50 Book Challenge 2018 Part Two

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the second 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, it’s not too late to join, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

The first thread of the year is here.

What are you reading?

I’ve just polished off 6. The Blackest Streets - Sarah Wise

A must–read for anyone interested in Victorian history and/or the history of London (both of which are very much my thing). A dense, fact-packed book but very well-written, telling the story of the Old Nichol, 15 acres of crumbling properties tucked behind the Bethnal Green Road, that made up the most notorious slum in East London in the 19thc (most of the landlords were wealthy landowners, including the Church of England, who didn't seem to see any problem with letting their desperately poor tenants exist in disgusting, vermin-ridden, insanitary conditions). There was much official hand-wringing over the criminality, unhealthiness and 'moral decay' prevalent in the area, but the authorities didn’t succeed in doing much to tackle it until the advent of the London County Council in 1889 finally led to the total bulldozing of the Old Nichol and its replacement with a new 'model' estate, the Boundary estate (which excluded most of the existing residents).

I had a quick look on Zoopla earlier and a two-bed flat in what's now one of the hippest parts of Shoreditch is for sale at £600k (if anyone remembers the TV series 'The Secret History of Our Streets' a few years ago, the episode Arnold Circus is about exactly this area).

I know it’s not everyone's cup of tea but history buffs, this is recommended!

Wow, this thread moves quickly!

I'm sniggering over various wanks, fumbles, rumbles, members, horns and whatnots. So much so, that I've already forgotten who said what, who recommended what, and what I have/haven't read already.

So now I need to read it all again slowly.

Hope you feel better soon, best. Feeling gluey is just horrible!

And oh how I loathed Howard's Bleeding End is on the Landing.

Hope you’re feeling better soon Best

Still thinking of Richard never rummaged. But I don't know who Richard Chamberlain is.

He was in every mini series going in the 80s. My mum adored him as Dr Kildare. He wasn’t my type.

Have bought The Thorn Birds and a load of samples. The Secret River and Beyond the Black Stump also firmly on the list.

Richard Chamberlain (playing Father Ralph De Bricassart).

Here he is looking contemplative, or maybe concerned, but certainly chaste.

Best

Satsuki I do take your point and I don't always dislike passive characters. If fact I didn't dislike Eilis. I just didn't feel the story line worked for me. Wasn't a terrible book though and Colm Tóibín can definitely write.

Terpsichore I like the sound of that book.

1. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susannah Clarke

Loved it and feel thoroughly miserable that it’s over. I had half an hour left to read this morning and wanted to eke out the wonderful immersive experience of this book for a bit longer so decided to go to the library before I finished it. Went into a gift shop next to the library and the first thing I saw was a picture of a raven.
So now I have a picture of a raven in my kitchen and every time I look at it will be reminded of Jonathan, Gilbert and John Uskglass.
Will be interested to see if anything I read this year gets anywhere close to how much I loved this one.

1. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan What I knew about this was that the main characters were in the music business, it used some innovative styles and always seems to be described as 'edgy', so I was prepared to find it superficial and try-hard. It wasn't. Spanning the 70s to the near future, the hidden lives of a huge cast of characters with overlapping lives is revealed. Each chapter is in a different style - one in PowerPoint - from a different character's point of view. Despite the choppy style, it had real emotional depth with a few truly moving moments. I liked this a whole lot more than I expected.

toomuchsplother yes I was just pondering it in more in general terms because it comes up a lot - people seem to often find passive characters frustrating I think. I suppose it’s down to whether you find the consequences of their inaction interesting or not really.

scribbly that made me laugh. Certainly chaste. My mum was in love with him too. I think he may have been on the cover of the book. I have to say, even if I squint I can’t really see it myself (his great attractiveness I mean, er...)

Hope you feel better soon best and hope the sickness is over soon biblio

toomuch it was really good. A read that requires attention, though. Sarah Wise also wrote the excellent ‘The Italian Boy’, about an infamous case of murder (by unsavoury types who were supplying anatomists, but ran out of easily-obtainable corpses and decided to speed the process up).

1. Moonrise by Sarah Crossan. I had had this reserved at the library and it turned up this week, just when I had started reading something else. It's always the way :) It was longlisted for the Costa Book Awards 2017.

Anyway, it is a very quick read - a novel written in short bursts of intense prose. Aimed at the young adult reader, it deals with a very emotive subject - a prisoner on death row, awaiting execution.

Ed is the older brother of Joe, the narrator. He was arrested for the murder of a police officer when he was a teenager, but claims that he didn't do it. There were no witnesses, and he says he was bullied into a confession and denied legal advice. All his appeals have failed and he has now received a date for his execution.

I really enjoyed it, even more than her previous novel One, which was about conjoined twins.

Thanks for Richard. You're right - he doesn't look like a wanker.

I have just discovered an fantastic website called awesomebooks.com. It's a secondhand book settling site which lets you build your own bundles of books. 3 books are 6.99 and can add an extra book for 1.99. Delivery is free if you wait 5 days. I have just ordered this thing of darkness, All quiet on the western front and The night rainbow which have been on my list for a while.
I will report back when they arrive on condition etc.

Ooh that sounds great too much-I might get some of the shorter ones I want to read ordered tonight.

7 for me is a hit of a curve ball-'How not to hate your husband after kids'

I'm a third of the way through & enjoying it-author seems to have identical domestic problems to us so rather useful 😂

Scribbly, I felt that way after reading Jonathan Strange too. I really wanted to stay in that world.

Currently reading Anna Karenina- my goodness it's a joy to read. The characters are so well-drawn. It's going to take me a while to finish it though - probably still be reading it on the next thread.

That sounds great toomuchsplother....

I need some new paperbacks and as they will be read in the bath I'm not too fussed about them being in particularly great condition.

The charity shops have been hit and miss lately, all seems to be fifty shades of grey and Stephen Kings that I already have.... Mind you, currently rereading night shift by Stephen King.

Enjoying American Gods much more this time round. Think a lot of it went over my head on the first read.

1. The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe - Douglas Adams

I struggled with this. I can see why it's meant to be funny, but it's just not my sense of humour. It's also quite full on, so while it's easy to read in that is short with relatively simple language, you do have to be concentrating, otherwise it's easy to miss something.

Read it as popsugar challenge number 3 - the next book in a series you've started. In hindsight, I should have re-read the first book first, as I couldn't remember what had happened!

Next up, The Goldfinch. I may be some time...

1. Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll

Was underwhelmed by this as a child, and am still underwhelmed as an adult. It's very clever and punny and so forth, but I like my books to have actual plot and less nonsense. Still, it's quite nice to spot all the quotes and characters from popular culture and see them in their rightful places.

Racing through Angela's Ashes, having to force myself to go to bed so I'm not shattered at work... again!

1. The War on Women by Sue Lloyd-Roberts

Well, this was certainly rage-inducing. Lloyd-Roberts was a journalist who died a couple of years ago, before finishing this book which was then completed by her daughter. In it she covers a lot of the ground that she focused on in her work, being one of the first (if not actually the first) to highlight the issue of FGM as abuse rather than talking about it as a cultural practice, as if it being cultural made it acceptable. FGM is examined in the first chapter, followed by the Disappeared in Argentina and the women still campaigning to find out what happened to their children and grandchildren, the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, the lives of women in Saudi Arabia, mass rapes during the protests in Egypt, sex trafficking and the way that UN so-called peacekeepers keep the trade going wherever they are by turning a blind eye to their forces' use of trafficked women, forced marriage, honour killings, India as the worst place on earth to be born a woman, rape as a weapon of war, and a final, incomplete chapter on gender inequality in the UK. Stories are told of amazingly brave women as well as heartbreaking accounts of what happens to women and girls across the world. It's a shocking and brilliant book.