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?

TooExtra - Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel

I love "boringer" and will adopt it as a new favourite word

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid is £1.99 on the Kindle.

I have never understood the love for Terry Brooks Extra, don't really get Robert Jordan much either. There's an appalling series now about Shannara that DH started watching the other night - lots of beautiful 20-somethings with pointy ears to make sure you KNOW they're in a different world. I had to leave the room.

I think the Gibson book improves Cote. Actually the computer game bit is just a distraction to introduce her into the other world and it soon fades. The second half is definitely more coherent. I loved all his early stuff too, Neuromancer and Virtual Light. I think he started going off the boil for me with Idoru and yes Pattern Recognition was silly. I don't think I bothered with Spook Country, but I did enjoy this one in the end. Then again I quite liked Authority

Love The Time Machine.

Have ordered Daddy Long Legs as it was 99p.

Also my dh has just made me a present of East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath with a voucher he had. Been want ing to read them both for a long time, so think I'll be spending part of the summer in the dust owl.

Black Swan Green is enjoyable while I'm reading it, but a bit unpickupable at the same time

oh, I feel I'm going to have to read these books you are arguing about to be able to join in... (adds more ot the 'to read' pile)

12. Night After Night - Phil Rickman
I'm not sure who recommended this on a previous thread when it was on offer on the Kindle, but thank you, I liked it in a "this is not fluffy" way!

Basic plot - an independent production company decides to do a "Big Brother" type show with celebs/well known people in a haunted house - with the 'residents' split between people who have been publically sceptical of such things as ghosts/afterlife/general woo shit, and those who have publically talked about believing or having experienced the unexplained. The main story is focussed on Grayle, a researcher/journalist who'd worked on paranormal magazines in the past, and is put to work finding the spooky history of this house - which gets all a bit dark. First half of the book is focussed on her research, trying to find out what happened in this house in the past and the backgrounds of the people going on the show, then it moves onto the TV show itself.

The spooky bits of this book aren't what you'd expect from a haunted house story, there's not lots of ghosts and sightings, it's the effects the House seems to have on people who live in it/are associated with it, what the house seems to turn them into.

Well written and believable, mainly because it's not ghosts jumping out left right and centre being scary, but just real live people being scary.

That should read dust bowl, althought the dust owl is great for those hard to reach cobwebs

I agree Black Swan Green is a bit "unpickupable". (Writing it next to brainhurty and boringer )

Seconding Cote's recommendation of The Reluctant Fundamentalist. It's very good, thought-provoking stuff.

HHhH by Laurent Binet is also £1.99 in the Monthly Deals for March. Thinking about getting it. Have bought A Very British Murder by Lucy Worsley - an examination of the British obsession with tales of murder over the past 200 years or so. Am a bit of a fan of her tv programmes and the one this book accompanied was fascinating.

Cote Oh, I see! Yeah, that sounds awful. What a disappointment.

tumble I am very keen to go to Iceland, so Names for the Sea sounds right up my alley

Also, have finished 21. Wake by Elizabeth Knox. She's a Kiwi author whom I'd never heard of before, but this is her eleventh novel and New Zealanders seem to really rate her. It's literary psychological horror, essentially: a small coastal town is gripped by a homicidal madness, which leaves only fourteen survivors. They're cut off from the outside world, and have to find a way to live together while also battling grief and defending themselves against whatever caused the madness - which is still there. A bit like The Walking Dead meets Under The Dome meets Margaret Atwood. I normally have zero time for zombie stories, but this one's different. Addictive, enigmatic, very well-written, and great characterization (hard to do when you have fourteen survivors to write about!) A definite page-turner.

And don't forget "feeeellliiiiings", cote

Did someone recommend The Mangle Street Murders on the last thread as a good 'cosy murder mystery' type? I just noticed it on the Monthly Deals on Kindle and remembered something about it, but can't remember if it was a 'good' or 'bad' review! I've realised I need to have some 'fluffy' books to read inbetween (to use Cote's new dictionary) brainhurty or upsetting ones.

Ha! No, I didn't get the "feeeeliiiiings" vibe from Black Swan Green. It wasn't up to the usual (very high) standards of David Mitchell imho but it wasn't a heartstring-tugging sob-fest like those feeeeeliiiiiings books

18. That Distant Land by Wendall Berry This is a collection of short stories all set in the same place (rural Kentucky) and including many of the same people/families dating from the 1880s up to the 1980s. Berry is a lovely writer but also has very strong beliefs about the importance of connection to land, environmentalism, the ideas of families/people being connected, etc. he is absolutely anti-big agri business and reveres the old ways of farming (he farms himself-he is about 80 now). I listened to these on cds in the car (20 hours) and I loved them. All of the stories were fascinating about a way of life essentially gone now, some very funny, some very moving, and he made his point about land/people/animals coexisting without being preachy. Would highly recommend him.

19 Daddy long legs Re read this in one go last night because of this thread. Lovely!

Dinosaurs, I liked the Mangle Street Murders but someone else (Remus?) hated it. They're a bit too gory to be really fluffy. You can read an extract on the Amazon website, and that should give you an idea if it's to your taste or not.

I haven't updated in ages - will come back with a proper list. I've decided I don't want to read The Game of Thrones series; just not getting into it. I've been reading a bit of crime (the latest Anne Cleeves book, The Moth Catcher and the latest Barbara Nadel book, On the Bone). Both okay if you're familiar with the series already, but not necessarily the place to start if you're new to them.

I have a pile of non-fiction lined up, including the nicely contrasting Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes by Virginia Nicholson and Her Brilliant Career by Rachel Cooke, about women's lives in the 1950s.

tumble, delighted you liked Romantic Outlaws! Young Romantics by Daisy Hay or The Poets' Daughters by Katie Waldegrave are in a similar vein, if you'd like to read more. Young Romantics might be too close to Romantic Outlaws, as it covers a lot of the same material, but it's still a pleasure to read.

Cheddar Yep, have read Just Patty but not a patch on Daddy Long Legs, I thought.

Highly recommend HHhH - a bargain at £1.99.

Re: The Mangle Street Murders I enjoyed the first half and hated the second. Here's my review:
This was a book of two halves, I think. I quite enjoyed the beginning, and the concept - orphaned young woman goes to live with strange and eccentric male guardian, who happens to be a private detective. There's a murder and detective is hired to investigate - young woman assists. But I got a bit fed up of it by half way through and by the end I felt really rather disappointed in it.

There are some fairly terrible attempts at jokes, the detective is a pain in the arse (deliberately) but the young woman is also (and I think we're supposed to like her). There's a whole load of italicised stuff about something that happened in the past and that isn't developed, presumably in an attempt to get us to want to read the whole series; some of it attempts to 'cleverly reference' Conan Doyle etc but is about as subtle as a whack over the head with a spade and adds nothing to plot or character development, and the ending was stupid. I doubt I'll read another of these.

Still onboard. I'm reading 3 equally interesting books, so not finishing anything. Work stuff, non-fiction and a crime novel.

Too-Extra I've read Daddy-Long-Legs many times and I always found it a bit creepy and disturbing.

Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue is £1.99 on Kindle. A brilliant read.

Ah bibliomania I thought it was you! I seem to get most of my biography recommendations from you

Ooh thanks Remus, I have it in book form but always useful to have something like that on Kindle for emergencies.

I'm collecting about 4 books to read for every half a book I'm reading because of this thread!

Evening all. These are my latest reads:

14. A short history of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson. I really like this book. Bill Bryson makes major events and theories such as the big bang and the theory of relativity very accessible to those of us who are not from a scientific background. However, this was the audible version and the narration was awful. I have the paperback on my bookshelf and I can see myself dipping into it again and again but this read was on audible and the narration was simply awful. Shame as I listened to a few other Brysons but they were all narrated by the author and were significantly more enjoyable for that reason.

15. Going Postal – Terry Pratchett. A reread of one of my old favourites. In this discworld book Terry Pratchett introduces us to conman and fraudster Moist von Lipwig who has been sentenced to death for his crimes. At the last minute he gets offered the opportunity to live in exchange for getting Ankh-Morpork’s post office back on its feet again after years of decline. But while the PO has been in decline the clacks business has been growing and its investors are not happy when they see the PO getting back on it s feet.

16. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – JK Rowling. Third book in the series. Sirius Black who has murdered many people, has escaped from Azkaban. He had been a friend of Lily and James Potter and everyone believes he had betrayed them before going over to Voldermort and the dark side. Now it is believed that he is after Harry and everyone in Hogwarts is on high alert. This was an audible book read by Stephen Fry. Excellent.

17. Armageddon’s Children: Book one of the Genesis of Shannara – Terry Brooks. This is a first of a post apocalyptic series from Terry Brooks combining sci-fi and his fantasy world of Shanara. I think it does this rather well. In this series, the elves of Shannara have to work with the humans left on earth to battle the forces of evil and the oncemen who are taking over the world. It was an easy and entertaining read which I enjoyed enough to look forward to the next one in the series.

18. The Darkest Secret – Alex Marwood. Three year old Coco Jackson is an identical twin and has gone missing from the holiday home she was staying in with her family and family friends. We find out what really happened as the story weaves between 2004 when Coco went missing and the present. The plot was quite gripping and the story was well written. I would read another by this author.

I am now reading Baudalino by Umberto Eco and have started listening to The Holy Machine by Chris Beckett. Also have HP and the Goblet of Fire on the go for the school run.

TooExtraMatureCheddar - so you didn't like the Sword of Shannara then? I read a few of the Shannara series years ago and while I don't remember them in detail I do remember feeling very meh and irritated by the first book which I felt ripped of LOTR but they do get better as the series progresses if my memory serves me correctly. In fact, my brother recently passed the Genesis of Shannara books to me and I have just finished the first and quite enjoyed it.

Moist Von Lipwig - one of the best names for a character ever. Up there with Dolores Umbridge, Zaphod Beeblebrox and Dolores Haze.

Mother Tongue looks like exactly the sort of book I would like to read, but Amazon reviews say there are quite a few glaring mistakes in there. Will I constantly wondering which parts of it might be false?

Like this one:

"Some cultures don't swear at all..... The Finns, lacking the sort of words you need to describe your feeling when you stub your toe getting up to answer a wrong number at 2.00 a.m., rather oddly adopted the word ravintolassa. It means 'in the restaurant'."

This is utter, for lack of a better word, hevosenpaska (literal translation "Horse S**t"). I have NEVER in my 10 years living in Finland heard anyone shout out RAVINTOLASSA, unless of course there were too many people in the restaurant and the guy was shouting into his mobile saying where he is. The Finns have quite a few swear words in their vocabulary that can be heard way too often.

No idea re 100% accuracy, but it's a bloody good read. Funny and informative. Have read it several times and always find something different to marvel at on each re-read.