50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Seven

[southeastdweller]

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

What are you reading?

Thanks South

Thank you South

Currently on book 34 - Andrew Marr's History Of The World.

Thank you for the new thread, southeastdweller.
I haven't posted for a while due to the madness involved in moving house, I'm currently reading The Sport of Kings by C.E.King and The Owl Always Hunts At Night by Samuel Bjork, very different but both very enjoyable.

My list of books read this year so far:

1. Frog Music by Emma Donaghue
2. After the Crash Michel Bussi

3.Work Like Any Other Virginia Reeves

1. The Kept Woman Karin Slaughter
2. American Gods Neil Gaiman
3. Everyone Brave Is Forgiven Chris Cleave
4. Detour from Normal Ken Dickson
5. The Comfort of Strangers Ian McEwan
6. Our Endless Numbered Days Claire Fuller

10. The Lewis Man Peter May 11. The Testament of Mary Colm Toibin 12. Deceived Wisdom David Bradley 13. Silent Child Sarah A. Denzil 14. This Thing of Darkness Harry Thompson 15. The Detectives Daughter Lesley Thomson 16. Burning Bright Tracy Chevalier 17. One Little Mistake Emma Curtis 18. Lie With Me Sabine Durrant 19. Golden Hill Francis Spufford 20. Them Jon Jonson 21. Raven Black Ann Cleeves 22. The Tidal Zone Sarah Moss 23. Bodies of Water V.H.Leslie 24. Do No Harm Henry Marsh 25. White Nights Ann Cleeves 26.Nora Webster Colm Toibin 27. The Men Who Stare At Goats Jon Ronson 28. Kill Someone Luke Smitherd 29. The Lie Helen Dunmore 30. Red Bones Ann Cleeves 31. The Psychopath Test Jon Ronson 32. The Power Naomi Alderman 33. Night Waking Sarah Moss 34. The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared Jonas Jonasson 35. Remember Me This Way Sabine Durrant 36. The Good People Hannah Kent 37. Island of Wings Karin Altenburg 38. Good Me, Bad Me Ali Land 39. The Crow Trap Ann Cleeves 40. The Siege Helen Dunmore 41. The Dark Circle Linda Grant 42. Capital John Lanchester 43. Commonwealth Ann Patchett 44. The Radium Girls Kate Moore 45. Dead Certain Adam Mitzner 46. The Return Hisham Matar 47. Apple Tree Yard Louise Doughty 48. Burial Rites Hannah Kent 49. First Love Gwendoline Riley 50. The Woman In Cabin 10 Ruth Ware 51. Stay With Me Ayobami Adebayo 52. I'm Travelling Alone Samuel Bjork 53. The Good Neighbour AJBanner 54.Black Water Louise Doughty 55. Lincoln In The Bardo George Saunders 56.The Book Collector Alice Thompson 57. A Girl Is a Half Formed Thing Eimear McBride 58. Birdcage Walk Helen Dunmore 59. A Man Called Ove Fredrik Backman 60. Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone JKRowling 61. Still house Lake Rachel Caine 62. No is Not Enough Naomi Klein 63. Telling Tales Anne Cleeves 64. The Dry Jane Harper 65. See What I Have Done Sarah Schmidt 66. New Boy Tracy Chevalier 67. Leaving Time Jodi Picoult 68. The Farm Tom Rob Smith

thank you south

I continue to read at a far slower pace than most. My modest list is:

1. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell
2. Mothering Sunday - Graham Swift
3. Under the Skin - Michel Faber
4. Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood
5. The Muse - Jessie Burton
6. Swing Time - Zadie Smith
7. The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith
8. A Question of Identity - Susan Hill
9. The Vows of Silence - Susan Hill

10. A Kiss Before Dying - Ira Levin 11. The Shadows in the Street - Susan Hill 12. The Gate of Angels - Penelope Fitzgerald 13.The Spy Who Came In From The Cold - John Le Carre 14 The Book of Daniel - E.L. Doctorow 15. Different Class - Joanne Harris 16. The Gustav Sonata - Rose Remain 17. Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch 18. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood 19. Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave 20. A Call for the Dead by John le Carre 21. The Birds in the Trees by Nina Bawden 22. The Sellout by Paul Beatty 23. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim 24. Moving by Jenny Eclair 25. The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss 26. Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

Currently reading A Perfect Spy by John le Carre, but struggling a little with limited reading time and a slightly opaque split narrative.

Marking place!

Ooh shiny new thread! Thank you South

We are on thread #7, with 5 more months to go!

Currently reading *How to Bake Pi" and enjoying it. I haven't tried the recipes but the maths is great

Recently finished The Hanging Tree Ben Aaronovitch. It's been reviewed in the last thread (I think) - I enjoyed this latest instalment in the Rivers of London series. Peter Grant seems to be growing up a bit and we get a bit more of an insight into a couple of characters.

Thanks south

Thanks, South.

I've not updated in a while, so:

26. The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum: a cracking history of poison and the evolution of the NYC medical examiner's office. Blum is a science journalist and a professor of science writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and her writing is a fantastic blend of chemistry, medicine, and social history. Highly, highly recommended.

27. The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine: a re-visioning of Sense and Sensibility featuring a 70-something woman and her two 50 something daughters, which is set in NYC and a fancy town in Connecticut. It's fine but ultimately fleeting for me.

28. Fitness Junkie by Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza: a not-fat woman is fat-shamed into believing she's fat and taking a leave of absence from her company so that her "best friend" can sell it out from under her. Why did I read this? I honestly don't know. Please don't judge me.

29. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry: much reviewed here, so I will simply add my vote to the loved it! contingent.

30. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows: also much reviewed here; a solid ok from me.

31. Out of Africa by Karen Blixen: chosen for book club because of the allure of lots of coffee and romance. There was little coffee and no romance. Instead, it was chockablock with colonialism and big game hunting. I understand that people love this book. I just don't understand why (though I know that Blixen was in many ways a trailblazer and that her attitudes were some of the most generous of her time and position, but.).

32. The Unseen World, by Liz Moore: when 12-year-old Ada's brilliant computer scientist father develops Alzheimer's in the 1980s, she discovers that she knows very little about the truth of his life. She sets out to discover it at the same time as adjusting to life without her beloved single father and in a world that is largely unknown to her. While a bit slow at times, this book ultimately deals with a period of American history that's largely ignored by the mainstream and is ultimately a worthwhile read.

I'm on holiday for the next bit, so I'm hoping to have the bandwidth to be able to read some more substantial books.

Ooh, thank you!
My list:

1. The Light Years Elizabeth Jane Howard
2. Marking Time Elizabeth Jane Howard
3. Peter's Room Antonia Forest
4. Run Away Home Antonia Forest
5. The Thursday Kidnapping Antonia Forest
6. Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
7. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding Julia Strachey
8. Good Evening, Mrs Craven Mollie Panter-Downes
9. Unpublished manuscript

10. An Episode of Sparrows Rumer Godden 11. Confusion Elizabeth Jane Howard 12. Private, Keep Out! Gwen Grant 13. Hillbilly Elegy JD Vance 14. Nurture Shock Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman 15. Grass in Piccadilly Noel Streatfeild 16. Fell Jenn Ashworth 17. The Hate U Give Angie Thomas 18. Beasts and Super Beasts Saki 19. Nobody Told Me Hollie McNish 20. The Girl Who Saved Christmas Matt Haig 21. Casting Off Elizabeth Jane Howard 22. The Guggenheim Mystery Robin Stevens 23. Pottermore Presents JK Rowling 24. Autumn Term Antonia Forest 25. To The Edge Of The World Julia Green 26. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Agatha Christie 27. The Summer Book Tove Jansson 28. All Change Elizabeth Jane Howard I am reading Wolf Hall, another moulderer from my tbr pile. This is the third time I have started it. Each time I go, "Oh wow, wonderful writing, really brilliant", and each time I lose momentum about halfway through. I am about halfway through. I am losing momentum. Too much politics. Too many characters. Too few women. Which is a shame, because holy crap, this book is a masterclass in hire to write a historical novel. Such assured writing. Such a sense of place and time.

I can't remember most of the books I studied at A Level. I know we did some Shakespeare but can't now remember which one - probably A Midsummer Night's Dream. We studied W B Yeats poems (all that bloody gyring) and Mansfield Park which I really didn't enjoy - I intend to reread it at some point to see if I get more out of it as an adult. I think we did A Streetcar Named Desire, which I liked. I know we DIDN'T study Wuthering Heights - it was on the syllabus and I really hoped the teacher would choose it but no, she went for Mansfield Park, one of the most boring books ever written with the drippiest heroine ever. I remember studying Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Great Expectations at school, quite liked both of those.

105. A Million Years In A Day: A Curious History of Daily Life by Greg Jenner

This covers the history of aspects of our daily life - time, alarm clocks, writing, pet owning, drinking, food, clothes etc. It's all structured round the course of a typical Saturday (we wake up, he talks about time. We have breakfast, he talks about that. We have a shower etc). It was interesting, but I was listening to it on Audible and I think I would have got more from it reading it as a text. For some reason I find it hard to concentrate on audiobooks - I think it's because I'm usually doing something else at the same time (walking, housework) and it's too easy for my mind to wander, then it's fiddly to rewind to the right place. I find it much easier to concentrate on a text as I'm not doing anything else at the same time and if my mind does wander it's easy to scan the last few paragraphs again. Does anyone else find this with audiobooks? I love them for the walking bits of my commute and when doing jobs at home, but maybe I'll save them for re'reads' of books I already know fairly well so it doesn't matter if my mind drifts a bit!

Thank you South. Will update my list later.

Chessie I can't do audiobooks at all. My mind wanders.

Glad it's not just me!

cheerful push through the middle bit of WH, I got stranded there too briefly but it does pick up and no such trouble with BUTB. As for the women thing this is an instance where I disagree - all the power, such that there is, is with the men and focussing on the female characters any more would make it a different kind of book, and wouldn't ring true from Cromwell's perspective which is largely what we're seeing. BUTB has Anne Boleyn as more central and this fits with the story Mantel is telling.

Thanks for the new thread. Moving my list** across . I think my highlights might have changed as I managed to mess them up last time but I have redone them in the context of everything I have read so far this year

1.My name is Lucy Barton
2.Plainsong
3.Summer Queen
4.The winter Crown
5.The autumn throne
6.The Heart Goes Last
7.Twelve years a Slave
8.My Husbands wife
9.The bolter
10.Winter ghosts
11. Essex Serpent
12.Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
13. Everyone Brave is Forgiven
14. His Bloody Project
15. Forgotten voices of the Great War
16. Love letters of the Great War
17. The trouble with goats and sheep
18. Victoria A life
19. The tales of Beedle the Bard
20. Dear Amy
21 Crown of blood
22.The food of love
23. Elizabeth and Mary
24. Last Train to Memphis
25. The silkworm
26. Apple Tree Yard
27. Young and Damned and Fair
28. the Missing
29. Three sisters Three Queens
30. Where my heart used to beat

31. First of the Tudors
32. Do no harm
33. Dark fire
34. Dissolution
35. Sovereign
36. Revelation
37. Heartstone
38. Lamentation
39. The Keeper of Lost Things
40. The Lesser Bohemians
41. The Cuckoos Calling
42. The Ashes of London
43. The child in time
44. The private lives of the Tudors
45. The Hare with the Amber Eyes
46. Love all
47. Just Henry
48. Daughters of the Grail
49. The Northern Clemency
50. The light years
51. Her perfect life
52. Take Six Girls
53. The Silent child
54. Georgiana - Duchess of Devonshire
55. The Love Letters of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
56. Anne Boleyn: The Kings Obsession
57. The Crow Trap - Ann cleeves
58. Telling Tales - Ann Cleeves
59. Hidden depths
60. Silent voices
61. Marking time
62. Nella Last's War
63. The Glass room
64. Girl A : My Story
65. Harbour street
66. The moth catcher
67. Lincoln in The Bardo
68. The Witches
69. A Dangerous Inheritance
70. Confusion
71. All the light we cannot see
72. Reconstructing Amelia
73. The last runaway
74, Holding
75. The Underground Railroad
76. The wonder
77. The Romanovs
78. A street cat named Bob
79. Casting off
80. In to the woods
81. The Power
82. Cousins
83. Swing Time

Okay, that's good to know, thanks.
I didn't mean the lack of women made it a bad book - I quite agree with all that. More, I think, that I found it easier to get sucked in when Kat and Liz and so forth are more central. Will persevere.

Cheerful morning echo everything Satsuki has said about Wolf Hall. It is a stunning book but yes, the middle is quite 'dense' for want of a better word. BUTB is an easier read and equally as well written. Does any one have any idea when the third one is due out?

Hi everyone, I have been on this thread before and quite a while ago.

I find that it moves very fast and that my reading lists are pitifully small compared to some of yours!

I'd like to join you again if I may, currently reading Dan Davies' In Plain Sight: the Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile

Oh of course cheerful I see what you mean and its personal preference. The third seems to keep getting further away, and nothing official, but I read an interview with Mark Rylance who was Cromwell in the TV adaptation, and he mentioned they were readying to film the third installment in 2019, and that it was going to be a huge book, so it looks promising for next year based on that perhaps?

It's

Hi grey there's a few of us on a slower track, and everyone else is too busy reading everything in sight to care, so do join in again! I hear that Dan Davies book is very good and read a great article by him on it.

1. All the Light We Cannot See
2. The Essex Serpent
3. His Bloody Project
4. Golden Hill
5. 11.22.63
6. The North Water
7. Three Body Problem
8. The Vegetarian
9. The Long Goodbye

10. Revelation 11. Wishful Drinking 12.Ready Player One 13. Name of the Buggering Wind 14. Heartburn 15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius 16. Madonna in a Fur Coat 17. Elinor Oliphant is Completely Fine 18. Conclave 19. Lincoln in the Bardo 20. Today Will Be Different 21. My Name Is Lucy Barton 22. The Handmaid's Tale 23. Bossypants

In Plain Sight is very good and and manages not to be salacious. Quite horrifying. I'd recommend it.

Satsuki fingers crossed for 2018 then.
Hello grey. My list is long this year but only because my husband has started working away and I seem to have given up watching TV in the evenings! About to start a full time job in September having done part time for a while so suspect my reading will fall off a cliff!!
Have been looking at In plain sight. Somehow felt a bit 'grubby' considering it so interested to know it's not salacious.