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?

2.Lady Katherine Knollys by Sarah Beth Watson As per my previous thread this book is about an illigetimate daughter of Henry v111 by Mary Boleyn. This book is slow to say the least and not very enjoyable. It actually contains very little information about Katherine it is actually more of a very potted history of The Tudors and tbh there are much better histories of The Tudors than this.

Next book Alison Weir's The Innocent Traitor as recommended on this thread

Mmhhh. I might just join in, sounds like a great new year's resolution.

Currently reading Unfaithful music and disappearing ink, Elvis Costello's awesome, very well written autobiography.

I'll sign up for twenty this year, as I'm a slow reader and this book is over 600 pages, so will be making a slow start, and have completely gone out of the habit of reading in the past ten years.

1. Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done by Oliver Burkeman

An amusing review of self-help books, with some genuinely interesting things to say scattered amongst the jokes. Based on a newspaper column, but it still reads well as a book.

Elvis Costello's memoir sounds brilliant, but... £12.99 for the Kindle copy? What?

Paperback copy is £10.99. Am I missing something?

The price of Kindle books is shocking Cote.

I'm 37% of the way through Cryptonomicon by the way and enjoying very much so far even though it's complex.

Clearly I meant A God In Ruins earlier! Brain freeze, it's so cold. Am going to crack into this when I get into bed shortly.

Yay for another Cryptonomicon fan! :)

Can I join? Determined to read more this year and stop watching drivel on the TV.
Almost finished The Drowning Pool by Jane Schmidt( ?). Premise quite interesting but a bit dull in places. Characterisation a little obvious too but will see it through to get my first book done!

Just finished my first non-fiction book of the year, Do No Harm, by Henry Marsh. Recommended earlier in the thread - thank you. Autobiography of neurosurgeon. The discussions with terminally ill patients who often opted for operations he felt would give them only a short extra time but at the cost of quality of life reminded me of Atul Gawande - Being Mortal which looks at how impending death is handled (usually badly) in America - the difficulty surgeons have in being honest about how poor a patient's prognosis is featured in both books.

Also previously read the first two Alex Verus books, by Benedict Jacka. Had been recommended them ages ago as I'd enjoyed Rivers of London, and that rec was spot on. Urban fantasy - Alex Verus is a mage, who runs a small magic shop in London and is generally unpopular with the mage council.

Just finished my first book on the way home tonight

1. Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. This is a re read for me but I last read it about 15 years ago, although I listened to it this time round. A collection of short stories/cases of Sherlock Holmes which never fails to be brilliant. I love Conan Doyle, the imagery, the time it's set, the characters, the peculiar language (peculiar being a word used a lot) and Sherlock himself.

1. The Inner Guide Meditation by Edwin C. Steinbrecher

Very interesting read, although the author had some odd ideas (e.g. his hypothesis around causes of spontaneous human combustion). It's a description of a system of meditation that combines elements of Tarot, astrology, Qabalah, and Jungian psychology which is meant to assist the individual in the process of self-transformation by enabling the individual to work with archetypal energies within. It was recommended to me by someone who has been practising this for years and who has found it very helpful. I'm more of a reader than a practitioner so I don't know how easy I would find the visualisations, etc. I suppose it depends on how much you buy into the universal archetypes idea as opposed to seeing the meditation as a means of examining elements of your own personality by trying to see them as outside yourself.

1. Blood ties by Sam Hayes follows three people's pov which are at first seemingly unrelated but all tie together - a mother whose baby is kidnapped, a pregnant teenager and a lawyer and his new wife and step daughter. I hated it. I didn't like several of the characters and found it largely predictable. The twist caught me off guard but not in a good way, very much lacking chekovs gun. It had good reviews on good read though so maybe it's just me, it's definitely not my usual sort of thing.

1. The Trial. Kafka Amazing! Written between 1914 and 1918 when he stopped working on it and left it unfinished (but readable and still in novel form) and on his death bed asked his friend to burn all his writings as he believed they were evil. I can kinda see why . Not long, but heavy, dark and surreal. I don't think I can summarise the plot!

The other thing The Trial has shown me is that I hate the kindle! I need to be able to flick back and forwards, to see how far it is to the next chapter and feel how far through the book I am. And stroke the pages as I'm reading

BestisWest Cryptinomicon is great!

I am beginning to find The Wild Places a bit of a slog. It is beginning to feel repetitive. I do like it, I just think perhaps that 10 minutes of reading snatched here and there is not the right way to appreciate it.

I had the same with the Wild Places, alteredimages. I enjoyed it and it had lots of lovely passages, but then too many episodes of him sitting and contemplating while drying off in the sun that they all ran into one another.

Satsuki maybe I should turn it into a drinking game. A shot every time he skinny dips, picks up a white stone or contemplates "ghost landscapes" and the quality of light.

I'll leave some chicken nuggets out for the toddler. He'll be all right.

Whataname - just popping on to second your recommendation of The Trial - wonderful wonderful book.

I am getting a bit behindhand in my resolve for the fifty books- I've got a bad back injury and my mind is so fogged up with drugs that I'm finding reading a struggle - hopefully I'll get back on track once my brain is less woollen and treacly !

Best - I'm glad you're enjoying Cryptonomicon

I don't get how the Kindle copy of a book can be £2 more than the paperback copy of the same book. Paperback has printing cost, paper cost, inventory cost, transportation cost, etc and Kindle copy must cost a fraction of that. How can it be more expensive?

Kindle pricing annoys me as well. I refuse to pay more than £5.99 for a kindle book and it would have to be really special to go over £3.

My DS (adult) is a great sci fi reader. He reckons that Sci Fi is so expensive on kindle because it is a bit of a niche market & more sci fi readers are likely to use a kindle!

Just on the fourth of the Mortal Engines quartet. Will review when I've finished it.

As an aside: would the mortal instruments series be suitable for an 11-year-old? She's an excellent reader but we struggle find things that are age-appropriate (I was a bit shocked to raise that the princess diaries series involves sex with boyfriends) - she's not ready for vampire romances!

This book is Elvis Costello's memoir, though.

As wild a life as he has led, I certainly hope it's not sci-fi

Barry - Yes, I'd be quite happy for an 11 year old to read it.

Cote - yes, I realise - was just thinking out loud about pricing1

Thanks magi - I might read the first one myself then hand it over.

Barry - are you thinking of Mortal Instruments, or Mortal Engines?

The former is definitely more 'teen' - the final book (no. 6, City of Heavenly Fire) includes a relatively explicit sex scene.

I love reading on my kindle but the pricing annoys me too. The thing that annoys me is how much the prices vary - so I feel sort of manipulated into buying the books that the publisher wants to promote for some reason rather the ones I'd choose on my own. Grrr.