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

60. Mr Norrell & Jonathan Strange by Susanna Clarke

I enjoyed this in the end but it took me a long time to get there.

It's a badly edited book. Plods along for ages with nothing much happening. For a long time it's a magical book with very little magic.

I get it's trying to be Dickensian but doesn't succeed for me. For a long time I was very bored.

But but from Venice onwards I started to enjoy. The pace picks up, the magic gets magical and , for me at least, it becomes more enjoyable.

There are some beautiful lines in it but it isn't completely beautiful.

I'm glad I read it but it was a long time getting there.

Apologies to those of you who love it.

110. Man At The Helm by Nina Stibbe. Very pleasantly surprised by this novel. It is rather good and well written. Quite a bittersweet story about the children of a divorced mother trying to find her a new partner and sort their lives out along the way.

Not had much time or motivation for reading just lately so slipped off this thread.

My recent reads:

69. Jodi Picoult - The Storyteller. (Audiobook.) I enjoyed the war time sections but not the modern sections and disliked the modern characters. Used to love Picoult but this is not one of her best IMO.

70. Emma Healey - Elizabeth is Missing (Audiobook.) Clever concept and enjoyable overall, if a little bleak at times.

71. Beth Gutcheon - Still Missing. A fast paced engaging and plausible read about a little boy going missing. I could really empathise with the mother. Would recommend.

72. Marie Kondo - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying. Non fiction read, to help keep me motivated and declutter the house. Fun read with excellent advice and techniques.

53. Us - David Nicholls

A middle-aged couple and their teenage son go on a Grand Tour of Europe, shortly after the wife tells her husband she wants a separation. This was so disappointing. I felt the characters were two-dimensional, the twist was dumb, the story dull and I had little sense of the journeys the three of them were on. I also think the author made the mistake with the first person narrative in this book, when the narrator is as annoying as the one here.

Now reading the recent Alan Cumming memoir.

southeast I thought all 3 of the main characters in Us were annoying. None of them had much of the like ability factor.

Halfway through The Crimson Petal and The White. Really enjoying it but absolutely no idea where it's going.

Duchess - I agree about Man at the Helm. It's sweet and funny. But then I loved Love, Nina.

I loved Love, Nina too, Hackmum. Actually thinking about re-reading it.

Book 99 Standing in Another Man's Grave by Ian Rankin

Rebus is retired and working as a civilian in a cold-case unit. A woman whose daughter disappeared years before approaches the team for help and Rebus is the only one available to speak to her. She tells him about a series of disappearances along the A9 which she believes to be linked. His delving brings him into a live case of a missing person, a 15 year old girl who disappeared along the A9, and back to working with CID alongside DI Siobhan Clarke.

Now I just need to get my hands on The Saints of the Shadow Bible and that will be me up to date with Rebus.

46. The Humble Companion - Laurie Graham, I enjoyed this book and learnt a lot about the pre Victorian era. Not perhaps her best but a good read.

On to The Paying Guests by Sarah Walters which I managed to pick up in the library yesterday. Should be a quick read as I like her books.

Book 128 'A Lady of Quality' by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I absolutely loathed this, and shouldn't have continued with it. It was a pile of nonsense - I honestly think she must have been drunk on gin when she wrote it. It was repetitive, gushy, boring, and ridiculous.

Reader - don't read it.

Book 80: Oranges For Christmas by Margarita Morris - A YA novel set in 1961 East Berlin. A fascinating read.

Book 81 just started: Dissolution by C,J Sansom. I hope I enjoy it as we have the entire series on the bookshelf

Sonnet - you're in for a treat. I re-read all of them, one after the other, recently in order to prepare myself for, 'Lamentation.' It was so nice to just completely immerse myself in the world of Shardlake and (even better!) Jack Barak (he's not in the first one, so you'll have to quickly get onto the second to experience the wonder that is Jack B!).

61. Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

A properly magical book about magic and funny to boot. Fifth in the Rivers of London series.

On the downside it's set in the countryside and is missing many of the regulars including Nightingale, Lesley (obvs), Molly and Toby the dog but it is laugh out loud funny and features lots of Beverly Brook. I think Aaronovitch was under pressure to finish it as it ends very suddenly and there are some odd loose ends. It gives hints as to the future which is exciting. Looking forward to the next one hopefully being back in London.

Close but no cigar. Does make me want to start them all again though.

111. The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide

A short novella. Rather lovely, beautifully written and well translated.

64. The Crimson Petal and the White. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I had no idea at all where it was going (not sure the author did either). I'm not a fan of descriptive writing usually(just get on with it and give me the story) but this was full of lovely detail.

65 The photographers Wife.

67 sane New World Ruby Wax. Reading this as a close friend suffers from depression and I want to understand more.

I have just Downloaded Love Nina based entirely on the fact that it mentions my current obsession, Alan Bennett in the Amazon write up.

I stopped reading the, 'Rivers' series after the third one and have no plans to continue. But please will you PM me to tell me if he killed Lesley off or not? She was the only character I liked!

I didn't get on with Love, Nina. I even read some of it in the area where most of the book's focused on but that didn't help. Alan Bennett's thoughts on the book are here. Makes me wonder what else Nina misremembered...

Haha south I just love him.

20ish. A Tale of Two Cities. My favourite Dickens so far, I was genuinely surprised by the twists.

Going for something a bit lighter next!

I enjoyed reading Love, Nina and whilst she may have misremembered or misinterpreted some things, the inner lawyer in me has to come to her defence.

I read Alan Bennett's Writing Home recently and am part way through Untold Storie so am also a fan of his writing. In his diary entry dated 1st October 1983 which is around the time Nina Stibbe was living there, he says "I mend a puncture on my bike. I get pleasure out of being able to do simple jobs - replacing a fuse, changing a wheel, jump-starting the car - because these are not accomplishments generally associated with a temperament like mine."

Elsewhere he talks about taking apart his washer drier as well.

Good point, Duchess. So he can do those simple jobs - he may not be an expert, but actually in the views of most arty types, being able to mend a puncture on a bike is quite an achievement.

I think Bennett comes over rather well in Love, Nina - I think he probably just looks at it and sees a very partial portrait of himself, as we all do, I suppose, when we're described by others.

There were a couple of bits in Love, Nina, where I wondered if she'd invented bits later. For example, she refers to Bennett using the phrase "the elephant in the room", which didn't come into popular usage until much later.

When Love, Nina was published I heard Alan Bennett's interview on Radio 4 when he made similar comments to his later diary entry. When I heard that I thought maybe Nina Stibbe had got it wrong but having since read Writing Home and seeing that diary entry I realised she must have seen him fixing his car perhaps and, in a panic at home with a broken washing machine, thought she would at least ask. Given a similar situation I would have done the same. I think he is perhaps, like you say Hackmum, not entirely happy with someone else's perception of him.

I thought he came across as a much more likeable person in Nina Stibbe's book than he does in his own. It's probably old age grumpiness catching up with him

52. The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

Just one word to describe this book: Sublime. It tells the coming-of-age story of a teenage boy who survives the terrorist attack in a museum that kills his mother. It is about loss, specifically losing what you anchor your life on - mother, father, best friend, fiancé, or the painting that takes the place of all of them. It is about the fragility of beauty as well as all we put our trust in. The wonder of any beauty surviving in this world of random disasters.

And yet it is not a dark and gloomy story. There is hope, happiness, and achievement in it.

I heartily recommend this book to everyone here.