50 Book Challenge 2016 Part One

[southeastdweller]

Thread one of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2016, 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.

Who's in for this year?

No. 3 Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

Another Christmas present (I did well this year!), which I finally got to read after DD and DH. All three of us liked this book a lot, which is pretty unusual (DH generally prefers much harder SF than I usually read).

It's set around 30 years from now (2044), when the effects of climate change have started to kick in and oil has become largely unaffordable. The great majority of the book is actually set in an online virtual world, and it's based around the search for an 'easter egg' buried in this world by the founder before his death (a Steve Jobs/Bill Gates type figure), and which will make the person who finds it heir to his fortune.

There's loads of 80s pop culture/video games references, so perfect for DH & me who both grew up in the 80s, but DD liked it just as much - the main protagonist is 16, and although it's not written as YA, I think it would appeal to a lot of teens.

I'm in please.
Currently reading Before Bethlehem by James J Flerlage. Got it free via BookBub and was intrigued.

1. Lamentation by CJ Sansom. More plots and political intrigue, and a few murders, in the last days of the reign of Henry VIII. I really enjoyed it, I do like a good historical novel and this one had the depth of detail as well as an interesting plot. The ending is also intriguing and (without giving anything away), sets up some interesting future adventures for Shardlake!

Sadik - Cote recommended 'Ready Player One' last year, and it became one of the very few works of fiction that she and I both enjoyed. This means it deserves some sort of award, I think.

Maybe DH has been reading this thread, Remus I didn't spot it, but I only came to the thread late, and only skimmed the earlier ones.

It's very unusual for all three of us to like the same book - usually if DD & I enjoy something, DH will skim read half of it, look at the ending, and then complain there are too many characters and he can't remember who they all are!

I'm in!
Just finished my first: Mr Midshipman Hornblower, by C S Forester - Napoleonic naval porn. Fab.

Ah wawoo I read miss smillas feeling for snow years ago and loved it! Usually dislike detective type books though. Can't remember much of it now, must mark it up for a re read!

And tumble I found Fermat's Last Thereom quite a difficult read, and it wandered all over the place, not much focus really on the guy who solved it.

motherbirdy Marie kondo is awesome. The bit about balling socks is the best. It makes me happy just thinking about her crazy Japanese pixie tidiness

I'm in...so I better get reading then

I'm going to give this a go. So far I've read 'The Taxidermists Daughter' since the beginning of 2016. I read it very quickly as it's a great read and a real page turner.

I've started reading 'Familes and how to Survive Them' written by John Cleese and his therapist Robin Skyner

So far it's a really interesting read in dialogue format that explores how we chose our partners, fall in / out of love, how past generations shape us and what therapy can do to help.

It's geared up for lay people, so the concepts are simplified but without being too 'pop psychology'.

So far so good!

Yay book 1 down 49 to go.

I have just finished the fourth book (sword song)in the last Kingdom series by Bernard Cornwall.

The books are based in king Alfred's reign as he tries to create a United England. Uhthred is a Saxon Lord whose lands in the north have been taken from him by his uncle. When uhthreds father dies he is adopted by a Dane but ultimately ends up swearing an oath to Alfred whom he despises. By inclination uhthred is a pagan and considers himself a Dane rather than a Saxon. Therefore uhthred is uniquely placed to be on either side but often finds himself at odds with his beliefs and inclinations. His ultimate goal is to reap vengeance on his uncle and regain his land.

Book 2 the wild Saragossa sea

Sounds great! Since last August I've been trying not to read books by white men, as part of a challenge on a feminist group I follow. So I'll continue that, at least until August. I've just started 'The Lady of the Rivers' by Phillipa Gregory, and I'm reading 'Why Love Matters' on the Kindle, so hopefully they'll be my first two for this year.

I've heard really good things about this book and author- definitely going on the list!

Please count me in! I'm in two book groups and always reading. Plus there's loads on my personal list!

"Cote, my memory may be faulty, but iirc there are some longish sections [in Cryptonomicon] involving the main protagonist, Turing and Rudi the German mathematician?"

Yes, I sort of remember calculations about Turing's bicycle in school, for example. I was trying to say that the story is not focused on Turing but on a fictional character (main protagonist) in Turing's team.

Sadik - Yes, Ready Player One brought Remus & I together in a rare moment of joint appreciation of a fiction book Word of warning, though: Whatever you do, DO NOT read his next book Armada. It is honestly one of the worst books I have EVER read.

Ready Player One sounds great, but can't really justify it at moment bought too much already might see if I can find it at the library though when I next go in.

Been toying with more David Mitchell after all the talk about BSG. I enjoyed Bone Clocks (although it did go a bit silly I did have a moment where I nearly sent it windmilling across the room) but Cloud Atlas holds the distinction of being the only book I've actually taken back to the shop to get a refund on, and it has been returned to the library twice unfinished too. I do get a little further each time but don't know if I need to give up.

SheGot - I'd love to meet a real-life Wilkie! With a name like that, you'd pretty much have to go on to read English...

Kinky Gatsby is one of my favourite books of all time. It's one of those rare books that you can re-read so many times and find more to appreciate each time round. Love, love, love the way Fitzgerald writes.

Natasha What did you think of last night's episode? I enjoyed it but am wondering how much they're going to have to cut to get through everything - I don't think they're anywhere near 1/6th of the way through the book. Maybe there's a lot of waffle ahead that I don't know about yet...

Thanks for the warning, Cote, it looked a bit dodgy from the Amazon reviews!

Marking my place. I really want to read some good books his year. Think I might start with the Bill Bryson book.

Satsuki - Cloud Atlas is absolutely brilliant, a true masterpiece. The Bone Clocks is an unworthy imitation of Cloud Atlas, working CA's themes in CA's format.

I dug up my review of The Bone Clocks from the 2014 50-Book Challenge thread:

49. The Bone Clocks - David Mitchell

I liked it and was definitely gripped by it, but I am not in awe of this book like I was of Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. Yet, there are many similarities between these two books, to the point that this one feels like an imitation of Cloud Atlas:

• 6 stories
• ... all of which are first-person accounts
• ... spanning decades
• ... starting in the past (1984) and extending far in the future (2043)
• ... and each story ending abruptly rather than winding down to a conclusion, as if they were cut prematurely.

The themes are similar, too:

• Man's selfishness & cruelty, especially towards each other
• The yearning for safeguarding our knowledge/self/experiences for posterity
• Growing old
• Dystopian future

Cloud Atlas was original, gripping, and well... perfect First halves of the stories marched towards an inevitable conclusion, with the dystopian and post-apocalyptic two feeling incredibly real. Then came the second halves, and the reader is locked into the epic ensemble, with no escape from the author's logic as shown over and over in a variety of ways across continents and centuries. People are cruel and exploitive, we kill and enslave when we can; we have not changed, will never change, and this will be our downfall. Our technology will disappear in a single generation, just like our experiences and memories do as we grow old and die. It is a powerful blow to the gut, made all the more painful because of the hopeful note it ends with (1st story, so 1850s... but the reader already knows how the human story will end sad because the last story was laid out in full in the middle of the book).

A similar theme plays out in The Bone Clocks in a similar format, but in a less effective way imho and for it I blame its fantastical/supernatural subplot of warring immortals. I'm not quite sure why the author has felt the need for this subplot, especially since it takes up almost 25% of the book and imho doesn't add much to it, while the other 5 narratives take up between 14%-17%.

Btw Black Swan Green got more interesting lately, with the introduction of a colourful new character - the daughter of a major character in Cloud Atlas - and the wonderful music she plays for the protagonist in BSW is the song in CA, called "Cloud Atlas"

Happy New Year everyone. I dropped off at the end of last year as all the site issues meant I couldn't log on lots of times and then eventually forgot. But I got to start (not finish) book 80 so pretty pleased with that.

So the book I didn't finish, which will be my first book for this year, is Jerusalem, the Biography by Simon Sebag-Montefiore.

Just finished my first book -

1. The Road To Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson. I really enjoyed it, appreciating the moments when he finds things absurd or gets irritated by poor service or just plain stupid behaviour. It must be an age thing, but the older I get the more soap box moments I seem to have and they are all pretty similar to Bill Bryson's :o. I would like to go back now and reread Notes From A Small Island to see how they compare.