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?

One done already and starting the second today

Will you tell us what you read or should we try to guess?

I adored Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
I got it for my birthday which is in December and it was perfect for cozying up with.

I was bought the Cell as well a wee while ago. Utter garbage. Gave up and never looked back.

Actually, another book which similarly irritated me was Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Copeland. I can't explain why it annoyed me without gaving away the end but it was lazy, copout writing to me.

Which Stephen King story is it where a woman accidentally kills her husband by kneeing him in the balls but is handcuffed to the bed in the middle of nowhere? I enjoyed that one

I loved Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Agree that the footnotes are so important to the story. The atmosphere in the book was beautifully created. A real masterpiece in my eyes.

Wow, thread 2 already .

So, anyway, this week I have finished books 4, 5 and 6

1. Hot Milk by Deborah Levy. An audio book, narrated well by Romola Garai. I liked it, but didn't love it. Still pondering the symbolism of the jellyfish/Medusa and the continual reckless exposure to stinging attacks, connection to her mother's seemingly psychosomatic illnesses/emotional blackmail. Interesting, worth a second read sometime I think.

1. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. A series of interconnecting short stories where Olive Kitteridge is either central to the story or a minor character slightly connected. I enjoyed this very much.

1. The Midnight Gang by David Walliams. Read to DS for bedtime story. Good, but not nearly as good as Grandpa's Great Escape, which is DS's favourite so far.

Oh god, I'm probably going to give it another go. I like fantasy but I just found it all a bit daft.

PassMeTheCrisps

Which Stephen King story is it where a woman accidentally kills her husband by kneeing him in the balls but is handcuffed to the bed in the middle of nowhere? I enjoyed that one

It's Geralds Game.

Oh you guys , I have just bought Jonathan etc despite having looked at it before and decided it wasn't for me. As a pay off, I'll take The Night Circus off my wish list. Not quite sure why it's on there anyway (well, this thread, obviously, but beyond that).

ShakeIt I am quite relieved that you didn't love Red Rising . I have read the look inside bit on kindle before and decided I wouldn't get on with it at all, but thought it was just me, because of the previously universal love for it on here.

Red Rising is not high literature but it has a great story and admirable world-building. I don't do chick-lit and usually can't suffer YA, so RR is what I call a fantastic "beach read"

I read 11.22.63 a couple of years ago after finishing Doctor Sleep and remembering how much I loved a good King book. I recommend everyone to read 11.22 because it's so much fun! I now know a lot of people in real life who have read it and loved it, but nobody seems to of mentioned the TV show? Not even bothered with it myself. (Any good!)

So I'm halfway through Needful Things (I think my next choice will be a smaller novel as its taking me a while) I am still enjoying it. Poor Nettie Cobb. I am quite invested in the characters now.

Thank you for the all the great reccs. I am fully sorted for reading for the year I reckon!

First book was book 5 in the Clifton chronicles by Jeffrey archer and the one I'm starting today is The Twenty-Three by Linwood Barclay - last in a trilogy but I didn't read the first one

6 Forty Autumns by Nina Willner

The story of a family separated by the Berlin Wall. Hanna, the author's mother and oldest sister of 9, escaped from East Germany not long after the war. The book follows both sides of the family, including the author who became a US intelligence agent & worked in E. Germany and a cousin who became part of the E. German Olympic team.

This should have been a fantastic read, but was let down by hideously clunky writing, plus the tendency of the author to hammer home the moral (Communism bad! The Free World good!) at every opportunity rather than letting the stories speak for themselves.

I have no hope of keeping up with this thread at the moment!

Songbird - thanks for recommendation of the more recent Much Ado film - I will definitely take a look to see if it'd be suitable for Year 8.

1. Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman - this is sort of a spin-off of My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises by the same author (who also wrote A Man Called Ove). Read Grandmother last year for book group and this one is also for book group. Britt-Marie is a 63 year old woman who leaves her cheating husband and is faced with the prospect of having to make a new life for herself. Given that her entire identity has been bound up in housework and looking after her undeserving husband, this is extremely difficult for her. Backman's style is unique - he mixes humour, completely random elements and more serious messages in a way that somehow works, even though it probably shouldn't.

Am now back to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as the date of seeing the Cursed Child is getting closer so I need to get a move on. Am also reading The Year of Living Danishly on Kindle off the back of this thread last year.

Checking in, blimey it's moving quickly this year! I will be back later to read through the first 5 pages of thread 2.

Thank you for your comment ecky - I didn't realise there was a follow-up - I'll have to get hold of a copy. It is one of the best books I've read for a long time (just up to where Lou has told Will about the maze).

I've found it very touching but not the least sentimental.

No - it's not a spoiler Cote.

Nothing as dramatic as that happens. Actually practically nothing at all.

They made a film of the Virgin Suicides, I believe, but I had some paint I wanted to watch dry, so I didn't get round to seeing it.

I watched the Virgin Suicides film back in the day. It was very atmospheric, directed by Sophia Coppola, I believe. I don't remember much else about it though, except one of the girls waking up in the middle of the football field.

Right caught up now by skim-reading very quickly and have added Ready Player One to my to-read pile. Thanks!

I just can't get past the really bloody boring opening of *Strange and N" although people tell me it's great after the 1st 200 pages or so. It would definitely feature as a bone of contention in the Venn diagram.

So, what can I buy now on Kindle? I'm still slogging through bloody Stalin and have a couple of other non-fiction books, but I need something easy-ish for commuting.

I didn't get on with JS & MrN, too Dickensian for me, not a good thing although I know lots of people love vast Victorian novels. On the other hand I loved The Night Circus.

The Shining is definitely my favourite King book, though haven't read much of his newer stuff. I read 11.23.63 last year which I enjoyed but could have done with a bit more editing. I felt the same in my reread of It and *The Stand. Maybe time is just more precious to me these days!

This Boy by Alan Johnson
Former Labour Home Secretary who I always thought comes across as decent bloke on TV .
The first volume of his autobiography / memoires and this covers his life up to age 21.
He grew up in London in circumstances of such poverty and hardship that were positively Dickensian. Hunger and deprivation were a daily struggle. The book is really about the writer’s mother and his sister. His mother was in poor health and left penniless by his feckless father, never managed to scrape enough money for food and warmth. His sister at the age of 15 pretty much brought up her younger brother.
Nothing in this book would lead you to imagine he was destined to be a politician but it was a fascinating account of life in the poorest of families in the 1950s.

I liked all 3 Jeffrey Eugenides books

Virgin Suicides
Middlesex

and

The Marriage Plot - but the marriage plot just ends unresolved in mid air, like it cuts out in a fade to black were it shouldn't. Random. I really enjoyed it up to that point.

Yy The Marriage Plot just didn't bloody go anywhere!

I like the sound of This Boy Wex - another one to add to my Goodreads 'To Read' list, it's growing like topsy with this thread!

Teabreak time from decorating so:

7 The Dark Net by Jamie Bartlett, listened to on audio.
Reviewed several times upthread, so I won't summarise, but will add that the audio narration was very good.

I enjoyed this a great deal. While there wasn't a great deal explicitly new to me, I found it very thoughtprovoking, and thought the author did a good job of looking at things from all sides.

(I was also rather tickled by the "I took the tiny quantity of cannabis I bought online to a friend who assured me it was very good quality" - yeah, right Jamie )

Now moved on to Slouching towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion on audio - not something I'd normally pick, but was looking for anything available immediately on the library system to keep me on track through my painting.