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.

Aha, see what you mean! For someone who reads a lot, my reading comprehension is baaaaad.

I had to Google, too. For a minute there, I had no idea what biblio was talking about with all that criminal masterminds plotting in Wales, a police procedural with a maverick cop, etc

71. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. I didn't find this as interesting as Outliers, but it did make me think I should get back to Thinking Fast and Slow which I started in June! It is about how we make quick decisions, and whether or. It we should rely on them (he doesn't really conclude, but I'd say yes, except when anything at all might depend on them- apparently we are instinctively accurate but. It when under stress.

Updating with books 80-90.

80. Pyramids – Terry Pratchett. This is a standalone Discworld book. On his father’s death Teppic becomes Pharaoh in the kingdom of Djelibeybi where despite his reservations agrees to the building of a pyramid for his recently deceased father in accordance to the ancient tradition of pyramid building in his impoverished country. The story line contains maths, quantum, temporal dislocation, a camel called You Bastard and a Trojan style war. Funny and clever in typical Pratchett style.

81. A Hat Full of Sky – Terry Pratchett. This is the second of Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching books. Following the enormous success of The Wee Free Men both DS and I looked forward to this story with great anticipation. It did not let us down. In this story, Tiffany is learning more about witchcraft and politics while having to battle with something old and horrible which is trying to take her over. With the help of the Nac Mac Feegles, Tiffany wins the day. Next up with DS will be Wintersmith which is one of my annual festive reads.

82. Neuortribes: The Legacy of Autism and How To Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently – Steve Silberman. This was a well researched and fascinating overview of the history of autism spectrum disorders. It was quite a journey through the years and how for so long the medical community got it so wrong and did not connect the dots. It was disturbing and harrowing in parts, particularly the piece about the mistreatment and abuse of people with disabilities by the Nazis and it was quite disturbing that at the same time many of these views were shared and articulated by groups who supported eugenics in the US and elsewhere. Silberman sensitively addressed the tensions that exist between those who think autism needs to be cured and those who advocate for greater understanding and acceptance of neurodiversity. This book for me was as much about the human rights issues and Silberman writes with sensitivity and compassion. This is one of the best books I have read this year.

83. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street – Natasha Pulley. London, 1880s and when Thaniel Steepleton finds a watch in his room he is perplexed as to where it came from. Later the watch sounds an alarm that saves his life from a Fenian bomb so Thaniel sets out to find Keita Mori who is the watchmaker. Thaniel also meets Grace who is a physicist and needs to get married in order to obtain her inheritance and continue her studies. I found this book poor on plot and connective narrative. It was recommended to me by someone who generally shares similar taste but it just didn’t work for me, despite the hint of steampunk and fantasy.

84. The Last Dragonslayer – Jasper Fforde. DS and I listened to this on school runs in advance of the movie which will be on Sky over the Christmas period. I really do enjoy Fforde’s original and whacky storytelling and this lends very well to the audio format. Plenty of magic and fantasy along with great fun and laughs.

85. The Humans – Matt Haig. This is the story of an alien who comes to earth and take over the persona of Prof Andrew Martin, mathematician, philanderer, absent father etc. Prof Martin has made a mathematical discovery and the aliens do not believe that people on earth are capable of handling the truth of this discovery. So the alien/narrator is tasked with destroying the evidence and killing everyone who knows about it. As the story evolves the alien/narrator discovers what it means to be human. I get (I think) what Matt Haig was doing with this but it didn’t work for me at all.

86. A History of Britain Volume 1: At the Edge of the World: 3000BC to 1603 –Simon Schama. This is the first of a three volume series. I listened to this on the work commute and enjoyed it enormously. As you might expect in a volume of this type some areas were skimmed over and others particularly the earlier years’ were discussed in more detail. I do read or listen to a lot of history books so this was a welcome addition and revision of what I already knew but might have forgotten with the passage of time. I will definitely read or listen to the rest of the series.

87. & 88. Holy Island and Sycamore Gap– L.J.Ross. First and second books of the DC Ryan novels. The first book is set on Holy Island where a young local girl has been found murdered and her body left in a ritualistic type display in the ruins of the monastery at the winter solstice. The lead detective is DC Ryan and early in the book there is a love interest introduced which influences some of what follows. Despite the annoyance I felt with the introduction of the romance, the story did move along quite well and I enjoyed it enough to download the second book Sycamore Gap. In book two, another body has been found in Hadrian’s Wall. This time the murdered girl had gone missing years earlier around the summer solstice and on further investigation DS Ryan and the team found that a number of other young women had gone missing around the same date over the years, indicating that there was a religious/ritualistic theme to the disappearances and killings. I liked these a lot and enjoyed the use of other beliefs and rituals to inform the stories. I am now on the third book in the series.

88. To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee. A reread of an old favourite and still as powerful now as it was the first time I read it.

89. Wintersmith – Terry Pratchett. Third book in the Tiffany Aching series. In this one the spirit of winter falls in love with Tiffany after she jumps into a dance and displaces summer. In the meantime he tries to demonstrate his love by making Tiffany shaped snowflakes, icebergs etc and while these are ll nice romantic gestures, people are freezing and the sheep are at risk of dying with the cold. With the help of the Nac Mac Feegle, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, Tiffany has to try and undo the damage and get the summer back, otherwise it will be winter forever. I am a huge Pratchett fan and this, I think is one of my absolute favourite Pratchett books.

I am almost finished The Calculated Life by Anne Charnock and the third LJ Ross book. Then it will be time to start on my seasonal reading list which so far includes:

The Box of Delights - John Masefield
The 13 Days of Christmas - Jenny Overton
Murder Under the Christmas Tree - Cecily Gayford
A Boy Called Christmas - Matt Haig
A Christmas Party - Georgette Heyer
Hercule Poirot's Christmas - Agatha Christie

Most likely will also have my annual reread of Hogfather, The Dark is Rising and A Christmas Carol.

Book 126
Stormbird by Conn Iggulden
The first in his ‘Wars of the Roses’ series. Henry 6th is a weak and sickly king, and Britain and France have signed a precarious truce. This was okay. The problem, I think, was that he was trying to do rather too much, and he wasn’t sure which characters he wanted us to most care about. This meant that it was a bit disjointed at times, and also that there was a section at the beginning and another at the end that didn’t really belong to the text as a whole. It had some really good sections, but as a whole, I wasn’t entirely convinced. Don't think I'll bother with the rest of this series.

41. The Sellout by Paul Beatty

I loved this satire of American society and how it treats race, and specifically African Americans. It was both very funny and very depressing when you think of how arbitrarily unfair and unequal life is, and not only in the US. This book really stuck with me and I think I will come back to it often. I like books that make me uncomfortable and make me question and this book did that really well. I also think it was really well written with some great use of simile.

I am just reading the reviews of The Sellout on amazon. I wish some of the reviews could be added to the end of the novel as an addendum. My God.

"I know it is written about a working class negro but..."

"Genuinely funny in places and well written, despite the overuse of the F word no doubt down to the brother trying to keep it 'real' and 'happening'...Perhaps Spike Lee can work with the material and make it something more - something truly real and happening :)"

"Let's applaud diversity but why grovel in historical injustice?"

and a personal favourite, "A great parody of African Americans".

I get that tastes differ, but I think these reviewers have just proven Beatty's point.

56. The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well - Meik Wiking. Nicely written and organised book which explains the background of Hygge and how to create it day to day.

Taking a break now from Afinity to read the memoir from the late A.A Gill, Pour Me.

alteredimages, I am looking forward to reading The Sellout now. I'm going to read it in January and try and read some of the other recent Booker winners too, as I haven't managed to read the last three winners. I want them to have a year off so I can catch up.

Meanwhile, I am on a roll people!
105. Midwinterblood - Marcus Sedgewick
Fantasy story (couldn't work out if it was YA or not - I think it was) that starts in the future when a journalist visits an isolated island surrounded by rumours of a prolonging elixir. The story then skips backwards in time with seven different iterations. I thought this would be wintery, it wasn't really. Nor was it any good and the writing was cliched.

106. The Running Hare - John Lewis-Stempel
Nature writing again. This time, Lewis-Stempel farms a field in the traditional way by eliminating pesticides and planting wildflowers amongst his grain and in the field boundaries to encourage birds and insects. It's impossible not to be concerned about the use of chemicals in agriculture and intensive farming methods after reading this book and I now view every field I see very differently. This really was rather good and Stempel is observant and knowledgeable about the British countryside and its literary tradition. It's a good combination.

107. Vinegar Girl - Anne Tyler
Her take on The Taming of the Shrew. This didn't work for me at all but because it's Anne Tyler I let if off with a warning, because generally I love her writing and there were some good bits here leading me to derive some enjoyment from reading it. On the whole though, this was both unbelievable and fairly ridiculous. It's a hard play to bring into the present day due to its attitudes to women etc. Probably best left alone.

104 The Antidote by Oliver Burkeman

A celebration of the power of negative thinking - the title suggesting it is an antidote to positive thinking which suffuses most self-help books. Burkeman argues that trying too hard to be happy actually makes us miserable, and I can go along with that! So he looks at Stoicism and the modern-day Stoics, the Buddhist guide to not thinking positively, the hidden benefits of insecurity, and actually goes to meet Eckhart Tolle and discusses his ideas as well. Entertaining and thought-provoking.

" actually goes to meet Eckhart Tolle and discusses his ideas as well."

I wonder how that went.

"Hi Eckhart. You say even stones are conscious because otherwise their atoms wouldn't hold together. Are you stupid? Or just woefully ignorant?"

46. Today Will Be Different, by Maria Semple.

vanderley I'm desperate to read that but too cheap to buy it...but... what did you think of it?

Book 127
Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz
Hmm. After a strange and slow start, I was quite enjoying this. And then I got to the final section, which was, quite frankly, ridiculous. Biblio warned me about this book, ages ago, but I was taken in my a 99p Kindle offer and the thought of Holmes. Should have learned my lesson with The Fifth Heart.

Apparently there were lots of silences Cote and surprisingly Burkeman, in spite of himself as he admits, eventually found himself feeling comfortable and peaceful in the silences.

That makes me laugh, Chillie

Hmm, I have Moriarty on my bookshelf in the TBR pile. Maybe I'll move it down to the bottom.

Have somehow managed to order two copies of The Change by Germaine Greer. I'll have to find someone to give one to.

Currently reading Keep On Keeping On, the latest of Alan Bennett's diary. It's heavenly, gossipy, trivial, funny, self-deprecating, lovely book.

Satsuki, it's expensive here, too--$35 for the hardback. I found a copy for $10 at a secondhand bookstore, so I snapped it up.

I liked the book quite a bit, though I'll say straight off that Eleanor, the narrator, has some similarities in terms of character and quirks to Bernadette (who makes a brief cameo): a reluctant transplant to Seattle who's given up her job and is a bit prickly and dismissive at times, but who has an inner decency. While the forward action of the novel takes place over the course of one day, it flashes back to Eleanor's past, including her childhood and working life. The book is often funny and is quite satiric in places, but I did find some of it a bit sad.

While I'd not rate it as highly as Bernadette, I do think it's worth a read! I hope you come across a reasonably priced copy soon.

59. Full Dark No Stars by Stephen King

I really enjoyed this book of 4 novellas by SK. He is a fantastic storyteller with great stories to tell - no doubt about it - but I must say I was very much disappointed in the last couple of books of his that I've read: The Cell (ludicrous, awful), Dr Sleep (OK but not terribly special), Mr Mercedes (mediocre). So disillusioned that I haven't bothered with Mr Mercedes sequels Finders Keepers and End Of Watch.

This book, though, is a proper SK book like he used to make them. I would totally recommend it to all his fans.

107 The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch
Latest Rivers of London book (no. 6). Entertaining enough, but I liked the last one better, it feels like he might be running out of oomph a bit now. I read them as I see them in the library, not something I'd bother actually buying.

I enjoyed Moriarty but agree with you about the ending, Remus.

105. Dynasty by Tom Holland

The rise and fall of the House of Caesar, so looking at the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. Although some of the excesses might be apocryphal, which Holland covers, to realise the things that the various emperors actually did do is pretty horrifying. Much of it I had at least a passing awareness of, in part due to the TV series I, Claudius, which did play up some of the more lurid apocryphal elements. I think it's just seeing it all set down in one place that increases the horror level. That and the fact that Tom Holland is a very good storyteller, of course.

Chillie - I thought it was excellent until the end. The end absolutely ruined it for me though.
Cote Which story did you like best? I think there are a couple of crackers in there and totally agree that it feels like King doing what he does best.

Book 128
A Cabinet of medical Curiosities Jan Bondeson
I liked this. It’s exactly what it says on the tin – a ‘cabinet’ collection of stories about medical curiosities. I liked this better the closer to the Victorian era it approached – I thought the earlier stuff wasn’t really about medicine but about mythology, and I was much more interested in the medicine. A good book to dip in and out of for anybody interested in stories such as Mary Toft who claimed to have given birth to rabbits, Julia Pastrana, the bearded lady and so on.

Sadik - Still waiting for my copy of The Hanging Tree from the library. Long waiting list :(

But on the up side, I did pick up my copy of Holding by Graham Norton this morning. Has anyone else read it?

Not surprised Mermaid - I'm not quite sure how come I got it so quick - I think it happened to be travelling through our local library and got diverted to me! I've read it doublequick so can take it back tomorrow :)

Rivers of London didn't do it for me- i think maybe because I was expecting something different. I ought to try the second I guess as on paper it is right up my street.

72. Envious Casca by Georgette Heyer. As I think someone mentioned upthread, this has been republished as The Christmas Party, so I though it would be a good seasonal read. Annoyingly I did remember whodunnit and why (I am usually very good at forgetting), but it was still worth the read.