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?

[RMC123]

25.The Silkworm - Robert Galbraith Really enjoyed this. Easy to read, well written and a page turner. This was the second book in the series but really didn't matter that I hadn't read the first. Will certainly read more. Reminded me of Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler series which I really enjoyed.
Book club tonight - discussing The Essex Serpent , will be interested to see what others thought.

[BestIsWest]

I'm a bit nervous about reading Go Set A Watchman. I've heard so many poor reviews. My Dad liked it but we often disagree.

[BestIsWest]

RMC, if you liked The Silkworm, you will like the others RG bookstoo. They're better.

[BestIsWest]

I should learn not to post from the train.

[RemusLupinsChristmasMovie]

Cote - I wish you'd give him a go. Please try The Big Sleep and report back. If you hate it, I will try not to judge you (but might die a little inside).

Muggle - am at about the half way point with Winter. I do like some of it a lot, but am finding myself increasingly frustrated with Harry which is then frustrating me, because I want to like him.

Book 22
White Boots - Noel Streatfeild
Oh dear. Regular readers will know how fond I am of Ballet Shoes and I bought this in the hope that it would be a lovely ‘cake book’ whilst life is really busy. No such luck. Ballet Shoes was written in 1936, and this one published in 51, but it’s essentially the same book, except in a far inferior version. Poor but goodhearted family – check. Helped out by more affluent people. Check. Pompous little show off. Check. Petulant prima donna. Check. Brisk and brusque nanny with a heart of gold. Check. And yadda, yadda, yadda. I paid 79 whole pence of ready English money for this. Reader, I was robbed.

[mugglebumthesecond]

I think if you're half way through I don't think you will ever fully enjoy winter but I suppose it's one you will have to finish. Nothing much changes about The character after half way, I don't think so anyway!

[Ontopofthesunset]

All the Noel Streatfeild elements are basically the same, even the adult one Saplings I read a couple of weeks ago. Did you ever read the Gemma series? Annoying show off child palmed off by rich actress parents in US on dowdy religious UK family and the plain unshowoffy British kids get transformed and help to transform the eponymous Gemma. But I loved them all.

Go Set a Watchman just isn't all that good, which I imagine is why the agent rejected it or whatever and told her to develop the childhood bits. My son bought it for me and even though I knew it was written first I had to keep reminding myself that the characters weren't Scout or Atticus from TKAMB but much weaker drafts who formed the basis for S and A.

[JemimaMuddledUp]

Updating my list:

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
21. Hag-Seed - Margaret Atwood

I enjoyed Hag-Seed, I've enjoyed all of the Hogarth Shakespeare so far. Shylock is My Name was probably my favourite though.

[CheerfulMuddler]

Remus If you like Noel Streatfeild, have you read A Vicarage Family? It's her autobiography of her childhood, and it's utterly fascinating. Less ... Well ... Fictional than her children's novels (which yes, do get a bit samey) but still very recognisably her. Well recommended.

[CheerfulMuddler]

Subset Oh yes, I read all of those!
I find it hard to be rational about Streatfeild as I read most of her oevre when I was nine, and they're such cornerstones of my childhood.

[RMC123]

Thanks Best. Resisting temptation to download them on to my Kindle as my to-read pile is huge! Will probably keep an eye out in charity shops .

[SatsukiKusakabe]

Yy best don't even go into Watchman thinking it's going to be good - it's interesting as a draft and a fleshing out of some of her ideas, but TKAM is the finished product and it shouldn't be read as any kind of sequel, or taking anything away from the novel she went on to write.

[CheerfulMuddler]

Rumer Godden's Thursdays Children is sort ofBallet Shoes meets Billy Elliot if that appeals?

[RemusLupinsChristmasMovie]

Just got the sample of A Vicarage Family, thanks. :)

Think I'll stick to re-reads of Ballet Shoes (an utterly glorious cake book, if ever there was one) and not bother with any more of her fiction,though.

[RemusLupinsChristmasMovie]

Sample of Thursday's Children (had never heard of this before) also bought! Thanks.

[ShakeItOff2000]

Thanks for the lovely new thread, south. I'm very much enjoying my reading this year!

18. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.

The first of Maya Angelou's autobiographies, this has been sitting in my tbr list for a while. I felt there was a cool detachment in the telling of her story from child to teenaged mum, except when she writes about her childhood friendship with her brother and when she meets her son. But that did not take away from its impact and I will be thinking of it for some time. The book prompted me to look at some superb YouTube footage of Dr Angelou performing her poetry.

Bringing my list over, stand-outs in bold, unimpressed in italics..

1. The Story of a New Name (Book 2 of Neopolitan Novels) by Elena Ferrante.
2. Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter.

1. Beauty by Robin McKinley.
   
2. Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall.
   

5. The Last Policeman: A Novel (The Last Policeman Book I) by Ben H.Winters.
6. Red Rising by Pierce Brown.

1. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote.
   
2. Any Human Heart by William Boyd.
   
3. The Pure in Heart (Simon Serailler Book 2) by Susan Hill.
   

10. Joyland by Stephen King.
11. Jerusalem:The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore.
12. How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to making Friends with your Mind by Pema Chödrön.
13. Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
14. Palestine by Joe Sacco.
15. Steelheart (Reckoners Book 1) by Brendon Sanderson.
16. The Girls by Emma Cline.
17. The Hanging Shed by Gordon Ferris.
18. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.

[spinningheart]

My list so far:

1. The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
   
2. Our Endless Numbered Days by Clare Fuller
   
3. Ready Player One by Ernest Kline
   
4. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
   
5. Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
   
6. Still Life by Louise Penny
   
7. A Country Road, a Tree by Jo Baker
   
8. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
   
9. Nightwoods by Charles Frazier
   

10. The North Water by Ian McGuire
11. Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
12. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
13. The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant
14. I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh
15. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
16. Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson
17. End of Watch by Stephen King (last of this fantastic SK trilogy)
18. Eileen by Otessa Moshfegh

Currently reading Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier, which I thought I had read as a teenager but I can't remember a single thing about it. I'm really enjoying it and will probably re-read Rebecca soon as a result.

I'm listening to This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell. Well read and it's flying by - I haven't felt the need to increase the reading speed to 1.25 which makes it sound like it's being read by cartoon characters, so that's a good sign that I'm enjoying it..

I love reading through the threads and remembering books I've read and what time and place in my life they are relevant to.

[KeithLeMonde]

1. NW, Zadie Smith
2. A God in Ruins, Kate Atkinson
3. The Marble Collector, Celia Aherne
4. Did you Ever Have a Family, Bill Clegg
5. Lucky Break, Esther Freud
6. The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood
7. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
8. Longitude, Dava Sobel
9. Marking Time, Elizabeth Jane Howard

10. Confusion, Elizbeth Jane Howard
11.River of Ink, Paul MM Cooper
12. The Burgess Boys, Elizabeth Strout
13. All That Man Is, David Szalay
14. Big Brother, Lionel Shriver

15. Today Will Be Different, Maria Semple
I liked this. Has some similarities to Bernadette (heroine is older mother, creative, reluctantly relocated to Seattle from somewhere rather more interesting where she had successful, well-respected career) but it goes in rather a different direction. It's rather beautifully entwined around a poem and a selection of artwork, both of which are lovely.

The wise-cracking and the constant talking-at-a-million-miles-an-hour with offhand US cultural references (some of which I read over and over again and still didn't really understand) can get exhausting. But I slowed my usual reading pace down and found that worked better. Seemingly lightweight but actually subtly much cleverer than you think it is. Ending - I dunno. Not what I expected.

[JemimaMuddledUp]

Great to see Jerusalem in someone else's list Shake - I loved that book (even though it took a long time to read).

[HappyFlappy]

I paid 79 whole pence of ready English money for this. Reader, I was robbed.

Some people have no shame Remus

[Ladydepp]

Thanks for new thread but OMG HOW DO YOU ALL READ SO QUICKLY? I am struggling this year for some reason, I think I need to choose a few shorter books next!

it's very nice to be reminded of books I've enjoyed in the past like Beautiful Ruins and Saturday.

But I'm rather shocked that someone liked NW by Zadie Smith, a truly terrible novel IMHO.

Remus - your info about the sequel to Wolf on the Plains will definitely help me put it on the back burner until I tackle my mountainous TBR pile! I was quite tempted to get stuck straight into Book 2!

[HappyFlappy]

LadyDepp

All I do is read. I have to have the lights on all day because the windows are so filthy that there is no light coming through them, and I wear wellies indoors so that I can wade through the dust without gettin caked. (I have lost two cats this week alone in the living room).

[RemusLupinsChristmasMovie]

LadyDepp - What's on your tbr pile, and I'll tell you if Wolf is better than any of them!

[MuseumOfHam]

Here's my list so far:

1. This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson (kindle)
2. Where the Bodies are Buried by Chris Brookmyre (kindle)
3. Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick (kindle)
4. The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy (hard copy)
5. Thank Heaven Fasting by EM Delafield (kindle)
6. 11.22.63 by Stephen King (audible)
7. Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves (Dad's kindle)

8.The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson (Dad's kindle)

1. The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (kindle)

10. Only the Innocent by Rachel Abbot (Dad's kindle)
11. The Hit by David Baldacci (Dad's kindle)
12. Weavers by Aric Davis (kindle)
13. Coffin Road by Peter May (audible)

Happy I see you really didn't rate the Alison Weir novel you read. I read Innocent Traitor last year, the Lady Jane Grey one, and thought it was great. I found the straightforward narrative style, with no attempts at literary fancy bits, very refreshing and moving, and liked that so much of it was from women's perspectives.

[BestIsWest]

Just catching up. Maybe you could do a deal Remus and Cote.

Cote reads Chandler if Remus reads Cloud Atlas.

The rest of us will be hugely entertained by the reviews .