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?

AHBWOSG yes cote he's knows it's going to be overblown but he's aware of that and documenting his grief and doesn't give a toss. I would not recommend it for you, though don't think you'd like it at all

42. Fingers In The Sparkle Jar by Chris Packham

I listened to this on Audible read by Chris himself which added an extra layer. This isn't a typical autobiography - it jumps around in time and sometimes it's in the first person and sometimes in the third person. He has quite a flowery writing style which won't suit everyone. I really liked this though, a really good insight into what it's like growing up with undiagnosed Asperger's.

I really want to read that chessie

Chessie
He has quite a flowery writing style which won't suit everyone.

I thought it was an incredibly detailed account of a childhood which was fascinating, different and ultimately well worth reading. But yes, his sentences are laden with description, multiple clauses etc. (In that respect, the book reminded me a little of Kevin Powers' The Yellow Birds where I was put off by the writing style.)

I lost you all for a bit there!

Reading ground to a halt over the past couple of weeks due to insane amounts of work. Looking forward to taking a couple of books on holidays with me. Do four-year-olds and reading mix well?

Loving the reviews!

23. The Vegetarian by Han Kang.

A translation of a South Korean book about family, desire, inner turmoil, fitting in with societal norms; this story was really quite different to any book I've read recently. Intense imagery and characters, I was swept away by this novella told in three acts with the only constant being the central character's decision to stop eating meat. Very good.

Book 31
The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie
Thoroughly enjoyed this until the revelation, which I felt was a bit of a cheat. This was a wonderfully funny romp though, with some great characters and it really made me smile. Some fantastic pen portraits and a great female lead. All jolly good fun.

Just caught up with the thread. Glad you all enjoyed the gonads, wanking vicars and all.

I really rate A Heartbreaking Work, as I've said before. It's definitely not for everyone and Cote would think it's dreadful, but I like the way it combines showiness and chaos and humour and pathos and bathos and probably some other 'osses' too. I think it's both clever and moving, and also pretty pithy and pacy for something so big and self indulgent.

22. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

It has been a good few years since I last read this, and I really enjoyed it again. Walter Hartright finds himself having to unravel a conspiracy surrounding Laura, wife of a baronet who he first met when she was single and he was teaching her and her half-sister Marian drawing, and Anne Catherick, the mysterious and tragic woman in white.

I liked bits of ASWOHG - i liked the stuff about his family and his brother, and he can clearly write. But all the naval-gazing and all the stuff about his magazine didn't come off for me. I didn't care about any of it.
And if i was his editor, I'd have made him cut about a fifth of it.

Thank you all for warning me against A Heartbreaking Work of Wotsits. Not that I was feeling the desire to read it but it's still good to know for sure that I shouldn't ever try

18. The Cuckoo's Calling Robert Galbraith/ JK Rowling

Am sure this has been reviewed many a time already. I really enjoyed it, though thought the writing a bit clunky in parts which pulled me out of the story a little. I will definitely go on to read the others in the series.

Composteleana I love the Galbraith books, all of them good for easy reads.

Thanks @stilllovingmysleep - that's good to know! Looking forward to number 2, though will have to order it from the library as I've promised myself not to buy any more books for a while!

Will catch up in a bit. New book. . .

1. The Muse - Jessie Burton

1. Gone Without a Trace - Mary Torjussen
2. Flesh Wounds - Christopher Brookmyre
3. Phantom: a Harry Hole Thriller - Jo Nesbo
4. Dead Simple (Roy Grace Series) - Peter James
5. All Good Deeds (A Lucy Kendall Thriller) - Stacy Green
6. The Turtle Boy - Kealan Patrick Burke

8. His Bloody Project - Graeme McRae

1. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion

10. The Last Day of Christmas: The Fall of Jack Parlabane (short story) - Christopher Brookmyre 11. Tales of Protection - Erik Fosnes Hansen 12. The Wall of Sky, The Wall of Eye - Jonathan Letham 13. Ready Player One - Ernest Cline 14. The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry 15. Gallows View (inspector banks series) - Peter Robinson

16. The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler

Written in the 1930's, this is one of the (if not the) original private dick books. Private detective Philip Marlow takes on the job of finding out who is blackmailing the Sternwood family. Endlessly diverted by the two ruinous daughters, Marlow ends up in the middle of a story of power, corruption and sex.

I love crime novels but I found this really hard going. There were so many characters and so many nicknames that I was losing track of who was who. The language can be old fashioned with violence towards women being casual and par for the course. Probably no worse mind you than book 15 which does not have the excuse of being written in the 30s. I am glad I stuck with it but will not being reading another.

42. The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie agree with Remus this was great fun with some great characters and very funny. I didn't mind the ending, it was agreeably daft.

15. Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool - Peter Turner. Non-fiction account of the unlikely relationship between 40's film star Gloria Grahame and an unknown Liverpudlian actor in the 70's and 80's. There were too many conveniences in this book and I don't really believe he had a physical relationship with her - I'm looking forward to reading more about the story later this year to see if anyone can confirm the author's tales when the film version's released.

16. A Month in the Country - JL Carr. The modern classic about a young man's reawakening after serving in WW1. This was too slow for me and there was too much description of landscapes, I didn't like it much. But enough to watch the film soon.

Book 32
One by Sarah Crossan
A YA book which won the Carnegie last year. This is a book about conjoined twins, teenage girls, who’ve defied medical expectations to reach 16 years old and, due to family finances, now have to go to school for the first time. This is written as a prose-poem which didn’t add an awful lot to it until approaching the end, other than to avoid the load of waffle that can be the curse of some novels. It also had the YA ‘issue’ problem of not being satisfied with just one issue but feeling the need to shove issue on top of issue on top of issue, so not only did we have the twins, we had alcoholism, anorexia, HIV, possible parental divorce, financial problems too. It’s also very American, On the whole though, I found this both gripping and rather moving and enjoyed it far more than some of the rubbish I’ve read previously this year.

The follow up to Cuckoo (have forgotten title) was nonsense. Third one better, but nowhere near as good as first. Can't decide whether I'll bother with the next or not!

Have just started Madonna in a Fur Coat which I've been eyeing up for months and is currently cheap on Kindle. Has anybody read it?

No remus but was intrigued enough to buy it

20. Eleven - Mark Watson - Aussie working in London as a DJ, hosting a late night phone in radio show. Clearly he has 'a past' and issues around why he left Australia, it's alluded too a lot for the first half. The author is trying to make a point about how small actions we take have a knock on effect on others, which can make a string of events. But from the start, the idea is shoved in your face somewhat. The string of events clearly was the author's focus, so it sort of took over from the story. Was all a bit 'meh'. Completely forgettable book.

Satsuki - I also bought Adrian Mole for when I'm feeling intellectual.

remus you should join the library and see what happens I already got the first two AM on Kindle when they were cheap ages ago, despite also having hard copies, for when I'm not reading Engels

21. Railhead, Philip Reeve

This is not a book I would ever have picked up off the shelf - it's YA and Sci Fi (ish), two genres that I normally avoid. However, we're reading the Carnegie shortlist at work (I work in a school) and this was the book I was allocated in this round.

And I loved it! It's set in a distant future world, recognisably descended from our own. Refreshingly, this is not a dystopia but a much more balanced and imaginable world with good and bad. The richness of imagination pulled me in in a way that I had not expected, and I found the bittersweet storytelling much more skilful than I had (snobbishly) expected from either genre.

I did feel like I was reading a kids' book but it was a lovely bit of escapism after the hard slog of the Ismail Kadare reviewed further up the thread.

27. One for the Books, Joe Queenan
I like books about the pleasures of reading. This meandered around repetitively without any real structure - he'd clearly taking some articles written previously and mashed them together. He's extremely proud of the time he spent in France reading obscure French writers despite what he regards as a deprived Irish-American background. Not sure I'd really recommend it, but I did like his sections about the idiosyncratic reading choices of friends and family and the pleasures of agreeing on a beloved book.