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.

32. The Humans by Matt Haig
    Alien is sent to earth to destroy a professor of mathematics who have solved a mathematical puzzle which must not become known. The alien takes over the professors body and moves in with his wife and teen son. The alien learns about humans and what it means to be human. There is also a depressed and suicidal teen son in the story and the book is a bit like a self help book at times. It's a good read with some funny lines, but I didn't think there was any earth shatteringly great insights to the meaning of life like others seem to get out of this book. I also think it is more suited for the YA market.

33. Wuthering Heights by E Bronte
    Beautiful writing, but only nutty characters. I could see them all thrashing it out on the Jeremy Kyle show

wiltingfast I did mention a blog and foolishly pluckily decided to join in with a daily writing A-Z challenge for April which has seriously interferred with my reading time.

I have submitted the blog to Mumsnet HQ so wasn't sure if it was OK to post on thread, but as you've asked (so nicely) ...
www.bunnyandthebloke.weebly.com

Although you may want to wait till tomorrow when my post is on a CityReads library event with Rivers of London author, Ben Aaronovitch. Today is on my rugby team, so not so apt!

Books so far:

Fear Nothing by Lisa Gardner
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
The Sleep Room by F.R. Tallis
Flood by Stephen Baxter
Revival by Stephen King
Witness by Cath Staincliffe
Ark by Stephen Baxter
Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Martian by Andy Weir
There's something I've been dying to tell you by Linda Bellingham (didn't finish this
Second Life by SJ Watson
Divergent
Insurgent
Allegiant, all 3 by Veronica Roth
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
Don't Look Inside by Spike Black
Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

And I'm currently reading:
Forever Odd by dean Koontz
The Book of You by Claire Kendal

I've just bought The ice twins by S. K. Tremayne on Amazon as its on offer for £1.99 (it's also this price on Nook).

thelittlebooktroll
I love Wuthering Heights! it seems to be a bit of a marmite book, people either love it or hate it.

Here's my friend's theory on Wuthering Heights (based on a book club discussion). If you read it when you are young (eg a teenager) then you love it. If you read it as an adult, you find it a bit ridiculous and OTT. Would anyone like to support / disprove this theory?

I'm in the former category btw.

I'm in the former category too.

31. Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
    Olanna is a teacher, Ugwu is her and her professor partner's houseboy, Richard is an English writer living with Olanna's twin sister. The novel charts the dramatic changes in their personal and professional lives in the lead up to and outbreak of the Nigeria-Biafra war during the 1960s. A literary tour-de-force and a spectacular modern classic. This is now on my list of all time favourite novels.

32. Running in the Family, Michael Ondaatje
    Twenty-five years after leaving Sri Lanka for Canada, Ondaatje returns and recounts the privileged life of his grandparents, parents and his own childhood on that ethnically-diverse island. An episodic, disjointed, dreamy, account of a colonial paradise now long disappeared.

Now reading, for the first time!, A Suitable Boy, so I may be a while. I did start it years ago but got overwhelmed by the sheer number of characters and the size of the book. Here I go.... .

Totally agree re the, 'Wuthering Heights' theory. I feel the same about Thomas Hardy too. Adored him as a teenager, but he makes me furious nowadays.

Have just abandoned a book in disgust - Len Deighton's, 'Funeral in Berlin' which dp picked up at random for me because it's set in Berlin. Anybody read it and want to convince me that I should give it a bit longer?

I hated, 'Nightwatch.' I got about three quarters of the way through before abandoning it. I have rarely been so bored by a book and still continued so far through it.

tumble, I agree with your friend's theory. Read it as an adult, and I thought the framing device nicely deflated the dramatic poses of the central characters.

I have a similar observation about Anna Karenina: People who have read it as a teenager tend to remember only the love story ("Poor Anna. Society has wronged her so.") and believe that Anna & Vronsky are the heroes/protagonists of the book.

Others who have read it as adults, such as your truly, feel that the real protagonists are Levin & Kitty with their values, hard work, and well-deserved happiness. Useless socialite Anna and her useless man Vronsky are there mostly to contrast against them.

And the book is so much more than the love story of a woman who dares leaves her marriage. It is about life, politics, hard work, economics of wealth, etc. It is as complete a book about everything of interest to people as I have ever seen

25. The Explorer - James Smythe

This was interesting. It is the dark and claustrophobic story of a spaceship launched to the farthest reaches of space ever travelled by mankind, told by the journalist accompanying the crew on this mission. Anything I say will be a spoiler, so I will leave it there. It's original and better written than most books of this genre. I recommend it.

I agree with the WH theory too having read it before. In my early 20s I read it as a love story, but it isn't at all is it? I don't E Bronte intended it as a love story either?

I am actually on a mission to re read some classics as my young self thought both Tess and Jane Eyre dull women who needed to just get a grip??but I think I would see things differently now. Might hVe to re read Anna Karenina too now.

26. The Girl On The Train - Paula Hawkins

Many of us reviewed this book on here, so I won't go into detail. It was quite OK, although rather too "womanly" for my taste. It wasn't badly written but I wasn't terribly happy to see this book return to the present tense he-said-she-said diary style of Gone Girl.

Dp has just got, 'The Girl on the Train' out of the library and asked if I wanted to read it. I managed a page of the present tense and decided that, no, I didn't!

If it is both present tense and 'womanly' then it's not going to be the book for me! (Need more manly historical ie in the PAST TENSE stuff recommending, please!).

Aw cool joyless! A book blog excellent! Will check it out...probably immediately....

Book 38 - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

No plot as such, this tells the tale of a reporter and his attorney on a trip to Vegas with a lot of drugs. It's an interesting and sometimes surreal book but I don't think it's aged well - it seems a bit tame. Enjoyable enough, though.

Not sure what to read next yet! Trying to resist buying anything else really just join a library

Thanks lammy! Let the great world spin has been sitting on my bookshelf for about 5 years since I received it as a gift, I will move it to the front of the queue as I feel a bit guilty every time I spot it.

Off to do some reading

Has anyone finished Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found by Cheryl Strayed? I think I've seen it mentioned but can't search on my phone.

I'm finding it such a struggle, I've been reading for weeks. I even bought the audiobook to help me along but I still don't feel particularly enthused.

I normally enjoy biographies but I cannot warm to this woman at all! I think I feel exploited by her grief so I can't feel any empathy towards her.

I felt the same as you, mama - I found it a struggle to get through and skimmed towards the end, by which time I really disliked her.

don't remember the number of the book, but I've just finished 'we are all completely beside ourselves' by Karen Joy Fowler. I really didn't like it. As I was reading it I thought it resembles a badly written book by Ruth Ozeki. I love Ruth Ozeki, she's a fantastic writer. But this one...hmmm. Fowler is trying hard and failing to imitate Ozeki I think.

I am reading Rose Tremain's Restoration at the moment.

Book 16 Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

Recommendation from MN as the scariest book ever.

Well it's not that, by a long chalk.

But it is good. Considering a large proportion of the book is spent alone, in the polar dark, the sensory levels remain magnificent. The tension too remains taught, depspite not much happening. Good craft(wo)manship.

Clash - Have you watched the film Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, where Johnny Depp is the journalist and Benicio Del Toro is his friend "Dr Gonzo"? It's brilliant. I have the book on my Kindle but I'm worried that it will not live up to the movie.

I have watched that film with friends while under the influence many times and we have agreed on numerous occasions that much in that film is quite credible and can easily happen. Good times

Is there an actual ghost in Dark Matter? I am tired of ghost stories which builds the atmosphere but we never actually get the ghost and it fades out a bit like the Blair Witch Project. I feel so cheated

33. The White Peacock - D. H. Lawrence

This was his first novel and touches on some of the themes of his later books. I was blown away by the quality of some of the writing here, particularly by his descriptions of the countryside; landscape, flowers and birds in particular. Like all Lawrence novels there is something disquieting about it, as if there are things lurking under the surface that you can feel but can't quite grip or understand. None of the characters are particularly likeable but their entrapment by the expected norms of society makes you feel for them anyway. There is frustration and repression here. I still feel unsettled by this book even though I finished it a few days ago but I am not sure why. However, The Rainbow and Women in Love had the same effect on me. Novels rarely do this to me