50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Three

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the third 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 first thread of the year is here and the second one here.

It's what I'd call a chewing gum book. It occupies the mouth, but provides no nourishment. Good for a bit of mindless entertainment, but won't feed the soul.

Excellent description, Fortuna. They should add it as a bookshop shelving category (Self Help, True Life, Erotica, Chewing Gum).

I fell off the last thread as unfortunately my MIL has died and my partner was away for quite a while so I was managing the busy lives of three children and reading fell away somewhat, nor was I able to keep up with the thread. I genuinely can’t remember where I got up to so have brought my full list over. Just catching up on this current thread, which is very interesting indeed and I have already got lots more recommendations.

A Hero of Our Time – Mikhail Lermontov
Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
The House of Silk – Anthony Horowitz
The Return – Hisham Matar
The Sympathizer – Viet Thanh Nguyen
Ragnarok – A. S. Byatt
Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvellous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World – Mark Miodownik
Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
A Woman in the Polar Night – Christiane Ritter
The Rover – Aphra Behn
Falling Awake – Alice Oswald
Outline – Rachel Cusk
Thin Air – Michelle Paver

I actually enjoyed all of the above and found none of them a chore to read, even Outline, criticised on here – but I liked it – it’s not really meant to be read as a novel I think, more of a depiction of women, or the absence of women (or indeed the outline). I went to see The Rover at the RSC, so read it first.
I thought Fight Club was absolutely excellent, and a Woman in the Polar Night was so interesting – it’s about time spent in a cabin in Spitzbergen by a German woman pre WW2. I know Michelle Paver partly based her book Dark Matter on this account.

I have nearly finished The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes and The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov, which is one of the strangest books I have ever read, but I really like it - sorry Cote, I think I remember you didn't like it.

Sorry it’s long – just catching up…

whippet don't worry about disagreeing with cote, it's really fine

I have Master and Margarita to read, so glad you liked it.

Sorry to hear about your MIL

RiverTam - just finished The Hiding Place, and enjoyed it very much. As you say, that author is frank about her own shortcomings - and also doesn't dwell on the horror of those hideous times and places (some of the books are very prurient and really exploit the sadistic tendencies of the guards at the camps - I think that this just caters to the lowest denominator. I find the factual and "this is how it was" accounts far more powerful).

I was going to move onto 12 Years a Slave, but ended up waiting for a friend who was late for our lunch, and bought a second-hand book to keep me going. Five Past Midnight in Bhopal is an account of the Union Carbide disaster. The authors are French, but I am very forgiving

The Master and Margarita is excellent - the only book I have read which makes Pilate a sympathetic (or rather, pathetic, character). Glad you enjoyed it Whippet.

Have finally finished book 18, Bitch In A Bonnet by Robert Rodi. I really enjoyed this, but it is long. I found out after I had finished that it was originally written as a series of blog posts, which explains why it feels a bit bloated as a book. Anyway, it's him reviewing Austen's books pointing out why she was a social satirist and ahead of her time. In this book (there is a volume 2!) he reviews Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice and Mansfield Park. He spends a quarter of the book on S&S, a quarter on P&P, and half on Mansfield Park. Unfortunately, Mansfield Park is the least interesting of those three so it's a shame he spends so long on it. I still enjoyed his analysis of it though! Definitely worth it if you like Austen and I plan to get Volume 2 at some point (tempted now but I'm trying not to buy any more books until I've read more of my enormous TBR pile).

Thank you for the heads up about The North Water, been hoping that would come down soon. Bought!

Sorry to hear about your MIL whippet

23 News From Berlin - Otto de Kat. Dutch diplomat in Switzerland in 1941 receives a visit from his daughter who is married to a German and lives in Berlin. She tells him the date of the German plan to invade Russia. He has to decide what to do with the information. Will it endanger his daughter's life? Very short thankfully as though very elegantly written it didn't really go anywhere for me. Could have been so much better.

24. The Little Seaside Kitchen - Jenny Colgan. Usual light hearted nonsense, enjoyable enough.

Remus had better not miss The North Water again! She's been waiting for ages.

Sorry to hear about your MIL whippet.

I have been following the threads but not posting because my total of zero books this year was a bit embarrassing. After two months I have finally finished 1. A Brief History of Seven Killings

I am surprised at my lack of feelings about this book given how long I spent on it. It was clearly ambitious in terms of the number of characters and narrative voices, and also the large span of time covered by the events. I expected more of a climax to the novel than there actually was, there seemed to be a lot of gaps and holes in the different histories and I found that a bit disappointing, though I hate to think how long the book would have been otherwise. I don't think that the length of the novel was really justified and I wish it had been edited more forcefully or split up in to separate books. Meh.

Now on to 2. Doubts and Loves: What is Left of Christianity by Richard Holloway

I am a big fan of Richard Holloway and have really enjoyed the few pages I have read so far. His description of the Lambeth Conference of 1998 and the effect it had on him made me feel quite sad when I opened the BBC News website and saw today's headline about a CofE report on gay marriage. Doesn't feel like there has been much movement at all.

There is a short mention of post-modernity on the second page which also made me feel a bit wistful.

Twenty four books Best! I'll just grab my coat then.

Altered I'm not normally this fast, some of them have been very short (and not very challenging) plus I have a long commute at the moment so have at least 2 hours a day to read.

Last year I managed 98 so I'm well ahead of myself this year.

Thank you for the heads up on north water. I have had that on my list for a while

I bought North Water at 6.30 this morning and just came on to tell you all about the deal!

Sorry to hear about MIL, Whippet.

It's fine to disagree with Cote (she loves it when we do!). This is probably a good thing, as I suspect I'll be disagreeing with you about Measuring the World, Cote. I'm 50% through and finding it all rather irritatingly twee. It's all really self conscious in a sort of, 'Ooh look at the cute scientists who don't quite understand how to be 'normal' because they're so clever- aren't they CUTE' sort of way.

I don't generally object to a bit of whimsy and it's not made me hate it so much that I've stopped reading, but so far I'm not really understanding why you love it so much.

However, I DO agree with Cote re: The Master and Margarita which I found silly and irritating, and didn't finish.

Best - parcel posted today. Hope you enjoy it!

11. How I Lost You - Jenny Blackhurst

I've been reading quite a lot of these thriller type books recently and some are quite disappointing. This one, however, I thoroughly enjoyed. The storyline involves a mother who has been released from jail after doing time for murdering her baby. She has been told that she had a form of PND and remembers nothing about the act. However, as she tries to move on with her life in a new village she starts receiving messages that make her start to think that the version of events that she has been fed may not be the truth. Very intriguing book! Although parts aren't very realistic.

Still here and still reading The Gustav Sonata After a good start to the reading challenge last month my pace has definitely slowed but I expected that. I'm looking foward to spending the next couple of days catching up with my reading.

Thanks Remus. Can't wait.

I bought The North Water too. Thanks folks.

I agree with Cote on this next one :

1. The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu I feel completely refreshed and invigorated by this book. It was proper science fiction, with proper hard science. It felt challenging, and foreign and strange, but ultimately human, and about the nature of humanity, and how individually and collectively our hopes and dreams for our future are shaped by history and circumstance and place in the world (slight spoiler alert - even if that world is not the earth). Previous reviewers have commented on cultural differences. Here's an interesting quote from the translator: 'the English words are arranged in such a way that the reader sees a glimpse of another culture's patterns of thinking, hears an echo of another language's rhythms and cadences, and feels a tremor of another people's gestures and movements.' In my opinion, he nailed it .

I also bought The North Water today - looking forward to it!

12. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J K Rowling - Final book in the series - I've been reading like mad trying to finish as we go to see the Cursed Child soon. I really enjoyed this - it felt like a great ending to the series.

10 Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. It was an easy read but doesn't a lot happen in a very short time. It lurched from one crisis to the next, not sure my nerves can take the rest of the series

"Ooh look at the cute scientists who don't quite understand how to be 'normal' because they're so clever- aren't they CUTE' sort of way."

A... what??? You are crazy But I love you anyway

Where do you even see "scientists"? Gauss was a great mathematician and Humboldt was a geographer.

gosh, these threads move so quickly
I've been really busy at work so not much time for reading or MNing, but hope to catch up with both over half-term

6. Swing Time by Zadie Smith - Two girls meet at a (you've guessed it) NW London dance school. The story tells how life pans out both for the talented dancer, and the less talented one. Compared to other Smith novels I've read I definitely enjoyed this more - the plot is excellent and races along. I really liked how dance was used as a constant motif. I'm less bothered about the usual dose of NW London class angst, but that's a minor point.

Sorry to hear about your MIL, whippet - I too have fallen off the thread, due to my FIL dying. Still managed to read a couple of books in between the general chaos that always ensues at such times. I've brought my list along:
Books read in 2017

1 The Woman Who Stole My Life by Marian Keyes
2 The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg
3 Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J Ryan Stradal
4 Cheer Up Love by Susan Calman
5 Beswitched by Kate Saunders
6 Someone Else's Skin by Sarah Hilary
7 Wifework by Susan Maushart
8 The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller
9 The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
10 The Adventurous Seven: Their Hazardous Undertaking - Bessie Marchant
11 No Kiss for Mother - Tomi Ungerer
12 Detour from Normal - Ken Dickson
13 The Dark Net - Jamie Bartlett
14 Whisper My Secret - JB Rowley Thus was a freebie n the daily Bookbub deals. It is the story of a mother in rural Australia who loses her first three children. It is a fairly common story, told well, with some stereotyped caricature of character that grated a little, although on the whole this was avoided and there were some well-craft d character complexities. I certainly recognised the echoes of a certain type of small-town Antipodean upbringing that I think was still evident a least until fairly recently.
15 The Skeleton Cupboard - Tanya Byron This has been much reviewed upthread. I really enjoy he'd thus. I think it was the first book all year that I didn't want to put down, and ended up reading far too late at night!
16 Scars Upon My Heart - ed. by Catherine Reilly A wonderful collection of female poets writing about wartime, during wartime. A stark reminder of the terrible heroism and utter loneliness behind that arch phrase, "keep the home fires burning". I really recommend this.

My condolences for your MIL, whippet.

And your FIL, DrDiva