope
A Tale for the Time Being- Ruth Ozecki
The Eustace Diamonds - Anthony Trollope
Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively
Life and Times of Michael K - J M Coetzee
Amsterdam - Ian McEwan
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
The Lowland - Jhumpa Lahiri
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden - Jonas Jonasson
Never mind - Edward St Aubyn
The Fault in our Stars - John Green
The Ghost Writer - Philip Roth
Winter's Bone - Daniel Woodrell
The Shock of the Fall - Nathan Filer
Flight Behaviour - Barbara Kingsolver
The Blue Flower - Penelope Fitzgerald
The Trial - Franz Kafka
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemmingway
The Painter of Signs - R.K Narayan
Schindler's Ark - Thomas Keneally
Tinkers - Paul Harding
The Body Artist - Don Delillo

Currently reading The Luminaries so could be some time.
My favourite so far is The Lowland, followed by Flight Behaviour. Tinkers, which won the Pullitzer in 2009 I think, has some beautiful descriptions of nature. My least favourite is The Girl Who Saved - hated that! Kafka was confusing and suitably Kafkaesque. The Coetzee was intriguing and seemed to be about identity, or the lack of it.
I really do recommend The Lowland to anyone who hasn't read it though.

Book 71 - this has taken me a whole week (lots on at work etc) so slowed me down again. The Kingdom Beyond the Waves I bought it for 50p, and think I got my money's worth as it's over 500 pages long and full of bonkers Steampunk action and crazy characters. It's not very well written, overall, and needed some major editing (it's way too long, for what it is) but it's quite funny in places and some of the ideas are good. I don't think I'd read another of his, but this was a diverting read in a week where I needed to relax a bit when not working. :)

SouthEast really glad you enjoyed 'Lolita'.

I seem to be the only person who enjoyed The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden

25. The Fault in our Stars - read this for the second time (for a book group), it is a good book and I can see why it has been in the charts so long.

I'm slowing up a bit now I'm back at work. 36 so far, but having a baby in early November so probably need to write off the last two months of the year
Currently on The Blackhouse by Peter May.

Those don't sound boring, whippet!

Finished Americanah. I thought the ending was a bit abrupt and even slightly downbeat, but overall I thought it was good. It felt you really did get to see the world through another person's eyes and it opened up new perspectives.

Currently on (83) Murder on the home front : a true story of morgues, murderers and mystery in the Blitz by Molly Lefebure. This is non-fiction, a memoir written by a secretary to pathologist. It was first published in the 50s, and part of its interest is as a period piece - she's quite keen on corporal and capital punishment, for example, and her take on gender is very much of its time - she's keen to portray herself as a feminine little thing, trotting around after Big Men. She's not squeamish, I'll give her that, and she writes well. Rather intriguing.

Have just got the enormous hardback of Written in my own Heart's Bblood, the latest by Diana Gabaldon from the library. Feel as if I have to build up my stamina to get ready, not to mention my wrist-strength.

73. Jodi Picoult "Lone Wolf"

51. Just what kind of mother are you? by Paula Daly

Great crime fiction.

29. Brilliance - Marcus Sakey

I loved this. Another modern thriller much in the style of Lexicon. Alternative history where 1% of world population is born with 'brilliance' in a certain area - i.e. supergifted people called 'brilliants'. A little girl reads people’s darkest secrets by the way they fold their arms, a man sensing patterns in the stock market racks up $300 billion. In Chicago, a woman can go invisible by being where no one is looking, etc.

30. A Better World - Marcu Sakey

The sequel to the above, published only last month. Again, very good. Can't wait to read the next in the series.

31. Second Variety - Philip K Dick

A novella and not at all one of Dick's best. I'm not recommending this one.

32. The Enemy - Lee Child

This is the 8th Jack Reacher book, but the story that precedes them all. It is about his last assignment as military police, while he was still in the army. It is a notch above the usual JR story, I felt. I would recommend this to those who like to read this sort of book.

Book 52 Snuff by Terry Pratchett

A re-read for me. One of the novels focused on the City Watch, and Commander Vimes in particular. In this case, the unfortunate man has been forced to take a holiday in the countryside at the Ramkin estate, and inevitably suspects that something is not quite right as soon as he arrives.

Please tell me about Terry Pratchett. Is he worth reading? Where would I start?

I love Terry Pratchett's novels. Comic fantasy is the simplest category to explain him, but his writing has a lot more depth than that suggests. He has a skill at examining the human condition and interior life which makes his characters more rounded, although the very first books were more centred around the various tropes of traditional sword and sourcery fantasy. And I always find I can get something else out of the books every time I read them, no matter how many times I read them. He includes a lot of references that are amusing snippets if you get them and which don't impact on the story if you don't. It was only after several years of reading his work that I suddenly 'got' Sator Square, for example, having happened to see it referenced in its more usual context.

As for where to start, tricky. The first two Discworld novels are The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, which follow on from each other, are fun and definitely a humorous take on traditional fantasy. Pratchett hasn't really found his own voice in the early ones though. A good one might actually be number 4 Mort, which features one of Pratchett's most popular characters - Death - taking on an apprentice. Guards, Guards is the first in the series following the City Watch, while Wyrd Sisters has a lot of similarities with various Shakespeare plays and really kicks off the series centred around the witches (book 3, Equal Rites introduces Granny Weatherwax). There's a thread for the wizards too. The books largely stand alone, but it is interesting to see the development of the recurring characters. His young adult Discworld stories are good too - the Tiffany Aching series, following a girl learning to be a witch, is excellent. The first one there is The Wee Free Men.

Chillie you summed up Pratchett perfectly for me when you said
I always find I can get something else out of the books every time I read them, no matter how many times I read them.

I have lost count of how many times I've read TP and there is always something to discover - running jokes, 'in jokes', philosophy, morality, religion, social and political comment...

Provencal - I found Pyramids very funny - it's his 7th book. There is a hilariously (to me) written section about Teppic (main character) getting togged up as an assassin.

Book 53 Everyday Sexism by Laura Bates

I started reading this last night, went to sleep sometime past midnight, and have spent the morning finishing reading it. Fortunately my time is my own at the moment! I've read the website a lot and follow the Twitter feed, and every time it makes me angry, not only about the extreme sexual violence that women have experienced and had dismissed, but also about the (for want of a better term) low-level, day-to-day realities which are my own lived experience too. It is a really important book, at times harrowing and traumatic, and so very real.

30. The Glass Key - Dashiell Hammett

Vintage crime noir - absolutely faultless.

67. The Risk of Darkness (the third in the Simon Serrailler series) by Susan Hill. Really enjoying this series. Not the normal sort of crime fiction novel, it's more about family and the community as well as the crime at the heart of the story.

68. The Thing About December by Donal Ryan. His follow up novel to The Spinning Heart. Didn't enjoy this one quite as much. Very dark, depressing, relentlessly downbeat. Love Donal Ryan's writing, but really need to read something not quite so sad next.

Book 72 - 'The Black Country' by Alex Grecian
This was a murder mystery set in a Black Country mining village in the Victorian-era. I liked a few of the characters, but the story was ridiculous and the writing was worse.

13. The Turn of the Screw, Henry James I went to see the opera adaptation of this recently so decided to read the book. It was ok. Not much more to say than that really. I am unlikely to get very excited over any of his other offerings.

12.Pereira Maintains, Antonio Tabucchi
11.The Count of Monte Christo, Alexandre Dumas
10.Meltdown, Ben Elton

1. The boy in the suitcase, Lene Kaarberol
2. Jamaica Inn, Daphne du Maurier
3. The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
4. The shock of the fall, Nathan Filer
5. Agnes Grey, Anne Bronte
6. What Matters in Jane Austen?, John Mullan
7. The Foundation Pit, Andrey Platanov
8. The Coming Race, Edward Bulwer Lytton
9. Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen

36. Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

Well this was a bit of a revelation to me. I really did enjoy it. Bleak in many respects but intimately hopeful. Was fully able to believe the origins of the disaster and really loved the main characters.

What a shame there is no sequel.

Ok I am going to try Terry Prachett. Not straight away but is on my list.