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?

Satsuki

Yes and no, the more "literary books" do 2. in a more literary way I find, so that maybe you won't notice.

I compared NW to the following in my head, lots of crossover

Hearts And Minds by Amanda Craig (don't, just don't, any of you)
Night Waking by Sarah Moss
Her by Harriet Lane
How To Be Both by Ali Smith

There's also some crossover with the London Bloke Lit genre too : Hornby, Maher, O'Farrell, Parsons, which is always marketed as being much more literary than it actually is.

Sorry I meant There But For The by Ali Smith, I've not read How To Be Both but I am looking at.

I absolutely loathed There But For The

Thanks for the link highland very interested, will definitely read.

Your post made me chortle Everysongbird, although I don't think the pastry motherhood label is quite fair to Zadie.

I wasn't wowed by Swing Time but the issues she raises have stayed with me. I just listened to a Penguin Podcast on it which I'd recommend. It made me feel a bit more sympathetic towards the narrator, as she talks about how women in their 20s often struggle with identity that is seperate from their friends and social group. It was a bit elitist I guess as she is being interviewed by David Baddiel who is from the same part of London, but both also talk about being from minority backgrounds.

1. Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg

Set in small-town America, opening with a family tragedy, several members of the same family killed in a mystery fire the day before a wedding. Multiple narrators, loops back and forward explaining the complex human relationships between the people involved and piecing together what actually happened on the fateful day. Not perfect - the different narrative voices could have been better differentiated, and some inconsistencies or lack of motive were glossed over in a rather amateur way - but well-imagined and touching. I thought in particular the way he describes loneliness was very moving.

Stokey

I only finished it last night I feel fairly sure there's a croissant interlude somewhere in there

Hearts And Minds by Amanda Craig (don't, just don't, any of you)

Until I read this, I had never given up on a book, ever. This was the first one I cast from me, saying "No no no no".

It opened the floodgates - now I will give a book a few chapters to grab me (more if it's been recommended by someone I like or trust) then it goes back to the library or off to the charity shop.

Keith

Genuinely one of the books I have hated most in the last 5 years, it's not a fiction novel, it's a thinly disguised moral lecture, with lots of handwringing and unlikeable people and one absolutely entrenched in stereotype and cliche.

Thank you for also hating it.

Finished number 6 last night - If this is a man by Primo Levi. It describes his time in Auschwitz. The subject matter made it a difficult read and I had a weeks break in the middle but I'm glad I finished it. I still have The Truce to read which describes his journey home to Italy. A pp, I think HappyFlappy, said in the first thread that it showed the joy and kindness of human nature but although it did describe some acts of kindness, the context of the book held more horror than joy, for me anyway.

I didn't especially mean "chick lit" as being non-literary - books with titles like Night Waking Her and Hearts and Minds would all give me as strong a whiff of motherhood and patisseries as "Book Club at the Cupcake Cafe" tbh I'm not running down these kinds of books btw but they don't appeal to me so I never get the sense of reading only about one type of thing.

I'm going to give Swing Time a go because I listened to the podcast stokey mentioned and found her interesting, but I didn't rate either White Teeth or On Beauty that much.

1. Fashion Quotes - Stylish Wit and Catwalk Wisdom. A Christmas gift - lots of quotations from various fashionistas - ranging from Coco Chanel and Yves Saint-Laurent to Lady Gaga. A quick enjoyable read - perfect for a rainy afternoon.

1. The Muse - Jessie Burton I really enjoyed this. I thought it was a more rounded novel than The Miniaturist. There were some good descriptions of both life in London in the late 1960s and Spain in the build up to the Spanish Civil War in 1936.

mrsdonofrio I read If This Is a Man at university and it was harrowing but it felt necessary to have read it.

Night Waking is set on a remote island off the coast of Scotland! Definitely no croissants or patisseries in it!

I realise I may have taken your description slightly too literally, but I loved Night Waking.

Satsuki

(Nod)

But I think there's a world of difference between say, a "Shopaholic Goes Shopping" or a Keyes/Binchy/Lette/Aherne type book

and what the likes of Amanda Craig and Ali Smith write (though I find both pretentious)

There are of course plenty of female writers who don't write that sort of Middle Class London book. It's not even that I abhor the Middle Class London novel, it's just there are WAY too many. It's pretty much its own genre at this point.

Tarahumara

Yes, I know!

But there was a LOT of "motherhood mundanity" going on, and it's a plot point. Isn't there loads of angst over the children eating the "right" food at one stage?

And it's not all on the island

I did not like it.....

"there's a world of difference between say, a "Shopaholic Goes Shopping" or a Keyes/Binchy/Lette/Aherne type book"

Not that big a world.

I don't see those books you speak of at all, Every, because I don't even slow down near the "women's" section in a bookstore. Any book with a flowery, pink, etc cover or whose title includes the words who "the girl who...", "my sister's...", "me and you..." have practically no chance with me.

I have no interest in reading about motherhood, patisseries, etc and am baffled by the popularity of that stuff in print.

LOL - Cote

I read most of Binchy as a teen, and have a soft spot for the occasional Keyes (Irish)

I meant the difference between Keyes/Kinsella (womens) and Ali and Zadie Smith (contemporary)

I too avoid those flowery cottage cover books, in general, and go to the "contemporary" section, but I do read widely.

but sometimes I think that vibe still creeps in to contemporary novels featuring "modern lives of women, in general

What I'm saying I guess is that I think NW has serious elements of "those books" but pretends otherwise.

"Books featuring 'modern lives of women' "

Yeah, I have no interest in normal women leaving normal lives in normal cities. Is there a male equivalent of this phenomenon at all? I don't think I've ever seen a book about a man just working in a boring job, then coming home to a dysfunctional marriage and kids waking in the night etc.

Who. Cares.

Seriously.

living normal lives, even.

Ladydepp

I listened to The Secret Life of Bees a few moths ago- I quite enjoyed it, but if you're finding it tedious now, I imagine it's not going to improve for you. There is one death (If I recall correctly), but nothing really earth shattering.
I quite enjoyed the narration, and it's not that long so I listened to most of it one afternoon, if i"d listened over a long time in shorter sections, I might have got a bit bored.
It was recommended to me by someone who knew I'd enjoyed Americanah - it's not a patch on that, but it's OK

Lady - I read Secret Life Of Bees some years ago and found the forceful heartstring-tugging tiresome.

Is there a male equivalent?

Yes!

Examples :

How To Be Good - Nick Hornby
Man And Boy - Tony Parsons
The Man Who Forgot His Wife by John O'Farrell

I don't think I've ever seen a book about a man just working in a boring job, then coming home to a dysfunctional marriage and kids waking in the night etc.

John Updike? Arthur Miller?

Not comparing these to "The Little Beach Cupcake Shop for Broken Hearts" but don't they go into that category of "normal people living quiet desperate lives" - shit job, dysfunctional marriage, difficult parenting, unsure of place or role in society?

Oh god, I remember The Secret Life of Bees. I used to know an absolutely lovely American woman with a very . . . meaningful . . . taste in books (Bel Canto / Secret Life of Bees / that sort of thing). I was living in a non-English speaking country, so used to read pretty much anything I was lent regardless, but that style of literature is still known as a Noela Book in this household.

Yes, I suppose I don't make a lot of distinction between those authors you mention at all actually, every, perhaps that's unfair but none would interest me more than the others and I would no more pick up one than another.

Likewise I hate Tony Parsons and that type of thing.

I think there is a place in literature for family, and finding moments of transcendence in the everyday, but that is a different type of book again, I think, and requires a particular skill that few have.

I couldn't complete Secret Life Of Bees. I could practically hear the violins in the background and that irritated me hugely.

The Bees, on the other hand, I enjoyed immensely