Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

50 Book Challenge 2017 Part One

999 replies

southeastdweller · 01/01/2017 10:12

Welcome to the first thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2017, 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.

Who's in for this year?

OP posts:
eitak22 · 02/01/2017 17:32

Finished my first book late last night.

1. C is for Corpse Sue Grafton. Third in her Alphabet series which i found last month. An easy read crime thriller. Kinsey Millone is a private detective who is twice divorced and former police. I like the fact she is by no means a perfect character (same reason i like Temperance Brennan). In this book she is approached by a guy convinced the accident he had 9 months ago was an attempt on his life, shortly after asking her to investigate he is dead. Quite a common set up but really well done and i didn't expect the person who was the murder although i would say the ending felt rushed. Im not sure if its to represent the adrenaline/fear she experienced but considering the build up there didn't seem to be a huge explanation.

Decided to start on D is for Deadbeat by the same author as finding the easy reads at the minute.

RemusLupinsChristmasMovie · 02/01/2017 17:33

Best - playing to the Gallery excellent. Dp had The Descent f Man for Christmas, so that's now on my to-read pile. He said it was excellent.

RemusLupinsChristmasMovie · 02/01/2017 17:33

of

BestIsWest · 02/01/2017 17:34

Worth sticking with The Essex Serpent then? I'm not liking it much so far.

BestIsWest · 02/01/2017 17:35

Descntvif Man sounds v interesting too.

BestIsWest · 02/01/2017 17:36

Descent Of

Nokia3310 · 02/01/2017 17:38

I'm going to attempt to read 26 books this year. 1 book for every 2 weeks. As a full-time teacher and mum to 2 active boys, I have found reading a real challenge in recent years. I am committing myself to less time on bloody Facebook and will also include some of the books I read to my kids (e.g. Harry Potter) as well as the ones im reading. I'm kick-starting this year with 'Us'

RemusLupinsChristmasMovie · 02/01/2017 17:39

Best If you're not liking it yet, I don't think you will. It begins as slow and strange and not really necessarily going anywhere, and that doesn't really change. I just allowed myself to get caught up in the world and to slow down and enjoy the descriptions.

ShakeItOff2000 · 02/01/2017 17:41

Page 10!

Thanks for the lovely new thread, south.

I'm in. 55 books last year and aiming for the same target of 40-50 books which saves me panicking at the end of the year if I've not reached 50. I'm a targets kind of girl.. 😉

Started Any Human Heart on audiobook and The Story of a New Name, the second of Elena Ferrante Neopitan Novels, which coincidentally was my first read of last year.

Cote, I hope events settle where you are. Worrying times. Flowers

BestIsWest · 02/01/2017 17:42

I'll try it again on the train in the morning Remus and see how it goes. The medical bits sound interesting.

SatsukiKusakabe · 02/01/2017 17:49

I'm about a third of the way into Essex Serpent and absorbed best, as remus said I'm just enjoying the writing and the oddness at the moment.

AnneEtAramis · 02/01/2017 17:56

Cote I didn't sleep at all last night stressed about people and just generally all the things going on there at the moment. I have most people accounted for thankfully. Hoping you get some reassurance.

HhhH - I come down on the side of Cote. I thought it was trying to be too clever. Most of book club enjoyed it though, I was in the monitory.

Almost 50% with The Universe vs Alex Woods and got a bit teary today at a chapter about the main character getting beaten up on the school bus. My eldest DS starts secondary school in Sept and this is something that I worry about. Not sure why, but I do so given I sm already emotional it just hit me.

whippetwoman · 02/01/2017 17:59

My mum gave away the ending of The Essex Serpent! She did not enjoy it and we nearly always agree about books so I'm not sure but it's waiting on my Kindle. We are from Essex though and lots is set in our town.

eitak22 · 02/01/2017 18:04

Also forgot to say hoping your friends and family are safe Cote.

SatsukiKusakabe · 02/01/2017 18:31

Dug out my review of HHhH from last year if it helps anyone decide whether it's for them or not (not that anyone asked...Blush)

  1. HHhH by Laurent Binet

Wonderful, unforgettable, book.

Original, humane, meticulous, and utterly gripping account of 'Operation Anthropoid', the plot to assassinate senior Nazi Reinhard Heydrich, 'The Hangman of Prague', by the Czech (and Slovak) Resistance fighters Gabcik and Kubis. Interwoven with the factual events is Binet's commentary on the nature of his endeavour; to write a historical 'novel' that respects its subject, taking into account the danger of reducing real people to characters in a story, and the significance of the choices made in the process of researching and retelling history. I learned many new things about this period, and visited again the sheer horror that never fades; that of The Final Solution and those who perpetrated it.

whatwoulddexterdo · 02/01/2017 18:45

Please can I join in? I'm an avid reader, but nothing too highbrow or literary
Book 1 I see you by Clare Mackintosh
Fairly average psychological thriller. Usual women in peril kind of thing. Women being stalked whilst on their commute.Twist at the end. Easy to read during the festive season but wouldn't really recommend. I'm getting a bit fed up of these grip lit reads so need to try something different.

JoylessFucker · 02/01/2017 18:51

Gosh Museum, whilst that sounds a lovely idea, I hope it won't be too tough emotionally Flowers I've been building up kindle copies of Dick Francis (my Dad's favourite author), which have long been my comfort reads. My Mum still has most of them in hardback and has given them to me, but I cannot pick those up without remembering him (and ending up in tears).

wannabe sorry to hear that you're having to spend a long time in hospital. I hope that it will result in a positive outcome Flowers

Oh Cote, what can I say? Hope all are well & safe, and that you find out sooner rather than later Flowers

Ooooo diamantegal, I joined the vipers group on Goodreads too and did nothing about it until I signed up for their A-Z Bookbuster challenge this year. I'm hoping this will help to keep me focused to read those books I already own (either electronic or paper) which is so many that I cannot number them for shame.

I see the first thread is cracking along again, as per last year. It'll be tough holding on to it's coat tails for a while ... but I am determined Grin

CoteDAzur · 02/01/2017 19:34

I dug up my review of HHhH, too, as counterweight to Satsuki's Smile

  1. HHhH by Laurent Binet

I hated every page of this book. Apologies to its fans.

When I started reading it, I was hoping for an Operation Mincemeat or at least a historical novel of substance. What I got was a collection of minor and often irrelevant anecdotes, written by a self-important, navel-gazing, flippant, unreliable narrator who thinks flip-flopping all around the place makes his writing speshul. Wolf Hall written by a teenager, complete with the same hateworthy present tense and bad grammar. Bad translation was just the icing on the (bitter) cake.

Despite all the Ooh I read so much on this topic. Ooh look, I have this document and that document in front of me right now crooning, I didn't get the impression that the author knows much about this period and the organisation behind Heydrich's assassination. The details we are told about are mostly irrelevant, stuff nobody really cares to know about - what the house was like, what kind of dresses someone liked to wear, etc. Meanwhile, the story itself is neglected and is only picked up once in a while, when the author grows tired of whining about the stuff going on in his own life.

I can hardly explain how badly this book grated with me, but perhaps some examples would help:

The vastness of the information I amass ends up frightening me >>> Don't be frightened, little boy. We'll protect you. Hmm

I’ll have to resist the temptation to flaunt my knowledge by writing too many details for this or that scene that I’ve researched too much, I must admit that in this case – regarding Heydrich’s birthplace – my knowledge is a bit sketchy. There are two towns in Germany called Halle, and I don’t even know which one I’m talking about. For the time being, I think it’s not important. We’ll see >>> Oh yes. You sound really knowledgeable on the subject.

THERE IS NOTHING more artificial in a historical narrative than this kind of dialogue >>> Why did you write it then? WHY?

Who is his opponent? I haven’t been able to find out. I imagine a left-hander: quick, clever, dark-haired. Perhaps not Jewish – that would be a bit much – but maybe a quarter Jewish >>> Why make up ridiculous stuff like this? Who cares about the color of his opponent's hair color? Why mention Jewish heritage at all, especially if you don't know that he had any?

faithful to my long-held disgust for realistic novels, I say to myself: Yuk! >>> And you write a historical novel??? WTF!?!

I’VE BEEN TALKING rubbish, the victim of both a faulty memory and an overactive imagination. In fact, the head of the British secret service at this time was called ‘C’ – not ‘M’ as in James Bond. Heydrich too called himself ‘C’, and not ‘H’ >>> The book is full of crap like this. He says one thing and then corrects himself literally on the next page. Yes, he has been talking rubbish. A lot if it. Fucking bullshit artist Angry

At 9:00 a.m., the first German tank enters the city. 84 ACTUALLY I DON’T know if it was a tank that first entered Prague >>> Another example of the continuous flip-flopping and bullshit. WHY do you write this stuff then? WHY?

Natacha’s sister is getting married, but I’m not invited to the wedding. Natacha called me a ‘little shit’. I don’t think she can bear me anymore. >>> I'm with Natacha. I really am.

The Nazis love burning books, but not files. German efficiency? Who knows if the SA didn’t wipe their asses with some of those precious archives >>> How did this book win an award? HOW??? I despair.

I’m all too aware that my two heroes are late making their entrance. But perhaps it’s no bad thing if they have to wait. Perhaps it will give them more substance. Perhaps the mark they’ve made in history and on my memory might imprint itself even more profoundly in these pages. Perhaps this long wait in the antechamber of my brain will restore some of their reality, and not just vulgar plausibility. Perhaps, perhaps … but nothing could be less sure! >>> For the sake of all that is literary, what on God's green Earth are you rambling about???

’I'm not sure yet if I’m going to ‘visualize’ (that is, invent!) this meeting or not. If I do, it will be the clinching proof that fiction does not respect anything >>> No, Laurent. It's not that "fiction" doesn't respect anything. It is that YOU don't respect the actual historical event and are confabulating.

And he agrees with me:

I’M FIGHTING A losing battle. I can’t tell this story the way it should be told >>> That's right. You can't.

Our worth should be measured by our aspirations more than our works. That means I’m allowed to make a mess of my book >>> Err no, Laurent. You are not.

If anyone is in doubt, I'm not recommending this book Grin

RemusLupinsChristmasMovie · 02/01/2017 19:46

I can't find my review of HHhH - must have read it before I reviewed stuff in full on here. I absolutely loved it though - for me, the writer struggling to tell the story, and even sometimes trivialising it, is why it worked so well - it's a story that can't fully be told by one person.

Okkitokkiunga · 02/01/2017 20:09

First book finished.

Whose Body - Dorothy Sayers

First time I've read one of hers. Took me a while to concentrate properly and decide if I liked it or not, but I will get more of the series.

Is a whodunnit set after WWI and the protagonist, Lord Peter Wimsey, helps a Scotland Yard detective solve a murder case.

It is available on kindle for 99p.

CoteDAzur · 02/01/2017 20:12

Why wouldn't it be possible? Confused

That man really hasn't even tried to tell the story. The book is a confused mess.

It is the sort of story that I would love to read about but by the end of the book not only did I not have much of an idea about what happened, but also lost all interest in learning about it, too.

BestIsWest · 02/01/2017 20:15

I liked HHhH and bought it for my Dad who hated it. It does seem to polarise people.

MegBusset · 02/01/2017 20:35

Those who've enjoyed This Thing Of Darkness, read his Peter Cook biography, it's a cracking read :)

I loved HHhH, one of my top reads of last year.

MegBusset · 02/01/2017 20:35

Too many reads in that post!

Willow89 · 02/01/2017 20:46

I'm in for this year! My 1st time to do it. I used to be such a good reader and when I fell pregnant I felt like I couldn't follow a story and have never got back into it properly. I'm starting off the year with graham nortons 'holding'. I've heard good things and so far enjoying it Smile