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?

Thank you for the new thread, Southeastdweller.

39. Testimony, Anita Shreve

I don't think I've read any Anita Shreve before. This reminded me of Jodi Picoult - it was an "issues" book told in many short chapters from multiple perspectives. Easy to read but I found it very troubling. No spoilers to say that it concerns a sex scandal at an expensive New England boarding school, where a 14 year old girl is filmed having sex with three older boys while drunk. The book, while acknowledging that a drunk 14 year old girl cannot be considered either morally or legally to have given consent to sex with a group of older boys/men, then concentrates almost entirely on the impact that the scandal has on the boys and their families, while painting the girl as being a lying, slutty wench. It was quite strange and made me feel quite uneasy.

Half of a Yellow Sun and Eight Months On Ghazzah Street both fabulous :)

I'm grateful to this thread for making me look again at Wild by Cheryl Strayed. I inherited an old first gen Kindle with a very random selection of books stored on it. Wild was one of them and from the title, and the sounds-like-a-made-up-name author, I had shelved it under "Dubious Poorly Written Erotica" along with 50 Shades and other offenders. It actually sounds really good now that I know what it is in real life.

Hello! Marking my place with my updated list:

1. The Dark is Rising - Susan Cooper
2. The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding - Agatha Christie
3. Our Endless Numbered Days - Claire Fuller
4. Love Letters of Henry V111 to Anne Boleyn (totally counting this even though it's only about 70 pages, I'll read an extra long one at some point to balance it out!)

5. How to be Both - Ali Smith

1. Toast - Nigel Slater
2. A Man Called Ove - Fredrick Backman
3. Chess - Stefan Zweig
4. Beauvallet- Georgette Heyer

10. The Book Thief - Marcus Zusak 11. The Story of a New Name - Elena Ferrante 12. The Glorious Heresies- Lisa McInerney 13. The Girls at the Kingfisher Club -Genevieve Valentine 14. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins 15. Soulless - Gail Carriger 16. She-Wolves: the Women Who Ruled England before Elizabeth - Helen Castor 17. Exposure - Helen Dunmore 18. The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert JK Rowling Galbraith 19. The Grand Babylon Hotel - Arnold Bennet 20. The Humans - Matt Haig 21. The Princess Bride - William Goldman 22. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August - Claire North 23. Bitch in a Bonnet: Reclaiming Jane Austen from the Stiffs, the Snobs, the Simps and the Saps (Volume 1) - Robert Rodi 24. Good Kings Bad Kings - Susan Nussbaum 25. Right ho, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse 26. Uprooted - Naomi Novik 27. The lost art of keeping secrets - Eva Rice 28. The Misremembered Man - Christine McKenna 29. A God In Ruins - Kate Atkinson

Bringing my list over cause I love a list…

1. A Hero of Our Time – Lermontov
2. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
3. The House of Silk – Anthony Horrowitz
4. The Return – Hitam Matar
5. The Sympathizer – Viet Thanh Nguyen
6. Ragnarok – A.S Byatt
7. Stuff Matters – Mark Miodownik
8. Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
9. A Woman in the Polar Night – Christiane Ritter
10. The Rover – Aphra Behn
11. Falling Awake – Alice Oswald
12. Outline – Rachel Cusk
13. Thin Air – Michelle Paver
14. The Noise of Time – Julian Barnes
15. Snow Country – Yasunari Kawabata
16. The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
17. My Heart and Other Black Holes – Jasmin Wager
18. Perfume – Patrick Suskind
19. The Examined Life – Stephen Grosz
20. What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank – Nathan Englander
21. All Creatures Great and Small – James Herriot
22. Bonjour Tristesse – Francoise Sagan
23. Mothering Sunday – Graham Swift
24. The Revenant – Michael Punke
25. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint Exupery
26. Norse Mythology – Neil Gaiman
27. Ready Player One – Ernest Cline
28. Five Rivers Met On a Wooded Plain – Barney Norris
29. My Week With Marilyn – Colin Clarke
30. Fantastic Beasts: The Original Screenplay – J.K Rowling
31. The Wonder – Emma Donoghue
32. When Breath Becomes Air – Paul Kalanithi
33. The Lonely Hearts Hotel – Heather O’Neil
34. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
35. Nutshell – Ian McEwan
36. Le Testament Francais – Andre Makine
37. Out of Time – Miranda Sawyer
38. The Living Mountain – Nan Shepherd
39. The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles – Giorgio Bassani
40. The Dark Circle – Linda Grant
41. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running – Haruki Murakami
42. Brief Loves That Live Forever – Andre Makine
43. Rush Oh! – Shirley Barrett
44. The Comet Seekers – Helen Sedgwick
45. Nocturnal Animals – Austin Wright
46. By Night in Chile – Roberto Bolano
47. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love – Raymond Carver
48. Ashland and Vine – John Burnside
49. Still Alice – Lisa Genova
50. Bee Journal – Sean Borodale
51. Did You Ever Have a Family? – Bill Clegg
52. Paradise Lodge – Nina Stibbe
53. The Media is the Massage – Marshall McLuhan
54. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick

I have actually liked most of the things I have read this year apart from The Comet Seekers and Five Rivers Met...

My favourites are The Master and Margarita and Brief Loves That Live Forever. Still going with Moby Dick. Still...

My list so far, and some updates:

1. Only Daughter by Anna Snoekstra
2. Viral by Helen Fitzgerald
3. The Last One by Alexandra Oliva
4. The Atlantis Gene by A.G. Riddle
5. Good Me Bad Me by Ali Land
6. The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
7. ADHD Nation by Alan Schwarz
8. The World's Worst Children by David Walliams
9. Starborn by Lucy Hounsom

10. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins 11. Allegiant by Veronica Roth 12. Bridget Jones's Baby by Helen Fielding 13. The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly 14. Finders Keepers by Stephen King 15. Spark Joy by Marie Kondo 16. The Silence of Ghosts by Jonathan Aycliffe 17. A Dream of Ice by Gillian Anderson and Jeff Rovin 18. Black Ice by Becca Fitzpatrick 19. How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen by Joanna Faber & Julia King 20. The First Book of Calamity Leek by Paula Lichtarowicz 21. The Jewel by Amy Ewing 22. Occupy Me by Tricia Sullivan 23. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman 24. Watching Edie by Camilla Way 25. How to Help Your Child With ADHD by Beverly Davies 26. Strictly Between Us by Jane Fallon 27. Half Wild by Sally Green

28. Just After Sunset by Stephen King

Collection of short stories. A good read. I liked The Gingerbread Girl and N. best.

29. Endgame: The Calling by James Frey

12 players, from 12 lines, must play Endgame to determine who survives an apocalyptic event. Only those people belonging to the winners line will survive. To win, they have to find 3 keys (Earth Key, Sky Key and Sun Key), and each player gets given a different clue.
This was a fun read, although there are some pretty big coincidences to be swallowed - the clues are very obscure for starters.
The book also has a puzzle written into it, clever reader who solves it wins a case of gold, super, except the competition closed on October 7 2016, so that's just distracting from the story now.

30. The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

Kelsey Glynn is the heir to the throne of the Tearling, raised in secret. On her 19th birthday, she begins her journey to claim her throne, and free her kingdom from the grip of the neighbouring realm of Mortmesme. She takes power remarkably easily.
Some confusing bits - they keep talking about some crossing (e.g. their medical system is rubbish because they lost the medical ship on the crossing, they've got the complete Harry Potter bookset because that came over on the crossing), but there's no explanation of what the crossing was.
But I liked this on the whole.

31. The Three by Sarah Lotz

On Black Thursday, four passenger planes crash. Only 4 survivors - 3 children, seemingly unhurt, and 1 adult, who survives just long enough to record a voice message on her phone.
It's told in the form of interviews and testimonies, mostly from people close to the 4 survivors. Are the children normal, or is there something sinister going on? Entertaining enough throughout, but the conclusion of the book didn't really work very well for me. Too many things left unexplained.

Importing the list

1. Dictator by Robert Harris
2. Conclave by Robert Harris
3. Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin
4. Murder As a Fine Art by David Morrell
5. Longbourn by Jo Baker
6. The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly
7. The Owl Killers – Karen Maitland
8. When she was good by Laura Lippman
9. Company of Liars by Karen Maitland

10. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn 11. The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst 12. The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah 13. Lord of the Flies by William Golding 14. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak 15. His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet 16. The Help by Kathryn Stockett 17. The Plague by C. C. Humphreys 18. Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin 19. Flowers in the Attic by Virginia Andrews 20. Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver 21. The Burning Air by Erin Kelly 22 Even Dogs In The Wild by Ian Rankin 23. The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin 24. Dissolution by CJ Sansom 25. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath 26. The Fall by Simon Mawer 27. Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro Kazuo 28. The Ides of April by Lindsey Davis 29. Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada 30. The Gallow’s Curse by Karen Maitland 31. City of Thieves by David Benioff

Depressingly few entries since the last thread, although I am still fickle and am abandoning books ruthlessly.

92. Royal Assassin
93. Assassin's Quest

Re-read the Farseer trilogy after finishing Fitz and the Fool. I think Royal Assassin is possibly the best book Robin Hobb has written - really pulls me in. Characters and plot really develop in this one. The final instalment in the trilogy is a bit patchier for me but still had me staying up until midnight to finish it (for the second time). Now I'm yearning to read the Golden Fool trilogy, but I have a bunch of new Kindle books so I'm going to read them first - I would say that it's the sign of a good author to make me want to abandon new books in favour of old, but I am a sucker for series so it might just be my penchant for familiar characters again.

94. A Natural History of Dragons, Marie Brennan. Bought after reading a review of it on here. I am really keen on the idea of this series - quasi-Victorian lady explorer/naturalist, a la Lady Hester Stanhope, breaking sex-based barriers and scandalising Society. It should be brilliant. However, the execution is a little bit off, for me. One of the things that's missing is any sort of description - to make the characters/dragons/scenery leap off the page you do need to build vivid pictures, and the author doesn't describe anything bar the plot. I don't know what the characters look like, and I particularly don't know what the dragons look like, which is odd in a book supposedly about draconic natural history. The characters feel a bit flat as a result - there's very little colour to their interactions either - a real lack of adjectives to bring life to their words. The world-building is a little confused for me - I think it would have done better set in a parallel Victorian England rather than create a not-very-vivid world which is a bit Victorian. That said, I've downloaded book 2 on the basis that the idea is really good and maybe the writing will pick up a bit as the author gets going.

Oh, and I've now read Cote's Cloud Atlas thread and feel utterly thick - I missed most of that and I thought I was quite good at 'getting' books and identifying themes! I did get the reincarnation theme and the overall atmosphere of doom and gloom (ie, strong prey on weak, fragility of knowledge, savagery triumphing over civilisation etc), but I was confused by the references to the story not being authentic (there's a bit where Frobisher says that he thinks Ewing's story doesn't ring true/he thinks it's a fake, not an actual firsthand diary). I suppose that's part of the fragility of knowledge and the rewriting of history (the quote about actual/virtual past and future from Isaac Sachs), but its effect on me was to make me wonder whether any of the stories were true or not, particularly Ewing's section and Luisa Rey's, and I was waiting for something to make that clear and didn't find it. Which I now see is kind of the point (history being inaccurate, facts eliding etc). Having had it explained, I can now see that it is the sort of book you would expect to wind up on an English syllabus at some point - I can imagine writing detailed essays along the lines of "Mitchell's Cloud Atlas is an example of a novel where structure is used to support and explore the themes and tenets of the work itself. Discuss the use of structure in Cloud Atlas." It's a very bleak world view, though, which is why I found it hard to engage with. He's probably right, though, about the way civilisation is heading!

I need to reread Cloud Atlas, I read it in my late teens/early twenties when all I used to read was Chuck Palahniuk, Douglas Coupland, Toby Litt and Kerrang , I didn't appreciate it at the time (I think I said "that's too clever for me" and didn't finish it!) but sounds like I would really enjoy it now.

I've got Cloud Atlas sitting on my shelf but have yet to pluck up the courage to read it not sure I'm going to like it.

32. Plainsong Kent Haruf. Brilliant. I really enjoyed Our souls at night and this was just as beautifully written. His style of writing reminds me a bit of Colm Toibin's style. Not a great deal happens BUT I get totally hooked on the stories and characters!

Going to read the Claire Mackintosh book (Let me go?) but in French and the title is Ne me laisse pas partir.

22. The Guggenheim Mystery Robin Stevens, based on characters by Siobhan Dowd
An authorised sequel to The London Eye Mystery. When Aunt Glo is accused stealing a painting from the Guggenheim Museum, Ted, Kat and Salim have to figure out who really did it.
I liked this - I haven't read The London Eye Mystery since it came out, but this felt plausibly Dowdish to me, and it's an enjoyable if occasionally implausible mystery. I'm not very convinced by Ted's autism - he's of the 'I am 12 years and 281 days old' school of autism, which isn't how any of my autistic friends speak or write. But that's Dowd's fault not Stevens' and I'm no expert - would be interested to hear what autistic readers think of him. I liked that his autism wasn't an 'ishoo', and I liked that he's liked and admired for the person he is.
Not out until August - read this in proof.

Place marking

Naomi Alderman's just won the Bailey's prize for Best Book for The Power, if anyone's interested:

www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jun/07/baileys-prize-naomi-alderman-the-power

Thanks for the new thread. South.

Bringing my list over and updating with my latest book:

1. The Muse - Jessie Burton

1. Gone Without a Trace - Mary Torjussen
2. Flesh Wounds - Christopher Brookmyre
3. Phantom: a Harry Hole Thriller - Jo Nesbo
4. Dead Simple (Roy Grace Series) - Peter James
5. All Good Deeds (A Lucy Kendall Thriller) - Stacy Green
6. The Turtle Boy - Kealan Patrick Burke

8. His Bloody Project - Graeme McRae

1. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion

10. The Last Day of Christmas: The Fall of Jack Parlabane (short story) - Christopher Brookmyre 11. Tales of Protection - Erik Fosnes Hansen 12. The Wall of Sky, The Wall of Eye - Jonathan Letham 13. Ready Player One - Ernest Cline 14. The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry 15. Gallows View (inspector banks series) - Peter Robinson 16. The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler 17. Dead Man's Prayer - Jackie Baldwin 18. As the Crow Flies - Damien Boyd 19. Head in the Sand - Damien Boyd 20. Kickback - Damien Boyd 21. Swansong - Damien Boyd 22. Dead Level - Damien Boyd 23. Death Sentence - Damien Boyd 24. The Cold Cold Ground - Adrian Mckinty 25. The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender - Leslye Walton

26. The Hanging Club - Tony Parsons

Back to form for me with yet another thriller/police procedural. The protagonist, DC Max Wolfe is thrust into the lead role of a case which tests his moral fibre and professional integrity.

I don't think this is the first of the series with DC Max Wolfe but I didn't feel that impacted on my understanding or enjoyment of the book. Very enjoyable overall.

Struggling to decide now what to read next. I am very heavily pregnant and am now wondering what I should start just in case it is my transition book

Will go back and read the thread for ideas

49 Two Cheers for Anarchism by James C Scott.

This is described as a 'series of fragments', and I think that's a fair summary - its a collection of mini-essays arranged under six broad headings. The author isn't an anarchist, but is obviously inspired by various aspects of anarchist thought and writing, spinning off from his main research into peasant / agrarian societies in upland regions of SE Asia.

I found some parts fascinating, others annoying. It's quite American, and many things he says Orwell said better (but then if one writes off essays because they're not as good as Orwell, there won't be much left).

Overall I thought it a really good read and will definitely come back to some sections.

23. Pottermore Presents Life stories and various Harry Potter trivia from JK Rowling. A lot of this felt very repetitive from the novels - we already know most of Lupin's life story, and I really don't care what his wand is made of. A few nice snippets - the stuff about where everyone's name comes from is always interesting - but probably not worth the money.

I have to confess to having found the Pottermore Presents books online as pdfs - I'd have been very unimpressed with them if I'd actually paid for them.

Oh - wish I'd thought of that. A lot of it was awfully phoned-in. If you're the sort of fan who obsesses about every last detail you'll probably love it, but ... I would have liked more new stuff and more actual stories rather than just her character notes typed up.

TooExtra - I'm glad that you enjoyed my Cloud Atlas thread and appreciated the book more as a result. It is an incredibly rich and complex book, and I have no doubt that I have also missed quite a few of its myriad references

It seems they were basically pulled together from bits and pieces on the Pottermore website rather than actually written by JKR as new work.

If anyone happens to fancy Two Cheers for Anarchism, that is also available (in a more legit fashion than the HP books ) as a pdf - comes up as the first result if you search.

It read very like that. Glad I never bothered with Pottermore then.

60. Silent Voices - Ann Cleeves. These are just what I need at the moment. Well written, page turners and relatively easy to keep up with. Out of interest are her other 'non Vera' books any good?!
Need to take a break from the Vera books now to read Nella Last's War - aka Housewife, 49. for book club.

I did pay for Pottermore Presents and I was cross to discover that I'd already read most of it on Pottermore years ago!

RMC, would be interested in hearing how you get on with Nella Last - have been eyeing up her diaries for a while.

Re-read Some Tame Gazelle, by Barbara Pym, one of my all-time favourite books. Lots of cosy tea parties with members of the clergy. She hymns the delight of unrequited love - the simple pleasure of catching a glimpse of the person you have a crush on. You can yearn for a sharp, complex man with none of the downside of facing his scowling face over the breakfast table.

51. The Fifth Lamentation, William Broderick
Investigation by monk into betrayal in Occupied France, fifty years previously. The author was a monk and subsequently became a barrister, so he describes these worlds well. Ambitious range, complex plotting (still trying to sort out some of the plot details in my mind), and I stayed up late to finish it.

Interesting RMC as I started my very first Vera book last night. I wasn't really feeling t to be honest as I think the wee pic of the actress on the front cover was putting me off. I don't want to read anything twee. Are they twee?