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?

Thanks, Meg. I am most definitely a 'Wolf Hall' hater - good story, badly told imvho.

Gaston Rebuffat - all his books but especially Starlight And Storm - not come across him, so will investigate
Lionel Terray - Conquistadors Of The Useless - have read most of this but got a bit tired of it and didn't quite finish it
Dee Brown - Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee - read and liked
Faber book of Reportage
Antony Beevor especially Stalingrad, Berlin and the one on the Spanish Civil War - read most of the first two but found them a bit exhausting - too much relentless bad news!
The Scramble for Africa - read
Roger Deakin - Waterlog - not come across this - will look
Anything by Iain Sinclair - not my bag
Peter Ackroyd - his history of Britain series - read most of Ackroyd's but I fell out with him after his ridiculous Frankenstein one

I've only made it to 26% of Brief History Of Seven Killings. Argh. Should I give up?

Yes! If you're bored having given it that much attention, it doesn't deserve you any more.

How many blood pages is it anyway? I can swear the % counter is stuck sometimes

I have had such a slow week or two for reading that I have put aside Flight Behaviour for now as it's just not grabbing me and am now 20% into HHhH and reading it is all I want to do - so good to come on and see from your review meg that it continues that way.

southeast re: Behind the Scenes Thank you for that - I was only giving my thoughts on it, so I hope I didn't come across as didactic, because actually I think York as a museum is an equally valid idea to have taken from it, just not one I'd picked up myself. And even if Atkinson says it isn't directly her intention, it doesn't mean its not there ifyswim!

If anybody can recommend anything that is as good as HHhH, I would be v happy!

It's not remotely like HHhH but have you read Krakatoa by Simon Winchester? It's got a mountain in it !

I really enjoyed it. Pretty gripping account of the catastrophic volcanic explosion in 1883.

Satsuki I hadn't picked up on the objects or artefacts in Behind the Scenes . Maybe because I was finding it quite an uncomfortable read, with human nature and happiness not coming out too well, and just wanted to race through it.

16. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie I did not want to rush through this one, as I love her writing style so much. This is really an extended social commentary on race. As a story, the premise is very simple: young Nigerian woman moves to America, lives there for over a decade, becomes a successful blogger, moves back to Nigeria, meets back up with her first love. The author gets away with hanging a long string of observations on race on this framework because of the quality of her writing. I felt that many of the characters only existed to illustrate a certain viewpoint or type of person. The main character, Ifemelu, was not always likeable, sometimes selfish, unkind to others, opinionated, and it was through her eyes that the issues were explored, particularly through her blog. Hair recurs as a theme; we keep returning to a scene where Ifemelu is getting her hair braided just before she returns to Nigeria, and how black women choose to wear their hair is seen, by Ifemelu at least, as a statement. I really enjoyed this, not as much as Half of a Yellow Sun but it would take a lot to top that.

I'd also like recommendations of history books covering the period of European history between WW1 and WW2, as although I have a reasonable knowledge of them both, I don't really understand the politics that led from one to the other!

Yes museumofham, I know what you mean. I remember offhand there was a china plate, a rabbit's foot, and necklace that were links to the past, but they did 'disappear' into the background of story rather than provide the focus.

I'm already wondering how I'll follow HHhH so will watch with interest!

Cote If you're not enjoying it, chuck and move on! There won't be a quiz, we promise.

Just finished 28. Radiance by Cat Valente. Think the Golden Age of Hollywood, but in SPACE. With whales. And told through a bunch of different media: documentary transcripts, home film reels, some "straight" novelistic prose but fragmented into different sections. It sounds confusing but somehow it isn't and I utterly loved it; the plot is to do with a documentary filmmaker whose father became famous making Gothic/noir-type movies, who disappears on Venus while researching for a film about the previous disappearance of a village called Adonis. The book is really interested in how you tell stories after the fact, particularly stories about yourself: your life, your friends' lives, your love affairs, etc. How you choose to frame your story and whose voices get to be heard. Lots of camera/eye metaphors. (This universe is one in which the Edison family hoards patents, including patents for sound and amplification, so that most films are silent because it's prohibitively expensive to pay for mics.) The whales come into it eventually, too. It's quite bonkers and very beautiful.

I know where you are coming from cote, I find it so hard to give up on a book. The first quarter of a book is usually scene setting, so sometimes they can start to get good after this point even with a slow start (I always think of Middlemarch when I'm struggling through a slow beginning), so I like to give them a chance. However, I really loathe wasting precious reading time on something I'm not enjoying, so if you really think it's not going to change, then I would put it aside and move on.

This is making me very glad I have HHhH lined up on my Kindle! I'm really looking forward to reading it now.

In the meantime I slogged my way through no.23 for me which was The Martian by Andy Weir. I started off really liking this, as it's a great idea, but I ended up feeling really indifferent. I know there have been loads of discussions and reviews of this but I got fed up with the technical problems/solutions and would have liked to know more about how he actually felt. Yes, I wanted feelings and reflections. And some psychological trauma!

Gosh that does sound bonkers Grendel'smother, I may have to try it.

21. White is the Coldest Colour -John Galbraith. I didn't enjoy this at all. It starts off with a seven year boy being molested by two paedophiles, and quite bit of the book is told from the POV of one of the paedophiles, who is also a child psychiatrist. His voice is particularly unpleasant. I also lost track of all the "goodies", various members of the police and social services, oh and the end was pretty rushed.

22. A question of identity - Susan Hill. I got this from the library, I think I'd read teh first in the series years ago and thought I'd try another. Well it doesn't seem to work that well as a stand alone. There was loads of stuff about the detective's family, Hill doesn't really explain who anyone is so it took me a while to work out how they're all related and it has no bearing on the actual crime, which doesn't happen til about 100 pages in. One for fans only.

Moving on to the third of the Southern Reach trilogy Acceptance. It already (3 chapters in) seems to have moved the plot along far quicker than the previous one Cote

whippetwoman you might enjoy the film more - has slightly more of the emotion and less of the problem solving. I did find the ending of the book moving though I have to say, but yes it is quite dry (and dry-eyed!) for the most part!

Stokey - Good to hear that Acceptance moves along the story. Thanks for letting me know.

On the new font: I don't like it much. It's too tall and it's rather dull and corporate.

"I got fed up with the technical problems/solutions and would have liked to know more about how he actually felt. Yes, I wanted feelings and reflections. And some psychological trauma!"

Funny how different readers can be I would have hated it to be a navel-gazing novel... on Mars!

I think we all know how it would feel to be stranded alone on a hostile planet and I give The Martian cookie points for not belabouring that aspect of the "psychological trauma".

The way he just keeps working the problem is apparently very realistic. I watched a YouTube interview with Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut who wrote An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth, where he was saying that is exactly how an astronaut faced with danger would be. "You just work the problem" were his exact words. Remember that astronauts are not only trained to act that way but they are also chosen among people who are not prone to depression and are not terribly emotional.

37. Every Which Way But Dead and
38. A Fistful of Charms, both Kim Harrison.

Carrying on with the Hollows series, still enjoying it, but starting to get a bit annoyed with the way Rachel leches over every guy around her. In book 3, Rachel becomes Algaliarept's familiar and the character Ceri is introduced, who I really like. In book 4, we go on a road trip to rescue Nick and wind up with a creepy werewolf 'focus'. I'm now on book 5 and will have to take a break after this one because I can't buy any more books until payday.

Ha cote I agree, I loved the Martian. Also a bit from an escapist point of view of knowing I would burst in tears (if I had time) and die in that situation, I wouldn't have wanted to read that book

I'm going to straddle the fence here. Normally I would agree with whippetwoman - I like to hear about how a character is feeling, and I think that can be a problem (for me) with many sci fi books which focus more on the technology and less on the characters.

Having said that, I loved The Martian!

Currently reading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and really enjoying it. Whippetwoman, if you haven't read this I'd recommend it as a sci fi book which also develops the personality of the main character.

I thought the personality of the main character in The Martian came across strong & clear - I wouldn't have found it realistic if he'd suddenly transformed into some tremendously reflective eloquent type, but showing him spending a lot of effort building a tent for the trek to Ares 4 so he could stand up, conveyed quite clearly how trapped he was feeling (and the team on Earth puzzling until they invented a practical reason). Some people don't reflect, they do, and I like seeing that.

Really, I thought the character in the Martian was not at all realistic! Just a line drawing enabling us to learn what it would take to survive on Mars in that situation. He didn't ring true for me but then I'm not an astronaut

Ah, I see I am (almost) in the minority with my thoughts on The Martian
I do see what people mean. If he'd sat around crying he wouldn't have got very far. But still...I do love me a bit of navel gazing Cote.

Satsuki, I will definitely watch the film now to see how it compares.

Radiance sounds great, Grendelsmother. I know DD read some of the 'The girl who circumnavigated fairyland . . .' series when she was a bit younger and liked them, but I've not tried any of hers myself.