50 Book Challenge Part Five

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fifth 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, the third thread here and the fourth one here.

What are you reading?

37 No Way But Gentlenesse by Richard Hines

Autobiography by Barry Hines' (of Kes fame) brother, about his experiences of failing the 11+ and going to secondary modern school, how he became fascinated with kestrels and how that turned into the inspiration for Kes.

It took me a long time to get into this one, and I nearly gave up on it half way through, but in the end I really enjoyed it. I'm not sure if the book improved or I was just more in the mood when I read the second half. It's a gentle little book, but has plenty to say if taken slowly. (Particularly regarding the merits or otherwise of educational selection at age 11!)

19. How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen by Joanna Faber & Julia King

Subtitled "A Survival Guide to Life With Children Ages 2-7"

Full of tips and strategies to improve communication with small children and (hopefully) make it easier to resolve conflicts, get them to cooperate, and so on.

I've been finding some of the techniques recommended useful and effective when trying them out on my older DC (my oldest is 5). I'd recommend this to other parents of small children.

27. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

I think a lot of people have read this one so no need for me to rehash the plot. Very good read, I thought, particularly with the relatively light touch on the issues of the characters (domestic abuse, possible autism, poverty and housing conditions).

28. The Pursuit of Happiness by Ruth Whippman

British journalist moves to America with her husband and child and finds herself interested in the apparent national obsession with finding happiness, so investigates various elements of the happiness industry, community, social media, parenting, positive psychology, etc before deciding most of it is bollocks and actually makes people unhappier. Sort of in the Oliver Burkeman style, and quite enjoyable.

45. Love All - Elizabeth Jane Howard . Very much in the style of the Cazalets, despite seeing set in the 1960's. Shamelessly upper middle class, although everyone is living quite lonely and unfulfilled lives. Having read Elizabeth Jane Howard's autobiography there are a lot of parallels to be found here. Much of the book concerns the hunt for happiness and what people 'settle for'. As usual I found her characters irresistible although there were some who seemed quite pointless and could have been edited out without any damage to the plot. There was a bizarre change of narration style intermittently towards the end, from the first third person to the first and then back again. Not really sure what that was about , as again it didn't add anything in my opinion.
Some laugh out loud funny moments; my favourite being when the bosom of a middle age drunken woman , escaped her evening dress and was hastily crammed back before it hit the soup! Beware the book is full of 'feelings'

Georgette Heyer's An Inconvenient Marriage and Regency Buck are cheapish on Kindle. Do I want to read them?

I wouldn't say they're two of her best myself.

You could have Cotillion for a pound more . . .

An Inconvenient Marriage isn't dreadful, but there's a massive age gap between the hero/heroine which makes it a bit problematic for me.

Regency Buck is just kind of painful - the 'hero' is unpleasant and the heroine annoying IMO.

Thanks. Won't bother!

38 Prisonomics by Vicky Pryce

For anyone who doesn't remember the sorry tale, the author is an economist and ex-wife of an ex-MP who ended up in prison after taking what should have been his points on her driving license, then revealing this in a very messy divorce case.

The book is a bit of a mish-mash of an account of her time in prison (a few days in Holloway then a couple of months in an open prison) and a general discussion of the problems with the current treatment of women offenders.

The obvious comparison is Piper Kernan in Orange is the New Black, sadly this is in no way as well written, but it was interesting to see the differences between the US experience and the UK.

Bit of an aside but does anyone here listen to BBC radio 6 Music's Paperback Writer? There have been a few authors on recently which would be worth listening to I think.

22. Dead Level - Damien Boyd

Really enjoyed this one. The books are getting longer as well - first one was under 200 pages and this was 350 so a bit more substantial.

Set during the flooding of the south west and an election campaign, this story adds the twist of pharmaceutical companies misleading the public to the usual murder followed by procedural drama. I am really pleased I came across this author and took a chance with buying the whole lot for 99p each. I have enjoyed every book and it feels good to be at the very start of a series rather than discovering one many books down the line. Already started the last one but was delighted to discover a seventh to be released in October.

I agree with Sadik- worth a read if you are a fan but not nearly as good as Sophy! Our library and Overdrive have a few- I like These Old Shades, Fridays Child, Arabella, The Masquaraders, False Colours, Sylvester (must stop!); and Venetia gets a lot of love although it isn't one of my picks.

Would you describe the Damien Boyd books as detective stories Passme? If so I might give them a try!

I have just finished The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett.
A very enjoyable read. Sabine is the widow and assistant of the famous magician, Parsifal. Who was gay and had a lover Phan who died of Aids. After Parsifal's death, she discovers his estranged family from Nebraska and gets to know them, all the time discovering more about Parsifal's past/childhood - none of which she was aware of.

These days I tend to prefer the GH books with smaller age / power differentials and/or older heroines - so False Colours, Black Sheep, Frederica, Cotillion, Sophy. (The exceptions being These Old Shades & Devils Cub, both of which are deeply dubious on ethical grounds, but so funny I can't knock them off the favourites list.)

100% Tanaqui the main protagonist is DI Nick Dixon. The first couple are terribly short and really just introduce the character. I have really enjoyed them.

I've read quite a lot of those Heyers but can't remember which is which, as it's so long ago. Definitely read 'These Old Shades', 'Frederica' and 'Sylvester'.

Blimey - I dropped out a couple of weeks ago and this thread has topsied!

24. Truly Madly Guilty - Liane Moriarty

Six adults meet for a spontaneous barbecue and they're all left wishing they never went. This book explores how things can go wrong fast and how people can be left feeling guilty for all sorts of reasons and how they deal with or don't. Also deals with a few mental health issues.

I quite enjoyed this and was intrigued to find out what had happened as this isn't clear until later in the book. I did guess that last twist in the book but it was rather enjoyable.

Goodness, I've not posted for ages! Have been plodding through;

23. Sovereign - C. J. Sansom - it's the 3rd in the Shadlake series, and while a good book, I made the mistake of getting it out of the library rather than downloading to the kindle, at 650 pages it's bloody heavy and so I didn't bother carrying it around with me! This book covers the period of Henry VIII progress to York, with Catherine Howard's shenanigans beginning to be noticed... Our Shadlake has been dragged along to help and gets to York just before the progress, but a couple of days before the King arrives, a man is knocked off a ladder and his last words to Shadlake makes him think there's trouble afoot. (there is). It's a good mystery with mutiple plotting going on.

27 - The Hand That first Held Mine - Maggie O'Farrell - This book alternates between two stories. First up is 1950's and Lexi Sinclair who moves from Devon to London and becomes a sucessful journalist working at her partner's newspaper in Soho. The second is modern day and Elina and Ted are struggling to come to terms with being new parents. The two stories come together superbly towards the end of the book. I feel also that it was a pretty accurate portrayal of the newborn stage. Whilst, i enjoyed reading this book, I didn't love it quite as much as I did The Vanishing of Esme Lennox.

28 - Rush Oh - I tried this thanks to the previous reviews on the thread and as such won't go over old ground. I agree with the previous comments about the unique and engaging voice of the narrator through this book who really did make it. Without trying to give away the plot I was disappointed by a really big coincidence at the end of the book which just felt a bit too convenient for my liking but apart from that I would highly recommend. The pictures in the book also really added to it.

29 - I See You - Claire Mackintosh - Zoe Walker flicks through the local free paper one day and sees a picture of herself in the classifieds sections accompanied by just a phone number and web address. The next day there is a picture of another woman and the day after another one. I loved Claire Mackintosh's first book but found this one a bit run of the mill and it simply didn't grab me as much.

Currently reading Me Before You - Jo Jo Moyes

17. Enigma by Robert Harris
    Is there a spy at Bletchley Park? What has happened to Charlotte? How can they crack the codes and save the North Atlantic convoys? This was a good spy yarn although I found parts of the story a bit unlikely. I read this on holiday and it was the perfect easy going holiday read.

18. Under Another Sky by Charlotte Higginson
    This is a book about the Romans in Britain and how and where we can still see traces of them today. Very interesting, learnt lots.

19. The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown by Vaseem Khan
    An Indian private detective is in the room when the British Crown is stolen. Our hero sets out to find out who stole it and why. Enjoyable read even though the plot was a nonsense.

20. How to be a Tudor by Ruth Goodison
    A book about life during Tudor times - how they lived their lives, from what they had for breakfast to how they made their beds. Very interesting although rather too much detail in places - I found my mind wandering particularly in the section about dancing.

21. Footsteps by Richard Holmes. A biography with a difference. For one thing, it covers four different people, all writers / poets of the Romantic era - Robert Louis Stevenson, Mary Wollstonecraft, Percy Shelley and Gerard de Nerval. It's impossible to do justice to them all in a single book so he focuses on following their footsteps during a certain period of each of their lives - Stevenson in the Cevennes area of France, Shelley in Italy and the other two in Paris. He also has some interesting observations about the art of writing a biography. Enjoyable to read, although not the right book if you want to find out about the whole life of any of the subjects.

24. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry Much reviewed, so I'll be brief. This was a beautiful slow burn of a book. I started off thinking it was rather overpopulated with characters, and just wanted to know about the main characters Cora and Will. However, I ended up being moved by and involved in every person's story and how they all joined together, and that felt right, because at the core of this book was an examination of the many different types of love and friendship that exist, and the generosity of spirit or jealousy that can let them flourish or inhibit them. Loved this.

1. The Wolf and The Raven - Steven MacKay

2.The Hobbit - JRRR Tolkien (Audible)

1. 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)

1. 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 by Ursula de Guin 19. Fall of Giants by Ken Follet 20. Stig of the Dump by Clive King 21. Edward I - A Great and Terrible King by Marc Morris 22. Nomad by Alan partridge (on Audible) 23. Saigon by Anthony Grey. 24: CHarlotte's Web by EB White

25: Behind Closed Doors by BA Paris.
I know it's been reviewed several times, but I did rattle through this fairly quickly so definitely enjoyed it. I had some issues with the plot ( I had a few moments thinking what the MN Relationships board would be saying), but a decent read.

Now reading The Handmaid's Tale for Bookclub
And still plowing through the Cazlalet's on Audible. I'm nearly 70% through now, and it's only just holding my attention. Will probably finish this one out of principal and not bother with the rest. Might by the DVD for me and mum to watch next time I go to stay, rather than giving it precious reading time, as while it's just about interesting enough to stop reading it, it is only just

buy not by obviously

Just finished number 23. Bitch in a Bonnet: Reclaiming Jane Austen from the stiffs, the snobs, the simps and the saps by Robert Rodi

Much reviewed on here, which is why I read it. I enjoyed it, like a highlight reel of best bits. His tone grated occasionally, but enjoyed overall. I'll look out for the second one but not straight away.