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?

Me too Remus

Now we all have...

The Power is 1.99 on the Kindle Monthly deal for a few more days - also read it recently. I basically agree with PoeticLE's review - I enjoyed it and was pleasantly surprised that the original premise was developed convincingly. I liked how the framing story makes you re-evaluate the roles of the main characters - Tunde's story particularly I thought.

If it's any consolation, I also gave myself that earworm.

14. The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes A grisly serial killer with a particular MO and the ability to time travel up and down a timeline between the 1930s and 1990s is murdering young women who he sees as 'shining' and who all have some kind of potential in their life. The only victim who got away, a strong and likeable female character, tries to piece together who the killer is and why there are anomalies in the evidence (she doesn't know about the time travel). The killer seems to think he is completing some kind of master plan, but the reader never finds out what, or why, which in a way acts as a statement about the pointlessness and futility of violent acts against women. I finished this a while ago and I'm still thinking about it, so it wasn't just the trashy thriller that I thought it would be when I started it.

15. A History of Scotland by Neil Oliver It is what it says. Not as good as his ancient Britain book, which I really enjoyed. This one covered much more of written history, meaning it was easy for him to lapse into this king, then that king, rather than it being a social history, which would have been much fresher and allow him to develop his own interpretations. Not a bad book though.

16. In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park A girl's (and then young woman's) account of her life in North Korea and escape to the South via China and Mongolia. This corroborates and ties in with the stories told in Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy but was all the more powerful and moving for being one person's personal account.

21. Stasiland by Anna Funder.

Non-fiction. Anna Funder tells the stories of citizens and members of the Government and Stasi of East Germany. I found this book so depressing. This brutal state of repression and futility under the banner of Communism, what a way to live. The Berlin Wall fell when I was 11 years old, I remember seeing footage on the news but perhaps too young to realise the full impact. So recent, really. I struggled with this book, it was all so grey and sad, sitting there looking at me and in today's uncertain political climate you feel anything could happen. It does remind me of the importance of books like this, of history, to remember and hopefully learn.

Composteleana - I've added your steampunk book to my list. Love a bit of vampire/werewolf action wrapped in a romance bow! Everyone needs a little escapism in their life.. 😉🙃

15 - Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Cafe - Milly Johnson - Work pretty stressful at the moment so fancied reading something light and fluffy and this fitted the bill perfectly.

Almost finished number 16 as well Belgravia - Julian Fellowes - I will reserve final judgement but the opening chapter was interesting, the next 100 or so pages felt a bit of a slog and only in the final third of the book has it really started to grip me.

The Power is on my TBR list as well so glad that so many people on this thread liked it.

Well, what a earworm to get first thing on a Friday morning! Thanks everyone

slightlyglitterbrained It was Tunde's story that kept me going at the point where I was sort of losing interest. The moment where he first felt fear on the road was when I was dragged right back into the story again!

1. The Life Project by Helen Pearson

2. Gone to Ground by Marie Jalowicz Simon

3. The Dreaming Void by Peter F Hamilton

4. Mother of Eden by Chris Beckett;

5. The Churchill Factor by Boris Johnson;

6. Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson;

7. The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell;

8. The Pure Gold Baby by Margaret Drabble;

9. Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann;

10. Reamde by Neal Stephenson; this was very good for the most part, typical Stephenson, he probably could have made at least 2 books out of this if not 3, but no, so what you get is a 1000 page caper around the globe chasing Chinese hackers, Eritrean American adoptees, Iowans, Russian "security consultants", jihadists, MI5 etc etc through a wild and random adventure. For the vast majority of the time you are really gripped. The back stories are great, the characters are engaging, T'Rain - the computer game which links much of it together, adds an unusual dimension and extra scope for observations on the nature of commerce. For me, there was a bit too much randomness to the events. I would prefer some overarching sinister plot gathering all storylines together. I got totally sick of the last 10% which was everyone running around a forest shooting each other. Just find shootouts dull tbh. Other than that, a good read

I've just begun and quickly abandoned a Dean Koontz - absolute drivel.

When I was a kid and had nothing to read I used to raid my mum's and brother's bookshelves, one had Danielle Steel and the other Dean Koontz. There was surprisingly little difference in the two styles, one just had gory stuff happening every so often.

I've been reading, but not posting - in the middle of the most ridiculously busy few weeks at work. Still managing to read a little on my commute though, in between fielding emails! Just finished number 26, All Quiet on the Western Front. Just extraordinary. Including the translation. I read it alongside Scars Upon My Heart (again) - what a pairing.

Just finished book four (I know I'm slow!) Stella Gibbon's Cold Comfort Farm, set in 1919 but written in 1932 and I would have thought quite racy for the time. The words that best sum it up are 'whimsical' and 'arch'. It was diverting and enjoyable, not earth shattering but pleasant enough. As it's a well known novel (a modern comic classic even) and one of my mothers favourites (she's been hounding me to read it for years!) I'm glad I finally got round to it. The no-nonsense character of Flora Poste will certainly stay with me, as will the much referenced 'something nasty in the woodshed'. Pity we don't get to find out what the 'something' is. I'm looking forward to seeking out the 1995 film on YouTube and seeing how that compares.
A trip to the library today and I returned home with book 5 'The Life Changing Magic Of Tidying' by Marie Kondo. I think I already know all I need to about the KonMari method of decluttering from articles and on line snippets so not sure what the book will add, or indeed if I can follow her methods, getting every article of clothing you own and making a huge pile of them on the bedroom floor sounds like a recipe for disaster to me, I'm sure I'll look at the enormity of the problem and end up shoving everything back into wardrobes and drawers a week later making the problem even worse

I used to read Dean Koontz when I was a teen. The revaluation that it was rubbish happened pretty much overnight I seen to recall.

Am reading a Charlie Parker book for a RL book club. I am, v surprisingly, enjoying it. Anyone a fan?

Book club is reading book 14 btw. have clearly missed a lot of back story!

I read the first Charlie Parker last year, iirc. Unfortunately I thought it was diabolical!

The Koontz has been returned in disgust. I've never returned a Kindle book for being crap before.

Charlie Parker as in the jazzman? Yes if so! (But then if book 14 thinking maybe not . . . was imagining a biography . . . )

My review:

The first in the Charlie Parker crime series, which I’ve seen recommended on MN several times. Well, I’m here to tell you that whoever recommended it is WRONG. The ex-cop figure is fine, the idea (nasty man murdering people horribly and cutting off their faces) is fine, a couple of good characters (gay hitmen were my favourites) also fine, but Connolly is an absolutely dreadful writer from the Tell Not Show School of Terribleness. If the book had been 80% shorter with 60 or so fewer characters, massively reduced back story, a bodycount that didn’t descend into cartoon-esque figures, had had a decent ending and been written by Raymond Chandler it might have been good. As it was, it was bloody awful and I wish I had given up after twenty pages. Stay well away.

20. Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

An account of Haig's experiences suffering from depression and anxiety. He tells it in short segments which are interspersed with lists and random bits and pieces. Having had depression in the past myself, although not as seriously as he did, it was interesting to read his descriptions of his experiences but I wouldn't say it was terribly insightful. That may be because I have had depression - someone from my book club who had read it found it very informative because it was outside his own experience.

Haha that's probably why I've never picked one up! It's quite gothic, I like it so far (30% in).

12 Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Thank you, you wonderful human beings, for pointing me in the direction of this book! Enjoyed it and indulged myself with it. It would be hard for me to not like a book that quoted Peter Venkman in the second paragraph and had a setc in Heathers on the third page! Loved the little details too like mentions of Wil Wheaton or the Pepsi Challenge. The plot felt very like an 80's film too. It was fun and I'm curious about how it will transfer to the big screen. (Probably badly)

Going to read The Queen of Distraction next, a self help books for women with ADHD for...reasons.

*scene in Heathers

Spielberg is doing the film, river. I'm optimistic it might even be better - I enjoyed the book but it felt to me like it was very movie friendly.

Satsuki Well, it should be good then but I, like the author, have seen the last Indiana Jones movie! Aech's secret will be blown rather easily though.