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.

Been away and missed a bit of the thread. Have had a quick glance over and thanks for the vote of 'Non-horribleness' below!

Book 112
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
Early 19th century Iceland and two men have been brutally murdered. One of the accused is a female servant and a local family is forced to take her in prior to her execution. This is a real slow-boiler, not much happens, and there’s a lot of description of silent brooding landscapes and a rather sweet gauche young Assistant Reverend who the condemned woman has requested to assist her spiritually in her final days. I really liked this – a big surprise as a book about a woman by a woman isn’t what I’d usually go for (except for the wonderful Austen, of course).

Book 113
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Blimey – three in a row that I’ve enjoyed. I thought I’d read this as a teen, but, if I did, I couldn’t remember anything at all of it. A young man with learning difficulties is operated on in a scientific experiment to try to make a genius out of him, following promising initial experiments on mice (particularly the Algernon of the title). I thought the concept was good, and the structure was also good. It begins with Charlie unable to spell, punctuate or really understand what’s going to be done to him or any of the potential implications other than that he wants to 'get smart', and then after the operation we see the writing style change into an increasingly twattish intellectualism, coupled with a bit of a double obsession (on the writer's part, as well as the characters) with sex and defecation (clearly the writer has read his 'Brief Introduction to Freud'). And here’s where my problem was – the middle section, where he’s a rather troubled genius, is by far the weakest part of the book. I won’t say anything about the ending, other than that I thought it worked and why ultimately I'm being largely positive about the book, despite the flawed middle section.

remus, if you enjoyed Burial Rites you may also enjoy her next book The Good People. I don't think it's due out till Feb but I was lucky enough to read a review copy and enjoyed it.

Thanks, Boldly.

Flowers for Algernon is excellent, isn't it, Remus. Our local bookshop periodically has various of the SF Masterworks series on their cheap shelf of remainder/overstock books, and I've been working my way through various SF classics that I've never read / read as a teen and can't really remember that way, most of which have been well worth reading (if a bit dated in some cases).

94. Numero Zero by Umberto Eco

A novella, I think, rather than a fully rounded Eco novel. There's still the conspiracy theory involved - this one around whether or not Mussolini was actually shot in 1945 - as well as, in this case, a look at the cynical world of newspapers. The setting is the office of a brand new newspaper in Milan in 1992, funded by a very wealthy businessman, which is intended never to be published although most of the staff are unaware of this. Colonna, a 50-something self-described loser, has been recruited by the editor Simei to ghost write a book of the year of the establishment of the newspaper and is given the role of assistant editor to explain his presence in the office. Braggadocio is the colleague with the paranoid theories around Mussolini's body-double, but it's not until a murder and the premature closing of the newspaper that Colonna starts to take Braggadocio's theories seriously.

It's very lightweight for Eco and not one of his best, which is a shame for his last novel, but it's an entertaining enough short read.

I've abandoned quite a few this year, mainly in the summer when headaches where destroying my reading!

I have also found a pattern that after a book I love, I really struggle with the one after, like I don't give the next book a chance if it's less than perfect!

I don't usually abandon books, either, no matter how painful frustrating they get. Among notable exceptions that have defeated me is Catcher In The Rye, for example, which was just a load of unintelligible nonsense.

I wasn't a big fan of Flowers For Algernon. It's not bad where it describes his ascent from well-meaning idiot to normal and then genius, but the second half of the book isn't that convincing IMHO.

99 Paranormality: the science of the supernatural, Richard Wiseman.

Lightweight overview of the various explanations for apparantly supernatural phenomena. Nothing really new to me (I've read much better books on techniques for cold reading, for example), but entertainingly written.

Agree, Cote. But I loved the first part and thought the v final section worked too, hence overall positivity. It's another novel that might have worked better as a novella or short story (there are so many of these!).

Flowers for Algernon was a short story first, which Keyes then expanded into a novel- I think I have read them both but 25 years ago so can't recall which worked best! The idea worked very well.

58. My Antonia by Willa Cather a reread. I thought maybe I'd overestimated it in memory, but it still moved me; a feeling which resonates with the story itself. A beautiful tale of immigrants beginning a new life in the new world, working to tame the harsh Nebraska landscape to accommodate their farms and their families. Jim Burden recalls his childhood friend Antonia, who comes to stand for the youth, beauty and promise of the new country, even as she conjures nostalgia for the past and all that was left behind. It has a wonderfully written sense of place, and any potential seep into sentimentality is tempered by the unvarnished realities of life on the prairie, and the physical and mental hardships required to survive it.

Have been meaning to get round to Algernon for a while.

Book 114
111 Places in Berlin: On the Trail of the Nazis by Paul Kohl
Loved this. It’s exactly what it says it is – a book about 111 places in and around Berlin that are linked to the Nazis. I’ve read an awful lot on this subject, as regular readers will be well aware of, but this book taught me about some places/episodes that I hadn’t yet come across. It’s also a really lovely book to own. Each place gets a full page double picture – of the place in history, or people connected to it, and what is like now (or what’s on the site now, if it no longer exists). Excellent and I’ll definitely be looking out for more in this series.

Satsuki - have started My Antonia but finding it a bit dull at the moment. Might have to out it aside and come back to it later.

It is more quietly atmospheric than it is gripping, I would say, Remus.

Haven't met Antonia yet, so maybe I'll like it better once I've met a few more characters!

54. Death's End (The Three-Body Problem #3) by Liu Cixin

This was INCREDIBLE! Never have I ever thought there would come a time when Neal Stephenson would be dethroned, but this book makes Seveneves look like it was written by a child

Death's End is not just about what happens to a few characters. It is the story of the entire human race. And the universe. And the rules of Physics. (No, really). The book has so much going on that it is Speculative Fiction, Dystopian, Apocalyptic, and Post-Apocalyptic all at once. A more commercially-minded author could have milked 10 books out of Death's End.

I thought the first two books in this series were very good. This one surpasses them by a mile. It surpasses every SF book by a mile

It's like Seveneves, The Diamond Age, and Anathem rolled up into one book. And those I consider to be SF's finest.

What the hell do I read now?

I'm itching to talk about it, actually.

I made a thread for Death's End so come & talk to me if you've read it.

There will soon be spoilers galore, I hope, so you might want to look elsewhere if you plan on reading Death's End.

Where are you, wilting?

59. We Have Always Lived in the Castle Shirley Jackson

I enjoyed this, but did feel a little "padded", despite being short, and felt like it didn't really lead anywhere. I liked the narration and tone.

Satsuki - Yep. Yet another 'Should have been a short story' novel!

I was left with a BIG QUESTION off that. I'm not starting another spoiler thread though.

Go on, Song! :)

No-one replied last time for AGES!

(Mutter, mutter)

Go on, then!

Are we having a spoiler thread standoff? I can start one, do you all take sugar in your tea

Though I don't know what your question is, so can't ask it and try and answer it...

Done.