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?

1. Diary of a killer cat by Anne Fine

1. Hidden Depths - Ann Cleaves
2. Rather be the Devil - Ian Rankin

I started this book with great excitement back in maybe August. I abandoned it weeks and weeks later having made only 50% progress and just being utterly stuck.

To give some explanation maybe I attended a book reading by Rankin about 6 years ago at the Bloody Scotland book festival. He was very likeable and interesting but it would be fair to say his audience were not necessarily all deep thinkers. One question/statement which sticks in my mind was a lady who said simply “please don’t bother with Malcolm Fox anymore. We all love Rebus, keep writing about him”. It would appear that Rankin took this comment to heart and Rather be the Devil is the result.

Within the first few pages roughly 15 characters are introduced. It is dizzying and dull at the same time. We have the usual standoffs and power games between rebus and Cafferty and the introduction a few books back of Daryl Christie has done little to freshen than relationship really. I can’t even give a summary of the plot as I am not sure. There were some rich, horrible people, a nasty Ukrainian gangster and a murdered woman as a cold case.

Unbelievably the action built up in the last 15 pages. Genuinely, the last 15. And despite all this I read the last few paragraphs and genuinely thought I would look forward to the next one.

I need something a bit different but easy now. I will have to examine my kindle for ideas.

I'd like to belatedly join in if I may. I'll pop back to post what I've read, I usually have several on the go at once, so it's all a bit haphazard. I've finished at least one book in full.

1. The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck

Just got The Gallows Pole, thanks MegBussett. I'm embarrassed to admit I'd been put off by the cover when I'd seen it previously , but your mentioning it made me actually read it's blurb and it sounds really interesting!

Finished 2) cartes postales from Greece by Victoria Hislop.

A young woman in London reads postcards sent to her address, but for someone else and decides she wants to go to Greece so off she goes. The day she leaves, a notebook arrives in post detailing the travels of a heartbroken guy who then narrates a load of random stories from Greek people.

Probably the worst book I've read in ages. The writing was stilted and characters 1-dimensional at best and plot was non-existent.

I've liked Hislop's previous novels- easy reading with a good story and I can see what she was trying to do with this one, it just felt like she wasn't a good enough writer to do it! Most definitely not recommended.

I saw her at a book festival when this book Cartes Postal came out. Half the stories are tales that she heard from towns and villages that she visited on her trip round Greece, Victoria Hislops trio when researching, and half are stories she made up, but she wouldn't tell which were which. The photographs are all of places that she visited on her travels.

I had to refresh my memory as the first book I finished this year was while I was staying somewhere else....a bit disconcerting that I couldn’t immediately remember what it was, because I really enjoyed it

1. Van Gogh's Ear - Bernadette Murphy

This was on my Amazon wish list for ages and never budged much in price (I'm a cheapskate and generally wait until Kindle bargains are 99p). Luckily I saw this in a charity shop and pounced. Very interesting, often moving account of Van Gogh's life during his final months in Arles and the notorious incident when he cut off his ear and presented it to a girl at a local brothel. The author - not an art expert or a historian - doggedly traced primary sources and uncovered material everyone else had overlooked, discovering the identity of the girl and establishing that she wasn’t a prostitute, as had generally been thought. She even traced the girl's living descendants. Along the way she also found conclusive evidence of what exactly it was that Van Gogh had done to his ear (different accounts had always been confusing and contradictory). Really recommended if you're a non-fiction reader interested in art or 19th c history.

Remus have my fingers in my ears and not listening re: Wuthering Heights!

9. The book of Eleanor - Pamela Kaufman Bought this last year when we visited Fontevrault in France which is where Eleanor of Aquitaine is buried. She was a strong and feisty woman, Queen of both France and England by virtue of her two marriages, as well as ruling Aquitaine in her own right. This book however is not the one to read. One dimension characters and a complete fabrication of a love story running throughout which undermines Eleanor's story. Elizabeth Chadwick's Trilogy of Books is far better.

Another vote for Wuthering Heights here. I read it about 20 years ago in what could only be described as a garret in Northern France on my uni year abroad.

It was a great year - pre-Kindles and smartphones, and I had no TV so every time I came back to the UK I used to stock up on classics for longevity vs weight reasons. I think I read one of each of the Brontes, Les Mis, a few Dickens, and various 17th C French authors for my dissertation...

And then I realised I could come home for the weekend to see future DH and reading went out the window! Would be nice to replicate some of that time though - amazing to think how many technological distractions have been added over the last 20 years.

Almost finished book 2, so off to bed for the last few chapters. Will report back in the morning!

Struggled with Wuthering Heights because I disliked Heathcliff too much. This is despite growing up in "Bronte country" as the coach parties call it. The thing I did like about this book was the description of the moors. Makes me all nostalgic for home.

I have to say I'm not a fan of Wuthering heights. Such unlikeable characters and too sad, all these people ruining each others lives. When I first read it as a teenager I thought it was terribly romantic but having reread as an adult I can only think of it as grim.

1. just one damned thing after another by Jodi Taylor had seen various recommendations for this as enjoyable silliness. I can't say I was a fan at all and won't be reading anymore.

4. The Wall Jumper by Peter Schneider This was a bit of an odd one. It doesn't really have the 'shape' of a novel - no plot/narrative drive to speak of, the main character or narrator is a bit sketchy, it is really just a vehicle for a collection of anecdotes and a meditation on how people lived with and adapted to being on either side of the Berlin Wall.

It was written in 1982, so the wall had been there for ages and looked like it would be there for ever - I remember those days, and it is interesting how it captures the East/West division, and how people internalised the ideology of the times.

I'm glad I read it, but I can see it would not be a mainstream 'good read'.

Also, fellow bookshop addicts please congratulate me on my restraint: yesterday I was in Bath, and passed within a hundred metres of three really good bookshops (Mr B's, Toppings and Waterstones) and did not go in. Mainly because I know my self-control would not survive going in to browse...

My to-read piles add up to dozens of books and I am trying to clear the backlog a bit before buying any more; I have already slipped up twice this month.

When I read Wuthering Heights as a teenager I thought it was romantic. I reread it a couple of years ago it seemed more like an account of disfunctional parenting!

1. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood.

Devoured this last night. I had a really confused memory of reading it at uni, but after the first few pages nothing seemed familiar so I must not have - but I was convinced I had! It’s been reviewed to death so I won’t add much - it’s horrifyingly plausible, isn’t it? Terrified that Trump is going to take us in that direction, probably by nuking half the planet in a fit of pique.

exexpat, that was truly heroic restraint!

6. The Broken Souls 7) Blood Brother 8) Little Girls Lost all by J.A.Kerley and all part of his Carson Ryder detective series. I was on a reading binge yesterday as I was too ill to do anything else! As you can tell, I'm enjoying the books

I've fallen off here a bit as have had the dreaded almost-flu lurgy & have been re-reading Donna Leon crime novels. Easy to read, well written & nice to have a detective who is neither a drunk nor a mysogynist! I

I can't count them towards my 50 as it's not the first re-read!

Next week I am off to DC's as grandchild No2 is imminent & my help is required. Can I count The Highway Rat as a book?!

Will be back when I get back to 'proper' reading.

Wuthering Heights - not quite what I expected when I finally read it. I was surprised by the way Nelly Dean's narration slyly undercut the drama and made it all seem a bit silly. I prefer Anne Bronte to her sisters - she's the one who gets that bad boys may be exciting, but they make terrible husbands. Love will not conquer all.

1. Evil Intent, by Kate Charles

Undistinguished crime fiction. The next two book in the series are going back to the library unread.

I first read Wuthering Heights as a teenager and remember being quite impressed by all the drama and romance.
I reread it a few years ago, and was surprised at how horribly dysfunctional I found it all now. The Mumsnet relationships board would have a field day with all that

2. Sleeping in the Ground - Peter Robinson

Undistinguished crime novel, the umpteenth in the 'DCI Banks' series, which has been going forever. I'm guilty of picking these up when I see them in charity shops because I’ve read most of them and can’t quite shake the habit, even though there are so many better crime writers out there (and I read a fair few of them). The lead character is aiming for Rebus (can be moody, listens to music) but falls far short. He’s also rather tiresome with his endless agonising over his love-life - at one point in the series he was shacked up with a beautiful, much younger woman which strained credulity beyond breaking-point for this particular reader. It’s all a bit too cosy, I’m afraid.

(Btw, the DCI Banks series is set in Yorkshire, which prompts me to confess that I’ve never read Wuthering Heights either, and don’t plan to any time soon )

well done *exexpat - I've got a pile to work my way through, more than enough until February so I can't buy any more until then. There's nothing grabbing me today to start, I've got a few big books that I want to read, but I'm not sure I'm ready to commit myself to a 700 pager this week...

Mind you, the library have just pinged me a message to say a book my DS has ordered has arrived, so I'm unlikely to leave with just his book. I'll go look for something light and fluffy.

Phew! Have finally made it to the end of the thread. Hauls self past the reading running-machines full of people already on book 27, squeezes past the weight-lifters balancing Middlemarch on one hand and JS&MN on the other and collapses in the coffee-shop with the Slow Readers and my two-year-old.

I have finished my first book!

1. Make More Noise! Various

Collection of short stories for children commissioned to celebrate the centenary of votes for women. There were a couple about Suffragettes and a couple of others about various historical women/movements (Annie Londonderry, who sounds amazing, the 43 Group, etc), and a lot just about modern girls being awesome. I really liked this, though there were a few duds. Not out til next month - I got an early copy through work.

Mostly been reading How To Be A Victorian, which I'm enjoying but may not finish.

Goodness, this thread is moving fast!

I've never reading Wuthering Heights and wonder whether I should try to get round to it this year. It's never appealed to me even though I loved Jane Eyre and read a good deal of romantic fiction as a teenager. So it's the sort of book I should have had a go at.

It's a long time since I've read any Evelyn Waugh. The Sword of Honour trilogy is very good - full of black humour about the war with the usual Catholic guilt themes also playing a part.

I have about 15 books by my bed to read - although I got at least half of those for Christmas. I am trying not to buy any new books and also not to borrow from the library until I've some of the books hanging around the house waiting to be read.

Whoever talked about not being certain whether they had read Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Attwood before, I had a similar experience with Beloved by Toni Morrison which I know I read at university. But couldn't really remember much of the plot at all. Yet it was such a powerful book that I'm amazed I couldn't remember more of it.