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?

19 Monsters by Emerald Fennell

Not sure how and when I put this on my kindle but I am so glad I did. It is a YA book, read it in just over a day, had me gripped. Hugely entertaining dark comedy about to 12/13 year olds and their fascination in murder, set in Fowey, with a good twist at the end

The trouble with Idris Elba is that by having a black Roland, you lose a lot of the layering with Susannah/Detta. I know the producer has said that they'll just invent new reasons for Detta to hate Roland, but seriously, what reasons are they going to come up with that match centuries of slavery/racial subjection/segregation? Detta hates Roland partly because she's a psychopath, but there's a LOT of deeper stuff with Odetta getting involved in the race riots in the 60s and so on - and none of that applies if Roland is black too. I would rather keep the complexity of the Detta/Roland relationship rather than change the plot and invent new stuff that won't be as good.

Oh I see, I have not read them so my contribution was really just limited to "attractive man stars in movie, y'all" without any knowledge of the implications for characterisation

Back after neglecting t'Internet for ages! Have had a good time catching up on all y'all's reading adventures, though

52. Daredevils, by Shawn Vestal. Mormons and motorcycles and a teenage girl escaping her oppressive life in 1970s Arizona. Really enjoyed this, especially because the author actively pushes back against the "boy gets girl" trope. (It's not YA, though it is about young adults.)

53. Journeyman, by Marc Bojanowski. The first book about an American man that I've read for AGES that didn't make me want to punch said man. Set just after the declaration of war in Afghanistan, it follows a journeyman carpenter who's forced to reconnect with his brother after an accident strands him in his brother's hometown. Philosophical in the most unobtrusive of ways, and very perceptive about war and adulthood and feeling like a disappointment.

54. The Violet Hour, by Katie Roiphe. Subtitled "Great Writers at the End" - it's about the attitudes to death and dying of people like John Updike and Susan Sontag, and about how they managed their own deaths. It's a fascinating psychological study, although I'd have preferred Roiphe to write more about their work and less about them, iyswim. But that's purely personal preference (I'm not big on straight biography.) For fans of Olivia Laing and Rebecca Solnit.

55. LaRose, by Louise Erdrich. An Ojibwe man accidentally shoots and kills his best friend's son in a hunting accident, then "gives" the bereaved family his own son as a substitute. Quite a long, slow burn - I read it to review it and it was entirely satisfactory, but not really my thing.

56. Clinch, by Martin Holmen. A bloody, sexy noir thriller set in 1930s Stockholm and featuring a bisexual male protagonist. I'd nominate it as the thinking person's beach read for this summer: it's terrific fun and challenges many of the reader's expectations through its characters.

57. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera. I expected to find this deeply irritating; instead, I ended up being so moved by the end that I cried a little bit. Try it! It's strange and lovely.

58. Human Acts, by Han Kang. Kang's just won the Man Booker International Prize for an earlier novel, The Vegetarian. This one is about the Gwangju massacre of students and labour rights demonstrators in South Korea in 1980, and the effects the massacre has on its survivors and witnesses years later. It's understated but extremely powerful.

59. After Me Comes the Flood, by Sarah Perry. A heatwave, a case of mistaken identity, a man desperate for love (although he doesn't know it) and a large country house full of people who are just slightly off... The first few chapters read like a slow-burn horror novel, but it's not what you expect - it's much richer and stranger and lovelier than that. Her second novel, The Essex Serpent, is coming out in June, and this has made me very excited to read it.

Like the sound of After me comes the flood Grendel only £1.69 too! Have purchased, many thanks!

Have you ever tried Susan Howatch Wilting? Not funny like Jilly but good, chunky saga style romance. The Wheel of Fortune is my favourite, but it is massive, Penmarric & Cashelmara also good stand alones.

I want to love Morse Whippet but the writing is a little sexist, espeically in the early ones, lots of Morse drooling over woman's "assets".

I'm reading The Galaxy Game by Karen Lord. It has some interesting ideas but not much flow, I don't know if I just haven't read it in large enough chunks.

Have definitely heard of her, but don't think I've read any.... thanks stokey , will check her out

Ahhh YAY wilting! I literally read it in a day, that's how quietly propulsive it is. Also, Sarah Perry is probably the nicest person on Twitter, so there's that too.

Stokey have you read Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord? I started it last year and put it aside for some reason but need a nudge to pick it up again!

On a separate note I am 42% into The Girl in the Red Coat and it is not doing it for me at all. Can anyone who has read it tell me if it is worth persevering with?

Idris E as Roland makes me v cross. Have no idea if he's a good actor, but I think having a black Roland changes so much in terms of character relationships/the way people respond to Susannah/Detta. I just can't see any real reason for it.

Book 61
Behold, Here's Poison by Georgette Heyer
This was lightweight crap really, but I enjoyed about 85% of it even so. A man has been poisoned – he wasn’t very nice and there’s plenty of people who might well have jumped at the opportunity to do him in, most of them his own relatives. This had a typically Heyer-ish hero/villain/who can tell sort of figure, who I liked enormously, and a decent detective and police sergeant. The ending felt like a real cheat though.

I haven't posted for ages but have got some great ideas of things to read from this thread!
I've been carrying on with all the old sci fi books I was given. Rendezvous to Rama was quite good, it's all about humankind's first contact with/ exploration of an alien spaceship/being. Considering nothing much happens it's a much more interesting read than Rama 2 where there are a lot more characters and vastly more action but there's so much stodge that about 4 chapters in you start wishing for the alien race to blow up earth in its entirety just to stop the bloody story. The bits where Nicole has fallen down a hole and is mostly unconscious are the highlight. It's that kind of book.

I feel like I've already reviewed Ghostwritten on this thread but can't find my post so.. Typical David Mitchell, kind-of interconnected stories, well written, good book.

Currently reading Cloud Atlas Enjoying it so far, especially the Luisa Rey chapter. It massively helped though that I advanced searched it here first and read I think Cote's massive and wonderful essay explaining it all Think it should be a foreword in every edition from now on!
My bath book is Stephen King's The Stand and as I love everything he writes and apocalyptic gubbins I'm really really enjoying this. In as much as you can love a mucus based apocalypse, anyway.

Finished so far: (with favourites highlighted)

1. The City and the City - China Mieville Murder mystery set in a fictional European city which is actually 2 intertwined cities. The residents of each city are not allowed to communicate with, or even see or accept the presence of the residents or buildings etc of the other. Brilliantly written. It's possibly not so out there when you consider segregation issues within some cities in recent times.
2. The Guest Cat - Takashi Hiraide Veeery slow moving story about a couple whose relationship is mostly held together by a visiting cat. Beautiful but so, so slow.
3. Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde Literary Detective Thursday Next's husband is wiped from her life. She battles her nemesis (with the help of a hilariously imagined Miss Havisham).
4. John Dies at the End - David Wong - Just crap.
5. Childhood's End - Arthur C Clarke - humans getting used to life under a benevolent (or are they?) alien master race.
6. The Humans - Matt Haig Alien comes to Earth with the intention of destroying a mathematical formula that would revolutionise the world as we know it. Takes the identity of a mathematician/husband/father and hilarity/sentimentality ensues.
7. Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C Clarke - Humankind's first contact with an alien race. Not much happens, so probably quite realistic.
8. Rama 2 - Arthur C Clarke & Gentry Lee - Bobbins sequel to the above.
9. Ghostwritten - David Mitchell A series of tenuously connected stories based on the theme of cause and effect. Some stories are fantastic, some less so but a great read on the whole (and fun to spot the connections and read back to check, when you've left weeks between chapters )

"It massively helped though that I advanced searched it here first and read I think Cote's massive and wonderful essay explaining it all Think it should be a foreword in every edition from now on!"

I shall let David Mitchell know of your brilliant idea

Honestly, please do! Without it, I would have given up about 3 pages in, so that's 2 of us recommending it already. That'll sway him

24. The Tent, the Bucket and Me by Emma Kennedy. The author reminisces about her family camping holidays in the 1970s. A nice easy read, quite entertaining.

74. The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby

A collection of columns written for an American magazine around 10-12 years ago, about the books he's read each month. I usually like this sort of thing, but I'd never even heard of most of the books mentioned (I like to see what people think of books I've read!) This would have been ok if it had given me a long list of books I liked the sound of, but I didn't come away with anything I wanted to read. Hornby writes well and if you have similar reading tastes to him you would probably get more out of this than I did.

75. The Girls by Lisa Jewell

I enjoyed this. It's set in a communal garden in London and I loved the setting and the community represented. It highlights how things can go wrong in such a close community though - a girl is attacked and the book builds it up to explain who attacked her and why. The only thing I found uncomfortable were some of the things the kids got up to - probably accurate but I don't really want to think about 13 year olds doing that!

Chessie, I also found Hornby's book disappointing. I normally love books about books, but he doesn't bring anything to the party about any of the books he mentions.

Oh good, Hornby's book was on my "to read" list and I've just taken it off based on your comments. Unusual for this thread to shorten my list rather than lengthen it!

32. Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine

Pop science book explaining how gender is a social construct and there are no biological differences between the male mind and female mind. Quite interesting and very well researched. I didn't feel like I learnt anything new from it though as I already agreed with Fine on this subject.

33. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

The second book in the Hunger Games trilogy. Not as compelling as the first, it's good once things start happening, but a lot of the book is taken up with waffly introspection.

34. Deadeye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut

A man whose life is blighted by a terrible mistake he made as a child tells his life story. I liked it more for Vonnegut's writing style than the story, though there are some wonderful pieces of the plot.

35. The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin

A woman moves to Stepford with her husband and children and starts to notice there's something strange about most of the other women in the town. It's a short, easy read and felt a bit insubstantial. I just didn't care enough about the main character to be bothered about what might happen to her.

Glad it wasn't just me with the Hornby!

Ooh, GrendelsMother, I read After Me Comes the Flood last year and didn't particularly enjoy it to be honest but I did think it was quite compelling. I liked the character of the preacher who lost his faith and found the exploration of that concept really interesting. I also liked the way it was quite hard to pin down to a time period. It seems to be set in the present day but also at the same time could have been set earlier.

Ha, Stokey, that made me laugh. I will ask DP about Morse drooling over 'assets'

Yes, the loss of faith stuff was very interesting! Also, I liked how much of it seemed like a sort of hallucination or fever dream (especially given how much emphasis is given to the heatwave at the beginning) - it had the feeling of something that might end with "And it turned out he was dead", but with a sophistication that suggested it wouldn't be that simple.

Am pondering a purchase of the new Hitler bio by Volker Ulrich.

Resent paying £12 for the kindle edition. Resent paying £17 for the hardback with no kindle edition thrown in

Have checked out Kershaw's bio and there is an abridged version for £10 cannot make my mind up what to do. Have read the samples and both seem very readable.

Has anyone read any of these? Know I'm pretty alone in my WW2 reading I blame DH and all those History Channel documentaries

27. Goodfellas - Nicholas Pileggi

Got my reading mojo back with the book that inspired the film - the real-life tale of New York mobster Henry Hill, his life as a gangster and eventual arrest in connection with a million-dollar heist, after which he flipped and went into the witness protection programme, putting his former associates behind bars. If you like the film (is one of my favourites) then this is a must read.

You're definitely not alone in your WW2 reading, Wilting. Not read those though, and won't be until they are a lot cheaper, or available in the library. :)

49. Runemarks by Joanne Harris

This is more of a YA novel than Harris' usual style, and it does feel a bit weaker in the writing, but it's a good story. Set 500 years after Ragnarok, and following a teenage girl called Maddy, it's a world shaped by the Vikings rather than the Romans. The rulers are the harsh, puritanical Order, and imagination is viewed with suspicion. Maddy herself has always been an outsider in her small, rural village because of a strange birthmark on her left hand. But this birthmark is a runemark, and as a result Maddy can do things that no one else can - things that could be called magic. It is only when she meets an old traveller called One-Eye, another outsider, that she starts to learn about the power she has.

Lots of playing around with Norse mythology, basically, and finding out what happened to the old gods after Ragnarok. I really enjoyed it, but it's not Harris' best writing. I'll get round to buying the sequel though.