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

45. Recipe for Life - Mary Berry - an audiobook read by Patricia Hodge. Fairly straightforward autobiography of Mary's very privileged life, she gives out a lot of quite strong opinions that seem quite old fashioned but that's fair enough in her own book. The book has more meaning when she writes about her childhood battle with polio and losing her son William in a car crash. Fun to hear the back story of her career.

46. Bringing up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel - being back at work and having both my 50th and my daughters birthday has meant it's taken me weeks to read this book. I quite enjoyed it but I am starting to feel I have read enough about Anne Boleyn to last me a while.

Duchess do perservere with Shardlake, I don't think Dark Fire is one of the best.

Been a while since last post, so here goes:

41. Instructions for a Heatwave, Maggie O'Farrell - enjoyed this a lot. I think this was the fifth of hers that I'd read and initially I thought it felt very similar to the others, but she is very good at describing the tensions lurking below family life.
42. May we be forgiven, A.M. Homes. Black comedy about a history professor who finds himself responsible for his teenage nephew and niece after his family implodes. Very funny, very dark, quite improbable in places but also thought-provoking.
43. Kolymsky Heights, Lionel Davidson. Recommended on here a while back, an enjoyable thriller for holiday reading. Can't remember all that much about it now but I'm hopeless with complicated plots.
44. My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante. The first of four books set in a poor area of Naples, following two friends, this one starts when the girls first meet and finishes with the marriage of Lina. The description of the day-to-day lives and dramas of all the families in the neighbourhood has an epic feel to it, as if they are modern day Montagues and Capulets, and there's an underlying violence throughout. Definitely want to read the others now.
45. The Wild Places, Robert MacFarlane. He's a great writer but I didn't enjoy this as much as Mountains of the Mind. I felt he was less comfortable writing about his own personal response to wildness than as an academic writing about others - oddly, since the whole point of the book is a personal quest to discover wildness in Britain.
46. Young Skins, Colin Barrett. Fantastic collection of short stories all set in a fictional town in the west of Ireland. Gritty but also warm - made me think of Annie Proulx. Highly recommended.
47. The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters. Set in 1922, middle-class Frances and her mother have to take in paying guests, ie lodgers, to make ends meet after Frances' father dies having lost all their money in dodgy investments. A couple from the 'clerk class', Lilian and Leonard, move in, Frances and Lilian become friends and then lovers, and something unfortunate happens to Leonard (don't want to give spoilers for anyone who hasn't read it). Waters is brilliant on the small details of how people lived, ate, what they wore etc - particularly the relentless housework - and the fine distinctions of class and the changes in society after WW1 are really well observed.
48. The Apple: Crimson Petal Stories, Michel Faber. Short stories about some of the characters from The Crimson Petal and the White. I particularly liked the last one which brings the stories into the 20th century and ends on a teaser. Hope he writes more.

And currently reading Anne Tyler's A Spool of Blue Thread, which is an easy comfort read, but as someone upthread commented, doesn't feel at all like a Booker book

14. Dear Fatty - Dawn French. Found it in a box when I was doing some sorting out. I liked the descriptions of her friendship with Jennifer Saunders and of her 'courtship' with Lenny. She came across as a warm and caring person.

southeast I'd be very interested to hear how you get on with the Bill Clegg. That's one off the longlist that I missed reading & I've heard good things ...

If anyone is keen to read Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series, all five of them are in today's Kindle daily deal at £1.99 each. Bargain :)

Excellent duchess, thank you!

I see The Atlantis Gene is also on at 99p, I enjoyed that series, well worth a look at that price :)

Southeast - noooooooooo! I loved Kate Gross's Late Fragments, an absolute stand out book for me this year. Fight fight fight!

southeast/Atticus - I am reading Late Fragments now, half way through, and must be honest when I say I have no real compulsion to pick it up and want to just move on to my next Book Club read..... will have another go tomorrow!

40. Cancer Vixen by Marisa Acocella Marchetto
    Entertaining autobiographical graphic novel about a serious topic. The cartoonist discovers she has breast cancer and this comic follows her story. The illustrations are amazing and emotive.

41. The Golem and the Djinni by Helene Wecker
    Supernatural story of two mystical beings- the golem and the Djinni- in NYC. Their back story and how they affect the people they meet. It was okay. I was not convinced of how the story proceeded for some of the characters.

Similar to others on this thread I am also struggling to find a book I really enjoy. The last one was number 34 - Michael Faber's The Book of Strange New Things. Maybe I am running out of steam..

But, oth, that will not stop me snapping up the Atlantis Gene and books 3 and 5 of Ben Aaronovitch series! Thanks to wilting and Duchess for the heads-up!

Book 122 - 'Five Children on the Western Front' by Kate Saunders
Recommended on another thread - had never heard of it until about 4 days ago. I really liked this - it's the children from, 'Five Children and It' but the older ones are young adults and the First World War is just beginning.

Saunders has seamlessly picked up Nesbit's characters and weaves them into a really lovely, old fashioned-esque, children's book. It didn't make me cry, but I can see why others would find it a tear jerker. A really lovely read after what has seemed like a run of rubbish, fiction-wise.

My first time posting here. My list is on goodreads, but I will copy and paste it over here.

I'm on book 38 now - Corrag by Susan Fletcher. Not sure about it yet, but I'm only a little way in. I read another by her - The Silver Dark Sea- that was fab, but this feels very different. I like the poetry of her language.

Just finished reading Sweetland by Michael Crummey, which made the Booker long list. I absolutely loved it and turned back to the first page to read it again. My favourite read this year.

Have downloaded the first Rivers of London book, (that was only 99p, even cheaper!) but not sure if I want to download the others now, or I'll be most annoyed if I love it and the second is pricey by then... have many people loved the whole series?

Anonymous / Southeast, fair enough. I think the book particularly spoke to me for various reasons that I can't really go into here. I really did love it though, and would still urge others to give it a go.

Atticus, I'd noticed we have similar tastes in books so I was surprised I didn't like it more...personally when I read a memoir I always have to have some kind of connection with the author to enjoy it but this wasn't the case with Late Fragments .

Dinosaurs - I thought the first one was okay but that they got worse after that. I gave up after the third, and wished I'd given up after the second tbh. Lots of people have really liked them though.

Slightly different opinion here, Dinosaurs - I enjoyed the second one better than the first and it was that one that persuaded me to continue with the series. The fifth I particularly liked as well.

They are not brilliantly written and the occasional continuity errors are irritating but they are innovative and humorous. And that's what I love about them.

Thanks for the tip, Duchess. I'm a bit late but the second book in the rivers of London series was still 1.99 so grabbed it.

By the way for anyone interested in autism (or anyone who isn't, frankly) I'm current reading Steve Silberman's Neurotribes and it is superb. Highly recommended so far.

Book 123
'In the Light of Morning' by Tim Pears
Set in Eastern Europe, in 1944. This was interesting, and beautifully and poetically haunting in places, but ultimately disappointing. I did enjoy it, but the ending left me a bit unsatisfied and it felt as if he'd got a bit bored and just decided to stop.

Also, it's a bit repetitive, as it's mostly about a group of Partisans moving from place to place - and there's only so many times you can describe the same group of people walking through a group of trees and trying to find something for dinner without being caught by the Germans.

Oh and it's all in the present tense. Annoying, but not irredeemably so.

I'd read something else by him, I think.

Not been around for a while. Most of mine don't need reviews because I don't think anyone would want to read them.
42 1 Corpse too Many by Ellis Peters The second Caedfael chronicle
43 In for the Kill by Shannon McKenna
44 By Winters Light by Stephanie Laurens
45 Shadow Game by Christine Feehan
46 Claimed by Sarah Fine 2nd book in a YA series very enjoyable
47 Earth Bound by Christine Feehan
48 Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. This was a book club choice, my choice by the way. I really struggled with the beginning and found it very hard but when I started to get into the way it was written I couldn't put it down. The characters are interesting, the storyline is fascinating. It could very well be my favourite book of the year. I should add thanks for the thread on here that encouraged me to carry on reading. I think that I might be the only one in the book club to finish it.
Next is the Frantzen book that was sent to me by mumsnet

Book 124, which I've just devoured in one sitting (well, one lying as I was in the bath and am now all wrinkly!) - '84 Charing Cross Road' by Helene Hanif

Thank you so much to the many MNers who have mentioned this over the years. It was an absolute JOY; I loved every single word of it. It made even Jane Austen's letters look rather humdrum in comparison. AND it made me cry. An absolutely wonder of a book and I thoroughly recommend it to everybody - far and away the best thing I've read this year, so far.

Hanff not Hanif

I loved 84 Charing Cross Road too. Must re-read it. The film was good - Judi Dench and Anthony Hopkins iirc.

I'm just about old enough to remember Helene Hanff's regular broadcasts on Woman's Hour.

Dp has just mentioned the film. He said Hopkins and Ann somebody, I think. I can't watch it if it's Judi D.

Anne Bancroft IIRC.

It was Anne Bancroft - I remember now. Did see it a long time ago, but I think Judi Dench was in it, as his wife? Or am I off on another flight of fancy? :o