50 Book Challenge 2015 Part Five

[southeastdweller]

Thread five 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, third thread here, and fourth thread here.

Happy reading

Best - I want the Bill Bryson and Sue Perkins's autobiography - going on my Christmas list :)

I'm not sure I can wait until Christmas, especially for the Bill Bryson.

There's lots of books out this Thursday that look interesting. Personally I'm excited about the memoir's from Brian Blessed and Steve Coogan.

26. Do No Harm, Henry Marsh

Reviewed a lot already. Enjoyed this - really got the impression of medicine changing over the decades. Finally getting over husband leaving, and find I can read again. Making an effort to get to fifty!

southeast And I want to read the Brian Blessed autobiography too. Such an interesting man :)

Rosehip - I loved Do No Harm. It was utterly gripping. I watched the documentary he did about his work, The English Surgeon, and some of his patients he treated in the Ukraine were in that too.

Books 52 & 55: the final Booker contenders ' The Fisermen' by Chigozi Obioma and 'The Year of the Runaways' by Sanjeev Sahota. I enjoyed both with each gaining 4 stars on Goodreads. My full reviews are on my blog

Books 53 & 54 were sorbet, read to bridge between two heavyweight reads. Katie Fforde's 'Recipe for Love' and Kate Hewitt's 'Out in the Country'. Both were silly and fluffy, but were either free or very cheap and performed their palate cleansing role.

This Booker readathon of mine has put me way behind on my reading and I am building up some fabulous recommendations - thanks v much

Joyless, I think your Booker readathon is awesome and I am jealous! There's a few on the shortlist I fancy reading too but who knows when that will happen.

Rosehip, I'm glad things are getting better and you are enjoying reading again. That's great.

So i have managed:
86. The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
I did enjoy this classic novel but felt it lost its way just before the end. I even felt a little spooked for some of the time! Three people answer a request to spend time in the reputedly haunted Hill House to help an academic study the psychic phenomena and make his name. Stuff happens!

87. City of Djinns - William Dalrymple He wrote this in the 1990s when he lived for a few years in Dehli with his wife. I've certainly discovered a lot about early, later and modern Indian history reading whilst reading this book and his love for India, it's people and it's architecture shines through in his prose. Good stuff.

Now more spooky books, because it's October. So I've just started The Woman in Black. So far so good...

Any recs for spooky stuff that I might not have read?

I didn't like 'Hill House' - I thought it was really silly.

78. The Devil's Workshop by Alex Grecian

It is April 1890, and Scotland Yard's Murder Squad is hunting four convicted murderers who have escaped from prison. They have until nightfall to find them before the killers disappear for ever into London's criminal underworld. But as Inspector Walter Day and Sergeant Nevile Hammersmith hunt these four men, another terror is unleashed on the streets of Victorian London. Jack the Ripper is back.

Quite gruesome in places, but one of the better novels in this series I thought. It kept me pretty well engaged at any rate.

Got halfway through the first of The Chronicles of St Mary's before deciding it was really dire and that I couldn't be bothered to go any further.

Now reading The Martian. Saw the film this weekend and really enjoyed it but I am a sucker for space related films. I cry at them all.

Joyless - I love the sorbet analogy! Perfect. I often need a palate cleansing book as well, some PG Wodehouse or a pulpy crime novel

Remus, I don't usually do spooky so I have no idea about books like that but I would love to know of some others if you have any good ones to recommend to me
It's quite fun reading them and I love this time of year.

Just checking in to say hello. Real life has been getting in the way of reading lately, but I'm making slow progress with Life in a Cold Climate (Nancy Mitford biography) and really enjoying it.

47. The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu;

I found the writing style here quite unusual, almost mythic sometimes in flavor, possibly this is deliberate or possibly it is due to cultural differences or maybe it is just the translation. There is more distance and formality between the reader and the characters than you would expect. At first I wasn't sure what to make of it, was all that cultural revolution context supposed to be realistic? Is it supposed to be a warning on the consequences of environmental destruction?

I found the atmosphere quite distancing in places but ultimately, I think this works, because the big question in the book really is whether the human race deserves to live. The writing flowed well, even the very technical pieces around science were beautifully done so I felt I was understanding the concepts probably as ignorant as ever really though. The game which serves to illustrate the Trisolaris problem is weirdly enthralling and as you are not particularly enamored of any one character, you happily go from viewpoint to viewpoint. In the latter third of the book, hard action takes over from philosophical and physic musings and it definitely leaves you wanting more.

I enjoyed it, I'd recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction :)

No 78

Sophie Hannah
Lasting Damage

First one I've read of hers , didn't really enjoy it , too much description & detail made the promising plot of the book too dull , all the Police Officers got me completely confused

I've heard good reviews of her though so if anyone wants to recommend another title I'm willing to try again !

Esio xx

Whippet Have you read, 'The Woman in White' or, 'The Moonstone'? Neither are desperately spooky, but they are perfect cuddle up in Autumn books.

Remus, thanks, I have and enjoyed them very much. I agree they would be perfect for this time of year

I have just started Misery by Stephen King. I have never read a Stephen King novel before so it's a new one for me. I imagine it's all big fun time though. I did finish:

88. The Woman in Black - Susan Hill

This was fun to read and I did find it scary and atmospheric but then I am such a MASSIVE wuss when it comes to anything remotely horror related (don't do horror films at all - it took me ages to get over The Ring - not even the original but the American re-make). My DD is reading Woman in Black for English in school which is why I wanted to read it.
She seems calmly indifferent so is made of stronger stuff than me!.

Esio, I don't think the Sophie Hannah books would make much sense if you didn't read them in order. There is a big back story for Simon and Charlie. I've read nearly all the series even though they sort of annoy me. The plots are always a bit crazy but the writing is good so they keep sucking me back in.

Book 46 Waterland - Graham Swift. Intertwines historical stories about the Fens with a contemporary story about a man whose life is in crisis. Brilliant descriptions. It really pulled me in although the women characters are not well written - they're only half there is the best way that I can describe it. Would recommend it.

Book 47 X by Sue Grafton. Am disappointed that this is not - as all the rest of the books in the series are - called 'X is for'. This was OK but don't think it's one of her best.

Book 48 Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym. Written in the 1950s. Jane and Prudence are friends. Jane is a rather useless vicar's wife and Prudence is that terrible thing for the time - a woman approaching 30 who is not married! It's funny with some good observations. Recommend this.

Book 49. How to Grow Food a Wartime Guide by Doreen Wallace. Picked this up in the library. It is a facsimile copy first published in 1940 and has plenty of advice about growing vegetables for beginners. Quite lighthearted.

Book 50. Peaches for Monsieur Le Cure by Joanne Harris. This is a sequel to Chocolat. Vianne - the main character - returns to the village where she opened her chocolate shop to find that the priest is under threat and there is much tension with the north african immigrants who have moved into the area. Good but there were moments when I got a bit bored with her 'it's all about me and all my fault' musings, as if somehow everything that happens is because of her - even though she hasn't even been in the village for 8 years.

Book 51 Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim. This is a sequel to a previous book which I haven't read yet. Wealthy German woman decides to have a solitary summer - no guests - to bother her so she can enjoy her garden, really a massive estate. Interesting musings and some funny parts. Good descriptions of the plants and flowers growing. She's very much a woman of her time and class. It was written in 1899 and one of the things the narrator laments is that she is unable to actually do the gardening herself, she has to use gardeners. And as a woman she has to keep her views to herself almost all the time. A good and quick read.

Whippet I'm not a fan of, 'The Woman in Black' but dd1 went to see the theatre production of it and was absolutely petrified!

'Misery' is a great King to start with, I think. It has a v 'interesting' villain (the film is v good too - one of the few King films I actually rate)/

I was absolutely petrified by it too!

49. The Echo - James Smythe

This is the sequel to The Explorer, which I had reviewed on here some time ago. The first ship sent to figure out the Anomaly has not returned (due to all that happened in the first book) and now another ship is being sent to investigate that part of space. It is an odd story but interesting in many ways.

"don't do horror films at all - it took me ages to get over The Ring"

I don't do horror films, either. And yet I also watched The Ring and it took me ages to get over it.

Worse, if you can believe it, was The Skeleton Key. I couldn't get to sleep for weeks. Certain scenes of it would just play in my mind and I would panic in the dark I watched it maybe 10 years ago, and still don't want to think about it.

Ah Cote, a fellow horror wuss
I have never seen The Skeleton Key but I strongly suspect it might not be my thing! I am such a wuss that when I went to see The Blair Witch Project (at the cinema) it completely terrified me. I still get a little bit worried if I am walking the dog and see piles of sticks. Even Jaws still freaks me out. My offspring look at me like this which is why I stick to books.

Ooh, the Skeleton Key starring Kate Hudson and set somewhere slightly swampy - Florida or Mississippi - and end with her character being swapped into the body of an old woman? I remember being quite disturbed by it.

Eden Lake equally terrifying - your'll never view a stranger somewhere remote without suspicion again...