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?

Satsuki

I know. It all kicked off rather quickly this year. Now all we have to look forward to are discussions on:

What is YA, what is not?

Do we like women authors?

What is SF? What is dystopian?

Hello readers! Signing in late as I was away over Christmas.

Finished 2016 with two books by Catherine Fox, Acts and Omissions and Unseen Things Above. She ploughs a lonely furrow in writing about the love of God and its application to the sex lives of the higher Anglican clergy. I read her earlier novels and was sorry she seemed to have stopped writing for a few years, so I was delighted to get hold of these recent novels - warm and funny stories about people trying to be good and falling in lust with the wrong people.

2017 started with three books that had me gnashing my teeth with frustration:

1. The Face of Britain, by Simon Schama. I liked some of the chapters, but he needs to stop hopping around so much. As with my previous attempts to read his work, I enjoyed parts but skimmed a lot of it.

2. Harpole and Foxberrow, General Publishers, by J L Carr Bitterly disappointed to not enjoy this, as I love this author's A Month in the Country. Dated, confused, not particularly funny or profound. Did (unintentionally) pick up a signed first edition, so vaguely hoping to flog it off for some money.

3. The Improbability of Love, Hannah Rothschild Didn't find it amusing or thought-provoking, despite the ecstatic quotes on the cover. Only finished it due to lack of other reading material. Woman buys old painting, which leads to entanglement in the dark side of the art world and the super-rich competing to buy. It's variously banal, credulity-stretching, and a bit too full of itself. Not recommended.

Things (reading-wise) can only get better!

@ cote Never mind, if we run out of things to argue about we can always fall back on trying to think of recommendations for remus

Hi biblio gushing cover quotes have a lot to answer for! I hovered over that one a bit, despite the slightly off-putting title, glad I didn't go for it. Sounds like an uneventful version of the Goldfinch.

1. All That Remains - Patricia Cornwell

This is the third of the Scarpetta books. These are really fast paced, easy reading. I've been reading them whilst feeding 3 month old DS and they are perfect to pick up and put down. This one had a decent storyline and I think she's really hitting her stride with them now.

1. The Painted Veil - Somerset Maugham

Can't decide on this one. I liked the style of writing, found it very readable. But the characters didn't quite do it for me. They were all a bit feckless, and I find it hard to read a book where I'm not engaging with at least one character. Plus I was a bit disappointed by the ending - felt a bit unconvincing and quite rushed.

On the plus side my copy had a red spine so that's one down for the PopSugar challenge. Or maybe I'll count it as involving travel. Decisions....

Have just caught up on the last 10 pages, this thread is rushing past this year.

My 2¢ worth:
I've been going to a book club for about 6 months - it's pretty small, 5 or 6 of us, and is friends and friends of friends. We've had two books we all hated, two marmite books and two goodies, including my choice . Our best discussions have been about the books we hated, but we're all choosing books we haven't read before , so no-one is saying this is my favourite book... you must love it.

The ending of Big Brother enraged me too - complete cop out. The tennis and snooker books were a bit rubbish too but my pre-children self did like Kevin.

Getting there - interestingly I liked Housekeeping but hated Gilead. Maybe I should attempt Lila?

I'm about two-thirds of the way through Swing Time and the story seems to have plateaued, after a strong start. I need something to happen or she is going to lose me. I'd also like to throttle the unremittingly miserable narrator.

Just counted how many books I read in 2016 and only made it 31, including books read to the kids. I blame my mobile phone. I'm definitely aiming for 50 this year. Although at the moment I feel like I have nothing to read!

Easy, so easy, no trouble at all. I have already read 4 this year! yes, please count me in.
Agatha Raisin ..As the pig turns and A spoonful of poison and The day the floods came.
Anna Jacobs and A time to Rejoice ...
There are 3 in this series plus a new one this month I can really recommend them

mughalswife hope you can pick up ideas from the thread of things to read. And even though it is a "challenge" it's not a competition -it's more about reviewing and discussing and enjoying reading.

Hope I am not too late to join! I have just read My name is Elizabeth Barton and currently reading Plainsong by Kent Haruf. A quick flip through the thread and I see that Sonnet is reading The Loney. I read that in November and would be really interested in what you think!

Blimey, would reading all the previous threads count as a post? . After all its going to take me a long time to wade through them....

Count me in, I've read three already this week, (but then I have been ill!) The Blood Card by Elly Griffiths, The Memory Book by Rowan Coleman and Christmas at the Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan

Sorry - brain still frazzled. instead of post please read book.

1. The Coroner by M R Hall

1. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry.

I really enjoyed this book. The characters of Cora, Will and Sarah are all individual and intriguing and the novel is full of interesting ideas about faith, superstition, feminism, poverty, medical advances, repressed sexuality .. and lots more. One of the reasons I like Victorian literature is the way authors typically reflect the huge political and social change of the period in their work and Sarah Perry has also done this well I think.

Next Private Peaceful which I'm reading for work, and also listening to Arnaldur Indridason's Strange Shores on audiobook. Making slow progress, as I only listen while I'm cooking, but quite enjoyable.

The Power. Naomi Alderman.

I'm sure this book has been reviewed already. I am sure that mine will not add anything that has not already been said. However, this is a book that I shall mull over for a long time.It is a book about power. It is also a book where the male/female roles are completely reversed and that itself is hugely thought provoking and challenging, I originally bought for my 15 year old daughter for this particular reason. However, the struggle for power, the ensuing corruption and violence that ensues is as strongly woven into the story is as compelling and disturbing as it's intertwining theme. And I am not sure which affected me the most. Brilliant.

I'm now reading a book about the History of Grammar.

Happy New Year everyone!
I'm in. First time trying for fifty books in a year.... Got 'Me Before You' Jojo Moyes and 'Chocolat' by Joanne Harris (to read again) on my kindle and first Audible book of the year is 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood. Enough to be going on with I think. Was wondering, do audio books count?....

Stokey

Home and Lila are tonally very different from Gilead although there are crossover characters, I recommend trying Home next

They are all stand alone, but intertwined and that is the order they came out in : Gilead, Home, Lila

Yes to audiobooks counting.

Happy New year to you all!
Currently reading book 1:AGod In Ruins by Kate Atkinson

1. The Bletchley Girls by Tessa Dunlop. The subtitle is "War, secrecy, love and loss: the women of Bletchley Park tell their story" and that's pretty accurate; it's a subject I've read a fair bit about and this just adds another layer to the picture. There's nothing massively groundbreaking here, the author has tried to represent different social classes (within the confines of there not being that many Bletchley girls still living) and described their different roles at the park and their social lives too. Not much code-breaking going on in this book, which is probably representative as most of the people involved had little clue at the time what their individual tasks were a part of. Recommended if you're "into" this time and place, not so much otherwise.

After one biography and one non-fiction so far this year I'm feeling the need for some fiction. I have HHhH and Cloud Atlas on order from the library, both based on controversy lively discussion here; until then it will have to be something from the tbr pile...

Biblio - interesting to read your review of Harpole and Foxberrow as it's one of the very few JL Carr books I haven't read - from the sound of it, not worth bothering.
Do you like 'What Hetty Did'? - mind you, I loved that as an 18 year old, it would very likely seem dated if I came to it first now.
Trying to get my enthusiasm up to start The Empathic Civilisation which a friend just lent me - looks potentially good but very, very long!

tinydon I'm counting Audio books. I've also just downloaded Handmaidens Tale. I'll start it once I've finished The Goldfinch ( 2 chapters left - my god it's long!)

Biblio I have Improbability of Love on my kindle, 99p deal and the sales assistant in Waterstones told me it was good, otherwise it wouldn't appealed. I'll put it further down my to read list

Finished book number four, The Road.

I thought this was a fantastic book - although it is very bleak. There's a sparsity to it that's very refreshing when it comes to post-apocalyptic fiction. There is very little in the way of back story - in fact no-one is even named in the novel. We don't know much about what happened prior to the start of the novel or even the event that lead to it. Ending was a bit creaky though, but I've yet to find a post-apocalyptic (awaits debate about whether it is post-apocalyptic) that has a satisfactory ending, so I'll let him off!

I liked the way that rather than survival being a background to the story, it is the story. One thing that irritates me with similar works is how easily people adapt to sleeping rough in sub-zero conditions, foraging for food and generally cope with the end of civilisation with little or no ill effects. This book felt more realistic in that respect.

So, I would definitely recommend.

Am I the only person who liked the ending of Big Brother by Lionel Shriver? At first I thought it was a cop out, but after mulling it over for a while I decided that it worked for me and made sense of something that had previously felt unrealistic (namely the main character's seeming willingness to risk her marriage for her brother).