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50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Seven

999 replies

southeastdweller · 02/08/2017 22:26

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?

OP posts:
CupFullOfSpiders · 15/08/2017 15:04

I'm currently reading Death's End (Cixin Liu) and I'm finding it really hard to put down. I loved the first book, liked the second one but found it less exciting somehow, found the first part of this one dragged, but it's more than making up for it now Shock I'm about a third of the way in and really want to know how it all ends but also never want it to finish.
Right. Now I've got that out of my system I'm off to catch up on this thread to prepare for my post-Death's End life Grin

fatowl · 15/08/2017 22:20
  1. The Wolf and The Raven - Steven MacKay
2.The Hobbit - JRRR Tolkien (Audible) 3. Greenwitch - Susan Cooper 4.Child 44 - Tom Robb Smith 5.Fellowship of the Ring - JRRR Tolkien (Audible) 6.Into the Heart of Borneo - Redmond O'Hanlan 7.The No1 Ladies Detective agency 8.The Two Towers - JRRR Tolkien (Audible)
  1. 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 39: My Antonia by Willa Cather 40: Her Father's Daughter by Alice Pung 41: I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes 42: The Girl in the Glass Tower by Elizabeth Freemantle

43: Nobody's Child by Cathy Glass
This was our book club choice and not normally something that I would pick up as I'd class it as Misery lit, which I'm not really into, but it was quite interesting. Cathy Glass has written loads of books about her extensive experience as a foster carer, and I imagine they are all a bit samey after a while. But it was a compelling story that I did rattle through in a day or so.
I found her narrative style a bit irritating (said she did something and then explained why she did it, even when it is blindingly obvious) but I reminded myself she's a foster carer not an accomplished writer, maybe she would benefit from a co-writer.

fatowl · 15/08/2017 22:26

Sorry - It's Nobody's Son not Nobody's Child

ChillieJeanie · 16/08/2017 06:27
  1. Closed Casket by Sophie Hannah

Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool are invited to a house party at a mansion in County Cork by Lady Playford, a children's novelist neither has ever met. Over dinner, Lady Playford reveals that she has altered her will to cut out her two children entirely and leave everything to her secretary, a man with only weeks to live. Poirot suspects that there will be a murder attempt and tries to prevent it, but when the body is discovered it is not the person he expected it to be.

I think this is the second of Sophie Hannah's Poirot novels and they seem to hold up reasonably well. Presumably there will be more.

DesdemonasHandkerchief · 16/08/2017 11:13

My pitifully short 2017 list:
1. The Year Of Living Danishly
2. The Complete David Bowie by Nicholas Pegg
3. Submarine
4. Cold Comfort Farm
5. The Life Changing Magic Of Tidying
6. Ready Player One
7. A Man Called Ove
8. Hideous Kinky
9. The Strange Death Of Europe
10. Writing Home
11. Keeping On Keeping On
12. The Siege: Bought on a £1.99 Kindle deal after I'd seen it reviewed here. A powerful book that vividly describes the hardship of the siege of Leningrad, something I'm ashamed to say I was previously ignorant of. A reminder of how thin the veneer of civilisation actually is. I'll be seeking out other novels by Helen Dunmore
13. My Family and Other Animals: A nice gentle read - perfect for Greek holiday reading. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I'd read it before seeing the recent TV serialisation as it didn't hold any surprises but diverting never the less. I agree with a PP that the young Gerry Durrells treatment of wildlife often left a lot to be desired, but it did take place in the 50's, maybe the past really is a 'foreign country' where they do things differently!

Currently plowing through the Jimmy Savile expose In Plain Sight and finding it heavy going on a number of levels.

boldlygoingsomewhere · 16/08/2017 16:45

Bringing over my list again. It's been ages since I've updated as not had much time online due to work and had a book that I struggled to get through! Trying to catch up with all I've missed in the threads.

Sorry for going AWOL. Favourites are highlighted with an asterisk.

  1. Christmas Days - Jeanette Winterson
  2. Fate of the Tearling - Erika Johansen
*3. The Dark Net - Jamie Bartlett *4. The North Water - Ian McGuire *5. The Wine of Angels - Phil Rickman
  1. Midwinter of the Spirit - Merrily Watkins
*7. The God Instinct - Jesse Bering
  1. The Edge of the World - Michael Pye
*9. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell *10. His Bloody Project - Graeme Macrae Burnet 11. Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims - Toby Clements 12. Kingmaker: Divided Souls - Toby Clements 13. The Female Man - Joanna Russ 14. The Midnight Queen - Sylvia Hunter 15. The End We Start From - Megan Hunter *16. Testosterone Rex - Cordelia Fine 17. The Outcasts of Time - Ian Mortimer 18. It Didn't Start With You - Mark Wolynn 19. Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follet *20. The Power - Naomi Alderman *21. Nobody Told Me - Hollie McNish *22. The Wisdom of Near Death Experiences - Dr Penny Satori *23. Seveneves - Neal Stephenson 24. A Court of Wings and Ruin - Sarah J. Maas *25. Assassin's Fate - Robin Hobb *26. Ship of Magic - Robin Hobb *27. The Mad Ship - Robin Hobb *28. Ship of Destiny - Robin Hobb 29. Dragon Keeper - Robin Hobb 30. Dragon Haven - Robin Hobb 31. City of Dragons - Robin Hobb 32. Blood of Dragons - Robin Hobb 33. The Clever Guts Diet - Michael Mosley 34. Burning Woman - Lucy H. Pearce 35. Re-wild Yourself: Becoming Nature - Rachel Corby *36. Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders *37. The Underground Railroad - Coulson Whitehead

Currently reading: Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner? - Katrine Marcal

RMC123 · 16/08/2017 18:43

90. Reservoir 13 -Jon McGregor Another on the ManBooker long list. Begins in rural community in Northern England when a 13 year old girl disappears from a holiday home. The book follows the lives of the village and villagers through the next 13 years. Births, deaths, affairs and marriages, all wrapped around the seasons. It shows how life carries on but how the girl's disappearance affects the village. It is a gentle book, often funny and sometimes sad. All human life is there but in a real and sympathetic portrait of modern rural life. It's one of those books where nothing momentous and ground breaking happens, but things are happening all the time.
I really enjoyed it and can certainly see why it made the long list
91. Hot Milk - Deborah Levy . Too clever for it's own good. All sorts of metaphors and parallels but I just could not be bothered to try and understand them. Was bored rigid from about 50 pages in. Wish I wasn't so OCD about finishing books , came very close to abandoning it a number of time.

Sadik · 16/08/2017 18:54

I'll be interested to hear what you think of Adam Smith's Dinner, Boldly - I hated it with a passion, but can't for the life of me now remember why Grin (It should have been exactly my sort of book, too - maybe it does the 'economists think' / 'economists say' thing ignoring all the multifarious different views? That's usually a good way to get my goat.)

Sadik · 16/08/2017 18:59

71 Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel, by Tom Wainright, listened to on Audible.

A economics journalist's take on the drugs trade, aiming to examine it in a dispassionate manner as if it were a conventional business. I found this interesting - I'm not sure how much new there was in it, but it was well written, and the reader was good. (Bit odd that it was read by an American given the frequent references to the author being British, but it didn't really matter.)
His prescriptions weren't really earth shattering - focus on reducing demand rather than supply, think about public education campaigns aimed at discouraging casual users which emphasise the human cost of the drugs trade, put money into creating employment for disaffected young men rather than locking them up etc etc. But overall I thought it was a good attempt to make such proposals from a thoroughly thought through economic perspective.

christmasunicorn · 16/08/2017 19:02
  1. l'art de la simplicite- how to live more with less - Dominique Loreau a book about minimalism and how to live a more simple life. Except it tells you what you should wear, the exact skin care routine you should be doing, and how you should meditate every day. Apparently a woman's most sacred possession should be her vanity bag Hmm there were some gems of wisdom and parts that were enjoyable, but some of it was also quite a slog with too many references to Asian monks.
  2. the middle-class ABC - Fi Cotter-Craig and Zebedee Helm. this is one of the few books I had reread as I wanted something light hearted after the slog of the last book. Rather funny and, at times, scarily relatable
boldlygoingsomewhere · 16/08/2017 19:22

I'll give you an update when I've finished, Sadik. It started strongly but I'm half-way through and it's not quite holding my interest.

CoteDAzur · 16/08/2017 21:19

"Except it tells you what you should wear, the exact skin care routine you should be doing, and how you should meditate every day. Apparently a woman's most sacred possession should be her vanity bag "

How very... French Grin

ChillieJeanie · 16/08/2017 21:27
  1. Happy by Derren Brown

As well as looking at why the key ideas of the self help industry - positive thinking, self-belief, and goal setting - are not helpful in the pursuit of happiness and may actually be a hindrance, Derren Brown uses the work of philosophers as a guide to living the good life. It would appear that he himself is a Stoic. Very interesting and entertaining read, and quite calming as well.

MuseumOfHam · 16/08/2017 21:49

Thank you Spiders for giving me hope about the Three Body Problem Cixin Lui trilogy. I'm ploughing through book two, and enjoying the strangeness and the ideas, but just not feeling it as much as book one. Really looking forward to moving on to Death's End now. Plus I am currently in thrall to a new Fitbit which is telling me to get more sleep which is cutting into the reading time. But according to Chillie's review above, maybe I should just ditch the goal setting and stay up late and finish book two.

Sadik · 16/08/2017 22:34

72 The Sumage Solution by Gail Carriger

I didn't like this as much as GC's Parasol Protectorate novels - it's set in the modern day, and I think her steampunk settings & the comedy from the clash of Victorian mores with supernatural beings are really the best thing about her books.

Overall it felt a bit fan-fic-y in style, and while I'm all for sex in trashy novels, in this case the sex to plot ratio was a bit too high IME. It got going (plotwise) a bit more in the last third or so though, and I'll probably read a sequel if she writes one. (Especially if its a kindle cheapy as this one was.)

christmasunicorn · 16/08/2017 22:56

How very... French

I know the writer was born and grew up in France but she makes quite a point, quite a lot, about how she has spent the last 30yrs living in Japan (hence the endless references to Asian monks. Not sure what they would make of a serious make up and skincare routine).
I think it started off well, then got a bit ridiculous (apparently apple cider vinegar is the answer to everything) and then I couldn't take any of it seriously. Such I shame as I had such high hopes

EmGee · 17/08/2017 19:17

Starting off with where I left off weeks ago in a previous thread:

Possibly 35 lost count Ursula Under by Ingrid Hill. Took me a while to get through this book although I am glad I perservered as it was fascinating (in places) and very nicely written. I loved the chapters set in ancient China. Parts of the book almost read as separate stories, which I sometimes find off-putting, but there is a genealogical thread linking these digressions with the protagonists in the main story.

36 + 37. A couple of Liane Moriarty's for light relief. Enjoyable and easy to read. Truly madly guilty and I can't remember what the other one is called but it's about a 40yr old married mother of three who knocks her head at the gym and wakes up thinking it's a decade earlier.

38 + 39. ( can I count these?!) Enid Blyton's books one and two of the Famous Five. Reading these (old version!) to my kids.

  1. Instructions for a Heatwave Maggie O'Farrell. Good. Quick read.

  2. Saschenka Simon Sebag Montefiore. Nicked this from DH's pile. Enjoyed it although not sure he is as good a novelist as he is at historical non-fiction. Anyway, it's about a bourgeois teenage girl who in 1917 becomes a Bolshevist revolutionary. We learn about her life as a member of the Communist Party and subsequently how she falls out of favour with Stalin and what happens after that - leading up to the present day, and how one delves back into a painful history to find the missing pieces of the 'proverbial' jigsaw that is the past. Fascinating subject matter even if the book itself lacks the 'prowess' of writers such as Martin Cruz Smith/Richard Harris.

Will be starting Sebag Montefiore's 'The Romanovs' soon. Going to try a chapter a night as it's quite dense.

  1. The Underground Railroad' by Colson Whitehead. Just started this. American slavery. Suitably grim so far .
Ladydepp · 17/08/2017 23:22

I'm checking back in after many weeks away due to holiday and summer break for kids. My children are very independent now but I still never seem to get much time to myself when they're not at school.

Anyway...in answer to a question on previous thread I did a small amount of English Lit in 1st year uni. This seemed to involve reading depressing poems, Thomas Hardy and Bob Dylan lyrics. Not fun. (I do love Bob, but only with the music!)

I will update my recent books soon, but I'm v pleased to see that others have enjoyed The Silence between Breaths, a RL friend I recommended it to wasn't keen it so I'm pleased some MN readers liked it!

My main read of the summer was A Little Life, reviewed many times on here. I completely understand other people's misgivings with this book but it ripped my heart out. The characters got under my skin and I didn't want this enormous book to end. Brutal but moving.

boldlygoingsomewhere · 18/08/2017 07:49

Emgee, I enjoyed The Underground Railroad but yes it was grim. I'm also reading Days Without End which is also on the Booker long list. The treatment of the Native Americans is also brutal.

Many years ago I read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee which was the most amazing but heart-breaking history book.

Matilda2013 · 18/08/2017 09:57

Still slogging through Needful Things have enjoyed Part One but not sure where Part Two is leading....

KeithLeMonde · 18/08/2017 10:36

Sorry all, have not had a chance to catch up on the thread yet. Been away on holiday then working and wanted to report on my holiday reading - apologies for the chick lit and crappy thrillers Grin

51. The Story of You, Katy Regan
Girl meets boy, girl loses boy - you know the rest :) Gentle and readable if not hugely original. I liked the respectful and realistic (IMHO) treatment of mental illness, which affected two of the main characters.

52. Everything to Lose, Andrew Gross
Crap American thriller. Single mum, money troubles, first on the scene of a car accident on a deserted road, where she finds a dead body and a bag full of cash.

53. Jock Tamson's Bairns, Cally Phillips
I think this one was self-published. It's written by a woman who runs a drama group for people with learning difficulties, and is a semi-fictionalised story about some of the people in her group. Interesting, if a little bit lecturing.

54. The State We're In, Adele Parks
Bad. Ditsy unmarried English woman sits next to brooding American millionaire on plane. Things happen which are either (a) predictable (b) unlikely or (c) both.

55. The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry
Much reviewed here. Loved this.

56. Under the Sun, Lottie Moggach
I liked Lottie Moggach's last one and I liked this, a lot. It's set in post-credit crunch Spain, amongst broke ex-pats who are all desperate to sell their villas and go home, but are stuck in negative equity. A great depiction of hot boredom, paranoia, gossip and suspicion, with a great opening describing what it's like to be in the last throes of an unhappy relationship.

57. Out of Time, Miranda Sawyer
Miranda Sawyer's book about middle age and the mid-life crisis. Very much told from her own POV. When she's writing about something that we have in common (monogamy, motherhood, the ageing of the female body), I really liked it. When she's writing about things that we don't have in common, but which she seems to regard as universal (spending the 90s watching cool bands, the problems of working as a freelancer, property in London), it was annoying. TBF she does try to touch on things outside her own experience but those passages tended to be over-long and rather dry quotations from experts that she's interviewed, whereas her descriptions of her own experiences were witty and warm.

58. Death in Holy Orders, PD James
Well-written but I reached the end not quite sure of what the murderer's motivation had been (due to too many red herrings), which was unsatisfying. Weird condining of child abuse by a priest - considering the book was published in 2001 I would have thought this attitude would have been outdated even then.

59. Disobedience, Naomi Alderman
Loved this. Woman returns to London where she grew up, following the death of her estranged father, an Orthodox rabbi. It examines religious orthodoxy (Judaism in particular) with both love and criticism. Sad to finish it.

60. He Said/She Said, Erin Kelly
Read this pretty much in one sitting on the plane home. Decently-done psychological thriller about a woman who is the only eye-witness in a rape case.

StitchesInTime · 18/08/2017 13:12

51. Fish Tails by Sheri S Tepper

This follows on from one of Tepper's previous books, The Waters Rising. It's probably easier to get into this one if you've read The Waters Rising, as that's set up a lot of the background to this story.

Set in a sparsely populated future Earth, Abasio, Xulai (who can shape shift into octopuses) and their amphibious children are traveling in the hope of converting others to their sea dwelling lifestyle before the land is entirely submerged by the sea, meeting with other interesting characters and various challenges along the way. I particularly liked the griffins.

As with almost all of Sheri S Tepper's books, this one has strong ecological themes running through it. In this one, it turns out the waters are rising because the Earth's spirit has got sick of mankind messing up the environment, and wants all the humans wiped out.

Tepper's also brought in some characters from a series of hers, True Game, that I haven't read (Mavin Manyshaped, Jinian Star-eye, Silkhands the Healer), plus a do-gooding alien with technology so superior that it might as well be magic.

These extra characters didn't really work for me. It felt as if they'd been parachuted into the story in order to provide a quick and easy way of resolving the difficulties facing Abasio, Xulai and their friends. And once these difficulties are quickly fixed, the extra characters promptly vanish off the page again. Which is somewhat ironic, given that one of the messages in the book is essentially that mankind (both individually and in general) should grow up, take responsibility for ourselves and our actions - so stop breeding like rabbits, stop recklessly using up Earth's resources, stop merrily polluting everything, stop assuming that God or the government or whoever else will save things if we screw it all up through a willfull lack of foresight.....

And then, the book has people with magic powers and aliens from space with fantastic technology miraculously turning up, and using their superpowers in a way that neatly ties up all the loose ends in the book so that all the good characters live happily ever after. Hmm
It's a very tidy ending, but not really consistent with a "stop expecting something else to fix whatever messes mankind has made for itself" message.

So anyway, I felt the ending was flawed and contrived, and I've read other books by Tepper that I've enjoyed more, but despite that I'd say it's an okay read overall.

CupFullOfSpiders · 18/08/2017 14:50

MuseumOfHam I'm glad that's given you some hope! I think part of the problem with book 2 is that we know there's a book 3, so we know nothing too exciting/final can happen. It does set up some necessary bits in book 3 of course that I had to go back and read because I'd totally glazed over them the first time round

Halfway through book 3 now and I keep having to make excuses to go for really long baths just to read as much as possible Grin. One bizarre but brilliant/awful thing keeps happening after the other. It's definitely worth the wait!

Sadik · 18/08/2017 15:45

I found Book 2 less satisfying too - it's a different translator, and I didn't find it flowed as well. Liked book 3 more, but I'm afraid still not anywhere near as much as book 1.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 18/08/2017 16:54

Book 76
The Silent Boy by Andrew Taylor
By the writer of The American Boy and the more recent Ashes of London. I liked this. It’s about a boy who witnesses his mother being murdered during the French Revolution, is told by the murderer to say nothing and takes it literally, stopping speaking at all. This didn’t set my world on fire but was a good holiday read,

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