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

19. A Tale for the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki The diary of a school girl from Tokyo washes up on the Canadian shoreline and is discovered by a middle-aged novelist. Nao is being bullied mercilessly by other students, her unemployed father is suicidal and her mother is pre-occupied keeping the family financially afloat. Nao feels there is nobody left in her life to keep her safe. On the other side of the Pacific, isolated on a remote island off British Columbia, Ruth is suffering writer's block and yearns to return to the hustle and bustle of New York City.

Their two lives couldn't be more different: Nao's full of intrigue, tumult and activity; Ruth's much more sedate and mundane. It isn't surprising then that the older woman quickly becomes distracted by the young diarist's life.

Though Nao's narrative is the more immediate and compelling of the two and her character immediately endearing, I found myself slowly adhering to Ruth's much flatter (at times even dull) personality and story until, eventually, I developed as much empathy for her as for Nao.

Zen meditation, Japanese female anarchists, kamikaze suicide missions, clam gardens, quantum mechanics, Marcel Proust, the movement of flotsam and jetsam across the Pacific Ocean, Japanese pop culture, small-town island life, 9/11, ghostly visitations, the routine cruelties of both military and school life... it's all here in this compassionate, funny and disturbing novel. There is also a strong stream of Murakami surrealness that I loved.

Going to read Fredrik Backman's A Man Called Ove next.

Book 11. Bring up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel.
I found this a lot easier to read than Wolf Hall, and did end up feeling very sorry for Anne Boylen.

Am impressed that so many people are on 20+ books, it's only 9 weeks since New Year, how many are you reading a week?!

Am going to read something light and fluffy now. Need to not use my brain for the next few days!

I'm also impressed at how fast some of you are reading!

1. The Long Mars by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. This was the next in their series of books about a world in which it's been discovered that there are millions of parallel worlds and people have discovered how to step between them. In this one they fly to Mars and explore that. Enjoyed it but feel that there are too many stories trying to come out. Would have loved more about Willis and his motivations. Found the switching between characters annoying at times. Would recommend it though.

My DD's in bed around 7.30, DH works late, I watch hardly any TV. Loads of time to read for me :) Also, I read pretty fast.

Similar here - dd is in bed by 8ish. I'm the only adult in the house. I do watch some TV, but I'm more likely to pick up a book. Also I've had a few longish train journeys since the start of the year.

Two more to add:

24. Bitch in Bonnet II, Robert Rodi. More good fun analysing the works of Jane Austen - he's pointed out things I've missed in my own reading.

25. Foxglove Summer, Ben Aaronovitch. I felt this was a return to form after Whispers Underground. His take on the bureaucracy of policing is pretty funny. I also appreciate the fact that his main character, who is mixed race, pointedly refuses to let "white" be the unspoken default for all characters.

The action shifts outside London to Herefordshire, close to the setting of the Merrily Watkins books, which are also a mixture of police procedural and the supernatural. Spooky. And speaking of which, I'm currently on the last of the Merrily Watkins pile, The Magus of Hay.

Bssh - That book sounds interest. Just a question, though:

"Though Nao's narrative is the more immediate and compelling of the two..."

What does it mean that Nao's narrative was "more immediate" than Ruth's? It feels like you are using this word to mean something other than proximity to present in time but can't imagine what that meaning might be. And anyway, Ruth's narrative would be the more recent one, since she found Nao's narrative/diary. Or have I missed something?

Cote I found Nao's life more current, modern, more action-packed, more familiar to me than Ruth's more isolated, slow pace of life.
And we don't know if Ruth's narrative is the more recent one... the possibility of multi-temporal realities where past and present are less clearly defined is something the novel explores.

Book 32 - The Vile Village - another Lemony Snicket, so another slight cheat but still no apologies.

I'm 50% through, 'Breakfast of Champions' and not getting on v well with it. Will save my scrutiny until I reach the end though (if I haven't thrown it out of the window before then).

I don't watch television, have a sacred reading hour in the bath every night, read the Kindle to and from work, and also read very fast, so that's how I get through them. I also balance fairly heavy non-fiction tomes with some occasional 'fluff' such as the Snickets and 'Warm Bodies' for example.

I'm about to start book number 23, and generally finish up a book in 2-3 days, depending on how long it is and how much spare time I get. I'm a quick reader; I skim-read naturally.

Anyway, my last 3 books:

20. The Apothecary's Daughter, by Charlotte Betts - A historical romance, set during the plague (and later the great fire of London), touching on slavery.

21. World War Z, by Max Brooks - If in doubt, zombies. This was a lot of fun, but also creepily realistic and believable composite picture of a zombie apocalypse. There's an awful lot of thought and detail that went into this.

22. Smiler's Fair, by Rebecca Levene - A disappointment. I was hoping for a decent fantasy read, but, while this was okay, it didn't really grab me and it's just not quite there.

Is there any decent old-style fantasy being written still (not talking about urban fantasy like Rivers of London, but vast sprawling medieval epics like ASOIAF)? I would have thought the success of Game of Thrones would have led to a resurgence in the epic stuff, but nothing I see really grabs me.

Next up is Katherine Webb's The Misbegotten.

I can read 3/4 a week if the dc oblige with naps and bedtimes, and don't keep me up too much. If I'm tired and the dc conspire to get in the way of my reading time I'm crawling through one a fortnight.

The only thing that strikes me about those consistently ticking through so many is it must be harder to come across decent new things to read. Having said that, I've got a lot more than I can chew at the moment

I used to love a long train journey with a good book.

12# The Wild Places, Robert Macfarlane

It's been reviewed by others up thread. I found it beautifully written, but a slow read; a book to meander along with. It is about rediscovering a wild landscape in the British Isles and what that actually means in the present day. It also seemed to be about how humans interact with the landscape and discovering a language to describe that interaction. It explored some interesting ideas, and dwelt particularly on the thoughts, the feelings and the inspirations that are revealed through a connection with the wild. It had a very poetic sensibility which I liked; romantic even. The stories and anecdotes that he references along the way are more engaging than his actual progress though, which begins to feel repetitive toward the end. Lovely, lovely writing though.

I read this over a couple of weeks, alongside Hyperion. I need something faster paced now, but will get onto The Old Ways at some point.

Book 22 - the holy machine by Chris Beckett.

I'm torn on this one.

There are some interesting ideas re science vs spiritual thought however I didn't feel the author entirely achieved what he set out to.

The premise is interesting; religious people have overthrown the secular governments, and all that remains of the secular world is an enclave of presumably intelligentsia, who inhabit a city of robots, virtual reality and highly advanced technology. No allusions to a higher being or self are condoned - which includes the 'guest workers' or the folk who come from outside the city to work.

A citezen of this enclave falls in love with a syntec - a human like robot - who has been designed to act as a prostitute.

I liked the characters and the plot was good, but all through the book I couldn't help but think that this could really be a classic if handled by a different writer.

The dialogue feels very wooden in places, and the author seems overly fond of exclamation marks, which is distracting from what is a very good story.

Still, at 99p on the kindle, it was a worthwhile read and I will keep an eye on the author.

Oh and to add, I normally read in bed, and some days have a long commute, so can quite easily get 3 hours in a day on a long commute day, and two hours otherwise.

I don't have DCs and I also pick and chose what tv I watch.

It's not a hard and fast rule though - if a books good, I'll read it as much as possible.

And on the flip side, if I'm not enjoying s book, I'll be down to half an hour a day.

But I normally give up on books I don't enjoy fairly quickly...(wolf hall, for instance..)

19. Sea Change : The Summer Voyage from East to West Coast Scotland of the Anassa by Mairi Hedderwick. Beautifully illustrated, by the author, account of her journey across Scotland by boat, via the Caledonian Canal, and taking in the islands, and lochs, along the way.

20. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I liked it because it was so thought provoking and infuriating and frustrating in equal measures. I have written a review but am too tired to post it on Goodreads tonight. Was thinking if there's enough of us discussing it perhaps we should have a spoilers permitted thread separate from this one?

Meant to add that I am a third of the way through The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber. Definitely never read anything like this before :o but I like it so far.

Also just started a book of short stories The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke. It seems to have close links to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell with some of the same characters making an appearance.

Cote if you read A Tale For the Time Being I predict you will be annoyed by the ending. (I am assuming that you have some interest in quantum physics given our mutual love of The Strangest Man.)

tumble - Oh dear. Is it one of those new-agey stories that try to make use of Quantum Physics for their ham-handed attempts at fantasy? Yes, I'm interested in QP and have read quite a bit about it.

I can safely say that there is zero chance that I would enjoy this book even without numpty QP references, now that I've looked up the book and saw sentences like this: "A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be." Nonsense like that makes me itch.

I looked 'Time Being' up too, cote, and the character herself agrees with you "what kind of stupid girl would write words like that"

I might give it a go, though bssh, based on your review, if I can get it from the library, it does sound interesting.

16. Vanessa and her Sister by Priya Parmar

Fictionalised account of the life of Vanessa Bell, her sister Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group. Really really enjoyed this, was right up my street. Made me wonder if I should attempt any Woolf but also encouraged me to download EM Forster's A Room with a View.

First reading the wonderful Thorn Birds

21. Into Thin Air. As PPs have said, breathtaking, tragic and well written. I feel quite shattered by it.

Cote - yes. Basically it has an ending which is not "possible" and tries to explain it using cod quantum physics. Bssh did you find the ending unsatisfying? For me it spoiled an otherwise good book.

Provencal yes yes to giving Woolf a go! She's amazing.

1. Seven Years In Tibet - Heinrich Harrer

A wonderful and very moving book. It's the autobiographical tale of what happens when the Austrian mountaineer, interned in a prison camp in India at the start of the war, escapes and flees to the sanctuary of Tibet, forbidden to Western visitors. He gets to know an ancient and previously unknown culture, and becomes friend and tutor to the young Dalai Lama, witnessing the last days before the Chinese Communist invasion of 1951 changed the country for good.

Tumble completely agree, I loved the characterisation but thought the ending was lame. Sadly this seems a bit of a theme for literary books.

Have you read Robin Hobbs, Bugrit? She's been my favourite fantasy recently. I also read Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson which wasn't bad, although the second went a bit teen romance.

tumble I loved every moment of A Tale for the Time Being, even the ending. The story just swept through me like a magical wave! It's already become a favourite all-time novel of mine.

Ah Bssh I'm glad you loved it. It's great that we all have different tastes