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.

cote and song as you both couldn't even remember who was the subject of HHhH I'm putting your dissent down to a failure of comprehension

"meticulous, and utterly gripping"

Ahhahhahhahhahaha

"Gripping"? There was barely even a story for most of the book, except his whiny bitching about his girlfriend, how difficult it is to get the story straight in his head, etc. Seriously, most of the book wasn't about the assassination attempt all. It was just so... French

"I'm putting your dissent down to a failure of comprehension "

At least in my case, it is a case of my brain's inability to store rubbish

But Satsu - don't you think it would have been a better, richer, novel if it had been, say, like Wolf Hall but about Heydrich and the Czechs?

And I read it a few years ago, so I'm excused from getting which one was Himmler and which one was Heydrich mixed up, ithankyou.

I mean, granted it probably couldn't be adapted for Tom Cruise, but even so the plot to kill HEYDRICH that constituted the second half of the book, was incredibly gripping and well told. He told that pretty much straight and what could be more gripping? I liked reading his personal engagement with the story and found it witty rather than whiny. And yes he talked about what he didn't know, and couldn't be certain about, but it was obvious there was the weight of real research behind the playfulness, and I think the deliberate misdirection and unreliability of the first half made the second all the more powerful and affecting. I'm sure a very straightforward account of the event exists, but it wouldn't have that Je ne sais quoi

This thread reminds me at times of being in my CSYS English class listening to two teachers having a very heated debate over Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

"It's a work of genius, Mrs such and such"
"It's complete nonsense which has no plot at all"
"It's called 'magical realism", Mrs such and such"
"It's called bloody garbage, mr so and so"

I tried 100 Years of Solitude and gave up. I did finish Love in the Time of Cholera but I am still in team Mrs Such and Such. Even if I did fancy Mr So and So

No I don't think it would have been better as a straight novel, I really liked what he did with it, and didn't finish it wishing it had been different. I enjoyed the style. There were a lot of H's, and they were all pretty assassin-friendly, so I guess you get a pass

Completely unrelated to HHhH ...
Have just finished book 16. Another* WW1 - Love Letters of the Great War* - think I will have to have a little break or at least read something lighter in tandem!

Satsuki - "second half of the book, was incredibly gripping and well told. He told that pretty much straight and what could be more gripping?"

Err... this book? Gripping, well-told, and "pretty much straight"?

Here's a paragraph from that second half: "I’m all too aware that my two heroes are late making their entrance. But perhaps it’s no bad thing if they have to wait. Perhaps it will give them more substance. Perhaps the mark they’ve made in history and on my memory might imprint itself even more profoundly in these pages. Perhaps this long wait in the antechamber of my brain will restore some of their reality, and not just vulgar plausibility. Perhaps, perhaps … but nothing could be less sure!"

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on what we consider gripping and well-told, in a straight manner

The paragraph you quoted is clearly from before he describes the attempt - "my heroes are late making their entrance" - I'm not saying the second half isn't told in the same style, it is, and I liked it, but it is fairly linear compared to the first half and, yes, gripping; and obviously that wouldn't be the paragraph I would choose to illustrate that

I think it's been said before, but it doesn't really lend itself to bits and pieces being taken out of context, but the descriptions of the wait for the car, the escape, the siege, the attack on Lidice, the threat of betrayal, the persecution of those who aided the resistance, were all extremely absorbing to read, imo. If you don't like the style, you aren't going to see past it though

And I did say "pretty much straight" not "in a straight manner"

Here's another paragraph from HHhH:

"I’ll have to resist the temptation to flaunt my knowledge by writing too many details for this or that scene that I’ve researched too much, I must admit that in this case – regarding Heydrich’s birthplace – my knowledge is a bit sketchy. There are two towns in Germany called Halle, and I don’t even know which one I’m talking about. For the time being, I think it’s not important. We’ll see."

The book is full is utter nonsense like this. Moronic, whiny crap about stuff he might write but maybe won't and in any case who cares, bla bla da bla. Despicable weasel. I knew I could hate a man just from the crap he writes because... well, Hitler's Mein Kampf and Trump's Twitter feed. But I never thought I could hate an author because his fiction is so fucking terrible.

Deep breaths...

Never one to cause an argument about bad writing, I'm just going to wander through and change the subject, or perhaps not...

19. Flowers in the Attic by Virginia Andrews. This was awful, but I couldn't put it down. It's been sitting around the house for decades unread. I always had a rough idea of what happened in it, but had no idea it was so dire. I don't feel I'll be missing out by skipping the sequels.

Don't worry Fortuna. Dissing books is what we do. Satsuki & I have been doing this a long time

I read Flowers In The Attic as a teenager, as did most of my girlfriends. I have no idea what my parents were thinking, letting me read such dodgy stuff. Brother/sister imprisoned in the attic by their mum? What then happens between them?

To be honest, I was enjoying the virtual fist fight between you.
I won't be reading it.

It was my Mum who gave me Flowers and the next two in the series in my teens. I never fancied them much so never got round to them. Reading it was like rubbernecking a terrible accident. You know you shouldn't be looking, but you can't help but slow down the car.

adapted for Tom Cruise

No indeed Satsu, it's Rosamund Pike and Jack O'Connell, coming soon to a cinema, I think it's in post prod, no release date.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HHhH_(film)

1. The Bookshop on the Corner, by Jenny Colgan: inoffensive, predictable, escapist fluff about a woman who starts a mobile bookshop in Scotland after losing her job as a librarian.

1. Fates and Furies, by Lauren Groff: a marriage plot with the marriage at the beginning.

1. The Widow, by Fiona Barton: rather like reading a fairly sleazy tabloid account of a missing child and the various people involved, only less well-written.

1. The Hanging Tree, by Ben Aaronovitch: the sixth book in the Peter Grant series, an enjoyable fantasy/mystery genre cross. Reviewed in previous threads.

I read Fates and Furies last year. Really disappointed as I loved her last one (Monsters of Templeton I think? Off the top of my head. About a girl returning to her small home town in upper New York state. It was low-key but stayed in my head for a long time afterwards)

Flowers in the Attic- had a whole spell of reading Virginia Andrews when I was about 14. Thought they were amazing at the time. But they served their purpose and kept me reading, a bit of a bridge to other things. Try to apply the same philosophy about reading to my children now: I don't mind what rubbish they read (within reason !) as long as they read!

despicable weasel

FWIW I think actually more people liked HHhH on here than hated it last year (show of hands? Help me out here!) so it's a shame if people are put off giving it a try, because the "utter nonsense" is actually quite thoughtful, moving and original in context. He cares about the story and is honest about the difficulties of getting it right and doing justice to the real people involved. And it really was a page turner toward the end, I wanted to know how it all turned out for the two resistance guys, the impact on the war as a whole, and found the level of detail fascinating.

Anyway, we both liked The Revenant

I saw a film called Operation Anthropoid out as well everysong. Wonder how they'll do it.

Here's the despicable weasel talking about it, he's lovely!

m.youtube.com/watch?v=MoLC_52hSlM

Also thanks to this, ahem, debate I discovered he has a new book out in May, so very excited about that. I fell about laughing when I saw the title, thinking of cote's reaction - It's called The 7th Function of Language and it's a thriller about...Roland Barthes Look away now, my friend, it's about to get even more French

I read HHhH a few years ago and I really enjoyed it. It's non-fiction but written in a completely different manner. I thought the suspense was well built, and the story was gripping.

I don't have a creative bone in my body, so found the insight into his writing process fascinating having never read anything like it. I think it would be a shame for people to dismiss it because of someone else's opinion. Other then on here I don't know anyone who's disliked it.

Another yes vote to HHhH - I wouldn't rave about it as some do, but I thought it was definitely worth reading. I generally avoid WW2 set books just because I've read so very many over my lifetime but I thought it made valid points about the way much non-fiction is written. For example, I was much more interested in the subject matter of Behind the Beautiful Forevers which I read around the same time, but was quite uncomfortable with the complete non-presence of the author as observer within the book.

Agree that taking bits of HHhH out of context isn't terribly helpful. The whole point of it is that it's describing a journey of thinking things through, getting it confused, trying to decide what to tell and what not to tell, trying to decide if the teller is able to tell it at all etc.

I think even the very best books could be carefully segmented and made to sound crap - throwing out a few lines of Mr Collins with no context would make Pride and Prejudice sound utter nonsense, for example.

Finished book 9.

Will get my list over in a bit but for now . . .

1. The Rosie Project Graeme Simsion

A complete departure from my normal 'type', this fell into almost Rom-Com territory. There was a complete absence of Pointless Shagging, however and at one point I was very much rooting for shagging to take place. Genetics processor, Don Tillman decides he needs to find a life partner so creates the Wife Project which is a questionnaire designed to weed out unsuitable possibilities to save time and energy. In the process of this Don is introduced to 'The world's most incompatible woman', A Psychology PhD called Rosie who has her own project in the shape of the 'Father Project'. The description of Don's traits of Aspergers are humerous but do sit very much on the stereotype of the savant. It might be irritating to someone who has first hand experiences of the challenges young people face.

I did enjoy the burgeoning relationship between Don and Rosie and actually cried at one point (blame the pregnancy hormones - I cried at His Bloody Project as well)

Enjoyable and easy going.