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?

Me too (Though I have also read at least one novel by Mrs Oliphant - admittedly a long time ago.)

I haven't read the city book or oliphant! Trying to clear my backlog of books and have been requesting some books that have been on the wishlist for too long from the library... then I have to keep up with the due dates! New recommendations will have to wait on the wish list

I've always thought that Mrs Oliphant = one of the best names ever (unless I had to be the owner of said name).

So weird - had a recommendation from a friend today about Oliphant and come here and it's quite the topic. I've had a weird busy few weeks so will update soon and going to library tomorrow.

The only association I have with Oliphant is that actor who is quite hot.

Link to said hot actor, please, Satsuki.

On the subject of hot - it really is. And guess who had planned sausage and mash for dinner.

I need a cold bath with a book. But I am reading and hating Howard's End is on the Landing so putting it off.

Pic of the hotness here. Timothy Olyphant is his name.

Hmmm. Nope - not doing it for me. You can keep him.

20. His Bloody Project - I think practically everyone on this thread has read this, and it's been reviewed many times. I thought it was great, gripping and well written. I'm becoming rather fond of books where you mostly know what is going to happen right at the start.

21. In the Cold Dark Ground by Stuart MacBride. I got this for free with my newspaper subscription. It's the 10th in a series of Scottish police thrillers starring a very endearing character called Logan McRae. I haven't read the first 9 in the series but I thought this was great. The main characters are brilliant, Logan's boss is hilarious and the crime is intriguing. If you like a good crime novel then try this series, but maybe start with the first one .

I am sitting on my hands to not buy the Oliphant thing. I suffer terribly from FOMO in these situations...,

He's one of those I wouldn't look twice at in pictures but I saw him in something and found him quite attractive. Kevin Bacon also an example of this

I've fancied animated characters before now though so I don't expect anyone to be on my wavelength generally with this kind of thing.

Thanks for the pic though south, won't do any harm

26. Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton I picked this up in the library because she wrote the Just William books and I was curious about her adult fiction. This is the story of two families headed by two matriarchs (the fathers are both dead) who live in the same small town. One family is 'new money' dominated by the mother who controls everything - including her married daughters' lives. Other family is 'old money' where the mother is more diffident about imposing on her children. The families become intertwined through marriage and the book follows the fortunes of the various children. Enjoyable read although I did get confused in one or two places about the characters. I think some were better drawn than others and some faded in and out of the story.

27 Miss Ranskill Comes Home by Barbara Euphon Todd
Miss Ranskill has spent four years stranded on a desert island. She returns to England in the middle of World War 2 - a war she didn't even know was happening. There is a lot of comedy around the misunderstandings that arise from this. Ending was little contrived but overall this was a good read.

26. Strictly Between Us by Jane Fallon

Tamsin suspects that her best friend Michelle's husband, Patrick, is sleeping about. So, she talks her trusted assistant Bea into acting as the bait in a honey trap so she can try and catch Patrick in the act.

The whole thing turns into a great big tangled out of control mess for Tamsin, with all sorts of bad decisions and lying and betrayals and blackmailing going on.

A bit slow to get into but enjoyable on the whole.

Aaaaages since I posted. Was away for a bit and the following list might offer some ever-so-subtle clues regarding the region.

I think the last update I did was when I was catching up on the Simon Seraillier series by Susan Hill, so:
37. A Question of Identity, Susan Hill
38. The Pure in Heart, Susan Hill
39. Vows of Silence, Susan Hill.
Enjoyed them all as a family saga as much as a crime fiction, although rather regretted I didn’t take a pp’s advice and read in chronological order, as I missed the impact of some major turns of events.

40. The Pedant in the Kitchen, Julian Barnes.
    Essays about the joys and perils of getting to grips with recipes. I wasn’t sure whether I’d read it before, but it didn’t seem familiar, so maybe it only rang a bell from discussions on a previous thread. Reasonably enjoyable but slight.

41. Freya Stark, by Caroline Moorehead.
    Bio of female explorer. Was halfway through when I realised I’d got her muddled up with Gertrude Bell, the person I actually wanted to read about. This was fine, although I wouldn’t rave about it.

42. Built on Bones, Brenna Hassett.
    Survey of the field by osteo-archaeologist. This is one of my fantasy alternate careers, so I loved this – she explains what we can know about the past from the human remains we discover. She’s not the best prose stylist, and she goes in for jokey footnotes which can be a bit hit and miss, but I was enthralled anyway. Loved the anecdotes about life in the trenches as a working archaeologist.

Reread Catherine Fox’s books Acts and Omissions and Unseen Things Above. I think she is great and criminally underrated. She starts with the kind of plot you’d see in Anthony Trollope (who will be the next bishop?) and adds in some surprisingly dirty humour and a huge amount of warmth. Love her.

43. Balkan Odyssey, Jason Smart. Travel narrative. Sample insight: Bosnia is nice because they give you little dishes of crisps with your beer. He doesn’t write well and doesn’t know much about the places he visits. But as I’ve said before, I like hokey travel narratives when I’m in the right mood.

44. Land of Eagles, Robin Hanbury-Tenison. Author travels through Albania by horseback with wife and back-up Landrover driven by recalcitrant locals, standing in for native bearers. Very old-school – he quotes John Buchan and there are lots of stories about our boys in WWII. I actually thought it was pretty good. He’d read widely, and gave a good account of the place, although his reading focused on previous British travellers to Albania rather than anything Albanians might say. He doesn’t go in for a sensitive disquisition on the works of Ismael Kadare, for example.

Reread The Thirty-nine Steps, by John Buchan. Because Robin H-T made me, and his complete works were only 49p on Kindle.

45. The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry. Much reviewed on here. I liked the characters and wished them well. Thought there was possibly a bit too much Plot and too many Big Themes. There’s not a lot of point saying “Hey, religious and scientific beliefs were in conflict in the 1890s!” Well yes. It’s been pointed out quite a lot. But I liked the account of a woman emerging from a horrendous marriage. Reminded me a bit of The French Lieutenant’s Woman in conveying a sense that what is now the past was still very much the present to the people in it. It’s rarer than you think – writers get so absorbed in the period trappings that they point excitedly at them (“Look! A bustle!”), instead of letting them be the normal boring background stuff to people’s lives.

46. Greenmantle, John Buchan. Reprehensible attitude about other races aside, there’s something likeable about seeing the world as full of possibilities for adventure and exoticism, and the chance to stand shoulder to shoulder with your equally brave pals, pulling off the great coup against all the odds.

Currently in the early stages of Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, which I’m absolutely relishing.

22. Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance - a rags to riches memoir of a hillbilly from Appalachia. I've just seen that Bill Gates has been recommending it, as the author had a completely different upbringing to his own very middle class advantaged childhood. The central theme is that the white working class in America are in desperate straits, the author only escaped incarceration, drug addiction etc.. due (mainly) to his kick ass maternal grandmother. Vance doesn't have any simple solutions and he is quite scathing of feckless layabouts, but he also has a lot of sympathy for the children dealing with absent fathers, alcoholic and drug addict family members and the revolving door of stepparents that he and many children deal with. An intriguing read.

Timothy Olyphant was lovely in Justified.

18. Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterley. This is the account of the black women who did the maths at NASA, recently a film. The book wasn't brillliantly written- a bit repetitive, overwritten in parts, and the story arc sometimes got lost; but the subject matter was fascinating, and if it was done well it's probably a great film. Worth a go if you are interested in recent American history, women's history, or NASA!

44 Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge

The author takes one day at random (Saturday 23 Nov, 2013), and recounts the stories of the ten children who were killed by guns on that day. Absolutely heartbreaking, really well written and about much more than just guns. I'd recommend this unreservedly.

Just the thought of that book makes me want to cry Sadik

45 Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare

An Audible freebie. I've read this previously, but enjoyed it more on audio - the narrator did an excellent job of bringing the characters to life. Cassandra Clare is definitely one of my guilty pleasure authors. A bit like Georgette Heyer it doesn't do to examine the plots too closely, and she has a tendency to re-use situations & types Even so, I find her characters generally come to life for me, and I enjoy the stories in the happy knowledge that all will come out well and true love win out in the end

And book 2 of the series (due out at the end of the month on audio, hence the freebie) is read by James Marsters (aka Spike from Buffy) :)

(though I bet he doesn't use his Spike accent . . .)

19. The Black House by Peter May This has been sitting on my TBR pile since I was given it as a present two or three years ago, so it felt good to finally read it and reduce one title from the far-too-big heap. I enjoyed it, have got the other two in the series on Audible in the hope that I'll get to them when I have some time off over the summer.
Ladydepp "I'm becoming rather fond of books where you mostly know what is going to happen right at the start." I agree! It's as if not having to figure out where the action is going frees up brain space to think about other aspects of the story.
Oliphant on my TBR list. Might get to it some time in the next decade.

27. Half Wild by Sally Green

This is the second in a series (the first being Half Bad ), and picks up pretty much where the first left off. Best read soon after reading the first one.

The series is set in a world with white witches warring against black witches under the noses of the unsuspecting human population. Nathan is half of each. He's on the run at the start of the story, fleeing white witch hunters out to kill him, and struggling to get to grips with his new magical Gift. Generally entertaining.

47. Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty I missed the tv series based on this novel and thought I'd see what the fuss is about, I enjoyed this page turner.
48. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent absolutely excellent historical fiction based on actual events, stark and beautifully written. Set in 1828-29 Iceland, telling the story of Agnes, accused of the murder of her former employer, she is sent to a remote farm (whose owners have no choice in the matter) to await execution. Compelling and very well researched, I really enjoyed this.

I'm now reading The Woman In Cabin 10 on my kindle, this is an engaging psychological thriller but not a patch on the two I just read! I will be starting First Love by Gwendoline Riley soon in my attempt to read the Baileys Prize shortlist too.

There's a new Kindle sale on this bank holiday weekend that's worth a look by the way too: I went a little overboard, The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver (£1.99) and The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson (99p) are amongst my haul.

s-l-o-w r-e-a-d-i-n-g here, because I've not really been enjoying 17. Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. PC Peter Grimes ends up discovering the magical underbelly of London, focusing around a family of water nymphs in the Thames, after interviewing a ghost as a witness to a murder.

I like the lightness of the writing, and found some of the police procedural comedy pretty funny, so I raced through the first third. But ultimately I didn't find it very believable, and didn't really warm to any of the magical characters.