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?

143. The Queen's Poisoner, Jeff Wheeler. Seeking to scratch my Game of Thrones itch! This is fantasy in a very similar vein - it is essentially a re-telling of Richard III and the Princes in the Tower, in a different world, with some magical ability chucked in. It's quite good but some of the writing felt a bit immature in places. I think the premise is stronger than the writing - but it's certainly not terrible and I might carry on with the series. I'm more interested in the historical background than the new world - might go back and re-read Daughter of Time to remind myself of the theory!

144. Wildfire At Midnight, Mary Stewart. Picked this up at my sister's at the weekend, inspired by Cheerful! Gianetta goes for a quiet holiday to Skye, only to discover someone in the hotel is a murderer and the cast of suspects includes her own ex-husband. Not very feminist (the heroine spends most of her time being told to go back to the hotel/London by various males) but lovely peaceful reading.

I read my Kindle in the bath! Killed my first Kindle Fire after owning it for about a month by dropping it in. It wasn't the bath that killed it - it was the fact that I carried on reading as it sort of fizzed and crackled, and when the battery started to die I plugged it in and shorted out the screen. I think if I'd had the sense to just leave it to dry out properly it would have survived!

My reading for pleasure has positively ground to a halt with this intensive training course I'm on. Worse, there's no proper books, just worksheets, DVDs & audioclasses so am needing lots of and to get through it.

Being here I'm adding to the TBR pile/list, of course ...

34. Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier. Recommended on this thread (or maybe last year's one). I really enjoyed this fictional account of Mary Anning - the self-taught working class girl in Lyme Regis who became a renowned fossil hunter. The book switched between her narrative and that of Elizabeth Philpott, a gentle woman who moved with her spinster sisters from London to Lyme and became a companion of Mary's. The story describes their friendship and how despite their finds neither were really taken seriously by the male-dominated experts.

48. Exposure by Helen Dunmore. This is the second novel I have read (thanks to this thread!) by Helen Dunmore. It's a book about espionnage in the Cold War era but very focused on the relationships between the protagonists so it's not at all like your typical 'espionnage-style' book. I enjoyed this but felt slightly disappointed that I didn't engage more with the characters until the end. It was annoying as I kept thinking I should feel more involved with them - the characterisation is excellent and the characters themselves compelling. I think Dunmore is a clever writer - she is very subtle. She manages to convey so many sentiments in a few carefully crafted sentences.

Sorry not been here for ages. Have been slow at reading for a few weeks as last weeks of August and September are manic for me

Anyway, here is my list so far:

1. The Wolf and The Raven - Steven MacKay

2.The Hobbit - JRRR Tolkien (Audible)

1. Greenwitch - Susan Cooper

4.Child 44 - Tom Robb Smith

1. Fellowship of the Ring - JRRR Tolkien (Audible)

6.Into the Heart of Borneo - Redmond O'Hanlan 7.The No1 Ladies Detective agency

1. The Two Towers - JRRR Tolkien (Audible)
2. Crosstalk - Connie Willis (Audible)

10. The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd 11.Tom’s Midnight Garden - Philippa Pearce 12.1066 - Kaye Jones (Audible) 13.The Reformation - Edward Gosselin (Audible) 14.The Return of the King - JRRR Tolkien (Audible) 15. Lion by Saroo Brierley (for Bookclub) 16. The Muse by Jessie Burton (on Audible) 17. Henry VIII's wives - Julie Wheeler 18. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula de Guin 19. Fall of Giants by Ken Follet 20. Stig of the Dump by Clive King 21. Edward I - A Great and Terrible King by Marc Morris 22.Nomad by Alan partridge (on Audible) 23. Saigon by Anthony Grey. 24: Charlotte's Web by EB White 25: Behind Closed Doors by BA Paris. 26: The Light Years (The Cazalets 1) (Audible) 27: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Attwood 28: Empire of the Sun by CG Ballard. (Audible) 29: A Place Called Winter - by Patrick Gale. 30: The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell (#1 of the Arthur Warlord series) on Audible 31: Enemy of God by Bernard Cornwell (#2 of the Arthur Warlord series) on Audible 32: Excalibur by Bernard Cornwell (#3 of the Arthur Warlord series) on Audible 33: The Gunpowder plot by Sinead Fitzgibbon (Audible) 34: The 39 Steps by Richard Hanney 35: The King's Speech by Mork Logue 36: The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd 37: Macbeth: A novel by AJ Hartley (Audible) 38: 1984 by George Orwell (Audible) 39: My Antonia by Willa Cather 40: Her Father's Daughter by Alice Pung 41: I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes (Audible) 42: The Girl in the Glass Tower by Elizabeth Freemantle 43: Nobody's Child by Cathy Glass 44: Henry VIII by Simon Court 45: Revelation - Shardlake#4 by CJ Sansom 46: Northern Lights (His Dark Materials #1) by Phillip Pullman (audible) 47: The Subtle Knife (his Dark Materials #2) by Phillip Pullman (audible)

48: The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials #3) by Phillip Pullman (Audible)
I first read His Dark Materials when they first came out. I used to be heavily into fantasy and I should have loved them. I didn't though, I remember being meh about the first two and spending most of the Amber Spyglass wondering what the hell was going on.
However I decided to give it another go, as they are so consistently recommended for YA, fantasy, etc.
I do kind of get them, the scope is huge and they are well written, but I just felt it was TOO much, brilliant characters were introduced, eg mrs Coulter, Asriel, the polar bear, but rather than really getting to grips with them, Pullman just keeps introducing more and more and more, until there are so many I couldn't engage with any of them. Lyra was promising in the Northern Lights, but by halfway though the Subtle Knife, she was being saved from every situation by Will and being very whiney.
I stubbornly finished them so I can be sure I didn't like them, but no, for me they don't live up to expectations.

49: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
This one should have been right up my street (Love a bit of historical fiction and a degree in Russian) but while it was good, I felt it lacked something. It's beautifully written and some great characters, I think I expected more struggle with him adjusting to a new life and observations on the new regime. But maybe that's the point, it made no difference to him. A good read though

42. The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts

Philosophy, nature of reality, space and time, artificial intelligence... This should have been right up my street but sadly wasn't. It took me 10 full days to read slowly & reluctantly. There was some interesting stuff there but it could have been a better novella or even short story. Parts of it were completely unnecessary and in the case of the "future" story, a bit nonsensical.

No, not recommending this one, I'm afraid.

49. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers Feel good science fiction with a long space voyage and plenty of alien species. Focused around the small closely knit crew of the Wayfarer, this was big on friendship, humour, love and kindness. It was fast moving, and had a youthful optimistic feel to it. I really liked it.

Perhaps I particularly appreciated the direct and open way the main characters dealt with their feelings, as I am currently limping through the beautiful but boring The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters on audiobook, where it can seemingly take anything up to 200 event free chapters for the characters to admit their feelings to themselves let alone discuss them with anyone else.

MuseumOfHam if you liked Small Angry Planet do read the sequel A Closed and Common Orbit - I thought it was fantastic.

My reading has ground to a pretty much total halt here - combination of lacking a really gripping book + too much else distracting me in life. I've just picked up The Marshmallow Test for 99p on kindle, but not sure it's really what I need right now. Any recommendations along the Gail Carriger / Cassandra Clare / Captive Prince type lines (trashy yet gripping and lots of humour) gratefully received.

Sadik, try The Hallowed Hunt by Lois McMaster Bujold, or the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs.

Book 87
The Dry by Jane Harper
One of my stand outs of the year, so far. This did a really good job of depicting a small town community, reeling from the discovery pf three bodies, twenty years after a girl was found dead. Are the two discoveries linked at all? Was the second discovery three murders, or two plus a suicide? What secrets have been hidden and what lies have been told? And how much of it is related to our central character, back for the funeral but with secrets of his own about events in the past? I liked the central character and evocation of place and I thought this had an effective, spare quality about it. Recommended, although I felt it fell to pieces a little at the end and relied on too ‘easy’ a final discovery.

49. Charlotte's Web EB White - read to the DC. Wept at the end. Kids looked askance at me 'Mummy why are you crying?'. I said 'wait til you read the book yourselves and you'll probably cry too.' This should strictly not be counted as I read it as a kid myself. Remember crying then too. Still scared of spiders though

Thanks Sadik . I have reserved it from the library. It is on loan at the moment and there is one reservation before me, so it will probably be a few weeks before I get my hands on it, but really looking forward to it now!

I've fancied trying LMB for a while TooExtra but never managed to figure out where to start with her books. Is there a reason for that one particularly? (looks like no 3 in a series?)

It's my second favourite! It's actually set centuries before The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls, so it doesn't matter if you read it first. PoS is my favourite but you need to have read CoC first. The Sharing Knife series is also good.

Just to clarify, I did like The Curse of Chalion but I haven't felt compelled to read and re-read it nearly as often as the other two. It does set up a lot of the world-building and religion, though, which is important.

On that note:

145. Paladin of Souls, LMB. Again. Possibly for the second time this year. I was so tired and hungover on Sunday that I couldn't face starting anything new.

I have just downloaded All Quiet on the Western Front on the basis that it was quoted in my Standard Grade History textbook and it's been mentioned a few times on this thread. But after this, I WILL NOT buy any more books until payday (next Wed). I will read The Luminaries or Swing Time or The Narrow Road to the Deep North, all of which I have borrowed from my mum/sister and which are sitting on my kitchen table.

Sadik, for non sf amusement, how about Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic? The first one is very funny, better than it looks. Or for sf have you read any Sarah Rees Brennan? I like her better than Cassandra Clare, and they collaborated on a series about Magnus that I have forgotten the name of!

33. Transatlantic by Colum McCann. I didn't like the first third of this at all, labelled it as one of those slightly pretentious present tense type things, but it picked up massively after that and I enjoyed it, a nice partner to the Sebastian Barry as it covered some of the same territory. I still think it was a bit pretentious and overwritten, but I am quite glad I persevered.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North was so very, very boring. I couldn't finish it.

Am now reading, and thoroughly enjoying, Madam, Will You Talk?

Oh no, is it, Remus? Drat. Have found unread Mary Stewart in the house - The Prince and the Pilgrim. It's one of her Arthurian ones, none of which I've read despite DSis going bonkers for them when we were teenagers. Will report back once completed!

Oooh, yes, Tanaqui, I like Sarah Rees Brennan too!

Beams happily at TooExtra and Remus. Glad it's not just me who likes slightly daft post-war crime.
I had a look in my library today while there picking up the complete adventures of Peppa Fucking Pig with DS, but they didn't have any of her other books. Might have to order them in.

53. You - Caroline Kepnes

Joe meets the girl of his dreams working in his bookstore. He then tries to infiltrate her life and when life takes a bad turn it drives her straight into his arms.

I wanted to like this but found it a little crude at times and I just didn't care about anyone, don't think I'll be going for the sequel!

Hi Matilda - I recently read You and felt much the same as you.The sequel is actually a lot more crude, way too much in parts, and I didn't really enjoy it but did finish it. There is just enough of a twist to make me wonder what C Kepnes will do with the third.

Remus - The Dry was really good. Reminded me a little of RJ Ellory in terms of style. Looking forward to whatever Jane Harper writes next.

So far Sweetbitter is quite good, although I am just starting to get fed up with main character's choices - she's a mess!

tooextra I loathed Narrow Road, really hated it. Swing Time is currently boring my pants off so I've started reading Game of Thrones at the same time for some events. I enjoyed Luminaries though

All Quiet is a devastating masterpiece.

Cheerdul - I loved it. Thanks so much - I never would have chosen this without your rec.

Book 88
Madam, Will you Talk? - Mary Stewart
Well, I just loved this! It’s a lively romp of a mystery story, featuring a dark and handsome villain, a beautiful widow, fast cars and a gorgeous French backdrop. It manages to stay just on the right side of silly, except for one scene about half way through, and the writer’s tongue is very much in cheek even then. A joy.

Which of hers should I read next, ideally something similar to this one?