50 Book Challenge 2016 Part Seven

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the final thread 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, please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read, and to anyone who hasn't posted, feel free to de-lurk and share with us what you've read so far this year.

The first thread of 2016 is here, second thread here, third thread here, fourth thread here, fifth thread here and sixth thread here.

55. The Last Act of Love - Cathy Rentzenbrink. A memoir focusing on how the lives of the author and her family were changed after her brother was seriously injured in a car accident. It was all quite readable but ultimately i couldn’t see the point of her writing the book and feel it would have been better if she hadn’t glossed over certain things.

Placemarking so I remember to come back and update: fell off the thread some time ago around book 60 - my Kindle folder is now up at 113 so it's rather daunting trying to think about updating. I might just do highlights & low points.

Wanted to point out a Kindle book I've just started reading that's currently 1.99 on a deal - Misbehaving: The making of behavioral economics by Richard Thaler (who wrote Nudge). I've got to chapter 6 so far, and it's well written and engaging. Have to admit that I've got further into thus in the couple of hours since buying it than I have got into Thinking Fast and Slow in a couple of years.

Remus - I see that Nod is 99p. Do I want to pick it up or will it further infuriate my head that is already messed up by The Fifth Heart.

On that subject, I'm at 85% and can't get further than 3-4 pages at a go. At night, it just puts me to sleep. In the daytime, my mind just wanders and I put it down

"Infuriate my head" When I start mixing up expressions from different languages, you can tell that I'm not in a good place

121. I, Nomad, by Alan Partridge
Mildly amusing spoof of the celeb walking genre (Julia Bradbury/Clare Balding).

Aggh, not been able to update for a while due to all kinds of crap including my car failing (expensively) and children succumbing to sickness bugs, school plays etc. Just caught up on the thread now though and love everyones reviews. Am eyeing my North Water with interest. I think I got in for 99p too actually.

Sadly none of the following books induced moistness, but I have managed to read:
100. Through the Looking Glass – Lewis Carroll
Another classic I had never read! It’s hard not to love this though. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t know this was where Jabberwocky came from.

101. We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley Jackson
     Brilliant and I loved this. It’s dark, but somehow shines at the same time due to the clarity of the writing. One I recommend.

102. The Observances – Kate Miller
     Modern and very accessible poetry which for the most part I enjoyed. A couple of really standout poems here but overall I much prefer Gillian Clarke, who is still my favourite poet and currently the national poet of Wales.

103. The Vegetarian – Han Kang
     There’s some rather uncomfortable imagery in this novel which focuses on a Korean woman who becomes vegetarian following a visceral dream. The story is told in three parts by her husband, brother in law and sister so it’s interesting to get different viewpoints. Strange and disturbing – this won the International Booker prize and is thought to be a good translation.

104. Skios – Michael Frayn
     You can tell this is written by a playwright because this farce, set on a Greek Island and centred around mistaken identity (and the question of who we really are) is set up like a play. In fact I wonder if it started as a play and became a novel. It would have worked better as a play I think, but there was something about this that made me race through it with pleasure.

Anyone want to join in? best reads of 2016

whippet I liked the image of children "succumbing" to school plays as well as sick bugs

I also think "infuriate my head" is a great expression, and apt for many different circumstances

I haven't had any time to read much this week

39. The Girl Who Had No Fear by Marnie Riches

This is a crime thriller set in Amsterdam, Cambridge, London and Mexico which follows the Criminologist Dr George Mackenzie and her partner Paul van Bergen, a Dutch police detective and his team as they try to break up international drug trafficking networks and kidnapping rings. This time their investigations take them to Central America and a lot is at stake for George as both her parents are missing.

I really didn't like this book. It is the fourth in the series and I had enjoyed the previous three which had been free on kindle or 99p. The first half of the novel is set mostly in Amsterdam and suspicious are aroused when the bodies of several gay men are discovered in the canals a matter of weeks apart. The depictions of gay men as drug and sex addicts really put me off, and the homophobia continued with the Dutch detective's "haemorrhoids tingling" every time he interviewed a gay man. There was also a clichéd and unconvincing coming out for another character. Add in some crude racial stereotypes of Central American women and I seriously considered not finishing it. The pacing and writing picked up a bit towards the end but weren't enough to change my overall negative opinion.

40. His Bloody Project was great. It has been reviewed here enough times but it was a really satisfying, quick but sad read.

I am now on 41. The Sellout to take full advantage of my free month of Kindle Unlimited. I am only around 30 pages in but am enjoying the writing so far, even if the plot isn't that clear yet.

52. Peter Cook - A Biography - Harry Thompson

Yes, that Harry Thompson, of This Thing Of Darkness fame - which I didn't realise before I read this (Thompson was a comedy writer and one of the founders of Have I Got News For You). Anyway, this is every bit as good as you'd expect from such a tremendous writer; humane, unflinching and not overly romanticising Cook's life and death. I can't remember the last time a book has made me both laugh out loud and cry. Highly recommended not just for comedy fans but as a great piece of social history.

His Bloody Project reminded me in a lot of ways of Iain Crichton Smith's Consider the Lilies which is also set in the Highlands during the 19th Century. Narrative structure is totally different and Consider the Lilies takes more clearly the theme of the Church's collusion in the suffering of their congregations during the Clearances and the hypocrisy of organised religion but they are both short novels which are similar in their treatment of a main character who is a prisoner of their circumstances and cannot cope with the changes for the worse happening in their community.

It is also only £1.99 on the kindle store at the moment.

Cote - I only bought Nod because it was 99p. It's okay but nothing more, and the writer appears to have spent more time trying to show off about vocabulary than actually constructing much of a plot. The main advantage it has over The Five Million Pages of Boring Nonsense Pretending to Be a Novel about Sherlock Holmes is that it is very short.

I have Nod to be read and I am sad.

It's not absolutely dreadful. Fine for just something light and trashy that doesn't require any effort.

I'm still meandering through The City & The City.

But, I saw Zadie Smith, who was erudite and luminous and so thoughtful in her answers. Sadly, she didn't take questions, so I couldn't get her opinion on literature-induced moistness.

Also, I agree with Satsuki about the excellence of the Penguin podcast. I'm also partial to The Librarian Is In (which I appreciate won't be everybody's thing) and the New Yorker's Fiction podcast. Writers and Company is another good one; it's features interviews conducted by the excellent Eleanor Wachtel (who interviewed Zadie Smith at the talk on Tuesday).

Every

Thanks for those other podcast suggestions vanderly I like the look of the New Yorker one
Podcasts about books have been my saving grace this week, I'm making bedding for my dd's doll for Christmas in my usual reading time. I've got 3 books to finish before end of year and I'd like to get there.

45. The City & The City by China Mieville. This one's been reviewed several times on previous threads, and I really have nothing new to add. I enjoyed it, though it took me ages to finish; however, I can how people find it problematic.

Satsuki, the New Yorker Fiction podcast has introduced me to some wonderful short stories/short story writers; I was very pleased to discover Lore Segal and Julie Hayden through it. I listened to several episodes a week this summer during my commute. I think they'd be very good to listen while you sew.

58. The Fifth Heart by Dan Simmons

The author has had a lobotomy in recent years. That is my only explanation for this complete and utter crapola of a book with no discernible plot, from the man who wrote Hyperion and Carrion Comfort.

Sherlock Holmes travels from the UK to the US with Henry James, the writer, after running into him in Paris while both are trying to commit suicide by the river. No, really. The rest of the book doesn't get any less eye-rolly, either. My personal bugbear was that Sherlock just knows stuff, with no explanation whatsoever, often just saying he doesn't know how he knows them. Like, he can understand and speak a Native Indian dialect, which he only realises once he meets a Native Indian. It was bull.

What a disappointment after the exquisite pleasure that was the Rameau book.

Slade House by David Mitchell

Well this was unexpected. After reading some titles from this here thread I downloaded some samples and was taken with this most. I didn't particularly care that much for Cloud Atlas, I found it wanky.

I don't think I'd have given David Mitchell another go else.

I enjoyed it, the vignettes but so much is left unexplained, like how Marinus knows so much but then I saw somewhere, she's in the Bone Clocks. so....with it being more a novella, is this is a bit of an additional short story to the Bone Clocks then?

And I really should have read that first?

I get quite anal about this sort of thing, I was super pissed off when part way through reading The Quality Of Mercy (which I really enjoyed) realised it was a sequel to Sacred Hunger which I hadn't read.

There was a line I absolutely loved though, so it has intrigued me further about The Bone Clocks

I don't think you need to have read Bone Clocks first necessarily, if you go on and read it you will see links etc. but SH not a sequel.BC is more accessible and flows in a more linear way than CA; definitely has more akin with SH in style. Has a bonkers bollocksy bit in it but still good. Read it now! Personally, CA is the better book in that its structure and meaning are entwined perfectly together to make a coherent whole; Bc is less well structured in that way, but more fun (generally speaking...)

cote there was that chapter in Hyperion written by the sweary poet that I just cringed through though, so I'm not completely sold on the lobotomy theory...

166. The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins

Reread. I loved it the first time I read it, and enjoyed it again this time as I couldn't remember what happened. I commute by train and often stare at people's houses wondering about the lives of the people who live there so that side of it appeals to me!

167. Slade House by David Mitchell

I have never read any David Mitchell books before, but I liked the idea of the house behind the tiny door that not everyone can find. I will definitely seek out The Bone Clocks now I know it's linked!

168. Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld

A modern retelling of Pride & Prejudice, as part of The Austen Project. I've read all of the Project books so far and this is the best in my opinion. I really enjoyed it - yes it's fluffy and silly, but enjoyable and keeps to the plot (well, as much as you can in modern day Cincinnati!). My only gripe is that I didn't actually like the Liz character much which does let it down considering she is the one you're meant to be rooting for!

169. Dracula by Bram Stoker

A classic that I've never read before. Started well and I enjoyed the bits in Dracula's castle. However, once the action (or lack of!) moved back to England I got bored and I found the multiple points of view difficult to keep track of. Also (SPOILER ALERT!!) I was disappointed that Dracula himself is hardly in it at all!

170. All Balls And Glitter: My Life by Craig Revel Horwood

Cheap kindle deal! Didn't take long to read and was surprisingly entertaining with some Strictly gossip - was published in about 2009 though so nothing more recent which is a shame - would have liked to have read his views on Alesha and Darcey as judges!

171. In Too Deep by Samantha Hayes

Psychological thriller. Woman's son is killed in a hit and run, then a couple of years later her husband pops to the shops and just vanishes. A hotel rings up a few months hater and says the husband booked it before he vanished, so the wife decides she may as well go, only to find the hotel owner being suspiciously friendly. Story was well paced but the main character was frustratingly obtuse and she and her daughter acted in very bizarre ways. The ending left far too many plot holes for my liking.

172. The Other Side by Chevy Stevens

Short story linked to one of her novels. OK, but too short to really get into and flesh out the story.

173. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

This was a recommendation from this thread a while back. In Victorian times, a depressed woman is confined to her room by her husband and starts obsessing about the wallpaper. I'm afraid it just didn't connect with me and I couldn't work out what was actually going on by the end. At least it was short!

122, This Thing of Darkness, Harry Bingham

Weird coincidence, Meg! Criminal masterminds plotting in Wales, with a climactic scene on a North sea trawler. A police procedural with a maverick cop. I know others on here disliked books in the series, but I enjoyed it.

Are you sure you've got the right book there, biblio?

I had to google that cote but there are two with the same title and very similar author names.