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?

8. Wuthering Heights- Emily Brontë. An audible listen while doing housework . I first read this when I was 14 and have tried to read or listen to it every year since. My list from 2017 shows I didn't manage it so today I put that right. I love this book. It staggers me every time I revisit it. Probably one of the few books I can't bear anyone to criticise. It's beauty and its power still amaze me. T

Keith, I haven't read Hillbilly Elegy. Just from reviews, there may be a certain amount of commonality with Poverty Safari.

Because I like Barbara Pym and Catherine Fox, Amazon assured me I would like Kate Charles. Stupid algorithms. I like them because of their wit and warmth, not because I'm obsessed with the romantic life of curates, and though her settings are vaguely similar, she doesn't reach their heights at all, simply throws in a murder and unrolls the plot in a bog-standard way. Unusually for me, I downloaded several of her books onto my Kindle on spec, plus got another two from the library, so I vaguely think I should persevere for a bit, even though I could be using the time to read something more compelling. Having read 1000 in the last decade (yes, I've counted), I might only be able to read another 4000 in my lifetime....

Teufel, I think The Wind in the Willows works even better read as an adult than as a child. It's lovely.

That's reassuring, Bibliomania. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Teufel don't feel guilty! Bargains all at a quid each, and the money's going to a good cause. Then you can recycle them back to a charity shop afterwards! Charity shops are one of the main things I miss about Britain. When I go back, it's always a priority to go for a rummage. Drives DH mad. I also bring back bag loads of things (but especially books) to donate to charity shops when we visit. Drives him mad too

Toomuchsplother I completely agree about Wuthering Heights. I love it so much that when I studied at Uni I really struggled as I couldn't bear anyone to find fault with it! I read it every year as well.

That's true, Emgee. They were a bargain and it was going to a good cause. I do love charity shops. I can barely walk past one for fear that a book that I've wanted for years might be in there. Plus I donated a bag of 18 books today, so at least I got rid of some too.

I'm a big fan of Wuthering Heights too. I'll have to reread it soon. It's about time.

I have left my reading glasses at work! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Another big Wuthering Heights fan here, maybe I should splurge on the audible version, particularly as I'm struggling to get into a book at the moment!

Toomuchsplother, that's a lot of housework (I mean listening to the whole of Wuthering Heights in one day, though I guess you just finished today...).

My first few forays for this year:

1. Without a Doubt: Marcia Clark. Well, if anyone else is fascinated by the OJ Simpson case and has watched all the documentaries and has been given this book for Christmas, I can heartily recommend it. Didn't add much to what I knew but is quite well ghostwritten.
2. A Horse Walks into A Bar: David Grossman. Winner of the Man Booker International Prize (given to my husband at Christmas). Reviews suggest this is brilliant. I think maybe I read it too quickly. It is certainly clever and very dark and disturbing. I wonder if I might need to know more about Israeli society to really get some of it. It takes place in a basement in a club in Netanya where an ageing stand-up turns his set into a self-flagellating life story.
3. Can't and Won't: Lydia Davis. Mixture of 'flash fiction', dream notes, observations. Very much enjoyed this quirky humour.
4. JR: William Gaddis (audiobook). I think I did myself a favour listening to this rather than reading it as it is 700-odd pages mostly of unattributed dialogue (36 hours of listening - and I did start in December) with odd punctuation. This means a good narrator makes sense of it for you. I thought this was brilliant. Bitterly satirical massively knowledgeable novel covering art, business, education, TV, the state of the nation in early 1970s America. It made me laugh out loud but it is also deeply saddening. Not sure what to read next but have committed to reading things I already have!

Ontopofthesunset It is actually only 2 and 1/2 hours long so I had a hours drive to and from local town to shop, hour and half sorting washing, bills and preparing tea and I am done. It's not really that long. A beautifully crafted story of perfect length!

Oh, was it an abridged version? The unabridged ones seem to be mainly between 12 and 14 hours long - I have been checking out lots of audiobooks on Audible in the last couple of days as I have some credits and it keeps recommending classics to me based on my recent Trollope binge.

I was just impressed at the idea of you frantically hoovering and dusting for 12 hours straight!

Sorry no 2 and 1/2 hours was what I had left !! Not sure how I misunderstood that!!! Apologies !

Never read wuthering heights another for the list!!

I'm still in awe of 2.5 hours of cleaning frankly! I've just downloaded Atlas Shrugged on Audible which is apparently 65 hours, so that will give me lots of ironing time - spread over several months....

Ontop me too! I hate it and do the least possible but with 4 Dc and two dogs (not to mention 2 cats!) life sometimes rudely interrupts!

Joining... a bit late to the party, but better late than never! Aiming for 50. Didn't count at all last year.

1/50 - King and Maxwell by David Baldacci

Pulp thriller. I've read loads of his books. They're nice and easy, occasionally a little formulaic but the characters are well-formed and the heroes are really likeable.

I’m joining too. Just as the first thread heads for the closing line....! But I need something to kick me up the backside and get me back to reading properly instead of footling about on the iPad wasting time. I've always read a lot and bought books like a mad thing, but the past year's been tough and my concentration's shot.

Hoping to do better in 2018. Back shortly with actual evidence of a finished book.

Benjamin Myers' The Gallows Pole is 99p on Kindle atm. I've enjoyed the other novels of his that I've read, and this cropped up on lots of end-of-year lists last year.

Another one who hasn't read Wuthering Heights - yet . It's been on my tbr list for years.

4.) Norse Mythology, by Neil Gaiman Retold tales from Norse mythology. I found this utterly delightful, and a quick and easy read. I have the Snorri Prose Edda mostly unread on my shelves, which I started but never got that far into, but I feel better placed to tackle it now. Having said that, it's retold in a very simple style that's very much Gaiman's, and while it's immensely readable, it does lose something in the retelling. I recognised one of the stories from the Prose Edda Thor and Loki stumble across a sleeping giant, who is, in short, fucking massive (they mistake one of his gloves for a cave and camp in it). Gaiman states that outright, although not quite so swearily. In my copy of the Edda it just says, 'He was no midget'. I love how understated that is, and how it reflects that same tendency in English to understate things and play them down. It's something that's missing in the Gaiman version, as charmingly told as they are.

Anyway, enough waffling.

Next up, and I wasn't sure if I would count this or not, but I've decided, sod it, I will, Volume 1 of the Skyrim library, a bound copy of all the in-game books in the fifth Elder Scrolls game (am a big Elder Scrolls fan). I feel no shame. I haven't decided yet if I'll count each volume (there are 3) as an individual book or all three as a single book. So far enjoying it, and while they're not always brilliantly written, it's astonishing the sheer amount of work that went into them.

Teufel - The film of Warm Bodies is great fun. The book has good and bad elements, I'd say.

I have no patience for Wuthering Heights. Have read it several times, but it doesn't do much for me.

3. A Matter of Loyalty - Anselm Audley & Elizabeth Edmondson - 4th book in the series set in the post war years with a small town and castle inhabitants with a Secret Service records department near by. In this one, the Secret Service has discovered someone is passing secrets to the Russians, plus a scientist has disappeared, believed to have defected to Russian, but when a body turns up, things get more complex.

I thought it felt different to the others, and not as good/bit more flat. I hadn't noticed 2 authors, Elizabeth Edmondson (who wrote the other books) sadly passed away suddenly shortly after starting this book, and her son completed it. I liked that he didn't give into the temptation to tidy up the on-going story lines of the characters' lives, even though he's said he's not going to write any more (his mother had written plot outlines for several more), felt truer to the book she planned to write, one in the middle of, not end of, the series.