50 Book Challenge 2015 Part 2

[Southeastdweller]

Thread two of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The idea is to read 50 books (or more!) in 2015.

Previous thread here

I like the sound of those two Ishiguro novels, Bssh. My tbr list is getting way out of control, but I'm just going to have to add them to it :)

:)

Never let me go is one of my favourite contemporary novels. But it does seem to inspire very Marmite reactions.

I loved Never let me go too. One of my favourite books.

Bssh I just found it quite tedious really, it dragged on and on, never really getting to a conclusion. A couple of times I felt it was just getting into its stride and then it fell away again, disappointing

I liked Pale View of Hills, have only read Remains of the Day and quite liked it, the film adaptation was good, it had more warmth than the novel.

I am never particularly tempted to read more of his, though intrigued by the Unconsoled as it's meant to be quite different.

I'm a hundred pages into Js&n for the second time, but not enjoying it either. Want to persevere so I can definitively dislike it but that is daft really, what with our time on Earth being finite.

Not getting much reading time at the moment and scattering it across 3 different books so a bit unsatisfying. A couple of chapters into the Wild Places. Love Macfarlane's writing but only managing snippets as have it in hard copy so not into it yet. Also just started Hyperion on the Kindle, it's still in the sci fi introductory codswallop stage, but I like the idea of the premise so hope it gets going,

My post was finished, I didn't spontaneously combust after the comma

Pale View of Hills is on my TBR list for this year. I loved Never Let me go as well. Agree about the film of The remains of the Day being warmer than the book was again I still like it.

Thanks Moonhare. Might give that book a try

12. Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence

Book group read. I get why it's banned - lots and lots of sex between the classes, lots of naughty words. But actually it's really a bit shit. And man Lawrence goes on and on and on about his themes.

13. The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language by Mark Forsyth

Really enjoyed this look at the origins of English words. Very very funny and really informative. A great non-fiction read if you're a word geek.

Started book 14, Graham Greene's The Ministry of Fear. Already very good and every time I read Greene it reminds me how much I like his work. Going to schedule some more in this year's list.

17. The Cookbook Collector, by Allegra Goodman

This wasn't the book I thought it was going to be and I was pleasantly surprised. I was expecting a rather twee romance, a light read centred around cookery books and food; in fact the cookbook thread is minor, and takes a back seat to the central plot of startup dot.com companies on the run up to the bubble bursting. What surprised me was how compelling I found the company storylines: much more interesting than the main romance. Some of the other storylines were annoying or tedious -- I wasn't interested in the religious storyline or Orion's affair with Sorrel (He was a manchild fuckwit and you know what, someone who does the laundry but doesn't put it away HAS only done half of the fucking chore, and the least time-consuming, tedious bit as well. Sorry, hit a nerve there), but otherwise I found this a compelling read.

Wow, Remus and I actually agree on one thing, which is an intense dislike of Ian McEwan. I fear we will never agree on anything else.
Seriously though, what is wrong with Sarah Waters??

Tell me one of your favourite books Remus and I will read it and see if I like it. I dare you!

Ishiguro's When we were Orphans, a mystery set in Shanghai, looks good. I've added it to my to-read list.

Still up to my chin in Kings Henry and Edward, all kinds of religions..
A bit of light reading and escapism in between was supposed to be:
10. Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride
Tartan Noir. Horrible, dead children, had to finish it though but I think I'll just not bother anymore (for a while at least) with mystery/crime genre books. Used to really enjoy them but too many times now I feel a bit yuck after them.

For school reading bits of the Bhagavad Gita and that is such a relief in beauty and poetry. Not counting it though as it's just fragments.

11. Vilette - Charlotte Bronte - a highly strung but very repressed woman travels abroad and finds love. I really enjoyed this and found the main character fascinating with her almost adolescent earnestness. However I am clearly a reader of very little brain and had to Google the ending to see if I had understood it correctly!

12. The light we cannot see - Antony Doerr - the Second world war from the perspective of two youngsters, one a blind French girl, the other a German orphan. I loved thus while I was reading it and was totally hooked. However, now I look back on it, there was something slightly dissatisfying about it on which I can't put my finger

13. The Accident - Chris Pavone - an authorised autobiography of a prominent figure turns up with a literaryagent and someandone is willing to kill to squash it. A passable pageturner though I got irritated with the author's tendency to detail precisely how much everything cost - I couldn't care less how much the coffee or the rent were; I am reading a novel not an expenses claim! !

Bugrit at the manchild fuckwit

Started Jonathan Strange today but struggling with a lurgy so finding it hard to concentrate. Think I'm going to enjoy it though.

13. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

Really enjoyed this one, nice fairytale story, good descriptions of Alaska and a few turns to keep the story going which kept my interest. I read this in three days. It was meant to be set in the 1920s and I really didn’t get a sense of time but I guess it was in the wilderness of Alaska so I can forgive that. Overall recommended.

Starting Jonathan Strange tomorrow so I may now be sometime....

Ooh - I like that gauntlet, Whippet!

Sarah Waters bores me, in a similar way to Ian M tbh. I just don't engage with her characters. I saw 'the twist' in, 'Fingersmith' from miles away. 'The Little Stranger' just left me a bit cold and wondering what the point of it all was, and another one (is it called, 'Nightwatch' or some such?) made even, 'Never Let Me Go' seem dynamic and action-packed.

Some of the best books I've ever read, other than Jane Austen's and Stephen Kings (although those two are my favourite writers), include:
Lolita
A Clockwork Orange
This Thing of Darkness
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Into the Silence, as mentioned earlier in the thread
I love John Steinbeck and Raymond Chandler
Any of those take your fancy?

I read fifteen pages of, 'Jonathon Strange' last night, and it felt like 14 and a half too many. And you lot aren't selling it to me. I think life may be too short.

Oh don't say that, jonathon strange is making its way to the top of my to read pile!

I don't know if I'm looking forward to it or not yet..

I'm due to start the Jonathan Strange book next week. May have to skim read some 5* Amazon reviews to help with motivation.

I like much of your list, Remus, and I have This Thing of Darkness on my tbr pile, excited about it now.

at 14 pages too many, that how I feel. I so want to like it but just isn't doing it for me.

provencalroseparadox your description of LC's Lover reminds me of that famous joke review of it:

"this fictional account of the day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is still of considerable interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on pheasant raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin, and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper.

"Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous material in order to discover and savor these sidelights on the management of a Midlands shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion this book cannot take the place of J.R. Miller's Practical Gamekeeping" (Ed Zern, Field and Stream, November 1959, p. 142).

Ok Remus we are on
I will read This Thing of Darkness. Is it by Harry Thompson? I need to finish the two I am currently reading which I hope to do this week then I am going for it. All 772 pages of it. Yikes.

#9. What made the crocodile cry? - Suzie Dent. A compendium of the origins of 101 phrases common in the English language. I like the way this was written, but I would have liked a little more explanation for some things. As a quick dip into etymology, it was a light and fun read.

Remus stephen King and Jane Austen are two of my favorite writers too. They're the ones I keep going back to year after year.

I like the look of your list. I read Lolita years ago and loved it. I may just have a little nosey through the others.

Is A Clockwork Orange anything like the film?