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?

27. French Revolutions by Tim Moore
28. Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd

Into 29. And the Mountains Echoed

43. The sacrificial man. - Ruth Dugdall Very entertaining but not for the squeamish! 9/10

52. Flora and Ulysses by Kate diCamillo. Read it with my daughter, and we both really enjoyed this quirky tale involving a squirrel with superhero powers and much more 5/5. Sweet, funny, and quite touching.

OftheTwilight - What did you think of Solar Lottery? It is Philip K Dick's 1st published book, isn't it?

Thanks river - I've read most of Marian Keyes but couldn't get into the last couple so maybe I'll try them again.

I think I may have a charity shop impulse buy by Lisa Jewell knocking about too.

Funnily enough, I downloaded the sample of Cold Comfort Farm on Saturday thinking it would be a good choice, but it's all foreword & no book!

Am due a trip to the library so will have to have a look for it there.

42. Diary of a Mummy Misfit - Amanda Egin
    Kindle freebie and a really enjoyable engaging and funny read. I'm even considering actually paying for the sequel as I enjoyed this so much.

43. A Pocket Full of Rye - Agatha Christie. Easy re-read. Read this a few times before but still couldn't work out all the twists and turns and character secrets.

22. In The Land of White Death - Valerian

Valerian Albanov

A gripping account of his trek on foot and by kayak across the frozen Arctic wastes in 1913/14 after his ship was trapped by ice.

Hi Cote, it is the first novel of his I have read ( I think I read some short stories years ago). I enjoyed the book, it was an interesting premise but in some ways felt awfully dated. All the female characters were vacuous 1950's ( not sure when book was written) stereotypes and he went on about their breasts a lot. I was not sure if this was done on purpose to reflect the dystopian nature of the society or reflected the prejudices of the time when he wrote the book.

Everyone smokes constantly.

It is quite short so worth a read I think.

Thanks. I've read a lot of Philip K Dick and don't remember his stuff as being misogynist. If you intend to read some more by him, I would recommend Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep (Blade Runner), A Scanner Darkly, and The Martian Time-Slip.

23. Life After Life - Kate Atkinson

I plodded through the first third of this book wondering if I should revisit my principle of always finishing books I start, and ended up glad that I read it. Not that it rocked my world, mind, but it ended up having a story that is not completely uninteresting.

Still...

(1) It was entirely too long. There is no excuse for the terribly boring first third (or even the first half) with multiple deaths as a child that don't advance the plot at all.

(2) The character who keeps dying and then having another go at life is the most boring person you can ever imagine. Nothing happens to her (in any of her myriad lives) nor does she do anything remotely interesting or important until the Blitz (those Blitz parts were told well, though).

(3) The book felt like Groundhog Day, and that's not good for anybody.

(5) It also felt like the recent Tom Cruise film Edge Of Tomorrow.

(4) The basic premise is a bit weak. If she is reincarnated, she should come back as someone else. If this is about parallel universes, she shouldn't be remembering what happened in a previous life.

I thought one theme that worked very well was that we are who we are because of a million chance events. If something happened in a split second in your past, you could have been that teacher or that 'spinster' or that woman who committed suicide.

Yes to that last point. Did anybody see a German movie from years back, Lola rennt? (Lola runns) Movie by Tom Tykver, who later went on to direct the Cloud Atlas movie.
Small changes, like running out of shampoo in thes hower can have big result because of the chain of events that follow. Nicely done, recommend. Faster than Kate Atkinson
May be a bit old now though.. (showing age)

Run Lola Run? Yes, I watched that movie back in 1998? 1999?. It was pretty good, especially for its time.

Cloud Atlas was directed by Wachowski brothers- siblings. Was that guy the third director?

Meanwhile, Cloud Atlas of course did this whole reincarnation/history repeating itself etc thing much much better than Life After Life.

obviously different league I would say.

Yes, Run Lola Run is probably the English title, he is the third guy.
That old?? oh dear.. yes, I suppose so.

I think that the fact the main character was nothingy worked for the book. I think it reinforced the theme of life being governed by external chance rather than an inherent 'youness' that pervades all. Also it worked with the weirdness of the fact she was somehow conscious of her past lives, if shed been a more normal question the internal monologues around that would have taken the book outside itself, I think.

I do agree there were a few too many child deaths. But on the wholethe languid pace early on didnt bother me too much. Oh, and I enjoyed the episode where she kept trying to stop the maid going to London.

30. Americanah,Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Very interesting. I have never thought about racism in as much detail before as when reading this novel. It definitely made me question myself and opened my eyes to some things.

That said, sometimes it felt more like a series of observations and arguments attached to an arbitrary character going through an arbitrary life, than a novel. It was very readable, but not as moving or involving as her previous books. I wonder if it would have been better written in a different form? Then again would I have read it then? And also, is the reason I feel like it was less good than her previous books because of my own discomfort or inability to relate this straight-talking style as opposed to the 'lyricism' of her previous novels, which she points out is often what the world expects from black writers...

This one definitely got me thinking.

53. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim. Beautiful writing, and charming story.

Next is Gillespie and I by Jane Harris.

Gillespie and I was the best book I read in 2012. Fantastic novel. Enjoy!

Have already read some of it, and it's unputdownable so far. Love it. Off to read some more right now :)

33. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce
34. The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman

I now have the wonderful pleasure of choosing my next book, my favourite part!

62. Veronica Roth "Allegiant". Enjoyable but the weakest of the series IMO. I guessed most of the plotline very early on. Good ending to the trilogy though.

Saw Run Lola Run pretty recently and loved it! Very cool & clever.
Yet to see (or read) Cloud Atlas.
There's a lot of books & films that play on the same theme of repetition/parallel lives etc. Source Code from a few years back was another and that was very good, though the new Tom Cruise seems to have nicked it's plot wholesale.

Treated myself to a new Kindle today! I've got one of the old ones with keyboard and it really is too heavy to hold comfortably in one hand for long, so I've upgraded to the new standard Kindle (and DH gets my old one!). Only £59 at the minute which I thought was ok!

Finished book 33 : The End of Mr Y. An interesting novel. A mix between Philip Pullman themes of His Dark Materials with the suspense of a thriller. Parts of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, parts of Heidegger and Baudrillard make their way frequently into the book. The writing is very vivid - the best part of the book IMO. I found the ' discussions' that went on for pages rather dull but that is possibly just me.

On to book 34: The Lie by Helen Dunmore

Nessalina I did that with my kindle keyboard!! Upgraded to the smaller one and gave keyboard to the husband :)