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?

Hi mughals. I've got a couple of Secret Seven on my list

I'm not counting Transformers, Batman and Star Wars fact books, though it feels like they make up most of my word count

Argh! Have just added MORE books to my already full to bursting Kindle.

I am currently listening to Down Under by Bill Bryson on Audible. He is a lovely writer but some of it is just a bit dull...I do love the bits about all the deadly animals though

Almost finished Seveneves and I don't want it to end. I have really enjoyed the last third of it, despite it being massively different to the first two thirds. I am in awe of the imagination of writers like Neal Stephenson and I really want to read more post-apocalyptic fiction.

Books about quite middle class lives, however well written, just don't hold any interest for me anymore (so please dear MIL please stop buying them for me! - MIL does love a family saga with a pretty picture on the front, bless her )

I read all the Cazalet books last year Mermaid. I really loved them.

I'm adding 2 Secret Sevens and 3 Dinosaur Coves to my list - all read recently to DS7. So that takes me up to 22.

I'm also currently reading Monster Mission by Eva Ibbotson to DS13. It's quite peculiar and I'm not sure that DS likes it that much!

Biblio
That's the one, yes. It's annoying me more and more with every page!

Book 76
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
A YA book which began with promise and then didn’t really get anywhere. Interesting premise – people are going crazy and killing others/themselves after ‘seeing’ an unknown ‘something’. As things get worse, people are increasingly locking themselves indoors and only going outside when desperate, ensuring that they are blindfolded whilst doing so. The central character has two 4 year old children who she has trained from birth to hear the tiniest sounds, and who have never seen the world outside. So far, so good. Unfortunately I don’t think the writer thought much beyond this, so it was short on plot, short on credible characters and definitely short on a satisfying ending.

33. Luckiest Girl Alive - Jessica Knoll. Another 'homage' to Gone Girl, this is a thriller about a young woman who comes to terms with events that happened to her when she was a teenager. The story was OK but I thought her style of writing was was overdone in places, there was nobody in the book I liked or empathised with and the main character was a shallow bitch. So many American references also pissed me off.

34. Charlotte's Web - E.B.White. The classic 1950's children's book about a pig called Wilbur who's befriended by a spider called Charlotte, this was utterly enchanting, with adorable characters and some subtle messages about the importance of friendship and selflessness, and the inevitability of death. Just lovely.

56. The Maze Runner by James Dashner

A teenage boy finds himself with other boys in a glade in the middle of a maze, and has no memory of his former life. A fairly easy YA book but quite intriguing.

57. Darkness Bound by J T Geissinger

Fourth book in the Night Prowlers series, about a race of people who can turn into big cats. It's paranormal romance that would probably have been better without the romance.

58. Don't Be Afraid by Daniela Sacerdoti

Fourth Glen Avich book. In this one a woman is suffering from depression and ghostly stuff happens. I didn't really enjoy this, it's a bit unrelentingly miserable at first and then doesn't really go anywhere worthwhile.

59 The Glass Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

I think someone reviewed the whole Paper Magician series before on this thread and said they made the mistake of buying the whole series when it was cheap on kindle. I made that mistake too. This is the second book and is marginally better than the first, but still the best thing I can say about it is that it's quite short.

60 The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff

A woman who is part of a large magical family inherits her grandmother's business and home and discovers there are dangerous things going on in the town. It's fun and quite witty.

61 Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

In the near future the creator of "the Oasis," an online universe, has died leaving a mystery and a promise that the solver will inherit his company. This is teenage Wade's (or Parzival as he's known as online) attempt to solve the mystery, using his knowledge of 80s pop culture that the Oasis' creator loved. I really enjoyed this, Wade is a very likable narrator and the story is gripping and fun.

69. Falling in Love, Donna Leon and halfway through 70. A Book by its Cover, Donna Leon

Recent instalments of this lengthy crime fiction series set in Venice. The mysteries are competent enough, but the real pleasure is the setting - your footsteps echoing down the calle as you accompany Brunetti on his way home to another delicious family meal. The author loves Venice, but clear-eyed about its negative aspects too. The series is a bit "read one and you've read them all", but every now and then I like a bit of a gorge.

I've been away with two weeks worth of back outage which has made me very frustrated, very cross and very But I'm over myself now and slowly getting back to betterness. I've enjoyed reading the thread and adding (yet) more to the TBR pile.

Because of an inability to sleep for about 10 days (I've been unable to lie down for anything between 20 minutes and an hour), I've bonded with audible and have been through the Harry Potters. But more of that in a minute when I do a proper count and report on my reading.

*that should say unable to lie down for anything LONGER than 20 minutes and an hour (gah!)

Book 35: The Rowan Tree by Robert W Fuller. Tale of white progressive professor and his black student who have an affair then meet up again 20 years later. First two parts were not bad, but the final part was torture as the author got to waffle on about his philosophy.

Book 36: Long Utopia by Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter. Part 44 of tale about alternative earths reached by stepping. The weakest in the series so far imo.

Am currently reading Ruby Wax's Sane New World and thoroughly enjoying it, but took a break to listen to Stephen Fry reading the Harry Potter books whilst injured. I've heard books 1-6 so far and will probably listen to the final one sometime, although I've read the series many a time before. I guess these count as books 37 to 42, but do say if we're counting audibles differently.

My book club have selected William Shakespeare's Star Wars by Ian Doescher. It's short is the best I can say about it so far, oh and mildly amusing ...

Sorry about the back, Joyless. And people have been counting Audibles in the same way as other books.

Ah thanks biblio

Also should correct my typo that Long Utopia is Part 4 not 44 (sigh).

Sorry to hear you're suffering, Joyless. I hope you get back to normal soon

Ah Joyless, that sucks I hope you feel better.

54. The Wolf Wilder – Katherine Rundell
I thought this was YA but it’s more of a children’s book and is the rather lovely and simple tale of Feodora, who lives in the snowy forests of Tsarist Russia and re-wilds wolves that have been adopted as pets and then rejected as too difficult by the upper classes. Feo is a good, strong female character and long may this sort of portrayal of young women continue.

55. Briefing for a Descent into Hell – Doris Lessing
Apparently this is ‘inner-space fiction’. Practically what this means is having to wade through huge chunks of stream of consciousness with NO PARAGRAPHS. A man is admitted to a psychiatric ward when he is found wandering in London having lost his memory. We hear a little from the doctors and a lot from his internal monologue and ‘where he is’ during his drugged time on the ward. This was on the Booker Prize shortlist for 1971 which is how I came across it. It’s one of the oddest books I have ever read and it was definitely not an enjoyable experience but it was interesting and maybe of it’s time. Perhaps one of the points it’s trying to make is what is madness and who is actually mad, the ‘mad' person or the everyday world, because if you view the everyday world from a distance, it’s pretty mad. Or something.

56. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – Frank Baum
A first time read for me and I really enjoyed it. I’m not sure why I didn’t read this book as a child as I think I would have loved it to be honest. It’s been reviewed up thread so I won’t say too much other than I recommend it for a quick, fun read. It was hard to get the film out of my head but that didn’t really matter one bit as on the whole the film is a fairly accurate portrayal of the book and Judy Garland is the perfect Dorothy. The shoes are different though

There are 13 Oz sequels (ignoring those written by other writers) too, Whippetwoman if you're looking for summer reading!

28. Seveneves by Neal Stephenson - best book I've read all year, loved it! I'm very sad to have finished it. It's a massive 800+ page post-apocalyptic novel which is divided into 2 parts, just after the apocalyptic event and long after the event. The 2 parts are very different but I loved them both. There's a lot of science but I only skimmed a few paragraphs of technical stuff (I skimmed a lot more in The Martian). I found the characters interesting and plausible, and the events after the apocalypse could have gone in a hundred different directions but I didn't ever think "Nah, I'm suspending WAY too much disbelief here". I'm no scientist though!
    An epic tale of survival, which weirdly made me feel much more relaxed about Brexit

Joyless, back pain is the worst, you must be exhausted. You may need some and and and [strong painkillers] (no smiley for that sorry). Hope you're better soon!

Oh joyless that's rotten. What haven't you been offered yet? and more . There should be a [novel] emoticon for us bookworms

39 Postcards from the Edge Carrie Fisher

Follows Suzanne Vale from drug rehab, to getting back on track with her relationships and career, and trying to rediscover 'normal' life along the way.

This was ok, funny and lots of great turns of phrase as you would expect, but I did find myself getting a bit bored with it despite it only being 200 or so pages - the Hollywood as depicted seemed claustrophobic and uninteresting, and I'd had enough of it by the end. I would have liked it to be a bit broader. However, I think that lots of the things she was writing about - the absurd diets, exercise regimes, drug abuse, cosmetic treatments and sexual excesses of Tinseltown - seem so mainstream and hackneyed as topics now, whereas when she was side-eyeing and coining smart phrases about it all thirty years ago it was probably much more insightful and novel. There were lots of funny one liners that seemed familiar and well-used, and I realised that this is where they had in fact originated. I had seen the film adaptation (also written by Fisher) and was surprised how much it differs from the book; they are definitely separate entities with a shared inspiration. She writes dialogue wonderfully and has a great ear for voices. I'd like to read her memoirs, I think.

64. Death Descends on Saturn Villa by MRC Kasasian

Book three in the Gower Street detective series, in which March Middleton discovers a long-lost uncle only to be accused of his murder, and Sidney Grice, the obnoxious detective himself, is hardpressed to prove his ward's innocence.

It's an okay series, although a bit too knowing (lots of Sherlock Holmes references) and jokey at times.

Hope you feel better soon, Joyless.

Book 77
Until the Final Hour by Traudle Junge
The book that the film 'Downfall' is based on. Junge was one of Hitler’s secretaries, who managed to escape the bunker after his suicide, in the very final days of fighting in Berlin. Some of this was fascinating, especially the descriptions of Hitler’s charisma – Junge was clearly awestruck by him and in thrall to him. What jarred for me was what seemed to be somewhat of a failure on her behalf to separate this fascination, even love, for the man, from the horrors of the Nazi regime he facilitated – she must have been spectacularly naive if she really didn’t understand what was going on, and I found that really hard to believe. Because of that, the whole description of her feelings didn’t always quite ring true to me and I felt there was always an undertone of self-consciousness about it all, as if she was thinking about what she should be thinking and saying rather than always writing entirely from the heart. I’m glad I read it, but I found it very difficult to sympathise with her.

Oh Joyless not being able to lie down sounds appalling, hope you improve soon.

I seem to have read another book in the middle of the Edna O Brien:
47. Pretty Girl in Crimson Rose (8) - Sandy Balfour. This is basically a love letter to the cryptic crossword, interspersed with events through the author's life. He is a South African film maker who moves to the UK in the late 80s and the crossword symbolises his adoption of Britain. I really enjoyed this, there are some lovely clues in it (including the title). A good MN one would be Potty train (4) - the answer is Loco as it fits both meanings. I would recommend it to anyone who likes crosswords or has ever wondered how a cryptic works.

38. Where'd You Go Bernadette? by Maria Semple Another recommendation from this thread. A rich, quirky, dysfunctional American family, seen through the eyes of the teenage daughter, as she tries to solve the mystery of her mother's disappearance through a series of documents and emails. Funny and observant, but, my word, every single character is deeply annoying. The book ends pretty abruptly, soon after the question of the title is answered, but, despite being irritated by all of them, I would have liked to have known what happened to the characters next.

39. Red Bones by Ann Cleves Third in the Shetland series. Another highly readable character driven murder mystery. Follows a similar formula to the second - tight knit community, old secrets, enough red herrings to keep you guessing, conveys a great sense of island life. It's certainly a winning formula, but I might wait a bit before reading the 4th in case they start feeling too samey.

Huge sympathies with you for your back problem, Joyless . Struggling with chronic back pain here too -nothing like it for causing sheer misery is there?

42. The 100 year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared by Jonas Jonasson Man escapes from his old people's home on his 100th birthday and unintentionally starts out on an adventure. It has the story of his life as a parallel story to the current day. Black comedy. I enjoyed it.

43. A Whole Life by Robert Seethalter set in Austria it follows most of the life of a young man through his life. It's a short book, has some brilliant descriptions in it. Both this and the previous book have a main character where life happens to them rather than the other way around. They are very different books in style and direction but I was interested in this similarity between them.

Book 78
Every Dead Thing by John Connolly
The first in the Charlie Parker crime series, which I’ve seen recommended on MN several times. Well, I’m here to tell you that whoever recommended it is WRONG. The ex-cop figure is fine, the idea (nasty man murdering people horribly and cutting off their faces) is fine, a couple of good characters (gay hitmen were my favourites) also fine, but Connolly is an absolutely dreadful writer from the Tell Not Show School of Terribleness. If the book had been 80% shorter with 60 or so fewer characters, massively reduced back story, a bodycount that didn’t descend into cartoon-esque figures, had had a decent ending and been written by Raymond Chandler it might have been good. As it was, it was bloody awful and I wish I had given up after twenty pages. Stay well away. I got four for a pound or so on Kindle - needless to say I will not be reading the other three.