50 Book Challenge 2014 Part 4

[Southeastdweller]

Thread four of the 50 Book Challenge.

The idea is to read 50 books in 2014 (or more!)

Here are the previous threads...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/adult_fiction/1951735-50-Book-Challenge-2014

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/adult_fiction/2000991-50-Book-Challenge-2014-Part-2?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/adult_fiction/2094773-50-Book-Challenge-2014-Part-3?msgid=49151537#49151537

104. Strange Meeting by Susan Hill. A poignant novel examining the close friendship of two officers in the trenches of the First World War. Sad, thought-provoking and rather upsetting.

66. Nora Webster, Colm Toibin

Nora Webster is a forthright, independent woman dealing with her new status as a widow and single mother in a calm, practical way and not suffering fools gladly. The impact of her grief bubbles through the surface of her cool exterior, yet is ameliorated by her rediscovery of music.

A beautifully crafted novel strong on characterisation, small town living and political background (Ireland at the end of the sixties and early seventies).

This is the first Toibin novel I've read and I'm eager to read his others now. In fact, when I finished this book I immediately rushed to the library to get Brooklyn and The Blackwater Lightship. I've started on Brooklyn already.

50! Neonomicon - Alan Moore & Jacen Burrows

Some suitably creepy reading for Halloween week (am also reading Dracula). This is a darker than dark graphic horror novel.

43. Blood on the Line - Edward Marston
44. Harbour Street (Vera Stanhope 4)

Both good solid detective stories. Getting there, some of you have read so many, I really do need to read a bit more and Mumsnet a bit less!

Sorry, Bsshbosh, meant it say I really enjoyed Brooklyn and have just added Nora Webster to my wish list. Thanks.

113. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Deborah Moggach. The film is on today, so will compare...

106. Joelle Charbonneau "The Testing". YA, dystopia novel. It had resonances with both the Hunger Games and Divergent trilogies but I enjoyed it.

49. The Unreliable Life of Harry the Valet: The Great Victorian Jewel Thief - Duncan Hamilton I wasn't aware of Harry, but the blurb on the back interested me. He was a kind of real-life Raffles; jewel thief that took from society's richest. It took the police a terribly long time to properly catch up with him. A short and interesting read.

What did you think of the movie bibliomania?

Book 122 'Lamentation' by CJ Sansom. I enjoyed this but didn't love it. Was v glad that I'd re-read all of the others to prepare for it though. There's a moment towards the end that nearly made me throw it across the room in a combination of despair and disgust, but I managed to restrain myself and finish it! Can't say any more, for fear of spoilers. :)

Book 52 was a pithy and fairly interesting guide on job-hunting - Teach Yourself Successful Job Applications.

Now on Us, by David Nicholls.

Book 93 The Sacred History by Jonathan Black

The subtitle for this is 'How angels, mystics and higher intelligence made our world', and it is basically an idealistic as opposed to materialist history of the world. Idealism here is presented as a cosmology and philosophy of life, rather than merely the pursuit of high ideals or a theory of knowledge, and Black has collected together stories from across history and across the globe to create a history with the premise that mind came before matter in the coming into being of the universe. He uses Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Norse, Celtic, Native American, African, and Far Eastern mythologies as well as the lives of great figures from history to tell the story of the evolution of the mind and spirit of humanity.

It's a fascinating read for anyone interested in mythology - there were certainly a lot of stories in there that I had not come across before (my knowledge of mythology beyond Greek, Roman, and Egyptian being a bit hazy).

Oh, and there's lots of esoteric thought in there as well, although that might go without saying given the nature of the book.

67. Brooklyn, Colm Toibin

A young Irish woman builds a new life for herself in 1950s Brooklyn. When she's brought back to Ireland due to a family tragedy, she's torn between staying with family and old friends or returning to her American life. A delightful read.

51. Dracula - Bram Stoker

Second part of my Halloween-related reading. Marvellously creepy and atmospheric classic.

I'm reading Dracula at the moment Meg. Absolutely love it so far. Can't believe it's taken me this long to get round to it. Really good story

Yep, I only finally got round to it as I wanted to read the 'back story' of all the characters in The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Mina Murray is one of them) - really loved it too.

107. Joelle Charbonneau "Independent Study" The second in the Testing series. Another enjoyable read

Haven't updated in ages but passed 50 a couple of weeks back - yay!!

Here's the last few
40 The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
41 Lost in a Good Book, Jasper Fforde
42 Drysalter, Michael Symons Roberts
43 The Signature of all things, Elizabeth Gilbert
44 My Cousin Rachel, Daphne du Maurier
45 Crime & Punishment, Dostoyevsky
46 Life After Life, Kate Atkinson
47 The Well of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
48 A Girl is a Half-formed thing, Eimear McBride
49 The Provincial Lady in Wartime, EM Delafield
50 Something Rotten, Jasper Fforde
51 Burial Rites, Hannah Kent
52 Regeneration, Pat Barker

Of those, The Signature of all Things and Burial Rites both knocked my socks off. Regeneration is brilliant too. Now reading the second one in the trilogy.

68. The Blackwater Lightship, Colm Toibin

Grandmother Dora, mother Lily and daughter Helen, estranged from one another for years, are forced together into an uneasy truce by the terminal illness of Helen's brother Declan.

Breathtaking and heartbreaking. Another wonderfully written Toibin novel.

Frog - I enjoyed, 'Regeneration' hugely, but absolutely hated the other two, especially the second one. Will be interested to see what you think.

Remus - am about a third through the second one now and struck by how different it is to Regeneration, which was so dialogue-based it felt like you were eavesdropping on a series of conversations. Not enjoying it as much but not hating it either.

All of the sex bored and frustrated me in equal measure.

Missed your question last night, wilting. I thought they did a good job on the film - they changed the stories around a bit, but in a lot of cases it was an improvement - more satisfying story arcs. That said, I didn't watch the end, but went to bed and....read some more. I find it harder to concentrate on films than on books.

49. Far From The Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon.

This has been recommended by a couple of people on this thread already and I agree that it's fascinating. It looks at the experience of parenting or being a child who is profoundly different from their parents (covering deafness, dwarfism, Down's, autism, schizophrenia, severely disabled children, musical prodigies, criminals, children conceived in rape and transgender children). Lots of discussion about adapting to the mainstream versus celebrating diversity.

It's long (978 pages, although a significant chunk of that is the list of references) - took me three weeks to read! Off to find something short and mindless now