50 Book Challenge 2015 Part 4

[southeastdweller]

Thread four 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 can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

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

Happy reading

Ok cote, go read it and tell us what you think. But on a scale of The Martian to never let me go it's v much at the never let me go end.

Personally I would not call it sci fi because there is no science and tbh there is nothing to show it is set in the future either. But that's not particularly relevant to the story anyway.

Welcome, MMack.

I didn't like, 'The Road.' I felt it was all a bit contrived, and that it didn't do anything that Stephen King had already done much better.

Book 79 is another re-read: 'Lolita' by Vladimir Nabokov. I've always listed this as one of my favourite reads, having read it three times between the ages of 17 and 25-ish. I was long overdue a re-read and I still think it's a remarkable book. Having said that, I no longer think it is a work of absolute genius.

The first half is absolutely sublime, but the second half is pretty slow and (albeit deliberately) meandering, and the ending (again deliberately, I'm sure) is all a bit silly. Some of the phrasing, especially in the first half, is exquisite, and lots of it is rather Eliot-esque. Nabokov is a very skilled writer and can move you from fascination, to sympathy, to horror, to disgust to laughing out loud within the space of just a few lines.

If you haven't read it, I absolutely recommend it - with the proviso that the second half might well prove a bit of a let down, after the incredible first half.

67. The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson. Fascinating stuff. You could quite easily start to think everyone you meet has psychopathic traits but then again you could start to wonder about the motives for diagnosis of some conditions (are they promoted by drug companies etc).

Next up - I am attempting The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. Not sure how far I'll get, though. May be gone a while :o

24. Shadow of Light (Bk 2 All Souls Trilogy) by Deborah Harkness
25. The Book of Life (Bk 3 All Souls Trilogy) by Deborah Harkness

The last two books in the All Souls Trilogy. Just what I needed to read - vampires, witches, daemons and humans; romance, adventure and baddies. Fun trilogy, I enjoyed them.

26. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (Audiobook) Oooh, what a book! And to have been written almost 90 years ago. So many themes still relevant today. Consumerism along with the constant adverts and messages to buy, buy, 'new is best'. What is this distracting us from? The group mentality, the sense of superiority over others not of your group via constant media bombardment. I'm not so keen on the women as sex object, man as alpha intelligent decision maker, but then again, as long as everyone is happy and on Soma! V.good and thought-provoking.

I found Station 11 a bit disappointing. It was an okay viral-mageddon story but did not push any boundaries or bring anything new to the genre. And the story lines were all very neat and tied in a nice bow by the end of the story.

I think I need to revisit The Stand- it must be almost 20 years since I read it..

Brave New World is one of my all time favourites. I've never read The Stand but I think I might read it this year.
I'm currently reading Sleepyhead by Mark Billingham. It's the first book in a series about detective Tom Thorne. I've read about 80 pages so far and it's very similar in style to the Peter Robinson Inspector Banks books.

48. The Long Utopia by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

Pterry's penultimate novel.

AI unit Lobsang has retired with his now equally robotic companion Agnes to New Springfield in the depths of the Long Earth to try and live a human life. They have even adopted a child. But slowly Agnes comes to realise that something is wrong with the Earth on which they have made their home. Their world is under threat, and it could put the whole of the Long Earth at risk. Joshua Valiente and Sally Linsay, legendary explorers of the Long Earth, are summoned to help find out what is going on and to try and stop it.

I tend to prefer fantasy to sci-fi, but I have really enjoyed this series.

"This book was a one-way ticket to Dullsville, alighting at Dull Central, via Dull Parkway and Dull City. "

39. Perfect Interview - Max Eggert

Recommended only as a quick refresher on the interview process for experienced people, it could do with an update (last published in 2007).

40. Outline - Rachel Cusk

Writer goes to Athens to teach a creative writing course and listens to stories from people she meets. That’s pretty much the plot for Outline, a book which was about as exciting to read as I imagine how it feels to sit in a garden watching grass grow.

41. Never Judge a Book By It’s Cover - Lisa Riley

Enjoyable memoir from the former Strictly and Emmerdale star, she comes across as relatable, warm, and down to earth.

Book 80 'Touching the Void' by Joe Simpson
I thought I'd read this years ago, but it turns out that I must have just read excerpts from it, because there were things in it that I'd never seen before. I enjoyed it, although am once again rather ashamed to admit that I like mountaineering books far more when things start to go horribly wrong.

I've finally admitted defeat on the huge historical tome I've been reading for months. It wasn't so much that it wasn't a good read, more that I just couldn't cope with the relentless misery of the events.

Next up is a book that dd1 has recommended. Here She seems to have inherited some of my rather niche interests! :)

Chillie, thanks for recommending the Baxter/Pratchett - I rather enjoyed the other three and had no idea there was another one about. I'll wait for the price to drop, but its a lurking ...

Remus that book your DD has recommended sounds unusual. I look forward to your review with interest.

My most recent reads have been book 33: Red Rising - reviewed on here many a time. Not a hit for me, although a decent enough adventure romp, but what I now recognise as YA traits did annoy. Book 34: A Gathering Light - young poor girl, bookish, clever, prospective writer from poor, farming stock in the Aiderondacks has chance to escape, then doesn't, then does ... Characters all very stereotypical, the fictional story is written around a true life murder. A decent light read.

i am without my kindle for a week or so as have lent my iPad to my mother to see how she'll get on with it as an alternative to her current laptop. So am rummaging around in my bookcases for "real" books to read. No idea what i'll turn up next ... may have to hit a library and bring home FAR too many!!

I read, 'A Gathering Light' when it came out, and remember being really disappointed with it. It sounded right up my street, but just wasn't fleshed out or gripping enough for me.

28. White Nights - Ann Cleeves - Jimmy Perez mystery in the Shetland series. Good writing and reasonable mystery as usual with her books. Keeping on with easy reads until the end of term then hopefully some more interesting stuff in the holidays.

36 Mr Mercedes - Stephen King

This started out pretty OK but developed some fatal plot holes in the last 1/3 or so. Towards the end, it just got so improbable that I got swivel-eye syndrome again >>>

I dunno. Maybe Stephen King got old or maybe I grew up. This didn't do much for me.

Don't read, 'Revival' then, Cote. It makes 'Mr M' look like a work of genius in comparison!

Thanks for the heads-up

These are the books I read so far in 2015. I can't remember the exact order I read them in though. My favourites are in bold and the terrible ones are in italics.

1. In Cold Blood Truman Capote (Jan Classic)
2. Middle Age Joyce Carol Oates
3. Moonlight Mile Denis Lehane
4. We are Water Wally Lamb
5. Norwegian Wood Haruki Marakami
6. Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
7. The Dog Joseph O'Neill The Dog
8. The Housekeeper and The Professor Yoko Ogawa
9. The Thing About December Donal Ryan

10. Barracuda Christos Tsiolkas 11. Goodbye Tsugumi Banana Yoshimoto 12. Stoner John Williams 13. Terrorist John Updike 14. The Handmaid's Tale (Feb Classic) 15. The Lives of Stella Bain Anita Shreve 16. Blessings Anna Quindlen 17. When the Emperor was Devine Julie Otsuka 18. Elizabeth is Missing Emma Healy 19. Who Will Run The Fog Hospital? Lorrie Moore 20. The Outcast Sadie Jones 21. The Devotion of Suspect X Keigo Higashiro 22. Great Granny Webster Caroline Blackwood 23. Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 24. American Pastoral Philip Roth (March Classic) 25. Daughter Jane Schmeilt 26. Dark Places Gillian Flynn 27. The Clearing Tim Gautreaux 28. Never Let me Go Kazuo Ishiguro 29. We Have Always Lived in the Castle Shirley Jackson 30. The Children Act Ian McEwan 31. American Rust Philipp Meyer 32. We Are Not Ourselves Matthew Thomas 33. History of The Rain Niall Williams 34. The Golden Notebook Doris Lessing (April Classic) 35. The Grass is Singing Doris Lessing 36. The Girl on The Train Paula Hawkins 37. Strangers Taichi Yamada 38. Bel Canto Ann Patchett 39. Adult Onset Ann-Marie MacDonald 40. A Quiet Belief in Angels R.J. Ellory 41. Disgrace J.M. Coetzee (May Classic) 42. The Sea John Banville 43. Academy Street Mary Costello 44. The Narrow Road to the Deep North Richard Flanagan 45. Nearest Thing to Crazy Elizabeth Forbes 46. Plainsong Kent Haruf (June Classic) 47. Moon Tiger Penelope Lively 48. Look Back in Anger John Osborne 49. Swamplandia Karen Russell 50. Some Luck Jane Smiley 51. A Spool of Blue Thread Anne Tyler 52. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant Anne Tyler

I loved Touching The Void, Remus. I think it was my first mountaineering book. Very exciting.

I have 3 books on the go at the moment. It could go any way.

Book 24 The Book of Lost and Found by Lucy Foley.

I found this one hard to get into. Foley does not shy away from telling rather than showing! Lots of explanations of back story etc.

Interesting structure in that the present day thread is told in past tense and the historical thread told in present. Nice nod to the intersection of the two.

Beautiful sense of place and setting. Romantic.

54. The A-Z of You and Me – James Hannah

Nope, this didn’t work for me. I found it all a bit meh. The premise is good; a terminally ill man is in a hospice and his kind nurse gets him to play a game to distract himself whereby he has to name a part of the body for each letter of the alphabet and each part tells a story. These different parts link up into his back story and you find out why he has ended up in the hospital and what has happened. Some of the writing is good, but I just didn’t warm to it and it left me cold.

I have started Sophie’s World on my kindle, which I am loving so far, and A Spool of Blue Thread (library book) which is also very good IMHO.

Mmack, you have read two books so far this year which were my top two reads last year: The History of the Rain and Fahrenheit 451. Both awesome, and both about books. I also read Moon Tiger which I thought was excellent.

43. In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume

Elizabeth, New Jersey used to be directly under the flight path for Newark Airport and in 60 days in 1952 3 planes crashed on the city causing numerous deaths. This book looks at the impact these crashes had on a group of people living in the city at the time. It's a great premise for a book but it ends up more of a 'coming of age' novel than anything else. I did enjoy it but it was a little light.

44. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

I won't give away the twist but it's nuts. Again I did enjoy and it has some interesting bits but it didn't blow me away.

Currently reading Inferno by Keith Lowe which is about the impact of the July 1943 bombing raids on Hamburg by the Allies. About half way through but so far it's fantastic. Very very gripping.

17. Bone Clocks by David Mitchell - David Mitchell is probably my favourite author, so even though this is not my favourite of his books I still found it incredibly original, exciting and almost mesmerising. He has the most incredible imagination and weaves it together into an amazing story. If you're not a fan of his then you won't like this, but if you liked Cloud Atlas or Ghostwritten then I think you will enjoy this too.

Just started All the Light we Cannot See and although I'm only 50 pages in I'm loving it so far.....

Touching the Void was the book that started me on my love of mountaineering books, I haven't read one for a while as I seemed to have read all the good ones. I loved White Spider and Into Thin Air and read most of Joe Simpson's other books. No Shortcuts to the Top by Ed Viesturs was quite good too. If anyone has any other recommendations I would be very keen.

For those who like a bit of adventure combined with great writing can I please highly recommend Sara Wheeler's Terra Incognita about her travels in Antarctica. A fantastic book. I have her Arctic one (The Magnetic North) on my "to read" pile.

Great list mmack! It reminds me that I've had an unread copy of A Quiet Belief in Angels on the shelf for years.

I tried and abandoned, 'The Magnetic North.' I just couldn't get into it, which is strange considering my obsession with all things polar.

49. Nathaniel's Nutmeg by Giles Milton

The story of the 'spice race', the often violent battle between Portugal, England, and the Netherlands for control of the spiceries of the east in the 16th and 17th centuries. It covers the history of the East India Company, the Dutch East India Company, and the bravery of Nathaniel Courthope, who held the Dutch at bay on the tiny, nutmeg-filled island of Run for nearly five years with only a handful of half-starved Englishmen and the native islanders. His determination to hold the island which had pledged allegiance to the King of England set in motion the events that led to the founding of one of the greatest cities on earth - New York.

Very interesting read. It was a brutal trade, and the account of the torture and execution of the English traders on Amboyna by the Dutch was really quite disturbing. There were massacres, sea battles, famine, and hundreds of natives sold into slavery, all centred on control of an island that is barely visible on the map.

I loved, 'Nathaniel's Nutmeg.' His others are well worth a read too.

I'm 28% into my first Margaret Atwood, a book called Stone Mattress: Nine Tales. Is she always this boring? I'm on the 3rd story and am seriously depressed about this book now, because I realised there are 6 1/2 more to go It's all about old people doing old people stuff, with a modicum of fantasy thrown into a corner. The quality of writing isn't impressive, either. "He's here, forsaken by her, abandoned. In time, which fails to sustain him. In space, which fails to cradle him.". Huh?

Can anyone give me hope about the rest of this book? It's looking grim.