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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:
SatsukiKusakabe · 01/01/2016 20:25

Yes, but it's not just the book itself, it's a book or two of criticism, pages of printed PDF articles, so-and-so's letters to his mistress Nelly, a facsimile account of workhouse conditions...some weeks are tougher going than others, depending how interested you find yourself in Nelly, and workhouses Grin

I have to say my study generally did match my reading tastes so but it is always nice to be able to follow your own inclination, and not feel you are reading for a purpose other than your own enjoyment.

YesEinsteinsMumDid · 01/01/2016 20:25

I've always been a prolific reader but need to stop wasting so much time on Mumsnet and get back into it!

This. I would like to join you but I can't say that my reading material will be particularly highbrow. Ds has listed a stack of teen targeted books that I need to read as they are bloody brilliant and I just have to Hmm As he is a litery snob I am going to trust his judgement.

SatsukiKusakabe · 01/01/2016 20:28

kitty I've read Go Set a Watchman and have Gilead lined up.

KittyOShea · 01/01/2016 20:31

Hi satsuki
Was Go Set a Watchman good? I am really hoping these 2 books get me back into a variety of reading as I've been in a thriller/ fantasy rut for a while and want to branch out a little.

Sadik · 01/01/2016 20:39
  1. Island of Dreams by Dan Boothby. This was a Christmas present, it's a mix of memoir, landscape writing and musing on Gavin Maxwell (author of Ring of Bright Water).

It's not a book I'd have chosen myself - I don't know the Highlands much at all, and I've never read any of Maxwell's books, but actually I enjoyed it a great deal, and it was a perfect New Year's Day slightly hung-over read. I'd recommend it to anyone wanting a gentle but well written book.

DinosaursRoar · 01/01/2016 20:44

KittyOShea - I liked Go Set a Watchman - but it's best you view it as a book in it's own right, rather than "part 2" from To Kill a Mocking Bird- it feels like the characters are very different, they have the same names but don't seem to act in the way you would expect. I think that's what's so upset people who loved the first book. (and it's just not as well written).

KittyOShea · 01/01/2016 20:50

Thanks Dinosaurs. It's many years since I read To Kill a Mockingbird and was considering re reading it since but it may be better not to then.

ScarlettDarling · 01/01/2016 20:58

Another English graduate here, ( although I did lit and Lang, not just lit,) and I was never put off reading by my degree. I did however develop a taste for very low brow easy reads that required little concentration!

Nowadays I'll read pretty much anything...although War and Peace in Russian is pushing it a bit!!

AnneEtAramis · 01/01/2016 20:58

I picked up Go Set a Watchman yesterday for half price and am really looking forward to it.

Stokey · 01/01/2016 20:59

Hello book people. I was on the thread a bit last year but lost track of what I'd read and who was posting what. Will try better this time. No idea how many books I read but suspect it was over 100.

I read Housekeeping over Christmas & loved it Kitty so have also got Gilead lined up. I can't remember who was reading Year of the Runaways but that was one of my reads of the year.

So finished this morning:

  1. The Versions of Us - Laura Barnett. This follows the same couple through three different versions of their lives. I liked it although it was more focused on the plot nuances than the characters.

Next up All the Light We Cannot See.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 01/01/2016 21:09

I tried reading, 'Gilead' but found it stupendously boring and didn't get v far with it. Sorry.

Now reading, Stasiland which has semi-recovered from its drowning. Looks like my love affair with Germany will be continuing into the new year - absolutely excellent thus far.

ElleSarcasmo · 01/01/2016 21:14

Thanks Remus and Quog for filling me in about goodreads...it sounds like the kind of place I could get lost in! Maybe one to look at when I don't have too much on.

Thanks Kofa, that sounds like a good idea - have you tried it out yet?

Shortandsweet20 · 01/01/2016 21:14

Not sure how many I read last year but will keep a track! Currently reading 'Only the Innocent' by Rachel Abbot. I love these kind of books with a bit of mystery so any suggestions would be great!

minsmum · 01/01/2016 21:14

1 ) A Place called Winter by Patrick Gale. This was a book club read that I was really looking forward to. It's set before and during the first world war, young major means marries into large family, has a child then has an affair with a man, is caught sent to Canada blah blah blah.
It was well written , a good story , I was looking forward to it and nothing. I just didn't like it at all and really struggled to finish it.

antimatter · 01/01/2016 21:15

According to the link posted earlier - www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/11/07/the-translation-wars

this is translation worth reading and which also got many good reviews (99p on Kindle)
War and Peace translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky

FiveShelties · 01/01/2016 21:19

I am reading 'Two Brothers' by Ben Elton, it is very good and I have really enjoyed it so far. First book of Elton's I have tried.

bantamgirl · 01/01/2016 21:26

Quogwinkle, I sent you a friend request on Goodreads but I forgot to say who I am!!

Canyouforgiveher · 01/01/2016 21:30

I'm in. Only spotted last year's thread half way through the year. I've also resolved to keep a journal of what I read this year.

I'm about to finish a book by Anne Bernays and her husband Justin Kaplan (they write every second chapte) called Back Then and about growing up in New York in the 1950s as a member of the well off/intelligensia. I'm enjoying it.

After that i will read Colum Mc Cann's latest.

bantamgirl · 01/01/2016 21:30

I've opted to try and read 52, 1 per week.

I am a bit ahead of myself as I finished one book today which I started earlier this week. It was one of the dual-narrative, country-house, which I seem to gravitate towards, books split between present day and the early 1960's. Haven't decided what to read next.

EleanorRugby · 01/01/2016 21:34

I'm in again for 2016. I managed 43 in 2015, well I'm halfway through number 43 which is The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters. I'm really enjoying it, I just love the way she writes.

My first book for 2016 will be State of Wonder by Ann Patchett - an author I have never read before.

LucytheAustralopithecus · 01/01/2016 21:37

Gilead is spectacular. I would read three pages, put it down, spend ten minutes absorbing then pick it up again. So powerful and moving.

Re: English lit, i studied it because I adored reading, it was like breathing, and I constantly had a book in my hand. What I found hard was reading three books plus accompanying criticism a week: having to skim books I loved and wanted to soak in so I could co tribute to tutorials, having to spend weeks on things I didn't enjoy. I still loved my degree but I did a very reading intensive (though unrelated) masters, and I found after that that whereas I would have seen reading fiction or non-'work' books as a break, studying English meant that on some level I attached the same worthy work feeling to anything that made me concentrate.

I didn't totally stop reading for pleasure but it did slightly stop being a total escape for me. I have to process a lot of reports in work and now in the evening I Netflix or mess around on he Internet. Would like to change that though.

LookingForMe · 01/01/2016 21:41

Natasha Love your user name! I'm reading the same translation - I know what you mean about some bits being a bit awkward but, when I was looking into which version to get, reviews seemed to suggest this is the best one? I also planned to finish it before the first BBC episode but didn't happen.

Glad there are a few of us reading War and Peace - will give me the motivation to keep going when it seems never-ending!

AnneEtAramis - one of the books you've listed for Jan is my book club read - am now wondering if we're in the same group?!

Satsuki and Remus - as another English grad, I completely agree with both of you. I've never been put off reading - can't imagine it! Having children means it's more difficult to find time/peace to read than it used to be but, as an English teacher, I can use the excuse that it's work..... some of the time at least....

SatsukiKusakabe · 01/01/2016 21:45

I liked Go Set a Watchman, mainly from a literary history point of view it has to be said. Would echo dinsosaurs in saying it is very much a separate thing from TKAMB. It is by no means a sequel, and it reads as what it was; a 'first draft' of those characters and ideas. What it does do is flesh out some of her thinking around the politics of the time, and the historical context of TKAMB. It is not as polished or well written, but readable and interesting all the same.

SatsukiKusakabe · 01/01/2016 21:46

Excited to read Gilead as it has such extreme responses so far!

MegBusset · 01/01/2016 21:49

Setting a personal record by finishing two books on day one...

  1. Giving Up The Ghost - Hilary Mantel

Fantastic and moving memoir dealing with her childhood, family, adolescence and the health problems that plagued her for decades, and how it all fed into her own writing. I know there are some crazy people on this thread who don't rate her writing style but I think it's incredible and would recommend this to anyone who's enjoyed her books.

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