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?

15. A Tale for the Time Being Ruth Ozeki

A novelist, Ruth(!), living in Canada comes across a packet on the beach, apparently flotsam from the Japanese Tsunami. It contains the diary of a 16 year old girl, Nao, an old watch, a collection of letters and a journal written in French. The novel then proceeds in sections as the reader switches back and forth between Nao and Ruth.

This was, for the most part, enjoyable and engaging, and is easy to get into. I was worried at first that the 'teenage' voice would become annoying, but Nao's story is the most compelling of the two narratives, and I think Ozeki does her point of view well, and her story is very affecting. I did feel it lost it a bit towards the end, as it went into quite a longwinded but superficial digression into quantum mechanics which I felt would have remained better as an allusion informing the novel rather than forming such a large part of its 'reasoning'. It has a lot in it; culture clashes, WWII, the sex industry, art, the environment, Zen Buddhism, 9/11, feminism, suicide, earthquakes, the internet, the nature of time, much of it interesting and thoughtful, but it left me feeling that maybe it didn't quite pull it all together. Or rather, it did, but stretched itself too far towards the end.

I'm now reading Strange Weather in Tokyo and The Moving Toyshop, a mystery, on the Kindle, which is very funny and enjoyable so far, quarter of the way through.

Going to catch up on thread now.

I've read 8 books so far.

Latest being Safe House by Chris Ewan which I got cheap on Kindle. Quite enjoyable nonsense.

I'm also struggling my way through Spill Simmer Falter Wither.

1. Life, Death and Vanilla Slices - Jenny Éclair

Really enjoyed this. Wow, what a story teller. The characters in the main were all vile - if my sons grow up to think so little of me as the boys in this book do of their mum I shall be devastated. A sad story in the main of a hard life, but with laugh out loud bits, easy to follow, a definite page turner. Will be reading more of hers'.

1. A Most Desirable Marriage - Hilary Boyd

This was a very insightful story of a relationship of 30+ years and cleverly illustrated how at 60, people can still feel all the passions, and struggles, and challenges of younger people, younger couples. Never get complacent I guess is one of the messages, and the grass is rarely greener. And that beauty, attraction, is always there regardless of age. I really enjoyed the descriptions of the relationships in the book, between friends and married couples and sons and daughters. Very well written, a big thumbs up. Think it was only 99p too!

I feel like putting out the bunting and setting off fireworks as I've actually finished War and Peace. It took very much longer than I thought it would - partly because I've had two separate weeks when I was ill but also because it just isn't an easy read. That isn't to say I didn't enjoy it because I did but it is challenging in places and can't be skimmed.

The second epilogue is definitely a slog and after two or three sentences my mind would wander so, although I have actually read all the words, I'm a bit hazy about the content. It is just, plainly and simply, tedious beyond belief and to my mind, unnecessary. But Tolstoy is a great writer and who am I to criticise?

I retain my reservations about the translation (Pevear and Volokhonsky). When I've arranged my thoughts I will try to explain some of my niggles on the W&P thread.

All in all, I'm pleased to be finished and very glad to have read it all the way through this time - previous attempts have always involved missing out huge chunks. And now I can get on with other (shorter!) books on my TR pile.

26. No Book But The World, Leah Hager Cohen. This was so sad. So so so sad! It's about a family who brought their kids up in a sort of free discipline way - the father used to run a 'free school' and he doesn't believe in teaching children, he thinks they should learn of their own accord and should only do what they want to, and should express their feelings however they want. His daughter is frantic to conform and she narrates the story, but it's really about the son, who has some form of unspecified special needs, maybe a type of autism, maybe not. The parents refuse to have him tested or labelled, and he doesn't attend school but does learn to read (with difficulty) and passes his driving test, for example. The book opens when he is arrested in connection with the death of a 12 year-old boy. He is unable to tell anyone what happened and his sister and lawyer gradually piece it together, so you spend a lot of the book wondering whether he actually did something to the boy and if so, was it an accident or not, or whether the boy got hurt and Freddy just didn't realise he needed help, or something. A lot of it has to do with the concept of personal responsibility/agency, and social conformity. The free school environment in the woods sounds idyllic and much better for Freddy than forcing him to attend normal school, but then once his parents have died he is basically abandoned to the world and he's not equipped for it, and his lack of a label means that his sister can't even describe his issues to the lawyer - she struggles to define him and it feels like a betrayal of her parents to even try. I was so wrapped up in this book - it was beautifully written and I was agonising over Freddy - I stopped to try and tidy up and I couldn't stop thinking about him. It just felt like he had been utterly let down by everyone at every stage, but his parents had acted with the best of intentions and in some ways what they had done for him had been the right thing! It was really powerful.

Yay for Looking and Natasha for finishing War and Peace! I shall go back to the W&P discussion thread and await responses with interest.

11. Pretty girls by Karin Slaughter (bit of light relief from war and peace). I think I'm done with Karin Slaughter books now - I don't mind grisly up to a point but the trouble with these sorts of authors is that they have to keep on upping the shock factor until they just get unbearable. I am getting much less tolerant for psychopathic killers who kill and rape in ever more inventive ways, purely to leave clues for the investigators. I am getting much much less tolerant for raped and murdered women as a shock plot device. Entertainment, not so much. That said, it was a proper exciting page-turner and I read all 550 pages in 24 hours! What my friend calls a stand-by-the-kettle read.

bigbadbarry my dh and I were talking about how fed up we were with prostitution/rape/sexual assault as a shock plot device becoming more prevalent in books in general. I don't read modern crime novels, but it's everywhere even in 'literary' books, always luridly done and often without a real need for it in the story.

tooextraimmaturecheddar that book has hit a nerve with me as it is focused on something I've been reflecting on a quite a bit in rl lately. I don't know if I dare read it in my situation at the moment though!

I have not even started w&p and all of you have finished it! I just haven't had the space for something so long and complex in my head at the moment, but I am determined to get on it at some point.

Should clarify, tooimmature, the home/free schooling and labelling bit struck a chord with me, not the actual crime

Satsuki, I'm sorry it hit a nerve. I think if I explain the story more it might help. I came to the conclusion that the approach isn't necessarily wrong, but that the parents in this case didn't put appropriate safeguards in place when they died. Basically, when the mother is dying, she gets a very loosely connected friend of the family to take Freddy into his house-painting business - this friend turns out to be an irresponsible stoner type who just ups and abandons Freddy one day (but continues to take the money from the mother's estate!) Ava, the sister, doesn't offer to take/oversee Freddy and at the time of the crime hasn't seen him for 2 years. I think free schooling and refusing to label him isn't the cause of the harm, if Ava had been more involved, or, if Ava hadn't existed, some other, better-known and more responsible adult had had some oversight of Freddy, his upbringing would have been irrelevant. The mother arranges for Dave the stoner to take Freddy based on very little acquaintance with him - I don't think many parents leaving a child with additional needs would do that. I would like to think that many adult siblings wouldn't do that either, knowing their sibling's situation (although I do sympathise with Ava - I think the lack of a diagnosis/any clear idea of what's wrong/any discussion at all of the situation allows her to bury her head in the sand, at least to some extent, and the mother never asks her to look after Freddy either - I don't think she would have refused, had she been asked. It's more presented as a fait-accompli by the mother that Dave will look after Freddy. I suppose it's a continuation of the mindset that children should not be made to do things - ie, she doesn't want to make Ava look after him). I know it is very hard to decide what to do - whether to burden a sibling/other relative or not, or whether to try and push for a diagnosis so the child can access help more easily, because the benefits system etc is set up to need a diagnosis. I don't know what safeguards there are for adults with additional needs when their parents die or what you have to do to ensure your child qualifies for whatever help may exist (if there is any at all). I hope I'm not making things worse by rabbiting on!

Oh please don't worry tooimmature I'm fine, I thought it sounded an intriguing book; the weighing up of the benefits of taking the pressure off in the short term against the longer term benefits of staying 'on track' has been on my mind recently, and I think I'd find it interesting. The flip side of my interest however is that I don't think I'm in the right place to actually read it, even though it is obviously a (much) more extreme exploration of those ideas than anything affecting me ifyswim.

The 'labelling' thing is interesting as it's only relatively recently that diagnosis has been an option for some issues; there must be many adults with SNs that are in limbo in that respect and misunderstood. There is a much greater understanding now of children with SENs (with a way still to go) but I don't know if that has yet translated into an awareness of, and provision for, the difficulties they will continue to face as adults (I mean by society, not that parents aren't aware)

Cote
Am spectacularly pleased to see that you enjoyed Dissolution. Do please read the second and meet the wonder that is Jack Barak.

Yes - I have an uncle who may be on the spectrum. Bit like Sheldon in TBBT, really - very intelligent but terrible with people. My grandparents are really worried about how he will cope when they die, and they are now in their late 70s (he is early 50s). Mum has been told she will have to look after him, but it will be difficult because they live 4 hours apart. He can live alone but DGma looks after him a lot - cleans his house etc, cooks him meals. He'd feed himself left to his own devices but I don't think he would clean. He also suffers from depression and has been suicidal on occasion. He has never been diagnosed with anything and probably never will be. It's hard to know what to do.

21. The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu

Plenty of others have reviewed this. I found it took a little while to 'settle in' to the writing style, but once I did, I enjoyed it a great deal. I found some bits more plausible than others, but will definitely be looking out for the sequel.

Next I'm going to tackle How To Be Both - will see if I manage more than 20 pages . . .

32. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban JK Rowling. Another reread.

Talking of psychological labelling, have just finished Skeleton Cupboard by Tanya Byron, think it's already been reviewed on here.

I thought it mostly very insightful, occasionally a little righteous but really took note of her epilogue, rather a warning on how we live as a society, how mental health for each of us is on a spectrum, not just for those with a disagnosis; how we deal with our challenges thanks to our personal support networks or "by finding someone to project our issues on to" (or words to that effect) or by presenting as mentally ill. She also highlights the sad fact that more children than ever are diagnosed with MH issues and suggests this is something we as a society need to deal with. Hear, hear and

15. Danny The Champion Of The World - Roald Dahl

Read to DS2 as his bedtime story over a couple of weeks but worthy of inclusion here as it's such a tremendous story. I'm sure you've all read it but just in case you haven't, it's about Danny and his father's attempt to poach all Mr Victor Hazell's pheasants and a tremendously warm and funny story.

Muskey so glad you are enjoying The Saxon Stories too. I love Bernard Cornwell's books.

I agree that Alfred is a very unpleasant character; at least Uhtred openly admits his faults whereas Alfred justifies all his with religion. However, we never 'hear' his thoughts, so we can't really know.

I have been picking all the books up in charity shops and at bootsales and have the whole series now

Well done Natasha and Looking! So impressed. W&P still waiting untouched on my kindle...

I think grey I have a bit of a crush on uhthred.

book 9 the blood will tell by Kyra Cornelius Kramer this book suggests that Henry v111 had a kell positive antigen in his blood which developed into something called McCleod syndrome. This antigen explains his terrible reproductive history with his first two wives (possibly as many as 15 pregnancies between Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn) and his almost over night change in personality in 1536 from a thoughtful and enlightened monarch to tyrannical king who got rid of his enemies through judicial murder.

This book covers a lot of new ground and is a very interesting read definitely one for fans of Henry although it is rather academic. The only down side of the book imo was that the author did go into a rather long and unnecessary defence of Anne Boleyn. Whilst I agree that Anne was almost certainly innocent of the charges laid against her she certainly was more than a willing participant in her family's machinations
Book 10 I am yet to decide. It's a toss up between Harry potter and the philosophers stone, Ulysses by James Joyce and book 5 of the Saxon chronicles by Bernard cornwall. I'll let you know tomorrow when I've slept on it.

Satsuki, oddly my experience is that I'm in the minority in liking Dark Road ... But I do seem to have an affinity for Booker winner/favourites (see my loving of A Little Life which is almost universally regarded as misery porn - a category I've avoided like the plague ).

Cote, I am envious of you having all those Samsons ahead of you ...

TooExtra, that last read of yours sounds fascinating. Another for the TBR list.

I've seen many of the currently unread content of my kindle mentioned on here, so need to get a move on but seem to be flailing around at the moment and wasting what little time I have to read ...

Musket - That book about Henry VIII sounds very interesting. Did you read this thread on MN from a couple of weeks ago? There's a link somewhere on that thread to an article by Hilary Mantel in the LRB where she looks at that theory too, although iirc she's not entirely convinced. I think it seems plausible

thread link here

news.yale.edu/2016/02/02/did-henry-viii-suffer-same-brain-injury-some-nfl-players - this recent research on Henry's several cases of traumatic brain injury are intriguing. Love to see a work of fiction explore this.

And want to fly the flag for our library service for those who are not yet in the know! Loads of good ebooks and audiobooks accessible for free using your library card from the comfort of your own home! Could've saved a fortune had I realised earlier..

Remus - Another fiction book we both like?