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?

pterobore, I haven't read a single Agatha Christie! Could you recommend me a good one to start with?

I was reading Ready Player One last night while the eldest was doing Taekwondo and a young lad came up to me to ask me what I was reading. I think he was intrigued by the title and cover. I told him all about it and promised to read it quickly so he could borrow it from the library after me. It was really nice! I'm not sure he'll get the 80s references though.

1. The Secrets of Gaslight Lane M R Kassassian
2. Harpole & Foxberrow, General Publishers, J L Carr
3. The Brontes, Brian Wilks
4. Four Dreamers and Emily, Stevie Davis
5. Do Not Pass Go, Tim Moore
6. The Brontesaurus, John Sutherland
7. Hand to Mouth, Linda Torado
8. Rhapsody in Green, Charlotte Mendelson
9. Not Just Jane, Ellen De Wees
10. Weatherland, Alexandra Harris
11. The Dead Student, John Katzenbach
12. Time after Time, Molly Keane
13. The Year of Living Danishly, Helen Russell
14. Take Courage: Anne Bronte and the Art of Life, Samantha Ellis
15. Books for Living, Will Schalbe
16. Victorians Undone, Kathryn Hughes
17. My Beautiful Genome, Lone Frank
18. The Story of the Human Body, Daniel Lieberman
19. Take Six Girls, Laura Thompson
20. Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari

Sapiens was a lucid and wide-ranging account of how modernity came about. A key part is our shared fictions: states, laws, money. I thought it was a good synthesis of existing popular science/history books by other people, but I’m not sure it brought anything original to the table (although I’m not particularly familiar with the Cognitive Revolution material, so who knows, maybe he added something new).

BestIsWest I really enjoyed Peril at End House, it's the third time I've guessed the murderer! I'm not really reading them in order, I just choose them randomly but lately I have started to fill in the gaps of the ones I've not read. Are you reading them in order?

whippetwoman I think a lot of people enjoy Murder on the Orient Express (which is good). My particular favourites have been The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The Big Four and The ABC Murders. I think as long as you don't read the last Poirot book, I have found it quite flexible in that you can choose any title from the series and just read it.

1. Try not to Breathe - Holly Seddon
2. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
3. Revenge- Martina Cole
4. The Breakdown - B A Paris.
5. Only the Truth - Adam Croft.

I really enjoyed this and will try and read more by Adam Croft during the year.

Looks like I get the lovely Bernie Gunther to myself then! I just love being able to picture all the streets and then go to Berlin and say 'Ohh Bernie lived here' etc.

whippetwoman 14 y/o dd really liked Ready Player One, so I don't think it matters if you don't get the 80s refs.

whippet that's what the Kindle can't replace - cover curiosity!

It was a very cool setting, remus

24 Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher.
Much reviewed already on here - short but enjoyable.

You can't lend your kindle books out either Satsuki - that pees me off no end, because some are as dear as a hard copy.

I agree, HappyFlappy. Would love to be able to lend some of my kindle books to people!

15. The End We Start From - Megan Hunter

This was a proof copy read for work. The book is due out in May.
It was an intriguing story set in the aftermath of a huge flood. The full extent of the flood is never revealed but it deals with the experiences of a new mother. She gives birth to her son just a few days after the catastrophic event and the novel follows her experiences and feelings.

Some of the descriptive language the author uses is really quite beautiful and she captures some of this more visceral experiences of motherhood well. It is extremely short-only 123 pages- and is written in short paragraphs. However, I found it very absorbing and finished it all in one go. I think it is a story you need to immerse yourself in to get the full effect. Worth keeping an eye out for later in the year.

Agree about the Kindle and the frustration of not being able to lead out. Call me a Luddite but I still prefer proper books. Kindle comes out for holidays and journeys. For some reason I can read on the Kindle and not feel travel sick!

26.Apple Tree Yard - was wary of reading this having seen the TV adaptation but it was a good read with some subtle differences. I didn't find the main character that convincing though and back to our discussion much earlier on this thread, I have to have some kind of engagement with a character to truly care or be interested in what happens to them. I don't have to like them - just believe in them.

That should be 'lend out' not 'lead'

I love my Kindle and use it all the time, but still use the library a lot and buy books. I am able to read a lot more because of the Kindle, but I still prefer a real one - I love swapping books.

I don't know if it's any use but I've sort of managed to lend my kindle books to my husband: he's downloaded the app onto his phone and logs into it as me to access the latest book I've persuaded him to try (currently The North Water).

murine thanks, my dh and I log out devices to one account so we can share books, I just miss the random book swapping with other people.

You can share books on Kindles if you sign up for Amazon family sharing - not sure how many people you can share with, but DH and I share using this - which would be more useful if we liked the same kind of books, which we don't!

My list so far:

1 Confronting the Classics by Mary Beard
2 Midsummer Night in the Workhouse by Diana Athill
3 Sidney Chambers and Forgiveness of Sins by James Runcie
4 The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan
5 Viper Wine by Hermoine Eyre
6 The Case of the Hail Mary Celeste by Malcolm Pryce
7 The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald
8 Arbella England's Lost Queen by Sarah Gristwood
9 The Children of Dynmouth by William Trevor
10 Miss Buncle Married by D E Stevenson
11 The House by the Lake by Thomas Harding
12 The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald

The Blue Flower is set in 18th century Germany and is based on the life of the writer/poet known as Novalis. Young man has ambitions to be a poet/philosopher but has to learn about the salt mine business. He falls in love with a much younger girl. Fitzgerald has a way of making you feel like you are there even though she uses very sparing language to describe things. I didn't enjoy this one as much as The Beginning of Spring but it is still a good read.

My favourite Agatha Christie's include Death on the Nile, Murder in Mesopotamia and The Body in the Library.

I much prefer books because (a) you can get them from the library, or secondhand for 20p (or free from the station if you're lucky!) and (b) they can be given, lent, or donated after reading :)

However, I bloody LOVE my kindle for holidays. I remember pre-kids beach holidays filling half my case with heavy books and spending the whole week paranoid about running out of reading material. Sometimes I would finish all of mine and have to read DH's awful books .

Now I have one diddy little thing that fits in my pocket and is full - FULL - of amazing books that I want to read. It's just struck me all over again how bloody wonderful that is :)

I've never wanted to lend books - can't part with them, don't want to think of how they will come back (if they ever do!), and not many people want to read books I do anyway.

Then again, I have no interest in smelling books either, and have been about that being given as a reason why people prefer print books over Kindle.

I keep very few books. If I've enjoyed it, I give it to someone nice to read. If I haven't, it goes in the charity shop pile.

I have three bookcases full of books that I haven't read yet but want to (I think I may have a bit of an issue with book-buying). So all books that have been read go straight on to new homes with a very few notable exceptions.

Murine, I do that too for my DH. He doesn't have a kindle but has the app on his tablet and I occasionally nab a 99p deal for him when I see something come up that he would like.

I stopped lending books out after a friend gave some books I'd lent her away to a charity shop

I pass on books that I've finished with and have no interest in keeping, but books I'd like to see again never get lent out these days.

I don't lend favourites but it's a nice conversation starter if you can lend someone a book. I mainly lend to my family who don't have kindles - I bought all the Shardlakes in paperback so I could pass them around; I shall never want to reread them.

Thought I'd share this article here, it's about the words, phrases, and cliches that particular authors use the most, and the idea that their most frequently used words can sum up their style. Interesting as an article, don't know if the topic would sustain me through a whole book, though this guy's written one, using statistical analysis of word usage. Nabokov wrote his books in colour, Ray Bradbury infused his with spices, and I enjoyed the fact E.L James's most used cliche is "words fail me"

"a friend gave some books I'd lent her away to a charity shop"

How did you punish her?

Fascinating article, Satsuki. Rather tangental, but I have previously thought of words used commonly by authors that rarely (if ever?) crop up in spoken conversation (e.g. roiling, rheumy). And I have noted Ian McEwan's fondness for mentioning e.g. wines, cheese and olives across several of his novels.