50 Book Challenge 2016 Part Four

[southeastdweller]

Thread four 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, second thread here and third thread here.

How're you getting on so far?

32. Pride and Prejudice another comfort re-read.

I don't know any writer that quite has Austen's genius for dialogue, and for creating characters that are, recognisably, people. Time has moved on, mores have changed, but they are real. I know them. I think there can often be too much focus on her subject matter, and not on her impact on the form of the novel as we know it. She was so innovative, and still, for narrative technique, she is matchless.

Satsuki maybe I should have re-read P&P but instead I read:

23. A Bachelor Establishment by Isabella Barclay This is Jodi Taylor of the St Mary's series having a go at Recency romance, under the pseudonym of one of her more unpleasant characters. As expected from this author, the result was a lively quick easy read with some witty dialogue. But characterisation and plot by numbers, and seemingly complete absence of any proof reading. It was ok.

Regency! Should proof read posts where I'm complaining about lack of proof reading!

Book 45 The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
A Tommy and Tuppence novel – hadn’t come across these before. I thoroughly enjoyed this. It was basically The Famous Five in a slightly more sinister and adult form. Tommy and Tuppence are good mates, who decide to seek adventure in the hope of making money. They are approached by a mysterious man and events occur rapidly from then on, with more twists and turns than a Welsh country lane. I thought I’d guessed the bad guy early on, but was fooled. A really fun, quick read.

Meanwhile, I'm barfing my way through Lolita. It may have been a bad idea to wait until DD is 10 to read this book, because all I can think of is how I would carve his eyes out with a fruit knife if he dares look at DD

I thought you read it and hated it already, Cote? You won't like it! Personally I think that the first half is a work of genius but that it loses it a lot once the road trip starts.

I tried to read it once before but didn't get into it. Not happy to hear it gets worse from here.

Ugh YY Cote to being entirely rageful about Humbert Humbert. I want to read more Nabokov because apparently Lolita is a bit of a one-off and his others aren't all about pervy weirdos (unlike, say, the works of Philip Roth...)

46. A Perfect Blood, Kim Harrison
47. Ever After, Kim Harrison

Really enjoying these again now! I think this is because Rachel has stopped angsting quite so much and has started to trust both Trent and Al, which she should have done about 4 books back.

48. Disclaimer, Renee Knight. Book club pick. Psychological thriller. This book pissed me off on page 1, which is always a good start. This is because it starts off with a woman finding a mysterious book on her bedside table that tells the story of something terrible she did 20 years ago, but no one now living would know about it. It is so cheesy! I wondered whether it was going to turn out to be All In Her Head, which would have been, quite frankly, a boring boring cliche. Luckily, it wasn't all in her head, and once the story developed it did get quite interesting. I think that's where it stayed, really - it was a reasonably good idea, if a bit hackneyed with the Dangerous Secret Coming Back To Haunt Our Heroine trope, but an awful lot of the characters behaved in very odd and not entirely believable ways. The husband in particular had zero character and he just believes everything he is told. A book says my wife had an affair? OK, I will storm out without actually asking her one thing about it or allowing her to explain herself. A strange old man tells me she didn't? OK, I will believe him and apologise and beg to come back. I think this is a first novel and it does show.

Grendel, Portnoy's Complaint is our next book club book and I have just ordered it! Never read any Philip Roth before - I understand this is all about wanking, which will be interesting to discuss with a bunch of work colleagues!

looking hope you find the Monroe good, if you get round to it, my wish list is ridiculous too!

grendelsmum I tried a sample of Small Angry Planet and didn't get on with it. I might give it a proper go if it comes down to 99p or something.

The writing in Lolita is pure poetry, and the "split screen" effect he creates as he makes the reader see Lolita through Humbert's twisted view while the real, horrible version is running parallel in your mind is very clever. I read it several times before children and even talked about it in my university interview. I don't know if I could stomach it to the same extent now, though!

I'm a bit between books. I read a few pages of Julian Barnes Noise of Time in Waterstones at the weekend and I'm keen to read it, but it is still v expensive on Kindle, but it's made me remember I picked up Arthur and George in the charity shop some time ago so may start that later. I'm put off by the small print in some paperbacks now I'm used to the uniform size on the Kindle. I find I squint at it until I'm practically asleep.

Currently reading Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner. I feel I should be liking it more than I do - I feel like I blame her for not being Barbara Pym.

Thanks to the recommendations here, I aim to shortly embark on the Butcher books and The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet.

Can't remember what number I'm at (30 something) but have read:

• Childfree and Loving it, by Nicki Defago. Although I love having dd, I had her quite late and could quite well have led a childfree life, so I'm sympathy with the premise of this book. But it's quite lazily written - she talked to a lot of people, but the analysis is really shallow. Wouldn't recommend.

• Death and the Lit Chick, G M Malliet. For those who like cosy murder mysteries. Writer's jamboree, one ends up dead, whodunit? Fine if you're in the mood, but I'm not going to seek out the others in the series.

• The Pursuit of Happiness: And Why It's Making Us Anxious by Ruth Whippman. She's a mumsnetter - hell, even the poo troll gets a shout out. I liked this - the schtick about US/UK cultural difference gets a bit old, but she's sensible and funny, there's an interesting chapter where she spends time with a Mormon family, and her references to her children are touching - she sketches out the paradox where you know intellectually that the evidence shows that having children makes you less happy, but that doesn't necessarily assuage the hunger you might feel for them.

I dropped off the threads ages ago, but have now finished wolf hall, wh

Sorry, iPhone and fat fingers.

I loved wolf hall. I really like the choice of Cromwell as the main character and the more human details of family life. I really liked the precision of mantel's writing too. I am a convert to her cause and will add bringing up the bodies to my reading list.

I then read The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows by Marnie Riches. This is the third book of a (supposed) trilogy and they are sold as ebooks on Amazon. They centre around George MacKenzie, a criminology student with a troubled past which tends to come back to haunt her. I really like George as a character, and perhaps envy a little her energy, confidence and persistence. The plots of all three books are very fast paced involving gruesome crimes in locations across Europe but what keeps me interested is George's relationship with Paul van den Bergen a police detective in Amsterdam. Good quick reads that I really enjoyed.

Oh yeah, Satsuki, stylistically it's brilliant (and makes me dead keen to see what he does with a more formally playful style, e.g. in Pale Fire) - in fact its efficacy is probably best spoken for by the fact that it does absolutely horrify me, since HH is such a witty character and it's easy to find yourself drawn in by him before realizing "oh wait, he's an AWFUL human."

I don't mind "awful human", having read previously about serial killers, rapists, and psychotic killers. I have read and loved Nick Cave's book And The Ass Saw The Angel. I don't have to like the characters as people to enjoy a book.

But this is about a man pretending that a girl of 9 or 10 would actually deliberately seduce him and enjoy being fucked by him that I can't get over, probably because I have one such girl at home. And frankly the writing style (while not bad) is not that impressive. It's not drawing me in much further than the quite incredibly delusional (but in an unrealistic way) fuckwittery of the narrator.

He should be a sociopath if he really wishes for the death of the mother so he can fuck the prepubescent daughter, but he doesn't come across as one, either.

'Lolita'' at its best reminds me of 'A Clockwork Orange' - the genius/beauty/horror of both is in the extracts that describe absolutely vile things in the most exquisitely poetic language, so that you are almost unwittingly moved and become almost complicit in the action, then have to pull yourself back with a shock of real horror when you remember just how perverse/awful these characters and their emotions/actions are.

There's a scene in 'Orange' where the most horrific acts of violence are described against a backdrop of classical music, so that you have the beauty and the horror entwined and in doing that (I think - I may be spouting crap here!) it makes the horror even more revolting. Not sure if that makes any sense!

On a separate note - the Cumming book is annoying me. It is wasting far too many words on lines like 'He ate a tuna sandwich' or 'He bought two cans of Stella Artois' which are performing no function whatsoever and are neither beautiful nor useful.

"wasting far too many words"

I don't mind violence and enjoyed A Clockwork Orange. There, the author built up an internally consistent, believable universe. I don't get that kind of realistic/credible immersion in Lolita, personally. It's just like a long-winded, unrealistic wet dream by a rather dim narrator who is also a wanker.

25. The O.D. by Chris James

This was sort of S.F. with a heavy environmental theme. It's okay, but I didn't really care that much about what happened to any of the characters.

An island emerges on the European coastal shelf, and is colonised by a small party of settlers who want to make a better Earth. There's a lot about how their community is established and develops, and it all culminates in a big lecture about how humanity is going to destroy the Earth (and ourselves with it) unless we all change our ways. The book stops rather abruptly there.

I think the long wet dream is sort of the point. He is most definitely not dim though. His intelligence and cunning are what make him so successful and so unnerving, I think.

Hey cote, was reading bookish article in the Irish Times today and it had this to say about a History of Sevrn Killings:

"Jamaican Marlon James, last year’s Man Booker winner, yet again enters the fray with his bloated and tedious A Brief History of Seven Killings, which at just under 700 pages makes for a very long and violent trudge. It is a novel to test the stamina and is far closer to Tarantino than it is to Faulkner."

I thought of you

Same article highly recommends Jenny Erpenbeck's The End of Days which sounds excellent, similar ideas to Life after Life but with far superior execution apparently. Given I loved Life After Life I have added End of Days to my tbr pile.

full review here

This thread is lethal - just added Jenny Erpenbeck and The Small Angry Planet ones to my wish list - Thanks Wilting and Grendel'sMum.

I still remember the first paragraph of Lolita, at least 25 years since I read it, testament to the poetry of it. The bit about the syllables tripping off his tongue. I don't think I'll be revisiting with two young daughters!

27. Undermajordomo Minor - Patrick de Witt. This is like a European fairytale set in some undefined country. It follows Lucien - called Lucy - who goes to work in a castle as a sub butler, the undermajordomo of the title. He meets a couple of thieving villagers on the way, one of whom is the father of local village beauty Klara. I think someone on an earlier thread said it reminded them of The Princess Bride, for me it was Gormenghast. I didn't think it was as good as his previous The Sisters Brothers, but still an enjoyable romp.

28. My time, your time - Mary Torjussen. A thriller about two women, Alice and Rachel, who meet on a bereavement forum after both their husbands are killed. They have known each other for four years and speak every day but have never met in RL. Alice has met Dan on an internet dating site and is going to meet him for a first date but never shows up. Rachel, who lives in Australia, comes to try and find her. There is a 4th person who the two women used to talk to called Mort. The story is basically about trust and how different it is "knowing" someone on the internet to real life. It was a good twisty page turner, I read it in a day. The author is a MNer and it was recommended on the Kindle thread, I got it for free but would happily have paid for it.

genius/beauty/horror of both is in the extracts that describe absolutely vile things in the most exquisitely poetic language, so that you are almost unwittingly moved and become almost complicit in the action, then have to pull yourself back with a shock of real horror when you remember just how perverse/awful these characters and their emotions/actions are.

^^ this

Yy stokey me too - it's beautiful and disgusting at the same time.

wilting - Thank you for thinking of me

Hannibal Lecter is intelligent. Humbert comes across as a delusional dimwit ("Ooh she luffs me, too". No she doesn't, you dumbo.)

Having said that, there is indeed some brilliant prose in there. Not enough to keep me hooked, though.