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.

Welcome to the new people and good luck to those waiting for test results, diagnoses, etc.

Book 20 - 'Slipstream' by Elizabeth Jane Howard. This is her memoir. I hadn't realised just how much of the Cazalet stories was based on her own family until I read this. It was a very interesting read except I did get rather fed up with her constant sleeping with married men and then wondering why she was always left on her own. On the whole, she was very honest about her failings.

Book 21 - 'Death of a Snob' by MC Beaton. Murder takes place on a Scottish island and policeman investigates. This was a light easy read. Enjoyable without being demanding.

Thanks for the welcome everyone!

Suffolk I've enjoyed the Cormoran Strike series too but also found The Silkworm harder going than the first one due to the wide range of characters. It feels like JK is having fun with writing those books.

I'm ploughing on with Harry August (now halfway through) but eyeing up options for book 22 to give myself the motivation to finish it. Any recommendations welcome On my list so far:

The Giver
John Dies At The End
Perfect People

Cedar03: "It was a very interesting read except I did get rather fed up with her constant sleeping with married men and then wondering why she was always left on her own."

Yes! This is what I thought too. Hugely enjoyable memoir but she did seem to spend much of her life having affairs with married men. Most of them were quite famous so it was interesting from that point of view, but I couldn't help wondering why she couldn't find somebody single.

hackman Couldn't decide whether some of the wives were complicit in their husband's behaviour - or whether the wives just put up with it. Thinking of Laurie Lee who took her off on holiday with, apparently, his wife's knowledge. I wondered whether EJH just didn't care that much about other women's feelings. I did want her to get a grip! Anyway fascinating just how much of her life was in the Cazalet books.

Thinking of those of you on the testing merry-go-round

Duchess I'm glad your results were OK and how're you getting on with Lolita?

I was so bored this afternoon at work I did a date timetable for books to be read over the next month. I'm excited to start the last two ones by Kate Atkinson.

Been a bit too busy to listen to Lolita over the last two days but hope to catch up tomorrow. Should get MRI results back over half term. Keeping fingers crossed nothing bad

We are a bunch of crocks! Blood tests for me and DH tomorrow. Let's hope everyone is ok.

I'm reading Cloud Atlas. I can see it's going to take a while. I like it so far and I remember Cote did a marvellous thread about it. I'm off to look for it. I may be some time.

My apologies, Duchess, for not properly reading your post yesterday at 12.22 . Sending positive thoughts your way.

Just gathering my thoughts on books 32 and 33...

I think I'll have to read that thread by Cote too about The Bone Clocks, which I'm tempted to buy in paperback when it's out this summer. I read somewhere that it's similar to How to be Both, by Ali Smith, which was bloody awful.

Book 61 - 'Phantom Fortune' by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (writer of, 'Lady Audley's Secret')

I enjoyed this but it did feel looong and, to be brutally honest, not an awful lot happens. She goes into pages of rhapsody about interior decoration every now and then, which was pretty wearing, but I liked the love story element and it's got a couple of nice but fairly obvious twists. If you like Victorian sensation stuff, it's worth ago, otherwise stay well away!

Thanks for all the good wishes. Hope all of the old crocks are okay (and the non-crocks too!).

25. The First 15 Lives of Harry August - Claire North. A very well-written book which I enjoyed immensely. If you like justice in your books, this one has it in bucket-loads at the end. Deeply satisfying.

26. The Year of The Flood - Atwood. Not as good as Oryx and Crake IMO, but readable though.

27. And The Mountains Echoed - Khaled Hosseini. I hated this. I thought it would be about the two kids trying to find each other, but most of the book concerned random people, and the story seemed to wander aimlessly round trying to reach some sort of (very unsatisfactory) ending.

28. Weird Things Customers Say In Bookshops - Jen Campbell. Does what it says on the cover, and very funny to boot!

29. Adrian Mole - The Cappucino Years - Sue Townsend. A book I read donkey's years ago, and still love it as much now as I did then.

Just started 30. Her Fearful Symetry - Audrey Niffenegger.

Today - I absolutely loathed, 'And the Mountains Echoed.' Nice to see another member of the club! :)

Can I be an honorary member of the club, without reading that book? I read 1000 Splendid Suns and am ready to hate all his future (and previous) books, sight unseen.

Oh dear! Everyone's breaking down! Fingers crossed for you all

apples I read John dies at the End and really enjoyed it, it inspires ahem diverse views tho

24 Into the Wild by Jon Krauker; pretty good in the end but the first half was weak. Nearly abandoned it! Just seemed v superficial and unfocused, anyway second half really zones in on Chris, his family etch and was much more interesting, that said Into Thin Air is a much better book. There's a chapter where he writes of his own attempt as a callow youth to climb The Thumb which was excellent. Think he's better on mountains!

Took a break from The Secret History to read these two which had to be returned to the library this week.

32. After the Crash - Michel Bussi

A plane crashes near France and all but one of the passengers die. The survivor is a baby and two sets of families later claim that she belongs to them, which causes lots of silly drama. Like many of the Amazon reviewers, I read this because of a rave review in the Sunday Times and the publisher should be grateful because I doubt this book would be the hit it currently is without that review. I was shocked at how puerile and clichéd the writing was, so much so I reinvented the book in my head as a comedy thriller to help me motivate me to finish it. The diary narrative by the unpleasant private detective employed by a family member to look into the case was another complaint as it distracted from the slightly more exciting present day story. Some (but not many) good twists in this but I don't recommend it and I won't again read anything that reviewer gushes about.

33. God Help the Child - Toni Morrison

Multi-Narrative short novel about the influence of parents have children and how a child's death can change a sibling's life, there were some very powerful passages here and there, but I felt very unsatisfied at the end. Felt like it was just getting going when it ended at 178 pages and I felt it was overwritten at times when a more simpler approach would have been more effective. May read some of her earlier work which is probably better.

I'm having another break from The Secret History as it's too dark for me to continue at the moment (but her writing is superb).

I'm halfway through Vikram Seth's monumental and most enjoyable soap opera A Suitable Boy but I need a break from it for a bit. I've been comfort-reading some children's books, old and new(-ish); introducing my 6yo DD to Harry Potter for the first time (and my first time too; I loved the two I've read and DD is entranced and hooked!).

33. The Borrowers, Mary Norton
34. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
35. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling
36. The Magician's Nephew, C.S. Lewis

I'm now reading Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson and will soon get Marina Lewycka's Various Pets Alive and Dead out from the library on the basis of a review up thread.

Really thinking of all of you who are undergoing health investigations and scan results. to you.

Sympathies all round for the doctor-prodding.

Cote, interesting to read your comments on Barbara Nadel's latest. I don't know Turkey well enough to have picked up on those aspects.

56. Curtain Call, Anthony Quinn. Set in 1930s London, the author clearly relished describing the demi-monde: drag queens, fags, tarts, actresses, society painters, theatre critics and blackshirts. The murder mystery was bolted on rather awkwardly, presumably on the basis that crime sells. I wouldn't say I loved it, but it was a lively picture of its time and place.

57. The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro. Old man and woman go on a journey to find their son in Dark Age Britain encountering ogres, a dragon, one of King Arthur's knights and various others along the way. Why has everyone lost their memory, and is that the only thing preventing conflict between Britons and Saxons? Found it reasonably enjoyable on a superficial level (it passed the time on a train journey), but I felt the story didn't attain the profundity of a fable the author was clearly aiming for. That's partly because I reject the idea that conflict is based on historical grievances - that confuses justification with cause. I believe violence always boils down to conflict over resources. While those involved nearly always argue that "It's always been us against them because of the bad things they've done to us", that just doesn't explain why conflicts erupt in some times and places and why they don't. As I don't find his underlying premise compelling (should we forget?), his fable lost its point for me.

58. Happily ever after: celebrating Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice,
    Susannah Fullerton. Not as much insight as Bitch in a Bonnet, and not as original as Paula Byrne's A Life in Things. Early chapters borrow a lot from Jane's Fame by Claire Harman. Later chapters lean heavily on Google - P&P-based erotica! Amusing academic articles! (eg. Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl). Okay, but there are better books to read about Jane Austen.

Have to get stuck into H is for Hawk as it's due back at the library soon.

Hi Cote, I've read most of that series and I have one still in my tbr pile. It always takes me longer to get to books I own, as the library ones feel more pressing...

31 - Ring for Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse.

I have decided that rather than keep downloading new books onto my Kindle, I should read some of the unread books that I already own. I bought a set of Jeeves books over 10 years ago! As far as I am aware this is the only Jeeves novel in which his employer Bertie Wooster does not appear, as Bertie has enrolled in a school that teaches the idle rich to look after themselves.

Jeeves has offered his services to William Rowchester, an impoverished earl, who is trying to sell his stately home. In normal Wodehouse style the story is a farce involving a wealthy American widow, a big game hunter, false bookmakers and a stolen diamond necklace.

An enjoyable, lighthearted read.

Ladies, I will breaking protocol and talk about a book before finishing it because I know there are quite a few fans of dystopian fiction on here and I have stumbled upon a really enjoyable one:

Red Rising by Pierce Brown.

It is not high literature, although it must be said that it is much better written than the dystopian YA that is often recommended on MN. But it has great world-building that is believable although it doesn't go into as much detail as Neal Stephenson's thousand-page books. Fast-paced and interesting, I think it will heartily scratch that dystopian itch many of us are looking to scratch

I'm 41% in and already rationing my reading because I'm hoping that it doesn't end anytime soon. And there is a sequel - yay!

52. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. I can't quite decide whether I want to give this 3.5 or 4 out of 5 stars.

I listened to the audiobook read by Jeremy Irons, whose narration was superb (verging on the creepy and disturbing).

Very difficult to say that you like a novel about a paedophile, but the use of language and the skill in the telling of the story is incredibly accomplished. Revulsion and fascination in equal measures.

Nearly finished Black Swan Green by David Mitchell, which I am absolutely loving - the cultural references to the early eighties are so familiar to me :)