50 Book Challenge 2016 Part Three

[southeastdweller]

Thread three 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.

First thread of 2016 is here and second thread here.

How're you getting on so far?

I didn't know there was a fourth Jennifer Worth book either. Will also be adding to my list and I think I might re-read Call the Midwife.

I have four books on the go at the moment.

The Janissary Tree as recommended above which I'm saving for my commute, a massive biography of Jackie Kennedy, a book on the Thirties and SPQR, all of which I am dipping into. They are all quite hefty books hence me not lugging them on my journey to work.

5. The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

This came up as a recommendation after reading A Man Called Ove, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Mr Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore etc. It's the story of a depressed (after the death of his wife) owner of an independent bookstore who's life gets turned around when he unexpectedly becomes the guardian of a toddler abandoned in his store. It had some charming moments, but was odd in some places and cliche in others. Overall, I didn't fall in love with it, but found it to be an okay read.

6. The Last Time We Say Goodbye by Cynthia Hand

YA. This book has been sitting in my "to read" list for a long time. I can't remember how it got on my list. I kept asking myself that repeatedly over the first few chapters, convinced that I was going to regret picking it up. I'm glad I stuck with it. It's a sad book - told from the point of view of a sister dealing with the suicide of her younger brother. It was well written and very touching.

Sadikoglu - DD is 10.5. She is currently reading #3 in the Hunger Games trilogy. I want to encourage her to read in English (French is her stronger language) so I want to find her some good books to dig into. Any recommendations will be much appreciated. All the better if I don't have to read them

wilting - I know what you mean. When I was her age, I was reading whatever I could get my hands onto, which was iirc encyclopedias (dad had Encyclopedia Brittanica. I'd sit on the floor & pull out one volume at a time to read) and whatever books I could find in the little local bookstore. I also read a good percentage of the books in my school library. It was a different world. Now DD is used to just pointing at books she might be interested in on the computer screen and expecting them on her Kindle seconds later.

10. Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932, by Francine Prose This novel centres on a group of artists, writers, and patrons in Paris from the mid 20s through WWII. Their social life often revolves around the Chameleon Club, a 'louche nightspot' with daring and often transgressive performances (and performers). Lou Villars, an athlete-cum-performer-cum-race-car-driver-cum-Nazi collaborator, forms the book's narrative thread. The question of why Lou collaborated is never fully answered, though each character has his or her own theories and insights, some of which conflict and none of which are fully formed. Though the book's material is serious, the narrators are often very funny, particularly the Hungarian photographer (based on Brassai) and the American author (based on Henry Miller, and who is awful in lots of ways but also incisive and correct in others).

Speaking of Brassai, Prose got her inspiration from a subject of his: Violette Morris, a French athlete who collaborated with the Nazis. Morris is on the right in this picture, Couple Lesbien au Monocle.

This book is fantastic! All manner of social and cultural issues converge and connect and make a slippery whole. The narration, with one major exception, isn't so much unreliable as it is shifting and a comment on the variations of the individual experience of truth. And, as mentioned earlier, it's a lot funnier in places than I ever expected it to be. Highly recommended.

Book 11 will probably be All The Light We Cannot See. I mean, for real this time...

Thanks Looking, I was too slow to grab Night Women when it was 99p.

I am looking forward to Mr Whicher now Looking and Satsuki.

Hot Zone sounds interesting Cote. You can't really blame the author for wangling a trip to Africa from his publisher! I've just tried to recommend it to my library as an ebook but I have reached my limit of reccs (they are very good and have bought loads of my reccs-my attempt to be frugal!), so I've added it to my kindle wish list instead.

Eitak I have read a few of her early books but didn't enjoy them as much as the Rizzoli and Isles series. I think she comes into her own with character/plot development over the series eg the story about Maura's family background. Her earlier books are light and enjoyable but forgettable.

Cote - my dd is a bit older (13 going on 14), but will have a think.

If she likes the Hunger Games there's a whole swathe of YA dystopian fiction out there - Divergent / Uglies / Gone etc aren't great literature, but pre/young teens seem to like them a lot.

There's also authors like Frances Hardinge (Fly by Night / Twilight Robbery / A Face Like Glass) and Cat Valente (The Girl Who Navigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making + sequels) though I don't know if the language would be hard work if your DD usually reads in French.

I've got a MN freebie to read next, Girl In a Band by Kim Gordon.

Night Women went up briefly but is back to 99p elle

I've just looked Satsuki and it's coming up as £5.98 for the kindle edition-do you have a link? Thanks.

Try here

It's coming up 99p for me at the moment, so hope it works!

Thanks Satsuki! I've just bought. Weirdly my link is still coming up as £5.98
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005133J8G?colid=26JR92MS3O67X&coliid=I2BTMAZ03SWOS8&ref_=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl
How do you do the neat linky?

It's £5.98 when I view it right now - I think the price keeps going up and down as half an hour ago it was 99p.

Yes I had that price come up yesterday so thought it had gone up, but maybe it's on there twice as I get 5.98 following your link and 99p following mine

For the link you would do ((amazon.co.uk/etc Here)) only with square brackets ifyswim?

Just to be clear, I've followed both links within seconds of each other and getting the different prices, have both windows open in front of me, so don't think it actually changes. Maybe it's a parallel universe thing (read a lot of sci fi recently)

I've just given in and bought it myself, even though I wasn't going to, I've brainwashed myself into it by visiting it so often

That happened to me with. Cloud Atlas. Was only through s link here I could getvtheclower price. Might a location thing? I'm in Ireland.

Cote I'm sure you've probably already checked out Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series? Loved that growing up.

*5. I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes
*
This is an absolute beast at 900 pages and had taken me most of Feb to read. But, hell it was worth it. What a great story. It has a real extra something else that sets it apart from other thrillers I think. One of those books that leaves you almost in mourning that you've finished it.

Vote, some suggestions from my DD: Percy Jackson, the Cat Royal series, the Stravaganza books, the Nicholas Flamel books.

Tsk. Obvs that should say Cote. Wilting, she also loved the Dark is Rising series.

at Amazon! I'm in England.

Expensive book

Ooh it worked!! Thanks Satsuki!

Thanks to all of you for YA suggestions. I'll run them all by DD. She devoured the Percy Jackson books last summer, reading them all 7-8 times in quick succession and was all over the Warrior Cats books (in French, called La Guerre des Clans) before she discovered Hunger Games. We hardly hear a word from her anymore as her nose is stuck in her Kindle for most of the day just like me

Sadik - If you are wondering why I renamed you last night , that was AutoCorrect deciding to substitute a name in my contacts in place of your nn (yes, Sadikoglu is quite a common surname).

I guessed it was something like that :)

Has your dd read all the other Rick Riordan books? Dd still reads them as they come out, and says that some of the other series are a bit more 'grown up' than Percy J.

Other things she suggested - the Dragonsong trilogy by Anne McCaffrey (aimed at a younger audience than her other Pern books) and Seraphina by Rachel Hartman.

Thank you for these recommendations. I'll tell her about them tomorrow.

She knows about the other Rick Riordan books but does not want to read them because "they are about Roman mythology and I like Greek mythology" Yes, she has strong opinions wonder who she got that from

He does Norse gods too . . .