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.

I'd like to reread Rebecca too ABC. I dint know why I keep thinking of films, but the Hitchcock film of it is fantastic, Joan Fontaine & Laurence Olivier.

I'm rereading Wolf Winter at the moment as it's a book club choice. I read it a few months ago but am appreciating the writing and atmosphere more this time. I often find I get a bit caught up reading for plot the first time I read something and don't concentrate on the rest. Does anyone else do this?

stokey I don't consciously do this, but always turn up new things on a reread of a good book, even of something I've reread many times.

sadik That's exciting. Have you read the Sylvia Plath bee sequence? They're very good and what I always think of with bee keeping, but really make the whole enterprise seem uncanny.

abc agree on God of Small Things.

Happy Sunday!

Took me so long to finish my book you all dropped off my thread list.

Will update then read the thread back

1. The Muse - Jessie Burton

1. Gone Without a Trace - Mary Torjussen
2. Flesh Wounds - Christopher Brookmyre
3. Phantom: a Harry Hole Thriller - Jo Nesbo
4. Dead Simple (Roy Grace Series) - Peter James
5. All Good Deeds (A Lucy Kendall Thriller) - Stacy Green
6. The Turtle Boy - Kealan Patrick Burke

8. His Bloody Project - Graeme McRae

1. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion

10. The Last Day of Christmas: The Fall of Jack Parlabane (short story) - Christopher Brookmyre 11. Tales of Protection - Erik Fosnes Hansen 12. The Wall of Sky, The Wall of Eye - Jonathan Letham 13. Ready Player One - Ernest Cline

Much reviewed already. As a computing teacher born in the seventies this was right up my alley. It took me longer than I expected to really get into it and took me ages to finish weirdly. I did really enjoy it though and will be recommending it to a class this week.

Think I am going to start The Essex Serpent now

Another wanting to reread Rebecca here: I got Mrs deWinter by Susan Hill,set when the deWinters return to Manderley after a ten year absence, from a sale at the library recently and fancy reading the inspiration for it again before I read this one.

Absolutely Stokey. I frequently get carried away by plot, even on a re-read. I've read Rebecca at least half a dozen times and still find things I missed before.

I saw the Hitcock film recently and agree that it is wonderful.

Hitchcock

14. Days Without End by Sebastian Barry - This was Costa Book of the Year and a book group read for March. It's set in America in the 1850s and tells the story of Thomas McNulty, a young Irish immigrant, who ends up joining various wars against the Native Americans and the Civil War later on. I thought I was going to love this but felt a bit mixed about it by the end. There were some fantastic sessions and places where the language is beautiful. However, the first person narrative jarred a bit with the language in places for me - for most of the book, it was very clearly McNulty's voice and then suddenly there'd be a phrase which was definitely the author and broke the whole flow for me. (I appreciate I'm being a bit picky here!) Equally, there were parts of the story that were absolutely gripping and other parts where I found my attention wandering. This may be my fault as have had a lot going on this week so have been reading in fits and starts but I'm not sure. Would be interested to hear what others thought if anyone's read it?

Fantastic sections, not sessions!

1. The Liar's Chair - Rebecca Whitney. Psychological thriller set in Sussex about a woman with a troubled childhood and now in an abusive marriage. There was some terrible characterisation and dialogue in this book, and too much description and imagery.

1. Shockaholic - Carrie Fisher. Another witty memoir from the late writer and actress, this is a little darker than Wishful Drinking but just as entertaining, with some interesting thoughts on her friends and family. The chapter about Michael Jackson was particularly insightful.

I don't remember the Sylvia Plath bee poems Satsuki - I'll find them to read (and many thanks for the recommendation)

Book 21
On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Ian Fleming
Having never seen a James Bond film, I wasn’t really sure what to expect about this, other than that it would involve bad guys, loose girls and a lot of sex. Not sure what I felt about it overall. I thought some sections of the writing were superb, and at other points I wanted to scream with how hideously misogynistic it was or how clearly he was setting us up for something – the ending can be seen coming for most of the novel, for example. Ultimately, I was disappointed, but when he’s good, he’s really good.

They are very good sadik - there are 5: Arrival of the Bee Box, The Bee Meeting, Stings, Wintering and another the name of which escapes me.

The Swarm! But I really recommend The Bee Meeting/Wintering.

New thread here

OHMSS is one of the better ones too Remus. I read them avidly as a teenager. Not sure what I'd make of them now.

remus my dh and I read the Bond books a few years ago and sometimes we still speak to each in Bond. We used to laugh at how often he'd describe having a shower "letting the water hit him for a full minute" etc. I do have a fondness born of growing up with them and the movies, but I actually think the misongyny in the most recent movies in worse in a way than the old sexist tropes.

I've got one more Bond book (they were in a three books for a pound box at the charity shop) but I started it in about November and still haven't met Bond in it, just a really horrible bad guy. Think it might be called From Russia with Love. Whether or not I'll ever finish it, I don't know.