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?

82. Diane Chamberlain "The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes". It was alright. Quite a good storyline.

I have guesstimated I've read around 20 books this year. Have just now completed #21 The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto. Such a gorgeous book, set in Tokyo, about two fragile young people struggling to develop their relationship. A painter grieves for her mother whilst trying to relate to her new lover, a genetics researcher, who himself is struggling to come to terms with his damaged past. Elegantly written, never over-wrought, with touches of the surreal.

Now beginning book #22 Solar by Ian McEwan, which has very mixed reviews so am looking forward to seeing what I think of it.

I've done a bit more research based on the recommendations on here and downloaded samples of The Blind Assassin and The Edible Woman.

I quite fancy the Positron stories too although they sound v. strange !

Wow, everyone's doing really well. I'm reading book 32 at the moment, Perfect Meringues by Laurie Graham.

32. The Meaning of Night - Michael Cox. This is a LONG book but a really good read. It starts with a murder, then fills in with the backstory which leads to the event. Blurb on the jacket really made me want to read this. Victorian, brooding, full of twists and turns and betrayals. Very well-written and well worth having a go if you like the world of Jack the Ripper, the development of photography and the start of modern society.

I've nearly finished 33 so will update with that probably Tuesday.

38. A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro
39. How to be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis

I really enjoyed both these.

30. Finished Peter James Want You Dead, rather sped read as I think they've become a little lazy and formulaic. A shame because it should still be a good series as all the characters are interesting.

On to EM Delderfield and The Provincial Lady in America.

33. The Luminaries - she has a lovely turn of phrase and it was an exceptional structure but the first part is long and I can see why people might get disheartened. Also, I would have liked the astrology to have been a bit more interwoven into the text. If you know a bit about charts and other such woo woo you can see how it fits together but otherwise it's almost superfluous. 34.The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits - Emma Donoghue. Interesting short stories based on real accounts. 35.From a Crooked Rib by Nuruddin Farah. Based in Somalia, first published in the early 1970s but still very relevant. If you were to compile a round-the-world reading list, I'd recommend this one very highly.

39. The Hard Way - Lee Child

Good old Jack Reacher. Another great beach read (yes, I'm still on the beach ) full of believable detail and gritty realism. "Robert Gilbraith" needs to read a couple of JR books to learn about what an ex-military detective would think & act like.

37. Wives and Daughters , Elizabeth Gaskell

The second one of hers I've read, after North and South. This was just as enjoyable. Molly was slightly goody goody for my taste, but there were lots of other interesting characters, and I thought this book was wittier and funnier than N&S.

I was taken aback when I got to the end and realised it was unfinished, the author having died mid- sentence with one chapter still to be written. So sad, and so frustrating as a reader because even though it's pretty clear what's going to happen we never actually get the romantic payoff the whole 600 pages have been leading up to....

59. The House We Grew Up In , Lisa Jewell.
    I liked this for the most part but found the 'big reveal' a massive letdown. Not one of her best but has made me consider re-reading her Melody Browne novel which I loved.

60. As They Slept, Andy Leeks.
    Kindle freebie. An easy and mildly amusing quick read. Not one to spend money on though.

55. Bitch in a Bonnet: Reclaiming Jane Austen (Volume 1) by Robert Rodi

I think this must have started out as a blog, the author reads & analyses each of Austen's novels in 5 chapter chunks. In book form it probably would've benefitted from some cutting & editing but it is enjoyable and funny.

Robi has some great lines ("there's more romance in the Marquis de Sade") as well as fabulous insults for Fanny Price. He makes a great case for Austen being the true creator of the screwball comedy rather than the romcom and he disparages Fanny Price exactly as much as she deserves. For me, the Mansfield Park section dragged as it's my least favourite of the Austen's I've read & the one I'm pretty sure I won't read again. I'd like to read volume 2 but it doesn't seem to be available on kindle yet.

Can't remember who's just read How to be a heroine but I really enjoyed it too - it was the last book I read last year & I suspect it was the reason I decided to keep a record of all the books I'm reading this year.

33. A lovely way to burn - Kate Welsh. Like the last book, this also started with murder, but took a completely different turn. Terrifying page-turning action from the very start and the level of suspense kept me engaged throughout. I may now be a bit twitchy anyone coughs or sneezes.

31. E Delderfield - The Provincial Lady in America, third in the series and quite a good read. I'm going to read the last book in the series before moving on to something else.

Book 64 The Falls by Ian Rankin

Back to Rebus again. A student has disappeared, the daughter of the owner of a private bank so the pressure is on. A carved wooden doll in a coffin is found near the family's country estate, and it emerges that the student was caught up in an online game. Rebus follows the trail of the doll, an echo of relics found on Arthur's Seat in 1836, while DC Clarke is on the trail of the Quizmaster and his clues.

Pretty good one, I thought. I like the increasing use of parallel investigations and the development of Clarke as a main character in her own right. I'm well over half way through the series now, with seven more to go.

Chillie that plot sounds interesting (I like the online aspect). I've never read Rebus / Rankin. Would I be able to read this "cold" do you think?

42 Killing Floor by Lee Child
43 Eeny Meeny by M J Arlidge
44 Knight Avenged by Coreene Callahan
45 Die Trying by Lee Child

40. Gallo be their Name by Jerome Tuccille

A history of the Gallo family, the world's biggest winemakers . Interesting book but the author made some suppositions with very little evidence and seems prone to hyperbole.

32. The Provincial Lady in Wartime - finished the series now and this one was probably the weakest, still a reasonable read.

22. Solar, Ian McEwan An utterly repugnant, aging Nobel-prize-winning physicist, with a string of marriages and affairs not quite behind him and no longer producing new work, finds himself in possession of a dead man's innovative research. I stayed up all night to read this.
23. The Bookshop, Penelope Fitzgerald A quiet book that speaks volumes about small town ambitions in late 1950s Suffolk. I found this delightful.

41. Stepford Wives by Ira Levin

Brilliant. Short, read in less than a da. Much more sinister than the films. Loved it

BsshBosh I think you probably could read it 'cold'. There is a backstory in some of the relationships as you would expect, but Rankin does usually give a brief explanation so you're not expected to know everything. And each investigation in the series pretty much stands alone.

Book 65 Life Lessons from Byron by Matthew Bevis

It's a very short book that I picked up on a whim and found I quite enjoyed. The chapter "How to go astray" made particular sense to me! Not exactly a self-help guide, but definitely thought provoking.

34. Cat out of Hell - Lynne Truss. Main features: cats and murder. I read this in a day as it was in equal parts too silly and too compelling to leave lingering. A fine yarn spun by an excellent storyteller.