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

Welcome, Anni. :)

Welcome Anni I've read a bit of Lisa Jewell myself!

Speaking of light reads

51. if I could turn back time by Nicola Doherty; girl makes a mess of her chance with her ideal man, girl goes back in time and tries again. No really I did read this, every bit of it! Nice enough read

The King In The North looks like my kind of book ChillieJean. I must look it up.

Hi Anni, it's great that you have got back into reading. Small children can certainly quash the reading habit.

I also like the sound of The King in the North!

I am stuck in the middle of A God in Ruins, which is the first Kate Atkinson novel I haven't liked. I don't like it at all. Plus now it's overdue at the library so I am tempted to return it but I am about half-way through so I will persist and conquer it, but quite resentfully. Oh well, it's not as dire as The Orchardist.

Welcome to the thread, Anni :)

DS had reflux as a baby too - I really sympathise. I don't miss those days of projectile vomiting and endless changes of clothing (for me as well).

120. The Devil in The Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson. Have left a longer review in the MN Reviews section, but in a nutshell, not bad at all. It's an atmospheric thriller set in 1727 in the Marshalsea debtor's prison. It is unflinching in showing the brutality of prison life in all its stomach-churning awfulness.

Didn't quite hit the spot for my need for something dark and gothic, though, but I have now got Slade House by David Mitchell to read next.

God, I'm really struggling with The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet :( It's written in the present tense which normally I don't notice but here, it's really intrusive. Plus he is constantly interrupting dialogue with irrelevant observations such as "A fat fly traces a lazy oval through light and shadow". Perfectly nice evocative sentence but occurring right in the middle of a conversation for no apparent reason and I am finding them very irritating.

Plus I'm not warming to Jacob. Man abroad, eyes up exotic local woman. YAWN

Arrgh I suppose I'll persist to 100 pages anyway and take stock then...

Wilting Have yet to try it; suspect I won't bother tbh!

Cote - am reading and v much enjoying, 'Operation Mincemeat.'

Duchess, I enjoyed 'The Devil in the Marchalsea' as well, I thought it was a good page turner and realistic portrayal of a debtors prison, not something I was hugely familiar with.

And welcome Anni of course!

no 88 Mike Gayle Seeing Other People

I really enjoyed this story of marriage , infidelity , family life & friendship narrated from the blokes perspective for a change
I've always been a fan of Mike Gayle , I find him very comforting & easy to read
I wasn't that keen on the twisty bit , prefer things a bit more realistic but apart from that would recommend it

The King in the North was the last of the six I bought as a result of the reading spa. I think it was a pretty decent selection all in all. Very helpful for recommendations, certainly!

91. Think Like a Freak by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt

The pair behind Freakonomics have written a how-to guide for thinking like a freak, i.e. questioning conventional wisdom and thinking differently about issues. Very interesting and entertaining, although quite a short read.

86 to 88 Books 2 to 4 in the Dr Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths. I'm really enjoying these. Dr Ruth is very likeable and the supporting characters are interesting too. Going to take a break before I read the rest of the series as I don't want to finish them all too quickly.

Remus - I'm glad that you are enjoying Operation Mincemeat. I think we both like the same type of non-fiction books although our taste in fiction is diametrically opposed

I'm currently reading the same author's Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies.

Agree Operation Mincemeat is a good one , have Agent Zigzag too which I must read soon. Getting on better with Jacob de Zoet since the earthquake, might be hope for it yet !

wilting I seem to remember that Jacob de Zoet took a LOT of getting in to.

Having had my days filled with organising family stuff (celebration of 7 winter birthdays, upcoming christmas visit from family in the US, change of doctors for myself and elderly parents due to current surgery's inspection failure), my reads have been few and light:

61: The Bad Mother - Isabelle Grey. Trite, obvious, I do hope it was free or very cheap.
62: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - Caitlin Doughty. Recommended by Remus. Caitlin tells us about her experience working in a crematorium and training for the funeral industry, alongside her own personal fascination with death and its processes. The comparison she draws between our modern day practices and those historical methods which she has studied are what gives this book its value. An interesting read.
63: Early Bird Special - Tracy Krimmer. A short-story written by someone who's in a writer's group I joined. Nothing novel about the storyline, but it is well-written. Key point was to take a measurement and reading it has encouraged me to have some of my writing peer reviewed.

I, too, am surprised how easily I reached 50 books this year, having failed miserably before. But I am slightly disturbed by my almost grinding to a halt once I reached that point. I know I get madly busy as the year gets closer to an end, but I also wonder if I just stopped because I'd reached a stated goal. May try to be more vague next year!

Welcome Anni and thanks all for the recommendations which have been added to the ever increasing TBR list

Well I have had a few days light reading and wallowing in Childhood days..
Book 73 to 76

Island of Adventure by Enid Blyton
Six Cousins Again by Enid Blyton
The Enchanted Castle by E.Nesbitt
Over Sea And Under Stone by Susan Cooper

Books 77 & 78 were two Ruth Rendell’s (not read any of those for years) that I stumbled across in a charity shop – Thirteen Steps Down and Babes In The Wood. Quick, easy and enjoyable reads

Book 79 – The Audible version of Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike Book 3) by Robert Galbraith. Fantastic narration which made it an enjoyable listen. I thought this was the best so far although more “gory” than the others. It was interesting to see the development of the relationship between Strike and Robin and also see Robin’s character develop. I did find it difficult to keep track of some of the names/characters but think it is because I was listening to it rather than reading it.

Not sure what I fancy now…..

welcome Anni, that's a great list. I'm going to look up some of those books. Like you, I've been an avid reader and then sort of gave it up. In 2013 to get back into reading my husband and I started an annual reading competition (who can read the most books in a year). He won the first year, I won last year, I am currently winning this year. We only have one rule which is we must both read one book which is the same each year, and we take alternate years to choose. It was The Runaway Jury by John Grisham the first year, Catch 22 last year and I have to read Watership Down before the end of this year as his choice! Our reading choices are polar opposite, he's working through Stephen King and John Grisham's work with an odd book thrown in, I jump about all over the place between genres, eras and fiction and non fiction.

Anyway just finished book number
26: Meadowland by John Lewis-Stempel. I got the recommendation off this thread. As a huge fan of British wildlife, and all wildlife, I really enjoyed this book. It's set out month by month, the farming, the wildlife and what he sees. It's written really well and it makes it a pretty easy read.

Cote

Sonnet - loving your comfort reads list.

Joyless - glad you enjoyed, 'Smoke Gets in your Eyes'. This was a recommendation from my daughter - a real wild card. I thought some of the glances inside the crematorium were fascinating, although I wasn't very interested in her love life! I hope she writes more - I'd definitely read others of hers.

Welcome, Ani. I see we have similar taste in books so I’ve added A Sight for Sore Eyes to my tbr pile, thanks. Just finished one of your favourites from this year…

69 – The Cuckoo’s Calling – ‘Robert Galbraith’ aka J.K Rowling

A fabulously entertaining crime story for the most part, extremely well-paced with decent characterisation – very much looking forward to reading the next two books in the near future. But I’d guessed who the killer was (I usually don't figure it out in these type of books) and the ‘Agatha Christie’ ending felt clunky. I hope the BBC don't bugger up the planned TV adaptation like they did with The Casual Vacancy.

44. The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng - beautifully written account of a young man's experiences of WW2 in Malaysia. This should have ticked every box for me: historically interesting, sympathetic characters, excellent writing but....I just never felt immersed in it. Lots of interesting philosophical questions about fate and destiny. Maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind.

45. Thanks for nothing by Jack Dee - I love him as a comedian but as a writer he's very average. It's a sort of autobiography but lots of it is just him talking about things that annoy him. I think I'll stick to watching him on TV!

I'm creeping towards 50.....(books that is, not age, not quite yet!)

Welcome back to reading Anni, I had a refluxy baby too, not very happy memories but he's now almost as tall as me and seems to consume vast quantities of food with no digestive problems!

God the library just rang to say I returned a book that... Wasn't a library book I know I'm busy but that really is a new low!

Sonnet I loved the island books growing up, I must see if any of my copies survived my parents endless moving around the country Susan Cooper was another huge favourite. How did you find it as an adult?

Sonnet I have the first two Susan Cooper books lined up for December. I thought The Dark is Rising would be perfect for December.

I wish you lot wouldn't read such enticing books. I now want to read The Devil in the Marshalseamasa well. My TBR list is literally OFF THE SCALE.

102. • My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrente I know this has been reviewed on here already. I couldn't help liking this and enjoyed reading about the fraught Neopolitan society in which she and her friend Lena lived, and the close and often violent relationships between friends, families and their neighbours. Her gradual realisation about her (fairly sheltered) upbringing is interesting as are her yearnings for something other than the confines of her immediate social circle. I'm Looking forward to the next one.

103. The Drowned World - J.G Ballard
     This is an interesting take on a dystopian world in which the ice-caps have flooded and the world is becoming unbearably hot and regressing to a primordial state. Do you cling to civilisation or do you let go and embrace the changes? This is early Ballard and I am fond of his writing, despite his rather stereotypical portrayals of women and his focus on middle class white males. I think his personal experiences in a prisoner of war camp can be found in this novel to some extent. This worked for me.

What's not working for me is A God in Ruins. I should like. But I don't.

wilting, the library phoned me yesterday to tell me I had returned a library book with one of my own CDs slipped in between the pages. I have no memory of how that happened.

I've been going through a Victorian period with my reading of late:
"The Crimson Petal and the White" by Michel Faber (also the companion "The Apple: Crimson Petal Stories"). Was thoroughly absorbed by the life of Faber's characters and particularly by the vividly-recreated streets of Victorian London. It's now one of my all-time favourite books. I am impressed by how different in style and content each of Faber's books are.

Then I enjoyed Judith Flanders' microscopic accounts of Victorian street life ("The Victorian City: Everyday life in Dickens' London") and Victorian domesticity ("The Victorian House: Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed").

All the while I've been poring over the 200-some photos collated by the Museum of London for their "Dickens' Victorian London" tome.

(I also managed to slip in a visit to the excellent Charles Dickens Museum in London and will take DD there when the Christmas decorations are up).

I may read "David Copperfield" next. Then again, I may want to read something far removed from Victoriana!

Sorry for not numbering the books: I've definitely surpassed the 50 books mark. Will start a re-count in the New Year.

I had a falling out with Judith Flanders and she has not yet redeemed herself. This is a terrible pity, as she writes about exactly the kind of thing I want to read about, but I don't like her writing. I 'may' attempt to rekindle the friendship at some point, but she will need to make an effort to improve her behaviour.