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

"wash your keyboard - such casual sacrilege"

Meanwhile, Name Of The Rose is £1.99 on Kindle Sale.

The Man Who Couldn't Stop: OCD and the true story of a life lost in thought is now £2.45 on the Kindle. I've been waiting for this one to drop in price for quite some time. It's a Sunday Times bestseller, apparently.

I think I bought 10 books in the past week. Somebody stop me! (don't )

Love love LOVE Xmas Kindle book sales!

Just saw that Red Rising's sequel Golden Son was voted Best Sci-Fi Of 2015 on Goodreads.

Marcus Sakey's book Brilliance is £1.00 on the Kindle. Don't miss it if you are at all interested in near-future sci-fi thrillers.

And it's sequel A Better World is also £1.00. Third one in the series is coming out in a few weeks.

I will shut up now

Cote' keep them coming! I too am over-run by bargainous kindle deals at the moment. Everyday I have new price-drop alerts. It's very exciting.

Anyway, I finished 104. A God in Ruins.
I didn't like the first two thirds but very much liked the last third. Not her best though, it felt too 'written' somehow in that I couldn't forget the author was there which was very irritating. But there is a brilliant and funny bit near the end about being out in York amongst hen parties and Mumsnet gets a mention too.

Wilting - we can no longer be friends. That is all.

93. The Wine of Angels by Phil Rickman

A re-read of the first of the Merrily Watkins series, where she arrives in her new parish of Ledwardine along with her teenage daughter Jane and finds herself walking straight into the middle of a clash between the old-established residents and the newcomers who want to take the place up market. Jane, by contrast, discovers the mystical elements of the village while Merrily finds the vicarage haunted, and they both discover that murder is a long-held country tradition.

Oh whippet, A God of Ruins is already one of my all-time favourite books . I agree, though, on the very entertaining York chapter.

Red Rising is £0.99 on the Kindle! Read it now, if you haven't already

Afterparty is £1.04 on the Kindle. I reviewed this book on here recently. It is interesting and worthy of a read, especially at this price

55. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I've never read this classic novel, set in America in the 1920s, before - I was put off it after reading Tender is the Night a few years ago and not thinking much of it. But The Great Gatsby is loads better and I really enjoyed it.

And I will be the bigger person Remus, and remain fond of you despite your delusions

tumble - Tender is the night is shit, isn't it? It's years since I read it so perhaps am being unfair but I really had to struggle my way through it. Also, how can you take a book seriously when one of the characters is called Dick Diver?

27 To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
I'm not sure what I was expecting from this book. Whilst beautifully written, I wish it had more of a plot. I think this has more to do with my want for a good plot than any criticism of the book. I can imagine it being a GCSE English book and I found myself reading into it more, trying to work out what certain things represented or meant.

Just got to try and squeeze three more books into this year to make it to my goal of 30.

hackmum yy re Dick Diver!!

Interesting, I haven't read Fitzgerald for years (must have been late teens), but I remember much preferring Tender is the Night, never could get on with Gatsby. The Beautiful and Damned was probably my overall favourite of his books.

So which books have you all been buying in this year's Xmas Kindle sale?

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Afterparty by Daryl Gregory
The Dark Forest (Part 2 of the Three Body Problem) by Cixin Liu
The Meaning of Everything; The story of the OED by Simon Winchester
So You Have Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Ahhhh. Lots of xmas reading ; thanks for all the recommendations!

It doesn't take much to be the bigger person alongside me, Wilting - am a short arse!

I couldn't finish, 'Tender is the Night'. Took me a long time to appreciate Gatsby too.

I bought Cloud Atlas and since it was reduced by £30, a Kindle Paperwhite. It's much more fast and intuitive than my old 2010 Kindle keyboard, easier to hold, and it's motivated me to read my Kindle backlog. Currently reading on Kindle 'And When Did You Last See Your Father?', which so far is excellent.

I have bought:
Jon Ronson- So you've been publicly shamed
Max Hastings - Armageddon The Battle for Germany 1944-1945
Mary Beard - SPQR
John Steinbeck - Travels with Charley

Although the Steinbeck wasn't really on sale! A recommendation from Remus, which I have been looking forward to reading.

47. The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
48. We should all be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Two short books- got them from a review of books that could be read under 1 hr. Well, I have been struggling lately. The first was a set of short stories of unsettling goings-on. Quite enjoyed them although I'm not really partial to short stories, find them a bit frustrating. And the second was an essay based on a speech. A lot of her views in the essay are echoed in Americanah. Important discussion to be had, the equality of the genders, using her own experiences.

49. The Violent Century by Lavie Tidhar A dark x-men. Good read.

64: A Christmas Carol - the first Dickens I've read since I was a child. I just loved the richness of the language - the lusciously drawn descriptive passages of Christmas Day, in particular. There will be more Dickens next year (oh that TBR list gets longer).

65: A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole. An oddity, with wonderful writing and language. I started off enjoying the horrific character that is Ignatius - his sloth, his self-absorption, his arrogance, his rudeness, his ridiculous dress-sense and his diatribes. But after a while, I began to find him wearing rather than humorous. The supporting characters are charicatures - amusing for a while, but swiftly sinking into the absurd.

I've now added even more Kindle purchases, rather too many that weren't in the sale ... Oh well, my resolution to purchase no more this year didn't last long. I'm on a bit of a Christmas/Winter themed read atm, but have a few others to finish up before the year end for a challenge too. Luckily I'm on leave from the 16th