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.

Just dropping in quickly to say the audiobook of the Poisonwood Bible is £2.99 on Audible today.

What is a fangirl?

Omg boldly go buy Deaths End quick! You won't regret it and will give me snd cote someone else to bounce off!

The spy who came in from the cold sounds excellent, can't think why I haven't read it, have purchased now, thanks for the tip

As for Stephen King, The Stand is clearly His masterpiece and I won't hear a word otherwise

also liked Needful Things

Fangirl. DD assures me that boys can also be fangirls, there is no requirement to be female.

One who writes their own version of a popular fiction Cote eg EL James and Twilight, the many Harry Potter Fanfics - the girl in Fangirl is clearly based on a HP fanfic writer except he's called "Simon Snow"

There are of course then fanfic versions of the cod 'Simon Snow' fanfic "Carry On", including more than one complete novel length version - dating from before Rainbow Rowell published her own full length novel of that name (which of course has much fanfic of it's own)

Songbird - Oh dear. I'm afraid your review made me laugh a lot; I apologise for taking pleasure in your suffering.

Glad to oblige Remus

Was it the reason you're done with Kate Atkinson?

Why would anyone want to read sequels/prequels that other readers have written about books they have enjoyed?

Is that a thing?

I must have led a sheltered life of good books.

Frequently for the removal of plot and addition of sex, Cote . . .

I read that the 50 Shades of Grey books started life as Twilight fanfiction.

Both series are best avoided IMO.

It's completely a thing Cote and as Sadik suggests it's always about bonking.

There are loads of gay fan fic in which Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are bonking not just their Sherlock characters and loads about Loki and Thor Tumblr is a world of filth.

There' a popular Harry one called I believe (not read it) My Immortal in which Hermione and Draco end up together.

wilting, I'm currently about a third of the way through.

To be fair, they're not always X rated (good thing given dd's fanfic habit).

Songbird- Nope. Not read her more recent ones. I liked Behind the Scenes and the first couple of JB ones but then I fell out with her for repeated stupid lazy coincidences in the JB series, but, even more, for the abomination that was Human Croquet.

"There are loads of gay fan fic in which Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are bonking not just their Sherlock characters and loads about Loki and Thor Tumblr is a world of filth."

WHY on God's green Earth would ANYONE want to read such crap?!?!

Just... WHY?

Please tell me Thor and Loki aren't bonking each other in these fanfic stories?

Aren't they supposed to be brothers? In the Marvel films at any rate.

No way am I going to start googling this.

If anybody is interested in an examination of fanfic, Anne Jamison's Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World is a decent place to start. Constance Penley and Henry Jenkins also have written influential works on fanfiction and participatory culture. Some of it is about sex, but sex isn't the whole of it by any measure.

43. All Saints by KD Miller. A series of linked short stories, All Saints' common thread is a small, withering Anglican church in downtown Toronto. The stories mostly examine the quiet desperation of the characters' lives, with two exceptions: October Song and Hereos, which deal with a shocking crime and its aftermath.

I read this one for book club; I'd have never picked it up otherwise. I don't regret my time with it, but aside from the two stories mentioned, I don't know that much will stay with me.

"Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World"

Fan fiction is taking over the world? Maybe her world. I haven't noticed any such conquest in progress.

My oldest loves fanfic which is why I read the book. She reads it about Dan Is Not On Fire and Amazing Phil, the YouTube bloggers. God help us all. Yes, the book is probably aimed at teens. It's bad but I couldn't put it down

Fan fiction is taking over the world? Maybe her world. I haven't noticed any such conquest in progress

Never change, cote

65. The Circle by Dave Eggers

This was quite a fun dystopian read about how we are all basically shafted with our Mumsnet our Facebook, our online banking, and the reduction of our personalities and interactions into smiley faces. It was v readable, but did feel overlong for its message and a bit frustrating plot-wise; the characters were superficial but I think that was kind of the point. The world it depicts is only a slight shift forward from our own, and this gives it an uncanny feel which I liked, but which it could have delivered on more. I'm also having a bad time of it re: cringey sex scenes. Not brilliant by any means, but I enjoyed it, and the next time I get asked to fill in one of those online surveys, see people out at a restaurant looking at their phones instead of talking to each other, or instagramming the shit out their holidays as they happen (or uploading their finished books to Goodreads as I'm about to!) I will probably think of this book.

110. Cockfosters, Helen Simpson

I've been a fan of this author's short stories for years, although I rarely read short stories at all. She's a few years ahead of me, so each collection feels like it casts a light on the decade or so to come. So here we have men and women in their late 40s and early 50s, reflecting on where they are in life and what lies ahead.

If I wanted to be critical, I might point to use of a certain formula: characters carry out some activity (eat dinner, watch opera, meet in a bookclub) and chat, while at the back of their minds they brood about Life. But what she does, she does really well - funny and truthful.

Currently on 111. The Dead House, Harry Bingham
Another police procedural starting that strange young police officer, Fiona Griffiths. Obsessed with getting the bad guy, she single-handedly unearths vital clues yada yada. It is well executed.

"Never change, cote "

Thanks, Satsuki. I'll let MNHQ know you said so, next time they threaten me with a ban

Thinking on fanfiction - do spin off books and sequels not by the author count as fanfiction?

Or does it stop being fanfiction once the author's getting paid for reusing the characters?

E.g. books like Death Comes to Pemberley or Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, where Jane Austen, who created the original characters, has clearly had nothing to do with these novels imagining new scenarios for her characters?