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.

Race you, happy

Eat my dust Satsuki

David Bamber will forever be the best Mr Collins. Slimy little man!

He certainly will Tam. Really eeeew! My heart goes out to Charlotte Lucas - to be so desperate for security . . . .

I don't like the 95 production (although agree that Mr Collins actor is v good). Don't like Jennifer E, and really dislike the Jane casting, and can take or leave Colin F. Far prefer Matthew whatshisname as Darcy.

Some of my favourite books for YA/children mentioned here.
I was a stupidly precocious reader - I read the Hobbit at six - but some of the books I read as a child I have re-read as an adult and appreciated more, probably.
I'm thinking of The Borrowers, Watership Down, The Eagle of the Ninth. I've recently been reading a fair bit of steampunk, though when I started it, I didn't know that was a genre, like Gail Carriger, Jodi Taylor and Genevieve Coghill, which could probably all be classed as YA novels, but which do have a hint of darkness.
Anyway I've just finished The Cheapside Corpse by Susanna Gregory. Set during the Restoration, the plague and the threat of war against the Dutch, Thomas Chaloner is trying to find a murderer, sort out his wife's debts and find some curtains too. Entertaining, and I enjoy the way she develops the characters. I didn't guess whodunnit.
I'm also plodding through My brilliant friend for book group. I think my fellow readers may give up.

Did you lot realise Mr Collins is only supposed to be 25? I'd completely forgotten that.

I like the tv one a lot but some of the casting is odd. Very much disagree about CF/Matthew Whatisname though - whatsisname is terrible and earnest and breathy and not at all haughty or aloof enough or handsome enough (well, not enough to tempt me!)

He wasn't great casting for the description of Mr Collins, but he inhabited it. They're all terribly young though when you come to think of it.

He's far more handsome than pudding face Colin F!

at pudding face. M Wotsit looks like John Cusack's plain brother. Too pouty and he has a flabby voice.

I am honestly wondering what on earth I used to read as a child. I was constantly reading and was in the library every week but I have never read any of the books mentioned.

I do remember a phase of Mallory Towers which is a bit weird as I hated all the Famous 5 and other such stuff. My mum was desperate for me to read Little Women so I tried but I hated it.

Now that I think about it I do remember reading a lot of James Herriot at about 12 years old. No idea what I read other than that.

I do have a funny memory of being on holiday with an Aunty and swapping books for the flight home. I gave her Schindlers List and she gave me Jilly Cooper. I don't remember what one it was but I do remember it had the C word about 6 times on the first two or three pages. I was 15 and terribly prim!

Allthelight - "will de-lurk to admit to recommending The Secret Garden "

Courage. I like it!

Delurk and join the fun, Allthelight

I thought David Bamber was perfect for Mr Collins. I will always think of him when I read P&P. I liked CF too though.

I liked Middlemarch when I eventually got in to it.

26. Ghosts of Everest. Absolutely loved this - thank you Remus. The story of the 1999 expedition to find the bodies of Mallory and Irvin who perished on the 1923 expedition. Unexpectedly emotional and I loved the 'detective work' based on the notes and artefacts they found at the end. In fact I'd have liked more detail on this bit. The handkerchief - so beautiful.

I've spent the last hour watching this film of the expedition. It's not very good quality but very interesting.

Will get the book in the post tomorrow Remus.

Irvine

1924 sigh.

Me too Passme.....I was always reading and in the library weekly but no idea what I was picking up.....
I think I started tuning in with Agatha Christie....and Nevil Shute...

Just finished The North Water.....hmmm....well written and very effective. I could see, smell and taste the story....forces of good and evil at work....men under pressure and faced with the challenge of staying alive in foul, foul conditions.... life or death choices made for themselves and for each other. The setting is harsh and grinding and demands that we review how that makes people react...it's a shocking story with deliberately shocking episodes ....
Did I enjoy it....no not really....and I felt as if I was a bit immune in the end as the violence kept coming.....I'm glad I read it but also glad I got it for 99p

I have read the majority of Jane Eyre. I was up to around 70% when my holiday finished and the never got to the end. I will maybe re read it in a few months as I was enjoying it before then.
I adored Off Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird.

So glad you enjoyed it, Best. No rush to get it back to me - certainly don't go to the post office just for that.

Conversation has moved a bit but re The North Water:

Satsuki - "I have a postgrad American lit degree so am familiar with "what is called American realist literature" in general and I enjoyed the book."

OK then, I guess you can say that you are somewhat familiar with the genre

"Civilisation vs savagery/the amorality of nature and human nature etc etc - Did you find it subtle?"

No, those were obviously the main themes of the book. But you talked about an unsubtle point that the book was making and I wondered what you felt that point was.

"a man smells of "crotch", blood spurts, blood spurts, blood spurts, on and on."

I thought that was a pretty good description, actually. And blood spurts are entirely to be expected in the scenarios that were described, I would think. I didn't find any of that disturbing, tbh.

What I really want to say in this post is that it's amazing how different people can get a totally different impression from the same book. And what I mean by that is.....

• SPOILER - SPOILER - SPOILER - SPOILER - SPOILER - SPOILER - SPOILER -

"Drax felt quite 2d villain by the end."

I thought exactly the opposite. He was a textbook villain until the last 1/3 where our protagonist goes through his own trials of survival and finds himself changed by the experience, his thought processes and even his character approaching that of Drax. By the end of the book, he is not just an evil villain, because we understand how someone becomes a Drax.

11122aa I read Jane Eyre as a teenager and absolutely loved it!

When I was a kid I read anything that sat still long enough. All the Enid Blyton mystery series, all the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and The Three Investigators my library had but also Polyanna, What Katy Did and the Little Women series. I don't think I was hugely impressed with The Secret Garden though!

DF tried to get me to read Kidnapped for my Brownie Reading badge. This did not go well and he was horribly disappointed as it was his favourite when he was a boy. I came back to it a few years later and thoroughly enjoyed it as a ripping yarn. Didn't like Treasure Island as much.

Ah - to be more specific - 'life is shit' was his point

I suppose within what you said in your spoiler piece - the corruptibility of human nature, I agree with what you say, that is what he was trying to show, but I felt like he used too many violent set pieces to demonstrate it when he could have reached for something else, and I found it less effective than it might have been as a result.

Agree the descriptions were great and I'm not knocking them individually, but the same man was described as smelling of some degree of groin almost every time he made an entrance! I remember from last time How do repeated episodes of diarrhoea move the story forward? (only on this thread ...) Stephen King has a phrase, something like "kill your darlings". This guy kept every single gory darling in and it somewhat overpowered his story, for me anyway.

Re Goodnight Mr Tom - I disagree that it is aimed at 13/14 year olds. We were reading it in the last year of primary school ( I remember this as I had to miss school due to an op so mum bought me my own copy!). Not saying that teenagers can't enjoy it of course!

Re P&P - I loved the 1995 adaptation but I think they were all a bit too old-looking for the characters they were playing. The Keira Knightley film had better casting age-wise.

Jennifer Ehle for e.g was only 24 though so there wasn't that much in it really. I thought she was good.

I also read Goodnight Mister Tom at primary school when we did a WWII topic, and that wasn't in my final year so would have been 8/9. Also Carrie's War.

I didn't say that Goodnight Mr Tom was aimed at 13/14 year olds - that was in reference to The Northern Lights.

Kill your darlings is from Allen Ginsberg, and King references it in his wonderful quote, "Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings."

Remus - that was me wondering if Goodnight Mister Tom was aimed at 13/14 year olds because that's how old I was when I did it at school.

Nothing you said!

That's the full King quote I was thinking of, thanks remus. I don't think the original was Ginsberg though - it's been attributed to Faulkner, too, but it actually goes further back to someone writing a style guide. Writers have been variously trotting it out, and ignoring it, ever since! I'll Google.