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

Will order HHhH from the library. It's £6 on Kindle, and I'm too fussy to justify paying that much!

Thanks for the recs.

Yeah I drifted off after a few

Actually Janet evanovich is another funny pi type writer. Again it wears after a while but I really enjoyed the first few.

HHhH might be worth a shot. A pal of mine finally read it lately and enjoyed it and she recommended the invisible library to me!

Good! Hate to pay more than £3 personally!

:) Haven't started, 'The Invisible Library' yet - will keep you posted.

Remus, if you like Bill Bryson, have you read anything by Stuart Maconie? Pies and Prejuduce is good. Northern travelogue. Plus there's a lot of Morrisey love in there and I know you're a fan.

I'm 13% into Irène, by the way, and finding it rather badly translated. I keep finding myself trying to figure out what the original French sentence might be. It might turn out interesting if the story gets going soon, or it might not. In any case, it'll be a good pastime on the beach

Has anyone read War Horse? It's just 99p on Kindle and I'm thinking about buying it.

Has anyone got today's saturday Times ?
There's a book review on a book about butterflies I wanted to get my dad for his birthday but I've forgotten the details & can't find on Amazon

Thanks in advance

I have it, esio. Link to the book on Amazon here

Thank you !!

Mumsnet always rescues me !

33. An Atlas of Impossible Longing - Anuradha Roy, an Indian saga, not one of the epics but a perfectly pleasant well written book. A little light on the actual plot but as it was so well written and I cared for most of the characters it didn't matter too much. Downloaded this book to my kindle in July 2012 and it's been sitting there all that time!

Southeast - I've read Warhorse. I like WW 1 novels but this one didn't do it for me. But, having said that, the film was good.

76. Mr Gum and the Biscuit Billionaire by Andy Stanton
77. Mr Gum and the Goblins by Andy Stanton

Taking a break from this series to read Awful Auntie by David Walliams which I've DS has been waiting to read for ages :)

78. Ghostwritten by David Mitchell. Not sure how I feel about it now I've finished. I liked some of the sections better than others, enjoyed the way they all connected together. Undoubtedly a clever novel but perhaps ultimately not one for me. Am still planning to read The Bone Clocks but not until September.

29 The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty - I liked the mystery of this story and the links between the characters. I did prefer The Husband's Secret and Little Big Lies but a good quick read.

30 Daughters of Fire by Barbara Erskine - well, I abandoned it really. I loved Rivers of Destiny and Lady of Hay so bought another ages ago which I liked about Egypt, but now have realised they are all the same story with different characters fitted in each era. Different era but essentially same story. So gave up as I really didn't care.

31 The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller (and yay, bless him, he favourited by tweet recommending it!) I enjoyed this A LOT. It is very funny, insightful, thoughtful, not patronising, and has some great recommendations. Very much a book about love of reading, trying to overcome reading guilt and also pursuing more difficult books. I would definitely recommend this.

32 Now reading What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty and I am planning to read Anna Karenina whilst on holiday next week. LOts of time on a coach and I hope I will have uninterrupted reading time!

Thanks, Duchess - I'm not going to bother buying it now.

46. Why Acting Matters - David Thomson

An extended essay on acting, much too short and he covers too much on acting styles and not enough on audience reactions.

Still waiting for a library copy of The Green Road so meanwhile I'm reading Fast Exercise, a non-fiction follow-up to The Fast Diet.

61. Calling me Home by Julie Kibler. I'm almost finished this. It's about a elderly lady, Isabelle, taking a road trip to a funeral with her much younger friend, Dorrie. Dorrie is a single mother having problems with her teenage son. As they drive Isabelle tells Dorrie the story of her love affair with a black man in racist Kentucky in 1939. The chapters skip between the past and present and the love story is much stronger that the present day story. Some of the writing is a bit clunky but Isabelle is such a sympathetic character and her story is so compelling that any minor faults don't matter and I'd recommend it overall.

I'm also on the waiting list in the library for The Green Road but I reckon it'll be Christmas before I get it. I love Anne Enright-Making Babies is the best book about motherhood by a long way.

If anyone is into Poldark novels, there are seven in the kindle daily deal today, £1.19 each.

Thank you Duchess. Got my holiday reading sorted!!!

Have read, 'Pies and Prejudice'. Thanks, Best.

I've read, 'War Horse.' Was pretty underwhelmed by it, tbh.

Here are my numbers 36 to 40:

36. Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
    This is a memoir by a former Muslim brought up in Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Kenya. At 19, her father arranged a marriage for her to a Somalian man who was living in Canada. She had no desire to live with this man, so on the stopover in Germany to Canada to be with him, she escaped to Holland and claimed asylum. She learnt Dutch, went to university, got involved in politics, lost her religion and made a short film about Islam with Theo van Gogh (for which he was later assassinated by an extremist). I found it an immensely compelling read, and very harrowing in places (such as the account of her forced FGM). Her account of the cruelty she experienced as a child (her mother used to beat her) and of the harsh attitudes of Muslim communities in Kenya and Somalia towards women is eye-opening.

37. Friday on my mind by Nicci French
    This is the latest in the Frieda Klein crime series - an enjoyable read though I have the sense that the series is beginning to flag a bit now.

38. Granta 132: Possession
    Good, and as usual, eclectic collection of stories/essays - always worth reading, and a great combination of well-known and little-known writers, and of fiction writers and journalists.

39. Keeping an eye open by Julian Barnes
    Very accessible and engaging series of essays about art, mostly 19th century French artists, though he's also excellently acerbic about Lucian Freud.

40. Ghostwritten by David Mitchell
    Although I'm a big fan of Mitchell, I didn't have very high expectations of this because it was his first novel, and really only bought it because it was so cheap on Kindle. But it's a great read and very clever and funny - essentially all the things you expect from a David Mitchell novel. Each chapter is a self-contained story, told from the perspective of a different character, all very different from each other, and the book similarly ranges between different locations, such as Hong Kong, Moscow and Mongolia. The stories are all linked through connections between the different characters . An absolute joy to read.

40: Went straight to another Anna McPartlin book as I enjoyed Rabbite Hayes so much...."The One I Love" is about a woman who goes missing, and how her old school friend accidentally meets the woman's husband and gets involved in the search even though the two women have not been friends for 18 years. Lots of good characters and funny bits. I enjoyed it as a good light read.
41: started Jojo Moyes "Silver Bay" now:

34. London Calling - A Mirabelle Bevan Mystery- Sara Sheridan - this is the second book in a series. Fairly gentle 1950's detective novel. Mirabelle Bevan, having worked in the Secret Service during the war is now a private detective in Brighton. I enjoyed this book, they are short, well written and in my opinion she creates a very realistic feel of the time the book is set in,1952 without trying too hard. Recommended if that is your type of book.

Moving on to The Girl on the Train, I am required to read this for two book groups over the. Summer and was given a copy as a present so I'm going to try and read it with an open mind!

Finally finished

35. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. This is a non-fiction book about how our brains work in making decisions, eg why we tend to place more emphasis on intuition and observation rather than evidence, relevant statistics etc. Drawing together themes from lots of different research projects, I found this absolutely fascinating and a real eye opener. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in behavioural economics.