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?

Belated welcome Bssh. Lovely to see you on here. I haven't got on with the McEwan books I've read (Atonement and Enduring Love) but I'm now thinking about trying Solar.

Solar sounds interesting. When Ian McEwan is good, he is amazing.

40. Bad Luck And Trouble - Lee Child

Solid & enjoyable thriller, as are most of his books. I enjoyed it. Still, I'm all Jack Reachered out atm, so will move on to other topics/authors.

Thanks Chillie.

Hi Southeast! Solar is very different from Enduring Love and Atonement. Amazon reviews have been very mixed and largely based on whether you liked the protagonist or not. I hated the protagonist but loved his characterisation and the science plot line (though I suspect a real scientist could pick holes in the scientific theories). It's also a very funny book and won a literary award for its comedy.

Provencal I'm going to add Stepford Wives to my reading list now.

Bush I thought it was great. Also discovered that the author wrote both Rosemary's Baby and The Boys from Brazil

This is my favourite aspect of this thread: not the 50 books goal necessarily (though it's certainly encouraging me to read more) but the book recommendations.

Bssh - have you read Sweet Tooth? I "discovered" Ian McEwan last year. Had had Atonement on my bookshelf, unread, for years, read it finally last year and loved it. Went on to read Enduring Love, which is also a favourite book now, and Sweet Tooth. Didn't like A Child in Time, though. Played to my worst fear. Have many more still to look forward to reading

Have had a look at the book description for Sweet Tooth now and yes it sounds very interesting. I'll add it to my book list :)

After much messing about, I finally settled with the killing floor by lee child. Wouldn't normally pick up a lee child book but it was v readable.

Now on donna tartt's the goldfinch which is excellent . Had no idea what it was about, bought it on strength of the secret history which I love. V strong narrative, really pulls you in from the first page. Harrowing to think a life can fall apart so fast.

I enjoyed Sweet Tooth last year. Thanks for recommending Solar. It sounds right up my street.

I just don't get some people's need to like the protagonist. I have no such preference and can't say I enjoyed books about nice & loveable protagonists better than those about psychopaths and mad people.

57 skios - too farcical for me
58 her - fab
Still reading we are all completely beside ourselves. Got to the twist, but can't get back into it now.

Wilting I loved The Goldfinch. Found it unbearable at times but couldn't stop thinking about it.

The Child in Time still haunts me and it's a book I read years and years ago. I know I'll never be able to read it again.

37. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess

The classic Dystopian book, it was short but it took me almost a week to read as I found it hard-going because of the distracting Nadsat language. But I appreciated his inventive style and the questions he indirectly asked re themes.

38. Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls – David Sedaris

A sometimes very funny and poignant, always thoughtful and well-written collection of stories I found highly relatable and I’m going to eventually read the rest of his books. This one may even crack my top 10 at the end of the year.

Now on We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, and a thick self-help manual.

Finished book 56 - Magpie by Mark Edwards - great book!

Not sure what next, seem to have lost my reading Mojo!!

Book 85 Mrs Robinson's Disgrace This is the same writer as, 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher' which I read when it came out. This was similarly flawed, I'm afraid. Both take a reasonably interesting but pretty 'small' real life event, with only limited historical evidence/sources to work from and then attempt to pad it out into a full length book, with limited success.

Book 86 - 'The Perils of Certain English Prisoners' by Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens. (Obviously, considering my opinions about the two writers!) the Wilkie chapter was far and away the best of the three, and I felt a bit tricked by the ending, as the whole narrative was suggesting it was going one way and then it didn't, but overall this was a quick, light, easy and fairly exciting read.

Book 87 'Titanic: A Suvivor's Story' by Archibald Gracie - exactly what it says. I enjoyed it, but it was a bit repetitive (albeit inevitably, as it focused on the same events from various positions/viewpoints).

Just about to start 'Complicit' by Nicci French (book 57)
A new author for me.

Must confess 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher' stays with me for all the wrong reasons... I laboured through that book..

77. The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard. 4/5. Good start to the series.

DH returned late from work with a box of books I'd ordered with birthday book vouchers. I've just woken in the middle of the night remembering the parcel of goodies on the kitchen table. I was like a child waking too early on Christmas morning to tear into her presents! Now, at 2 in the morning, I'm gazing at the stack of ten books (including Margaret Drabble, Stella Gibbons, Elizabeth Gilbert's latest and assorted Japanese authors) wondering which to start next. Sublime feeling!

24. The House by the Sea, A Journal, May Sarton The poet Sarton's second journal reflecting on creativity, balancing relationships and solitude, getting old, and simply engaging with the beautiful Maine sea coast countryside around her. A conflicted yet meditative book.

I think I'll start a Margaret Drabble book next as I've never read her and she intrigues me.

Number 59- Wounding by Heidi James.
An amazing read which examines how mothers are perceived by society. At times I could really identify with Cora.

Book 88 Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fourniers

I bought this because I found it for a pound in a remaindered bookshop and it was the only one of the prettily bound selection i'd never read; in fact, I'd never even heard of it but it seems it is a famous French classic.

So I went in with absolutely no preconceptions (unusual for me, I admit!). Found it pretty slow going at first, although I was ill and also very tired when I started it, but I persevered because it was the only book I had for a train journey. I ended up liking it a lot, although I wished the ending had been happier. It's the story of a boy who finds a mansion, falls in love with a girl, and then can't find it again - and of what happens to him as a result of this lost love. It's a sweet and sad story about adolescence, which has been compared to, 'The Catcher in the Rye' as well as to, 'The Great Gatsby.' And, in my opinion, it's similar to both of those in that it has some absolutely glorious lines and moments but is lacking something in its entirety. All three novels leave me wanting something - but I guess that is sort of the point!

41 Raven Black
42 White Nights
43 Red Bones
44 Blue Lightning
45 Dark Water

All Anne Cleeves Shetland series. Loved them. Now will probably head back to Rebus.

I really liked The Suspicions of Mr Whicher - I only read it quite recently. Thought it was very well done.

BsshBosh - can I recommend you start with an early Margaret Drabble rather than one of the more recent ones? The ones she wrote in the 60s are great reads (and also give a real flavour of the time) whereas some of the recent ones (particularly The Pure Gold Baby) are dire.