50 Book Challenge 2016 Part Two

[southeastdweller]

Thread two 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, it's not too late to join, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

Previous 2016 thread here

Thanks for the second thread Southeast. Into the last 50 pages of book 6, Austerity Britain, will probably finish on tomorrow's commute...

Thanks for the new thread! Can't quite believe I'm on book 6 already. I doubt I'll keep up the momentum but enjoying it while it lasts!

On book two, I have some catching up to do :)

Thread 2 already.

No 3 Howards End - E. M. Forster. I've never read any Forster before and always thought it would be quite dry but in fact this was the opposite. Took me by surprise in fact although I did guess the outcome.

I'm also on book two. Planning on reading a couple of short books after this one to help me stay on track

#2 The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair Well, this has to be one of the worst books I have read in a very long time. Flimsy, cliched writing, paper thin characters and a repetitive, irritating structure. The story, ironically, is told from the pov of a bestselling writer. Waste of a good Christmas book voucher. I got so fed up with it I really just did a skim read of the last third of the book. Thoroughly disappointed. My next book was going to be The Miniaturist but that will be no 4 now as I have to read Enduring Love for work. I expect great things from the masterly McKewan and I can't wait to get stuck in. I've read most of his other stuff but somehow never got to this modern classic. I'm sure it won't take long to read.

Shiny new thread Following on from the previous thread:

Satsumi: I read What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami and loved it. That was also back when I ran quite a bit. It was an unusual autobiography and a great insight into the extreme mindset of ultramarathon running (+120km in a race, about three times the length of a regular marathon).

Born To Run by Christopher McDougall is even better. It is the incredibly entertaining and curiously informative book about the author's trip to Mexican canyons, to meet and run with the Tarahumara tribe, whose people seem to have the secret of extreme endurance. He puts together a very convincing case of how we are running animals (rather than walking animals like pigs and chimps, for example), drawing on evidence from human anatomy and anthropology. Fascinating book!

Thanks for the new thread.

1. How to be Brave by Louise Beech I can't praise this highly enough. I loved it. A first novel, and it feels like it, but in such an honest fresh way. A mother and 9 year old daughter come to terms with the daughter's diagnosis of diabetes. They have some help from the past, in the form of the mother's grandfather, whose story of survival at sea gradually unfolds and carries them through their own changed circumstances, and becomes a powerful story within the story. The mother daughter relationship and dialogue is beautifully done; I think it's often hard to portray a child realistically as one of the main characters in an adult novel, but, having a similar aged child, she seemed pretty real to me. I cried, more than once, in public, mainly at the grandfather's story, and I am normally a cynical, stony faced old cow.

I listened on audible, and the narration was very good. My audible books take an age, because I usually just listen on my commute, which isn't all that long and I only work 4 days a week, plus factor in holidays, days I have to catch up on emails, want to listen to music instead, or bump into a colleague and chat...one book can take me weeks!

1. The Third Wife by Lisa Jewell

copied this from previous thread and agree with the poster's review. But have to tell you-I set this book on fire! And it was a library book too. Reading it while cooking dinner and left it on the stove (the way you do) and the ring was on. I went in to chat to my daughters and came in to find the book in flames! I put it under the tap, read the rest of it, and had to pay the library to replace it.

Cote and everyone else who has mentioned it, I'm loving born to run and am going to read the Murakami after God in Ruins. Will be good for my non-fiction list too!

Canyouforgive - Will the library forgive you? :o I've had one or two disasters with library books in the past too.

Wow - thread 2 already! Welcome to all newcomers :)

I'm ploughing on with Disclaimer by Renee Knight. Nearly finished (heading for the disappointing reads 2016 shelf). And I've been listening to The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer on audio book. This has been a very enjoyable and interesting listen so far. An innovative take on the history book that seems almost like a novel, and the author has a good sense of humour.

canyouuforgive I can sympathise too. I had a letter on Monday reminding me to return some books I borrowed last October. I thought I already had. I have no idea where they are.

Just marking my place on the new thread

Hoping to get my reading mojo back this weekend

The Murakami is a slim volume as well, which helps with the numbers on a challenge thread. I quite fancy reading it again, and I might check out Born to Run.

at canyouforgiveher's fried library book.

book 5 Summer of blood is a book I started reading in 2015. It was a bit dull compared to the other Dan Jones book so I'd thought id have some fun with the book challenge but now it's time to finish this.

Just signing into the new thread.

Can I ask other posters about their audio books? Is there an app you can download for free / cheaply? Or is there a subscription platform anyone could recommend?

I get the occasional audio book from the library but that means I can only listen to it when near a CD player getting increasingly old fashioned!!

Audible app, though quite expensive seems only option amd enables me to carve out time for books I wouldn't otherwise have. Also lots of abridged stuff for free via BbC iplayer radio- Vanity Fair, The Beach are some recent examples. Stephen Fry narrates VF very well, I thought, though less fond of some of thr characters especially Becky Sharpe.

You can listen to audiobooks directly from the Kindle app on iPhone. Click on the book, then read or listen (there is a headphone icon you can click).

#1 The life and loves of a he devil by Graham Norton. I really enjoyed this memoir. You can really hear Graham's voice in the writing. The book is split into themes - dogs, New York, divas etc. He reveals quite a lot about himself. I would definitely recommend it.

4. A Spool of Blue Thread : Anne Tyler

Loved this - great characterisation and beautifully written. Just when you settle in to the story there's a twist which makes you gasp. I do like Anne Tyler. One of these books where you feel quite lost when it's finished.

I'm now reading A Man Called Ove following recommendations from here and listening to I am Malala on Audible. I've added Graham Norton as my next Audible listen

Welcome shiny new thread! Have finally got onto book 3 and enjoying it. Am very glad I haven't already downloaded "Book of Strange New Things" after Remus promised that it comes (fnarr) with Extra Wanking Preacher Action, but I will hoik Murakami's running book off my bookshelves to jump up the list a bit after the positive recommendations here. I - too - am chortling at canyouforgiveher's cooked book! OllyBJolly good luck with "I am Malala" - I ploughed on as it was a book club read, but found it too worthy for words. Back to the book work ...

Sonnet, may your reading mojo return quickly. I hate it when mine goes, it just adds to whatever misery has caused it to leave.

one of these must be to your taste

2016 so far:

1. The Other Half Lives, Sophie Hannah
I'd sworn off this author after disappointing endings, but I was on holiday and this book was lying around. Maybe I was in a forgiving mood, but I enjoyed it, and thought the ending held up better than usual.

2. Home, Francis Pryor.
Non-fiction. An account of families and communities in pre-historic Britain, interspersed with anecdotes from his career and family life. I found this very approachable - he conveys the thrill of archaeological discovery without getting bogged down in too much technical detail.

3. The Great Charles Dickens Scandal, Michael Slater
Did Dickens Do the Dirty with young Nelly? The author is less interested in the question itself (we'll probably never know) and more in how the story has been variously exposed, hushed up and speculated about over the years. Good fun if you like this sort of thing, which I do.

4. Death Descends on Saturn Villa, MRC Kasassian
I'm enjoying this series, a sort of pastiche of Sherlock Holmes. The plot was so twisty that it was quite hard to follow, but the pleasure is in the way he evokes the setting and the snappy dialogue.

5. Be Awesome: Modern Life for Modern Ladies, Hadley Freeman
I like this journalist, and found this mildly amusing. A(n even more) lightweight Caitlin Moran.

6. Charlotte Bronte, Claire Harman
I enthused about this in the previous thread. If you've read anything about the Brontes, I don't think there's much new here, but it's a competent and enjoyable telling, and Charlotte Bronte's spikiness really comes across.

7. The Gilded Chalet, Padraig Rooney. Mentioned on last thread. If you like books where the author rambles around talking about other books (I have a high tolerance for this sort of thing), or if you're particularly interested in Switzerland, you might like this, but I wouldn't generally recommend it.