50 Book Challenge 2016 Part Six

[southeastdweller]

Thread six 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, fourth thread here and fifth thread here.

I actually quite enjoyed John Dies At the End for the madness of it.

And I liked Shantaram.

Never heard of On The Beach.

My candidates for WORST BOOK I'VE EVER READ IN MY LIFE (actually finished not DNF)

Pale Fire
A Phonecall From Heaven
There But For The
American Psycho
Perfume

I'm sure they're controversial

Kevin...it's a good book, but I loathed her, his mother, and it made it hard to enoy, plus the imagery of the sister

Anyone read the Booker winner The Sellout by Paul Beatty?

Morons. Useless morons who deserve to die

On The Beach is a truly pathetic excuse for a post-apocalyptic book. Completely unrealistic, laughable story of how people would NOT behave when faced with annihilation - not trying to save their lives by moving down south, talking about whether to start fishing season a bit early this year (as if there will be a next year, ffs), one guy's wife is concerned about his career (although they are all going to die soon) and so he wouldn't think of refusing an assignment, which would take him away from his wife & newborn baby for months. What?

An example:

They are talking about a couple and this woman says "I hope they get married and have children". When told how unlikely that is with, you know, certain death by September, she replies:

" Oh dear, I keep forgetting "

Forgetting that you're all fucking going to die soon??? Really???

Cote I get super passionate about the ones I hate as well.

It's become a bit of a joke with me and a friend. He'll start of thinking a book is quite good,

I will then absolutely drag it for filth

And he will then join me in hating it.

Cases in point : Gone Girl (I didn't hate it it just had more holes than a swiss cheese)

100 Year Old Man BLAH BLAH - LOATHED

Also : Station Eleven - PileoShite

Station 11 was shockingly, horrifyingly, exquisitely bad. I honestly can't understand why so many crazy people on here liked it.

Remus

OHMYGOD THANK YOU SO MUCH, I have felt personally victimized by it's popularity, it's a shameless pale imitation of better works that has no basis in logic concentrates at length on an irrelevant character, sets up cheques it can't cash and I physically cringed when a piece of dialogue was :

"Oh it's just like The Passage"

What? You're deliberately referencing a different dystopian novel that is more than several leagues better than your own and thereby voluntarily highlighting the problem?

I rarely venture into dystopian terrain and Station Eleven was enough to make me rush back out screaming.

My favourite dystopias

The Handmaids Tale - Atwood
The End Specialist by Drew Magary
Genus by Jonathan Trigell

Satsuki

I just noticed you are reading American Wife, the Curtis Sittenfeld? I LOVED that. Did you know it's loosely based on the life of Laura Bush?

Station 11 was truly awful. Very weak SF that can only ever be enjoyed by those who liked Never Let Me Go. Or those who have never read SF in their lives.

It was disjointed, devoid of a real plot (let alone an engaging and/or clever one), improbable, and with complete lack of worldbuilding. A viral flu kills off most of the world's population and the the ones left alive somehow manage to find food, shelter, and clean water very easily which leaves them free to procrastinate and whine all day long. That's pretty much all the book talks about anyway.

None of it made much sense. A viral infection that becomes symptomatic in several hours and kills in a day is the easiest disease in the world to contain, since it would burn itself off very quickly. Just broadcast everyone to stay indoors for 1 day - what seems to be the problem?

The post-apocalyptic world rings completely false, as well. All of it falls apart too quickly, and the author has given no thought to what such a world of few survivors would actually be like. "Schools" where kids are taught about the lost world and its comforts made me laugh. Surely, you would try to preserve knowledge of math, chemistry, physics, biology etc rather than stories of how great air conditioning was FFS

Am glad to have avoided Station 11, though I felt a bit like that about Wool, which again lots of people seemed to enjoy!

65)His Bloody Project by Graeme Mckay This was recommended upthread, but although I enjoyed the writing and the structure, I was disappointed by the ending- if you are going to write a murder mystery, there should be some clues as to whodunnit, or else just write a family saga. I thought the lack of conclusion was a bit pretentious to be honest!

Anyone read the Booker Winner yet? I know someone was working through the long list - joyless? Watched a bbc prog on the shortlist last night before the announcement and it was the only one I hadn't really been aware of but after the chats with all the authors I said to dh it was the only one (apart from HBP which I've ordered) that I was interested in, then it won!

everysongbird yes the Sittenfeld. Got it on a deal ages ago after a friend recommended it, was put off by title and cover if I'm honest, only just realised it had the Bush/politics link and thought I'd give it a go since it's election time. It's quite good fun, the only problem is I'm finding myself fancying what I am imagining to be a young George W Bush, which is disturbing. I've got a bit of a cold though so I'm going to chalk it up to delirium and move on.

cote you are making Station Eleven sound hilarious roared at "how great air conditioning was". I'm struggling to think of a book I really hated, as I ditch pretty quickly if I really can't take it, so they're mostly forgotten. It more sticks in my head when I've mostly enjoyed a book but detested some part of it.

I also love the idea that people have favourite dystopias and that some dystopias are just not dystopian in a pleasing way

104. Bridget Jones's Baby: The Diaries, Helen Fielding
Got this from the library and didn't pay anything, but still felt cheated. The film made be laugh a lot; this is just a blatant cash-in. And I am someone who has a soft spot for Bridget, having read the Independent column way back in the pre-book days.

*made me laugh

Whispers - I didn't like The American Wife either, but these days I seem to not like much at all!

Just started Burial Rites though and am enjoying so far.

People are getting regularly scalped in the other book I'm reading remus so I'm finding it mindlessly escapist at the moment, we shall see

Remus

What sort of thing is your fave?

I'll see if I have a rec

Song
Favourite fiction = Jane Austen, Wilkie Collins and Stephen King
Favourtie non-fiction = stuff about polar exploration, mountain disasters, medical history (Victorian freaks etc), 2nd world war stuff, Victorian and Edwardian stuff

Remus I am enjoying The Weather Experiment at the moment -,The Weather Experiment: The Pioneers who Sought to see the Future www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0099581671/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_CRmeybQFQMYEN

Thanks, Meg. I read his Damn His Blood but thought it was pretty weak. Sort of Mr Whicher level, so interesting real life events but told not v well with way too much padding.

Oooo Remus have you read Drood by Dan Simmons? Wilkie Collins is the lead character - it's so random, but really well written story of how his envy of Dickens drove him wild with an OTT supernatural bit that is a bit but overall it's very original.

I didn't like it, Song. Thought it had lots of promise but got more and more stupid as it went on. But in theory, it should have been right up my street!

Satsuki, I didn't get to the Booker winner before it was announced. My read-a-long readathon went really badly as I found most of the offering really horribly disappointing. Although I've returned the other three unread/unfinished offerings to the library, I have held back The Sellout as I hoped it might have some potential. I shall be starting it immediately.

And yes, Tanaqui, I was also bloody irritated by the lack of conclusion on His Bloody Project and agree that it did seem to be done to be pretentious in a "I'm far more clever than a who-dunnit" kinda way. But then, I am dead grumpy about this year's whole Booker experience.

Loving the discussion on the worst ever books though

Agree that the ending of His Bloody Project was disappointing. I didn't think it was pretentious though - just lazy and a bit of a cop-out. It didn't ever set out to be a who-dunnit though - we new who-dunnit from the start.