50 Book Challenge 2016 Part Five

[southeastdweller]

Thread five 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.

The first thread of 2016 is here, second thread here, third thread here and fourth thread here.

How're you getting on so far?

27. One by Sarah Crossan this caught my eye when a pp reviewed it up thread- it is a short ya story about conjoined twins, thoughtfully done- I had it on the library app and I think the layout would work better in print. If you like ya I would definitely reccomend.

29. Half Way Home by Hugh Howey

This was crap. His earlier book Wool which was oh so loved by people who never read sci-fi was no great shakes, either but this one reaches a level of awfulness that is just too terrible to talk about. This one is like Trump after W Bush: You thought the 1st was the worst possible, until you get the 2nd and wonder why you hated the 1st so much. It wasn't so bad after all.

Wool was unrealistic, not terribly well thought out, and... well... dumb. This one reads like it was written by a 10-year-old on his two-week Xmas break. I know some of you like reading YA (for a reason unfathomable to me) and I think we all know what I think about YA, but that is about stuff like The Book Thief which at least has a plot and an attempt at writing something worthy. This book had none of that.

Presumably about test-tube teenagers meant to colonise a new world who learned everything from a computer and hatched a little too early, this trash has neither a plot, character development, or anything else that might make a book. I'm not talking about a good book. Just any book. They are just a group of teenagers having fun, worrying about who dates who, and working a bit - i.e. doing what the ship's computer tells them to do. It's fucking boring and so nonsensical that it insults the reader's intelligence.

There was a tiny bit of a story line towards the end (last 10%) but it was too little, too late. That could have been developed to make this a short story and then perhaps it wouldn't be as shockingly awful.

Bringing my list over from the other thread, as well:

28. Dark Fire by C. J. Sansom (Shardlake #2)
29. Reaching Down The Rabbit Hole: Extraordinary Journeys Into The Human Brain by Dr Allan Ropper
30. The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (The Three-Body Problem #2)
31. Daughter of the Winds by Jo Bunt
32. Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith
33. The Girl In The Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz
34. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
35. The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country by Helen Russell
36. Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
37. Lord Of The Flies - William Golding
38. Mother Of Eden by Chris Beckett (Dark Eden #2)
39. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
40. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
41. The Time Machine by H G Wells
42. The Knife Of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
43. Hot Zone - The Chilling True Story of an Ebola Outbreak by Richard Preston
44. Dissolution by C. S. Sansom
45. Limitless (The Dark Fields) by Alan Glynn
46. High Heat by Lee Child

1. Authority by Jeff VanderMeer8. Rivers Of London by Ben Aaronovitch
2. Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep by David K. Randall
3. Ancillary Justice by Ann Beckie
4. Written In Fire by Marcus Sakey
5. The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain by James Fallon
6. The Day Of The Triffids by John Wyndham
7. Wolves by Simon Ings
8. Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

Isn't it supposed to be Halfway Home, anyway? I don't know why I expect a readable book from someone who can't write the title of his book properly

I'd like to join the thread please.

Not sure how many I've read this year.

Just finished 'They were Sisters' by Dorothy Whipple. She was writing in the 1930s and now I've found her, I intend to read others! Any recommendations for other titles by her?

I managed about four pages of Wool and thought it was absolute garbage. If this one was even worse, Cote, then I dread to think to what depths of hideousness it descended.

Marking my page I'll be back

Is Wool the thing with people living in silos? If so, I managed about 4 pages too - agree it read like sci-fi written by someone who hated the genre.

Tanaqui, I did indeed find the CC fanfic amusing, particularly the 3rd one where it felt like she'd got into her stride. I was rather tickled by the idea of Lucius Malfoy making money from polyjuice brothels, it seemed so very in character

louisagradgrind Dorothy Whipple is published by Persephone and they have a wonderful website. Each author is listed with a short biography and a list of their books Persephone publish. The books themselves are beautiful and make wonderful presents.
Two D. Whipple I have enjoyed were High Wages and Greenbanks.

Just place marking for later!

Tanaqui I don't think I've read that Jean Ure one. I liked A Proper Little Nooryeff and its sequel. Also Plague although that one is quite disturbing!

gailforce1: thank you for that-you have really cheered my evening up!

Place marking, thanks for new thread southeast.

53 The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

More steampunk Victoriana, though without pretence to any form of historical accuracy. I decided to finish this before starting HhHH, and I'm glad I did - the story picked up pace from about half way through. Despite the anachronisms, I found it rather charming overall, the writing was atmospheric, and the plot such as it was enjoyable. It's a first novel, and I'd look out for others by the same author, I suspect they'll be tighter and better written.

Placemarking!

Have started to read When She Was Bad by Tammy Cohen

looking I read Ulysses in June a few years ago, challenged myself to read it by Bloomsday on the 16th. I'd love to go to Dublin in June and do the route of the book one day.

I'm reading State of Wonder. I'm finding it very slow going. It's not badly written or anything and I'm interested in where it's going, but just not enough to keep reading it. More, "I'll leave it there for now" instead of "just another page".

36. Every Day by David Levithan

A YA novel about someone who has no body of their own, but every day wakes up in a different person's body. They've been just taking each day as it comes until they fall in love. It's an interesting concept and quite nicely written, but it feels a bit thin and implausible.

37. Being Light by Helen Smith

A sequel to Alison Wonderland. The main plot line is about a woman searching for her husband who has gone missing after a freak accident with a bouncy castle. It's a quite a light, quirky read, but feels a bit overcrowded with so many characters.

38. Black Dawn by Rachel Caine

Book 12 in the Morganville Vampires series. Silly teen vampire romance. The characters are starting to annoy me.

39. Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson

A collection of linked short stories about addiction. Bleakly evocative.

40. Set Me Free by Daniela Sacerdoti

Book 3 in the Glen Avich series. A woman whose marriage is dying takes her troubled teenage daughter and toddler to stay in Glen Avich where romantic and ghostly things happen. It could have been better, but works OK as a light, fluffy read.

41. I Have Waited and You Have Come by Martine Mcdonagh

Post-apocalyptic novel about a woman who has isolated herself from the communities other people live in. It's well written with a very harsh and quite disturbing feel to it.

81. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

I really liked this. It's about a genetics professor with Asperger's who starts a project to find a wife, then meets the very unsuitable Rosie and tries to help her find out who her real father is. I lived the descriptions of the professor's lifestyle although I have no idea how accurate it is in terms of Asperger's.

Lived = loved!

21. The Invisible Library, Genevieve Cogman. I enjoyed this for what it was, an easy, light read that was a tad silly in places. I think it would come under the category of light urban fantasy. The premise is that the universe is made up of alternate realities. Existing between these realities is the Library, accessible only by Librarians, whose purpose is to preserve unique books for the various worlds. Irene, a junior Librarian, is sent on a mission to an alternate world to collect a specific book, but, essentially, all hell breaks loose and she has to battle her way to the book, solving mysteries along the way. It was enjoyable enough, and I'd read the others in the series, but it couldn't be said to be masterful writing. Some of the characters weren't fleshed out as well as they could have been, and the plot went a bit daft at points. It made me think of the Dark Towers conversation from the last thread - but instead of a lobster it was a giant metal centipede

Satsuki - I found the same thing with State of Wonder, which is why I read half then put it down for months before coming back to it. I was glad I did come back to it though, the second half was much better. Everything really picked up and got going.

I'm now reading Neurotribes, a book about the history of autism and how our understanding of it has evolved through time. Very well written and well researched.

Remus & Sadik - Yes, this book was written by the author of that Wool. And it was far FAR worse than Wool, if you can believe it.

Good to hear that monty I'll persevere with it. I'm only a third of the way through so need to break the back of it, and it just feels like I'm watching someone wait for their luggage, check their post, make a call, pop to the shops and not much else yet

I didn't think much of Wool either!

Chessie, Dance for 2 is interesting as she rewrote it about 10 years after first publication iirc, so 2 versions exist. A Proper little Nooryeff is fab- very evocative of its time now! Have you read the super mouse books?

Yy Sadiq, I wish the Mortal Instruments were as funny!

I'm reading the Bear G Everest book that was on Daily Deal yesterday. Enjoying it, but the punctuation is dreadful - not sure whether to blame him, his editor or the conversion to Kindle.

28. Foundation by Mercedes Lackey. A Valdemar novel- definitely a YA one (some I think are adult fiction), sadly rather formulaic- badly treated boy gets a companion and becomes a hero, and without the angst and freshness of the magics price trilogy (which as I recall were the first YA gay nasty fantasy around, though they may just have been the first I read!). Would not recommend.

Ooh, new thread, thanks!

28. The Good Angel Of Death - Andrey Kurkov

Picked this up at the library as I loved his book Death And The Penguin. It's kind of Russian magic realism, a tale in which Kolya, a young Russian man living in Kiev, finds out about a mysterious treasure buried in the Kazakh desert decades before by a Ukrainian author and sets off to find it and bring it back home. Along the way there are nomads, former KGB agents, drug and gun smugglers, a chameleon and much musing on the character of nationalism in the post-Soviet republics. He writes beautifully and although it won't be everyone's cup of tea, if you like this kind of thing then I would recommend it.