50 Book Challenge 2018 Part One

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the first thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2018, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

Who's in for this year?

fortunamajor. I’ve packed the book this morning to take up to DD. With luck she’ll read it soon so I can borrow it.

@Fortunamajor

1. Lincoln in the Bardo George Saunders - much reviewed and recommended on last year’s challenge thread. I really enjoyed reading something different and unlike anything else I’ve read differently. Lots of clever touches and I enjoyed the sort of mix between play/film script and scrapbook style. For a book about death and grief it never felt particularly emotionally engaging, more of a detached and amused tone I felt.

*unlike anything I’ve read recently, not differently! I tend to read in much the same manner each time

I've finished book no. 1 Winter Solstice. It was a re-read. I have a relationship with it, because it's the novel that got me through the first couple of months after my husband's death three years ago. I read it back to back three or four times.

So I'm prepared to cut it a lot of slack in spite of it's preposterous coincidences, contrivances, repetitiveness and the completely avoidable and glaring timing mistakes which mean that things that were supposed to have happened at certain times in the past couldn't have happened.

I really want to live in Rosamunde Pilcher Land. Homeless? It's fine - a bloke you met a month ago will die and leave you his house because you drove him to hospital.

Your married lover has gone back to his wife? Don't worry - a rich handsome stranger will knock on your door in a snowstorm, get stranded and be forced to stay in your house and will instantly fall in love with you, etc., etc.

It's a silly book really but I am quite fond of it and will, no doubt, re-read it in the future.

Next up are The Ambassadors and a book for intermediate German students: Learning German through Storytelling: Mord am Morgen by André Klein.

I've been attempting to read The Ambassadors for years now but I find Henry James hard work and have given up at the same point two or three times. I am determined to finish it this time. James himself advised someone to read five pages a day - so that's what I'm going to do. At that rate it will take me roughly two and a half months to complete.

Hence starting another book at the same time. I'm going to stick to my 'read a third of my total number of books in German' resolution. My German is pretty basic but last year I read Klein's Dino lernt Deutsch series and got on with them quite well. I'm hoping that after finishing this series I will be ready to attempt some of the simpler 'proper' German books.

I've ginished book number 6 Tressa the 12 year old mum. I'm glad it was free with my free trial of kindle unlimited. A lot of it didn't ring true, and I'm not sure it happened quiet as she said it did with ss after her daughter was born. It was also lazily edited. At one point she was with her younger brother and it went something like "it hurt me to think that he was going to be this baby's brother and uncle". But he wasn't, it was as if the editor wasn't even paying attention.

But it was still an awful thing that happened to her, there was already ss involvment in her life, it should never have been able to happen.

I'm now starting home by Harlan Coben. I'm in a strange place at the moment with reading, where I have loads on my kindle so I'm not really wanting to buy anything, but I don't know what most of it is or how I ended up with it. I'm sure I'll find a hidden gem on there eventually.

Thank you, Satsuki. I've found it and it's now ready on the kindle. I think these are the same translators who did the War and Peace I enjoyed.

I've also got the Mary Beard sitting next to me waiting to be read. Think I'll do that next as I can't see it taking too long.

ChessieFL

I read The Dry last year - really enjoyed it!

I'm starting 2/50 - The Baltimore Boys by Joel Dicker. Really enjoyed his bestseller - The Harry Quebert Affair - last year so hoping for good things from this one!

My pledge this year is 50 books and to try my hardest not to buy anything new - there's 35 books already queued up on my to read bookshelf by the bed!

Kimlo - book no 6??? It's only 7th. Where do you find the time? I know it's not a race but I feel such a snail only just starting on Bk 2 and feeling really proud of myself for having read a whole one in a single week.

Is it like C25K? Does reading speed get faster as you read more?

I'm not back at work until next week, after that it will slow back down to normal due to lack of time.

I also have an empty washing and ironing basket. It will be the only time this year

2. The Sixth Extinction by James Rollins

Thriller. An act of sabotage at a remote US military research station unleashes a deadly pathogen that’s lethal to every living organism in its path. Sigma Force are in a race against time to track down the saboteurs and find a solution for the deadly blight.

Fast paced action and an entertaining read.

5. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane – Henry Farrell I really enjoyed this. Haven’t seen the film but had always assumed it was a comedy. How wrong I was! This is actually very dark and quite unsettling. Really glad I read it, so many thanks to Teufel for the rec. I want to see the film now too.

Ham
My feeling with Cuckoo is that it must have been edited fairly ruthlessly but that the next two, where everyone knew who the writer is, were not edited at all. If you were irritated by bloat on Cuckoo, stay well away from the next two!

Cheminotte I am also listening to the audiobook of Hillary Clinton's What Happened which I'm enjoying. It is read by her, she comes across as a genuine & warm person, it's such a shame she's been perceived so differently by so many.

Anotherwastedsecond A little life is one of the books that has stayed with me too, since I read it; I still remember the characters quite vividly. However (as discussed a lot in this thread last year) I also think the book has a lot of weaknesses, particularly in pushing the abuse & suffering to the most extreme degree possible, making the events in the book seem more & more unbelievable

Definitely joining this year. Got loads of waterstones vouchers this year, so have set myself a list of challenges like, read a new author, different genre, etc. Good luck, all!

boldly I read Karenina first and then sought out the same translators when I read War and Peace. I tried another but it felt all wrong!

I downloaded Baby Jane too, on teufel’s rec, looking forward to it. Saw the film a long time ago.

I also have an empty washing and ironing basket. It will be the only time this year

Oh, that has been one of my ambitions for twenty years and more. I have never managed it yet . If only my boys would stop wearing stuff.

Remus thanks for the warning on the next two Cormoran Strike books (which I would not be touching with a bargepole anyway). And at the first one having been 'ruthlessly' edited.

Tempted to jump on the Baby Jane bandwagon with you all. Probably about this time next year judging by my TBR list. And Pillars of the Earth maybe the year after that.

Just finished no.1 "To The Wedding" by John Berger. I'd been looking forward to reading it for ages and it didn't disappoint. A story of the essence of love, sparsely told.

1. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

This is a charming book. Sophia and her grandmother pass summers together on an island in the Gulf of Finland. Each chapter is a small adventure. Beautifully written.

I am now ploughing my way through Antonia Fraser's Mary, Queen of Scots. It's long so I may be some time

Finished ‘When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit’ I really liked it and will look out for the second one.

Think I will read ‘The Secret Garden’ next ( before passing it to my dd.

I quite like re reading books from my childhood. Oh and I read a free ebook as well which o really enjoyed so will find more of Debbie Johnson’s books

@brizzledrizzle thank you for the suggestion, I have just finished my second book Just what kind of mother do you think you are? by Paula Daly

I really enjoyed this book, it's the first one in a while that I haven't been able to put down!

It's about a missing girl in a village where other girls have gone missing but who is responsible? I changed my mind several times while reading the book.

Oh dear. Went a little mad in BHF. Managed to pick up a couple of John Le Carre's, Smiley's People, The Honourable Schoolboy and Tinker, Tailor Soldier Spy, Baudalino by Umberto Eco, Half a King by Joe Abercrombie, Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, and a non-fiction book of essays about reading horror fiction. All for £16. DH is now talking about buying another set of bookshelves.

Out of interest, how many books does everyone have on their TBR list, because I really think mine is 100+, including library books and books on the kindle (the ones I actually want to read, rather than just the dross).

Anyway, book 2 of 2018:

2.) Ritual, by Adam Nevill -- Four British men get lost while hiking in Sweden. It goes very badly wrong, very quickly. This was a reread, after previously listening to it as an audiobook. I've read quite a few of his novels now, and I think this one, along with the superb Last Days, probably ranks among his best. So chilling and creepy. He's probably one of the best horror writers I've ever read. Loved it, and it was just what I needed after feeling slightly let down by one of his more recent novels.

This was made into a film recently (with Rafe Spall). I'm keeping an eye out for it, while simultaneously hoping it's not fucking dreadful. TBH I suspect this is a story that won't work quite as well on film as it does in print.

1. The Secret Life of Cows by Rosamund Young. Short and sweet - read over the weekend. This little book does what it says - it reveals the hidden stories of cows lives. The author and her partner and brother run a successful organic farm. The family has been breeding cows and farming organically since the 1950s, so way before it became fashionable to do so.

The author has observed their growing herds through many generations and writes with great in depth knowledge.

It won't be to everyone's taste, but I really enjoyed it.