50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Two

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the second 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, it's not too late to join, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

The previous thread is here.

How're you getting on so far?

1. One Step Behind, Henning Mankell I love the Wallander series - this is the seventh Wallander book. I've read it before - however, last year I started to read them all in sequence and this is how far I've got. I love the laconic, deadpan writing style and also that it's a big thick book that keeps me going for three or four days.

Still plodding through E is for Evidence as haven't had enough time this week but hoping to get through it today as am enjoying it so far.

As for the discussion up thread about 'likeable' characters i would have to say that for me i have to care about the character but not necessarily like them. There are some characters i disliked but yet still cared enough to want to know what happened next then there are some characters that i loathed and genuinely do not care what happens to them (looking at you Heathcliff and Cathy).

Vistaverde I felt the same about The Girl with the Dragon tattoo. Can i suggest you don't bother to read the 4th book in the series, its written by a different author and just didn't feel the same style.

5. Trust, Mike Bullen

This was on my TBR list on Goodreads so someone must have recommended it to me, or I read about it somewhere. It's by the writer of Cold Feet. It was awful. Pulled together many of those things we have been moaning about - boring people doing boring things in boring cities, pointless shagging etc.

I quite liked Cold Feet but this was the worst elements of it. Two male protagonists, one smug, unlikeable but has sexy wife and lots of sex. The other not doing well at work, worried, overweight, loveable, skint. Blah blah blah. Writing was awful. Gave up after a few chapters - life is too short.

5 Lucky Break, Esther Freud

Quite enjoyed this. It opens with a group of students on their first day at a prestigious, hideously pretentious drama school. I thought it would go the way of The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton and stay in this (entertaining) setting but after a couple of chapters we jumped forward two years, and then another year. Interesting people were introduced then dropped out of the story entirely. The book concentrated on three key characters and their lives over ten years or so after they leave Drama School. Freud can write, and her characters are wonderfully real. I did find it a bit disjointed and TBH was not hugely interested in the (not very original) tales of what it is like to be a jobbing actor. Not a huge amount happens but the characters and observation were enough to make it an entertaining read.

I liked The Luminaries keith - is The Rehearsal good?

Very much enjoyed reading everyone's recent reviews. Been slow on my Hamilton biography but now have

Books, the crucial missed out word!

I am shocked Bestis - that only allows for 1 cuppa/day!

I can get through 360 teabags in a month- more if I have a biscuit with them (which could explain why I am grossly overweight and have beige teeth, now I come to think about it )

Just finished No 6 - Cloud Atlas, and after a slow start it was EXCELLENT! And thank you Cote for your Cloud Atlas thread which I read after I had read the book, and which made much ion it clearer to me.

Have begun No7 - Closed Casket by Sophie Hannah (a Hercule point mystery). I red her first HP one (saucy!) - the mOnogram Murders - last year and rather enjoyed it. Sophie Hannah is quite a favourite of mine, I admit.

I really liked The Rehearsal - it's weird but good. Centres around a sex scandal at a school. There's a lot of blurring between what is real and what is performance. Clever stuff especially for a debut novel.

Thanks, I'll wish list it

If I start on David Mitchell books should I go straight for The Cloud Atlas or try another one first? Are they a series?

And I like the sound of wallander books tormentil. Sounds right up my street.

Right. I have sat at my computer for several hours annoying everyone at work so now it is reading o'clock. What to start on now . . .

They are interconnected but with no reading order. Start with whatever you want, I read Bone Clocks first.

Excellent. Thank you. I am going to knock another one off my kindle list first though but have added one to my wish list

Just saw this on my FB newsfeed. Thought some of the SF fans here might be interested

radio 4

I agree with the definition of "likeable" as "someone you want to spent time with". The narrator of John Lanchester's The Debt to Pleasure is not likeable in the sense you want him as a pal, but it's great fun to watch him in action.

The worst are books with a Mary-Sue and her fantasy boyfriend - Outlander series, I'm looking at you.

Back to the likeable thing, which I related to the characters in The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I have been thinking a lot about why I have been struggling on more than one occasion to get to grips with this book. i have come to the conclusion that one trait I can't stand in people in real life is when they use their education or intelligence a way of sneering at and demeaning other people. The characters in this book all seemed to reek of this trait, with no one else there out to balance it out. I think I just found the whole thing distasteful.

Cote

Have you seen were Barack Obama likes The 3 Body Problem?

That's company for you!

I still haven't read it and won't get near it til Easter.

I read that yesterday everysongbird it was really funny when he said it helped him put his problems into perspective - something like who cares what congress are doing, aliens have invaded! I'm reading it at the moment.

I wonder what Trump reads, other than Playboy and Twitter.

I wonder what Trump reads, other than Playboy and Twitter.

Some of his own books perhaps?

Trump can read?????

Think I might have to bow out of these threads for a while, until they calm down a bit or until Margaret Atwood features a little less heavily.

Bad time to announce that a Atwood is next on my list Remus

"Have you seen were Barack Obama likes The 3 Body Problem? That's company for you!"

Yes, I did, indeed. Smart man

"I agree with the definition of "likeable" as "someone you want to spent time with"."

Yes, that is my understanding, too. Which is why I'm when people say they couldn't read a book because characters weren't likeable.

I really wouldn't want to spend time with Genghis Khan but have read some fascinating books about him.

Pass - "If I start on David Mitchell books should I go straight for The Cloud Atlas or try another one first?"

Cloud Atlas is THE story, imho. It is book with Mitchell's true vision and presents all he wanted to say. The only problem with reading it first is that the others pale in comparison. Otherwise, stories don't really follow.

David Mitchell is an amazing writer, though, and so even his (comparatively) disappointing books are head & shoulders above 90% of contemporary books.

The Bone Clocks is very similar to Cloud Atlas (both in format and in themes), almost as if he had a deadline to print another book.

Happy - I'm glad you liked Cloud Atlas & also found that thread useful