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?

28. Shakespeare by Bill Bryson. More about the times than the man or the plays, but an easy read and interesting if you don't already know all the context. Not for scholars, but am going to try and get 16yr old ds to read it!

Back from holiday, very tired, so just brief reviews:

29. The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith. The second of Rowling's Cormoran Strike whodunnit novels, where a novelist with a fair few enemies meets a grizzly end. Didn't like this as much as the Cuckoo's Calling. Bit clunky, lots of unlikeable people, and I've gone off Strike as a character a bit.

30. Cape Cod by Henry David Thoreau Gorgeous piece of nature writing/travelogue from the mid 19th century. Wry and funny, as well as informative. Captured the area beautifully.

31. Black Swan Green by David Mitchell Story of Jason Taylor, a slightly nerdy, anxious boy growing up in a Worcestershire village at the time of the Falklands War. Well written, much "straighter" than Cloud Atlas/The Bonks Clocks, although some elements of possible fantasy are incorporated. Really liked this.

Still reading and enjoying All Creatures Great and Small, and it's far more fitting here in the cool North of England than on the beach.

I've spent a couple of happy hours over the last few days watching the first few episodes of 'All Creatures Great and Small' on Youtube. :)

39 and 40 - Daemon & Freedom by Daniel Suarez

Unexpectedly brilliant! Daemon and its sequel Freedom were pure gold, an absolute must-read for anyone who likes SF with vision and grand ideas, like Neal Stephenson & William Gibson's books.

The world's foremost IT entrepreneur dies and news of his death triggers a program that two murders, starts recruiting hackers and others through a MMOG (massive multi-player online game). Soon, it appears that the dead genius unleashed this computer program on the world to follow his master plan and police, FBI, NSA are desperately trying to stop it.

These two books were a cross between Asimov's Foundation series and Ready Player One, although darker, more cruel (and realistic) than both. I loved the author's vision and his novel ideas about social order, economics, and the future of warfare. I loved how everything you think you know gets overturned halfway through the story. The author converts the reader to his way of thinking, little by little, detail by detail. By the end, you not only believe that all that can happen but that it should happen, exactly as the author said it will.

Absolutely loved these books and would recommend them to everyone.

Just checking in as fallen off thread, will update later. Have been enjoying everyone's reviews.

Can't remember if I posted this photo last year but it came up on my Facebook memories this morning. I must have been reading James Herriot this time last year and got a real blast from the past hidden inside.

I LOVED the TV series as a teenager.

Screw, the third Cormoran Strike book gets back on track a bit, I wasn't keen on the second. Anyone going to watch the TV series tonight?

Cote, I do like the sound of that, I might be tempted.

I miss C&A. One of my favourite skirts I've ever owned came from there - I wore it for about 15 years, until it fell to pieces.

thanks Best, I might borrow the third one from the library in that case. And thanks for the nod re the telly adaptation - this had passed me by, but I might give it a go.

Loving all the All Creatures chat. Will have to keep rereading them.
Definitely going to watch Strike tonight.
Currently reading 4,3,2,1 - Paul Auster. Enjoying it but very long and very complex. Having to make notes! Might be a while!

Watching Strike, yep. I think Tom Burke, however, is miscast but we'll see.

119. *Life's A Beach' by George Mahood

Follow up to Every Day's A Holiday which I read earlier this year, where George 'celebrates' all the strange holidays like Talk Like A Pirate Day. Nice easy read basically about his life and family.

120. Remember Me This Way by Sabine Durrant

Disappointing psychological thriller. Lizzie's husband died a year ago - or did he? Told from Lizzie's POV starting a year after his accident, and Zach's POV from when they originally met. Lizzie is a wet lettuce, Zach is horrible and I couldn't see what either of them had ever seen in the other and why they were ever together. Ending was disappointing too. Shame as I've read Lie With Me by the same author and really enjoyed that.

I'm further along than I thought in the 50 book challenge!

43. The rules of civility by Amor Towles. I had no idea what to expect from this when I plucked it off the bookshelf but I enjoyed it a lot. It's set in NYC in the late 1930s and tells the tale of the friendship between two girls, Katey and Eve, and shy, wealthy banker, Tinker, whom they meet on New Year's Eve of 1937. Katey, a plucky, intelligent 25yr old from working-class origins, is the narrator so we view events through her eyes.

What makes this book so good is that it reads like an Oscar for cinematography and you feel like you are watching a sumptuous film. Think 'The Great Gatsby'. It's beautifully written; light but not fluffy with a host of interesting characters who seem very real rather than just 'created'.

44. The Red Pony by John Steinbeck. This is a lovely short (an 'episodic novella' to be precise) book about a young lad's coming of age on a ranch in the Salinas valley of California. I found it amongst my old school books while on holiday at my parent's house this summer. I think I started reading it as a horse-mad 12 yr old and obviously thought it was going to be some 'Jill's Gymkhana' style pony japes, and then must have abandoned it after the first part!!! Anyway, it's a fabulous little read. What a writer Steinbeck is. After loving East of Eden last summer, one of my aims is to read more Steinbeck. I studied either The Grapes of Wrath or Of mice and men for 'A' Level English but I don't recall which one - I just remember it being hard work and not 'getting' him at all. He was obviously wasted on my younger self!

I read The Red Pony when I was quite young because it was the book Matilda's dad took away and tore up.

Best - Read it! Very cheap atm on the Kindle

Ok, Cote, I've bought Daemon but it will be a while before I get to it. If I ever finish Shardlake Sovereign

2 weeks off work and a cottage in the middle of nowhere next week should help.

I've just bought Daemon too. It sounds very intriguing but it will be a couple of weeks before I read it - got a couple more Booker nominees lined up first.

Downloaded sample for Daemon - how dark is dark?, asks the scaredycat.

Also saw this interview which might be interesting for the Macintyre/Le Carre fans on the thread:
mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/books/review/john-le-carre-ben-macintyre-british-spy-thrillers.html

Awesome There is a rather horrid scene in the beginning that's meant to establish that character as a sociopath. Please don't judge me the books by that scene. Nothing like it repeats in the rest of the two books.

Not too dark, Slightly. Give it a go

35. History Of The World - Andrew Marr

Took me a few weeks to get through but I enjoyed this - it's a very readable condensed history of the human race. Understandably it's very broad brush stuff that races through empires and civilisations as they rise and fall, but it has given me an insight into some parts of history that were a total blank to me (particularly Russia, China and Japan) and I'm looking forward to investigating some more in depth.

64. In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great by Michael Wood

Historian and author Michael Wood retraces the 22,000-mile expedition of Alexander the Great from Macedonia through defeating the Persian Empire, conquering Egypt, and moving into what is now Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. It was an incredible feat and the massacres along the way were on a horrendous scale. Wood's own journey included encounters with the descendents of people who still see Alexander not as 'the Great' but as a demon, the bringer of death. Fascinating reading.

I have been on MN for a year and just discovered book club. Yeah. I won't get to 50. But I'll give it a jolly good try

36. The Mont Blanc Massif: The 100 Finest Routes - Gaston Rebuffat

Another fascinating book by my favourite mountaineer. Consists of details and photos of the routes - many of which were first done by Rebuffat himself - there's a fair bit of technical description which is of limited interest to non-climbers. But the joy comes from Rebuffat's familiar and proud descriptions of his much-loved routes - "much as a gardener might introduce you to his flowers", as he puts it - and the stunning photos.

Welcome Buck3t.