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?

31. Still Alice by Lisa Genova

I can't say I enjoyed this, because the subject matter doesn't make easy reading (for me) but it is a book that I will think about for a long time. It's told from the point of view of Alice who has early-onset Alzheimer's disease. I thought it did a good job of portraying the confusion that a sufferer would feel. However it was a scary book to read - my grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's so there's a reasonable chance my mum could get it too (and me of course) and it brought home to me what the future could be like for us.

Now reading Patrick Gale 'A Place Called Winter' - only a few chapters in but liking it so far!

I've finished 16. To Kill A Mocking Bird. I'm sure everyone has read this at some stage or other but it does stand the test of time. The voice of Scout is so strong and it's still very moving.

Started Go Set A Watchman last night and am already finding it dragging a bit. The whole story of the publication sounds a bit odd, I wonder whether she actually did want to publish it.

On the other hand, it's made me want to read some Truman Capote. I think I read In Cold Blood years ago but can anyone recommend anything else? Remus area you a fan or is that my imagination?

If you've read In Cold Blood then Breakfast at Tiffanys and Other Voices, Other Rooms for Capote, Stokey.

Chessie I haven't read Still Alice but I thought the film was very good - although, as you say, not exactly cheery.

In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's both excellent.

In Cold Blood very good. Not read Breakfast at Tiffany's - it doesn't seem to be on Kindle and funnily enough I looked for it in the library yesterday. They didn't have it.

33. Fragile Lives - Stephen Westaby The eminent heart surgeon looks back over some of his most remarkable cases. It's very similar to Henry Marsh's book about brain surgery, Do No Harm so I'd recommend it to those who enjoyed that.

It's a bit of a harrowing read, certainly an emotional roller coaster. I was moved to tears a number of times.

Is the rest of Nutshell by Ian McEwan as bad as the first chapter? I should know better really. The last one of his I read still makes me cross.

Just checking in to keep up.

Sadly no reading for me. I'm getting my elderly mother's new bungalow ready for her to move into, so I'm straight round after work for a few hours and have been hard at it all weekend. I've laid 2 wooden floors and painted 2 rooms. I've been going wild with a jigsaw and power sander so I can't even listen to audiobooks. I've been listening to a local radio station that I swear only as 20 records that they play on repeat. I get in and get through half a page of a book before zonking out.

I think I need something easy to read so I don't have to think to follow it. Can I count Enid Blyton?

I would also recommend Breakfast at Tiffany's Stokey.

15. The Three by Sarah Lotz

Four passenger planes crash at around the same time at different points of the globe. There are three survivors - all children - although a fourth adult lives long enough after one crash to record a message on her phone that changes the world. Told in a series of interviews and articles purported to be part of a book written on the tragedies. As the book progresses it becomes clear that these children are changed, which has an impact on the people around them. Quite a creepy book and you never really know what actually happened.

16. The Cold Calling by Phil Rickman

A re-read. Grayle Underhill, known as 'Holy Grayle' for her column on the paranormal and new age in a New York newspaper, comes to England in search of her more academic archaeologist sister who has disappeared after taking part in experiments with the newly formed University of the Earth. Ageing Celtic shaman and ventriloquist Sydney Mars Lewis (known as Cindy) is in search of a serial killer the police don't believe exists, a man who kills at sacred sites such as stone circles and ancient churches. Marcus Bacton, owner of Castle Farm and a believer in the healing power of High Knoll, a neolithic chamber near his home, is concerned with the poor health of his elderly housekeeper who has a healing gift, and DI Bobby Maiden returns after temporarily dying in a hit and run with memories of a cold, harsh place he never wants to return to. Inevitably, all four stories converge, and it's a really good story.

I finished book 23 yesterday, Bodies of Water by V.H.Leslie, a very quick read at only 130 pages. This sounded good, a gothic horror based in a waterside Victorian London women's hospital, alternating between two women's voices, one in Victorian times, the other present day now that the hospital is being converted to housing (but conveniently there has been a problem meaning that only two women live in the whole deserted, partially converted creepy old hospital) but fell flat for me.

I'm now reading Do No Harm and Nora Webster by Colm Toibin both of which are excellent.

11 A Boy Made of Blocks - Keith Stuart - This tells the story of Alex and he finally connects to and builds a relationship with his 8 year old son via Minecraft. I enjoyed this book and especially enjoyed the developing relationship between the father and his son. I wasn't quite as enthused about some of the other sub plots that happen in the book.

Finished 10. Hurrah for Gin by Katie Kirby which I have been dipping into between novels over the past couple of months.
Have got Leap Year by Helen Russell on the go as an audiobook, looking forward to getting stuck into another novel too, maybe A Spool of Blue Thread by Ann Tyler which I stumbled across in the library.

19. Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world by Mark Williams and Danny Penman.

This is the very well known beginner's guide to meditation/mindfulness including CD and I have loved it, although I am still very much a work in progress.

20. The Hanging Tree (Peter Grant series, Book 6) by Ben Aaronovitch.

The sixth in this urban fantasy series, Peter Grant continues to investigate and cause trouble and this one also carries forward some long running plot lines. I liked it, it's light-hearted fun.

13 The Girls at the Kingfisher Club by Genevieve Valentine

Read this in a day. Maybe not something I'd usually pick up but one of the prompts for the challenge I'm doing over at good reads was a book recommended by a librarian, and a librarian on the discussion group/thread thing there recommended this. I loved it, a retelling over the fairy tale 12 Dancing Princesses set in 1920s New York. Maybe the characterisation was a little thin in places, and the resolution felt a teensy bit rushed and 'too easy' after what had gone before, but that's me nitpicking because I feel I should. It was glamorous and breathless and fab, and it did a good job of highlighting the darkness and captivity at the heart of the fairy tale, and giving a genuine sense of peril and believability whilst still having that sort of heightened reality/fairy tale feel. Definitely recommend.

Tarahumara I haven't seen the film of Still Alice, but will look out for it now I've read the book.

33. A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale

I was given this and it isn't something I would normally pick up. It was a little slow to get going, but by the end I was really enjoying it. I thought the ending was a little inconclusive though - I still had lots of questions!

Good to see I am not the only one with a Gollum-like attachment to new books.

I am behind in posting my reads, so here they are:
17 The Prisoner of Zenda - Anthony Hope Enjoyably daft.
18 The Hiroshima Maidens- Rodney Barker Despite its overly pro-American stance, this was really fascinating. It is the story of the 25 women who were taken to the US in the 1950s for plastic surgery on their injuries from the bomb. As the author was one of the very few people to whom the women themselves would speak, there are some truly moving and poignant stories. It covers from the day of the bomb to the 1970s. Well worth a read.
19 Gods and Warriors - Michelle Paver An Audible read. I enjoyed this - I am not good at listening to complicated plot lines; I either listen to YA or non-fiction. The narrator is by no means Ian McKellen, who reads the Wolf Brother series, but is still good! The plot is fairly similar in many ways, but I enjoyed the female characterisation as strong and capable.
20 Strictly Murder - Lynda Wilcox A light and fluffy read that whiled away a couple of hours in a waiting room. Notably wine-laced plot though - the grape and bouquet seem to get described every day!
21 The Last Romanov Icon - Carlos Mundy and Marie Stravlo
A load of total bollocks. The whole is-she-isn't she story of the Romanovs throughout the 20th century does really interest me, but this was a pile of horrendously-written, ill-thought-out shite. And the constant "she is so gracious and wonderful that she just be royal, because, well, ROYAL. And ARISTOCRACY. And ROYAL." I only finished it because I'd bought it!
22 The Burning Shadow - Michelle Paver Number 2 in the Gods and Warriors series. Not on audible, so I had to borrow it from the library. Much to the and of the librarian. I thought of the discussion on this thread re children's books, and nearly asked her if she was on MN!
23 Pollyanna - Eleanor H Porter I had never read the original. I would like to throttle Pollyanna.

Chessie I know what you mean about the ending of A Place Called Winter, I felt the ending was a little abrupt and could have done with a few more chapters just to tie things up in a more satisfying way for the reader. I liked it a lot, though.

Bought a 99p on Kindle the other day -Shooting Kylie by Tony Oudot. It's about a paparazzi photographer and makes me want to weep not in a good way. A waste of 99p and waste of a couple of evenings of my life.

Oh bloody hell, I'm adding more to my TBR list than I'm reading at the moment! Not that I'm not grateful for the recommendations you lovely lot just frustrated with my lack of reading ...

Book 12: Bitch in a Bonnet Oh my, what a lot of fun! Thank you Remus et al for the recommendation. I kept reading extracts out loud to the bloke. He did laugh, if not actually thanking me for the interruptions. It may even make me read Mansfield Park even though the author doesn't recommend it as one of her better offerings.

Book 13: The Improbability of Love Hannah Rothschild. A Bailey's short-lister. Loaded with details of the art world and with a piece of art who spoke - in the snottiest of voices (those were the bits I loved). The rest was just a shed load of characters, not overly stereotyped but not drawn with particular depth either. A good read if not a brilliant book, and I enjoyed it more than The Goldfinch probably because it didn't disappoint me.

I have lots of questions for Patrick Gale too - maybe one day I'll get to one of his author events, or meet him via the boss (whose wife is a friend) - but certainly Harry from of A Place called Winter is based upon Patrick's maternal great-grandfather.

As for the lending of books ... very few people are reliable, so I rarely lend books. I've had family send much loved books to the charity shop, friends put them into their own bookcases (from where I have rescued them) etc. So that's one reason for loving kindles ...

Shocked at all the feckless book borrowers

I'm going to go against the grain here - I actually prefer books that have been well read. I mostly read library books or second hand books. Equally I don't hang on to books unless I am totally in love with them, I would rather pass them on to someone else to read or donate them to Oxfam. I like the idea that I'm just one of a series of people who've had pleasure from reading that book.

So glad you enjoyed Bitch in a Bonnet, Joyless.

Please don't throttle Pollyanna, Diva. She's a nice little girl, despite her faults!

Book 25
Black Plumes by Margery Allingham
A proper ‘old fashioned’ detective story, published in 1940. This features a family still rather in awe of the Victorian matriarch grandma, who isn’t as frail or confused as she might occasionally appear. When a murderer strikes, and then strikes again, everybody – even grandma - falls under suspicion. I really enjoyed this – it’s v much of its time but it was gripping and exciting and had me wondering right up until the end which one of them actually ‘done it’. Recommended to fans of Christie.

Quite fancy that Dancing Princesses one, Compost.

Not for a tenner on Kindle though!!!

Oh ffs are we back with Pollyanna again?