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

Dinosaursroar, sorry, I never answered a question you asked days ago about the M R C Kasasian books. I'm enjoying them - someone else on here (Remus?) had a go at one and loathed it. You can get a preview on Good Reads and I think you'll get an idea fairly quickly about whether you like the tone or not.

Most recent books:

1. The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth. By the author of The Etymologicon and The Horlogicon - if you liked either of those, you'll probably enjoy this, more because of his style than the content. If you haven't tried any of his books, I'd start with The Etymologicon. He writes non-fiction about language, but the real charm lies in the jokes.

10. Life Moves Pretty Fast by Hadley Freedman. Musings on the delights of 80s movies. I'm of a similar vintage and vaguely remember many of these films. She doesn't say anything particularly profound, but it was an easy, nostalgic read.

Book 3 - Our Endless Numbered Days, Claire Fuller I'm normally a speed reader but I found myself reading slowly and often re-reading sentences to remember the snippets of info we are drip fed. I absolutely loved this book and its definitely a storyline that will stay with me, long after I've finished. Highly recommed.

I'm leaving a couple of days before I start my next book as I need to digest and think about this book before starting a new one.

Just realised my last post was about book number 6, not 5 -- left off one from the first thread!

I've now finished number 7: The Martian by Andy Weir. I listed to this as an audiobook and loved it, even though it's not at all the kind of thing I normally read. It got me through 2 long drives, and I stayed up late to listen to the last couple of hours as I was desperate to hear the finish. The story is about an astronaut whose crewmates, believing him dead, leave him behind on Mars. With no way to contact Earth and limited food/other resources, he has quite the battle to survive. You have to (a) suspend disbelief and (b) get through a fair few detailed discussions of chemistry and botany, but it's a fantastic story. I can see why they made a movie out of it.

Now reading Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt.

*

1. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
2. Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig
3. The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson
4. The Whites by Richard Price
5. Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume
6. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
7. The Martian by Andy Weir

Am 70% of the way through War and Peace now - steady but slow progress. Have had to slow down a bit as I needed to get stuck into the work reading I need to do by the end of the month so have just finished 'book' 4:

1. The Tempest - Shakespeare - technically a re-read from university years ago, but am teaching it for the first time this term. I saw it performed recently but really enjoyed reading it again. I know Shakespeare's meant to be seen but it's hard to appreciate so much of the detail of the language when it all goes so quickly on stage. A quick read, in comparison to lots of the other plays.

Hamlet next - have read this many, many times but not taught it for a couple of years so need to re-read again. Am also reading 1599 by James Shapiro at the same time to get a better sense of the contextual influences when it was written.

I've read all three Southern Reach books and agree it is weird - you are not sure what is real or not, if your narrators can be trusted, what is happening, even the environment is unreliable. I looked back at my review and I said they was disturbing, fascinating and provocative and a damn good read Ultimately, I suppose it is all a bit unsatisfying in that there are no clear answers, just hints and suppositions.

I tend to like a bit of weirdness in my books though!

Getting on ok with The Unconsoled. 18% in now. Another definitely weird book , I'm constantly scouring the text for clues as to wtaf is going on...

I see the thread is still racing along!

Book 3: The Garden of Evening Mist Tan Twan Eng. Based in Malaya after the Japanese occupation and during the communist uprising, Yun Ling - survivor of a work camp wants to create a Japanese garden in memory of her elder sister who loved them. Aritomo, once gardener to the Emperor but a long-time resident in the Malayian highlands, refuses to design it but offers to teach her. She grows to know, respect and finally love him. Beautiful descriptive passages and very evocative of colonial life in the tropics. I really enjoyed this one.

Book 4: What I Talk about when I talk about Running Murakami. I'm not a runner, so slightly lost on me, but the book did deliver some insights.

Book club tonight - so book 5 will be chosen then!

Book 5: wonder by rj palacio.

A ya novel about August, a 'deformed' boy and how he navigates his first year of final schooling aged 10. How he copes, how his family and new and old friends cope, and ultimately how he - of course - triumphs.

A bit cheesy but enjoyable - I started this on Tuesday afternoon during a library lesson and have just finished it. So I sped through it. I'd recommend if you like ya fiction.

'Deformed' is a reference from the novel, by the way. August has a rare recessive genetic condition which has affected the development of his facial features.

5. The Exclusives by Rebecca Thornton

This was not one I would usually pick up, but saw a recommendation online. I really recommend it if you want something gripping. I read it in about a day because I just had to know!

Freya and Josephine have been best friends since childhood, and now Josephine is Head Girl at the elite boarding school they both attend. Against a background of family dysfunction, the pressure on the girls rises as there are scholarships to compete for, interviews for Oxford coming up, and exams looming. On their last night out together before the school year gets underway, something happens that has far reaching consequences for both their friendship and their glittering futures. A bit of a lightweight Secret History, or a heavyweight Gossip Girl. Engrossing and enjoyable.

1. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit - Judith Kerr

Autobiographical account of her family's flight from Berlin as the Nazis came to power and their life as refugees in Switzerland, Paris and finally London. Gripping, poignant and funny, and a brilliant insight into a child's view of how it feels to be a refugee.

I'm 10% into Ancillary Justice and wondering what I have done in previous lives to deserve page after boring page of landscape descriptions.

Then I realised:

• a 1st book by
• a female author

When will I learn?!?!

5. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Lovely - a delight. A quirky, gentle, funny, moving story. Really enjoyable read.

Now listening to I Am Malala on audible and not sure what to go for next - I have :

Garden of Evening Mist
All the Light we cannot see
Americanah
The Separation

all teed up on Kindle.

Biblio You have confirmed what I have remembered reading about the Faulks. I don't think I'll bother.

Book 10: The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey.
Set in the 1950s, a policeman is recovering from an accident and while in hospital starts reading history books. He becomes fascinated with the story of the Princes in the Tower and with the help of a researcher he delves in to the historical sources to see whether Richard III did it. I won't say what the conclusion was for anyone who wants to read it.
Despite nothing much actually happening in the book (the main character remains in hospital so most of it is him either thinking about or talking about what he's read) it is still very readable. It does help if you already have a vague understanding of the time period under discussion. The problem with historical fiction is that unless you are an expert you can never be sure that what you're reading is actually true or whether it's been twisted to fir the story, and also you don't know what historical evidence has been left out because it doesn't fit the story!

I loved the daughter of time. It was quite a different take on a historical novel.

Cote, you could just criticise the writing instead of the gender of the author ??? !

Grrrr, I'm being increasingly irritated by spelling mistakes etc. in Kindle books. The last 4 have all had errors of some kind. Is anyone else noticing this? Even Bill Bryson's Little Dribbling had a hyphen half way through the name Marlborough. Cryptonomicon had a character's name spelled wrong at least twice and a book I read about Bletchley Park had the spelling Jugganaut for juggernaut (may be valid but I've never seen it before). As Kindle books seem to cost more than paper books these days, you'd think they'd proof read them properly.

Ok rant over.

I'm not criticising the author's gender sex. It's my sex too, and I'm quite partial to it

It's just that I don't get along well with female authors' books. At all. They talk too much about feeeeeeliiiings (insert violin here). Well, there have been notable exceptions like The Goldfinch and The Luminaries, but they are few and far between. It's personal preference, not a judgement on the female sex.

And first books! A very good first book is rare imho and ime. More often, you see these hyped up and heavily marketed 1st books that get talked about, go up in bestseller lists etc. Then you read them and they are, well, rubbish. I try not to read 1st books.

Best - Yes, I notice spelling mistakes in Kindle books, too. I report them all.

Goodness, Cote, really? So no Sarah Waters, Rebecca West, Austen, Atwood, Elliot.. I don't know, Byatt, Angelou, Mantel etc??? They're hardly all one feely genre..

"Feely genre" being a technical term, obviously

Yes, really. I read one book of short stories by Margaret Atwood and was sorely disappointed that she gets touted as a top SF writer. Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall made me want to claw my eyes out. It was really really badly written, with complete nonsense passing for creative grammar, written in one very long and garbled mess, all in present tense.

I haven't read any of the others and am frankly in no rush to try. Maya Angelou's books in particular sound like a feeeeeliiiings stuff, so I won't be going there.

The world would be a boring place if we all liked the same things

kind of astonished at anyone ruling out all women as authors but in fairness to you Cote, you do seem to have tried many books by female authors. Seems a strange way to characterise your preference though. there are plenty of male writers who are overly sentimental (ladies and gentlemen, I give you Charles Dickens)

George Eliot and her modern day kindred spirit, Maryanne Robinson, Jane Austen, Anne Tyler, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Lee, PD James, Susan Howatch, Kate Atkinson, Elizabeth Gaskell and many others don't write about "feeeeliinngs".

Tend to agree with you about first books though, speaking of which I just finished Disclaimer another one of those "thriller with an amazing plot twist" books. Was ok to pass the time in the car (listened to it) but tired of that genre now. one interesting aspect to it was (for those of you who read the book-don't want to spoil) the heroine's ultimate analysis of her husband's reaction to what happened-thought that was interesting.

I am now listening to A God In Ruins. I love Kate Atkinson.

I Let You Go

Better than I expected but full of cliched characters and scenarios, so there is a feeling of ' haven't I read this before?'

Read Kate Atkinson's Life After Life and was 'meh' about it. It also made little sense, and was dull.

Read Harper Lee at school and didn't get why it's considered such an important classic, except that it talks about the important topic of slavery. Much preferred Lord Of The Flies.

One of the good things about not growing up in the UK is that I didn't have to read any Jane Austen or Charles Dickens I'll probably have to at some point, but aside from:

1. female authors

and

1. first books

... I also have an aversion to:

1. old-style prose.

Can't do it. There are brilliant books like Joseph Conrad's and George Orwell's whose writing styles have stood the test of time, but there is also stuff like On The Beach which nearly killed me. My eyes hurt from going all the time.