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

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke is £1.09 in the kindle daily deal today :)

6- The Sisters- Claire Douglas,
Couldn't put it down. Well paced throughout and couldn't stop reading to see the story unfold. Holds the readers attention throughout and would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed The Ice Twins or the girl on the train.

1. Uprooted by Naomi Novik

I loved this one. I didn't want it to end.
Agnieszka has grown up in a valley in the shadow of a corrupted Wood that corrupts and poisons anyone who ventures inside it. Her people rely on a wizard, The Dragon, to keep the power of the Wood at bay. Every 10 years, The Dragon selects a young woman from the valley to serve him in his tower for the next 10 years. Everyone expects The Dragon to pick Agnieszka's best friend, but when the time comes, he picks Agnieszka instead...

10. Username: Evie by Joe Suggs

A graphic novel about a lonely teenage girl, whose father has created an idyllic virtual world for her as his final work. Of course, things don't go as smoothly, once her cousin follows her in and starts causing mayhem. It's okay, but it's a very light read and very YA.

more for the pile! thank you! You're welcome.
I have an ever increasing stack on the bedside table. I fear I don't have enough life left for all the books I've got waiting to be read.

I found Dandy Gliver didn't really grip me I have to admit there were some parts in the first book that were a bit of a slog but I thought the later ones zipped along nicely on the whole.

1. Jerusalem by Simon Sebag-Montefiore

** I disliked this book intensely and it has taken me a month to read it because of that. It's confused and confusing and often reads like a university dissertation. I do know more about Jerusalem than when I started but the endless list of characters, battles, bloody details and quotes from other texts just bored me in the end. It's marginally saved by the last 2 chapters looking at the future and a typical morning in the old town but overall I wouldn't recommend this book.

Right going to read some nice, easy Agatha Christie's now to get me back into reading plus His Dark Materials which DS and I are reading in our Mum & Son book club.

Moving you inspired me to start Bleak House last night, although I only got a couple of chapters in before I nodded off. I think this will be me out of the game for a month. I am going to keep a pen and paper handy for making my own crib sheet, as I'm terrible at keeping track of so many characters (failed at War and Peace for this reason). Will be keeping an on on this thread for short, light and easy recommendations for afterwards though.

5. The Children of Hurin, JRR Tolkien

Tolkien is one of my favourite authors, but I find he does require a lot of concentration! Unlike The Hobbit The Children of Hurin is not at all lighthearted with a happy ending. It is steeped in the mythologies, genealogies and histories of Middle Earth; the book comes with beautiful artwork, maps, family trees and lists of names and pronunciation.

This is not a 'new' story, much of it being covered in The Silmarillion, but in much greater depth. Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, takes revenge upon the family of Hurin as punishment for his his defiance. His curse follows his son Turin, blighting every decision he makes and poisoning all his relationships.

Although Elves, Dwarves, Gods and dragons feature a lot, this is predominantly a story of human emotions and imperfections where although the decisions they make are disastrous, we can relate to why they are made.

It is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. If you thought George RR Martin was cruel to his characters, he doesn't have a patch on Tolkien!

I need something much, much lighter so no moving onto The Devil Wears Prada, Lauren Weisberger

Book 5: The Miniaturist - Jessie Burton Finally caught up with you all on this one. Much reviewed so I'll just say how much I agree with you about the annoyance factor of the "I'll just stop now" ending. If that was an attempt to tee up a sequel, it was a bad one.

Book 6: Wolf of the Plains - Conn Iggulden Book club selection about the early years of Ghengis Khan. Fast-paced and (largely) solid on historical detail, the characters were drawn well-enough for ease of differentiation. A rollicking read, although I can't say I'm racing to pick up the remaining 4 in the series ... but - in fairness - there's too much else on the TBR list.

Not sure where next, but it'll be something I already own ...

Greymalkin that Tolkein sounds deeply depressing. I struggle with Tolkein at the best of times, that one will not be joining my TBR list (thank you btw as I'm struggling to find offerings on here where I don't go "oooooohhhhh" and immediately click in Amazon).

10. Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. The first in the His Dark Materials trilogy. I expect it has been reviewed many times before, and so I won't go into detail. It was an audio book narrated mostly by Philip Pullman (good narrator) interspersed with other cast members voicing the characters. It was done very well and I enjoyed listening to it.

Next up, I have collected from the library Mystery in White by J Jefferson Farjeon, which looks interesting. I now need snow outside, a roaring fire and comfortable armchair to settle into :)

Joyless I was just glad the minaturist ended when it did it was imo a really terrible book

8. A village affair by Joanna Trollope Comfort reading although given it was written almost 30 years ago it is interesting to see how she treats the affair (between 2 women)

*9. Unfinished Business by Anne Marie Slaughter" Slaughter was the first female director of policy planning at the US state department. To take the job she took a sabbatical from her professorship at Princeton and commuted to Washington from New Jersey every week, leaving her husband (also a professor at Princeton) to be primary caregiver for their 2 sons ( about 11 and 13). After 2 years when Obama was about to be elected again so she would have had another 4 years when she would likely be promoted even further, she resigned and went back to her (high-powered) career in Princeton - mainly because she felt her teen sons needed her to be living at home mon-fri. She wrote an Atlantic magazine article about women not haviing it all which was a big sensation here in US. The book was really interesting on balancing children with career -but very much from the truly high-powered career point of view. What she went back to in Princeton would be regarded as one of the pinnacles of most people's careers. She acknowledges that upfront.

10 Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld I liked her books American Wife and Sisterland. This is set entirely in a Massachusetts prep boarding school. Based probably on Groton. I found the boarding school thing fascinating, mainly because we toured a few of these schools over the last couple of years and she catches exactly the beauty/opportunity/magic they project along with the wealth/stratification etc. She also writes really well about being a teenager, I liked her heroine a lot even though she was not traditionally heroine-like.

1. Fat Chance by Nick Spalding. The story of a fictional couple who have entered a weight loss competition on the radio, complete with 'hilarious' descriptions of their experiences of the cabbage soup diet etc. This is pretty rubbish tbh. Definitely my worst choice so far this year.

Joyless My dad has recommended Conn Iggulden to me - do you think I'd like?

1. Disclaimer by Renée Knight. Meh. Everybody is trying so hard to write the next Gone Girl - and I disliked Gone Girl so really I should stop reading them.

(147 unread on my kindle. Have unsubscribed from all deals emails.)

101 unread on mine. I'm surprised and relieved to see that's normal compared to others on this thread!

That was pretty much how I felt about Disclaimer, Barry. It wasn't up to much.

I have no idea how many books are sitting on my Kindle waiting to be read, too scared to look. Must be at least 150 .

"one of the guardian's top crime novels of 2015", quog. Must have been a thin year.
On the bright side I spotted a most amusing typo in it - "It is ten a.m. according to my lapdog and I am stiff from sitting in my chair so long. I need to move... Too much time in front of a screen". I don't think she means lapdog, do you?

book 7 the dubliners James joyce a collection of short stories written about middle class dubliners during the 1920s. With the exception of the last story I found the other stories had little or no point. The writing itself is elegant although I believe Joyce tries too hard. He is writing for a specific audience (middle class Irish Americans) about an Ireland that no longer existed.

Ulysses is on my list but I'm going to leave it for a while

1. The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fk - Sarah Knight

I thought this was either going to be a parody of the Marie Kondo book but what she advocates here are ways to prioritise aspects of your life for the better. I broadly agree with what she's saying but this is one of those non-fiction books that should have been a magazine article instead of a book and her message felt a little laboured by the end.

1. An Awfully Big Adventure - Beryl Bainbridge

A teenage girl in early 50’s Liverpool takes a job as an assistant stage director for a theatre company and falls in love with two of the members, unknowingly triggering a tragedy. She nicely evokes the period, but I felt the characterisation of the main character was really poor and the story downright boring until a significant character appears 3/4 of the way in. I may have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t already seen the film adaptation.

Just about to start Wolf Hall. I've two long train journeys this weekend so should get through a large part of it by Monday, and on my Kindle, I'm reading A Man Called Ove.

1. Golden Son by Pierce Brown - 2nd book in Red Rising trilogy, it's scifi dystopia and was a bargain for 99p!. I liked this a lot more than Red Rising which I thought dragged in the middle. This one fairly cracked along and I do love the world the author has created. I still find the main character, Darrow, a bit thinly drawn. He is like a teenage boy's ultimate angsty hero, and the story feels quite YA in tone for me. Having said that I am looking forward to reading the final book in the trilogy after it comes out next month.

I am now wading through Americanah, not sure I am going to warm to this one, but the writing is very good and I am determined to finish it!

oh Ladydepp - I forgot the 3rd "Red Rising" book was due out soon, I enjoyed books 1 & 2 as well (believe Cote recommended them start of last year), and agree, Darrow needs to pull himself together clearly needs a shag and to drop the angst . But I felt book 2 doesn't end in a complete story in the way book 1 does, while it's clear at the end of book 1 he's going to carry on to the next stage in his life, it felt like it ended at the end of a 'story' in his life and was complete in itself, book 2 ending on a cliff hanger would work better if you can go straight into book 3 - annoying I've had to wait a year!

Have got over my puzzling out of The house on the Strand and am ready to start reading something new again today - nothing on my Kindle is grabbing me though...

Finished 5. The Fry Chronicles - Stephen Fry yesterday morning. Listened on Audible, it's read by Fry himself which I feel makes it work really well because of the way he writes. This is the second part of his memoirs covering from the end of his school days through university at Cambridge, the Footlights et al, then his early career including Blackadder. I loved it. I'm desperate to start listening to the next volume, More Fool Me but don't get another Audible credit for a few weeks.

Think 6 will be Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg as I'm starting a new job soon.

Ash - I used to get frustrated waiting for the next audible credit to arrive so I switched to buying them all in one go. It works out cheaper to do it that way and also it means you don't have to hang onto your credit wondering whether Audible will have another 2 for 1 sale just after you've used that month's credit!