50 Book Challenge 2015 Part Six

[southeastdweller]

Thread six 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. 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, fourth thread here and fifth thread here.

How did you get on this year?

Hello Scarlett and Satsuki and anyone else joining or rejoining! Be warned, this thread is a nightmare for those of us whose bookshelves are already full to bursting with unread books .

I didn't like Apple Tree Yard either, but a couple of my RL friends did...

I'm enjoying Taxidermist's daughter so far. Nice short chapters, always a good thing for my hopeless attention span.

Cote - I just saw your post about We, really made me laugh and almost makes me want to try it! How on earth did you find it?

(1984 is one of my all time faves)

lady - I had heard about it as a sci-fi classic, the book that came before 1984. Its price was reduced on Kindle recently. Obviously I'm not recommending it but if you read it, let me know what I've missed

hello all , can I please join you?
I am another who has resolved to spend less time faffing on the internet and more time reading next year.
I did try the 50 book challenge a couple of years ago and got to about 30...which may be more realistic for me...we will see.
I need to have a sort out of my Kindle, have a few waiting to be read and lots of samples to go through.
Will try and get a few really good reads lined up to start me off!

Welcome, pickledonion and all the other newbies

Book 155 - 'Guards, Gyards' by Terry Pratchett

A re-read but I'd only read it once a very long time ago, so had forgotten most of it. I enjoyed it, but do find his writing style a bit irritating in places. I wish he'd have spent more time telling a story and less time arsing around trying to be witty and/or clever. Captain Carrot is a God though.

Not started 'Strange New Things' yet - am saving it for when I'm back and work and needing something to read on the commute.

Welcome to all the newbies!

1. The Girl with Glass Feet - Ali Shaw
2. The Shock of the Fall - Nathan Filer
3. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simision
4. The Accidental - Ali Smith
5. Grim Tuesday - Garth Nix
6. The Goddess and the Thief - Essie Fox
7. The Winter Wolf - Holly Webb
8. The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim - Jonathan Coe
9. The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger
10. The Gospel of Loki - Joanne M. Harris
11. The Summer Garden - Paullina Simon
12. Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery - Jenny Colgan
13. We are all Completely Beside Ourselves - Karen Joy Fowler
14. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit - Judith Kerr
15. The Rosie Effect - Graeme Simision
16. Infernal Devices - Phillip Reeve
17. The Other Hand - Chris Cleave
18. Apple Tree Yard - Louise Doughty

Inspired by the "get off the internet and read a book" thread, I'm checking in here and will try to do my best for 2016.
I confess I'm stuck in a rut of safe books that I know I will enjoy. I gave up trying much in the way of new stuff after spending half my time on books I didn't finish or enjoy.
My genre of choice is thriller / crime / espionage (clue in the user name), with a sprinkling of rom com.
This year I have enjoyed
I let You Go - Claire MacIntosh
Big Little Lies -Leanne Moriarty
The husband's Secret -Leanne Moriarty
A few Robert B Parkers. ( He is dead so I am rationing myself)
Old Enemies - Michael Dobbs (absolute tosh but gripping)
I am just finishing book number 28 which is a CJ Box.

A way short of 50 because of faffing on internet and playing HayDay
I have plenty of time so no excuse.

53. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell; This was a very slow starter for me. I nearly gave up on it. The opening is strong but then you are dragged away from the midwife and onto Jacob. I just could not, at least initially, warm to him or get interested in him. The prose is well written but throughout the text, there are observations from the scene around the characters, such as "A fat fly traces a lazy oval through light and shadow". I initially found these v irritating but in fact, they give a great sense of immediacy to the text and make it an unusually vivid book. About page 60, the pace picks up and I became engrossed. I'm not sure I truly bought into then love story, and while you get a flavour of Japan, it remains a v foreign and in the end, incomprehensible place. Maybe that is the point. It wraps up then overly swiftly at the end. Like the author believes you are so interested in Jacob you are going to want to know how it all worked out for him. So it is summarised for you.

In summary, I think it is a bit uneven but overall, an interesting and vivid read.

54. So you have been publicly shamed by Jon Ronson; enjoyed this, v anecdotal in nature but gives lots of food for thought about social media and the arbitrary, callous mob that police it. Most people lost their jobs as a result of the public shaming. It was fascinating to me that you could be fired over a private comment made to a friend at a conference. Seems a bit over the top. I found it all v interesting but it was more in the nature of a great pub conversation than a heavily researched or thoughtful piece. Felt a bit like a series of essays in fact.

Am now reading The Dark Forest and I expect that will finish me up for the year.

What's first on your list for 2016???

I have just drowned one of my new reads in the bath. :( I think it will be okay but instead of a pristine new book, I will have puffy crinkled pages. :(

Oh no Remus I hate it when that happens.

Noooooooooooo

At least it wasn't a kindle, Remus!

I hate it when that happens :(

That is v true, Tumble. My poor, lovely new book though. :(

Oh no! Yes, at least it wasn't your Kindle.

Sorry to hear about your wet book trauma Remus!

111. Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
     Reviewed, and I think disliked on a previous thread, possibly by Cote? Sorry if that's wrong Cote! Yes, this was annoying, and deeply silly but somehow it did work for me in that I felt he was saying some valid things about the madness of the American consumer culture and innate racial prejudice. It did grate after a while though but generally I found it readable please don't hate me whoever disliked this book!

112. A Man Called Ove - Frederik Backman
     This is exactly the sort of book I usually dislike, predictable, stereotyped characters, overly sentimental, 'funny'; but I actually loved it and cried at the end. An easy and enjoyable post-Christmas read. Plus it's in the Kindle sale so twas mightily bargainous.

113. Girl Meets Boy - Ali Smith
     This novella is loosely based on the Greek myth of Iphis (a tale that has a happy ending, unusual in a Greek myth) but brought into the present day with a twist. I thought it would be irritating but it was actually rather lovely.

Now squeezing in The Children Act to finish the year.

Whippet I read and reviewed 'Breakfast' this year. I absolutely detested it. I don't hate you though!

Remus - I don't think I was the one who hated Breakfast Of Champions. I have it on my Kindle but never really manage to get more than a few pages into it. Maybe one day

whippet, not Remus!

Hope everyone enjoyed their Christmases.

77. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier. Too many descriptive passages for me made this 1930's modern classic heavy-going and a little dull in the second half. I realise the descriptions were to illustrate the introspective personality of the isolated first person narrator but I prefer novels with lots of dialogue. I didn't find the story as gripping as I'd hoped and I actually enjoyed the afterword more than the novel itself. But she knows how to evoke atmosphere properly and I'm glad I read it.

Going to try and read a short book before the end of the year.

Sorry Cote, twas Remus. I should have known

Finished my last of the year
#29 Landmarks - Robert McFarlane. Just beautiful! An anthology of words associated with land forms and features, with chapters on the general themes that these words describe. Excerpts from some other amazing authors too. Poetic and wonderful.

{I think I've read about 65 books overall this year as I started the challenge under a different MN name}

There have been some really interesting looking books mentioned and I think my first task for January is going to be to go through the threads and pick out a 'wish list' to read. I also have a few new books (some bought in late Nov. in book sales, some were Xmas gifts) to read. Hoping to reach 70 next year.

55. The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin as you may guess by the hour this was rather gripping by the end! Weirdly slow at the start, frankly incredible stuff about how the main character Luo Ji, meets his wife, really baffled by the set up or its purpose. However you really do get sucked into the overall plot and ideas by the end. V philosophical I think so some of the situations and reactions don't really seem intuitive but are more contrived to enable exploration of the ideas. i think the fact this is so clearly s book from a non western culture helps you accept this. V different and fresh for western readers. I'd recommend.

Oh great! It sounds like a worthy sequel to The Three-Body Problem. I got it in the Kindle sale