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?

What a great thread!

My 2017 list so far:

1. Amsterdam - Ian McEwan
2. The Noise of Time - Julian Barnes

3.The Finkler Question - Howard Jacobson

1. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
2. Saturday - Ian McEwan
3. The Vegetarian - Han Kang
4. The Passion - Jeanette Winterson
5. There but for the - Ali Smith
6. The Sellout - Paul Beatty

10. Swing Time - Zadie Smith 11. T2 Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh 12. The Days of Abandonment - Elena Ferrante 13. Sexing the Cherry - Jeanette Winterson 14. Calon - Owen Shears 15. Amadeus - Peter Shaffer (tr Ken Owen) 16. The Heart Goes Last - Margaret Atwood 17. Macbeth - William Shakespeare (tr Gwyn Thomas) 18. My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante 19. The Shadow of Nanteos - Jane Blank 20. Do No Harm - Henry Marsh

My favourite so far was The Handmaid's Tale, followed by Do No Harm and The Days of Abandonment.

Didn't enjoy T2 Trainspotting, which disappointed me as I was a huge fan on Irvine Welsh 20 years ago. Maybe I'm too old now...

Currently reading Hag Seed by Margaret Atwood.

Has anybody read A Place Called Winter, yet? Every time I think I'm really liking it, he does something that puts me off again. I'll finish it but it's not constantly calling out to me to gobble it all up.

I'm rather behind this year and have only just finished:

14. Pompeii by Mary Beard

This is an exploration of what the excavations at Pompeii tell us not only about the town itself but about the reality of life in the Roman empire in the first century. She divides elements up by subject, so there's a chapter on what the roads and the murals tell us about street life, another on housing, a chapter specifically on painting and decorating, as well as looking at the baths, the games, and the temples. Very interesting read.

Thanks for the new thread. My current reads are not near completion, so just place marking and adding to The Greengage Summer love.

30. Bitch In A Bonnet - Robert Rodi - much reviewed already. Loved it, but did get a bit fatigued towards the end, probably because by then we were on Mansfield Park which is no-one's favourite (apart from the bit set in Portsmouth which is one of the best bits in the whole of JA's writing imho). Will probably read part 2 at some point.

31 Peril at End House - Agatha Christie ok Poirot but I guessed who dunnit fairly early on.

Thought I had read A Place Called Winter because it all sounds very familiar but I must be confusing it with something else as 2015 seems too recent for me to have read it.

Anyone else having problems with the site over the last few days?

Part 2 not as good, Best, but still worth a read if you can get it cheap. It's pretty much more of the same.

I was unwowed by the flood book last year Remus, so much so I almost didn't bother with The Essex Serpent, which was a far better book.

I'll bring my list over tomorrow but place-marking.

In the Land Of White Death - no, not read it but now bought it Remus.

10. An Episode of Sparrows Rumer Godden
A neglected little girl makes a garden on a London bombsite. An odd mixture of sentiment and hard reality, rather lovely. Would appeal to all the fans ofThe Secret Garden on here, I think.

" Please help me to bully Cote into reading some Chandler!"

Haha that will be a "No" from me

Nothing good will come out of me reading and bitterly reviewing a book called Farewell, My Lovely, for example, whose blurb starts with the phrase "Eight years ago Moose Malloy and cute little redhead Velma were getting married..."

11. The Dark Net by Jamie Bartlett

This book has been extensively reviewed on here, so I won't go into it except to say that I really enjoyed it.

Bringing my list over:

1. The North Water by Ian McGuire
2. The Snowden Files: Inside Story Of The World's Most Wanted Man by Luke Harding
3. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
4. The Cambridge Companion to Handel by Donald Burrows
5. Revelation by C. J. Sansom (Shardlake #4)
6. The Mask Of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
7. The Ladybird Book Of Mid-Life Crisis
8. The Schirmer Inheritance by Eric Ambler
9. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgkin Burnett

10. Mindplayers by Pat Cadigan

Great initiative, I think! I won't enumerate everything I am on to read, just will say I'll start from this list www.templatemonster.com/blog/100-must-read-books/ - motivating and inspiring literature :) Don't know whether I am able to read all these books, but I promise I will try.

Bringing my list over for new thread - highlights in bold

1. It -Stephen King
2. Swing Time -Zadie Smith
3. Pandemonium – Daryl Gregory
4. The Mirror Crack’d from Side to side – Agatha Christie
5. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd -Agatha Christie
6. The Essex Serpent – Sarah Perry
7. How to be Both – Ali Smith
8. The Way of Kings – Brandon Sanderson
9. The Word for World is Forest - Ursula Le Guin
10. The Merchant’s House – Kate Ellis
11. Commonwealth – Ann Patchett
12. The Year of our War - Steph Swainston
13. No Present like Time – Steph Swainston
14. Wishful Drinking – Carrie Fisher
15. Wolf Winter – Cecilia Ekback

I just finished Wolf Winter, which I'd recommend. It's set in Swedish Lapland in 1680 and follows three main threads - a mother Maija who has just moved there from Finland, her daughter Frederika who is a teenager and becoming a bit woo, and the new priest. It's incredibly descriptive and atmospheric, it made me feel very cold. And there is a also a murder mystery aspect as well as historical part.

I've now started To Kill A Mocking Bird which I haven't read since school, so at least 25 years ago. Does this count as children's fiction going back to the discussions of the last thread? If so it's quite sophisticated.

cote, download a sample and start with a different Chandler if the title doesn't appeal - don't be seen off by the word "lovely"

Interesting about TKAMB. I think it is an adult novel, and the child's point of view doesn't make it children's literature, but it does definitely make it accessible to young adults. Rape/KKK/attempted murder/actual murder. Not for kids, I would say. It's one I would be loathe to reread as an adult though as I fear it wouldn't have the depth it seemed to have when I read it first time, and the faults would stand out more.

I agree TKAMB adult, though I'd call it crossover. Like Jane Eyre isn't YA despite having a teenage heroine.

Wow! As per usual im struggling to keep up.

Carrying my list over:

1. C is for Corpse - Sue Grafton
2. D is for Deadbeat - Sue Grafton
3. The Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months Unearthing the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country - Helen Russell
4. The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well - Meik Wiking
5. E is for Evidence - Sue Grafton
6. F is Fugitive - Sue Grafton
7. Code - Kathy Reichs

Still reading Lolita which i'm enjoying (not sure its the right word but am finding it engaging and mordbidly fascinating). Just reached part two.

Having gone back to work am finding time to read a lot harder - must try harder.

30. Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins

A giant sand/salt dune has covered most of the southwest USA and those who didn't manage to escape in time are having to make do in their own colonies. Our heroes are Ray and Luz, who have to move on after an encounter with a strange child. I really didn't like this. The writing style is hard to understand with lots of small disjointed sentences and at times I found it really hard to follow what was going on. None of the characters were likeable and some events were described in unnecessarily (imo) crude detail. I wouldn't recommend (Cote especially one for you to avoid as it's a first novel by a female author!)

Remus- I've finished and loved A Place Called Winter , it took me a while to get into though how far have you got? It's in one of my top books for the year already😀

Dh was given Go Set A Watchman by work so thought I should reread TKAM before reading that - he will never read it as only reads sci-fi.

I definitely did TKAM pre GCSE, maybe even at prep school so age 11 or 12. I wonder what age group it gets taught to these days.

I TKAB at school age 13/14 I think, mid 90s.

Stokey definitely reread TKAMB before you read GSAW.

Good to see Rumer Godden on here. I remember reading and loving Kingfishers catch fire years ago. Recently read Black Narcissus and enjoyed it but wasn't so keen on Breakfast with the Nikolaides.

My list is as follows (in bold the ones I particularly enjoyed):

1. The distance between us - Maggie O'Farrell
2. Nora Webster - Colm Toibin
3. Balancing Act - Joanna Trollope
4. Natural flights of the human mind - Clare Morall
5. Everything I've never told you - Celeste Ng
6. Secret Slave - Anna Ruston
7. After you - JoJo Moyes
8. Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver
9. Apple Tree yard - Louise Doughty

10. Commonwealth -Ann Patchett 11. Love, Mia - Nina Stubbs. Couldn't finish this so... 11. The center of everything - Laura Moriarty 12. The Outrun - Amy Liptrot 13. The Casual Vacancy - JK Rowling 14. Daughter - Jane Schmeltd (sp?) 15. Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari (still ploughing through this...half way through now) 16. My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante. (The jury is still out on this book.....although being a nosy so and so, I want to find out what happens to Lila and Lenu so will probably read the quartet)

Currently reading Before the Fall - Juliet West. Picked it up at a book fair for a euro so no pressure on it being a great read! On the TBR pile are the following: When Breath becomes Air - Paul Kalinithi, No more Harm - Henry Marsh, The Gustav Sonata - Rose Tremain, Half of a yellow sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The little friend - Hanya Yanagihara.

Also reading Lady Lollipop by Dick King Smith with the kids after finishing (and loving) the Sophie books :)

I have just finished Alison Weir's "A Dangerous Inheritance". It was awful. I could kick myself for persisting because it was so grim. It took me over a week - every time I decided that I'd had enough something historical happened that maf=de me think "Ooh. This could be interesting!" But it wasn't. I have a few historical biographies by Weir, and thought a novel would be good. It wasn't;t and never again.

Have now started "Saturday" by Ian McKewan. So much better.

Gustav Sonata is brilliant EmGee

I love To Kill a Mockingbird but haven't read Go Set a Watchman yet. DS1 asked for it for Christmas so I'm waiting for him to finish it so I can borrow it!