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

That's good news, Best.

30. The Hours by Michael Cunningham. This has three strands running through it, with three female protagonists. One is Virginia Woolf (while writing Mrs Dalloway) and the other two are later generations of women whose lives were influenced by or had parallels with Virginia Woolf's or her character Clarissa Dalloway's.

This was recommended by Atticus upthread, and as I read and loved Mrs Dalloway last year I thought I'd try it. I'm glad I did, because this is definitely one of my favourite books this year. The writing and the characters are superb, and the Virginia Woolf bit felt very realistic.

I've just added the film to our Lovefilm list. Not sure it's DH's kind of thing though!

46. A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie

The Chipping Cleghorn Gazette carries a personal announcement of the time and place of a forthcoming murder, and the inquisitive villagers descend on the house of Miss Blacklock at the appointed time to discover that none of the residents know what is going on. Then the lights go out, shots are fired, Miss Blacklock is injured, and the young man who held up the room is dead. Miss Marple comes to investigate a village where no one really knows the background of anyone else, and several people may not be who they claim.

Rather a convoluted story really, but good fun.

Feel like I've been away for ages - life a bit intense. Sorry to those with health problems.

Duchess, Dominion is one of the books I abandoned too. Cote, I see you mentioned Jason Goodwin - I'm currently reading Evil Eye by him, part of the Yashim series, and I'm enjoying it. From conversations with eunuchs in the harem to companionable evenings in the decrepit old Polish embassy, it's such an interesting world to enter.

I'm not going to bring over my full list, but the books I've read since the last thread are as follows:

60. East Lynne, Mrs Henry Wood. Deathbed scenes, court-room drama, people dashing about in carriages - what more could you ask from a Victorian melodrama. Ladies, never abandon your marriages no matter how miserable you are, or it will surely lead to disfigurement, the death of several children, and worst of all, the sight of your ex-husband dropping burning kisses on the lovely upturned face of your rival.

61. Keeping up with the Kalashnikovs, Ross O'Carroll-Kelly. I've mentioned this series before - a satirical look at modern Dublin, although at one point the action moves to Uganda and then to a pirate ship off the coast of Somalia. Equal opportunities offensiveness and very funny, with the occasional unexpected note of sweetness.

62. The Fall of the Stone City, Ismail Kadare. Set in Albania during the 1940s (German invasion) and 1950s (Communist-era investigation into an incident from the time of the invasion). The author is Albanian. I was enchanted by this - at times it reads like a dark fairy-tale, leavened with glints of humour. Hard to read towards the end, but never gratuitous.

63. The Origins of our Species, Chris Stringer. Non-fiction - an up-to-date account of current thinking on human evolution. An account not just of what researchers think, but why they think it. Interesting.

64. Holy Island: a DCI Ryan Mystery, L J Ross. I think this was self-published and in dire need of an editor. Female character, aged all of 27, is apparently a leading international authority on the Neolithic and Mesolithic, which means she goes wittering on about Druids and Satanism. Obviously she ends up falling for the handsome grey-eyed policeman with the tragic past, who turns up in the nick of time to solve the murders and rescue the next intended victim. Teeth-gnashingly bad.

65. The Boy in the Book, Nathan Penlington. Non-fiction - man buys "Choose your own adventure" books on e-bay, finds the original owner wrote notes in them as a boy, decides to track him down. I remember those books and expected this to be a nostalgic wallow in childhood fantasy, but this was disappointing, dull and stagey (the author was also making a documentary about his "quest"). His writing about how hard life can be for shy adolescents is heartfelt, but it just wasn't all that interesting.

66. An Englishwoman in New York, Anne-Marie Casey. The cover made it look like chick-lit, but it was rather more astringent than that. Interlinked short stories about women in their 40s in New York. I rather enjoyed it, as the author observes her characters coolly. I think the cover tries to sell it to the wrong audience.

67. The Curse of the House of Foskett, MRC Kasasian. An enjoyable pastiche of Sherlock Holmes with a female side-kick. Nicely gothic set-up, snappy dialogue, gory murders. I enjoyed it, but felt a bit squeamish about some of deaths.

68. Cutting up Playgirl: A memoir of sexual disappointment, "Carrie Jones" (pseudonym). Non-fiction - author is breathtakingly honest about her sexual development. Being the good girl for her parents, trying to please boyfriends and live up to a certain image, and the difficulty of knowing and meeting your own authentic desires. Not at all prurient. I was impressed with this - truthful in a way we don't often hear.

69. Oxygen, Andrew Miller. He writes well but this book didn't quite work for me - I'm not sure how the two storylines (dying mother, request made to political emigree) really cohered. Possibly went over my head.

70. The Accident, Ismail Kadare. I still like the matter-of-fact strangeness, but this didn't quite work for me. A car-accident in Vienna - a pair of lovers die in mysterious circumstances. There is some political connection. I didn't quite get it.

71. The Elizabethans, A N Wilson. I wanted to quarrel with the author a lot of the time. If he attributes the conduct of the Dutch wars to Elizabeth being menopausal, how does he explain the bad decisions made in every other war by male leaders? Grrr. Men follow strategies, while women are confused by their hormones. But he does create some rather lovely and memorable vignettes, eg. Dr Dee's library as the real Prospero's book, and the final chapter on Elizabeth as Hamlet. Idiosyncratic, out to please nobody but himself.

Bibliomania - I like the sound of Cutting Up Playgirl , I think I'll order it from the library , thank you !

Good news about the op, Best- hope you don't have to wait too long for a date.

tumble- I loved The Hours too. Read it last year and watched the film. It's one of the very few films I've seen that I thought were true to the novel and was done well, with a good cast.

Duchess oh good, I'm looking forward to watching it!

Book 36 Finally started The Night Circus: only 100 pages in and totally entranced and enchanted, feels like exactly my type of book!

Glad to hear your good news Best get the date and go for it!

30. The Atlantis Plague and
31. The Atlantis World by AG Riddler

Really enjoyed this trilogy, held my attention right to the end. Great mix of drama, science fiction, thriller, I recommend! It's not perfect mind you, everyone in it is apparently capable of making remarkable logical deductions from the scantiest of evidence, he introduces characters he has no real use for and then drops them and everything wraps up v neatly but still, v satisfying absorbing read.

Hope all ill people are okay.

I am bookless, having a 'baddish' week health-wise and desperate for something gripping but not too taxing to read. Please help me, oh wise ones.

Is it that time of the year again, Remus?

Have you read Confessions Of A Sociopath yet?

There is always Measuring The World which you haven't read yet.

Both still on my list - but I need something that I can read in dribs and drabs and that won't make me think too much. Basically, I want the new World War Z!

That Atlantis trilogy was a light read Remus, might fit the bill?

Well then don't read The Buried Giant Remus.
I am losing the will to go on with this inconceivably dull book. Can someone please tell me that it gets better and is worth persevering? I am halfway through and wondering if I can be bothered to read another whole half which is about 200 pages.
I am hoping a mad rampaging dragon appears, setting fire to all and sundry, just to liven things up. Yesterday I had a rare free hour between work and pre-school, picked up the book and fell instantly to sleep. In my car. And I wasn’t even comfy.
Aggghhhh.

IMO life's too short and there are too many good books out there to persevere with one that's not right for you.

Whippet - I hated The Buried Giant. I am cross with myself for having wasted an Audible credit on it. It was tedious and it never got any better. I'd give up now if I were you before you lose the will to live :)

"something that I can read in dribs and drabs and that won't make me think too much"

I may have said this before, but have you read Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities? I don't read Italo Calvino sort of stuff usually, but this book is really good, with a new imaginary city (all named after women) is described on each page (some on 2 pages). Very easy to dip in and out of.

For anyone interested in well-written non-fiction about war/spies, Ben Macintyre's book Agent Zigzag: The True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman: Lover, Traitor, Hero, Spy is £0.99 on the Kindle just for today.

Philip K Dick's masterpiece A Scanner Darkly is £1.99 on the Kindle at the moment.

Whippet - I hate Ishiguro. Only read two, and both infuriated me. I won't be reading any more of his.

Thanks for the recs, Cote. I wish, 'Golden Son' would come down in price.

65. Stoner by John Williams. 3.5/5 stars.

Whilst the writing was good, I really didn't enjoy the story. I found it relentlessly downbeat and depressing. Didn't want to give up on it, but also didn't really feel very motivated to read it.

66. Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel. 5/5 stars. Was in the mood for a dystopian novel and this fitted the bill exactly. Absolutely loved it.

The story is set both before and after a virulent flu epidemic has killed 99.5% of the world's population. I really enjoyed the way it travelled back and forth in time both before and after the epidemic, looking at the lives of those characters who survived and those who didn't. All loose ends tied up, and a satisfactory ending.

Duchess - Could you compare to Station Eleven to some other sci-fi books for me? I'm trying to decide if I want to read it or not. Some details about it that I have heard gave me the impression that it's a bit of a "women's fiction" book.

Very much agree on Stoner, Duchess. Not a book I can ever imagining re-reading.

47. 4.50 From Paddington by Agatha Christie

Jane Marple's friend Mrs McGillicuddy witnesses a murder in the opposite carriage as her train and another run side by side along a short stretch of track. But although she reports it no body is found and she isn't believed. Miss Marple sets out to find the body, with the assistance of the very capable Lucy Eylesberrow, and also to find the murderer.

Miss Marple is unusually proactive in this one, actually seeking out a murder rather than simply happening to encounter one.

I've binged enough on Agatha Christie for now. Going to switch to non-fiction for the next one.