50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Eight

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the eighth and final 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 and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read. To anyone who hasn't posted, feel free to de-lurk and share with us what you've read this year.

The first thread of the year is here, the second one here, the third thread here, the fourth one here, the fifth one here, the sixth one here, and the seventh one here.

How have you got on so far this year?

Loved American Gods, I do enjoy how Gaiman can twist horror, humour and tenderness so cleverly into a compelling story. Weirdly couldn’t get into the tv series, I should probably give it another go really as the book is great. Anansi Boys is one to read too if you enjoyed American Gods, a lighter read but obviously shares the character of Mr Nancy 🕷

Some recommended short books:

I Feel Bad about My Neck - Nora Ephron
A Taste of Honey - Shelagh Delaney
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
A Sense of and Ending - Julian Barnes
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
Charlotte’s Web - E.B White
Reasons to Stay Alive - Matt Haig

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers is on Kindle Daily Deal today. If you liked A Very Long Way To A Small Angry Planet then woŕth getting this.

Also on offer is On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. I have no idea what this is like but it's 128 pages so might be a short read for people?

I'd second A Closed And Common Orbit - I actually liked it a lot more than Small Angry Planet.

I see Thinking Fast And Slow is also on offer at £1.99 - really worth reading, though can be hard going at times (Kahneman definitely doesn't do sparkling prose, but the ideas in there are worth the struggle).

A Very English Scandal by John Preston is also in the current kindle sale. I thought his writing could have done with more effort but the story (about the Jeremy Thorpe scandal) is cracking. The TV adaptation starring Ben Whishaw and Hugh Grant is broadcast next year.

Ooh yes, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is excellent.
Other short books:
Skellig David Almond
We've had The Adoption Papers Jackie Kay recommended already - brilliant poetry
If you like graphic novels Maus and Persepolis are both amazing.
I'm about to start Rebecca West's The Soldier's Return which is looking appealingly short - will let you know how it goes.

The Return of the Soldier.

Are you reading the original version of American Gods, Cote, or the 'uncut' version. I really enjoyed the original and hated the uncut one. I prefer Anansi Boys even over the original AG though.

Uncut one, Remus. I’m enjoying it.

67. Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer

Big thanks to the many reviews on this thread for the recommendation. I have to say I have no knowledge of mountain climbing at all and I’m very unlikely to ever gain any but this was a compelling read. Reading this book makes you think the people who attempt ( and who do) climb Everest must have to be a little insane. It also gives an interesting account of the dangers and the availability of guides for inexperienced climbers which sounds like a terrible idea but is an available experience if you have the money

Very interesting read and not something I would normally have picked up so thank you for the recommendations and broadening my horizons.

I read the original version of American Gods shortly after it was first published and loved it.

I haven’t read the newer uncut version. Is it very different?

Some more short books:
Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe
The talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
The reason I jump by Naoki Higashida

I have had Closed and Common Orbit reserved from the library for weeks and weeks (hurry up slow readers!); absolutely loved Small Angry Planet.

Stitches
Full of unnecessary padding. Once Cote's finished reading it, I'll dig out my review.

Thank you for the short books recs!

I went back to the KJ Charles, because I trust Sadik; and either I was in a better mood, or it picked up vastly after the first part which was all sex and sub par Georgette Heyer! I will read another (I am hoping there is a Richard and Dominic one for anyone else who has read 49) A Fashionable Infulgence by KJ Charles

Completely lost the thread due to RL, need to go back and read.

Lost count too.

Have read the following lately

Not Thomas -Sara Gethin. Harrowing, Sadik, we must be almost neighbours. I’m just 20 miles away from the location and was there last week.

Secrets of a happy marriage -Cathy Kelly. Happy ever after easy read.

Spectacles -Sue Perkins. Re read. Love Sue Perkins. Cried at the dog and her obvious love for her parents.

Will get my act together before the end of the year, Christmas permitting.

47. A Bone of Contention by Susanna Gregory. Another medieval murder mystery. A saintly relic appears in a ditch and Matthew struggles to prove it is from a more recent death. This one dragged and was far too complicated.

48. A Deadly Brew by Susanna Gregory. Poisoned wine is doing the rounds of Cambridge. I'm starting to see the pattern in these, far too complicated to deduce the villain for yourself, but someone conveniently turns up at the end and explains it all away. This one had a lot more pace.

49. Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard. An account of a young boy separated from his parents in a POW camp in Shanghai. This was such a compelling read, heartbreaking in the detachment from the horror around him and the matter of factness in which he deals with the death and destruction around him. It's beautifully written. It's a slow burner which leaves you feeling oddly detached yourself. This will stay with me for a while despite not really knowing what to feel.

84. Herodotus - The Histories trans. by Tom Holland

This one took me most of November, I'm well behind on my reading target for the year as a result! Herodotus wrote the first work of history, or at least the earliest surviving work we have. The majority covers Xerxes and his attempt to conquer Greece but there's also some detail on the growth of the Persian empire, descriptions of various lands including Egypt and Ethiopia, and a lot of meandering off into background stories of people mentioned in the timeline, which can be a bit of a distraction. It's really interesting to read though, particularly because of the details as to wht people thought of the world at the time. In discussing the Nile, for example, Herodotus came up with outlandish theories as to the causes of the annual flooding on the basis that it couldn't be anything to do with snow melt because obviously there could't be snow anywhere down the river's course since it was too hot. He also claimed that Ehtiopians have black semen (?!) but shortly afterwards dismissed claims of the existence of the Tin Islands (Britain) as obviously untrue.

Fortuna I read Empire of the Sun last year and it still hasn’t left me. I like thinking about books in terms of if they cast a shadow over the rest of your life and I'm quite certain that this one will. I can’t imagine ever somehow forgetting the scenes of starvation from the camp, or the march scenes towards the end, or when he is given the mango by the pilot. Wonderful, haunting book.

Just started reading The Dark is Rising to the dds. Cor, lovely,chilling, creepy mood setting start.
Found my old copy to read to them. Check out this cover. Don’t get that sort of art on YA novels these days.

Duh,

Fortuna & Scribbly - If you loved Empire of the Sun, check out the author's autobiography Miracles of Life. His internment at a Japanese camp in Shanghai as a child is told there in detail.

He was such a great writer. I was sad when he died.

114. The Last hours - Minette Walters. Very light touch historical novel about the Black Death. Haven't read any of this author before and this doesn't inspire me to try. Forced myself to get to the end.

40. The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill. The first Simon Serailler - basically a Joanna Trollope/Thomas Harris-mash up. Easy, mainly bath-based re-reading, as DH has borrowed my Kindle.

Scribbly, I spent so much of much childhood in love with Will Stanton. The Dark is Rising was my absolute favourite series of books. I can still recite chunks of the poems - every Hallowe'en, my brain spontaneously reminds me that "On the day of the dead/When the year too dies/The youngest shall open the oldest hills...".

70. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

All about introverts. Lots of positive stuff about the strengths and benefits of an introverted personality. An interesting read.

71. The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker

Fantasy. Nora accidentally wanders through a gate into another world. She gets enchanted by a fairy like people called the Faitoren and married off to their prince, before being rescued by the reclusive magician Aruendiel.
This was a good fun read.

72. Isn’t This Fun? by Michael Foley

Subtitled “Investigating the Serious Business of Enjoying Ourselves”
The author explores what fun is and different types of fun. An entertaining light read.