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?

15. God Bless You, Mr Rosewater - Kurt Vonnegut

This tale of two contrasting branches of an old American family - one rich, one poor - is written with typical Vonnegut wisdom and charm, but a bit unsatisfying - the story felt rushed and some interesting characters were abandoned along the way. Not his best by a long way but still a good quick read.

I heard a rumour that the tablet ban is going to be exteneded to all flights which means if so i wont be doing any reading on holiday as i cant be bothered with paperbacks on the beach and its a risk to put tablets in the cases.

I work in aviation, it's being bandied around, but I wouldn't worry just yet. Part of the US ban was to force people onto US carriers so they get the passenger data and can do more with it under US data laws than that of other counties, as the ban was only on non-US airlines from certain countries.

Putting lithium batteries in the hold is a really fecking stupid idea and there is a lot of opposition to it.

46. The Chalk Pit - Ellie Griffiths . Latest in the Dr Ruth Galloway series. I do enjoy these, they are nice light reading if unbelievable.

Now got two books on the go, one non-fic about a Welsh conscientious objector in WW2 and Resistance by Owen Sheers about which I'm liking very much. 1944 and the Germans have invaded Britain and made it to the Welsh borders.

I quite like Ruth Galloway too Best, but I read Griffiths' historical novel and hated it!

I'm glad you enjoyed Sophy Remus!

12. Out of Bounds by Val McDermid. I'd read some of the Wire in the Blood series (on various holidays), but have never been inclined to look them out, although I like the way the author comes across in interviews. I liked this better- more Scottish, very firmly placed in time too (references to Spotify and Nicola Sturgeon and so in, so it might date quickly). It's the 4 th in a series so I've probably been spoilered for the earlier ones, but I might look them out anyway. Good solid detective fiction for those that like this sort of thing!

What's the historical novel about Tanaqui? I've seen the series about the magician but never been tempted yet.

Fortuna I read The Fall years ago - DH bought it for me. It was a great read! I must revisit it sometime as I've completely forgotten what happens...

I quite fancy The Fall but it doesn't seem to be available on Kindle.

I'm in the mood for some good history / non fiction. Preferably cheap on Kindle! Any recs?

Meg - Faust's Metropolis (a history of Berlin) is under a fiver on Kindle, for over a thousand pages! I found the first 20% or so a bit hard going but once it reached the 19th century it was absolutely brilliant.

Dark Forest and Death's End (#2 and #3 in Three-Body Problem Trilogy) are both 99p today

I wish I'd waited for them! I'm a terrible Kindle impulse buyer. Not reading much at the moment as we are doing family meals and films etc till late but am nearly finished my next book and will update. Getting some really good ideas for my next choice from this thread.

40. The lesser Bohemians- Eimear McBride Wow! What a book. The story of the relationship between an established actor in his late 30's and a first year drama student, just 18 and fresh from Ireland. Both are damaged with troubled pasts. Their relationship is fiery, highly sexual and not always comfortable reading. The accounts of their past lives, particularly his also make for difficult reading. The prose in this book is a stream of consciousness, more or less fragmented and chaotic depending on how stoned, drunk, emotional etc the characters are. At first it was so hard to read I nearly abandoned it, persisted as it was a Book Club read, SO glad I did. A hundred things to discuss and deconstruct, definitely one that will be better for the second reading. One of my highlights of the year so far.

37. Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg this historical fiction had been on my kindle for ages. It is set in the same location, St Kilda, as Night Waking by Sarah Moss which I read very recently. I found it interesting to learn more about how people survived on the now uninhabited islands and how their lives were tied to the seabirds return every springtime. The book follows the lives of a minister and his new wife who arrive to bring Christianity to St Kilda in 1830, their isolation leading to huge change in their characters and relationship over time. Very atmospheric and well researched, I enjoyed this.
38. Good Me Bad Me by Ali Land very dark,unsettling psychological thriller that kept me turning the pages.15 year old Annie's mother is a serial killer who has been turned in to the police by Annie and awaits trial. Annie has been given a new identity and arrives with her new foster family at the start of the book only to find that they aren't as perfect as first appearances suggest, and that blood may be thicker than water.

Megmez totally agree re The Glass Castle, could be viewed as a misery memoir but there's so much life and humour in there, loved the resourceful and sarcastic older sister Lori, and the descriptions of the family doing the 'Walls skedaddle'. It's a book that has stayed with me since a read it maybe five years ago. Have you read the prequel Half Broke Horses? Not quite as good but worth a read.
According to a GoodReads reviewer it's being made into a film with Woody Harrelson, Naomi Watts and Brie Larson.

47. Resistance - Owen Sheers. Imagining of the events in a Welsh valley following the Nazi occupation of Britain in 1944. All the men have disappeared leaving the women to deal with the farms and small band of German soldiers. Sheers is a well known poet inWales and it shows in his writing . It's a slow burner but the tension builds nicely.

I've read that this dovetails with Philip Roth's The Plot Against America which Megmez mentioned earlier so I'll be on the look out for that.

Ugh, I've been off this thread for a few days as my computer got a nasty virus--all sorted now thankfully.

Sadik, saw you read Ben Goldacre's bad pharma--I really like Goldacre's writing, highly intelligent and so well argued. I remember reading lots of his writing about alternative medicine, very convincing.

Fortuna Major Bell Jar is one of my favourite novels, read it in my 20s and was so impressed by Sylvia Plath's description of her falling into madness in her teens. Of course she then progressed to live a very interesting and creative but still quite mad life, ending in suicide--worth reading one of the (many) biographies on her too, it's hard to know which one to choose from but I would recommend The Silent Woman by Janet Malcolm (all of Janet Malcolm's writing is great).

21. My Name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout. I gave it 2/5 on GR (It was ok). I really disliked the way she repeated phrases as a stylistic device and the disjointed nature of the novel, particularly in the last third of the book, which left it feeling rushed. For me, too much was left unsaid and whilst there were a number of interesting elements to the story I would rather they had been more developed - but I guess the nuanced aspect of the book is what so many have enjoyed.

22. The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes. I gave it 4/5 on GR (I really liked it). This was a challenge read for me (Read a Man Booker Prize Winner). it isn't the type of novel I would normally read, but I really enjoyed it. It is so quotable and had I been reading it with a highlighter I suspect the whole book would be glowing neon!

I'm still waiting for Homegoing to arrive, so think I will move on to The Outrun by Amy Liptrot next. Happy Bank Holiday reading!

19. A Survival Guide for Life - Bear Grylls. One of the better self-help books I've read, he takes Christian values and explains how they can they be used in life. As an atheist I didn't find this book alienating, probably because his religious beliefs aren't (mostly) overtly expressed here, and I liked the firm 'man-up' tone.

Moving on to The Pier Falls by Mark Haddon. Feeling a little apprehensive as I loved A Spot of Bother and Curious Incident (read both 3x each) but I hated The Red House.

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)
16. The Muse by Jessie Burton (on Audible)
17. Henry VIII's wives - Julie Wheeler

18. A Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula de Guin. I read a fair amount of fantasy and this was recommended to me several times, so thought I would give it a go. It's pretty short, and OK. Nicely written but has the feeling of an incomplete book to me, (I know a lot of fantasy series are set up this way), but I didn't love the characters enough to rush out and read the whole series.

19. Fall of Giants - Ken Follet (Audible) - this has been waiting for me on Audible for a while and I was always putting off starting it as being over 30 hours long, it was a bit daunting. I enjoyed Pillars of the Earth and World Without End though once I got started.
I really liked this one. Set around the outbreak of WWI, an aristocrat mine owner and his Russian wife in South Wales throw a party for their society friends in 1914, (several English people, a couple of Germans and American etc) the mammoth doorstop of a book follows the story of the people who were at party (and their servants) through WWI and up to 1920. It's fiction, but I think the historical events are fairly accurate and there are some real historical people showing up from time to time (George V, Lenin, Trotsky etc). It covers WWI, votes for women, the Russian Revolution, migration to America and the growing socialist movement in Europe. I rattled through it pretty quickly - good narrator as well for those who are interested in it on Audible, he managed to keep the accents different and recognisably South Welsh/Russian/German/English etc, without them becoming a cariacture.
At the risk of a slight spoiler - right at the end, the German characters are beginning to struggle with the hyperinflation in Germany after the war and there is mention of trouble in Berlin and a young political activist has been arrested and imprisoned. The character says "Well, I'm glad, that's the last we'll hear of him" Name - Adolf Hitler.
The next one Winter of the World follws the same families through WWII, will def read (listen)

11 The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald
Fred Fairly is a junior science fellow at an all-male Cambridge college in 1912. The book follows how he meets Daisy, via a series of random events, and how their early relationship develops in the face of a number of hurdles.

The period detail is beautifully done, and the writing beautiful and evocative without being excessively flowery. Interesting themes of chaos and women's self-determinism. I like that it was concise (am getting slightly fed-up of the trend for under-editing). I did feel that some of the thematic writing and plot development was at the expense of more rounded characterisation though.

22. The Things We Have in Common - Tasha Kavanagh

This book features a young girl who is a social outcast. She has an obsession with a girl in her class and one day she sees a man watching the girl too. She then decides to try and intervene as she believes the man may be a danger.

This was a book I didn't want to put down as I was intrigued to see what was the real story and almost believed the twist.

stilllovingmysleep I've just bought The Silent Woman, thanks for the recommendation.

Sorry, another slightly epic post - I really need to get into the habit of updating this thread every time I finish a book!

44. The Escape by C L Taylor

Psychological thriller - Jo offers a woman a lift and then regrets it when the woman (Paula) knows all about her and her family and has one of Jo's daughter's gloves. Kept me gripped but I did predict 'whodunnit' and I struggled to understand their motivation for why they behaved as they did. Worth a read, although not as good as some of her others.

45. A Lesson In Love by Gervase Phinn

Part of his 'Little Village School' series set in a village in the Yorkshire Dales. All very nice and cosy - there is no bad language, no sex, naughty or bad people soon learn the error of their ways etc. Filled up a few lazy hours.

46. Can We Live Here? by Sarah Alderson

The blurb says this is about the author, her husband and their toddler daughter travelling the world trying to decide where to live. In fact, only half of it is about that, and the other half is all about them actually living in Bali. The travelling part was too brief and some places weren't described much at all (Malaysia is basically a long bus journey!). It's a series of blog posts which made it a bit disjointed although easy to pick up and put down. I was expecting more from this.

47. Funny Girl by Nick Hornby

This is set in the Sixties - a young woman leaves home in Blackpool and moves to London, determined to become famous, and soon gets a lead in a TV sitcom. I don't think this is as good as some of Hornby's work - the title led me to expect a funny book and it wasn't particularly. It basically just follows the lives of all those involved in the sitcom. Not one that I will be bothered about rereading.

48. Us by David Nicholls

Another one that I was disappointed by, after having high hopes based on previous work. In this, a middle aged couple and their teenage son go on a Grand Tour across Europe. They hope it will save their marriage as well as enabling them to bond as a family before the son goes off to university. I felt sorry for the narrator (the husband/dad) but didn't like the wife and son at all, and I just couldn't see how the husband and wife would ever have got married in the first place. Again, not one I will reread.

49. Duma Key by Stephen King

This one was the opposite - I have only read a few King books which have been hit and miss for me, so I didn't have high hopes for this, but I enjoyed it. A middle aged man has an accident which affects his brain and leads to him losing his right arm, so he moves to an island in Florida to recuperate. While there he discovers a talent for painting that he never had before, but as you would expect it soon appears that nothing is as it seems on this island. My only complaint was that it was long and sagged a bit in the middle. I know some of you King-lovers on this thread haven't rated this one, but I liked it!

*southeastdweller I look forward to your thoughts on the Mark Haddon - like you I enjoyed A Curious Incident and Spot (although have only read each one once so far) but didn't like The Red House. I'll add the new one to my wishlist but will await your verdict!!