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50 Book Challenge Part Five

990 replies

southeastdweller · 18/04/2017 08:05

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?

OP posts:
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9
CoteDAzur · 21/04/2017 22:33

Sorry Cheerful, the first paragraph of your review looked (to me) like you were describing the sort of story that you then called 'trashy'. My mistake Smile

RMC123 · 21/04/2017 23:08

Museum- mention of The Loney brought me up short. Still resent the hours I gave to reading that rubbish. However think the idea of Grange is still winning me over. Currently immersed in The Private lives of the Tudors. Loving some of their mornings sickness remedies - elderberries in ale with 'sparrow's grease' anyone? Or maybe ants eggs and virgins hair for pain relief in labour?

CheerfulMuddler · 22/04/2017 00:38

No worries, Cote.

Not read The Loney so can't speak to that.

fatowl · 22/04/2017 04:15
  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)
  1. Saigon by Anthony Grey. One of those epic multi-story thread novels spanning 50 years. Starts with an American hunting party, with their French colonial hosts and their local guides/servants in 1925. One of the Americans is killed on the trip, and the rest of the novel follows what happens to all the characters, and their subsequent children, as what is now Vietnam struggles to free themselves from French colonialism and ultimately ends up following their fates up to the end of the Vietnam war. It's a format I enjoy (Like Ken Follet etc), and it was OK. Some of the stories were far more interesting than others, and some character who were potentially a lot more interesting were not fully developed. Also in country of a decent sized population, the amount of time people co-incidentally ended up in the same place was a bit unbelievable but I was sufficiently interested to finish it. 7/10

Now Listening to the Cazalets on Audible and reading Charlotte's Web (have a list of children's classics to should have read)

southeastdweller · 22/04/2017 09:15

The paperback of The Essex Serpent is just £2.99 at the moment on Amazon!

OP posts:
TheTurnOfTheScrew · 22/04/2017 10:01

I am still reading the excellent The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.

It's my birthday today and I was lucky enough to be given The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain, plus Ragtime and The Book of Daniel, both by E L Doctorow. More excitingly, DH got me a Kindle, so I'm now eagerly awaiting any recommendations for 99p specials.

SatsukiKusakabe · 22/04/2017 11:15

Thanks southeast now looking at treating myself to something else too to make up the £10 for free delivery. Thinking of Rush-Oh!.

turnofthescrew that's exciting, you will love your Kindle I'm sure. Also I really like E.L Doctorow and especially the Book of Daniel so hope you enjoy it Smile

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 22/04/2017 16:45

Happy birthday, Screw.

Gods, I hated (really, really hated) The Loney.

Book 39
Madonna in a Fur Coat by some dull person whose name I have forgotten and cba to google
Gods, this was dull. Dull to begin with, then it got even more dull, then he met a woman, then it got even more dull, then she disappeared and he was dull on his own, then it was dull some more. If you think this review is dull, believe me it is much, much less dull than the book it is reviewing which was, if you haven't yet realised, very, very dull. I loathed this book and wish I hadn't bothered finishing it. It makes The Loney look really good in comparison (and *The Loney is not good at all).

SatsukiKusakabe · 22/04/2017 16:53

Just why is it so popular, remus? The many good reviews are leading innocent, hopeful readers like ourselves into the abyss.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 22/04/2017 16:56

Satsuki
I honestly have no idea. Maybe it's actually really deep and meaningful and we are far too stupid/intelligent/interesting/dull/insertotheradjectiveofchoicehere to realise it.

Sadik · 22/04/2017 17:35

Happy birthday Screw. Sounds like your family/friends are well trained!
Just went into our (teeny tiny) library today and they had a display of all the Baileys prize shortlisted books :) Came away with The Power by Naomi Alderman which I've been wanting to read for ages. I just need to either finish or definitively abandon my current book first . . .

Matilda2013 · 22/04/2017 19:00

Bringing my list over.

  1. The One We Fell in Love With - Paige Toon
  2. This Is Where It Ends - Marieke Nijkamp
  3. The Girl Who Lied - Sue Fortin
4. Girls on Fire - Robin Wasserman 5. The Heat of Betrayal - Douglas Kennedy
  1. Forget You Had a Daughter: Doing Time in the Bangkok Hilton - Sandra Gregory
  2. Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell
  3. Trust in Me - Sophie McKenzie
9. Close Enough to Kill - Beverly Barton 10. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl 11. How I Lost You - Jenny Blackhurst 12. The Girls - Lisa Jewell 13. The Breakdown - B A Paris 14. 206 Bones - Kathy Reichs 15. Daisy in Chains - Sharon Bolton 16. Off Sides - Sawyer Bennett 17. The Loving Husband - Christobel Kent 18. Do No Harm - Henry Marsh 19. Silent Child - Sarah A Denzil 20. The Escape Artist - Diane Chamberlain 21. Holding - Graham Norton 22. The Things We Have in Common - Tasha Kavanagh

23. You Can't Have My Daughter - Elizabeth McDonnell

Book number 23 was some non-fiction as I'm trying to read a bit more. It's the story of a woman who adopted a troubled ten year old girl only to struggle from a very young age to protect her from herself and from what turned out to be a gang of men in oxford who were trafficking young girls for sex. It's not a pleasant story but an insight into the world that lives in the shadows and to how some services such as police and social work are ineffectual at dealing with it and turn a blind eye if they believe the youngster to be a delinquent.

Now for book 24!

fascicle · 22/04/2017 20:32

southeastdweller
The paperback of The Essex Serpent is just £2.99 at the moment on Amazon!

And £3 at Sainsbury's. (Bought a copy this week and felt a little bad that it was so cheap.)

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 22/04/2017 20:37

The Essex Serpent is also cheap on Kindle again.

spinningheart · 22/04/2017 22:21

Evening all, I've finished 2 this weekend, and I can't find my list so not sure what numbers they are.

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn. Easy non-braintaxing thriller with a good twist at the end. I listened to this on Audible and the readers were quite good. I will probably listen to another one of hers in the future. I think crime/thriller genre my favourite when it comes to Audible.

The Wangs Vs the World by Jade Chang. This is about a 1st generation Chinese American family who fall on hard times after a series of bad decisions by the patriarch of the family, Charles Wang. So they go from extreme wealth to bankrupt and embark upon a road trip across the US, LA to NY in order to reunite with the oldest daughter, a struggling artist. This story started off strongly - well observed, light hearted and funny, with each chapter told from the point of view of an individual family member. Unfortunately it started to flag around the half way mark for me and by the end I wasn't particularly interested in any of the characters but kept going.

Have started The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather on my kindle. Listening to The Sellout by Paul Beatty.
As for my library books it will either The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom or The Nix by Nathan Hill.

Cheerful - what a fantastic review you wrote. It makes me want to eat a blackbird.

Satsuki - you really should read Rush-Oh! I know this much is true.

VanderlyleGeek · 22/04/2017 23:18

Happy Birthday, Turn! 🎂

I read The Book of Daniel as an undergrad, and it really has impacted how I view narrative voice, reliability, and structure. I hope you enjoy it and your Kindle.

FortunaMajor · 23/04/2017 07:35
  1. Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro Kazuo about a group of special pupils at a boarding school and lives they were raised for once they leave. Once again it was a book I had heard of, but knew nothing about, so it unveiled as a complete surprise.

No blackbirds here, this was definitely a steak dinner. I'll be digesting this one for days. It has left me with so many questions about humanity, society, politics, ethics, mortality. It has also stirred up some old anger about current education policy and the reasons why I no longer teach. What is the point of it all? Grin Am I too old to run away and join the circus?

stilllovingmysleep · 23/04/2017 08:18

Finally caught up with the thread.

RMC I remember feeling haunted by the Child in time (Ian McEwan). I still remember aspects of the book, even though I read it years & years ago. What was it that made you not sure about this one? I thought that it was one of McEwan's better efforts.

boldlygoingsomewhere The Nobody told me poetry collection on motherhood you mentioned sounds wonderful, I'm definitely going to read this one.

PoeticLE I was very interested in your review of Swimming Home by Deborah Levy. It has been on my reading list for ages but haven't bought it, as I read half of Hot Milk by the same author and found, like you Swimming Home, the characters extremely unlikable, almost unbearable at times, and the writing quite irritating for reasons I can't put my finger on! In fact, I didn't finish Hot Milk, sitting on my shelf in nice (expensive!) hardcover, making me feel guilty! So many recommendations for Deborah Levy, and so far I really really didn't like her writing. I wonder what others think about this author, whether we should give her another chance?

RMC123 · 23/04/2017 08:32

Stillloving There were parts of it I loved. The descriptions of the abduction and its aftermath were so gut wrenchingly real for example. But there were types when the writing just seemed overly indulgent. McEwan showing off basically. I found the whole Prime Minister thing a bit strange too, but was intrigued by the ongoing theme of childhood. It has stayed with me though, it's been one of those books I found myself thinking about after I have finished it, even while I am reading something else. Probably one of a reread at some point.
Rereading that 'review' I still sound hopelessly vague and waffling, but it's the best I can offer.

InvisibleKittenAttack · 23/04/2017 08:49

FortunaMajor - Never let me go has divided opinion in the past - I was annoyed by how passive all the characters are, none of them rebelled, and while most would probably go along with what was expected of them, it felt unrealistic that that many teenagers all obeyed the rules about keeping their bodies healthy, none of them experimented with drugs or became alcoholic or shagged about with people from outside their "type", or even binge ate until obese.

I felt it was a massive bit missing, what happened if you didn't follow the rules, and the author just decided not to address it by making all his characters much better behaved than the average group of teens, despite having much worse childhoods and no future.

FortunaMajor · 23/04/2017 09:36

I would agree with that InvisibleKitten and was practically shouting, "Run away!" during some parts.

However I do think social conditioning is stronger than we give it credit for. They had their own small rebellions, but none of them committing the ultimate taboo of refusing or just walking away. They were raised to accept their fate.

I think it's something he could have alluded to to round things off, but don't think it suffered too much from not being included.

CoteDAzur · 23/04/2017 09:42

"Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro Kazuo... No blackbirds here, this was definitely a steak dinner."

I'd contest that. Rather, it was a bland & uninspired dish with low nutritional value like rice, drowned in butter to make it taste somewhat appealing... It was risotto Grin

Let the Never Let Me Go wars begin Smile

CoteDAzur · 23/04/2017 10:06

"I do think social conditioning is stronger than we give it credit for. They had their own small rebellions, but none of them committing the ultimate taboo of refusing or just walking away. They were raised to accept their fate."

They were told they would be butchered for the benefit of others. No actual conditioning is described in the book. There is in particular no social conditioning, since they never lived in society but were always segregated from it. Nor is there any sort of attempt at an explanation of why on Earth they don't try to run away, or at least render themselves useless for example by doing drugs or getting infected with HIV, Hep B, etc.

This was one of my major problems with Never Let Me Go - clones' docility in willingly going to certain death made no sense. Even sheep would have better instincts of self-preservation and would make an effort to save themselves. In fact, I have seen sheep make more of an effort to escape slaughter once they start smelling blood. It looked like the author didn't know how to construct a a credible, internally consistent world and so just left it Hmm

The "science" made no sense, either. Clones' organs are harvested randomly, it seems, and given to whomever. Which totally runs against all logic and frankly the only reason why anyone would go through the trouble & expense of cloning in the first place: To have tissue identical to your own, so that there will be no tissue rejection.

Sci-fi/speculative fiction gets looked down on a lot, but it is not easy to write a good book in this genre. The author must imagine a background significantly different from our own, with myriad little details that make up a consistent and credible reality for the story to emerge from. Ishiguro fails on all counts in this book and seems to know it, too, because he satisfies himself with tugging on heartstrings, which frankly makes really pathetic speculative fiction.

InvisibleKittenAttack · 23/04/2017 10:08

Agree social conditioning is strong, but none of them out of hundreds rebelling?! Or even just exhibiting self-destructive behaviour, seemed just too unrealistic, even if the main characters would conform.

It made me realise that I can go with sci-fi, dystopian or fantasy worlds in books, but I need to feel the characters behaviour is realistic, not just acting in a way that enables the story to bob along.

I know Cote isn't a fan of "feelings" over "action", but in some cases, authors do need to add more realistic responses!

SatsukiKusakabe · 23/04/2017 10:17

You guys are making me hungry.

rmc I did the Child in Time for A level and it was good for an exam as it was packed with so many themes, but it's still usual write by numbers fare. He is jumping up and down all the time saying LOOK AT ALL MY THEMES! Ignore the fact it's all bollocks, look at my THEMES. And if you think you're getting out of here without a cringey sex scene, then my name's not Ian McEwan.