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

I read Riding the Iron Rooster about 22 years ago, when I was travelling around China with my boyfriend of the time, which brought it to life for me.

1. Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: I found parts of the first 2/3 of the book brillian/t on all sorts of levels. The last 1/3 of the book? NSM. I found it unnecessary at best and unbelievable at worst. I'm glad I read the book based on the strength of its first 2/3, but I'm also glad I skimmed the final 1/3.

Book 5 will either be The Life and Death of Sophie Stark or All the Light We Cannot See.

Finished book 6. The Blackhouse from the Lewis Trilogy. It was good, but has not inspired me to keep going with the subsequent books. I think he described the hebridean life very well and the mindset of the young boy, the teenager and the man, but the interactions with some of the other characters were a bit weak and same-y (all pretty much hostile).

No 7 Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Kate Atkinson is next.

I am also thinking about adding Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey to my list- any thoughts welcome!

Definitely need to pick up the pace. I have just finished book number one The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson. I loved Notes From A Small Island and really enjoyed this too. Enjoy Behind the Scenes At The Museum perfectlyfine. I need to catch up with the thread and find some recommendations to help me choose what to read next.

No 4. Bill Bryson - The Road to Little Dribbling. I read this last year when it first came out and I have to say I was a bit disappointed with it. I did liken him to Victor Meldrew at the time. However, Bryson is eminently re-readable and I enjoyed my second reading much more than the first. A book that was vastly improved on the second read. There were lots of little things I'd missed the first time. It's still not a patch on 'Down Under' which is, I think, the best of his travel writing, or even the original 'Notes from a Small Island' but better than I originally thought. I wish they would send him on the Iron Rooster or the Railway Bazaar.

1. The Psychopath Test - Jon Ronson

A fascinating and unsettling look at "the madness industry".

Meg - Please tell us more. What is the madness industry?

1. Where Witchcraft Lives by Doreen Valiente

A short book examining the folklore and survivals of magical practices in Sussex, written by a woman now thought of as the mother of modern witchcraft. It looks in brief at historical records of witch trials, possible origins of traditional rites such as Worsling (Sussex version of wassailing), and also goes wider than Sussex to illustrate similar examples from other parts of the country. It is a work of amateur scholarship, but it is interesting to see Valiente's impressions of a county she apparently loved very much.

Meg, you've made me add yet another to my wishlist😄
I find societal/medical views on 'madness'/mental health fascinating. And often appalling. If you're interested in a historical perspective, I can highly recommend Mind Forged Manacles by Prof Roy Porter (my best uni lecturer by far) . Includes much on pre-psychiatry treatments and about the growth of lunatic asylums such as Bethlem hospital, how balls were held there with its inhabitants as the entertainment .

Meanwhile, am enjoying Meera Syal's latest The House of Hidden Mothers. Set in E. London and India, mainly on her usual themes of friendship and family, but also about the yearning for a child and the surrogate industry in India. Very readable, warm and engaging, especially with Syal as narrator for all the accents. Though (fussy emotion), couldn't they have edited out her occasional sniff between words?

I have finally finished my first book!
1. The Secret History
I loved it. Don't think much I can say would do it justice. It is one of the few books I've read where I actually read each word rather than skimming over long passages of prose to get to the interesting bits. I'm sad I have finished it.

Now going to tackle the lovely pile of books I got for Christmas. Either Not That Kind of Girl or Strangers on a Train next. Depends how I feel this evening

Moving - I'd love to read Mind Forged Manacles but it seems to be out of print. If you are in contact with the author, maybe encourage him to publish it on the Kindle?

Also, if you are interested in fiction books about madness, I would heartily recommend The Atrocity Exhibition by J G Ballard and Umbrella by Will Self.

I agree with tumbletumble and moving - I thought Freakonomics was very much a case of the authors taking some perfectly well known facts and dressing them up as something new and unique to them.

I'd recommend '23 things they don't tell you about Capitalism' as an interesting read that takes the received wisdom and explores it more deeply. (The author isn't anti capitalist, but comes from South Korea where they have a rather different take on managing the economy.) It's a while since I read it, but I remember Nassim Taleb's Black Swan as also having some interesting ideas, though less well written.

He's dead, sadly. Died in his typically unconventional manner of literally falling off a cliff on his bike 😞. His first (of five!) wife was Sue Limb, the writer, but aeons ago, I think,; he was such a colourful, engaging character. Though thought he could rock the ageing rockstar in denim look which only Bruce Springsteen can get away with 😄

Not surprised Mind is out of print, it was very readable but an academic text, really. He has written other stuff which I highly recommend and used to be on R4 a fair bit. He also had worked at sunny UCLA and regaled us with lots of stories from there as we sat in a dusty lecture hall in Bloomsbury. Happy days!

That was @ Cote. And thanks for the recommendations- like Will Self on air but have found him difficult to read. Intriguing stuff, though, what was the one he wrote in a cafe, the characters drawn from the people who came in??

I'm sorry about your professor. He really sounds like an interesting character.

I don't think so re Umbrella. There aren't many characters in it and don't remember much of their descriptions. It's all about their inner thoughts, written in stream-of-consciousness. Very difficult to read & brainhurty but also worthy & rewarding imho.

11. Witches Inc, KE Mills
12. Wizard Squared, KE Mills

I got Umbrella out of the library last year but it went back before I could get round to it. Only Will Self that had appealed. Putting it on list to get out again.

1. Wild by Cheryl Strayed. Cheryl, age 26, is in a dark place following the death of her mother and her own divorce. This is the true story of the three months she spent hiking and camping solo on the Pacific Crest Trail (which runs all the way from Mexico to Canada - she hiked the California and Oregon sections). I read it after seeing and enjoying the film, and the book is even better. It was a real achievement for her, given that she didn't have much hiking experience beforehand, and you really feel like you're on the journey with her.

1. Life by Keith Richards. Great, the conversational tone was a bit jarring for the first twenty pages or so - written apparently by Keef speaking his reminiscences to tape, which were then written out - but after that it felt very natural. This actually begins in the same period of post-war austerity described in my last "big" read; the seventies, not surprisingly, is I think the best part of the book; but overall, fascinating. Highly recommended for anyone who likes muso autobiography.

I've read quite a few books on psychology recently. This is one of them:

#6 Why Is It Always About You? - The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism by Sandy Hotchkiss.

I read this because I wanted to learn more about narcissism to better understand some family and workplace dynamics. I find the concept fascinating but complicated because it has never been clear to me where healthy narcissism ends and malignant narcissism begins. People with narcissistic tendencies can be destructive and manipulative, and these tendencies are often difficult to treat, so you should steer clear of narcissists, but in some sense (if you believe the psychodynamic theory), they are also victims - something went wrong during early development, often because of poor parenting. The book is well-written and I found some parts very interesting, but the main ideas seemed to stem from psychoanalysis. I still have lots of questions that this book did not answer.

More about The Psychopath Test for Cote and others (I was falling asleep by the time I finished last night!)

So Ronson touches on whether it's possible to really define a psychopath - clinical diagnosis being based on a checklist of personality traits made by one psychiatrist (Bob Hare) and a high score on the list being enough to get you locked up in Broadmoor for life - and how hard it is once in the system to prove you're not a psychopath.

He also investigates the theory that many CEOs/bankers etc share these traits and what makes the difference between a psychopath in Broadmoor and one on Wall Street. And most concerningly, the huge rise in children being diagnosed with personality disorders (particularly in the U.S.) to the great profit of the pharmaceutical companies that market drugs to treat these disorders.

1. Hamlet - Shakespeare Re-read for work. Love this, as morbid as that sounds. It gives me more to think about each time I read it.

Am still ploughing through War and Peace - 77% now - and reading my Hamlet background reading book. One more play to read for work this week, then two light and fluffy February book group reads, which will make a nice change after all this heavy stuff.

I have just spent a very enjoyable evening re-reading

1. Nanny Ogg's Cookbook by Terry Pratchett, Stephen Briggs et al.

It is very funny and also has some real and very tasty sounding recipes among the joke ones. Any typical Pratchett observations around food and class etc.