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

wilting - I snapped up Shogun

60. Pompeii by Robert Harris

A novel centred on the events of the eruption of Vesuvius and destruction of Pompeii, following four main characters - a young engineer working on the aquaduct, an adolescent girl, a corrupt millionaire former slave, and Pliny the Elder. Quite an enjoyable read.

Struggling a little with To Kill a Mockingbird. I know I'll finish it but it's really slow so far.

esiotrot - I'm partway through the second in the Divergent trilogy. I quite enjoyed the first book, but I'm finding my suspension of disbelief being increasingly strained by now. The concept of splitting the population by character traits in an interesting one, but the way it's been executed doesn't feel fully thought through to me. I've not been reading the second one very quickly - I keep being distracted by other books - but will persevere to the end of the second one at least in case it improves.

27. Scott K Andrews - Timebomb

First book in a YA series. Teenagers Jana from 2141 and Dora from 1640 appear in Sweetclover house where they meet Kas from the present day, and are all targeted by enemies because their future selves are important in some sort of time war. Slightly confusing but enjoyable. They keep running into future versions of themselves too, so no worries about destroying the space time continuum here.
The explanation of how they started timetravelling in the first place was somewhat unconvincing too, especially in the case of Dora from 1640 - it's along the lines of "you were exposed to a timebomb further along your personal timeline, and the effects spread backwards, and that's how you can time travel now".

28. Stephen King - 22.11.63

I really enjoyed this. I was a bit sceptical at first about whether I would enjoy a story based around the Kennedy assassination, but once I'd started reading it, it was very hard to put it down. I would definitely recommend this one.
High school teacher Jake learns that his friend Al has a rabbit hole to the past in the back of his diner. Al talks Jake into going back in time to prevent the Kennedy assassination, as Al believes this will change history for the better. The time travel aspects here were definitely more plausible than in the Timebomb book I've mentioned above.

39. Wake, Anna Hope. This follows the journey of the body of the Unknown Warrior in November 1920 from France to Westminster over five days leading up to Remembrance Day, and at the same time the stories of 3 women in London, gradually revealing a connection between them. Covering very similar themes to Birdsong - the horrors of trench warfare are less graphically described but the brutality is still shocking, especially treatment of so-called deserters suffering from shell-shock. I found it interesting how she describes national feelings and attitudes towards the war and those who survived, and how the ceremony was meant to have a healing effect on the population, despite the fact that so many veterans were left unable to work and without benefits. The characters of the three women and their families are also very well developed. Would recommend.
40. The Guest Cat, Takashi Hiraide. An odd little book - reads like a memoir though the author keeps referring to it as a novel - about a cat which he and his wife befriend, but which belongs to a neighbour. Poetic writing and he makes a few philosophical points, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere.

Shadowstar : I agree with you
The books so far aren't really living up to the hype surrounding them for me yet .... Might just watch the films instead !

Book 31 The Farm by Tom Rob Smith.

TRS is a fabulous writer. His debut, Child 44 was stunning, deserving of its plaudits, prizes and sales around the world. I can't wait to see the movie.

So I will forgive him The Farm. A vanity project in which he is trying to write through a period of personal trauma ( his mothers breakdown). But this book is not great. The plot, the style, the structure are all weak, especially considering how talented TRS actually is.

55. waiting for Wednesday - Nikki French. Psychological thriller, third in the Frieda Klein series. I don't know whether I like Frieda or whether she's one of he most irritating heroines ever.

No 64

The Shock of The Fall

Brilliant book written from the perspective of a young adult with mental illness

41. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
    I read this because I haven't read much VW and had a vague feeling that I ought to. And it was v cheap on Kindle. It was better than I expected (I didn't have very high expectations). If people don't know, it's set in the 1920s and is set in a single day, in which a well-off middle-class woman prepares for her party that evening and reflects on her past. But it's not just about her - the book follows other characters too. The one I found most interesting was a war veteran suffering from what we'd now call PTSD - Woolf is scathing about the attitude of his doctors towards mental illness.

42. The year of reading dangerously by Andy Miller
    My best friend recommended this, and I know some people on here have read it. Enjoyed it immensely, and read it in two sittings. He had plenty of interesting and provocative things to say about the books he'd read - I was disappointed that he didn't like Pride & Prejudice, but other than that I thought he had pretty good judgement. I now really want to read Absolute Beginners by Colin Macinness.

43. Not my father’s son by Alan Cumming
    Again, I read this very quickly - a real page-turner. I don't think he's going to win any prizes for literary style but he had a very interesting and moving story to tell about his dad and his maternal grandfather. The cruelty of his father beggared belief, really.

44. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
    I read it purely because people on here recommended it - would never have come across it otherwise. I enjoyed it - it was unexpectedly funny in a slightly arch way.

45. Introducing the ancient Greeks by Edith Hall
    I started this before Mrs Dalloway! Took me ages to get through it. I am interested in the ancient Greeks but got a bit lost with all the names, dates and places. But worth reading if you have better powers of concentration than I do.

Books 99 and 100

Two by Jean Webster (of Daddy Long Legs fame)

Two rather silly novels set in a girls' boarding school. Nothing in particular happens but they were nicely lightweight and diverting, and therefore good plane reads. I don't recommend them unless you still think back on malory Towers etc with nostalgia.

61. The Rose Labyrinth by Titania Hardie

I picked this up in a second hand book shop with a vague feeling that it seemed familiar. And as it turns out I have read it before, several years ago. But that's okay because it's a fairly enjoyable piece of hockum that has a reasonable pace and a specific interest for me because it draw in John Dee, who I find fascinating.

It's basically a consipiracy theory/treasure hunt type novel which drifts back and forth between Dee's time and the modern day. Dee is reputed to have hidden his secret teachings for his descendants to find when the time is right. In the modern day, Will Stafford goes off across Europe hunting for the meaning behind the strange legacy he inherits from his mother. In London, Lucy King becomes drawn into the mystery, and soon finds that there are dark forces out to find the hidden treasure, a treasure which they believe will bring on the Rapture.

As I say, it's all hockum really, but if you like this sort of thing it's a decent enough read.

34. The Book of Strange New Things by Michael Faber Audiobook. This book prompted a lot of discussion between myself and my DH. I loved the story and world building.

SPOILER

I don't want to give the whole story away to those who haven't read it.
I both loved the characters and found them frustrating. An interesting transition from aspiring enthusiastic missionary who forgets about his wife to frantic homesick husband worried about pregnant wife enduring the end of Planet Earth. The transition is related to the clinical and strange atmosphere at the base, his own physical deterioration, the letters he receives from his Earth-bound wife as well as his "all or nothing" attitude to life. Other minor characters were introduced along the way, including a bit part by the aliens. Such a thought-provoking book. I have read three of Michael Faber's books (Crimson Petal and Under The Skin) and this did not disappoint.

35. A Better World by Marcus Sakey Book 2 in the Brilliance Trilogy. Very good pacey thriller. Very much enjoying this trilogy.

44 - The City And The Stars - Arthur C Clarke

This was a massive disappointment. I have read a lot of books by Clarke as a teenager, including 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequels, Rendezvous With Rama & sequels, The Fountains of Paradise, and a short story book I can't remember the name of. I thought well of him, as one of the three best early sci-fi authors: Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C Clarke were all engineers/scientists and knew what they were talking about. The books they wrote had their shortcomings, especially when viewed from the 21st Century, but they showed a lot of attention to detail. For example, when Clarke talked about the astronaut who was stranded on Jupiter's moon Europa and watching some planet rise on the horizon, you could bet that he had worked out the orbits and that planet would indeed rise from that angle at that time.

Anyway, back to this book. It is basically one long nonsense. The entire storyline is that there is this guy who wants to go out and explore, gets an older guy to tell him the secret of how to do that, then falls onto a secret city, stumbles on an ancient life form nobody knew about while wandering aimlessly (as luck would have it). Of course that life form tells him lots about the secrets of the universe, then he finds a spaceship and somehow finds himself "at the centre of the universe" (no less), finds another ancient life form by accident, who then tells him ALL about the history of the universe. The End.

I think this was Clarke's 1st book. I certainly hope so, because now I'm doubting my appreciation of all his other books. Were they all this bad? Certainly not. Or were they? Damn you, City And The Stars

wilting I read Shogun while I was actually in Japan. Prior to my trip there I'd asked for advice on here about Japanese literature, and ended up reading an interesting assortment of stuff, some quite bizarre. I loved The Makioka Sisters in particular (not bizarre).

Shogun was a perfect choice for holiday reading - not the sort of book I'd usually go for but really gripping and just a great yarn.

Book 101
'Jerry' by Jean Webster
Another Kindle freebie from the, 'Daddy Longlegs' writer. This one was a little more 'grown up' and is essentially a very silly but sweet love story. I enjoyed it enormously. If you like, 'Miss Pettigrew' or, 'What Katy Did Next' you'd probably like it.

I've started, 'Damn His Blood' about a 19th century murder case, but am struggling to get into it. There's an awful lot of padding and it reminds me a lot of, 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher' in that there's an interesting historical crime case at the heart of it, then the writer scrabbling around for stuff to make it enough for a book. I probably won't bother finishing it tbh.

63. Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido. A suburban girl, Katherine, gets caught up in the lives of the bohemian Goldman family.An easy read but the characters were all stereotypes. The two brothers who provide the love interest were fairly charmless. I feel like I should have enjoyed this a lot more than I did so maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for it.

64. The Ice Storm by Rick Moody. I imagine lots of people have seen the excellent film adaptation of this and the book was just as good.

65. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. I think everyone should read this. The author shows how bad science reporting leads people to believe all kinds nonsense.

66. Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell. Teenager Ree Dolly lives in the Ozarks and is struggling to raise her younger brothers after her mother has a breakdown. She finds out that her meth-cooking father has put up their house as collateral with a bail bondsman. As he hasn't shown up for his court date she has 30 days to find him before the family ends up homeless. The film version of this is one of my favourite films ever and the book is fantastic too.

Daniel Woodrell also wrote Woe to Live On which was adapted by Ang Lee as Ride with the Devil.

48. Fast Exercise - Dr Michael Mosley and Peta Bee

Persuasively written book about the benefits of high intensity training, this has done wonders for my motivation at the gym.

49. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

I almost feel like apologising for not loving this book. Great messages, some fab quotes, but some of it was dull and the class inequalities theme laboured. Struggled to believe in some of the characters, too.

29. The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett

I had high hopes for this but sadly it just didn't blow me away. The book's premise is to show 3 different versions of two characters' lives. It's really well written but even trying very hard to pay close attention I got very confused by the 3 different versions, which change throughout the book and not always in order. I also found their lives slightly boring, very realistic but just not interesting enough to hold my focus. A great idea, well written but only 3 stars out of 5 for me. I would definitely look at the author's future books though.....this was her first novel and is very promising.

mmack - I have just ordered Winter's bone, someone else recommended it to me once and I completely forgot about it so thanks for the reminder!

hack mum - A year of reading dangerously has been added to my Wish List - looks really interesting

Just returned from a 2 week holiday where, shockingly for me, I didn't read much.

51. Labyrinth by Kate Mosse

Book group choice. Utterly silly. Completely unbelievable even in a fantasy way. Badly written and irritating to the point I was shouting at the book. Marginally redeemed by the history. Overall do not understand the love for this.

52. Villa America by Liza Klaussmann

I've read and enjoyed a few books set amongst the Hemingway/Murphy/Fitzgerald set and did enjoy this one as well. Was disappointed that this seemed much more superficial than say The Paris Wife but also the most interesting character, Owen Chambers, was a complete fiction. An easy holiday read.

Just started The Year of Reading Dangerously

One of the many nice things about the Year of Reading Dangerously is that it mentions Mumsnet.

Provencal I've just abandoned Villa America halfway through after having looked forward to reading it! Just goes to show that it is horses for courses. I agree that Owen was by far the most interesting character - I found both Sara and Gerald highly irritating.