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?

Germs wouldn't never dare alight on Reacher (or his toothbrush!). Do you think he has a little tube of toothpaste too? (Love a Lee Child!).

Man alive, he must be tough. I hope he has a little pack of tooth-floss too.

No, he doesn’t have toothpaste or floss. There’s a bit where he actually explains how toothpaste is unnecessary (yuck!)

No snogging from then, Jack Reacher.

*from me

Argh, yes. He can be God's gift to women with the body of a Greek God, but FFS a man who lives without deodorant?

98. Under My Skin by Sabine Durrant a London set, page turner of a thriller with some good twists that I hadn't seen coming. Gaby, a morning tv chat show host, seems to have it all, until she stumbles upon the body of a young woman whilst out running one morning. Some descriptions of people and scene setting were very wordy, and I'm not sure why Gaby tries to think about the life cycle of a frog so much to take her mind off things, but I enjoyed this fast paced read overall.

Ooh, just noticed that the guy who wrote The Martian has another book out - Artemis - don't suppose anyone's read it? It's down to £4.99 on kindle at the mo.

49. Room - Emma Donoghue. This was shortlisted for the Man Booker? This is a novel about a mother and son who're being held prisoner in one room and told entirely from the perspective of the son. The five year old's voice was annoying and totally unconvincing, and the hospital scenes dragged. I also didn't buy a certain scene that happens half way through the book and I was glad to dump this in a charity shop yesterday. The film was much, much better.

slightly - Thanks for the heads up. I had bought Artemis 2 days ago in a moment of madness for 7.99 so today I returned it. I'll buy it again soon at the reduced price

I am reading How to Stop Time by Matt Haig and it is making me Lose. The. Will. To. Live. I just can't stand it but I am now 136 pages in and it will be a waste if I stop now. It's an ebook from the library that will expire tomorrow. What to do??!! What to do??!!

whippet, skip ahead just to get it out of the way? It's all tied up ridiculously quickly in about three paragraphs at the end, although there's a short epilogue afterwards.

Or you could just stop reading. You won't be missing anything life-changing, I can promise you that.

Sprinted through:
122. Shakespeare's Landlord and 123. Shakespeare's Counsellor, both by Charlaine Harris. Crime capers featuring female central character who is a martial arts expert cleaning lady with a traumatic past. Quick reads - murder victims are briskly dispatched in a paragraph or two (at one point, the heroine evinces more horror at the prospect of eating fried food twice in one day than at the discovery of a corpse) A bit too much info about the heroine's workout routines. Her past as crime victim does add a layer of interest. The kind of book I'd pick up in the library if I happened upon it, but wouldn't go out of my way to look for.

Currently on 124. A Life Discarded by Alexander Master
This author writes biographies about the strangeness of ordinary human lives. A friend of his finds over a hundred volumes of a diary discarded in a skip. He makes comic capital out of his incorrect guesses about the writer and her life, so I'm annoyed that I read reviews at the time it came out that gave a lot of this information away. I'm liking it.

Whippet, just keep reading till you get to the bit where he tells you how to stop time - that should solve your library return issue

whippet I'd DNF How to Stop Time if were you. Was seriously underwhelmed by it which came as a bit of a surprise as I've enjoyed several of his other books. Found it cloyingly over-sentimentalised and dear god the ending was all manner of eye rolling ffs.

109: The Good People – Hannah Kent
By the writer of Burial Rites which I loved. This followed a very similar pattern – remote-ish rural community, religion, women, based on a true life crime, bloody depressing. It was good, but I didn’t like it as much as BR, and it did all get a bit depressingly and relentlessly miserable.

Moving on to a Georgette Heyer, because my life needs a little more sunshine in it right now, and Kent certainly didn't supply any!

Lots of useful herb lore though, plus top tips for pain relief methods in labour Remus.

Hmm. Now you mention it, I've always regretted not having somebody wave strong around me when I was in labour. Would have made all the difference.

Why do we keep reading Matt Haig on this thread? He's been reviewed four or five times, and none of us have had much good to say. And yet still we go on ...

Totally had the midwives tying and untying my fingers in North Yorkshire, didn't even need gas and air. Bloody post code lottery.

Sorry that was regarding The Good People and not Matt Haig who has never provided any advice re analgesia in labour from days of yore in any of his novels afaik.

I bought that Matt Haig book for a fiver on Amazon when it came out and even went to a talk about it that he did at a Waterstones but I ended up giving the book to a charity shop as it no longer appealed. I do love, however, his non-fiction book, Reasons to Stay Alive.

Ha! Thanks guys. Am going to speed read/skip and read the end. We do keep reading Matt Haig, fools that we are.
However, if I do get to the bit where he actually stops time I will let you know.
So SO pants.

The only Matt Haig I’ve read is The Humans. Rubbish. I agree with Cheerful - let’s just stop reading him.

97 The Magpie Lord by KJ Charles

Lucien Vaudrey returns from China after unexpectedly inheriting an earldom when his father and elder brother both die within months. He then discovers that he has inherited his families - magical - enemies, and needs help. Said help arrives in the form of magician Stephen Day.

Fabulously trashy m/m fantasy romance. Plenty of cliches, but it zipped along very pleasingly on a soggy winter evening. Definitely a well spent £1.51, and I might even splash out £3 or so on book 2 in the sequence.

Now moved on to the rather more classy Testosterone Rex by Cordelia Fine.