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50 Book Challenge 2016 Part One

999 replies

southeastdweller · 01/01/2016 08:45

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?

OP posts:
CoteDAzur · 06/01/2016 22:10

Yeah, because we all know how clever Venus fly traps are with their non-existent brains and how scary they are in how fast they run after their prey Grin

Provencalroseparadox · 06/01/2016 22:15

I know you can't get your head around the plants thing Cote but it does make sense when you read it I think. And the writing I thought was great. But not everything is for everyone right?

HoundoftheBaskervilles · 06/01/2016 22:17

Hmm, I would agree with you about Neville Shute. Sadik may have a point about the attitudes towards women, I recently tried to re-read The Foundation Trilogy, I was stunned as a teen by Asimov's far-reaching and almost seer-like views regarding the future and the nature of man. When I attempted it last year, I couldn't quite get over how much it was focused on the future of MAN, women were bit players, concubines, wives or whores, I couldn't read it, it stuck in my craw and I berated my teenage self for her naivety. It did seem like magic then though, like Asimov was opening doors for me.

I guess, for all their grand thoughts, many male writers of the time could not see what was beneath their nose, or maybe they could, maybe the noble and imagined future was male. There are some futures that are distasteful to us all...

wiltingfast · 06/01/2016 22:44

I've seen them on David Attenborough...

They are pretty scary

Especially if you are a fly GrinGrin

StitchesInTime · 06/01/2016 22:57

Can I join in please?

I started on the 2015 thread several name changes ago, but dropped out mid year. I got to about 55 books in my reading journal last year.

So far this year I've read:

1. The Woman Who Stole My Life by Marion Keyes

Basically a rags to riches to rags sort of story, with lots told in flashbacks. Stella has an ordinary life as a beauty therapist, then develops a rare illness that leaves her paralyzed for months, then becomes an accidental best selling writer thanks to her new man (sexy doctor who treated her in hospital) before the whole lot falls apart again.
It was okay. But not really one I found all that interesting.

2. Rosie Rushton - Whatever Love Is

I picked this up from a cut price bookshop because it said on the cover that it was based on the Jane Austen classic. Essentially, the plot from Mansfield Park has been cannibalised and transferred to a modern setting with the main characters being modern teenagers. Any one who's read the far superior original will know where the plots heading, and the rewrite adds nothing. Very YA and pretty rubbish.

Melgella · 06/01/2016 23:00

Yay, I'm in! I set myself the target of two books a month last year but somehow managed to read 58 instead, which was fab. Would love to do that again this year and share the fun with others!

How does the challenge work (sorry if it's mentioned elsewhere, I'm heading for bed and haven't had time to read through the previous 605 messages Smile)? Do we chat about and recommend/not recommend the books we read?

SatsukiKusakabe · 06/01/2016 23:06

Day of the Triffids is great! tempted to reread now.

They grow....know...walk...talk...stalk...and KILL!

When the sentient plants come to take over, some of us will be ready with the weed killer , and the doubters can take their chances Wink Grin

50 Book Challenge 2016 Part One
StitchesInTime · 06/01/2016 23:20

It's been a while since I read Day of the Triffids, but I don't remember the triffids being sentient?

More like giant brainless walking, stinging, Venus fly traps that took over because they were quiet enough to sneak up on the hordes of people blinded by the freaky comets?

And while I know it's all made up, that book really put me off watching any sort of meteor shower.

TripTrapTripTrapOverTheBridge · 06/01/2016 23:20

Cote Have you never seen the film Little Shop of Horrors? If not, watch that before reading Day of the Triffids and I'm sure Day of the Triffids will seem rather sane to you afterwards!!

Hound unfortunately it is my first Wilde, first read but not first owned!! I am loving it so far, he has a great talent for creating a picture (!) in your mind and the story is great too.

SatsukiKusakabe · 06/01/2016 23:40

I think, iirc, one of the debates in the book is about the nature of the triffids and whether they are acting instinctively or if they possess some form of intelligence, I don't know if it is answered definitively, but thought it was discussed quite a bit.

sasilasi · 07/01/2016 02:49

I'm a little late to the party, but I'd like to join in too. I'm embarrassed to admit that I only read a paltry 8 books in 2015. Hoping to read a lot more in 2016, starting with Still Alice by Lisa Genova.

Quogwinkle · 07/01/2016 04:47

Melgella - welcome to the thread. We read, record details here with number, title and author, brief review and saying whether you liked or disliked. All sorts of books are ok - fiction, non - fiction, audiobooks, children's books, re reads, plays, poetry - anything really.

ProjectPerfect · 07/01/2016 07:14

I read day of triffids at school - I was quite young but remembered I loved it! Also tempted to re read it

CoteDAzur · 07/01/2016 07:27

I'm still waiting for someone to reassure me that it's not ludicrous before I read it. "Watch a terrible film on a similar subject before reading it so it appears better" is not quite the ringing endorsement I was hoping for Grin

Movingonmymind · 07/01/2016 07:35

Loved Triffids as a teen, also Nevil Shute. But not sure I'll revisit it now. I only noticed the nasty & overt misogny in Dahl's books when I came to be reading them aloud to my dc, don't fancy another classic to be spoilt for ever more!

CoteDAzur · 07/01/2016 07:43

Hound - I was another teenage fan of Asimov, and also Heinlein . I really don't dare revisit especially the Heinlein books which I thought were fantastic at the time!

CoteDAzur · 07/01/2016 08:34
  1. Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

I usually can't stand juvenile stuff so this coming-of-age book about a bullied, stammering boy in a comprehensive school somewhere in the sticks grated me in all the wrong places for a long time, but it got progressively more interesting and in the end, I'm surprised to say I liked it and was happy I read it.

The turning point for me was the cameo by the eccentric daughter of Vyvyan Ayrs, the aging but influential composer in Cloud Atlas. I thought those parts were the best in this book, and judging by how several people were fixated on the pond (where nothing happens, by the way) at the beginning of the book, I think many made it that far. Which is a shame.

David Mitchell is a wonderfully talented storyteller who has incredible ease with both delightful prose and authentic dialogue, and this book was no exception in that regard. I was sad to feel in this semi-autobiographical story that his own school years have clearly been quite an ordeal. And I finally understand what my friends in the UK mean when they say comprehensives can be truly awful Sad

In short, it is not Cloud Atlas (nothing is Smile) but it is still worth a read especially if you like coming-of-age books.

Sadik · 07/01/2016 08:43

I think (at least that was my reading!) the implication is that they're actually plant like animate beings from another planet, though Cote, rather than genuine plants. It's just that people process them as plants, because they're not expecting anything else.

I don't think I'm spoilering anything (it's from early in the book - and we all know the outcome Grin ) to say that they're believed by those cultivating them to be bioengineered entities produced by the USSR, stolen by the West - I certainly took it that the author was implying that this wasn't actually true, but being cold war era, people are inclined to believe anything of 'the Russians', and are so desperate to keep up scientifically that they don't stop and think 'is this actually sensible'.

Personally, I wouldn't particularly recommend it as anything other than a period piece, although I think there are interesting implications for the way that people think about biotech / genetic engineering (gene drive being the obvious current issue).

CoteDAzur · 07/01/2016 08:45

... I don't think many made it that far.

SheGotAllDaMoves · 07/01/2016 08:51

I've just bought Black Swan Green.
I hope I like it.

I re-read Cloud Atlas a lot as it features heavily in a module I teach on parallel narratives. Such a book!

TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 07/01/2016 08:57

I haven't read Day of the Triffids but I have read Trouble with Lichen and I loved it.

Movingonmymind, please can you expand on the misogyny in Dahl's books? What about Matilda? Or Sophie in The BFG? Or the Grand High Witch and the grandmother in The Witches?

Muskey · 07/01/2016 09:08

I'm ploughing my way through Katherine Knollys by Sarah Beth Watson. Katherine Knollys was an illigetimate daughter of Henry V111 by Mary Boleyn. If you like it's the fact behind The Other Boleyn Girl". I usually love reading history books especially about the Tudors (the reality being much better than fiction) but this book is turgid to say the least. I think I was spoilt by reading The Other Boleyn Girl . This is going to be a slow read so can anyone recommend something I can read along side this in a similar vein to The Other Boleyn Girl*

Muskey · 07/01/2016 09:10

Oops went to town on the bold sorry everyone

YesEinsteinsMumDid · 07/01/2016 09:29

Day of the triffid was made into a sci fi film though so I suspect that there are more who have seen it than read it. However, I do think there is a certain need to read books being mindful of the era they are written in. It is hard to write about something that is so socially un-normal that to consider anything else happening is difficult due to the need for rebellion to achieve it. Doesn't mean I have to agree with the view, nor that I can't sit reflect on how wrong it is and be grateful that things have made significant progress in the interim. But sometimes the principle rather than the application of the principle can hold validity. Mind this is said by someone who can regularly be heard mutter 'ffs orwells 1984 was a warning not a bloody handbook' Blush incidentally 1984 is on my reading wish list.

CoteDAzur · 07/01/2016 09:40

I recently re-read 1984 and was surprised to see that it has held up very well in terms of ideas as well as style of prose in the many decades since it was first published.

Don't miss it.