50 Book Challenge 2017 Part One

[southeastdweller]

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?

I've been dissatisfied with book clubs for all the reasons mentioned. This particular is organized around a central theme, and it's led by a lovely librarian at the main library downtown. While there seems to be a core group, the club is very welcoming and there's guilt if you can't come or judginess if you haven't finished the book. The librarian also tries to book as many authors to attend as she can, which creates an interesting dynamic.

And, I describe you all as my online book group.

Much more difficult to be rude about the book when the author is there.

Or even fully honest, as some participants have pointed out. I am interested to see how it will play out with Emily Mandel on Thursday.

I meant to say NO guilt or judginess.

I've been in the same book group for many years and there are definite pros and cons some of which you've all mentioned. For me the social side is great, we take it in turns to choose which as there are 9 of us works out about once a year, once you factor in breaks. Our tastes are quite varied so you do get a good mix but that does mean you do have to read books that really don't appeal. We are reasonably honest but also rather polite so people tend to keep quiet rather than say they loathe a book.

We normally buy books, share copies when possible with the odd 99p kindle deal thrown in, we host when it's our turn so then provide wine and nibbles. Overall quite a cheap night I think compared to a normal night out.

Good luck to people looking for a group.

Passme if you press the bottom left corner of the page you usually get page numbers. It will also usually give you time left in chapter, time left in book. Occasionally the option does not appear. Depends on the book.

Yes it's funny how it's difficult to say you don't like a book that someone else loves; in person it can feel confrontational, like you're insulting someone personally. That's what's nice about on here, someone can say they hate a book but the next person will come on and say they liked it actually and it's no big deal.

Wex I think the "stomach that looked like walnuts in a condom" is my favourite Reacher-ism

Just finished my first book of 2017.

Book 1 The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

it's got all manner of hyperbolic puff on the cover 'Gone Girl on speed' and was given to me by my agent ( I'm a writer) so I probably had too high hopes.

It's fine. Good even. But I'm not raving about it.

It's written in the current style du jour. Alternating POV chapters. Which I do like. And it plays nicely with unreliable narrators ( are any of them reliable?).

Next on my to read pile: What She Left - a murder mystery told by social media snippets ( could be great and the debut author got a fucking huge advance), Pretty Is and The Wallcreeper.

Thank you wilting I shall try that.

Quite right satzuki. I remember loaning *The Trick is to Keep Breathing" to a friend and being quite hurt that she didn't love it like it did. I had to work quite hard to not think less of her. I learned not to loan books that meant something personal to me until I was mature enough to handle discussion.

See, I don't really 'get' people getting upset if somebody doesn't like a book you love. You didn't write it, and criticising a novel isn't a criticism of the people who like it.

And anyway, clearly they are all bonkers so why should you care what they think of your favourites anyway?

Yes and conversely there was a lovely lady I used to work with who was always offering me books that were just not my cup of tea and I found it really awkward to say no without upsetting the apple cart

I love the sound of Chillie 's book group. I've had the same problem as everyone else - the group I joined read a succession of terrible books and I felt very churlish saying every month how much I hated Room (or whatever) while everyone else gushed about how great it was.

Agree remus I've never taken it personally when someone disagrees with my view of a book - I just put a black mark by their name on my spreadsheet

I agree remus and even as a writer I no longer worry what people think.

If they don't like it then so what? It's completely subjective.

The idea that there are 'good' books and 'bad' books has long since stopped being real to me.

Since I spent about three hours this morning not being able to move far from the loo, and the rest of the day alternately dozing and reading, I've completed book three of the year.

1. Mort by Terry Pratchett

The fourth in the Discworld series, in which Death takes an apprentice who is a little less than competent at the job. Having saved the life of Pricess Keli of Sto Lat by killing her assassin instead, Mort finds that reality is reasserting itself with history as it should have been. He recruits Death's daughter (adopted) to assist in trying to save the princess, while Death is distracted by investigating human life: drinking, fishing, playing dice, and even getting a job. But as Death starts to display human characteristics, Mort is developing a worrying tendency to SPEAK IN HOLLOW CAPITALS.

I think this is the one where Pratchett started coming into his own with Discworld. The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic were largely parodies of the classic sword and sorcery type of fantasy, and to an extent Equal Rites was in the similar vein, although maybe less of an overt parody, in that he was subverting the classic trope of the seventh son of a seventh son becoming a wizard. He really gets there with Guards, Guards I think, but here we have the development of Death who became one of his best and most beloved characters.

There's one book that means a great deal to me that I won't lend to or discuss with others because my attachment to it is irrational. I know perfectly well that the book isn't flawless, but I don't want to hear it from anybody else. It's just the same one book. A bit embarrassing to admit, though.

Oooo I'm curious Vanderlyle PM?

You can't say that and not tell!

First book done!

1. A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers by Xiaolu Guo

A Chinese student comes to England to learn the language and falls in love with a much older man. It was written in the narrative style of someone learning English. It was sometimes funny, sometimes moving, and sometimes perplexing, I liked it, but also felt there were critical gaps in the overall picture of their life.

Is there a specific word for when the narration of a book is in a "stylized voice" ?

I hated Titanic.
I hated The Hunger Games, both books and movies.
Not big on Stephen King.

I'll just go and sit in that corner over there >>> shall I?

Cote

nothing happening except SJ getting men off the street and somehow relieving them off their skin.

Bliddy hell! It's NOTHING like the book then - doesn't sound remotely like the odd but thought-provoking tale I read.

I'm so glad I didn't see the film - I would probably have been shouting abuse at the screen and got myself thrown out . . .

Have you read any other Cormac McCarthy?

"Blood Meridian" is good, Wilting, but brutal!

I haven't strayed far from the sofa, and blanket in front of the woodburner today. Have been feeling off colour since Christmas, worrying new symptoms of gnawing bone pain now - back to doctors again to see what's going on now. Still, dosed up on painkillers I have been able to read. Finished book 3, Hurrah for Gin by Katie Kirby. Reads like it was written by a Mumsnetter. Smart, funny and so true. I liked it very much.

Pressing on with Alan Bennett's Keeping On Keeping On. Generally enjoying it but hit a bit of a sad bit today. Meanwhile, DS is enjoying me reading The Midnight Gang by David Walliams. Very funny, utterly bonkers adventures of a group of children stuck on a children's ward in hospital, trying to find ways to alleviate the boredom.

I read (and detested) No Country For Old Men which my OH told me was a work of genius.