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.

river I was just talking to my dh yesterday about Only You Can Save Mankind I'm reading Ready Player One and it made me think of it with all the 80s arcade games and the mix of the real and the virtual world. I said I really wanted to find the trilogy and reread them before my ds gets to that age. I think the others were Johnny and The Dead and then one about a bomb? Cheered to hear you enjoyed it, anyway

And yy re: a good children's book by a good writer beating a poorly executed adult one.

27. Fat Chance by Nick Spalding

The diary of a couple which enters a radio contest to see which couple can lose the most weight. Lightweight and a very quick read. Mildly amusing but the couple in question was a bit annoying.

17: The Small House at Allington (audiobook): Kind of cheating by adding my audiobooks in here but I listen to them a lot when walking/exercising. I am loving Timothy West's reading of the Barsetshire books and have read very little Trollope before. This wasn't my favourite because I was so annoyed with Lily's ridiculous posturing, but I still loved all the De Courcy antics and the travails of the young clerks in their boarding houses. So I have only The Last Chronicle of Barsetshire and then I'll be onto the Pallisers! Plantagenet was introduced in The Small House at Allington.

Not cheating at all Ontop, lots of us include audiobooks!

I need recs, please (don't all groan at once).
Just coming to the end of a re-read of It and still reading three or four non-fiction books, but I want a novel - something feel-good but not trite. Would I like The Warden? I want something that feels a bit like a hot chocolate and a chocolate eclair on a rainy day, but intelligent hot choc & cake!

satsui I haven't read the others, I picked up Only You...somewhere! Some day I will learn to walk away from signs that say, "Books 50p" but judging from the copy of A Passage to India that found its own way into our house on Sunday, it won't be anytime soon!

I will have to get my hands on the rest of the Johnny books sometime!

I've never walked away from those either, river

remus I have nothing, but just to remind you that the new kindle monthly deals should come on tomorrow, so may we all find intelligent cakes

Remus I am not sure if it counts as 'feel good' but a book I read three years ago and I still recommend to people is Gillespie and I by Jane Harris. Not idea whether you have read it or not but that's my humble contribution

Satsuki - Ooh yes. Thanks for the reminder!

RMC - Thanks. Will have a look.

River - I'd be interested to hear how you find Passage - I really liked it the first time I read it and then positively despised it on a re-read many years later. Weird!

I have abandoned Nutshell by Ian McEwan, it's only 200 pages long but I can't get on with it.
It is narrated by an eight month old unborn baby who is remarkably articulate as a result of listening to radio four and listens to his mother and her lover plotting to do away with his father. It seems to take a half page to say what could've been said in one sentence and in less meandering, complicated language. I gave up shortly after a faintly nausea inducing description of the mother and her lover having sex written from the baby's viewpoint (ick!) Some reviews I read explain that it is a modern take on Hamlet so I bet it's actually very clever but this ones not for me I'm afraid!

I've just started Golden Hill instead which is much better!

Murine I was thinking about Nutshell this morning. I read it last year and enjoyed it but I'm totally of the 'life's too short to read books you're not enjoying' way of thinking. Have you read any of his others?

I had exactly the same thing with Passage remus. Loved it as a teenager, reread some years on and found it somewhat lacking and not even as well written as I remember

I really loved The Warden - though it was being soothingly read to me by Timothy West. He is very good as he reads characters distinctly and has a lovely Trollopian voice - perfect for the archdeacons and country squires. It was my first Trollope for years and I'm so glad I've discovered them.

Maybe Passage is a bit like Thomas Hardy - appeals to teenage girls, but grown women get a bit impatient with it? I'll try to dig out the review of my re-read - iirc my biggest gripe was that precisely nothing happens in it.

Sunset - will definitely give it a go at some point, but not convinced it meets my needs for something light and feel good, right now.

It's definitely lighter to listen to than to read!

I've read quite a few of Ian McEwan's novels and really liked Enduring Love, Atonement and Sweet Tooth particularly, I've surprised myself by not enjoying Nutshell southeastdweller
I usually make myself finish books I've started, Im not entirely sure why! In this case I realised that Golden Hill by Francis Spufford and The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss were both due back at the library yesterday, so I need to prioritise my reading time so my late fine isn't too awful!

It's definitely lighter to listen to than to read!

If you are talking about "The Warden" - NOOOOOOOO! It is a wonderful book and a joy to read!

If "Nutshell" - Have to agree. I have read it and listened to it, and I preferred it on audio.

Have been reading two and listening to a third and yesterday finished "The Edge of the Orchard" by Tracey Chevalier (audio) - I didn't think I was gong to enjoy it, but I did,

Also "Mrs Rosie and the Priest" (Giovanni Boccaccio) - one of the "Penguin 80's" - short books by classic writers - also enjoyed this - very mildly "saucy" for want of a better term.

And "The Blood Doctor" (Barbara Vine) - a re-read. Read it about five years ago and enjoyed it, and enjoyed it this time too. The narrator is a PITA (IMHO ) but I really enjoyed the story. I can remember that when I first read to I guessed the denouement, but I didn't mind as I felt very clever!

I found it an excellent novel - really enjoyed it.

These are numbers 35. 36 and 37 - this includes 9 audiobooks which (like a previous poster) I feel are cheating slightly, as I can do other stuff at the same time (which I can't while I'm reading, except for knitting, which is zen).

Am part way through "A Dangerous Inheritance" (Alison Weir) which I'd hoped to finish by now but may abandon. I will give it two more chapters! Have started "Number9 Dream" (David Mitchell) on audio. It's. . . . . . . . . . . weird . . . . . .

What about Under a Pole Star by Stef Penney Remus? Not read it but IIRC The Tenderness of Wolves Was quite good. Though it's an eye watering price on Kindleat the moment.

Yes maybe - I hadn't read as much set in other cultures then so found it quite fascinating at that point, but when I went back to it it was all a lot clunkier than I remembered and there was a lot of tedious exposition disproportionate to plot.

I have to say I have always hated Thomas Hardy Jude was ok, but who wants to read that more than once

I LOVE The Blood Doctor Happy. It's one of my regular re-reads along with Asta's Book. Love nearly all Barbara Vine.

I liked Far From The Madding Crowd but failed to read anything else by Hardy. I do like some of his poetry though.

Under a Pole Star is on my list (although I didn't like Wolves) but too expensive. Will wait until it drops on Kindle, or comes into the library.