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?

Congratulations Passme
Reading is great for BF!

Passme smiling away at my memories of trying to read with a small baby / babies in my life. Also remembering that I tried to read Middlemarch whilst being induced with my first!! Middlemarch!! What was I thinking?!

70. Confusion - Elizabeth Jane Howard. Third of the Cazalet Chronicles listened to on Audible. Still like putting on warm fluffy slippers for me and a good wind down on the way too and from work. Also keeps me going whilst running .

rmc I started middlemarch whilst pregnant and finished it breastfeeding - have fond associations with that book and time. After number 2 however I managed only the Hunger Games trilogy. Apt.

Yes remus I'm already looking forward to cote's review of The Circle

rmc I started middlemarch whilst pregnant and finished it breastfeeding - have fond associations with that book and time. After number 2 however I managed only the Hunger Games trilogy. Apt.

Yes remus I'm already looking forward to cote's review of The Circle

I read the Cazelets Chronicles whilst BF x 2 I agree about warm fluffy slippers !

Satsuki

Book 61
A Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer
Oh dear. This was extremely silly and predictable and a lot of the ‘scrapes’ that the very silly heroine gets into seem to have been the same scrapes that several other Heyer heroines also get into it. I liked the hero, but you don’t really see an awful lot of him and it’s hard to see how they can actually be falling in love when they seem to spend so little time together. The best bits were the silly drunken conversations between two silly young men. Final verdict – silly and not terribly satisfying.

This is proving to be a terrible year for reading. I've read so many that are rubbish that it's putting me off reading, and I'm going extremely slowly. :(

Just looked at the new Kindle monthly deals and they all seem terrible. Is there anything I've missed and might actually want to buy?

Just checked - I'd read 74 by this time last year, 12 of which were standouts.

Just to clarify that when I finally restarted and finished Middlemarch years later I loved it. But I kept on trying to read it whilst suffering mammoth contractions alone on antenatal Ward after my DH had been sent home. It was late, everyone else was a sleep and the midwife in charge kept telling me she was sure it wasn't labour. I must have read the same paragraph a hundred times. Couldn't read it until I was sure my child bearing years were behind me!

Oh yes rmc to clarify I did not read it during labour you maniac that would have put me off too. I had very fast painful labours so reading wasn't an option really, but it was very comforting to come back to after things had settled down!

That is exactly my experience with number 1 RMC. Horrendous pain and trying to 'breathe through it' while reading Rankin. Fat chance.

This time I opted for heat magazine

Remus I'm feeling a bit the same at the moment. most books are unsatisfying and I am yet to read a standout book in 2017. If I'm being awfully honest I have to say I felt a little like this last year too and I put it down to not being as involved in this group and picking up recommendations.
I think I may need to explore a new genre or pick up a book out of my normal comfort zone.

I had read nearly 40 by this time last year. I've had a stinker. Can't see anything in monthly deals either. Probably for the best.

43. Clarissa or, The History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson

This ia a big part of the reason for my reading progress being slow this year. I first attempted to read this when I was 14, having seen Sean Bean playing the notorious rake Lovelace in a TV series, but kept abandoning it after 300 or so pages. 25 years on and I have finally waded through all 1,499 pages and need never pick it up again.

It's a tragedy and intended as an instructional tale on Christian virtue. Clarissa is an 18 year old woman of a rich family, widely regarded as the most virtuous young lady in the country and inevitably both beautiful and extremely accomplished. She attracts the attention of Robert Lovelace, rake and despoiler of women, who sees her virtue as a challenge to be put to the test. Her family are horrified by this and attempt to force her to marry a rather unpleasant man against her inclinations, and effectively imprison her when she refuses. Through a devious contrivance, Lovelace effectively forces her to run away with him, then installs her in a house which is actually part of a brothel (although this is concealed from her) as he tries to break down her resistence and prove to himself that all women are rakes at heart. The story is told in a series of letters between the various characters and takes place between January and December of one year. There is a lot of sermonising and moral instruction and it is rather a slog, but I am glad I have finally read it the whole way through.

Sadik - I'm reading the new Neal Stephenson book DODO now. It's not as gripping or sciency as usual but it's pretty OK.

33. Working the Ruins: Feminist Poststructural Theory and Methods in Education Elizabeth St Pierre and Wanda Pillow (eds)

Reading quite a lot for my MA dissertation but not including it in the list as it tends to be more chapters or journal articles, and even the complete books I'm trying to keep separate from this as want the 50 books to be more reading for pleasure. However, I do want to give myself some credit for all that reading and, as this is one I just finished and it's a good one, I decided to put it here.

34. Elizabeth is Missing Emma Healey I didn't find this as gripping and unputdownable and gripping as some of the reviews suggested, it took me a while to get into but once I did I did think it was well written and plotted. Very sad, very frustrating at times (which is kind of the point given the narrator) and clever in parts - not so much any big reveal or shocking twists but more things that seem obvious / clear getting obscured and uncovered again and again until they eventually come into focus (though only briefly in the narrator's case).

chillie 90s Sean Bean was very inspiring.

Satsuki Yes, he was. I even read Lady Chatterley's Lover as a result of him, although DH Lawrence is also rather a trial. At least it was much shorter.

Finished this a while ago and had forgotten about it, because I was so underwhelmed.

Book 62
The Literature Book Dorling Kindersley
Didn’t like this either. In book form, it looks gorgeous, but I got it on Kindle. I don’t think it knows quite what it wants to be, other than to look pretty. It’s a strange combination of dull, rather academic-esque bumpf and patronising little soundbites, which don’t seem to fit an adult or young adult audience. Really disappointing.

chillie same!

Satsuki , Passme

I'm also feeling sad about reading so few outstanding books this year so far (2 of 28). Currently reading A Very English Scandal and The Hate U Give which are OK but not great. I think I'm just getting fussier as I get older, with the amount of books I read increasing.

Congratulations Passmethecrisps

I have also been swayed by the 90s Sean Bean, but at least you lot didn't get dragged into the entire bloody Sharpe series. I'm more of a Hornblower girl myself

32. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

I'm not sure who recommended this earlier this year. Thank you, this is one of the most evocative and poignant books I have ever read.

It tells of a cohort of German schoolboys who are encouraged to go to war by their schoolmaster. We join them two years into the Great War when they are battle hardened and weary. They understand the futility of war, know their youth has been stolen and that life can never be the same again and yet they battle on.

The writing is powerful and heart wrenching. I was instantly engaged. I had to rush home from work one day because I’d left them in a trench and was worried about them. I went through so many emotions reading this, it’s beautifully written. Despite them being ‘the others’ to me, you can’t help but feel for them and even at a tender age they understand that all of them, no matter the side, are pawns in a game played by others. Truly the lament of a lost generation.

I actually did read almost all of the Sharpe series FortunaMajor, with the exception of the books set before Sharpe's Rifles. As a result, I ended up writing about the importance of the Duke of Wellington to the British victory in the Peninsula War as my extended essay for A level history, even though the period I had chosen for the exams was the 16th and 17th century.

Sean Bean has a lot to answer for.

Cote "It's not as gripping or sciency as usual but it's pretty OK."

I might just wait for your review at the end (just thinking of how amazing part one of Quicksilver was, and then the joy that was part 2 ).

Have got back into Snowcrash after starting a re-'read' on audio earlier in the year - at the time I felt it had dated badly, but actually I think it was just the way the first chapter or so was read and am now really enjoying it.

Maybe we could have a subsidiary thread where we all list our standout books to date this year? I've been doing OK - read slightly fewer books than this time last year (56 compared to 63) but fewer fluffy trash reads, and similar mix of good/average/bad I'd say.

I read the Sharpe series too I'm afraid I desperately wanted Sean to play Hornblower, as well.

chillie crying laughing at your A level essay, that's exactly the sort of thing I would do, Sean does have a lot to answer for.