50 Book Challenge 2015 Part 3

[Southeastdweller]

Thread three of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2015, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. It's still not too late to join, any type of book counts, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

First thread of the year here, and second thread here.

[Harrison234]

Books so far

Forever Amber - Kathleen Winsor
The Open Doorway - Madeleine Mitchell
Waterloo - Bernard Cornwall
I let you Go - Claire Mackintosh

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Today's - I love, 'The Iron Man.' Hate lots of Hughes' stuff but I think it's lovely. His, 'How the Whale Became' is good too - especially the one about the worm iirc.

[southeastdweller]

New month, new thread

[southeastdweller]

The Ian McEwan web chat is happening right now, for anyone interested.

[TodaysAGoodDay]

30. Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger. This was given to me and I would never have chosen it if I knew it was a ghost story. Having said that, it was alright, but I won't be re-reading it.
    
    
31. Adrian Mole, The Wilderness Years - Townsend. A re-read, light, and relatively amusing.
    
    
32. Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel. I hate theatres and acting, so started this with some trepidation. Ignoring said theatre stuff it was a reasonably good post-apocalyptic book, but with too many neatly tied up ends, where everyone has met everyone else pre-apocalypse (or so it seemed). Not great ,just good.
    
    
33. Adrian Mole, Weapons of Mass Destruction - Townsend. Another re-read, quite enjoyable as ever.
    
    
34. Adrian Mole, The Prostate Years - Townsend. Yes, I have been working my way through the whole lot...
    
    
35. The Iron Man - Ted Hughes. I never read this as a child, and have read this to my DS. A creepy story, I didn't really enjoy it.

[southeastdweller]

Apologies for my insensitivity earlier - really do wish everyone with health issues at the moment best wishes .

[Lammy7]

finished 32: Perfect by Rachael Joyce: Started off good and then got really annoying. The end was depressing and am sorry I bothered with it now. Half of it is set in 1972 when 2 seconds is added to time. A young boy's mother has an accident in (what he believes) this added time and it affects his whole life (badly). Other half is set now and about the man the boy grew up to be. Very sad chain of events for no good reason ruined everyone's lives! Depressing and dull is my review!

33: Unraveling Oliver by Liz Nugent: almost finished it. It is short (230 pages). "Perfect" husband, "happy" couple: He beats her into a coma. Each chapter gives an insight into what other people in his life think of him. Intriguing and well written. I like the way it is written.

[ClashCityRocker]

Thanks Remus I'll give it a bash. I read IWTV years ago as a teen and enjoyed it.

Good luck to all those going through health problems.

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Clash I read LTROI on the beach a couple of years ago, and found it surprisingly enjoyable. The ending is a bit daft and it IS cutesy, but I do think it's worth a read. We saw the stage play in London last summer, and that was excellent.

Apples - I really enjoyed the first two of the, 'Chaos Walking' trilogy, but felt he'd rushed the third out and that it all became rather repetitive and predictable. In a similar way, I really rate the first two of Malorie Blackman's 'Noughts and Crosses' trilogy, but the third one is embarrassingly awful.

Agree with all the good health wishes, and thanks for them too - am still waiting for test results, but do seem to be generally feeling quite a bit better (not 100% but at least 70 now and sometimes more!).

[southeastdweller]

36. Naked at the Albert Hall : The Inside Story of Singing - Tracey Thorn
    
    Non-fiction novel from the perspective of the former Everything But the Girl singer about why and how we sing, combined with her own experiences, this wasn't as light-hearted as I expected and a little too analytical for my taste. She writes very well generally but I felt her memoir was more engaging and I think with this particular book, music needs to be a big passion of the reader for him or her to really enjoy it.
    
    Reading-wise, next up is Disclaimer, and I'll do a new thread when I get home a little later.

[ApplesTheHare]

Hello everyone, hope you're all powering through good books and getting good health news!

No. 25: Darkness Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane
The second book in Lehane's Kenzie and Gennaro PI series takes a much darker path than the first as Lehane gets into his stride. You can tell he's got a stronger feel for the characters as they try and track down a potential serial killer. I enjoyed this one as there were some good tense moments, but am waiting until payday to get the next one, which says it all!

No. 26: Various Pets Alive and Dead by Marina Lewycka
Light-hearted book pondering idealism, ageing and family dynamics. Doro and Marcus are ageing, ex-commune-dwelling radicals whose grown-up children have embraced all the comforts of modern living. If you liked Tractors/Ukraine book you'll like this.

No. 27: I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh
Tense, twisting thriller along the lines of Gone Girl and Girl on the Train. A 5-year-old boy is killed in a hit and run and it's down to Bristol detectives Ray and Kate to find his killer. The story focuses more on those involved in the accident than the police, but it's hard to say anything more without giving it away.

I haven't caught up with the entire YA debate so this might have been mentioned before, however, for those who like the idea but struggle with the romance and simplistic morals I can highly recommend Patrick Ness' Chaos Walking trilogy. Probably the most complex, well written YA I've read, it's anything but black and white and incredibly sad at times.

[DuchessofMalfi]

Joyless - thanks for asking :) - I completely forgot to update. The MRI showed up a problem with my back - my lower back is slowly disintegrating, causing the pain and crushing some nerves. My GP wants me to have another MRI scan on my foot, because of the severe pain I'm getting there, meaning I can barely put any weight on it anymore.

The blood tests are nearly all back now. One more to get later this week, but the ones I've got back were clear, thankfully. Previous tests showed up other problems, so we know there's quite a few things going on, just need to gather all the information together eventually. It's a long slow process, and I'm getting a bit tired of it all now. Glad of a good book to immerse myself in :)

Good luck to everyone else on here undergoing tests, and/or getting fed up with waiting for diagnosis

[CoteDAzur]

Meanwhile, Brilliance is £1.00 on the Kindle today. Its sequel A Better World is also £1.00. Easy reading but still pretty good speculative fiction about "What if some people have special powers?". Definitely get them as your next beach read if you like this sort of thing:

A 2013 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Paperback Original

In Wyoming, a little girl reads people’s darkest secrets by the way they fold their arms. In New York, a man sensing patterns in the stock market racks up $300 billion. In Chicago, a woman can go invisible by being where no one is looking. They’re called “brilliants,” and since 1980, one percent of people have been born this way. Nick Cooper is among them; a federal agent, Cooper has gifts rendering him exceptional at hunting terrorists. His latest target may be the most dangerous man alive, a brilliant drenched in blood and intent on provoking civil war.

[CoteDAzur]

Thank you, Joyless. Fingers crossed for all of us

I really enjoyed Hyperion. 2nd book in the series is also fantastic and brings the story together in a great way. 3rd & 4th books were a bit too lovey dovey for my liking, but still good.

Stephen King has often praised Dan Simmons as a great master and I have to agree that his books are on that sweet spot at the intersection of suspenseful page-turner and sensitive & insightful speculative novel that I have always enjoyed. His book Carrion Comfort is more like Stephen King's stuff. (Just don't go anywhere near Flashback, which was shockingly awful.)

[CoteDAzur]

Thank you, Joyless. Fingers crossed for all of us

I really enjoyed Hyperion. 2nd book in the series is also fantastic and brings the story together in a great way. 3rd & 4th books were a bit too lovey dovey for my liking, but still good.

Stephen King has often praised Dan Simmons as a great master and I have to agree that his books are on that sweet spot at the intersection of suspenseful page-turner and sensitive & insightful speculative novel that I have always enjoyed. His book Carrion Comfort is more like Stephen King's stuff. (Just don't go anywhere near Flashback, which was shockingly awful.)

[JoylessFucker]

Cote, great to hear that the pelvic pain is almost gone ... fingers crossed for the next injury to be a long way away.

Blimey whippet, every Booker? Nice challenge there ... I may join you one day as I do like a Booker.

Sootgremlin, sorry to hear about he health issues and hope things are moving in the right direction. I'd vote for This Thing of Darkness too - one of those rare books that pleased everyone in my book club and I've yet to hear a negative review.

Duchess presumably the MRI & blood tests (from last week-ish) revealed nothing unduly worrying?

Book 28 was Hyperion - Dan Simmons - chosen as a result of recommendations on here. I had no idea until I reached the end that this was a part one of more but, even if I don't read the remainder (which is unlikely), it was a most enjoyable read - I gave it 4 out of 5 on Goodreads. The descriptive passages were excellent and I really enjoyed the little touches of humour. The structure - following that of the Canterbury Tales worked really well for me and my only disappointment was with the Consul's tale. Don't get me wrong, it was a good tale, but it seemed attached to the wrong person ... unless more happens in later books that changes my tune. The closing scene of them "off to see the Wizard" is possibly the best ending ever!

Have started book 29: When a Crocodile eats the Sun - Peter Godwin.

[CoteDAzur]

A much better portrayed, far more credible child vampire was Claudia in Interview With The Vampire, imho.

[ClashCityRocker]

Is LTROI worth a read then Remus?

[CoteDAzur]

How is LTROI not YA? It's about teenagers, teenage-y concerns like bullying, lack of friends, not being part of adults' world etc. It's superficial and cutesy (as you say). The vampire has no credibility as a very old creature, acting exactly like a YA herself. The moral of the story is all cutesy, about friendship etc. The ending is all tidy and cutesy. (Yes, I'm loving the word 'cutesy' )

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

'Let the Right One In' isn't YA. I enjoyed it, but yes, it is a bit mawkish. Saw an interesting Iranian vampire film at the cinema this week and it was v derivative of LTROI, but rather less cutesy.

[ClashCityRocker]

Try again re RR...

I thought RR did have a bit of a YA vibe, but that may be because most books of this ilk that I have read have been YA books. I am glad the author didn't cop out with putting loads of swearing and shagging in it just to set it apart from YA fiction.

Where it differs from YA, IMO, is the subtlety of morality. The main character is, in a lot of ways, a bit of a bastard and like GoT, no-one really has a moral high ground. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

As a reader, it is difficult at times to trust the main character's motivation - in fact, it is alluded to that he doesn't even truly understand his own motivation, particularly after getting to know the Golds, although this is more apparent in the second book. Far from making him less likeable, it makes him appear more human and realistic - a bit of an anti-hero.

I also felt that the characters were in general less cliched and therefore less predictable than in lots of YA fiction. There is a real sense of not being sure who the main character should trust and this gives the book an edge of real unpredictability (rather than waiting to see which equally unsuitable bloke/woman/career the main character will choose whilst the whole world crumbles around them).

I like YA - they're often good stories but tend to be very thinly disguised morality tales with a bit of love and mawkishness thrown in. I really enjoyed the usual suspects - hunger games, divergent et al and will read them again. I think though that RR is much more complex.

[ClashCityRocker]

AARGH just wrote a long post on RR and lost it! Will retupe, but for now a couple more to report:

No. 50 Burnt Tongues - An Anthology of Transgressive Fiction

I got this because it was cheap, and edited by one of my favourite authors, Chuck Paulanuik. I had to google what transgressive fiction was though. According to wiki: Transgressive fiction is a genre of literature that focuses on characters who feel confined by the norms and expectations of society and who break free of those confines in unusual or illicit ways. So far so good.

Some of the stories were excellent; some were meh, and some were so ridiculously derivitive of Paulanuik I almost felt embarrassed for them. On the whole, a decent anthology with a few low notes.

No. 51 Dreamcather - Stephen King

Good enough story, but not one of my favourites. I found bits of it a bit dull.

Now reading yet another horror anthology whilst I figure what to read next.

[CoteDAzur]

I love you, too

I have given a chance to YA, more recently to The Girl With All The Gifts, Let The Right One In, and Delirium. In all three, I got Swivel-Eye Syndrome from all the I kept doing to all the silliness, the superficiality, the truisms, the Godawful heartstring-tugging sentimentality. Gah. Can't do it.

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

I think, other than the love crap, you'd probably like some YA if you gave it a chance. :) Lots of it nowadays is v much as you just described RR to be.

And, to be fair, a lot of the stuff in, 'Game of Thrones' (other than the intolerable over-writing) is pretty teenage too!

Thanks for the recommendation - I like it when we agree.

[CoteDAzur]

Remus - I'm very proud to have found another book (3rd ever?) that we both like

"It was v YA in tone and style (not a problem for me, as I like YA, but surprised that you liked it so much Cote because of that)"

I was wondering if you would call Red Rising YA. I didn't get a YA vibe from this book, at all (thankfully). It is definitely closer to Game Of Thrones than Hunger Games.

It is obviously about young people, but:

• Its politics and brutality are not watered down to teenager level.
  
• It is not about puppy love.
  
• It talks about uncomfortable, un-PC ideas on social order, politics, economics, and interpersonal relationships.
  
• It deals with shades of gray rather than all-blacks and all-whites.
  

... much like Lord Of The Flies, in many ways.