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?

lady - Ah yes, but it's not fiction

I know that IABU but it's personal preference and I can't help it. I have loved The Goldfinch, The Luminaries, and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, for example, so there are exceptions.

"Our machinery broke again, so we hung around for three decades waiting for it to be fixed; within seconds of us setting out again, it broke again and this time took us several millennia to get going again"

Remus

For pages and pages and pages, Cote. Imagine The Martian, with ice and snow, seals, pemmican, two stuffy narrators instead of one irritatingly adolescent narrator, and not even any potatoes to break the monotony.

I loved The Martian but doubt if this book was anywhere near as good

Well, I thought it was as bad, but am pretty sure you'd prefer the potatoes!

It's the constant calculations, problem solving, and innovation/invention in order to stay alive. Mathematics, physics, chemistry - it's a nerd fest Potatoes are just the food.

Face it - it's a boring 'teenager' talking about potatoes and mechanics whilst driving a kind of truck across a planet. Mine was two boring men talking about snow and mechanics whilst driving a kind of truck across Antarctica.

You are wrong but I love you anyway

The Martian is anything but boring. And the narrator is typical astronaut (positive, upbeat, and focused on working the problem rather than depressed and overwhelmed) as Chris Hadfield said.

Admit it: You skipped all the calculations & sciencey bits and read it like some superficial YA story, didn't you?

I read Every...Single...Word...I suffered...Every..Single...Potato...

I will never get those hours back. And I only carried on beyond page 3 (by which time I already knew I didn't like it) because I love you so much!

"I suffered...Every..Single...Potato"

You like apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic stuff. Did you give Seveneves a go?

Nope - it sounds like the sort of thing I wouldn't appreciate, so probably safer for both of us that I leave it well alone.

Sadik depending on your phone or iPad, you could download the kindle app and use that - no kindle needed. I have no plans to buy a kindle as I like paper books too much, but I use the kindle app to read books on my phone when on the go.

32. Girl Waits With Gun, by Amy Stewart This book is the first in a series based on Constance Kopp, who was the first female sheriff's deputy in the US. It starts in 1914, when Constance and her sisters' buggy is seriously damaged by a wreckless motorist who was also a wealthy industrialist. Constance seeks $50 in damages from him, so he begins a campaign of harassment and intimidation against her and her sisters. Constance is not one to be cowed into submission, and she takes on the industrialist and his hired goons (members of the Black Hand) together with the progressive local sheriff.

While some events are fictionalized, the major plot points are real, as are the main characters. Also, the social issues it deals withworkers' rights, immigration, single parenthoodare all too familiar, even a century later.

And, even if this isn't the book for you, do Google Constance Kopp. She's fascinating!

Constance Kopp sounds brilliant!

Book 88
Destination Unknown by Agatha Christie
This was okay. It’s one of her non-detective books, this one about a scientist who has disappeared and about whom it’s suspected that he’s defected to Russia. Meanwhile a young woman is contemplating suicide, and is approached by an English man who offers her an alternative potential death – taking on the role of the missing scientist’s wife, and allowing herself to be taken to him, so that the British can discover his whereabouts. It was about as unbelievable as it sounds, and got dafter and dafter – by the final quarter or so there was a twist on every other page. I quite enjoyed it, although it required a lot of willing suspension of disbelief –Famous Five for adults.

120. Number Eleven by Jonathan Coe

I had never heard of this author but picked this up on a whim in the bookshop. It's more like 5 tenuously linked shorter stories than a complete novel. I enjoyed this although the ending was odd, and I will try more by him.

121 The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale

I was really looking forward to reading this as I thought the story was interesting - it's the true life story of a 13 year old Victorian boy who killed his mother then lived in the same house as her body for 10 days before she was found. Unfortunately I found the book really boring - just a 'he said, she said' account of the trial and his life afterwards, with no real attempt to analyse what happened or why. The characters were very flat and didn't come alive. The last chapter was interesting, where the author met someone who had known the boy in later life, but it wasn't enough to redeem the book.

122. Wicked! by Jilly Cooper

Continuing my aim to reread all the Rutshire Chronicles before the new one comes out next month. I first read this about 10 years ago and remember thinking it was a bit near the knuckle, but rereading it this time I found it far more disturbing, probably because I'm now a parent. It's set in a school and not only is there a lot of sex between pupils, there's also some very unprofessional teachers and other adults doing and thinking things about pupils. It's also really long. I really like Jilly Cooper but really struggled rereading this one. Hoping the new one is a return to form! I read the other day she's now writing one about football - not sure about that, she's at her best writing about posh people and horses!

Interesting to read that about The Wicked Boy. I was v disappointed with The Suspicions of Mr Whicher , which I thought was pretty boringly written, so was in two minds as to read another of hers. I almost certainly won't bother now. Thanks, Chessie.

MontyFox sadly I don't have a smartphone or tablet either!!! I do sometimes read on my laptop, but it's a bit of a pain, so I'll probably just wait for it to be available 2nd hand (or for someone to dump it on one of the pirate sites I sometimes read from at which point I don't mind so much putting up with whirring / dodgy screen).

I've just ordered the epigenetics book, so that sounds like it'll keep me busy for a while :)

I was very disappointed with Mr Whicher too, Remus - I really didn't think it lived up to the hype (possibly not helped by the fact that I had it vaguely associated in my mind with Wilkie Collins/The Woman in White, which I love).

In fact, just wondered if I was being crap and checked out the kindle app for mac, and even that needs a newer version of the system software than'll run on my computer

Sadik - exactly! Wilkie is God.

38. I See You - Clare Mackintosh. Psychological crime novel from the author of I Let You Go about a woman who finds her photo in a London newspaper's classified section.The next day the advert shows a photo of a different woman, another the day after that and she quickly realises that her and her family are in danger. The story was quite gripping so I didn't mind too much the dull police procedural stuff and the minor implausibilities, but the silly villain reveal was woeful and dumb. It was as if the author was only bothered about providing a shock ending rather than credibility.

39. My Name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout. A woman in a New York hospital is visited by her estranged mother which forces the daughter to confront her past. Dull and depressing, I struggled to finish it and I've no idea why the Booker judges deemed it worthy of long-listing.

Remus and Sadik I really liked Whicher so I was surprised I didn't enjoy Wicked Boy. I think the problem with Wicked Boy is there's no mystery or tension - you know right from the start what happened and who did it, whereas with Whicher there was the whodunnit element.

Chessie, thanks for your review of Wicked Boy. I planned to borrow it from the library, but now I'll give it a pass.

Remus, Constance Kopp is amazing. She participated in a sting operation set up by the sheriff--as bait!

There's a thread about The Wicked Boy in the book of the month topic - most people on there seem to have really enjoyed it so maybe it's just me!!

39. Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller. Peggy's father, a survivalist, takes her to a remote forest where they live self-sufficiently. I found this pretty boring tbh.

Loved your Antarctic review, Remus

47. Dark Eden by Chris Beckett A variation on the classic colonisation type sci-fi novel. From two abandoned astronauts, a hunter gatherer level society of approximately 500 people has grown up on the strange planet of Eden, sticking close to the landing site, in the hope that earth will come back for them. Things have reached a tipping point, and the catalyst for change is a teenage boy who is motivated as much by his own arrogance as by the necessity for change. What makes this book stand out from the pack is the beautifully imagined and described dark planet, with its strange glowing flora and fauna. I have put the sequel, Mother of Eden, which I understand takes place several generations later, on my wish list, and, for those that have already read these, I notice that a third book, Daughter of Eden, is due out in October.