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?

A Clockwork Orange is stunning and profoundly disturbing at the same time. It isn't an easy read but well worth it - I struggled with the language at first and kept looking up the words but eventually just went with the flow - much better.

I didn't think A Clockwork Orange was unbearably violent. I agree that it was good, though.

altered - Your grandfather sounds like he was a very interesting man What happened to his instruments?

31. City of Thieves by David Benioff. Set during WW2 in Russia in a besieged city, a captured deserter and a looter can avoid execution if they can find a dozen eggs in the next 6 days.

This was given to me by someone in work as a MUST read book. It's fast paced with likeable characters, but is just a chewing gum book and a very quick easy read. The author is one of the creators for the TV series of Game of Thrones.

I've got All Quiet on the Western Front lined up next.

I also gave up on A Japanese Lover, It didn't feel like Allende at all.

I didn't make it past the opening scenes of the film of A Clockwork Orange, but am tempted now by the book, since so many make it worth the read.

18.The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.
Not read before, grabbed off DH's shelf to read before the telly adaptation gets going properly.

Blimey. This was great. Beautifully rich descriptive writing, which offset the stark subject matter disturbingly well.

Neal Stephenson's mind-blowing Snow Crash is £1.99 on the Kindle.

Don't think, just get it!

Test

1. Dragon Bound, Thea Harrison
2. A Man Lay Dead, Ngaio Marsh
3. Enter A Murderer, Ngaio Marsh
4. The Nursing Home Mystery, Ngaio Marsh
5. Dancers in Mourning, Margery Allingham
6. Horror Stories, E Nesbit
7. The Rithmatist, Brandon Sanderson
8. Magic Flutes, Eva Ibbotsen
9. The Haunting, Margaret Mahy
10. A Company of Swans, Eva Ibbotsen
11. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
12. The Coming of Age of the Chalet School, Elinor M Brent-Dyer
13. The Feud in the Fifth Remove, EBD
14. The Susannah Adventure, EBD
15. Carnation of the Upper Fourth, EBD
16. The Golden Road, LM Montgomery
17. A Monster Calls, Patrick Ness
18. Goldenhand, Garth Nix
19. The Circle, Sara B Elfgren & Mats Strandberg
20. Dietland, Sarai Walker
21. Bayou Moon, Ilona Andrews
22. Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham
23. Which Witch? Eva Ibbotsen
24. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, Winifred Watson
25. Stormy Petrol, Mary Stewart
26. The Summer Without Men, Siri Hustvedt
27. Witchlight, Susan Fletcher
28. Fire, Sara B Elfrgren & Mats Strandberg
29. The Key, Sara B Elfgren & Mats Strandberg
30. A Problem For the Chalet School, EBD
31. The Chalet School Reunion, EBD
32. Redheads of the Chalet School, EBD
33. Wolf by Wolf, Ryan Graudin
34. The Power, Naomi Alderman
35. The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater
36. Cargo of Horses, Monica Edwards
37. Pawn of Prophecy, David Eddings
38. Queen of Sorcery, David Eddings
39. Magician’s Gambit, David Eddings
40. This Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim
41. Castle of Wizardry, David Eddings
42. Enchanter’s End Game, David Eddings
43. Guardians of the West, David Eddings
44. King of the Murgos, David Eddings
45. Demon Lord of Karanda, David Eddings
46. Sorceress of Darshiva, David Eddings
47. Seeress of Kell, David Eddings
48. One Fell Sweep, Ilona Andrews
49. Princess Priscilla’s Fortnight, Elizabeth von Arnim
50. The School in the Woods, Dorita Fairlie Bruce
51. The Crystal Singer, Anne McCaffrey
52. Killashandra, Anne McCaffrey
53. Crystal Line, Anne McCaffrey
54. The Dream Thieves, Maggie Stiefvater
55. Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Maggie Stiefvater
56. The Raven King, Maggie Stiefvater
57. Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther, Elizabeth von Arnim
58. Three Go To The Chalet School, EBD
59. The Fellowship of the Ring, JRR Tolkien
60. Kushiel’s Dart, Jacqueline Carey
61. Belgravia, Julian Fellowes
62. My Not So Perfect Life, Sophie Kinsella
63. Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady, Florence King
64. The Burning Page, Genevieve Colman
65. Ragnarok, AS Byatt
66. The Fate of the Tearling, Erika Johansen
67. The Two Towers, JRR Tolkien
68. The Return of the King, JRR Tolkien
69. A Gift of Dragons, Anne McCaffrey
70. Deep Secret, Diana Wynne Jones
71. Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson
72. A Little Life, Hanya Yanighara
73. Strange The Dreamer, Liani Taylor
74. The Diamond Throne, David Eddings
75. The Ruby Knight, David Eddings
76. Silence Fallen, Patricia Briggs
77. The Sapphire Rose, David Eddings
78. Domes of Fire, David Eddings
79. The Shining Ones, David Eddings
80. The Hidden City, David Eddings
81. Assassin’s Fate, Robin Hobb
82. White Hot, Ilona Andrews
83. The Black Loch, Patricia Leitch
84. The Island of Adventure, Enid Blyton
85. The Castle of Adventure, Enid Blyton
86. The Valley of Adventure, Enid Blyton
87. The Highland Twins at the Chalet School, EBD
88. Assassin’s Apprentice, Robin Hobb
89. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
90. A Court of Wings and Ruin, Sarah J Maas
91. Pottermore Presents, JK Rowling

Sorry, I had a major laptop failure yesterday and couldn't get back online for ages! Here's my list to date. It is very filled with children/YA/crappy fantasy so far!

So, Assassin's Fate. First of all, I thought this trilogy as a whole dragged because I just don't like Bee. She spends the whole time peeing herself and whining. That said, I was hooked by the old Robin Hobb magic for all the Fitz and the Fool bits, and I loved the ending. And I did like the deliberate winding up of all loose ends - from Paragon to Kettricken, you got an ending for all the old favourites. Completely agree with Nighteyes about who Fitz ought to have had as his mate, too - Molly never quite did it for me.

Cloud Atlas - aaargh! I loved The Bone Clocks, but wtf was David Mitchell doing with CA? I liked the first two or three installments, but all the futuristic stuff bored me stiff. I was really struggling to care by the end, and I still don't know why it was called Cloud Atlas. I have a vague memory of reading Cote's scathing review of it a couple of years ago and I was getting v pissed off with the vague comet birthmark stuff.

Erm... My Cloud Atlas review was the furthest thing from "scathing".

Have you missed the part of the book where it explains the meaning of "Cloud Atlas"?

Thanks for the Snowcrash tip! Have now got it on the kindle.

Probably. I do remember something where it started to explain but I think I was grumpy by then and not listening. I must have mixed you up with someone else, sorry Cote! I take it you liked it?

Buying Snow Crash in penance.

60. The Veiled One.
61. An Unkindness of Ravens
62. The Speaker of Mandarin All Ruth Rendell Wexford. I've read these three before but have a hopeless memory for whodunnit. I'm also reading them in reverse order and enjoying the nostalgia. We're back in the 1980s now. Rendell was always very good at capturing the mood of the period.

49. First Love by Gwendoline Riley not keen on this, it was thankfully brief! A very bleak uncomfortable read, portraying the unhappy marriage of Neve and her husband, who is vile to her, taking every opportunity to belittle and verbally abuse her, and while it is not fully explained, what led to her ending up with him.
50. The Woman In Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware good psychological thriller which kept me guessing what had become of the mystery passenger in cabin 10, had to suspend my disbelief for the later parts but really enjoyed this.
51. Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo I thought this was absolutely excellent. Set in 1980's and present day Nigeria, Yejide has been married to the love of her life for four years and the couple are trying to conceive. They are under huge family pressure to have a baby and so her husband, Akin, takes a second wife in order to do so. Utterly compelling, tragic, unpredictable and beautifully written.

"I take it you liked it?"

I don't mean this in a bad way, but I don't know how to engage with someone who has understood so little from a review that she doesn't know if it was positive or negative Maybe read it again and then we will talk? You might like to read the book again as well, just to see what it was about. Seriously, I don't know what to say.

TooExtraImmatureCheddar here's a link to Cote's excellent discussion of the themes in Cloud Atlas:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/what_were_reading/1512201-Cote-Dazur-yes-please-give-us-your-insights-on-cloud-atlas

29. A God in Ruins - Kate Atkinson

Already much discussed I'd imagine. I'd put off reading this because I didn't totallylove Life after Life and then several people had said they didn't like this 'companion piece'. I actually liked it better than Life after Life, but still liked, or maybe 'admired' rather than loved. I think Kate Atkinson writes beautifully, and I can see what she's doing with the sort of spiralling, non-linear narrative that reveals characters and events to us in glimpses, but I also found myself irritated by it at times.

Just checking in to keep this on TIO. Still listening to Adults in the Room on audio (good, but definitely one that needs to be taken a bit at a time) interspersed with Quantum: a guide for the perplexed (ditto).

Real book - a little way into The History Thieves by Iain Cobain (about the ingrained British habit of secrecy in government) which is excellent but depressing.

I've got the new Cassandra Clare book lined up to go next on audio for a bit of light relief (!)

34. I Let You Go - Clare MacKintosh

I can imagine this has been reviewed quite a bit previously. I devoured this book as much as I could while working full time and I absolutely loved the wish in the middle. Very excited to read more from this author.

I seem to have missed out a book:

23. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett. I know many of you have read it already and I found it very pleasing and enjoyably brief. For those who don't know it, the premise is that HM The Queen takes up reading with a passion, resulting in her questioning the world around her. Recommended.

Off to peruse the kindle sale, - not sure why as I still have loads to read...

The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair is 99p today. Anyone read it? To buy or not to buy? It's 658 pages!

25. High-Rise - JG Ballard

I've read a fair bit of Ballard over the years but somehow not this one before now. It's quite an incredible piece of dystopian fiction in which the moneyed residents of a new London tower block, following a series of technical failures, begin to turn against each other with increasing violence as their microcosm of society breaks down. Like Lord Of The Flies, it's a chilling reminder of how thin the veneer of civilisation is, without ever descending into schlock or melodrama.

When Ballard is good, he is fantastic. My favorites of his are Vermillion Sands, The Atrocity Exhibition, and Super Cannes.

He did repeat himself a bit with later books, though, and many have similar themes & plots.

Ballard's autobiography Miracles Of Life is brilliant. He has had a fascinating life, starting with childhood in Shanghai and internment there in a PoW camp, as in the story of his book Empire Of The Sun.

Book 54
Prussian Blue by Philip Kerr
The latest in the Bernie Gunther series, set in 1938 Germany and 1956 Germany. This was decent but not the best one. I really like Gunther as a character, but I think Kerr is knocking them out too quickly and they are getting a bit formulaic and predictable. Some of his dialogue isn’t very believable either, and I’m sure some of Gunther’s set pieces are pretty much word for word across several books now. All in all, an enjoyable read though, and far better than the travesty that was The Japanese Lover that I abandoned after 30% and should have abandoned after 3%.

26. The Descent of Man – Grayson Perry
    
    Really enjoyed this one and would recommend to anyone with even a vague interest in equality issues/gender politics. Very accessible and thought provoking. Also found the bits of autobiographical detail fascinating. Remus - I have now added Playing to the Gallery to my wish list...

27. The Power – Naomi Alderman
    Continuing with the theme of gender politics and equality. This one has been widely reviewed already; teenage girls suddenly develop the ability to deliver electric shocks through their hands and so starts the ascendancy of women. A great concept, very clever at times but not executed as well as I wanted it to be - I'm afraid I nearly gave up at times. I found the characters a bit flat and at times I felt the progress of the story wasn't really plausible. For example, disparate characters from different continents conveniently bumping into each other in order to take the plot in a certain direction. At times it felt forced. Having said that this was full of action and a real page turner.

Next I shall be reading The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt. The Secret History is one of my all time favourites. However, I didn't like The Little Friend quite so much. Good as it was, for me it was not in the same league iyswim? Am trying to keep an open mind about The Goldfinch!