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.

Ooh, yay for Dorothy Sayers, glitterbrained. They get much better as they go along too, until you get to the utter, utter glory that is Gaudy Night.

Marking my place.

Still a way off finishing any book other than DCs bedtime story books and school reading books, and I really don't think I can count those.

I liked A Hundred Years of Solitude.
Book 14
Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science yy Richard Holmes

A book of two halves. I absolutely loved the first40% or so, which discuss, in turn, Joseph Banks (botanist with Captain Cook and later president of the Royal Society and William Herschel, the astronomer. Unfortunately it all got a bit dull after that and it never really came back together again (although I did enjoy the section on Frankenstein). If you’re interested in science and history, I’d say it’s worth a read – but it wasn’t as good as it could have been overall.

I liked One Hundred Years of Solitude a lot when I read it but should probably read it again as it was a long time ago. I also liked Love in the Time of Cholera and... Love and other Demons, something like that? Think it was short stories. But yes, maybe a bit weird to listen to - you have to get stuck in and suspend your disbelief.

Love all James Herriot.

Bringing my list over.

1. The Light Years - Elizabeth Jane Howard
2. Marking Time - Elizabeth Jane Howard
3. Peter's Room - Antonia Forest
4. Run Away Home - Antonia Forest
5. The Thursday Kidnapping - Antonia Forest

Four children are looking after their lodger's baby for the day. A teenage girl steals him from outside a library. Chaos, as they say, ensues. I enjoyed this a lot, although like a lot of sixties children's books, it gets surprisingly dark. The portrayal of the neglected Kathy is particularly good (though Forest, like Howard, is awfully snobbish about the working classes - one of the ways you know Kathy's a wrongun is that she uses the wrong words for mother and father). Mumsnet would have a FIELD DAY with her awful parents. That's all my Forest for now, and I must go and reread some Jane Austen for work.

Thanks for all the responses r.e. One Hundred Years of Solitude - sounds like it is worth continuing with, but perhaps I'll try to pick up a paper copy at the library and ditch the audiobook. I don't think I'm listening to it regularly enough to keep on top of what's happening.

Mr Herriot is keeping me very happy in the meantime.

Adding The Mask of Dimitrios to my tbr list, Cote. I've only read one John Le Carré book (A Most Wanted Man) and I didn't get on with it. Gave up halfway through. Maybe this is what I needed instead.

The Spy Who Came in From The Cold is a good John Le Carre

12. Deceived Wisdom: Why What You Thought Was Right Is Wrong by David Bradley Another one that had been sat unread on my kindle for years, this is a book that would be better to be dipped into (I saw a goodreads reviewer had described it as a toilet book!). It debunks old wives tales and beliefs ranging from not feeling 'the benefit' if you keep your coat on indoors to the existence of a dark side of the moon and is fairly entertaining, although I would have liked more in depth accounts in some sections and there were several "deceived wisdoms" that were just common sense that they weren't true, such as that eating your bread crusts makes your hair curl.

I'm well into This Thing of Darkness now too, I am absolutely loving it. I have borrowed it from the library but may need to buy myself a copy of this one.

I am in no way up to date with the thread and work/uni/kids/life has taken over. However some reading updates:-

1. The Universe vs Alex Woods by Gavin Extence
2. The Romanovs by Virginia Cowles
3. A Pointless History of the World by Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman

It was on sale and I do love Pointless and I am planning a quiz party for Ds1's birthday. I did read all their musings and it was amusing but not really a must read at all.

1. Blue Dog by Louis de Bernieres

Lovely prequel to Red Dog another novella that he wrote. I am a huge de Bernieres fan so was very excited to see a new book and devoured it. It is set in Australia when a young boy has to go and live with his grandfather in the outback because his father has died and his mother is in a mental hospital. It's a lovely story of their relationship and a dog he finds after a cyclone. His books always provoke a reaction in me but this whilst heart-warming and a good read didn't and I was wondering why, then a chapter called Disgrace happened and I cried on the bus and couldn't speak to anyone until I had finished.

No idea what to read next but I spent an extortionate amount on books last week as I went to a book talk with Bettany Hughes about her new book Istanbul and Elif Shafak about her book The Three Daughters of Eve which might be my next read.

I have Lorna Doone on the go on my kindle but it makes me want to shoot myself so I might just delete it from my life.

Just seen there is discussion about One Hundred Years of Solitude. I read this last year and struggled at points but it's a bit like my relationship with Virginia Woolf, there are brilliant moments that remind me why I am reading it. I don't get on with audiobooks really so no advice there.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold = excellent. It's the only JLC I've read. Dp has just bought it, so I'll try to remember to report back once he's read it (remember that this is a man who likes Ian McEwan and didn't like HHhH* though, so his views are clearly bonkers.

I hate that as well emgee.

When I have a paper book I always check as I dislike being taken by surprise. With the kindle it isn't so easy and I have been a bit taken aback when something has ended abruptly

I've been working hard to relaxing with some undemanding books, namely half of Sophie Hannah's back catalog.

They are great but extraordinarily bizarre. The motivation is always utterly mind-boggling (e.g. obsession with idea of living in Cambridge leads to mass murder spree; women spends 30 years in a psychotic fugue state because she never got over her childhood dog being sent away; serial killer is actually failed bookseller targeting Kindle owners). And the lead is a cop who has an emotional incestuous relationship with his mum and can't eat in front of others or shag his wife. OMG.

1 The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
2 Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
3 Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (audible)
4 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
5 Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
6 Still Life by Louise Penny (audible)
7 A Country Road, A Tree by Jo Baker
8 The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
9 Nightwoods by Charles Frazier
10 The North Water by Ian McGuire
11 Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
12 Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter.

13 The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant. Didn't like this at all. Its narrated by an 85 year old recounting her life story to her granddaughter. The characters were very poorly developed. Stereotypes all over the shop! I think it should be in the YA section and it's not that I don't read any YA at all but I wasn't expecting that; it's not my favourite genre at all. Anita Diamant also wrote The Red Tent which was better than this one.

Have started Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, can't recall the author's name. So far it's good and completely different subject matter from anything I have read lately.

I'm going to have to go back to the last thread to check my counting!

6. (maybe) Night School by Lee Child. The most recent Jack Reacher, but set back in the 90s, much better than last years' Make Me, though not one of my absolute favourites.

Gaudy Night is so good!

Cheerful, I am jealous you found a copy of The Thursday Kidnapping- I read it as a child but have never seen a copy since. I do have all the Marlowe books though, so
Shouldn't complain!

Tanaqui It's a library book, which is why the order I've been reading them all in is slightly odd. Hurrah for the my local library reserves. They are missing Falconer's Knot though which is really annoying as characters keep referring to it.
Gaudy Night is one of the books I go and hide in when I need to go and hide in literature. Bloody love it.

Sophie Hannah is great Gangsta.

Just finished The Bone Clocks and it was a brilliant - an original and involving take on reincarnation and "vampirism" - absolutely fab!

(And to think I nearly didn't read any David Mitchell books because I thought it was the DM who is married to Victoria Coren, and couldn't bear the thought of drowning in smugosity).

About to start Colm Toibin's "Nora Webster", but it will have to wait until tomorrow now because my eyeballs are exhausted!

Also - got through another audiobook - Northanger Abbey. I LOVE Jane Austin - totally made up for the Dickens

21. The Tidal Zone - Sarah Moss
    Story of a Stay at home Dad whose world is rocked when his teenage daughter collapses and stops breathing. We've discussed Sarah Moss and her middle class world of houmous and muesli muffins on a previous thread and this was more of the same. It was ok but I just felt she was trying too hard to be clever. The book is intersected with the spiritual journey of the grandfather in the story which I found boring and skipped over. There are also sections on the blitzing of Coventry and the rebuilding of the Cathedral. These I found fascinating (my own grandfather lost a brother in the Coventry blitz) but I failed to see the relevance to the rest of the book unless there was a literary device I didnt recognise. It was ok but a bit of a mish-mash of a book. I like hummus btw.

Completely agree re JA. Happy

I have Gaudy Night on Kindle and have read it years ago but am saving it to work up to IYSWIM? Am trying to gradually get all the Wimsey books when they're discounted, not helped by the fact that there seem to be loads of different editions on Kindle. I discovered that I already had a different copy of Whose Body after reading, so couldn't return it.

"a man who likes Ian McEwan and didn't like HHhH though, so his views are clearly bonkers"

Sounds like your DH has remarkably good taste in books, Remus

1. Try not to Breathe. Holly Sedden. Quite a good book but i felt the end was slightly rushed.

I should add re{ The Bone Clocks, that the "vampirism" (though not as we know it, Jim) touches on our abuse of the world and its resources, and where our greed could easily land us.

'Nuff said.

11. Conspiracy by SJ Parris

Giordano Bruno is in Paris and hoping for the patronage of Henry III. But the city is on the edge as the fanatical Catholic League plots against the king and the court is filled with intrigue. After a priest who preached a firey sermon against the king is murdered, Henry calls on Bruno to find the killer. Bruno finds himself under threat on multiple sides as he tries to unravel the complicated threads of conspiracy surrounding the death.

Would recommend Parris to any fans of CJ Sansom who might be looking for something in a similar vein.