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?

34. Dissolution- what can I say! Still loving Shardlake. Tudors and mystery- in heaven!

How Steeple Sinderby Won the FA Cup

I want to read that from the title alone.

""Do I really want to spend seven hours on a train for this?" Then went, "Hang on, seven hours alone WITHOUT CHILD. Holy crap, yes.""

Ha! I'm on a business trip now and can TOTALLY relate to this

spinning I haven't finished either of the Safran Foer books I've started, so you're not alone. I like "clever" books but they veered in to pretentious for me.

I am very tempted by JL Carr now best and sadik

passme I am signed up to the daily deals emails so I glance at them every day. There is rarely anything in them for me though. Reminder though that there will be new monthly deals tomorrow, and I often find something in there. I get as many as possible out of the library but I love rurally and have to pay 50p to reserve but I'll do that if my wish list isn't moving.

I picked up both Dark Forest and Death's End yesterday so will get onto those soon.

Oh dear. Tears on the 7:05

*live rurally, not love rurally. I'm not a Jilly Cooper character.

Satsuki

Just popping in to defend Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I thought it was excellent!

Right, based on the revelation further up this thread, I've just paid £10 to get rid of the screensaver ads on my Kindle Fire and go back to the cosy kindle screensavers I know so well.

The unsubscription (is that a word) has gone through, had the confirmation email, but I still have bloody Candy Crush ads when I start up.
I'm connected to wifi, and have restarted.
Does it take a while to go through?

BestIsWest
I love 84 Charing Cross Road. One of my favourites.

1.The Wolf and The Raven - Steven MacKay
2.The Hobbit - JRRR Tolkien (Audible)
3.Greenwitch - Susan Cooper
4.Child 44 - Tom Robb Smith
5.Fellowship of the Ring - JRRR Tolkien (Audible)
6.Into the Heart of Borneo - Redmond O'Hanlan
7.The No1 Ladies Detective agency
8.The Two Towers - JRRR Tolkien (Audible)
9.Crosstalk - Connie Willis (Audible)
10.The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd
11.Tom’s Midnight Garden - Philippa Pearce
12.1066 - Kaye Jones (Audible)
13.The Reformation - Edward Gosselin (Audible)
14.The Return of the King - JRRR Tolkien (Audible)
15. Lion by Saroo Brierley (for Bookclub)

Just finished No.16. The Muse by Jessie Burton (on Audible)
I've rattled through the last third very quickly, and it really did pick up a pace despite a slow start. It was a bit obvious where the plot was going, but it was a great story, and really not what I was expecting based on the first few chapters.

Now plowing through a non-fiction on Edward I - The Great and Terrible King

I absolutely love A Month in the Country - completely blew me away. I can't recommend Harpole & Foxberrow General Publishers though.

Thanks to a long train journey yesterday (such synchronicity) I finished book 26:
The strangest family : the private lives of George III, Queen Charlotte and the Hanoverians by Janice Hadlow.
It kept me utterly gripped for its 600+ pages. Thoroughly recommended for anyone who likes their history to dwell on the vicissitudes of royal marriage and childbearing rather than battles lost and won. It was clearly a labour of love (no pun intended) for the author, taking a decade to write, but it's so lively that the pages fly past.

Bibliomania I love a bit of historical non fiction, so just checked that one out and it's only 99p on Kindle at the moment, so have bought it, thanks

Bought The Strangest Family, thanks for the heads up bibliomania and fatowl.

Will look out for A Month in the Country, but pathetically the cover of the kindle edition made me come over all teary. My only connection to the English countryside is my grandparents' house which has just been sold. There's a farewell party this weekend which I will miss and have been feeling very emotional about it.

I did it on the Paperwhite and was fairly instant - may have synced it. My dh has a fire with the ads still on so not sure - If it is the "people also bought" type ads you can sort that in your settings fatowl. Settings>applications>hide home recommendations.

14. Larry's Party by Carol Shields
    The main character, Larry, is fumbling with life - everything seems to happen to him rather than him making it happen - until he visits Hampton Court maze on his honeymoon. This gives him a clarity his hasn't had before and changes his life. Very well written.

15. Tomorrow by Graham Swift
    Did not enjoy this one much at all, was really disappointed with it. Woman lies awake at night. The next day she and her husband are going to make a life changing announcement to their twin children. It's centered on her thoughts about their family and the circumstances that led up to the big reveal. It was fairly obvious what the big reveal was going to be. Didn't find the woman or her family particularly convincing as characters. It's a shame because I've really enjoyed other books of his.

16 The Age of Magic by Ben Okri
A group of documentary makers are travelling from Paris to Greece. They arrive at a town in Switzerland which has magical elements, strange things happen. It is a bit hard to describe without giving away the plot so can't say more than that. It was well written and I enjoyed it.

I've sorted it now, but it required a LiveChat with a Kindle techie. But happy to report i am now ad free!

Stokey, if you can wait a bit for your copy of A Little Life you can have mine as and when I get round to reading it. I don't keep my books so would be happy to pass to a good home.

I have two kindles, a really old original one which I love. I love the fact you have a nice button to move the page, which you can operate with one hand - touch screen sounds way too fiddly and accident prone

(BTW just realised that one-handed reading sounds like I am reading erotica Hope you know what I meant!)

19. The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery

Hyper-French book about the residents of an upper-class mansion block in Paris. Full of heavy musings on Art, and Philosophy and Literature. TBH I found the tone rather annoying - there are two narrators, both of whom have voices which are tiresome in different ways. It's also based on a rather silly premise that the concierge, Renee, is an intelligent and cultured character who has to pretend that she likes stews and watching rubbish on TV, just in case she gets "found out". I did like the characterisation and the humour of the language, and it grew on me.

20. The Accident, Ismail Kadare

I need to finish this before I can judge it but so far I hate it :( Persevering because it won the Man Booker and there are rave reviews all over the cover saying how amazing it is. But I dread picking it up. About 2/3 of the way through..... let's see whether it improves.....

I should probably make use of the library more to be honest. We are there every fortnight for dd anyway.

Did I imagine that the author of Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrel had written another book?

Hurr hurr to Keith's one-handed reading.

I didn't get on with Ismail Kadare's The Accident either, although I was blown away by The Fall of the Stone City by the same author (which I read while in Albania - proud boast).

fatowl and altered, hope you enjoy The Strangest Family. I'm nervous about recommending books because tastes vary so much (fingers typed testes - I blame Keith) but at 99p, I think you've got plenty prose for your pennies, if nothing else.

I have made it a mission in life to buy 84 Charing Cross Road whenever I see it in a charity shop and give copies to anybody and everybody. It's beautiful and I want to spread the love.

It is beautiful Remus. I'd forgotten that I had read it before many years ago.

I follow a second hand bookseller (Addymanbooks) on Instagram and she posted yesterday that she read it as a teenager and it inspired her to go into bookselling. She worked at 48 ( not 84 ) Charing Cross Road and actually ended up sourcing books for the film. She posts great photos of vintage books. Might be a good source for you when you're on one of your quests for something lovely to read.

Have you read any of her other books? This edition includes The Duchess of Bloomsbury. I don't knew w if they all do.
?

And that was book no 41.

BestIsWest - I read 84 CCR last month for the first time (it's going to be a book club book next month, but decided it looked better than this month's one so have gone out of sequence) - tis lovely and wish I'd read it sooner.

8. A Question of Identity by Susan Hill. A Simon Serailler novel, which for the uninitiated is a series of ridiculously middle-class crime novels. High body count in this one, the whodunnit was a little too guessable, but our hero's John Lewis lifestyle remained largely unaffected. These are such a guilty pleasure for me.

Library tomorrow, will have a look for 84 Charing Cross Road.