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.

"And if they did this in the bosom of a genteel, eccentric, but maybe slightly down at heel family . . ."
I think looking at my bookshelves I had a period of reading exactly this sort of book - Rebecca West, Antonia White, EM Delafield, The Dud Avocado (I've lost my copy of this, annoyingly as for a change it was a cheerful one!) - as you say, all Virago Classics

Not that Sally Jay was in the bosom of her family, of course.

I also read Steppenwolf as a rather bolshy teenager. I liked it, but can remember very little about it now. The one I absolutely loved though, was The Glass Bead Game which is possibly even weirder. Have re-read that one several times, but never returned to Steppenwolf.

I'm reading the Henry James and Sherlock Holmes thing, Cote. I have to say that I'm not loving it.

It's all very long winded and a bit arrogant tosser-ish. Rather like James himself, maybe?

Thirties stuff -E.L. Delafield, The Citadel - AJ Cronin, The Good Companions - JB Priestley (might be Twenties actually).

The Cazalets start in the Thirties but are Very dull.

Remus, I will put The Glass Bead Game on my list. I have heard good things about it.

Best, I loved the Cazalets and didn't find them at all dull. I really enjoyed them all!

99. Help! by Oliver Burkeman

Thanks to whoever it was who recommended this (Sadik possibly? I'm sorry, I can't remember). The book is a collection of Burkeman's Guardian columns on self-help books and is highly cynical and very entertaining, as well as pointing out the occasional piece of advice that does seem to work in amongst the rest.

LOL @ risking a ban because of my condescension opinion of first-time female authors

Remus - Sherlock Holmes thing isn't going too well for me, either, which is a shame. I'm only at 9% but it hasn't grabbed me yet.

Glad you liked Help!, Chillie, I find him very amusing.

I'd forgotten AJ Cronin - I loved Crusader's Tomb when I was a teenager - so much angst

Ooh, lots of lovely suggestions, thanks all. I fancy a 1930s comfort reading binge over Christmas. I can do dull if it's comforting. In fact my very favourite book of this type, Ordinary Families by E Arnot Robertson, is quite dull on some levels, but I think that's why I can just pick it up like a favourite old jumper. I will give AJ Cronin and JB Priestley a miss on this occasion, as I want to read writing from this period by women, about women (risks ban for displaying gender bias). Nothing against AJC, but I'm not a big JBP fan (or I wasn't about 20 years ago, maybe I should give him another go).

163. The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena

A couple goes to a dinner party next door and leaves their baby at home. They come back to find the baby has gone. Of course, we gradually find out that nothing is as it seems and everyone is hiding secrets. Not bad!

Ah, sorry Museum, had missed that you wanted female.

86. The Shut Eye - Belinda Bauer

Police procedural. Detective engages a medium to find a missing girl. Meanwhile a mother searching for her missing son consults the same medium and begins to have strange visions of her own.
I am not a fan of 'woo' stuff in detective books, it's a bit of a lazy device imho. I'd rather a proper well thought out resolution.
Also, a very sad book for several reasons. Lots of plot holes too. Having said all that, I did actually enjoy it to an extent.

Museum, I presume you've done the Mitfords and Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm?

Free, I thought this was an interesting perspective: in the post brexit world, I am not sure I can stomach and humour much more of the petty small mindedness of some English people as fictionalised and romanced in so much mid-century literature. I do understand what you mean by this, though I've found this year's events affecting me differently, in that I want to read mainly light-hearted stuff. I saw A Little Life in the library, and I quailed.

In that spirit, I read 112. Summer Half, by Angela Thirkell Not one of her best - another slice of life amongst the prosperous 1930s middle classes. No real plot to speak, apart from the usual mild misunderstandings about who is in love with whom. I like her sympathy for and mild mockery of awkward adolescents and their exasperated parents.

Have started on Artemis Cooper's biography of Elizabeth Jane Howard and am enjoying it.

Museum and biblio, I feel at the moment that I want to comfort read and not read anything too distressing, so although I have A Little Life on my shelf unread, I just don't feel in the mood to start it. I want nice things to happen to pleasant and lovable people in books at the moment because it seems that good things are not happening in the world. Of course, this is always the case, but my mind is full of it at the moment.

Completely agree. Although I still appreciate a bit of crime, if not too graphic, because someone is clever enough to figure out The Truth and put things right again.

So interesting to hear how Brexit and events in the wider world have affected your reading choices. I don't think mine are any different really (except that immediately after Brexit I had less time to read due to trying to keep up with lots of political stuff). I seem to compartmentalise my reading from real life.

Have just started The Dubliners - I've read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man which I enjoyed but I have never been able to handle Ulysses. Not exactly light hearted but enjoying it so far. The language is slightly less impenetrable!

Cote
I'm about half way through, because I haven't got anything else to read. It has some decent bits in amongst a whole load of verbal diarrhea and a pathetic desire to prove that the writer has read some stuff. I read the writer's introduction to Carrion Comfort (it is the same person, yep?) and from that I decided he was a bit of an egotistical git too.

57. Jean-Philippe Rameau: His Life and Work by Cuthbert Girdlestone

This is the brilliant and incredibly influential 18th Century composer & music theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau's definitive biography and critical study of his extensive body of work. I loved every page of this and read it while listening to the various pieces referenced in the book. It is meticulously researched, with amazing detail including the notes (and lyrics, where appropriate) of the pieces discussed in each chapter.

Rameau is the greatest musician in the history of the world whom you have never heard of. He was a contemporary of J.S. Bach (although they never met) and a master of counterpoint (i.e. where different instruments play equally important but different melodies that complement each other) just like Bach. is a beautiful example of Rameau's contrapuntal music.

Rameau is not just a brilliant musician and composer but also arguably the greatest musical theorist ever. His book Treatise On Harmony literally lay down the rules of what we call harmony in music, explaining how AND WHY certain notes come together to form chords that our ears find pleasing. His findings are still taught in music academies today and are used by every songwriter from The Beatles to Iron Maiden.

I was already a fan of Rameau before reading this book as some of you might remember but that was initially through his keyboard works which I had started to try playing on the piano, and I had also started to marvel at his ensemble stuff such as and . This book introduced me to his vocal works... and Oh My Frigging God they are beautiful

I had never willingly listened to an opera for more than 5 minutes before in my life, but now I realise that is because all I've known as 'opera' was the simpler 'Pop' stuff like Mozart. I never knew that it was possible to make such beautiful music that touches both you heart and mind, fills you with longing, and keeps you up at night with the melodies racing in your head. I didn't know that opera lyrics could be stuff other than ridiculous flippant crap

Since you so want to know I will take a moment here to share some of the beautiful music that I have discovered while reading this book. I haven't been able to stop listening to this stuff in the past two weeks.

Start listening from 15:20. Start listening from 31:30 to 37:50.

Cesse cruelle amour

Ah, que votre sort est charmant
Ah que votre sort est charmant / L'amour même a formé vos chaines
(Your fate is so sweet (that) your chains are made of love itself)

In case any of you might one day want to read this book, my one criticism would be that the author quite clearly assumes that the reader will be fluent in French. There area quite a few quotes from Rameau's written works in French and lyrics from his operas that are not translated but commented on.

And since I have by now thoroughly bored you stiff with all this talk of Baroque music, I thought I would provide some amusement by giving you a chance to laugh at my sausage fingers see how I am doing with two of Rameau's rather famous keyboard pieces (keeping in mind of course that I'm a middle-aged amateur and not a hot-shot professional pianist ):

This one is called . Both a sweet melody imho and a fine example of counterpoint, with two hands playing two different melodies complementing each other.

This is one of my favourites, called ("Call of the Birds"), where you can hear the right hand as one bird and the left hand as the other bird, answering each other at some parts, and then coming together to complement each other in a single melody in other parts.

(And if you think you've had enough, please spare a thought for my poor DH and DC who have been on the receiving end while I have binged on this music for months now )

Bravo! I'm very envious of your ability to play Cote.

I really enjoyed your links ( I couldn't open the Deezer ones). That second female singer is just gorgeous. Will definitely listen to more.

I am a musical imbecile but I saw my first ever opera earlier this year and it was wonderful. Ok, it was one of the 'pop' operas (Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci) but it was just beautiful. The choral singing was so moving and the staging was well done. Loved it.

I'm a musical imbecile too but immensely appreciative of people who are musically gifted, which you obviously are Cote!

My mother is the world's greatest Bach fan and (an amateur) pianist but I have never heard her mention Rameau, I must ask her what she knows about him next time I see her.

48. Skellig by David Almond - many of you have read this gorgeous little book about a boy who finds a rather decrepit angel in his garden shed. I loved it, very moving and magical.

For lighthearted cheery periods books you could try Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson or - perhaps more challenging Party Going by Henry Green. Both are full of young people having a rather jolly and, sometimes, thoughtless time. Miss Pettigrew gets the chance to leave her down at heel life for a day. In party going a group of friends who are going on holiday meet at a London fog bound station and various things happen while they wait for the train.

68 A Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam this is the sequal to A Golden Age which I read recently. Maya returns home having become estranged from her brother after the war in the first book. This book examines what happens after a brutal - if brief - war. How do people live their lives and cope with the things they've seen or done. Maya is still angry about so many things and particularly with her brother who has become a devout Muslim. Something she finds almost impossible to accept. I didn't enjoy this one as much as the first book. I missed the perspective of the mother which was so powerful in the first book. It also didn't really explore the perspective of the brother as well as it could have done.

I've now read more books than I did last year. Which means I've either sped up or read easier books this year

I know I've said it before (and will doubtless say it again) I adore Skellig.

Cote I'm still battling with the obnoxious writer and his ridiculously overlong book. When it's good (ie when Holmes is present and actually doing something) it's really quite gripping. Unfortunately there are zillions of pages in which this is not the case, and then it as boring as Westlife but with a larger vocabulary.

103 Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare
Improbably glamorous teenagers battle the forces of evil, pausing from time to time for an emotionally traumatic doomed love affair. Fortunately, one can be reasonably sure that by the end of book 3 (or possibly 5), the forces of evil will be vanquished, and obstacles to love overcome.

I can't imagine that anyone reads CC for the quality of her writing or the plausibility of her plots, but as romantic escapism they hit the spot nicely.