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

Remus - Have you read Ashenden by W Somerset Maugham? Apparently it's based on his own experiences spying in 1914. Obvs predates Cold War but may have historical interest?

11. Cross Stitch by Amanda James

The sequel to A Stitch in Time. It's about a woman who travels through time putting wrongs to right (but is nothing like the TV programme Quantum Leap). It's easy to read silliness really.

TooExtra I think the four parts of the Earthsea Quartet as four different books. I'm pretty certain they were originally published separately. The Tombs of Atuan is one of my favourite books (hence the first part of my nickname) and reading your thoughts on it is making me want to read it again (it's been far too long). I'm also quite excited and also apprehensive to see that Patrick Rothfuss' books are similar. I downloaded them on to my Kindle ages ago but haven't got round to reading them yet. I'm hoping I'll love them as much as the Earthsea books and they won't just seem like a copy.

15. Apple Tree Yard - enjoyed this immensely. Juliet Stevenson is such a fine narrator and she probablymade a merely good storyline into a brilliant listen. If you're after an easy, well-written psychological thriller, then I highly recommend it.

Think I need a career reboot and am wondering about whether to read Lean In or Lean Out, read mixed reviews about the former and not much other than on feminist chat about the latter. Think people on here have read LI, would you recommend it? Don't fancy something preachy or telling me (as a current non-high flier) how to manage my nanny while work smart over 5 days rather than mummy track part-time etc etc. But maybe it's not like that?

Stokey & wilting - Would you remind me what happened at the end of Annihilation (Southern Reach #1) with the biologist etc? I started Authority (SR #2) and realize that I don't remember how it ended. Thank you

I can't keep up with you all.

I'd second Charles Cummings as writing great spy fiction.

I'm finally back! Have been doing an OK amount of reading but not getting round to listing it.

So, carrying on from the last thread:

5 Spill Simmer Falter Wither, Sara Baume
Summarised very well by someone else above, so I won't blither on. Loved it though; it's very sad and wise and beautifully written.

6 A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James
Slightly ashamed to say I didn't finish this one. I loved some of the language and situations, but found the denseness of it too overwhelming in the end. It also made me feel distinctly under-informed about that period of history in the US and the Caribbean, as well as the years immediately preceding (JFK/Bay of Pigs etc). If I weren't so busy with work at the moment, I like to think that I'd take the opportunity to read around and learn more about it so I could appreciate the novel more, but I just haven't done so.

7 The Book Collector, Alice Thompson
A period and premise that are right up my alley (Edwardian England; the totally socially acceptable/sanctioned practice of 'diagnosing' as mad or having 'nervous disorders' of any women who dare to speak up, and the).

The central question is, is this woman genuinely troubled or is her husband manipulating and setting her up?

All very much the kind of things I like, but the novel itself wasn't quite good enough. Some of the language was very 21st-century and very jarring, and it's riddled with editing and proofreading howlers. I finished it; it's interesting enough to get through, and not very long –but it could have been very much better.

8 My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante
I didn't finish this (didn't get very far in, in fact). I found the writing and the narrative voice utterly flat; I didn't care about anyone or any of the situations. It's a pity because the setting of a poorish, working-class Italian neighbourhood is a quite unusual one and one I would in theory like to explore; but the book just left me totally cold. A huge disappointment.

9 The Little Red Chairs, Edna O'Brien
Don't want to say too much about this as I think readers will benefit from an element of surprise.
A mysterious man, possibly eastern European, comes to a small Irish town/village and sets up as a healer. People fall for him in different ways. Who is he, though?
Just about to finish this. It is gripping and simultaneously a very hard read; takes you to some very very dark places. Generally I'm loving the writing (this is my first of her novels), although occasionally someone who isn't Irish uses a structure that sounds like an Irish person and jars a bit; and the way it uses commas wrongly and badly has been mildly irritating me throughout.
A quite remarkable novel overall, though, and I'll try at least one more of hers when I finish this. Quite excited at the thought of having an author with an extensive back catalogue to work my way through.

Moving, I don't think Lean In is preachy or purely high flier. It's useful for me as a part-time non-high-flier who still wants interesting work and decent pay. But a lot have a very strong negative reaction to it - worth grabbing a Kindle sample before spending money, to see if it massively pisses you off.

Thanks, Slightly, that's helpful.

Cote IIRC it ends with her finding all the journals in the Lighthouse and deciding that she is going to follow her husband up the coast, knowing she'll probably die doing so. It doesn't end where the next one starts!

OnlyLovers relieved someone else didn't get on with the Elena Ferrante book, think they must be a bit marmite.

Just finished The Exclusives - Rebecca Thornton. This is about two best friends in a girls boarding school in the 1990s where something bad happens and their friendship falls apart. The narrator has a mother with schizophrenia and a detached husband,as opposed to her best friend who comes from a stable family. The story flips between present day and 20 years ago.

It's a good page turner, easy read, but I find it hard to distant myself as I think I know the place she based the book in.

Stokey, thanks for coming out about not liking Elena Ferrante! I did slightly wonder if I was the problem, not them...

Stokey - Thank you. Yes, that's what I thought. And now I see that she is out of the Area. Ah well. It looks like another great ride anyway

ANother one here who really struggled with Elena Ferrante. It was so long winded & I never engaged with any of the characters.

I so wanted to enjoy it!

OnlyLovers - I'm going to be that terrible person who tells you that on these threads we don't count books we haven't finished, especially the ones where we "didn't get very far". Sorry!

Oh, I didn't know that. I'd have thought that was just as useful/interesting as saying what we HAD finished though; surely if it creates a bit of conversation then it can't be bad?

1. Rivers Of London by Ben Aaronovitch

Well, this was a disappointment. I expected something like Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell or at least like Drood, and got the horribly ugly bastard child of Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (which I thought was sort of OK) and John Dies At The End (which was AWFUL rubbish).

The author can be funny and some of his writing is quite witty, but he has practically no plot and the whole thing is ludicrous. I can imagine his target audience being teenage boys who fancy themselves intellectual readers (as opposed to teenage boys who are barely literate which I am fairly sure was the target audience for JDATE).

I like my speculative fiction but none of this story made any sense, least of all the various lost rivers of London now living as people - some in trailer parks and others partying around the world. Very disappointing and unworthy, imho. Unsurprisingly, the author has managed to churn out 3 of these books in 18 months, but I won't be bothering with the sequels.

Yes, we do talk about the books we have tried but couldn't get into or didn't finish and it does generate interesting talk (usually, of sympathy ) but we don't count them towards the 50 books we want to read until the end of the year.

There was quite a bit of debate about this in previous years, with some saying "Well, you count the children's book you read which was only about 50 pages and I managed 100 pages into this book" but in the end it was decided that we could only count the books we have finished.

Oh sorry, I misread/misunderstood it as 'we don't talk about books we didn't finish!

D'oh.

OK then, I've a few to make up haven't I? [aaarrggghhh]

Another one who couldn't get on with the Elena Ferrante book either. Think I got about half way through My Brilliant Friend, decided it wasn't doing anything for me and gave up. No regrets :)

Cote - I knew deep down you weren't going to like Rivers of London. It is very silly but I kind of like that. They make no sense but Ben Aaronovitch's sense of humour drives them for me. He's having fun churning them out writing them and I'll stick with them until they are no longer amusing me. Definitely not in the same category as JS&MN.

RhuBarbarella I've seen a few good reviews of The Vegetarian and like Japanese/Korean literature, so I'll add that to my ever growing pile Have you read Naoko by Kei Higashino? Loved that one, although the last chapter had me doing actual out-loud swears at one of the characters Haruki Murakami's Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki was one of his better, and the 1Q84 series was a good read, if overly heavy/dragged out in places.

I know Quog - I should have listened to my 50-Book friends who know me so well and have listened to me rant about hated books for years

Thanks Cote for recommendation, read the book about Ebola, a great page turner and no 16 What I talk about when I talk about running Haruki Murakami. My first Murakami book, want to read more of his now. This is part memoir, about running a jazz bar and becoming a novelist and keeping fit by running. I immensely enjoyed this book, I keep going back to it and rereading sections.

Tbh, I can't follow Le Carre's Cold War stuff - I literally can't follow what's happening. But The Constant Gardener isn't trashy at all. I was on the edge of the world he describes for a while and it rings true to me. It was published in 2001 and was set in the (then) current day - probably doesn't qualify as historical!

If the 4 quartets of Earthsea are separate books, then I can update my list as:

17. A Wizard of Earthsea
18. The Tombs of Atuan
19. The Farthest Shore, all by Ursula K Le Guin.

The Farthest Shore I didn't think was as good as The Tombs of Atuan, but better than A Wizard of Earthsea. I found it a lot easier to read because of the interaction between Arren and Ged - it's a lot more interesting to read a very long sea-chase when there are 2 people talking to each other than when there is one man alone in a boat! But the format of the sea-chase was very similar in both books. However, the raft people and the dragons made the big difference for me (I have a weakness for dragons) and the ending was much stronger. Bit reminiscent of the end of Return of the King, but hey, it's hard to write fantasy that doesn't have echoes of Tolkein somewhere, and it in no way felt derivative.

I'm now onto Tehanu, which I have high hopes for because it says on the Wikipedia page that Le Guin came back to Earthsea in 1990 after getting involved with feminism in the 70s and 80s (the earlier books were written in the early 70s) and she realised that she didn't have to write fantasy like she thought a man would.

I'm another one that likes Rivers of London, but again, for the sequels more than the first one. I am not at all fussed by the Rivers storyline, but I do like Lesley, Nightingale and the Folly. The Rivers are an annoying sideline, so far as I'm concerned (apart from Beverley who has developed into an actual character).

I have just finished 'The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair' by Joel Dicker. Fabulous whodunnit full of unexpected twists and turns but not your usual crime/thriller. It just keeps on delivering right to the very end.

From the Telegraph review - 'The book’s central plot concerns a murder investigation in New Hampshire, reopened 33 years after the events in question when two bodies are dug up in someone’s backyard. That backyard happens to belong to Harry Quebert, a much-loved novelist in his sixties who is still famous for a single book. Inevitably, the locals in the town of Aurora turn against him, and he is arrested. The only person who retains his faith in him is Quebert’s former student, the starry young novelist Marcus Goldman, now crippled with writer’s block. Goldman sets out to solve the mystery, and the result becomes his second book.

It’s like Twin Peaks meets Atonement meets In Cold Blood, with a bromance between literary jocks and some suspected paedophilia thrown in. It’s about fame and infamy, writing and love, theft and imposture; about murder, madness, and religious zealotry. It’s about guilt: not just in the criminal sense, but as an emotion that can dog you for life. It is breathtakingly plotted. But the fiendishness of the book’s construction is not merely mathematical; it relies on the built-in ambivalence of each character, or there wouldn’t be enough left to withhold for so long. The case looks to be solved several times, yet 100 pages before the end (of a 700-page total), just when all loose ends appear to have been tied, a sudden spinning ambiguity erupts in the clues. And we’re still a good couple of resolutions away from the truth.

1. The lamp of the wicked by Phil Rickman. Number four? Five? in his Merrily Watkins series, which I am gradually reading sort of in order, give or take. This was the weakest one I've read, in my opinion - they are fairly silly anyway and the plot of this one revolved vaguely around Fred West and was all very contrived.

Onwards and upwards.