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?

Have read LoTF and Anna Karenina (definitely not a love story Cote).

Day of the Triffids might be one to consider. Will have a look online.

28. Tangled Lives by Hilary Boyd. Fairly decent chick lit.

29. Freakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner. A few interesting bits but overall I found this disappointing. The last chapter in particular was extremely tedious - pages and pages of lists of children's names for different socio economic groups and no interesting conclusions drawn at all!

Provencal I felt I had to read it (Mad about the Boy) too and there are some things to like about it. But, for me, reading Bridget Jones' Diary as a very young woman, there was a freshness and newness which this book lacks. Thing is, it may now be my advanced age and cynicism at fault as much as the book.

As for classic recommendations: have you read James Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner? It's a very early crime novel, almost a psychological thriller written many decades before that term was even conceived. It deals with religious fanaticism and the doppelgänger and I absolutely loved it when I read it at uni.

Cheboludo in a similar vein I watched a couple of episodes of SATC on TV the other night and absolutely hated it. I loved the show first time around and have every series on DVD but lord it was so tedious and the women so childish, self-absorbed and irritating. Time to sell the DVDs I think (if anyone wants them).

Never even heard of the James Hogg book. Will google. Thanks

Cote - yes! It's actually a very clever book, and the mechanics of the triffids are gone into in quite a lot of detail. The various films and mini-series which have been adapted from it have been frightfully dumbed down. It is the original 'man wakes up in a hospital bed to find the world has gone to pot' book - 28 Days Later and the Walking Dead have a lot to thank it for!

Provencal I suspect I'd feel exactly the same if I watched SATC now. I've become wary of recommending books I read many years ago as I've started to realise that my stage of life is just as significant in my reading of a book as the writing. (Hope that makes sense.)

Cote, I think you'd like 'Triffids' and his other stuff too.

Book 64 - Another re-read for work, "The Hound of the Baskervilles" - is okay but I prefer Doyle's short stories.

I loved Day of the Triffids as a teenager - I read pretty much all of John Wyndham's books, in fact, and I'm not normally a science fiction fan. In a way the scifi bit is incidental - it's more about setting a "what if?" scenario and then working out how human beings would react.

I love John Wyndham, I think I've read most of his books. Triffids is great, I also love The Chrysalids. Hackmum - I agree, it's the way he deals with a 'what if' scenario that is so cool.

Now I want to re-read John Wyndham's novels :) I read The Day of the Triffids and The Chrysalids when I was at school. I think I must have been too young, because I didn't really "get" them.

I've been thinking quite a bit recently about the books I read at school and would love to re-read, as an adult.

Agreed - The Chrysalids is a cracking read too

Côte, if it helps, Day of the Triffids isn't dystopian The Chrysalids is though

"In a way the scifi bit is incidental - it's more about setting a "what if?" scenario and then working out how human beings would react"

Oh, my dear sci-fi novices!

That is what sci-fi is. Setting a 'what if?' scenario and building upon it.

When I say that I read a lot of sci-fi, what did you think those books were about? 9-eyed green Martians? Star Trek?

What if nanotechnology becomes commonplace? What would be the next technology after that?

What if we find an artificial artefact on the moon?

What if one man discovers a way to communicate with an extraterrestrial?

Or, what if we receive a radio message from a faraway star, with instructions to build a large device?

What if babies are cloned & brought to term in labs according to specifications?

What if we know that Earth will be attacked by an alien race in 20 years? What would be our strategy and how would we find & train our military leader?

... to name a few.

Hehe. Some good links there! Is Enders Game any good?

31 The Book Thief by Mark kayak
32 Airbound by Christine Feehan
33 Not Quite Enough by Catherine Bybee
34 Mistress by Midnight by Nicola Cornick
35 Whisper of Scandal by Nicola Cornick
36 Notorious by Nicola Cornick
Really light fluffy reads are all I seem able to cope with at the moment

The Amazon reviews for Triffids are amazing. Have wish-listed to purchase later

I think lots of novels set, "What if" scenarios, not just sci-fi. Here's Mr King himself on that very thing On Writing extract

"Ender's Game" - I really enjoyed it except for the final section, which I thought was really boring and unnecessary. The stuff with the battle school was really good.

Cote: "When I say that I read a lot of sci-fi, what did you think those books were about? 9-eyed green Martians? Star Trek?"

Yes, probably. Though actually I didn't read the bit where you said you read a lot of sci-fi.

I suppose how I feel about John Wyndham is that it is very much like reading conventional literary fiction. He just changes one thing. So The Day of the Triffids is not really about weird, scary plants with hopes of world domination, it's about what would happen if suddenly all human beings (except a handful) went blind. How would people react? What would they do? For all I know, all science fiction is like that, though.

36. Stephen King, Mr Mercedes. Page turner, enjoyed it a lot. Exiting stuff!

I really liked his what if on the Kennedy assassination too.

Now reading the Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison, another recommendation from here (Cote? Remus?.. sorry, forgot!)
Detective set in a Chinese Gulag in Tibet. Lots of politics, intrige and buddhist backdrop.

Of the examples you give, I've only read one: Brave New World. But to me, that's not really a "what if" scenario. It's not really about "what if babies were cloned": it's a dystopian vision of a whole society. Everything is different, not just one thing.

Book 44 Blood Eagle by Craig Russell

Set in Hamburg, this is the first in Russell's series centred around Kriminalhauptkommissar Jan Fabel and his team in the murder squad. I've read others in the series before, and there's a tendency to the inventive, gruesome murder similar to the likes of Jo Nesbo. This begins with the discovery of a second ritualistic murder victim. Both were women, both killed in the manner of the legendary Viking method of execution, the blood eagle. If you don't know what that is, don't google it if you're squeamish. The search for the killer uncovers layers of intrigue as a new Ukrainian outfit moves into the Hamburg underworld. Well crafted, bit outlandish in places, but a gripping read.

Whoops, I skipped from 41 to 43. The Bridget Jones should've been 42. The real 43 is Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan.

I really liked this novella - it reminded me of The Great Gatsby in how the beautiful, wealthy, charming folk are shown to be completely selfish & careless of others.

I've started both We need new names (kindle) & the 3rd Dandy Gilver so I expect it'll be one of those next.

54. Gillespie and I by Jane Harris. Could not put it down, wanted to race through this brilliant novel. Incredibly good, the best unreliable narrator I've encountered so far

Have you read The Observations by the same author Duchess?

I liked it even better than Gillespie and I.

Nessalina - Yes, Ender's Game is pretty good

"I suppose how I feel about John Wyndham is that it is very much like reading conventional literary fiction. He just changes one thing.... How would people react? What would they do? For all I know, all science fiction is like that, though."

Yes, well, a lot of good sci-fi is like that. There are surely some rubbish books just like there are in all genres, but the good ones take one idea and develop it really well.

I haven't read 'Triffids' but the idea of evil plants attacking people (without brains or muscles ffs ) sounds really silly and the sci-fi I like to read is the very clever stuff thoroughly thought out by very clever authors. In any case, if you think a book written in 1951 is the epitome of sci-fi, you probably need to read some more in this genre