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?

OK.

1. Brave new world Huxley. Unsettling and I found the first couple of chapters hard going but after that it was a good read.

Ooh can I join?
What is done about books started and abandoned?
I gave up on The Miniaturist. Despite rave reviews, I thought it over written , implausible , try too hard and dull!
Having hugely enjoyed kate atkinson's god in ruins and life after life, at the end of last year, I've picked up her earlier case histories and loving it . Hugely accomplished and beautifully subtle writer.
Sorry re lack of caps . On phone.

Hi words Yes you can write about abandoned books and what made you jettison them, but they don't count towards your total.

When you've finished a book just write a short review with a bit of detail as to what it's about and why you liked/disliked it. Doesn't have to be much, but helps bump things up or off the tbr pile and prompts more discussion.

I agree about Kate Atkinson's prose

EmGee I recommend Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, I think it is the best book I read last year. I'm really gripped by The Miniaturist and I expect to have read the first half before lights out tonight!

satsuki I missed your welcome before sorry. Nice to meet you

6. The Heart Goes Last - Margaret Atwood. Not easy to review this one! A much more light hearted take on dystopia than The Handmaids Tale. Dark humour throughout which made me me smile but not laugh out loud. Throws up some interesting questions on free will and constraint. As with other really effective dystopian novels it's blends our reality with 'the other world' which makes it all that bit more chilling. I have to say reading this during the Inauguration Weekend and the whole 'alternative facts' fiasco press conference was a bit near the knuckle! Would make a good book club book and probably be better on a second reading.
Not sure what to read next- have The Essex Serpent, The Bolter and Twelve Years a slave all winking at me

10. A Cotswold Killing - Rebecca Tope

Wet murder mystery set in the Cotswolds. House sitter turns detective when two farmers are murdered in the grounds of the house she is looking after. Gently annoying. I should only count this as half a book really as I read the other half last year.

Now reading The End Of The Workd Running Club which so far is a pile of mysoginistic, predictable post-apocalyptic drivel.

Every, Diva I have no specialist knowledge about horse chestnuts but I had just finished reading a book about the Tradescants who introduced them to England in King James I reign reign (IIRC) when I read the Follett.

Evening all.

1. Novella called The Turtle Boy by Kealan Patrick Burke. Sort of horror/ghost story about a disfigured bot whose sudden appearance next to a pond sparks fear and suspicion amongst the locals resulting in tragic circumstances. Nice wee page turner which is followed by the first chapter of the book it precedes. Free on kindle so worth getting if you are looking for a little book snack.

RMC, 12 yrs a slave is good, and also surprisingly easy t read, I would reccomrnd.

I gave up in The End of the World Running Club Best! Listened on Audible and it was even worse than reading it!

8. The Edge of the World - Michael Pye
A history book with the focus on the people and places around the North Sea. It was organised thematically with chapters devoted to different areas such as Law and Plague.

I really wanted to love this book - it focused on an area I'm interested in and a period of history I love. The first couple of chapters were good and I was keen to read more. Then something happened...and the rest of it began to feel like a slog. There were a few good chapters but on the whole I found it promised much but didn't deliver.
For me, it jumped about too much to different periods of history and the approach felt a bit scattered rather having a tight focus. Disappointing.

1 Closer than you think by Karen Rose
2 The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
3 Watch your back by Karen Rose
4 Poison Study by Maria V Snyder
5 I can see You by Karen Rose
6 Alone in the Dark by Karen Rose
I did warn everyone that my choices would be odd. Thoroughly enjoyed all of these

3. Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott
Second book in the Little Women series and I loved it just as I did the first. I had that rare feeling of looking forward to re-reading this book before I had even finished it - I feel like I would notice different details of setting, character and, in particular, language if I read it again already knowing the plot.
Not much reading time over the next couple of weeks so will just be dipping in and out of Hurrah for Gin and finishing of Davina's audiobook until busy spell at work has past.

So - have had a good couple of days reading after getting stuck (and not finishing) Gilead.

1 And then there were none - Agatha Christie
2 Watership Down - Richard Adams
3 Lila - Marilynne Robinson

4 Playing to the Gallery Grayson Perry
A recommendation picked up here which I loved. A guide to contemporary art with some down to earth explanations for why things are as they are in the 'art world'. It made me read around the references to find out more - it was really absorbing and I have recommended it on to friends and family.

1. A Place called Winter Patrick Gale. I loved this too - the moving story of self discovery, relationships in all their variations, social pressure - a love story on several different levels. A story too of resilience, making mistakes and living with the consequences - and of pure hard work. I enjoyed the lyrical descriptions and the exploration and tension as 'forbidden' relationships developed. (Trying not to give spoilers!)

6 Carol Patricia Highsmith. I read this straight after A Place called Winter....a contrasting approach but addressing some similar issues. Some reviews call this one dated and maybe its about remembering the era, the context and social attitudes that caused PH to write it under a pseudonym - it was one of the first LGBT novels written. It handles the subject with sensitivity and builds tension well. As I got nearer to the end I thought there might be a cop out - but no! I've got the film lined up to watch too - as it passed me by completely when it was released!!

Both of these were well written and didnt shirk addressing issues - and made me glad we live in a more open minded world - even if there is a way to go still if we are truly to be a society where D&I are stitched in.

My tbr list has tripled since I started reading this thread....off to find something new and exciting .....Maybe Lying in Wait....

1. American Gods by Neil Gaiman I enjoyed this fantasy novel, my first Gaiman read, but wouldn't say I loved it. Some parts were very long winded and I would have probably got more out of it if I had more background knowledge of the mythology (rather than googling a lot!).

11 End of The World Running Club - Adrian J Walker Frankly dire post apocalyptic schlock.
Man gets separated from his family after the UK gets hit by asteroids and has to travel from Edinburgh to Cornwall to catch up with them. The main character is completely unpleasant, every post apocalyptic cliche you can think of is thrown in and he doesn't even do much running.
Made Station 11 seem positively sophisticated.

Glad you liked the Grayson Perry,' Gettingthere A Remus rec originally but I loved it too.

"Made Station 11 seem positively sophisticated."

Wow, that is an achievement!

I should have gone with the Arnie Cote

Best I finished The End of the World Running Club last night and agree 100%. I listened on Audible and don't know why I continued with it instead of using their excellent return option. I am perplexed by the rave reviews.

Really glad I found this. I was doing a challenge on Goodreads on my own. This will be much nicer 😀
So far I have read Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh, Tristana by Benito Perez Galdos.
I am currently reading The Awakening by Kate Chopin, In Therapy by Susie Orbach and Thus Were Their Faces by Silvana Ocompa.
😀

4. This Real Night, Rebecca West Set in the years running up to WW1, this is the second book in a trilogy about the Aubrey family. I read the first book a few years ago, but it was easy to pick up the threads of the story. It's mainly a novel of family life - a musical family who are impoverished by comparison to their peers. It's been a struggle for Mrs Aubrey, but now her children are on the cusp of adulthood and things are coming together. Keenly observed and very evocative of the era, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Hi Iris, yes, it's more fun arguing here than arguing with yourself!

8. Hand to Mouth, Linda Tirado. This is a polemic about being part of the working poor in the US. Seemed a timely read. It's repetitive, angry and purely about her own personal experience; nobody would call it a reasoned work of sociology. But there is still some merit in a piece that says loud and proud "This is what it feels like to be me". She evokes the despair you feel when you can't see any possibility that you might stop being poor. The section about living in daily pain with her teeth because she can't get proper treatment is pretty visceral. So overall flawed, but I thought it was worth the read.

10 Europe in Winter by Dave Hutchinson

Third in a SF/espionage thriller series set in a near future alternate universe where - following a flu pandemic and serial refugee crises - the EU has fallen apart and the continent has fractured into myriad states/statelets. The Coureurs des Bois specialise in running 'packages' whether information, goods or people across borders, and form the backbone of the story. This book starts with a terrorist outrage destroying a railway tunnel that is one of the main connections between Eastern & Western Europe, and builds from there.

I like this series a great deal. The first book (Europe in Autumn) was patchy and a bit slow in parts, but in books 2 & now 3 the author has really got going. I particularly like the fact that they aren't overly bloodthirsty compared to many thrillers - inevitably, given the genre, there are deaths, but on the whole it's very un-gory.

I'll probably go back in the summer when I'm on holidays and re-read through the whole series now I know where they're actually heading, I suspect there's an awful lot I missed on my first reads.

biblio - you might want to look out for Evicted by Matthew Desmond - which is both a passionate account of poverty in one US city and a serious piece of applied sociology - I can't recommend it highly enough.