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

18. The Magician's Apprentice by Trudi Canavan

Set centuries before the events of The Black Magician triology, this book covers the invasion of Kyralia by Sachakan magicians attempting to find land for their own displaced magicians as well as to bring Kryalia back into the Sachakan empire. It follows Tessia, the assistant to and daughter of a village Healer, who accidentally discovers she has magical powers and becomes the second apprentice to the area's magician, who is also the local lord. As was develops between the two nations we also follow a Sachakan woman brought up by her mother in Elyne who experiences culture shock when she returns to live with her father.

It covers a lot of ground because it explains the establishment of the Guild of Magicians, the discovery of healing through magic, and the creation of the wasteland which blights Sachaka for many centuries. Although it was clear where it had to go in various places to set up the situation in the trilogy, it was still pretty well done. Good read.

A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal by Ben Macintyre is £1.90 on the Kindle. I would recommend this non-fid about the infamous double-agent Kim Philby and the Cambridge spy ring.

20. All My Friends are Superheroes by Andrew Kauffman.

Very short book only 100 pages otherwise I would not have finished it with my 100 pages and no more for books I don't enjoy.

This book comes highly recommended with rave reviews. I thought it was complete drivel and just so boring.

26. Rivers of London, by Ben Aaronovitch - Loved this, and I'm wondering why it's taken me so long to getting around to starting it. It reminded me a little of China Mieville's King Rat, but with more humour. Loved the blend of magic and the police force, and it was interesting to see how many women there are in it -- I wonder where he'll go with that. Will definitely be seeking out the next in the series to give it a go.

And from a book I loved, to one I couldnt fricking stand and have had to give up on.

The Independance of Miss Mary Bennet, by Colleen McCullough. I'm not averse to continuations of classic literature (I loved Jo Baker's Longbourn and would have enjoyed Death Comes to Pemberley more if it hadnt been so sodding boring), but Sweet Jesus this was dreadful.

I was expecting to get a realistic portrayal of the life of the traditional spinster sister, the one who has to watch all her sisters happily married while she lives the drudge life of caring for her parents. Let's just say that's not what I got.

But worst of all is the way Mr and Mrs Darcy appear in the book. I could accept some bumps in the marriage, but what I can't forgive is Elizabeth having to suffer seventeen years of an emotionally abusive, LTB, manipulative, selfish arsehole, including a description of their marital relations that reads uncomfortably like rape. I suspect they will have settled their differences by the end of the book, but I cant get beyond that. And why is everyone calling him Fitz all of a sudden?

In short, if you value Elizabeth and Mr Darcy as romantic heroes, then for the love of god don't read this unless you want to vomit down your front in horror and despair.

Currently reading The Giver, by Lois Lowry. Much better, thank god.

Book 40 - 'John Dies at the End' by David Wong
I really enjoyed this until the end, which was pretty useless. A real shame. Loved the three main characters, loved the voice of the narrator, some cracking dialogue, some really funny moments and some wacky creepy moments - a real shame that it couldn't quite sustain it.

Am now bookless again...which means I'm likely to be pretty unbearable to live with. So, for the sake of dp's sanity, I need more recs for cheap Kindle stuff, please!

Ah yes the end. Didn't want to post about it before remus as wasn't sure where you'd got to.

I didn't get it, really. The run up to the end was a bit poor too, I thought. Is there a sequel? It read like there is.

There is a sequel, yep. I thought it went downhill from the room with the glass column type things in - didn't really get it after that.

13. Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation by Rachel Cusk, about (as the title indicates) the break up of her marriage. This gets some terrible reviews on Amazon, and I can totally see that she is a marmite writer, but I found it compelling. Personally I prefer her writing style, and her brand of feminism, to (say) Caitlin Moran who is shoutier, more sure of herself and more mainstream in her ideas.

Bugrit at your description of Elizabeth and Darcy's relationship! Who would want to ruin that for me everyone? That's certainly one I won't be reading!

22. The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber

I can honestly say that I have never read anything quite like this novel before! It probably helped a lot that I listened to this as an audiobook, which helped the story along and I began really enjoying it. Very good narrator!

I wouldn't say the novel was sci-fi, but it does skirt around the edge of it at times, with elements that could appeal to sci-fi readers.

Peter Leigh, a Christian missionary, has been selected to travel to the USIC base station on the planet Oasis (as it has been named by them) to continue the work of the former missionary who has disappeared in mysterious circumstances.

The novel looks at what faith means - how it comes to people and, conversely, how it leaves people. What is faith? Do we need it and, if so, why? What hapens if we don't have it? Can you still be a good person without faith, or is goodness inextricably linked with faith?

Characters enter the story with their faith intact - Peter and his wife Bea. We see how Peter's faith came about - his conversion to Christianity after having led a dissolute life of drug and alcohol addiction and petty crime. He has come a long way in pulling his life together. He is a good man, but not without fault. He is still human and his marriage to Bea suffers badly as a result of his decision to take on the USIC mission.

Characters also gain faith during the novel - we are shown how, through Peter's work in the Oasis community, the "aliens" (Peter hesitates to call them this) strengthen their belief in God and Jesus. He is the only one who really reaches out to them and befriends them. They are a gentle and kindly group of people who welcome him into their community. And it is delightful to see the growing friendship and trust developing between Peter and the "Jesus lovers" as they are known.

It is an interesting novel from the point that, as faith grows amongst Peter's community, we see through Peter's wife Bea's messages to him that society is disintegrating on Earth. Disaster after disaster occurs and she reports to him with ever increasing distress at the life which she is forced to live without him, and we see her faith in God falling away from her as society becomes increasingly desperate and lawless.

If I had to have one criticism of the novel, it would be that the ending was rather inconclusive. It felt that a sequel might be possible. If that is the case then I'd like to read that too.

All in all quite a thought-provoking novel.

14# Siblings Without Rivalry

Parenting book, contents fairly obvious from the title. A lot aimed at conflicts that arise between older siblings than my two, but my son is having a bit if a moment now his cute baby sister is turning into a toddler who wants his stuff, so this was useful to take a step back and see how I might manage his frustration without making it worse. I'm usually dubious of these kinds of things but there are some good ideas here and we've had a more peaceful couple of days as a result - I might actually get some proper reading done this weekend.

Quarter of the way through The Quiet American, realised I have read it before - seems an odd thing to have forgotten . It's very good. But then I guess I knew that already

bugrit that sounds awful. Leave Darcy and Elizabeth to be happy, damn it

They didn't go through all that gradual self-awareness and careful re shaping of their flaws and weaknesses in order to be worthy of each other in order to piss it all up the wall afterwards.

I have the Book of Strange New Things on my tbr list, duchess, looking forward to it after that review.

Hope you like it too, Soot

bugrit - blimey

15- Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
Oh where do I start with the ‘plot’ ok get this. There's a women whose job it is to go to companies and tell them if their new logo is any good. Not consult the company about the logo in anyway but just to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the new logo. She becomes obsessed with a series of single frame shorts released on the internet, is hired by someone to find the source of these and also she reacts very baldly to seeing certain logos. She flies all over the world doing whatever.

Oh I just did not care. If it wasn’t such an easy read I would have put this down at page 50 but for some silly reason I thought it might go somewhere. But it just got and more implausible and the silly plot twists were interspaced with long descriptions of what the main character was having for breakfast and how long she had slept. But overall I didn’t care.

Pink - Ooh I have waited so long for someone to review one of William Gibson's latter books on here

I was a big fan of William Gibson and loved all his books from Neuromancer (1984) to Idoru (1996). His next book All Tomorrow's Parties (1999) was when it all started going wrong - it was just a rambling mess. I thought "No worries, he is brilliant. He'll write better next time" and read Pattern Recognition (2003), which was rubbish - another rambling mess with a ludicrous plot to boot. I even went ahead and read Spook Country (2007) which was truly awful. Really, so bad that it would not (should not) have been published if it were written by anyone else. So I didn't read Zero History (2010) because I had given up hope and frankly were half-convinced that he had a lobotomy.

I have bought his latest book The Peripheral (2014) not because I'm asking for more punishment but because I read that it is written in the style of his earlier books.

In short, read his earlier books if you ever want to try something else by William Gibson.

I quite liked The Independence of Mary Bennet.

But I was focusing more on the character of Mary than the relationship between Darcy and Elizabeth. She goes off on a (somewhat far fetched) adventure after Mrs Bennet drops dead in Chapter 1. And yes, Darcy doesn't come across well at all in the beginning of the book. By the end of the book, Darcy and Elizabeth have settled their differences and are happy together.

I can see why it would have been disappointing if you were expecting or hoping for a realistic portrait of the life of a spinster sister though. It's definitely not that.

19. Jingo by Terry Pratchett

In the light of Thursday's sad news I decided to re-read one of my Discworld favourites. I think that over all Night Watch is my top choice for Discworld novel, but Jingo is probably the one I have read most frequently.

The ancient land of Leshp has risen from the sea, and Ankh-Morpork and Klatch are about to go to war. While the land itself causes diplomatic tensions, it is the shooting of a Klatchian prince while visiting Ankh-Morpork that ignites the fuse. Commander Vimes and the City Watch are out to discover who is behind the attempted assassination, finding themselves in hostile territory both at home and abroad.

I just realised that Nikola Tesla has a short autobiography (yay!) but it's only available as a paperback (boo!).

Would everyone here take a moment to go to the book's Amazon page, scroll down a bit and click on "Tell the Publisher! - I’d like to read this book on Kindle" on the right hand side? I don't know how many we are on this thread now but we can probably pack a good punch together

Nevermind

21. I'll Have What She Is Having: My Adventures in Celebrity Dieting by Rebecca Harrington

Amusing non-fuction where the author is trying out various celebrity's diets - Gwyneth Paltrow, Karl Lagerfeldt, Marilyn Monroe, Madonna......

Made me eat a massive portion of pasta with cheese after I had read the book!!

11. A spool of blue thread by Anne Tyler
12. Quite a good time to be born by David Lodge
13. The fish ladder by Katharine Norbury
14. The Zone of interest by Martin Amis
15. So you’ve been publicly shamed by Jon Ronson

Brief verdicts:

The Anne Tyler was great, as always. I marvel at how much she does with so little: a family saga about a fairly ordinary family where not a lot happens and yet she makes it all so believable. The characters seem like real people who you care about - how does she do this? One of my favourite writers.

David Lodge is one of my favourite writers so I looked forward to his memoir a lot. But it's oddly mundane. Some writers can make childhood seem vividly alive, but reading about his is like reading the memoir of someone who's trying to write about their life for the first time: I did this, and then I did that. And I worked really hard in my finals and got a first. It gets better as it goes on - the stuff about his literary life when he starts becoming successful is interesting. But that's largely because I'm such a fan of his novels and wanted to learn about the process of writing them.

The Fish Ladder is also a memoir: part nature writing, part a story about the author's attempts to find her biological family (she was adopted). It's a first book and was very well reviewed. I wanted to like it, but found it a bit dull: however much I admire people's ability to write poetically about nature, I don't really enjoy it. And all the interesting elements of her search for her biological family were in the excerpts I'd read before reading the book.

The Zone of Interest: Martin Amis is back on form with this one. It's a Holocaust novel, which I know is off-putting, both because you know it's going to be depressing and because it feels as if any attempt to fictionalise it will trivialise it. But it's very well done - it's about one of the Polish death camps and it's written largely from the point of view of the Nazis running it. It's a thought-provoking and engrossing read but doesn't in any way trivialise the subject.

So you've been publicly shamed: this is excellent. It's about people who once said something mildly stupid on social media have had their lives ruined by people piling in to pour scorn and hatred on them. Some lost their jobs as a result. But it moves on to talk about shaming as a punishment in law and why it doesn't work. He talks to a wide range of people and, as always with Ronson, he's funny and engaging but also tackles some very difficult issues. A definite recommend.

27. The Giver, by Lois Lowry - A modern classic YA, set in a dystopian future, where everyone's lives are controlled and planned out to the nth degree.

28. Northanger Abbey, by Val McDermid another of the modern rewrites of Jane Austen's novels. I enjoyed this better than the update of Sense and Sensibility I read last year. It works better than expected, but comes across a bit silly at times it's one thing to fantasise that the family you're staying with are vampires; another thing entirely to actually fucking believe it, making Cat seem like a bit of a dimwit. And that it's Twilight-style vampires she's picturing only makes it worse. On the whole it's handled well, though -- there's only a couple of moments where I rolled my eyes at the poor girl's idiocy. The whole project is an interesting idea, and, as with Sense and Sensibility, it made me want to reread the original, which was the whole point.

Have just started Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna and very much enjoying it. It's beautifully written.

hackman both DH and I had given up on Amis but your review has made me think about trying this out. Thanks! Agree with you about the new Tyler - her 20th book and still she's at her prime.

hackmum, sorry

Hackman and BsshBosh, I have never read any Ann Tyler. Which book do you recommend ? I was looking at Breathing Lessons on Amazon?