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.

9 The Adventurous Seven: Their Hazardous Undertaking - Bessie Marchant I like reading early twentieth-century children's books - often such escapism and wonderfully silly plot twists. This one was no exception. A family of seven children hop on a boat from England, bound for Australia. They arrive and set off to find their father. There is no culture shock, real hardship, or comprehension of real life. I enjoyed it in th midst of a few grim life things going on!
10 No Kiss for Mother - Tomi Ungerer very short, but I'm allowing myself to count it, partly as it is a classic, partly as recompense for Pillars of the Earth! I didn't really like it. I'm not big on books about brats!
11 Detour from Normal - Ken Dickson this has been reviewed already unthread. I agree that the stuff about Utopia makes it a very tedious read at times. I'm afraid that also, despite his insisting that he is entirely recovered, (and that anyone thinking otherwise just doesn't get how wonderful his ideas are), I think either he isn't recovered, or he is guilty of utter arrogance. He clearly had a dreadful time, and I have no difficulty in believing that the treatment was dreadful and/or nonexistent, but some things just don't add up. And if I were his wife, I would bloody well divorce him for writing about me like that.

Now. I need to find another book I am really going to enjoy. There haven't been too many yet this year. In which case, Dickens may have to wait...

Many thanks for new thread, SouthEast.
Bringing my list across to the new thread (with highlights starred)
1 The Hacienda: How Not To Run a Club
2 The Thriling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage **
3 A Closed and Common Orbit **
4 How to be a Heroine
5 Breakfast at Tiffany's
6 Forty Autumns
7 The Dark Net **
8 The Dream Thieves
9 How to be a Victorian
10 Europe in Winter **
11 The Skeleton Cupboard
12 Poor Economics
13 Mutton (India Knight)
14 Development as Freedom
15 Blue Lily Lily Blue

Looking at the list reminds me Remus that Forty Autumns by Nina Willner is set mainly in East Germany between the 2nd world war and present time. I found the subject matter fascinating but didn't get on with the writing style - but I think we have very different tastes, and you might like it if you've not read it?

Currently got a few things on the go - Living Danishly by my bed for when I need putting to sleep, A Very Expensive Poison for 'proper' reading and then I'm also reading the second Cassandra Clare Draco fanfic when I fancy something trashy.

Sorry for rubbish formatting, forgot that pasting across from excel doesn't work too well.

Hi all and thanks for the new thread

I'm on book 7 at the moment, which is Papillon - a reread but haven't read it in 20+ years. I love it, it's a tremendous book.

Papillon is a great read, meg, agree

PhoenixRising thanks, I'll avoid Leap Year if it's more of the same format as The Year of Living Danishly!
I have A Place Called Winter in my many TBRs on my kindle.
Finished 7. Magpie Murders Anthony Horowitz last night. Liked the book within a book concept but found it a bit slow. I don't know what to start next!

Thansk, Sadik - I'll have a look but am not terribly optimistic based on the title and the fact that the writer is a young female. Sorry if that makes me a horrible person! Will get the free sample.

Have also got the free sample of Night thanks to Every.

Joyless Agree entirely about the ending of Golden Hill.

She's actually not that young, if that helps - probably mid 50s? She was certainly working as a US intelligence officer in Berlin before the fall of the Wall.

Yes joyless I enjoyed Golden Hill, but wasn't quite there for me either.

Checking in!

Thanks - she looks v young in the pic I found of her! I'll let you know if I like the sample. :)

Remus - Please check out The Mask Of Dimitrios.

Halfway through book ten Anne Frank The Diary of a Young Girl. I am wishing at times that I read the whole thing as a teenager to see what I thought of it then. It's hard to read the descriptions of such mundane arguments and irritations when something so big was happening outside but it does prove that life does continue and it's terribly difficult to live in such close quarters to people when there's almost not respite and no change! I'd definitely struggle!Struggled with the bits with her talking about becoming a mother and being more loving than her own mother and her feeling guilty about friends that may not be as safe as she is.

I also wish we had it from her mothers point of view too as she seems to come across the worst from Anne's point of view and I'd have liked to know what she was feeling and her story.

Oh Remus I hope you like it.

MegBusset That takes me back. I must have read Papillon in the 70s. Just checked and it's survived many a ruthless cull. Perhaps it should go on my TBR pile. I seldom re-read but there are a few books that have remained on my shelves because one day... Others I have put on the re-read pile that I read in the 70s (my early 20s) are The Womens Room and The Magus

Thanks for the new thread southeast.
Every time I look at this thread I have to add new books to my TBR pile!
Thanks boldly for that review, have to add that one too!

Cote - I got the free sample yesterday, as soon as I saw it mentioned.

Am half way through Age of Wonder - it's good but am currently on a chemistry bit, which is never going to be my favourite thing in the world.

Also halfway through left For Dead by Beck Weathers, one of the (v v lucky) survivors of the 1996 Everest disaster, which I picked up for a song in a charity shop at the weekend.

wex my copy of Papillon was stolen years ago and I was so upset. Have downloaded it on the Kindle when it was on a deal in case I want to reread.

Halfway through Revelation and get the "Tudor Se7en" comment now cote I'm enjoying it more than I did Sovereign and it seems to have fewer of the textual 'tics' that annoyed me in the first three.

Adding number five and six.

1. The Lola Quartet by Emily St John Mandel
2. missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner

Quite liked both but neither had me totally arsed. Missing, Presumed had some pretty mega twists which was good though.

Am just about to start The Last Star (last book of the 5th wave) and am excited to see how it all ends.

When I bring my lists over to the next thread, I usually highlight the outstanding ones in bold and the awful ones in italics, but all these have been average:

1. Even Dogs in the Wild - Ian Banks
2. Cheer up Love - Susan Calman
3. The Noise of Time - Julian Barnes
4. I'll Have What She's Having - Rebecca Harrington

And today I finished book 5 - Leap In, by Alexandra Hemingsley, a non-fiction memoir/guide on swimming and how the author became an experienced swimmer. Like her book about running, this would have been more interesting as a condensed magazine article without the boring padding, this time about books about swimming, the history of swimming, how her body feels when she's in the water...all a bit of a yawn, really, and I'm annoyed I was too impatient to get this from the library.

Next up is The Goldfish Boy.

1. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler. I love Anne Tyler, and this is a good one. It's the story of a woman, Pearl, bringing up her three children on her own (after her husband walks out) in Baltimore. This is pure comfort reading - gentle, meandering, beautifully observed.

Next up is All Quiet on the Western Front after all the rave reviews on here. I've never read it before.

13. His bloody project. Really well written and left a big impression. For me the actual murders were a sideline to the injustices and social commentary. Someone on here said it left them feeling angry( can't remember who and too late to go trawling!) and I would completely agree with that.
Now need to immerse myself in WW1, trying to write about it and it's not coming easily.

Tarahumara I've also been reading the reviews of All Quiet on the Western Front on here and stumbled across it in the second-hand section of Blackwell's in Oxford at the weekend. It's in immaculate condition so I was very chuffed.

Almost finished Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss and then might read it next. I think I read it a long long time ago but I have a feeling I was too young to really appreciate it.

RMC It was me with the angry comment. It did make me angry. I'm still angry about it now, days later.

In contrast, I read The Help just after it, which also covered injustice but read instead as - 'wasn't this a terrible injustice, but didn't we have such a lovely time?' It mentioned but glossed over the worst of what was happening. That has annoyed me ever since I finished it and I'm struggling to settle into reading anything else.

Ah Wex, I sneaked The Women's Room and The Female Eunuch off my mother's bookshelf as a young teen. Eye-opening stuff and rather an intimidating introduction to womanhood.

Dickens - I'm not a big fan. I did Hard Times at school, which knocked any willingness to explore his work out of my system. At some point I'd quite like to give Bleak House another go - read it years ago when too young to really get it, and I liked the quotations from it in Weatherland. There are just so many other books.........

For book 12, I'm dabbling in murder as a palate-cleanser: The Dead Student, by John Katzenbach. Two amateur investigators look into the supposed suicide of an uncle. Besides the serial murders, there are references to alcoholism and date rape, but it's somehow weirdly wholesome and Nancy Drew-ish. It's readable enough but essentially a pot-boiler.