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?

I meant the mother - gosh, I hated that woman!

Just been on holiday for a couple of weeks, and got through four books:

32. The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden, Jonas Jonasson

Pretty good, but it was all a bit deja-vu-y after having read his first novel. There were some great characters and a couple of really funny moments, but overall it felt too long and the nuclear bomb didn't really provide any narrative tension because it was obvious it was never going to go off.

33. Across the Universe, Beth Revis

I picked up this young adult novel because it had a great conceit: 17 year old Amy's scientist parents have been picked to participate in a mission to colonise a newly discovered Earth-like planet a 300 year journey away. She decides to leave Earth forever and go with them. They are all frozen for the duration of the journey, to be woken up when they get to the destination planet. Except...Amy is mysteriously unfrozen too early, when they are still 50 years away from their destination. The book is firstly about her coming to terms with the fact that she will never see Earth again, and she will be older than her parents by the time they are unfrozen...but also about a lot of mysterious stuff happening on board the spaceship amongst the massive community that runs it.

I really enjoyed this one, the concept itself is really gripping. There are a lot of echoes of Brave New World in some of the stuff happening on the ship (a bit derivative at times, actually). I'll definitely be reading the remaining novels in the trilogy, but in the grand tradition of YA trilogies I'm not holding out too much hope for them to be as good as the original book.

34. The Knot, Mark Watson

I thought this was going to be a fairly typical romantic comedy albeit from a bloke's point of view, but it was actually not what I was expecting. Some interesting, dark twists came along. I enjoyed it well enough, but I wouldn't necessarily rush to read more by this author.

35. The Silkworm, Robert Galbreith.

I really liked getting to see more of Robin and her POV in this book, I think she's really believable and well written, especially in terms of her relationships with Matthew and Strike. The book was gripping enough, but it did kind of turn into endless interviews with the millions of suspects in the second half, it would have been better if the plot had developed a bit more organically I think. That said, I love Rowling's writing style here, I know people say she's not a wordsmith but it works for me TBH.

Book 58 Set In Darkness by Ian Rankin

Another Rebus, featuring the uncovering of a 20 year old corpse in the development work around the Scottish Parliament, the murder of a prospective MSP, and the suicide of an apparent tramp with over £400,000 in a building society account. As convoluted as ever, but Rankin does manage to keep you guessing.

77. Arianna Huffington "Thrive". Found this one really interesting, but a bit repetitive at times.

Here's my 41-50:

41. Alys, Always by Harriet Lane
42. Her by Harriet Lane
43. The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
44. How to be a husband by Tim Dowling
45. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
46. How to build a girl by Caitlin Moran
47. The Giles Wareing Haters’ Club by Tim Dowling
48. The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud
49. Nine parts of desire by Geraldine Brooks
50. Burial rites by Hannah Kent

Quite unusual for me in that it's almost all fiction. For those of you who are Tim Dowling fans, I'd recommend The Giles Wareing Haters' Club (I hadn't come across it until recently), which is about a freelance journalist who discovers a group of people in the internet who have clubbed together to criticise his work. Very funny.

Burial rites is a very dark, atmospheric story set in 19th century Iceland, based on a true story of a woman sentenced to death for murder.

I'd really recommend the Geraldine Brooks book, which is based on interviews with Muslim women in places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. I admire her novels, but she used to be a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, and so knew the area very well. It's a very sympathetic, intelligent book and very informative about the lives of women doing their best to lead their lives under very restrictive conditions.

29. Insurgent - Veronica Roth
30. Allegiant - Veronica Roth - Really enjoyed this YA series.
31. Mad About the Boy - Helen Fielding - first 20 pages was very annoying and all the Twitter stuff is stupid, but got into it and was weeping at the end (though that may have more to do with the fact I'm 18w pg than the book!).
32. Night of the Fox - Jack Higgins - WW2 action/thriller set in Jersey. What you'd expect from Higgins. Easy read.
33. The Shock of the Fall - Nathan Filer - Okay, not sure what all the fuss was about though.
34. Reading like a Writer: A guide for people who love books and for those who want to write them - Francine Prose - Loved this. Started reading it earlier in the year but went back and started again. Gave me tonnes of ideas for new books/authors to read.
35. Oksa Pollock: The Last Hope - Anne Plichota and Cendrine Wolf - 1st in YA/children's series, translated from French. FUCKING AWFUL! The concept wasn't bad, just written awfully. Not sure it can all be blamed on translation.

34. Sane New World - Ruby Wax

A fragmented and sometimes shallow book on mental illness, brain activity and mindfulness. How could she think she could write a truly useful book on all that in just 258 pages? I ended up dreading the passages about her own experiences as they increasingly came across as self-absorbed rather than helpful but overall the book was an OK introduction to mindfulness.

Onto either The Eyre Affair or The Lemon Grove next, the latter I've very low expectations of as hardly anyone here or on Amazon has liked it.

34. The Fishing Fleet, Husband Hunting in the Raj by Ann de Courcy; this was ok, about the phenomenon of women travelling to India looking for husbands, life there, the perils, separations etc. Bit repetitive esp with the endless description of clothes I could not picture but overall, an ok read.

Just given up on this for being dreadful - I liked his other two, especially, 'Tuesdays with Morrie' which made me howl.

26. Finished Edward Marston, Peril on the Royal Train, I am enjoying this series of books although I haven't read them in order. I felt this one was a little dull and similar to previous books in the series.

On to Sovereign, CJ Sansom.

hackmum - Did you like Burial Rites? A friend was recommending it.

Finally finished Written in My Heart's Own Blood by Diana Gabaldon. Odd pacing - an endless battle early on, then in the last part of the book lots of major plot points were either abandoned or dealt with off the page, with characters updating each other in a couple of lines. Only to be read if you want the satisfaction of finishing the series.

34. One Shot - Lee Child (Jack Reacher #9)

This is the novel that Tom Cruise's film was based on and I'm happy to report that it has little to do with the film. One of the better JR books and absolutely perfect for the beach I'm on at the moment

72. Belle - The True Story of Dido Belle by Paula Byrne. Film tie in book. Good in its own right because it is packed with historical detail of the early days of the slave abolition movement.

Not really much about Dido herself as little is known about her life. Very interesting. 4/5.

Small gripe is that publication must have been rushed - too many typos in book.

Duchess - Is there much mention of Jane Austen in it?

Remus, it looked to me like Paula Byrne took her chapter on Dido from her book Jane Austen: A Life in Things and padded it out for the Dido book. She also dropped most of the JA references (can't remember if she dropped all of them - I'm sure Duchess can give a better answer). But the JA/Dido connection is better explorered in her JA book.

Thanks, Biblio. I hadn't realised it was the same writer - will probably not bother with it then.

Haven't read the Jane Austen one (yet - waiting on my kindle).

There's reference to the Austen family connection to the plantations, and slavery, and connects to Mansfield Park and the slavery issues referred to in that novel.

Cote - I thought Burial Rites was very good. Bleak, but beautifully written. I think you probably have to be in the right mood for it.

32. Howl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones

Bought cheaply in the kindle sale, and I'm very glad I did - this was just a delight to read (I will have to go back and rewatch the film now).

Book 59 Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett

Another re-read, this one in the Witches thread. Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick return to Lancre from Genua to find a new, younger coven of witches has been doing things they shouldn't, and now the elves are coming back.

57. Folk of the Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton (Read to seven year old over last few weeks as a bedtime story. One of my childhood favourites.)

58. The Girl You Left Behind - Jojo Moyes. (Audiobook. Loved the first part set in the first world war but loathed the second half and it was a relief to finally finish this!)

Duchess, I really enjoyed Paula Byrne's book on Jane Austen.

About to embark on The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes and Imperial Pretenders by Peter Heather. Not sure I'm in the mood for it, but it's due back at the library by Monday so need to get stuck in.

Bibliomania - I like Paula Byrne's meticulous research for her books.

She was obviously stuck with the lack of info on Dido herself, but the focus on her adoptive father Lord Mansfield was excellent. He presided over some of the most influential cases leading to the eventual abolition of slavery after his death.

Have you read her book Perdita? About a mistress of George IV. Fascinating.

Haven't read that one - will look out for it, thanks!