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

Ok then, so I'm not alone here :).

I've been listening to the audiobook, Moving - I'm not gripped so far, to be honest (in fact have put it aside for the moment), but I'm sure I'll come back to it, probably when I have a long stretch of work where I can listen uninterrupted. It's read well, Slater's voice is very pleasing, I think.

I love Wolf Hall and BUTB. I find the language really brings the characters to life and actually makes them easier to read, not harder.

I enjoyed Wolf Hall too, just to add to the positive voices! Will see if I can borrow BUTB from SMIL over half term.

I am now interspersing Bleak House with Georgette Heyer for when I need something light and silly.

I have (again) temporarily given up on Bleak House, quite like it, but so
l-o-o-o-n-n-g. Will resume when less on in my life.

2 Even Dogs in the Wild - Ian Rankin
The latest John Rebus /Malcolm Fox book. I love Ian Rankin and have been reading him since I was in my teens. I like a good crime story that isn't too gory. This was an easy read, not his best plot wise and a bit of a convenient, nicely tied up ending but I enjoyed it all the same.

Next book is Joan Didion's A Year of Magical Thinking.

I need to pick up my pace to get to 50!

Also interested to see reviews on Wolf Gall and BUTB. I have both in my kindle but always seem to find excuses not to start them and read something else. This year is the year I will give Wolf Hall a jolly good try!

Quog please don't think of it as being alone - there are books we will disagree on and others we'll agree on. We wouldn't have come to the end of the second thread of the year before mid-Feb if everyone agreed on everything. You'll never be alone

I think quogwinkle is fine with disagreement, cote - in her post she was advising stitches that she probably wouldn't like it

It maybe feels a bit more personal when you use someone's positive description of a book to kick off your negative one, that's all.

NotBetty, I read Wolf Hall on holiday and I think that really helped - I had decent stretches of reading time so I could really immerse. I don't know whether I'd have enjoyed it so much read in my usual style, with 15 minutes snatched here and there.

I agree, barry, it's a book that you need to have a decent run at.

Another Wolf Hall fan here. I think some of you are right in that it helps to have a bit of time when reading it. It is certainly not one for dipping in and out of. I have BUTB on my bedside locker for the past two year for that very reason as I seem to be busy all the time and don't want to start it until I have a bit of extra time so can get a good start.

I found listening to Wolf Hall much easier than reading it - I think the stream of consciousness, immersive experience and being inside Cromwell's head comes across really well this way plus I didn't have to lug my hardback copy around anywhere Did the same with Bring Up The Bodies, and will probably do the same with the third when it's out. Wouldn't profess ardent love for them in the way that some do, but I definitely thought they were excellent and an inventive take on the events of the period. I really found myself understanding Cromwell and why he was acting in the way he was, which I suppose is the point of the exercise. I felt very much like he didn't like himself, sometimes.

Cloud Atlas

6 interlocking narratives, running from the past into the future, told out of chronological order, with the end in the middle, and the beginning also at the end. (I found it hard writing that, so can only imagine what the author went through actually executing it!) Each narrative has a different protagonist, and has its own discrete style, thus covering 6 genres. The individual stories are complete in themselves, only containing one or two obvious elements linking them to the others, but they are bound together thematically in such a way that is very satisfying to read. There is no neat tying together of strands at the end; the ideas which flow through the stories weave them subtly together throughout. It is very cleverly done, and the fact that you already know where it all 'ends' doesn't detract at all from the desire to read the second half of the book, and in fact the resolution, if you can call it that, packs more of a punch because of it. It is quite an achievement in structure.

The writing is fresh, witty and enjoyably designed to entertain. This sits at odds with the overarching themes, which are quite bleak - the predatory nature of humankind, the propensity of the strong and powerful to dominate and consume the weak, the forces which drive us to progress and destruction. However, there is hope in it. The characters don't feel as if they have much depth, but actually this is not really a criticism. It underlines the interconnectedness of people, and emphasises the power of the individual as part of the whole; this is where the emotional impact of the book comes from, rather than any particular connection with the characters, for me anyway. The plotting for each story is tight and suspenseful, and the way he sustains the disparate voices is brilliant. One narrative is written in an invented dialect, which sounds awful, but he makes it work. It was good, glad I gave it a proper shot, and will read more of his.

Feel like something lighter, but have decided on Narrow Road to the Deep North just because it is a bit shorter than some of the others on my list.

That is it, Satsuki :) It doesn't bother me in the least if someone hasn't or wouldn't enjoy a book I've just read (or vice versa) But it starts to feel a bit more personal when you review a book and then other people pile in straight after with the hated it comments and pull it apart. It makes you question your own integrity and ability to think critically. But let's draw a line under this right now. I won't be making further comment on Wolf Hall and don't want this to cause an argument which hijacks the thread.

I've decided to put Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane on the backburner for now. I'm finding it rather tedious. And have started reading Call The Midwife by Jennifer Worth, which will be part of my year of exploring history in as many aspects as I can think of. So kicking off with social history of childbirth in poverty stricken London's East End in 1950s. Grim so far but interesting.

Will be interested to see what you think of The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Satsuki. I've got it on my Kindle and also have The Railway Man by Eric Lomax as a comparison book. Planning to read both this year.

On another note entirely, struggling to finish Thrive. Despite quite liking Lean In - I think it's because Huffington is much more spiritual and comes across as much more middle-class, and the advice isn't quite so practical. Or maybe it's just because the toddler's had tonsillitis!

Really enjoying listening to Victoria - A Life by AN Wilson though - it's on in the car and most nights, whilst ironing, cooking etc etc. Really brings through a diverse personality and a woman who was full of contradictions.

Hi all. Determined to better my quite frankly pathetic attempt at this last year.

1. The Silkworm - Robert Galbraith. The second in the Cormoran Strike series by the Harry Potter author. I have enjoyed both of these, but both get very convoluted at the end when she tries to tie all the threads of the story together in a bit of a last minute rush. I always end up with quite a few questions about unresolved bits and pieces with these....

1. The Exit - Helen Fitzgerald
2. The Donor - same author

Enjoyed both of these, very easy reads, good story concepts and well written.

1. Stolen Child - Laura Elliott. This was a book that I really enjoyed, developed rounded characters, and well executed, felt like a story that had been properly researched. And 99p so even better!

Am now reading Life, Death and Vanilla Slices by Jenny Éclair, which I a, thoroughly enjoying so far - laugh out loud funny as you would expect, and am reading bits out to DH which is always a good sign. Hope my sons don't turn out like the A'Holes in this book.....

Read The Skeleton Cupboard by Tanya Byron. Thanks to whoever recommended it - I found it an interesting read. It's a non-fiction account of her training to be a clinical psychologist. She's rolled a number of experiences into fictional case histories. It's a bit harder-edged than I expected. I rather liked her ambivalent relationship with her supervisor, and the fact that she does examine and challenge her own hero/rescuer leanings. She still does given into those leanings in a few of the stories, where her brilliant insights crack the case, but there are also a few cases with more indeterminate endings, where she hasn't been able to fix things. Worth the read.

I have The Railway Man as well quog - I picked it up when it was cheap and because it had Colin Firth on the front ages ago and don't really know anything about it, didn't realise it covered similar ground to the Flanagan. That makes things a bit more interesting, I will try and read both now too.

I really enjoyed Call The Midwife and the subsequent books Quog. They are exactly the type of social history that I love and I think it's so important that this kind of experience is recorded. They are grim but also very moving.

Another Wolf Hall hater here. I may have said that before!

I couldn't read The Narrow Road to the Deep North - I found it so, so boring and gave up in disgust.

3. Soy Sauce for Beginners by Kirstin Chen

A native from Singapore moves back from San Francisco to work at her family's soy sauce factory after her marriage fails and "finds herself". I was looking for a fast read that was light and fluffy. This was not it. I found the writing to be disjointed and dull and the characters were underdeveloped (and in the case of the main character - annoying).

4. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

It was a little slow in places and isn't a book I am raving about, but it was still enjoyable. This helped scratch my itch for a feel-good read.

I loved Call the Midwife too.

Great review of Cloud Atlas, Satsuki.

Oh no that's ominous - I'm finding Narrow Road boring 10% in, was hoping it would pick up.

Just realised I did a terrible job of summarising the structure of Cloud Atlas, the stories are not out of chronological order; the first half of five narratives are told in sequence, ending at the middle of the book where the sixth narrative is told in full. The second half of each story is then told in reverse chronological order, so the book finishes where it began.