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

Meg - I'm glad you are enjoying JN & Mr S. I haven't read anything like it before or since. So imaginative, such a great story and well-written, too.

tumble - Isn't Cloud Atlas brilliant? I'm glad you liked it. (Remus - You're next )

Ooh - I haven't read, 'Starlight and Storm.' Adds to list.

Cote - it just isn't going to happen. I do wonder if I should give Strange & Norrell another go though. It bored me last time I tried it.

I won't give up on you, Remus

If you read at least half of Cloud Atlas, I have no doubt that you will like it. As for JS & Mr N, I really believe you will like it if you read it.

This is my second attempt at JS&MN... I'm not sure why I didn't take to it the first time (got to page 50ish and gave up) but it might have been because it was a library copy and the type seemed really small so it seemed like quite hard work to read. This time I have it on kindle and I'm flying through it :)

78. Westwood, Stella Gibbons In wartime London, a plain bookish young woman delivers a found ration book on Hampstead Heath to its owner and is sucked into the pompous and artistic worlds of the Challises and Nilands. A really enjoyable book that I raced through.

Haven't been around as I got stuck on a book that I found really dull and took me aaaages to get through, but can finally say...

51. The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon

A colleague pressed this book upon me, having just finished it herself and declaring it the best book she had ever read. But I honestly didn't enjoy it very much. Didn't get into it at all, not even towards the end - I was just reading it to finish it. Reading reviews online seems to suggest this was a love it or hate it book, and I fell into the second camp. I think it may have been something to do with the fact so much of the plot was told in flashback and the mystery was sort of happening in the present but mostly solved in flashbacks...didn't get me going. And I didn't like any of the characters except the tramp guy, can't remember his name now.

52. Cranford (and other stories), Elizabeth Gaskell

Rounding off my discovery of Gaskell this year, this was a lovely book and a very Christmassy read somehow, even though I don't think Christmas was actually featured at all. Some really nice short stories too - I haven't finished them all yet, but might save them for a later date as I have received some books as early Christmas presents from a friend that I really want to get stuck into!

59. The Crimson Petal And The White - Michel Faber

This book started out really well, with original and spirited narration and fine detail about Victorian-era London, focusing on a young intellectual prostitute called Sugar. It was so promising in the beginning that I kept on reading it & hoping that something interesting would happen, even after it went downhill and died a long slow death between pages 100 and 500 or so.

I know that this book has its fans on here and I was going to hold back in my criticism for that reason, but I feel that people have a right to know just how terrible it is. The original writing style that makes the first chapter so interesting disappears into thin air shortly thereafter. The so-called intellectual prostitute (well, she can hold a conversation with men and is writing a book about a female serial killer when the reader first meets her) quickly becomes a dull, boring servant. Gives up on the book she is writing, and judging by the evidence, on all efforts to influence her fate one way or another. Becomes a helpless puppy craving her man's affection, whereas she was previously capable of discretely manipulating him for her own purposes.

894 pages of this drivel on domestic boredom, and you don't even get a story with any sort of plot Well, at least the non-existent story sort of prepares you for the shockingly inept "ending" which was so not an ending that I was puzzled when I turned the page and didn't find anything there.

Gah. I can go on but you get the message. I'm actually feeling pretty pissed off about having spent two weeks on this and can safely say that I will not be touching another Michel Faber book ever again.

Yes Cote, exactly what I felt about the ending. I did enjoy the book on the whole but it was as if the author suddenly got bored and decided just to stop writing. It could have been so much better.

I got the feeling that someone else must have written the first chapter for Michel Faber. That first part was promising. The whole premise of an intelligent & intellectual prostitute was promising.

How can a book about an intellectual prostitute in Victorian England be so dull?!?

117. There's Something I've Been Dying To Tell You by Lynda Bellingham

Four stars for the book and five for Lynda's incredible courage in facing her death with such charm and good humour.

As some other reviewers (on Goodreads) have said, the book tends to jump around quite a bit in time, leaving the reader sometimes wondering which year is being written about. I imagine that, had Lynda not been quite so ill when she was writing it, she would have edited some of it and sorted out the few time shifts, adding in a few more dates wherever necessary. However, that's such a tiny little matter, and it didn't detract from my enjoyment of this wonderful book.

I'm full of admiration for the way she managed to keep going for as long as she did, living life to the full and for knowing when she had had enough.

I also enjoyed Lynda's book and read yesterday it's sold 300,000 copies in two months which I find heartening. It's currently 99p on Kindle.

47. Code of the Woosters - PG Wodehouse, read rather quickly for book group & didn't quite get into the style.

48. Sarah Walters - Paying Guests - I thought this started off very well but the second half dragged, a shame as she is such a good writer.

Not reading much due to Christmas rush but I'll try a couple of short books so I can get to target!

Have had a lull caused by life getting in the way.

Book 133 - 'The Tightrope Walkers' by David Almond
This bored and annoyed me in equal measure, and I wish I hadn't bothered carrying on with it. At his best (Skellig / Heaven Eyes) Almond is a sublime writer, but thus just followed his same old formula of a boy torn between the world of academia and a 'rough' background, innocence connected to madness, tramps as representative of something beyond and above society, mothers as angel figures, girls as clever and tempting and ultimately the best thing for the boy etc etc. Same old, same old. It added absolutely nothing that he hasn't done before. Made me very cross.

#54 Sightlines - Kathleen Jamie. More poetry than prose in places, but beautifully written collection of observations from her time engaging with wildlife and nature. I really found it hard to put this down. I'm hoping to investigate some of her 'proper' poetry next year.

#55 The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce. This was a huge wave of light relief after the dry and heavy book I'd not long been reading about Edward V. A mixture of fun, improbability and hope against hope with some poignant moments for good measure. An easy read which I enjoyed. Can't pass comment on the film as I've not seen it.

I don't think I ever did compile my top five list. They're as follows (in no specific order)

Sightlines - Kathleen Jamie
The Golem and the Djinni - Helene Wecker
The Underground Man - Mick Jackson
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
Spell it out - David Crystal

I should also confess to two books abandoned.

I tried to read 'To Kill a Mockingbird' when I was on holiday earlier this year, but I just couldn't get into it. I don't know if I've read too much Mark Twain or whether I just didn't find the story moving fast enough, but it bored me. Read 10 chapters and gave up.

I also had to abandon 'The Lady and the Peacock'. Whilst the story of Aung San Suu Kyi is one of great determination and courage, I found the way in which the book was compiled confusing and distracting.

I may well try again with both books next year but the first few months of 2015 are going to be very busy so I suspect it won't be until April that I get properly 'stuck in'. I shall aim for 40 books next year and see where I end up!

60. Worth Dying For - Lee Child

Another Jack Reacher book, and one of the better ones. Light and quick read - a good palate cleanser after Crimson Petal And the White.

MrsCosmopifairylight: Mockingbird is very much a book of two halves. It gets much more interesting in the second half - worth persevering!

79. The British Museum is Falling Down, David Lodge Adam Appleby is trying to crack on with his PhD thesis in the reading room of the British Museum but is distracted by the Beatles, the sitting of the Second Vatican Council, his dwindling reserves of cash and by the grim possibility his wife is expecting their fourth child. A very funny read.

Right, going to end the year with a Dickens biography.

57. Queen Lucia - E.F Benson

First in the famous six-part series of comedic novels set in England in the 20's and 30's. I didn't find this funny or particularly compelling and never got into it but I'm hoping the series gets more enjoyable after Lucia meets Mapp in the third book.

58. Scenes from My Life - Judi Dench

A picturebook/memoir combo from the award-winning actress, it would make a nice gift for fans.

Has anyone here read Seven Pillars Of Wisdom by T E Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia)? I'm interested in his account from a historical perspective, but I'm finding it difficult to put aside his casual racism and total lack of sympathy for anyone's viewpoint but his pet Arabs'. "Syrians - an ape-like people having much of the Japanese quickness, but shallow"... what?

122. Virginia Woolf, Hermione Lee. Massive biography. I permitted myself to skim, but there was a lot of interest in there - difficult childhood and early adulthood, the mental health issues, the marital arrangements, her relationships with Vera and (especially interesting character) Ethel.

123. History of the Rain, Niall Williams. Liked it, but didn't adore it. I'm originally from a place not a million miles from where it's set, and dialogue etc sounded right to me, but I get a bit bored with family tragedy.

124. Silkworm, Robert Galbraith. I find her characters a bit cartoony, but still a page-turner.

125. The Sleeping and the Dead, Ann Cleeves. Very reliable crime writer.

126. Midwinter of the Spirit, Phil Rickman. I vaguely remember someone mentioning these upthread - a series featuring Merrily Watkins, priest, exorcist and single mother. It's like The Exorcist rewritten with a focus on local Church politics. Not particularly scary (and I'm a wuss) and I enjoyed it enough to reserve the other books in the series at the library.

Just started the first few pages of Us, by David Nicholls. I never read One Day, but I'm a sucker for travel narratives so thought I'd give this one a whirl.

Books 134 and 135 are two comfort reads, children's classics, which I've read umpteen times before but were all I was capable of, having been ill - again. So fed up of this!

I also tried reading, 'Queen Lucia' last week, but found it really wearing and probably won't bother trying to finish it. I'm also re-reading, 'This Thing of Darkness' which is exquisite, but I'm not really well enough to appreciate it at the moment so might have to save it until the new year.

What were your comfort reads, Remus? Sorry you're not well.

I adore the E F Benson books, but if you're not immediately into them, I'd definitely let it go. They either appeal to your sense of humour or they don't.

Cote, never read The Seven Pillars, although I think at one stage I went searching for an extract to see what had happened to him when his "citadel of integrity" was lost. I'm not sure I could hack through the prose, although I agree that racism is more offensive than an over-florid prose style.

Thanks, Biblio. 'Ballet Shoes' and 'Tom's Midnight Garden' - shhhh. don't tell Cote.

Very soothing choices. I approve. And not a word...