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.

Here are my numbers 16 to 20:

16. A death in the family by Karl Ove Knausgaard
    This is volume 1 of "My struggle" - an autobiography by a Norwegian writer that goes into tremendous detail about his life, including the boring bits. I read it out of curiosity to see what all the fuss was about. I still don't quite get it - although it gripped me in parts, it was awfully slow at times, and I didn't really see the point.

17. A place called Winter by Patrick Gale
    Someone's given a synopsis of this up thread. It's Gale's latest novel - I'm usually a fan, but this didn't really do it for me, I'm not sure why. Perhaps it was because it felt a bit too predictable - I could see exactly what was coming. Moderately enjoyable, though.

18. Eleanor Marx: a life by Rachel Holmes
    Excellent biography of Karl Marx's daughter - an intellectual and political activist in her own right. She was also, it seems, one of those vivacious, friendly, kind people who everybody likes. Unfortunately, she ended up living with a complete bastard who scrounged off her - if she'd been on Mumsnet, we'd have described him as a cocklodger and told her to LTB. It all ended in her suicide at the age of 42.

19 The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Had a few reservations about this beforehand - fantasy is not a genre I enjoy. But although there were a couple of false notes, I thought it was a wonderful, thought-provoking read, and one of those books that stays with you. The ending is beautiful. Having the web chat with Ishiguro just after I'd finished was perfect - he was a really thoughtful guest and answered my questions too! (I do recommend, if you've read this book, that you go and read through the web chat, as it gives a lot of explanation about what he had in minds he wrote it.)

20 Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner
This is one of those books I'd half-intended to read for years, and then when I read the bio of Eleanor Marx, I discovered they were close friends, so I decided to give it a go. I wish I hadn't! It's set in South Africa in the 19th century and tells the story of various (white Afrikaans) South African characters living on (of course) a farm, I really struggled through it - she seems to have no idea how to structure a novel, so it was full of characters who came and then went again for no obvious reason, or people whose personalities changed half-way through, and characters who gave long philosophical meditations about their view of religion or the meaning of life. I have no idea how it came to be regarded as a classic novel.

Haven't been able to face Room either. I'm sure it's probably vg. But I'd really need to gird my loins or something and I'm not there yet , just about I watch the news these days tbh!

Doubt we go to the same library Remus, I'm not in the UK. It was like one of us had just been there though, since right beside The Martian was Dust....

Dust?

Cote - I'm pretty sure you'd hate, 'Room.' I read it because dp gave it to me for my birthday when it came out. I thought the first half was pretty good, with the voice of the little boy in captivity. However, once they escaped it went rapidly downhill and I really disliked the second half.

Agree with Remus about Room. The first half was much better than the second. I thought it lacked credibility in places once they were out of captivity.

40. Eeny Meeny by M J Arlidge

This is the first in a series of crime thrillers set in Southampton, featuring D I Helen Grace who has come from quite an interesting and unusual background for a Police officer. This background was central to the plot of the story. I rather liked it, found the story gripping and will probably read the subsequent novels in the series.

41. The House We Grew Up In - Lisa Jewell

I thought this novel was rather good. It deals with the serious subject of mental illness. It looks at the impact that hoarding has upon a family's life.

The mother, Lorelei, is completely incapable of throwing away anything. She hangs onto anything and everything - all the children's old clothes, art work, books etc. She buys unneeded and unwanted items in bulk, filling the house with more and more stuff. It has a huge detrimental effect upon the family and the children's relationship with their mother all but breaks down under the strain of living with her condition. They all attempt to develop their own strategies for coping - some better than others.

I did find myself feeling very sorry for Lorelei, who cuts a rather tragic figure in the centre of the story, in both life and in her terrible death. Her illness led her into a very unhappy lonely existence estranged from her family. There seemed to be no way for anyone to help her.

42. Sane New World - Ruby Wax

I was hoping that this might enlighten me as to what mindfulness is. It did begin as quite an interesting book, and Ruby Wax talks quite a bit about her own battles with depression and spells in hospital. She talks about her coping strategies for when depression starts to affect her, using the methods she has learned through studying mindfulness. However, I didn't think that it really explained things that well.

I finished it still a little unclear as to how it all works. It probably deserves a second reading, because I did like Ruby's quirky humour, her honesty and enthusiasm for her subject.

Next up - I'm in the mood for another crime thriller - will have a look through my pile of books and see what fits the bill.

I quite enjoyed that Ruby Wax book, Duchess, but I found it frustrating there was so little insight into mindfulness. Apparently this book, is much more in-depth.

My work hours and location changed this week (I'm currently temping) so haven't had much reading time this week . I would love a very long and peaceful train journey! Hoping to catch up this weekend.

I may take a look at that book. Thanks Southeast . He was her tutor. I was frustrated by the lack of detail and explanation about mindfulness which could be such an interesting subject.

Duchess - I've read the house we grew up in too & really enjoyed it
I bought it for my mum for her birthday as I thought she'd like it to
I like Lisa Jewell's others too especially Ralph's Party & the sequel

The House We Grew Up in sounds like a really interesting read - another to add to my tbr pile!

Right, book 37 Revival by Stephen King

My second attempt at reading, as the first time I got bored and put it aside.

Enjoyed it much more this time, although it is definitely one of his more mediocre offerings. The first half of the book, focussing on the narrators childhood, is quite good, then it jumps ahead to the narrators thirties, then to his fifties. I wasn't a fan of this and don't feel it was handled well in the book - particulalry because half of the book was already devoted to his childhood years.

The ending is a bit silly, and the climax of the book is somewhat unexpected and a bit, well, who cares.

The writing and characters are good enough to carry the book, and it wasn't a bad read, more a frustrating one.

I think Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas is up next, as well as the QI book of the dead for the bath.

hackmum I agree that the Ishiguro webchat was wonderful; he came across very well. I found Buried Giant to be a slow burn of a novel; the story sort of crept up on me and I really didn't want it to end (I actually slowed down my reading to savour it's strangeness more).

The Patrick Gale novel is based on his own family's history. It's on my TBR pile but I may order it from the library rather than buy my own copy based on your review.

*its not it's (Bssh the grammar nerd).

Duchess, esiotrot I really enjoyed that Lisa Jewell book too; it was a cut above the usual chick lit.

I'm wavering a bit about the Patrick Gale novel. I have read a couple of his books and liked them but oddly this one doesn't really appeal. Think I might get it from the library and give it a go but am not sure if I will like it.

Well, I wouldn't want to put anyone off the Patrick Gale novel. People have such different tastes that it's really hard to know whether you'll like something or not based on someone else's description. I think perhaps I'm a bit jaded about contemporary fiction - I've read so much of it that by now I can see which way a plot is going to go. (I felt this too with the Narrow Road to the Deep North, which so many people raved about.) Sometimes you get a writer like Ishiguro who does something that feels very fresh but that seems increasingly rare.

29. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Written by a Nobel prize winner in economic sciences, this book is an examination of the two ways we make choices: fast, intuitive thinking, and slow, rational thinking. Kahneman is a psychologist with a particular focus on the psychology of judgement and decision-making, and behavioural economics. He looks at studies, including his own, that have been done into the way that we make decisions, and seeks to explain what causes us to choose in the way we do, as well as why we are sometimes tripped up by error and prejudice even when we think we are being logical.

Some parts were more straightforward to grasp than others. There are a lot of statistics cited and experiments involving people making a choice between different odds in different contexts that I just didn't get, which meant that when Kahneman expressed incredulity at the choices of a study group without explaining why the choice was the 'wrong' one I was left confused. These sort of mathematical calculations are not a strong point of mine, so while he assumes things are obvious those of us who are not economists or statisticians could do with a bit more explanation. Other types of studies, such as those into more experiential matters and the choices that result, were more interesting to me and made more sense.

Book 49 - 'The Diamond Chariot' by Boris Akunin

This is the third one I've read in this Russian historical crime series. The other two divided my opinion as I loved one and thought the other was pretty ridiculous.

This one was somewhere in between. The central character is great, so I'd read more of these for that reason alone. There's a long and rather silly Russian bit to start, then it moves back in time to Japan, and the Ninja. The Japanese bit was much more interesting, although there were quite a lot of wasted words and it needed some serious culling. A few sections really made me laugh and a couple of other parts were really quite gripping and tense.

A long love story section gets a bit wearing, and there are more twists and turns than a Formula One race. Also the body count is so high that it gets a bit ridiculous.

This series could be great but, like so many modern books, it needs much tighter editing. Some of it might be translation issues too, I guess. Also, there are absolutely loads of characters, and they all seem to have at least three names which are used willy nilly, so sometimes I got a bit confused as to who was who, and really had to think about it!

Don't worry hackmum - it's not your review that's putting me off I had it on my watch list and read several write ups of it and thought it might not be one I would enjoy particularly.

Hi again, haven't been here for about three weeks due to internet problems (Vofafone are assholes!) but I've missed the thread and been very busy reading (since that is all I can do at the moment - four more weeks until this bloody back brace comes off)

15: The Rosie Effect - big thanks for the person on this thread who told me about the sequel. Loved it :) made me happy to read more about Don and Rosie and the bit in the playground where he is videoing kids will stay me for the rest of my life and make me laugh always! Highly recommend both books!

16: The Lewis Man by Peter May. Good thriller which switches between now and the past. Loved the isolated feeling of the tiny Scottish Islands. Well written, sad and a few twists and thrills.

17: Finally read GIRL ON THE TRAIN: Enjoyed it but guessed the killer almost immediately. Tight plot that fits in place almost too snugly. Didn't like any of the characters so didn't really care what happened them. Would recommend it and will look forward to her next book.

18: Fault in Our Stars: Wonderful book and YES awfully sad topic but the humour is there and the characters are wonderful. Loved this despite the tears at the end. Amazing book.

19: Blast From the Past Ben Elton: A re-read which I hadn't read since it came out. I am a huge Ben Elton fan. Love his humour, fast paced writing style and the way no matter how old his books are the topics never age. This one is about stalkers and evil exes......a must read.

20: The Shadow Year: Duchess you will love this one. Group of friends in the 80's who leave college and take a year out playing "Lord of the Flies" lifestyle in an abandoned cottage in UK. Switches to now and a lady who has had a traumatic event. She is at the cottage and the history pieces together bit by bit which she is a part of. Excellently written and lots of twists. This is the second Hannah Richell book and I believe the first one wasn't as good (?)

21: All the Birds Singing by Evie Wyld. Jumps between the past in Australia and the present in UK. A woman alone on a sheep farmer with something attacking and killing her flock. As the story unravels we learn she has escaped a terrible past. I liked the main character and the writing style but felt the book was not really finished when it ended!

22: The Woman Who Stole My Life by Marian Keyes: Her new book and am proud to say I paid full price for it! Love her books so much. This one got mixed reviews but as a life time fan of her writing I felt any bad reviews were harsh and unjustified. The fact that a couple of the characters in the book use the title is funny and clever. I loved the main lady in it and would have happily read another 500 plus pages about her life. Highly recommend it!

23: Lisa Jewel The House We Grew Up In: I see above some comments on this. I do like Lisa's books but this one, hmmmm not so much. It was very readable but I couldn't understand Lorelei's hoarder thing. Also found it hard to believe that one family would suffer that amount of tragedy and strangeness/excitement! Bit fantastical for me. Plus I didn't like any of the characters.

24: The Girl With All The Gifts by M R Carey: I had this on my list not knowing fully what it was about. A friend lent it to me and I was not going to bother with it when she told me it was about a zombie apocalypse! I AM SO GLAD I READ IT.....fantastic. Great characters, fast paced, full of tension and thrills and the ending blew me away! READ IT! I don't read horror anymore but this is told mainly from the perspective of a ten year old zombie girl so from the beginning I found myself liking her and hating most of the humans who were more monstrous than any zombie could be!

16. A State of Wonder by Ann Patchett (Audiobook)
    This book is a slow burner following the protagonist, a 40-something doctor/scientist called Mirena, whose work mate goes missing in the Amazon whilst there collecting information on a current project attempting to make a fertility drug. The leader of the Amazon project is a former mentor of Mirena. At the start I really wondered where it was going (and wasn't sure I liked the narrator) but by the end I had really enjoyed it and found it thought-provoking on relationships (with lovers, friends, mentors, work colleagues and more). I pondered having children/fertility and how life can get in the way or throws curve balls. Very good.

17. Moon over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch.
    This is part of a magical police series. It is a fun, easy read and I will continue to read on to the third!

lammy - I read the Lewis Man series last year and thought they were pretty good. If you enjoyed the first one you will probably enjoy the two that come after it.

Thanks Shake It :) every time I read and like a book I then find out about sequels :) I will be bankrupt at this rate!

Lemmy7, Shadow year looks like my kind of book. Looks a bit Secret History like and I am forever searching for another Secret History.

Just finished
No 36 Reconstructed Amelia by Kimberly Mccreight

It's about Amelia who at the beginning of the book is thought to have jumped from her school roof

The book jumps from her point of view to her mothers

It was okay but I found myself not really caring much about the outcome

Think it was a bit teeny tbh

Mumslife - I watched the film of that with judi dench
I recommend it if you haven't seen it