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?

bibliomania the Barbara Pym was funny in parts. But also strange. I think a lot of it seemed very inconsequential. I've got Quartet in Autumn lined up to read next.

Quartet in Autumn is a lot better, at least in my opinion.

I know that you've all been waiting with bated breath to find out what happens with my quest to find a Rameau book so thought I'd tell you that I found Rameau has written a book. It's about harmony in music. AND it has mathematical formulas I have to read it now but it's £14.20 on the Kindle

Poor Cote! Can you use the library app (overdrive)? (Sorry if you are not in the UK!)

A book about Baroque music that has mathematical formulas! I would have to save and buy it even if it were 100 quid I'll give it a few days to drop in price until I finish my current book.

Cote, that's incredible. You have to get it and tell us all about it. Maybe take a picture of any diagrams or figures

Cedar03 - Joy Larkcom is a real hero of mine, and I love her gardening books, but I only got about half way through Just Vegetating. I really enjoyed the sections about the Grand Vegetable Tour, but the second half seemed to be mostly reprints of articles, with not that much new inbetween.

Tanaqui - I'm not in the UK, sadly, so have to actually buy the books I want to read

Grendel - I am wondering if I should not attempt to read Rameau's book on the Kindle, in case there are diagrams, music scores, etc which will only be readable on a print copy. Especially since the Kindle copy is as expensive as the actual book.

I'm actually giddy about that book now. It's the guy who wrote after all, and where you can actually hear the birds calling to each other on the piano so I'm really interested to see what he has to say about harmony and order in music.

I started playing Rameau, too, and managed fairly quickly today, but it is one of his easier pieces

40. Dissolution - C.J. Sansom. Already well reviewed on here, first Shardlake book. Must admit I was a reluctant reader having had more than one previous failed attempt. I struggled to get into it but glad I did and eventually ended up enjoying it. Will probably read another.

I am reading a dreadful spy book that was a Kindle daily deal the other day. At 38% through, I feel as I might as well carry on now, but I am really not enjoying it. Having got anything else and need to wait for pay day before I can buy anything for over 99p or so!

GrendelsMother23, have you read Tolkien's version of Beowulf? I wonder if that might be the best of both worlds - authentic translation and someone who can write literature as well.

Rameau? Is that the guy whose music is referred to in 1q84? I always meant to look it up but of course didn't

57. Ghosts of Karnak by George Mann

The Ghost is a vigilante in George Mann's Steampunk vision of New York. He is also Gabriel, a playboy type living a dissolute life in a never-ending party. Following the events of Ghosts 0f War, Gabriel's friend and lover Ginny Gray took herself off to Egypt for a while and ended up visiting the site of a recently discovered tomb of Sekhmet. Its contents are to be shipped to New York for an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and by coincidence the relics are travelling on the same ship Ginny is due to be on. But when Gabriel meets the ship, she is not on it. Meanwhile, the body of a woman has been found on the streets of New York with ancient Egyptian symbols carved into her flesh, a ghostly figure is seen floating above the city's roofs, and local crime lord The Reaper appears to be ramping up his bid for control.

wilting - Ooh, really? How big a part does Rameau's music play in 1Q84?

Sadik - yes I think the first half of Just Vegetating is more interesting than the second half. Although the final part which is about their move to Ireland and the challenges of starting up a new garden was good. I dipped in and out of it while reading other things rather than trying to read the whole book in one go.

18. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - JK Rowling Another re-read which i finished a few days ago but didn't have time to update. Enjoying the series again but had forgotten how dark the chamber of secrets was for parts of it.

Have a trial of Kindle unlimited so using it to reread the series as the books are in my parents loft (i should deal with this).

ChillieJeanie That's a good idea. I had to read it in Old English for university, but there's an excellent glossed edition (editor is Michael Alexander) from Penguin Classics. George Jack has also done quite a famous edition but I think that's only glossed as well. Frederick Rebsamen's translation is meant to be good too, if you want more versions to compare!

I don't think it plays a serious part cote, it's mentioned as music characters are listening to. Maybe it has a deeper meaning but I am not familiar enough to say. Janecek's(?) Sinfonietta is mentioned more often I think and may be more significant for an understanding of the characters.

Here is a link to a blog about it. And here is part 2 .

I think there are playlists on Spotify mapping the music too. It's an angle I would be interested in must do something about that

Musical namedropping, then?

Remus - If you haven't read K2: Life and Death on the World's most dangerous Mountain then it might fulfil your death and disaster requirement, here's the blurb "A thrilling chronicle of the tragedy-ridden history of climbing K2, the world's most difficult and unpredictable mountain..."

"tragedy-ridden history" sounds like just what you want

86. and 87. Tiger Eyes and Just As Long As We're Together by Judy Blume

Rereads from teenage years, dated now but loved these as a teen! Enjoyed rereading them.

LadyDepp - have read it! Thanks though - it's just the sort of thing I like.

Book 67
The Midnight Swimmer by Edward Wilson
Bloody awful. A spy novel, set in the run up to the Cuban Missile Crisis. I carried on because it’s a period I wanted to know more about, but by the end I was doing little more than scanning. It’s a combination of (the only good point) occasionally interesting historical detail, with a central character who has about as much personality as a damp cardboard box but even so women throw themselves at, combined with the author throwing in everything he knows about people like Burgess and Maclean etc. Add to all that some truly belly-laughingly terrible description and, at times, the most bizarre way of setting out dialogue I’ve ever seen. Another of those books that feel as if they’ve been written by a spotty teenager in a greasy anorak. Terrible. Avoid at all costs. This felt about 3000 pages long and made even Charles Cumming seem like a relatively good guy.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh - what on earth can I read now?!!!!

Can you get e-books from your library, Remus?