50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Four

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fourth 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, the second one here, and the third thread here.

What are you reading?

Now, now, Cote. You're not playing the Glad Game very well there.

Is that what it was called?

And aren't you GLAD that you're learned that now? I'm GLAD that I have such a lovely friend in my computer to argue about books with. And I'm GLAD that you disagree with me so often, because it wouldn't be half so much fun otherwise.

you've not you're

12. Wolf Of The Plains by Conn Iggulden

I already had this on my Kindle and started reading it after someone recommended it on the previous thread.

I have a personal (cultural, historical) affinity to the whole Turkic/Mongolian history and enjoy reading about Genghis Khan etc so this book was theoretically right up my street. It wasn't badly written and it got a lot of stuff quite right, but I have to say it failed on a number of accounts which meant I was quite Meh about it in the end.

My main problem with this book was that the author has changed many aspects of Genghis Khan's life. Bekter was his half-brother, not his mother Hoelun's son at all, and so not in the line of succession. There was never any doubt that Temujin (Genghis) was their father's heir, as the eldest son of the #1 wife. That part of the story where Bekter is supposedly the heir and Temujin just another son is rubbish.

There are quite a few fabrications like this. Temujin's wife Börte was kidnapped by the Merkit tribe, not Tartars. She was held captive for many months and was heavily pregnant by the time she was rescued, which led to her firstborn son' legitimacy as heir being questioned.

The book is full of flat out lies like the above. The author has actually changed the names of some of the key players because (wait for it...) they are too hard There is no such man as Eeluk in Genghis Khan's history, for example.

And where is Jamuka??? Temujin's best friend, "blood brother", who then becomes his mortal enemy. He is a major figure in all stories about Genghis Khan. Not this one, though

This book wasn't badly written, and it could be a good story. But it was just full of nonsense. How dare he rewrite Genghis Khan's story? For reasons as trivial as "His name's too hard", no less!

I don't know. I might read the rest of the series at some point if I have nothing else to read, but I'm not really looking forward to it at this point.

Remus - All those "GLAD"s are making my eyes bleed

Love you, too, of course. If not for you, who would I sit up in the balcony with?

Thanks keith for the note on Sisterland, just seen it, much appreciated. Will pick it up if I see it, I think.

I don't know. I might read the rest of the series at some point if I have nothing else to read, but I'm not really looking forward to it at this point. That's the spirit, cote

I haven't sold it well, have I?

I just started Keith Richards' autobiography which is exactly what I need atm.

bookmarking

Cote - Wolf of the Plains was fine for me as I knew less than nothing about Genghis Khan before I read it. I do wonder why the author took so many liberties with the truth? Although, I personally have no issue with the name change, I can't remember exactly what Eeluk's real name was but I recall a lot of consonants!

1. A Better World by Marcus Sakey - book 2 of the Brilliance trilogy. This is rather airport thriller style sci fi, and not as good as the first book in my opinion. The premise is that 1% of humans are gifted in some way, which creates a rather tricky relationship between normals and abnormals. The book's hero is gifted and is tasked with trying to find peace between the violent factions on either side. I find him rather one dimensional, but I did enjoy the descriptions of some of the wacky "gifts" that some of the abnorms have. This is one of those books that feels likes it has been written for a movie deal, but I'll still go ahead and read the third one just to see how it all pans out.

27. Young and Damned and Fair by Gareth Russell Detailed biography of Catherine Howard, ill fated 5th Queen of Henry VIII. Very detailed and has some really thought provoking detail about the workings of Tudor England. As usual I come away horrified by the thought of what a dangerous age it was. As is probably obvious I have a bit of an interest obsession with Tudor history!

Oh dear, my mention of Pollyanna started it all up again. Let us consign her quickly and quietly and gladly to oblivion

(Still want to throttle her for being so bloody and grimly cheerful though, curmudgeon that I doubtless am.)

LadyDepp - If you have any interest in the story of Genghis Khan, watch the film Mongol. It is very well done and reflects both his story and the atmosphere of the period in a far better way than the book Wolf Of The Plains. Both are based on the book Secret History of the Mongols.

I just realised that , so enjoy

I love that balcony. It's where I naturally belong, I think.

24. Do No Harm by Henry Marsh I thought this was great: an extremely readable, interesting insight into brain surgery by one of the NHS's top neurosurgeons.

I can't quite believe I'm on book 25 and it's only March: this thread is definitely helping, as well as providing me with recommendations for books I would not otherwise have read such as This Thing of Darkness, thanks all!!

15. The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain. Set in Switzerland and spanning the second half of the 20th century, this book tells the fictional story of Gustav Perle, always in control of his emotions, and his friend Anton, a musical prodigy - from their first meeting at nursery school until they are in their 60s. I really enjoyed this; it is well written and unusual. Thanks for the recommendation, Phoenix and Happy.

1. A House Full of Daughters - Juliet Nicholson - a family history/memoir of the females in the Sackville-West family. I enjoyed this book, well told with just the right level of detail and very touching/poignant in places.
2. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. Well reviewed on this thread, WW1 told through the eyes of a young German soldier. Definitely one of the best, if not the best, World War One books I have ever read, I felt like I was in the trenches.
3. Ashes of London - Andrew Taylor, murder mystery/family saga set in 1666 after the Great Fire of London. Enjoyed it well enough but slightly dull storyline and not one of his best. It felt slightly lacking compared to the Shardlake series but I may be being slightly unfair.

10. Burial Rites - Hannah Kent - Icelandic murder mystery based on a real life case in Iceland. I listened to this book and found it fairly slow in places. Beautifully Scandinavian but just a bit slow in places.

11. Confusion - Elizabeth Jane Howard
Cazalet Chronicle no. 3 (thanks, Keith). Further adventures of the Cazalets and extended family. After a run of short books, it was good to get my teeth back into a long, complicated, meaty story. There did seem to be an awful lot of affairs in this one though, which got rather repetitive. I found myself turning into my mother when The Archers gets exciting - "Why can't everyone just be happy?" I also thought it was amusing that everyone was so pearl-clutching about Edward's inability to keep his penis in his marriage when about half the rest of the cast were shagging someone they oughtn't to be.
Anyway. Am looking forward to book four and finding out what happens to everyone and if anyone gets anything approximating a happy ending, or if it's just going to be more secrets, shagging and spam fritters to the bitter end.

28. The Missing - C.L Taylor A book group book. Not one I would have chosen myself and have to say I hated it. Billed as a thriller it just felt like an excuse to write about every dark thing going. Affairs, suicide, alcoholism, child abuse, online stalking, hard core porn - you name it, it was there. Only took a day to read but it was a day I won't get back!

12. Player Piano - Kurt Vonnegut

His first novel, written in 1952 and set in a future dystopia where automation has made most men redundant apart from an upper class of engineers and managers. Understandably dated in some respects (the women are just there as wives and secretaries, for example) but still a thought-provoking and moving read filed with typical Vonnegut black humour.

Just checking in to keep this on my TIO list. Part way through Death's End, but not going very fast as I'm ridiculously busy this month and by the time I get to sit down on the evening I've not got much concentration left for proper reading. I'm also working my way through the Haynes Bee Manual which is actually very good with excellent clear photographs/diagrams (unlike many of those in their Vauxhall vivaro manual, I have to say).

bookmarking

Just popping in as this had dropped off TIO.

Halfway through a new Cordelia Fine - fascinating and as well-researched as ever.

21. Good evening, Mrs. Craven : the wartime stories of Mollie Panter-Downes
Sorry, blanking on who mentioned this previously and gave a very accurate review of it. As the name implies, it a series of short stories set on the Home Front. I enjoyed it, although I'm not clasping it to my heart as a new-found favourite. Lots of upper middle-class fretting about the inadequacies of the working class, which is hard to love, but I really enjoyedthe incidental observations - a character observes his exhausted wife applying make-up with the tired cynicism of a witchdoctor applying juju to a dead woman; another character remarks with equanimity of her illegitimate baby: "He must take me as he finds me".

22. Game of Throw-Ins, Ross O'Carroll-Kelly
Latest in a series of satirical books set in Ireland. Not one of the stronger books in the series - too much rugby. For existing fans only.

23. Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho
This is inevitably going to be compared to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, as it imagines magic among the upper ton in Regency England. Its tone is lighter, though - more reminiscent of Georgette Heyer and even Terry Pratchett. Good fun.

23. Mothering Sunday - Graham Swift
I polished this off in a day which was appropriate as all the action is set over an unseasonably hot March Mother's day and how the implications of the events of that day shape the life of the heroine, a servant for a well-to-do family in 1924. It's quite claustrophobic and closely written but overall pretty good.

24. The Revenant - Michael Punke
I rate this highly and found it extremely readable. It is very different to the film in lots of ways but the essential core of the story remains the same. I didn't realise it's based on real people and events, nor did I realise what a revenant actually was - despite having studied French. Good writing - it brought the life of trappers and their interactions with Native Americans very much to life.

25. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I hope I can count this - it took me about an hour to read? I know it's meant for children but does have plenty of text. I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about! I have a feeling that I wouldn't have particularly enjoyed this as a child and I am afraid I have consigned it to the same group of shame that includes Jonathan Livingston Seagull and The Alchemist. Sorry! Feel free to tell me I am wrong.

Should finish Ready Player One this week - finally.
Am also reading My Week with Marilyn by Colin Clarke which I am loving.