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?

I'm really in two minds about it whippet - overall I'd say I did like it, as I was going to bed early to read it towards the end, and have been thinking about the subjects covered in it since, but it's hard to say it unequivocally when I spent weeks not picking it up I wonder if I'd had more time to get through more of the first half in one go (if Brexit hadn't happened in the middle) instead of in distracted chunks I'd have a different view. It felt like I was in that hotel waiting for a month, which I get was possibly the point and if so, very cleverly done on her part I disliked the ending but accept that it's because I'm a puritanical romantic and it didn't sit right with me; it didn't make it bad. I have Bel Canto on my Kindle so I will be revisiting her!

I've never heard of the Little Grey Men biblio, thanks.

I bought Waiters to the Rich and Famous and Hotel du Lac. I can highly recommend A Life Like Other People's by Alan Bennett (but don't bother if you have his Untold Stories as it's extracted from there).

I also apparently bought Olive Kitteridge, my emails inform me!

Hmm, what to buy? I remember reading Hotel du Lac years ago and liking it. Think I'll get that, and maybe All The Light We Cannot See. In danger of having more books than I can possibly read in a lifetime

Ahh! I knew I should hide this thread today - had already ordered 6 books from the sale, but now you've suggested others, I'm tempted!

I'm going to have to pay Hotel du Lac as well aren't I? This is going to fill my summer up!

(But I didn't get on with Fahrenheit 451 - I found it too shouty and 'of it's time'. Reminded me too much of the sort of faintly political plays I endured watched at the student union in uni days where everything was a bit manic and it was important to make a point . This could well be because many a crap student playwrite wanting to give a message had been influenced by this book in the first place...)

I'll confess to not really enjoying Hotel du Lac. It's the kind of thing I expected to like, but it was all a bit gloomy for me. Look on the bright side, woman, you're on holiday.

65. I'm not with the band, by Sylvia Patterson

Memoir of pop music journalist. I'm just about old enough to remember Smash Hits in the 1980s, so plenty of familiar names from the past. I didn't find her encounters with the artistes (ahem) all that compelling, to be honest, but I like the way she evoked the various zeitgeists she's lived through (1980s to now) and her allusions to her own life - the choice of a financially-perilous career, the poor choice of men in the past, coming to terms with her mother's alcoholism.

Hope you like Little Grey Men, Satsuki, and southeast, we'll have to compare notes on Waiters!

Link to the sale, please? Think I'm being dim!

Found it!

Okay - have bought:

The Things They Carried - have been wanting to read this for ages.
John Connolly - Charlie Parker series first 4 (might hate these but have seen people on here liking them)
The Bird Box - read a sample ages ago and quite liked it.

Anatomy of a Soldier is there too, if anybody has more patience than I do for very self-conscious modern war stuff. I thought it was clever but got a bit tired of its cleverness and just wanted it to get on with the story.

The American Boy is there too - I really liked it.

book 24 Harry potter and the goblet of fire not as good as poa but not as plodding as the first two books. There was a bit too much padding with the whole house elf thing. Next book The time traveller guide to Elizabethan England.

45. Dead in the Water -Aline Templeton I started off enjoying this series of police procedurals about Inspector Margery Fleming set in Galloway but this is the second poor one I've read. Don't know if I'll bother with another.

46. A Game For All The Family - Sophie Hannah I should have listened to all the warnings on here. This was truly dire. I won't be reading another of hers.

Now reading This Thing Of Darkness. I have John Lydon's autobiography from the Kindle sale (highly recommended by my dad), a Stuart Maconie book and a pile of political thrillers (inspired by the recent and on going turmoil) all waiting for me.

55. One by Sarah Crossan. I loved this. It's a quick read, young adult in style. Written in short sections of blank verse, it tells the story of the lives of conjoined twins Tippi and Grace who are teenagers. Funny, and sad in equal measures. Recommended.

56. Where My Heart Used to Beat by Sebastian Faulks. Not keen on this story. A bit dull, dragged, with rather too much navel gazing. But if you like Birdsong then this one might appeal too - WW1 and 2. I was a bit bored by it tbh.

57. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee. Nowhere near as good as TKAM but makes a good companion piece.

Book 75
Jane Austen and Food by Maggie Lane
I didn’t like this at all, even though in theory it sounded very me. It was laboured and boringly written, with the author intruding far too much into it. It’s an attempt to find all sorts of deep meanings in Austen’s mentions of foodstuffs, but, to use a horribly unfitting analogy for a vegetarian, I thought it was all stuffing and no meat. It was silly at best and downright annoying at worst. I really, really don’t recommend this.

Not doing v well at the mo. Stalin is too depressing, and the history of Germany I'm reading is infuriatingly badly written by a man who a) thinks he's funny and isn't and b) appears to have no idea how to punctuate. It's also got pages and pages and pages about churches and crusades and stuff, which I just haven't got the patience for. Would it be too naughty to skip to about 1850 or so?

Remus your post about Jane Austen and food reminds me of a lecture I attended at university where the lecturer was trying to argue that Jane Austin was gay.

Like that bloody awful film version of Mansfield Park where Mary Crawford semi-seduces Fanny Price. Or did I dream that? Ugh. Don't mess with Jane (unless it's Clueless or zombies)!

Interesting dreams Remus

As with unfinished books, books where we've skipped passages or/and chapters don't count, Remus - you should know the rules by now

Tbh though it's absolutely huge, so would still be much bigger than a lot of the ones that people have counted!

Tomorrow's Mail on Sunday headline "Was Jane Austen gay?" :o I know I haven't read absolutely everything she wrote, but I can honestly say the thought never entered my mind. Do you remember what evidence your lecturer brought forward to support that theory, Muskey? I'm intrigued and amused!

34. Treatise On Harmony by Jean-Philippe Rameau

I finally finished it. Or it finished me. Written in 1722, this cornerstone of music theory has everything you would ever want to know (and much MUCH more that you probably don't) on how harmony is constructed. I can't even begin to explain the detail Rameau goes into but can tell you that the only reason I'm not whining about how difficult it was to get through it is because I asked for it.

It was fascinating, though, and I learned quite a bit from it. For example..

How many of you knew that when a string vibrates it makes not one but many sounds, the most prominent of which are the notes we most like to hear together in chords? Hit a string that gives a Do note, and it immediately 'divides' in half and resonates as two equal strings which gives the higher Do. Immediately, it vibrates in thirds which gives a Sol. (There is a test for this which I did at home: Hold down Sol while you hit the lower Do key and you can also hear the Sol at the same time ) Then comes the next Do, Mi, Sol, Si b, etc as is apparently called The Overtone Series which is explained in a neat way in , from about 2:20.

This is fascinating to me (although probably not to many of you ) because now I have the words to describe the underlying geometry that I feel and love in Baroque music. And I understand why, for example, a piece that starts with Do (Tonic) focuses on Sol (Dominant) and creates tension with Fa (Subdominant) which then resolves again at Do (Tonic).

This book was also interesting for me because I finally understood what all the A7, A dim etc chords I played on the guitar were all about. Rameau is nothing if not thorough and there are entire chapters on each chord structure.

I think I'm ready for a beach read now

I think it came about because she shared a bedroom with her sister, Cassandra all her life! Although I think they had to give that it up when a receipt, or something like, was found for two beds.

In addition, they trawled her many letters to Cassandra for anything that could be construed as flirtatious.

They totally ignore the fact that Cassandra had an admirer who left her money in his will and that Jane had two marriage proposals-probably in love with at least one of those men- and, in addition, may have had a secret love affair before settling in Chawton.

I don't know who the people saying these things are but I say it's a shame that they have such small and salacious minds!