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

Very different was Alan Cumming's autobio Not My Father's Son

Moving I read this late last year and one thing I couldn't get over was how he adored and revered his mother as the most wonderful woman in the world ever and yet she had let the abuse by his father happen-and must have known about it. And also she left him after the boys were grown. I couldn't reconcile that somehow.

Marking place! I'm struggling through War and Peace. 91% now!

Canyou I know what you mean. I'd have liked to have heard his mum's side of things a bit more in that Alan Cumming book.

1. The Day Of The Triffids by John Wyndham

I listened to y'all and read this book.. and was pleasantly surprised Although published in 1951, it was not fluffy nonsense like On The Beach, and nor has its writing style aged as badly. Yes, the idea of trees walking around town killing people is still ludicrous, but triffids make up a small and frankly non-essential part of the book. (Imho it would have been a much better book if there were no silly triffids in it).

This is a post-apocalyptic story where the vast majority of people on Earth go blind after watching a meteor shower. Parts about the aftermath of this apocalypse are quite well done, especially where characters talk about what kind of order needs to be established and how to go from raiding supermarkets for tools & canned food to making/growing their own and becoming self-sufficient going forward.

In all, I'm glad I read this book so thank you all for the recommendation. It is nowhere near among the best SF I have ever read but there were some interesting discussions in there that I am happy to have read.

Cote am glad you liked it! I was surprised too

Cote

King of the Cloud forests by Michael Morpurgo
Meh. Next. I think i only have 2 or 3 of the Morpugo books left to read on my to read list. And tbh I am grateful and will try to kill them off asap. Finding most of them full of potential but disappointing and only good really for picking apart and analysing for primary literacy. Simplistic writing style that lacks language maturity, with a tendency to suddenly stop rather than naturally conclude. Good for early readers to be read to but fairly pointless afterwards in terms of a book to enjoy. How on earth this author has been so highly rated is starting to totally baffle me. Despite the fact that warhorse was dramatised, and I actually enjoyed that one when I read it last year.

Books 5 and 6 I think. Tempt The Stars which is book umpteen of Karen Chance's Cassie Palmer series. Urban fantasy about clairvoyant living with vampires, fast light funny read.

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street Not sure what I think of this yet - I enjoyed the writing and the mystery, but not sure if I liked the ending or not.

Still can't finish To Sell is Human. Just not finding myself in the mood.

Michael Morpurgo: too worthy.

Cote if you like John Wyndham you will probably enjoy HG Wells. He's my favourite writer: Victorian, sci-fi, apocalyptic...

Michael Morpurgo: too worthy.

Cote if you like John Wyndham you will probably enjoy HG Wells. He's my favourite writer: Victorian, sci-fi, apocalyptic...

1. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy. Thank fuck that's over. There's nothing wrong with the characters and their storyline, but it is spoilt for me by the pages and pages and pages of wittering on about Napoleon not being a military genius. Just give it a rest, already! There is not one but two epilogues and the second one nearly made me cry with frustration - I did eventually give up and skim it for any mention of Natasha/Pierre etc, but no, it was an essay on the causes of history. On the plus side, I did grow to like Natasha - she started off very shallow/young, but really matured and grew. However, Tolstoy then threw in a few digs about clever women not being real women in the first epilogue, and Natasha didn't understand any of Pierre's intellectual pursuits but she felt with the power of a loving woman that they were important...meh. All in all, not a great read. It would be going along fine and then divert into chapter upon chapter repeating that war is a disorganised mess. It was like okay, I get it, I get it! I am not surprised at all that the BBC has made it as 6 hours - if you cut out all the military musings, you pretty much halve it. And you couldn't possibly film them.

Off to read something really light and frivolous now!

TooExtraImmatureCheddar well done for getting through War and Peace! Mine is still sitting untouched on my kindle....

VanderlyleGeek I'm glad you enjoyed A Summer Birdcage - it was a great favourite of mine many years ago.

War & Peace sounds like a book I would enjoy - don't want to know about Natasha/Pierre but interested in "military musings".

H G Wells sounds good, too.

I've just had a Saturday morning lie-in and finished book 5 Flash Boys by Michael Lewis. This is about trading, technology and how stock markets are being gamed. It's reasonably technical, I think you'd need to have some basic understanding of how trading works, but still tells a fascinating story. Basically investors are not being given the fairest buy/sell price for their stock because the banks are either giving priority to their own trading pool or to high-frequency traders. It's quite scary how corrupt the system is and how little seems to have been taken on board after Lehmann Bros.

Bringing over my list from thread 1:

1. The Versions of Us - Laura Barnett
2. All the light we cannot see - Anthony Doerr
3. Red Rising - Pierce Brown
4. Golden Son - Pierce Brown
5. Flash Boys - Michael Lewis

book 3 : How to Be A Tudor by Ruth Goodman
Excellent social history text, focusing on the normal daily lives of the man/woman in the street, rather than the nobility. Goodman herself gives Tudor living a go, in terms of clothing and food production.

Finished book 1. Sweet caress by William Boyd. A photo journalist reflects on her experiences as a photographer during the 20th century from her early career as a society photographer to her final experiences in the Vietnam war. Interwoven is the story of her various relationships with family, friends and lovers. I really enjoyed this book. It's not a book that's full of twists and turns but there's something about that keeps you turning the pages. The protagonist, Amory Clay is a complex character and her narrative just draws you in to the book. 4 stars out of 5.

Yes, true about the lack of his mother's perspective in the Cumming's book, but it didn't bother me. I think he needed and sought to resolve his issues with his father, hence the sole focus and the title. Very much not a standard autobiography and all the better for it in his case. Defintely part of his issues, imho, were his unquestioning adoration of his mum and blaming of his dad. Maybe it would have been too destructive to have blamed them both, his mother for ignoring/enabling the abuse, his dad for giving it.

Just finished number 7. The Beach. God it was awful, too much so to warrant any explanation really, guess most people have already read it anyway. I never had having always put it back down again when bookshops browsing. Something better next.

Bit late to the party, but here's my books of 2016 so far:

1. Christmas Holiday by Somerset Maugham An affluent young man spends Christmas in Paris and meets the wife of a convicted murderer, leading him to query his privileged existence. A so-so read that could have been so much better; there was something very emotionally cold about it;

1. Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans An evacuee strikes up an unlikely bond with his unsavoury foster mother. If I am honest, the main appeal of this book is that a large part of it is set in the place where I live and I am a sucker for recognising street names etc;

1. The Corpse Bridge by Stephen Booth A passable detective novel set around a fictional Peak District aristocratic estate.

Looking back at that little list, think may be I ought to find something a little more inspiring for my next read . . .

Cote How have you managed to avoid Wells?! I liked The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine although I have a feeling you wouldn't like the latter, but thought The Invisible Man was ridiculous. Have read a few others too, but can't remember offhand. Was 'Mr Polly' his?

Well, I read the stories as a child in short story or picture book format so I know them & never got around to reading the full-length books. Especially now that both science and writing styles have moved on a bit & I know I have this aversion to past-century silliness. I'll give Wells a go, though

Book 3 - Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Awesome writing. It was dense and a bit more of a challenge for me to stick with, given the habit I've fallen into of reading mostly fast-paced trash laced with a bit of Facebook . Genius: loved the exploration of transience, loss and societal expectations. Will definitely read more of her work.

Hurrah- I can finally join in properly, just finished book 1 (started on Boxing day):

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I really enjoyed it, not the type of thing I normally read (I'm usually more into thrillers and fantasy)
She did annoy me for quite a lot of the book, and thought she treated Obinze appallingly, but I did warm to her.
Very well written in my opinion.

Now on Book 2: Dark Fire (Shardlake 2)

Glad you enjoyed 'Triffids', Cote. DD just picked Station Eleven out of my charity shop pile & read it - it was interesting comparing how much more sensible John Wyndham's survivors were. DD was quite miffed by the incompetence of the Station Eleven survivors, and started planning her own post-apocalyptic novel featuring a band of hippy teenagers (her apocalypse conveniently will mostly wipe out working age adults, I believe a la Spanish Flu) living comfortably in their off grid community maintaining their electricity system, scavenging additional solar panels, batteries etc, growing vegetables and running a school teaching useful skills to the children

Still working my way through Viper Wine - rather too much book for the amount of plot, so far, though I quite like the main characters, hence why I'm persevering.

Yes, the comparison with Station Eleven was obvious and rather damning (for Emily Whatshername). It's not great that a post-apocalyptic novel written over half a century ago is more realistic in the year 2016 than the one you published last year, is it?

Oh gods, don't talk about Station Eleven again. The threads last year were full of it and it was (to be as polite as I possibly can be about it) absolutely bloody dreadful.

It's the itch we can't stop scratching