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?

Remus - liked your use of apostrophes to describe the 'writer' as I did wonder the extent to which the book had been ghostwritten by her son. I'll definitely keep an eye out for Faust's Metropolis

I suspect that the word 'narrator' would better describe her, but that made her sound fictional!

29. Storm Front by Jim Butcher

Starting a re-read of the Dresden Files. Harry Dresden is a wizard who gets called in by the Chicago PD when they encounter things that are rather out of the ordinary. In this case, a very grisly double murder committed using black magic. Harry finds himself encountering the biggest crime boss in Chicago, a powerful vampire who runs a high class escort agency, and a mage with a taste for dealing in sudden, nasty, violent death.

I'm waiting for Storm Front from the library, Jeanie, looks like just my sort of thing.

I'm reading that too ChillieJean but for the first time.

Thanks for all the recommendations for Dd1. We've been reading the Faraway Tree as a bedtime story and she does enjoy it but not enough to pick it up by herself.

I think the short chapter books are a good call. We do have some of the dreaded Rainbow Fairies but luckily she's not shown much interest, at least in having them read to her. I'll try Ottoline & the Harriet ones, sound perfect. And maybe Horrid Henry although she doesn't like the TV show.

I loved Jill Tomlinson too but she's not that inested.

34 Legacy by CJ Daugherty. The second in the Night School series, YA thrillers.

Better than the first one in many ways - she's settled into her characters, and the romance element was less intrusive/unconvincing. It felt more like a chunk of a story than a book proper, though - I'd have been annoyed if I'd bought it, as it just kind of stops without any pretence of resolving a segment of plot. Easy reading and just what I need at this time of year, though, will continue with the next one in the series.

20. Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

This was a truly epic apocalyptic & post-apocalyptic story of about 900 pages that starts with the moon suddenly breaking up in the sky. People first marvel at the couple of odd-shaped pieces of the moon the stay more or less together. Then they figure out that all-out apocalypse awaits the Earth and start planning for the future of mankind, scrambling to gather provisions for the select few who they hope will survive the apocalypse.

The author being Neal Stephenson, every little detail is calculated, problems are figured out, and Seveneves reads much like The Martian (without the juvenile narrator, Remus ). I loved the 1st and 2nd parts of the book where preparations are under way, then catastrophe strikes, and then what remains of the human race tries to survive amid natural disasters and political infighting. 3rd part of the book that takes place 5000 years in the future was a bit less sound and left me a bit . Imho, 1st & 2nd parts should have been the book and 3rd part should have been the sequel.

Still, this was a fantastic book, an instant classic that (at least for me) all future apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic books will be measured against. I heartily recommend it to anyone who likes this genre, as well as all fans of The Martian.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks is £2.29 on the Kindle

31. Persuasion by Jane Austen a re-read of a much re-read book, though not for a few years. I have a very poorly toddler with chicken pox so have been up all night and not feeling that well myself so felt in need of a favourite. I worried the horrors of the accident at Lyme might prove overpowering to my fragile state, but I showed remarkable forbearance, and was merely lightly thrilled by it.

Satsuki Oh, the accident at Lyme! It helps that Louisa Musgrove is such a bitch, it's hard to feel sorry for her...

22. The Duke Can Go To The Devil by Erin Knightley

A Regency romance. Very predictable but fine as a light read. No sex scenes beyond a bit of kissing either, which is pretty unusual in a modern romance novel.

23. The Unquiet Past by Kelley Armstrong

Teenage Tess goes on a quest to find out about her origins, based on only a phone number, and armed with retrocognitive powers (she can see past events) after the orphanage she's been raised in burns down. Lightweight read with a very YA feel to it. The end of the book was very abrupt. The author's written much better books than this one.

#18 Tove Jansson - Work and Love by Tuula Karjalainen. I really enjoyed this nuanced artist biography. I have read most of her moomin books but did not know that she was a classically trained artist who specialized in murals. Her love life was fairly interesting as well, she lived with both men and women. I also enjoyed some chapters that analyzed her art, the book had lots of pictures that helped to show how her style evolved.

I am now rereading her Summer Book.

More Dresden fans! Or potential fans, anyway. I hope you both like it Sadik and Stokey. I've moved straight onto Fool Moon so am part way through that one now.

Love Persuasion.

Is Jim Butcher intending to write any more Dresden Files books? I kept getting Kindle recs for his new series but it looks more epic fantasy which I'm not as interested in generally.

24 Rock Addiction by Nalini Singh another Romance
25 All the light we Cannot see read this for book club it has been well reviewed and I have to agree it was very enjoyable

Seemed to have dropped off this thread. With the funeral on Monday attention wasn't what it has been. Hoping to catch up soon though.

1. Virals - Kathy reichs Early summary wasn't far off, modern day famous 5 set in America. Group of kids end up investigating a murder from 40 years ago after finding some dog tags. Quite gripping for YA so quite enjoyed it.

1. Seizure - Kathy Reichs Second in the Virals series, expecting much of the same.

Also realised i have mis-numbered so those books are 5 and 6. Doing slightly better than i thought then :)

I feel like I have missed out on a huge amount. Between work, own business, children and woolly hugs my reading has taken a nose dive.

10 A Good Man in Africa - William Boyd

Continuing my reading of Mr Boyd this is his first I think published work and as always thought provoking, satirical, black humour abounds.

I have listened to three Roald Dahl books on car journeys but I feel a bit of a fraud adding those.

I haven't tried Butcher's epic fantasy types either, slightlyglitterbrained. They haven't really leapt out at me. I think there is meant to be another Dresden book coming, but it's going to be a while yet. Book 16 will be Peace Talks, apparently but that's all it says on his website.

30. Fool Moon by Jim Butcher

Business has been deadly quiet for Harry Dresden - after his last involvement with the Chicago PD they have hardly called on his services at all, and more mundane business has been non-existent as well. But then a series of brutal murders around the full moon mean the police need someone with Dresden's particular brand of expertise. The FBI are investigating as well and are trying to shut out both Harry and the Chicago PD. And Gentleman Johnny Marcone, Chicago's biggest crime boss, also feels himself to be under threat so in turn puts pressure on Harry to get to the bottom of things. Preferably before the full moon rises again...

25. Storm Front - Jim Butcher. Reviewed higher up the page by ChillieJean so I won't repeat the plot summary. This was urban fantasy in the ilk of Rivers of London, Benedict Jacka, Paul Cornell - although pre-dated them? It was enjoyable but didn't quite grip me. I think I remember someone (Remus?) saying the sequel was better so will quite an eye out for it. I'm also confused by all the graphic stuff of his that keeps popping up on Kindle recommendations.

26. Between Two Thorns - Emma Newman. This is the first part of the Split Worlds trilogy. The idea is there is the normal world - Mundanus - and then a Fae-influenced world - the Nether. The Nether is based on Georgian society with strict rules governing behaviour and women being the property of their family. The heroine Cathy has spent a year living in Mundanus and wants to stay there, drink beer, wear jeans and have a normal life. Her family want her back. There is a second plot involving an Arbiter - a bit like the police - a sorcerer and a missing man. I liked the ideas but found Cathy a bit whiney. It also ends without solving one of the main threads of the story which was rather frustrating. But I do want to read the next one.

17. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Written in 1985, this is set in the near future. The ruling party has designated set roles for people, with a strong misogynist flavour and punishment by death for transgressions. The heroine is a handmaid, which means that she exists to serve her Commander, having sex with him (in his wife's presence) in the hope of bearing him a child. She is torn between keeping her head down to avoid punishment, and wanting to escape. This is well written and interesting - I enjoyed it a lot.

27. The Country Girls - Edna O'Brien Girls growing up in rural Ireland move to Dublin. In the main I was deeply irritated by it.

21. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid - I got this when it was cheap on a Kindle monthly deal - last month, I think. It is the story of an encounter between two strangers in a café in Lahore - one a local man, one an American visitor. The narrative is the local man's side of the conversation and we never hear the American's responses. I really enjoyed it - it was well-written and really made me think for lots of reasons. I liked the narrative perspective as well and the way it made me infer what the American's responses/thought process would be.

22. A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman - Read for this month's book group. It is the story of an 89 year old woman, called Marvellous Ways, who lives by a creek in Cornwall and seems to be waiting for something, and a sailor, Francis Drake, who appears there one day. Mixed feelings about this one. It is 'magical realism', which I'm not a huge fan of, unless it's done really well (eg. Neil Gaiman). This wasn't anywhere near in the same league, in my opinion, and therefore got annoying quickly. There were some beautiful passages but, on the whole, just lacked something. The bizarre character names, some of which seemed to be for no discernible reason, also grated on my nerves!

I'm now reading the third on the Carnegie shortlist, for work - There Will Be Lies by Nick Lake, which I'm really enjoying so far. On Kindle, I'm reading This Side of Paradise by F Scott Fitzgerald - the only novel I've not read of his. He is one of my favourite writers and, although Gatsby is definitely his masterpiece, this is looking like a close second so far.

Back to work on Monday, which will slow down my reading considerably for the next couple of months. Ah well.

My books read so far:
1 Helen zenna Smith, Not So Quiet
2 Tove Jansson,TheSummerBook
3 Nevil Shute, Pied Piper
4 Claire Tomalin, Charles Dickens
5 Mollie Panter Downes, Minnie's Room: The Peacetime Short Stories
6 Lettice Cooper, The New House
7 Esther Freud, Mr Mac and Me
8 Elizabeth von Arnim, Elizabeth and her German Garden
9 Betty Miller, On The Side of the Angels
10 Ann Bridge, Illyrian Spring
11 Colm Toibin, Nora Webster
12 Dorothy Whipple, Greengates
13 Ruth Adam, I'm not Complaining
14Victoria Hislop, The Sunrise
15 .?? The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
16 Margaret Forster, Diary of an Ordinary Woman