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?

Goodness this thread is hard to keep up with this year. Enjoying reading all your recommendations.

Museum I also really enjoyed Americanah , she does write very well.

1. The Raod to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson - reviewed by quite a few others already. I enjoyed this book. Yes, he is not as positive about the UK as he was in Notes from a Small Island, but he is 20 years older and the country has changed somewhat. Did definitely smack of a book written to get extra pension but he still a very good author.

1. Persepolis- Marjotie Satrapi - graphic novel of a girl growing up in Iran during the 1970's/80's. Very eye opening and recommended.

10. Three Lies- Lianne Moriarty - fairly enjoyable Australian chick lit but not one of her best I would say.

11. The Girl From Kraków - Alex Rosenberg - the story of a Polish Jewish girls fight for survival during WW2. I very much enjoyed this book. Decent plot line and extremely interesting to read a war story from the perspective of living in an occupied territory.

The Passage is only 99p on Kindle, if anybody happens to be a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction/vampires etc and hasn't read it yet. I would recommend it.

Thanks for the welcome all

Biblio and Cheddar - have a look in the Children's' Books section - there's a thread near the top, something about fete at the Chalet School. I just found that last night too sorry, don't know how to link using my phone.

Satsuki I loved the Martian (which was a holiday read last year) - DP and I both had it downloaded on our kindles and debated it as we went along!

Oh Remus id say you'll still love 'em, hitchikers that is! There was a thread recently doing quotes and it reminded me how great he was. I used to have an omnibus edition, must dig it out

In the meantime, here's the thread to inspire you!

"Arthur: "Marvin, any ideas?"
Marvin: "I have a million ideas. They all point to certain death.""

I have The Dark Forest and HHhH on my Kindle. Good to read your positive reviews

40. The School By The River, Elinor M Brent-Dyer. Re-read. For any Chalet School fans, this is one of EBD's rarer books, published in 1930 and set in a Ruritanian kingdom similar to Belsornia. A young English pianist goes to the College des Musiciens in Mirania, where her genius can shine, and where she encounters peasant uprisings and a feud with another girl. It's not one of EBD's best - the story doesn't really flow very well and there are too many geniuses even for a world-famous music school. Also, not much actually happens to the main character - all the action takes place off-stage.

Grendels - I wasn't trying to convert you Just explaining why I disliked A Brief History Of Seven Killings because you asked me to, when you said " Trying to think what your reasoning must be".

It's totally normal to have different tastes in books. The world would be a more boring place if everyone had the same taste as me but on the upside, there would be no chick-lit & YA .

Can't point at a single book as my favourite, but some books I have loved and admired their authors for were:

Cloud Atlas and The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, Anathem and Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
This Thing Of Darkness by Harry Thompson
The Atrocity Exhibition and Vermillion Sands by J G Ballard
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
Measuring The World by Daniel Kehlmann
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Hyperion by Dan Simmons

I have also been reading quite a bit of non-fiction in the last couple of years (for the 1st time in my life) thanks to these 50-Book thread. Favourites among those have been:

Bach: Music In The Castle of Heaven by John Eliot Gardiner
An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth by Chris Hadfield
The Strangest Man by Graham Farmelo
Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges
The Man Who Couldn't Stop by David Adam
Genghis Khan and The Making Of The Modern World by Jack Weatherford
Confessions Of A Sociopath by M E Thomas
The Worst Journey In The World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Into Thin Air by John Krakauer
Operation Mincemeat and A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre
My Stroke Of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor
Born To Run by Christopher McDougall

HHhH sounds like the perfect birthday present for my dad. Then I can borrow it after he's read it. Though I'm still waiting for him to finish Operation Mincemeat.

21. Moving - Jenny Eclair. Picked this up at the train station in a hurry one day and it was reasonably ok. Old lady selling her house sifts through her memories as she gives the estate agent a tour of the rooms. Was a bit too full of upper class characters for me, no one had any money worries etc but perhaps I'm being picky.
22. Offshore - Anne Cleeves. Collection of short stories. I'm not a fan of short stories, I usually want to know more about the characters than the story but it was nice to meet some of her regular characters again, Jimmy Perez, Vera etc.

12. I Know this much is True by Wally Lamb - this enormous book has been sitting on my bookshelf for years. I started it rather reluctantly a couple of weeks ago and the first 200-300 pages were so slow to kindle my interest that I almost gave up. Then the story just started to build and build, all the painstaking character detail just came together in a truly wonderful way. It's the story of identical twins growing up in America in the latter half of last century. One of the twins is a paranoid schizophrenic and the book explores mental illness as well as dysfunctional families, racism, domestic abuse and other difficult topics. Despite all that the story is a very moving and ultimately optimistic slow burner. Highly recommended, especially if you like to get completely wrapped up in a family story.

47. Pretty Baby by Mary Kubica

Another psychological thriller. I did enjoy this although there were some uncomfortable themes (I wouldn't recommend reading it if you have ever lost a baby).

Operation Mincemeat has fallen below £3 on Kindle - will I like it?

Canyouforgiveher Yes, I read A Little Life last summer! Was much more impressed with it than I thought I would be. The violence/abuse was awful, but her refusal to allow Jude redemption was a brave authorial choice, I thought. Only thing was that it was sooooo long that I thought a lot could have been cut--not necessarily that she wrote baggy sentences, but just that whole years seemed to go by without much happening!

Cote Can we nerd out about Neal Stephenson?! I read Cryptonomicon in September and LOVED it (it's on my by-the-bed books-to-save-in-event-of-fire shelf now), and have been crashing through The Baroque Cycle. Desperately keen to read The Diamond Age next.

Finished no. 30 last night, Eleanor by Jason Gurley. Not 100% sure what I think of it yet; it read very quickly but wasn't inelegant or clunky or simplistic, which was a major point in its favor. It's sort of magical realism, I guess. A woman commits suicide by swimming out to sea in 1963, and the repercussions affect the next two generations of women in her family. Her daughter Agnes loses one of her twin girls in a car crash in 1985; the other one, Eleanor, survives but has to cope with the breakdown of her parents' marriage, and her mother becoming a venomous alcoholic who blames her for her sister's death. The year she turns fourteen, Eleanor starts having strange episodes where she disappears from our world and reappears in a different universe altogether; most of the book is about her figuring out what's going on and how it's connected to her family's history. Apart from a couple of "wtf?" moments (including "How can a foetus speak Latin?", not to be spoilery), it's surprisingly cohesive in the way it builds its own internal logic, and there are some painfully lovely subtle emotional beats.

20. A Calculated Life by Anne Charnock

Set in a near-future dystopia, this is a slow-burning novel about a woman, Jayna, starting to find out more about the world beyond her own vey ordered, structured life and facts and figures. The writing is very good, and really gets you into Jayna's head. It's a fairly quick and easy read and I did feel there could have been more to it, but it is thought-provoking, especially on the subject of what it is to be human and Jayna has left an impression on me.

One thing that did annoy me about the book, however, was that even though it's set in the UK and the characters are British, American spelling is used throughout the book. I'm probably being a massive pedant but I always find it a bit jarring when that happens.

Canyouforgiveher & Grendels, I read A Little Life pre-Booker announcement and found it almost impossible to put down. It had a very powerful impact on me. I know a lot of people have categorised it as misery porn (which I avoid reading at all cost) and yet I found the steady drip of the abuse Jude suffered growing up and details of his self-harm made a really important point: that all we have to offer someone who's had horrendous experiences is love, acceptance and understanding ... and sometimes that just isn't enough. I felt the ending was inevitable, but one Hollywood would certainly steer clear of.

I enjoyed A Little Life too. It is very dark and difficult to read in places though.

Cote so excited for you reading Seveneves! I read it last year and loved it.

Grendel the Diamond age is great too, definitely one of his best. Have you enjoyed the Baroque cycle?

Ladydepp I read I know this much is true last year. It is very well written but I found it a bit sad and bleak at times-had to read some absolute trash to make me feel normal again!

15. Library of souls by Ransom Riggs. Third in Miss Peregrine's peculiar children series, this is an enjoyable YA book which follows the adventures of Jacob, Emma and their friends. Peculiars have special powers-Jacob's is talking to the Hollowgast monsters, set upon the peculiars by the evil Wights, who are trying to destroy them. Can they infiltrate the Wights' stronghold in time to save Miss Peregrine and secure the future of Peculiardom? This is much in the same vein as the 2 previous books in the series-enjoyable and plenty of action.

16. The woman who stole my life by Marion Keyes. Stella is a married mum of two in Dublin. She drives into a stranger's car after letting him out of a junction-why do bad things seem to happen when she should have good karma? This was funny and enjoyable, not too deep or heavy, and the depiction of illness in the book is excellent.

Now onto book 17, the improbability of love by Hannah Rothschild. Though I'm tempted to sack it off and re-read Seveneves so I can keep up with Cote's discussion!

Yes I LOVED The Baroque Cycle, Elle (wellthe two I've read so far. DP refuses to countenance the purchase of vol 3 in paperback because he "has it on his Kindle". I don't like e-readers at all but he is insisting I give it a go. SIGH.) I think I preferred the history/politics of Quicksilver but enjoyed the characterisation in The Confusion a bit moreI liked the way that Eliza got to develop, how the things that happen to her are shown to have a real emotional effect on her (so she's not just the miraculous Cool Girl Who's Not Like Those Other Girls all the way through the series.)

Elle - I agree, I Know This Much is True is quite bleak but I found it weirdly inspirational and somehow uplifting at the same time...my antidote to the bleakness is a bit of PG Wodehouse

Hmm i couldn't get with the baroque cycle for reason though I loved cryptonomicon. Must give it another go.

Like the sound of Eleanor and have added it to my watch list one of his books is free at mo if anyone feels like trying it here

Yes to Operation Mincemeat - I thought it was excellent.

Grendels I'm enjoying Eileen - it's creepy and uncomfortable reading and the story totally plausible so far.

Satsuki - Yes, I would definitely recommend Operation Mincemeat.