50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Six

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the sixth 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, the fourth one here, and the fifth one here.

What are you reading?

31. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. Plot-wise this was less original than State of Wonder - an American family drama, following the lives of a blended family of siblings and step-siblings, and their parents and step-parents, from childhood to adulthood - but Patchett's writing has the same originality. I thought this was excellent.

Snap, Tara! I'd written my very short review before I read yours and now I'm too tired to change it.. 😴😊

36. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett.

Much reviewed already on this thread. This follows two interlinked families through time with a slow building of characters. Maybe a bit too neat in the ending but overall a good read.

45 The Circle – Dave Eggars – The Circle is the world’s most powerful internet company. They have developed a universal operating system which combines users’ emails, banking, social media, shopping etc into one online identity which allows new levels of transparency and online interractions. Mae Holland is recruited to work for The Circle and it seems like a dream come true but very soon the Totalitarian nature of the company starts to make her feel increasingly uncomfortable. This concept of this book is great unfortunately the execution less so. The lead character for example Mae, felt very one dimensional.

46 Mussolini’s Island – Sarah Day – This is a fictional account of the treatment of the gay community in Mussolini’s Italy. They were viewed as a contagion and were interred on a remote island of Italy’s coast. This book tells their story through the eyes of Francesco and tells of his loves as well as his captivity. Well-constructed characters dealt with in a very sympathetic manner.

47 The Dark Circle – Linda Grant – I agree with previous reviewers about this book particularly about the abrupt nature of the ending.
The Couple Next Door – Shari Lapena – Anne and Mario Conti have planned to go to Dinner at their next door neighbours. The babysitter cancels at the last minute and so Mario persuades Anne that their six month old daughter will be safe at home. They take the baby monitor with them and check on her every half an hour. When they return home however the daughter is gone. I had heard great things about this book but I didn’t find it particularly compulsive and thought the plot was rather predictable.

48 The Nightingale – Kristian Hannah – This tells the story of two sisters in Nazi Occupied France. Vianne lives in the countryside and plans to keep her head down and things will be ok. Juliette her sister on the other hand starts the war in Paris. Her Father persuades her to leave Paris to live with Vianne. On the way though the convoy of refuges she is in is bombed by the Germans. The suffering she endures hardens her attitude to the occupiers and she realises that the way to get through the occupation is to resist. The book then tells the story of the war from each sister’s perspective. The reviews on Goodreads are a bit mixed but I absolutely loved it and is definitely one of my stand out reads of the year. It is just so moving and heart breaking. Potentially, the ending is a little bit cliché but overall it was just a lovely book.

Now to catch up with the rest of the thread.

My numbering seems to gone a bit to pot in my previous post. So obviously The Nightingale should be number 49. Not for the first time I wish there was an edit post function.

My review of The Circle included this line, "Unfortunately, the central character is so stupid that it was a bit hard to sympathise with her" so I agree with your review, Vista. I did quite enjoy the book overall, but the concept is most certainly better than the delivery.

Yes the idea of the circle was great and I think had a lot of interesting stuff in it, but was done in an unsophisticated way.

A Heartbreaking Work is wonderful. Wonder if any of his others are worth a read?

I would definitely read another of his based on those two, but don't know his others particularly.

21 The Birds in the Trees by Nina Bawden
Fluffy, very upper middle class family (with mysteriously unceasing access to pots of cash, despite appearing to do very little in the way of actual work) deal with their teenage son's emerging mental illness, amongst other things.

I found this a slightly sanitized and overly-optimistic view of mental illness, so was surprised to find out that Bawden's family experienced similar difficulties to the family in the novel. I suppose Bawden was writing a new, better ending for a her own family story.

Book 60
Howard’s End is on the Landing – Susan Hill

The best thing about this book was the cover, which was beautiful. Unfortunately, I didn’t think much at all of the contents. This is supposed to be an exploration of Hill’s bookcases, in a bid to not buy new books for a year. What it actually felt like, at least to me, was a means for Hill to brag about how Susan Hill herself, how big her house is, and how many famous people she’s met. I hated it.

37. A Year of Being Single - Fiona Collins

Easy read book about three friends. One is fed up of her husband doing nothing, one is cheated on and the other is bored of dating men and getting nowhere. So they start the single for a year club.

Simple book and a welcome break from all the murder and craziness of other books!

39. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Duma

Edmond Dantes, a young, talented and well-liked seafarer, is accused of a crime he did not commit and confined for 14 years to the grim Chateau d'If, an island fortress. He eventually becomes able to communicate with the prisoner in a neighbouring cell who tells him of a vast hoard of treasure hidden on the isle of Monte Cristo. Eventually Dantes manages to escape the Chateau d'If and seeks out the treasure, determined to take revenge on the three men responsible for his incarceration.

I read this on the kindle and it turned out to be much longer than I was expecting, but it's very entertaining. The count becomes a sort of instrument of divine retribution and so his convoluted plans always seem to work out in his favour, and it's a slower process of putting in place his schemes than I thought it would be. I always had the impression it was rather a swashbuckling kind of affair but it isn't at all, really.

Vistaverde thanks for your post, hadn't heard of The Nightingale but have made a note of it now. I loved Suite Francaise last year and think I'd enjoy The Nightingale with the same wartime France setting.

53 Reality is not what it seems: The journey to quantum gravity by Carlo Rovelli

I've been taking a break from "Quantum: a guide for the perplexed" by Jim al-Khalili on audio due to having too many complicated things to do at work. In the meantime, I read this one in paper form on dd's recommendation (her review: 'yeah - it's awesome').

It's very 'big picture' and much more literary in style than the al-Khalili book. Its also unashamedly towards the end an account based on the train of research that Rovelli is working on, rather than a survey over-view of the various approaches (so nothing on string theory). I enjoyed it, and thought it well worth reading, but I'd say its probably not the one to choose if it's going to be the only book you'll read on quantum theory.

68. The Witches: Suspicion, betrayal and hysteria in 1692 Salem - Stacy Schiff. I bought this at the airport in the US. Only knowing about Salem through studying The Crucible I was intrigued and had high hopes. In truth it felt like a slog to read. The author has undoubtedly researched this very well, but struggled to structure and edit her research. There is far too much irrelevant information about every character, which leads to an ad hoc structure. At times it is really hard to follow. It is quite easy to see how in a Puritan settlement, in the depth
Of a bitter winter young girls might be gripped by a hysteria, either genuine or imagined. The community, already at odds with each other, being in relative infancy and lacking in strong governance, latched on to this as a way to explain away ill luck and to seek revenge for neighbourly quarrels. Folklore and suspicion were part of every day life and the leap to witchcraft was a small one.
Overall interesting but poorly constructed and hard to read.

Catching up with the thread before adding what I just read

Remus was interested to read your review of Cheryl Strayed's Wild. I too at times found it a bit self-helpy and glib. However, I loved the descriptions of the PCT trail itself (generally I love memoirs about walking / swimming etc), and also I thought that Strayed's description of her mother's death was well done. I just was the movie by the way, and I wasn't too impressed--the glibness and cliched one-liners were more pronounced, I thought, that in the book. By the way, do you follow Cheryl Strayed's podcast 'Dear Sugar'? It's good.

Vistaverde read your review of the Circle by Dave Eggers; I thought that the biggest weakness in that book had to do with the characters, which as you said were totally one-dimensional. However, the overall dystopian vision of a life governed by a big-brotherish social media world was really well done (and rings true!)

ChillieJeanie, wow, loved reading about the Count of MonteCristo! I am glad you liked it, you took me back years ago, this used to be one of my favourite books as I was growing up, had read & reread--not sure why (looking back) it had had such appeal, I may reread to find out how it looks now!

RMC thanks for recommendation of The Witches I've long been fascinated by the subject of witch hunting & mass hysteria and will read this--seems worth a read even though as you say doesn't seem that well executed.

Right carrying on my list to this thread...

1. Bee Wilson, 'this is not a diet book'
2. Harry Potter & the chamber of secrets (with DC)
3. Jennifer Weiner, 'all fall down'
4. Lauren Sandler, 'one and only'
5. Rene and Goscinny, the Nicholas Book (children's book)
6. Katja Rowell, fussy eating book
7. Nicola Yoon, 'everything everything' (YA book)
8. JD Robb, 'echoes in death'
9. JD Vance, 'Hillbilly elegy'
10. Jonathan Kellerman, Heartbreak Hotel
11. Haemin Sunim, The things you can see only when you slow down
12. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie We should all be feminists
13. Sarah A. Denzil Silent Child
14. Anna Bell The bucket list to mend a broken heart
15. Elin Hilderbrand The Rumor
16. William Styron Sophie's choice
17. Diane Ackerman the Zookeeper's wife
18. Leap in: A woman, some waves and the will to swim by Alexandra Heminsley 19) Αύγουστος Κορτώ Μικρό χρονικό τρέλλας

As you will see, number 19 can only be recommended to Greek-speaking readers. Written by a greek youngish author (in his 40s now), Auguste Corteau, this is called Small account of a madness and is a fascinating, moving memoir of a short period in the author's life when he had a mental health breakdown (an episode of psychosis), in response to a number of things going wrong in his life: burn out with work, some excesses in alcohol & maybe soft drugs, the death through suicide of his mother who had had her own mental health issues, etc. Sounds grim but it's not at all, very funny at times, an honest & brutal portrayal of what it feels like to experience one episode of mental illness (breakdown) in the middle of an ordinary life.

stillloving your last read sounds really interesting - shame I can't give it a try.

I see that All Creatures Great and Small is on daily deals - would anyone recommend this? I quite fancy it.

Turnofthescrew I would definitely recommend All Creatures Great and Small. I read them all when I was on Maternity leave with my first. Comfort reading for me.

Yy to all creatures. Love it. Like tea and crumpets in book form.

I loved James Herriot's books, and was very tempted by the kindle offer but remembered I have paperbacks of them squirrelled away at my parent's house!

My most recent reads:
57. A Girl Is A Half Formed Thing by Eimear McBride A difficult read in both its subject matter and the way it is written: a stream of consciousness with fractured, disordered sentences that reflects how vulnerable and damaged the narrator is.
The narrator is raised by her pious mother after her father walks out, and is abused by a family member at 13. The book focuses on the complex relationship with her brother who suffers from brain cancer and is a bleak, sad read with palpable anger, at times I had to make myself continue.
58. Birdcage Walk by Helen Dunmore I have only recently discovered Helen Dunmore and thoroughly enjoyed my third of her novels. Set in Bristol in 1792, this engrossing, well researched historical fiction follows Lizzie Fawkes who has married Diner, a frankly creepy and controlling property developer.
The French Revolution impacts the characters lives including devastating Diner's business constructing terraces above the Clifton Gorge.
The book has a very poignant theme exploring the marks we leave behind us on the world when we are gone, and how these fade, in my humble opinion Helen Dunmore's will certainly be enduring.

88. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Gripping and disturbing, but I found the open ended ending frustrating - I wanted to know what happened to Offred!

Murine - have you read The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride?
Again the prose didn't make for easy reading but it was worth persevering with.
Have just downloaded a Helen Dunmore. Will be interested to see what it's like.

I haven't yet read The Lesser Bohemians, RMC123, I'll keep an eye out for it coming up on kindle offers. Which Helen Dunmore book did you choose? I hope you enjoy it!

Murine chose The Siege. Well it chose me really as it was on offer on Kindle!!