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

cedar, finally I've found someone else who loves Barbara Pym's Crampton Hodnet! One of my favourite books - I particularly love the elopement, with the not-very-happy couple secretly longing for a nice cup of tea.

I've been plodding through (116) New Grub Street by George Gissing. My, it's depressing - people struggling with poverty as they try to make a living by their pens in late 19th century London. Hunger, misery and death all the way.

For light relief, I turned to murder, specifically (117-119) 3 books by Sophie Hannah: The Orphan Choir, The Telling Error and The Guestbook (the last being short stories). As I said previously, she does intriguing set-ups, so you want to find out what the secret it, but when you do, it's a let-down. All foreplay and no...main event.

I've conscientiously gone back to the Genghis Khan book I started ages ago. I'm enjoying it, but it also feels strangely detached from the human cost - lots of breezy references to whole populations being killed/raped/enslaved. I'd like to read a feminist historian's take on it.

Oh, another Susan Cooper fan here. Will Stanton is my boyfriend, so hands off.

bibliomania I've only just discovered Barbara Pym and am enjoying reading her books.

I've lost track of the number of books but I've just read these ones:
My Real Children by Jo Walton
Patricia is an old lady living in a care home. She is confused - sometimes she thinks she lived a life where she has 3 children, other times 4 different children. So which is her real life? Loved the idea of this book as it follows her two different lives. Wasn't too sure about the ending and the one disadvantage of having two different lots of lives to recount was there wasn't much depth to some of the other characters.

Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers by Alexander McCall Smith. A nice light read, various unlikely things happen. Not my favourite of his but still fun. Bertie finally gets free of his awful mother for a bit.

Now reading The Martian which I know has had mixed views on here.

I gave up on, 'New Grubb Street.' So, so tedious.

Hope you enjoy the Steinbeck, Shakeit. Oh and I think, 'The Yellow Wallpaper' is sublime, but 'Herland' didn't do much at all for me.

Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell - another one from trawling through the e-books available via the library. Not earthshattering, and I'm sure you could make equally convincing and very different stories out of much of his evidence, but some interesting ideas all the same.

biblio he's actually my boyfriend. Not yours. So Sorry.
I did laugh at "so for light relief I turned to murder"...

105. After Me Comes the Flood - Sarah Perry A book full of annoying "damaged" characters where nothing happens and when it inevitably grinds to its conclusion and something does actually occur you think, oh well. Would I recommend this? I would not.

Picked up my book last night and realised it's called The Humans not The Martian. My excuse is that I'd only read about 2 pages.

Cedar

Timescape (S.F. MASTERWORKS) by Gregory Benford >> £1.49

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou >> £1.49

Last Man Standing: Tales From Tinseltown by Roger Moore >> £1.09

I'll fight you for him, whippet.

Cote, I was aiming to read the Genghis Khan book you'd recommended, but have just realised that I am reading a different one, by John Man. Nothing so far about the status of women in Mongolian society. You read the one by Jack Weatherford, right? I've just seen he has a whole book on the Secret History of the Mongol Queens, so probably he's the author I should be reading. Not that the John Man book is bad in its own right - he's wound in a bit of travelogue, which I like.

Skimmed through Zadie Smith's essays, Changing my Mind. She writes well, obviously, with a light touch, but I wasn't enthralled by all the subject matter.

biblio - I would really recommend you to get the Genghis book I talked about below. The author was part of the team of researchers that had unprecedented access to the region in Mongolia where Genghis Khan was born and ruled from, which also collaborated on the legendary book The Secret History Of Mongols written shortly after Genghis's death in 1200s.

When Genghis Khan died, Mongols buried him in his native land sealed off that entire area, allowing only his family members access for mourning. Then came Soviet Russia and this time really sealed it off and surrounded it with weapons testing facilities, because they wanted to discourage nationalist sentiment. So when Soviet Russia came down and Mongolia was established, Genghis Khan's lands were exactly as they were when he died in 1227, presenting a wealth of information for the historical/anthropology team that worked on it.

The book Secret History of Mongols had a similar story - it was illegal to possess a copy during Soviet times, let alone working on it. So it is only in the last couple of decades that it has been possible to translate it and collaborate on it with specialists in Mongolia and elsewhere.

Weatherford's book is exceptional because it is the result of this collaboration on previously unavailable sources of historical information.

Okay, at under £2, I'll give it a whirl!

95. Herzog by Saul Bellow. I won't summarize as it's a classic. I loved everything about it.
96. The Bowl is Already Broken by Mary Kay Zuravleff. Promise Whittaker discovers that she's pregnant at 43 soon after unexpectedly being appointed director of a museum. Funny and well written with a point to make about the importance of art in the modern world.
97. The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion. A bit silly but enjoyable enough.

The GK one that Cote is enthusing about is definitely worth a go, if you're interested in such things. I read about half of it and really enjoyed it, but then found it was all getting a bit samey so didn't actually finish it. So my total this year will be whatever it is plus a half point for that!

94. The Demi-Monde: Summer by Rod Rees

Book three in the series, and the battle for control of the Demi-Monde is hotting up. Ella, as the incarnation of Lilith, is consolidating her power in Venice, the ForthRight are set to attack the Coven, and the Grigori are preparing to unleash their Final Solution both on the Demi-Monde and the real world.

I'm really enjoying this series, although they are difficult to find so I'm resorting to the Kindle to finish it.

57. Double Cross: The True Story of The D-Day Spies by Ben Macintyre

Detailed, fascinating, witty, and well-written. This was great as is expected from Ben Macintyre, if a little too long. That may have been my giddiness to check out all the new books I bought on the Xmas Kindle sale, though

This is the fascinating story of a handful of double agents including "a bisexual Peruvian playgirl, a Polish fighter pilot, a mercurial Frenchwoman, a Serbian seducer, and a deeply eccentric Spaniard with a diploma in chicken farming" who have carried out a massive deception operation intended to make Germans believe that the main invasion target was Calais instead of Normandy. I would recommend this book to everyone.

Sounds great Cote, I will add it to my massive list!

Remus - Don't tell me we almost had another book both of us liked

We need to find some more fiction to agree on.

Have we ever agreed on a work of fiction? I'm counting This Thing Of Darkness as non-fic here, since it is pretty much exactly what happened down to the wording of the letters characters exchanged.

:) We both liked 'Red Rising' and 'Golden Son' and didn't we both like 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep'? I liked 'Ender's Game' apart from the stupid ending, and I enjoyed that one that was based on computer games - was it called, 'Ready Player One'?

Oh yes. We are doing OK on sci-fi!

I need to get you on "meatier" sci-fi, though. Do me a favour and take a look at The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. Let's take your sci-fi to the next level

No, no, no. After 'Dune' I'm not sure I will ever trust you again re 'meatier' sic-fi. I like my sci-fi 'Brave new World' length.

And I have just remembered the tedious horror that was '2001' from which I may never recover.