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?

4. Survivor Type - Stephen King

Well I blame the rest of you for this one. Sheer curiosity got the better of me. I don't generally read short stories though, and as a result I found this a little unsatisfying - I'm used to a bit more plot development. Definitely an, um, interesting idea though.

In the meantime, still ploughing on with The Goldfinch. About 2/3 of the way through and enjoying it so far so it will have to deteriorate quite badly for me to dislike it.

Matilda, I read that - I think as a Kindle pre-release deal. I seem to remember it being a bit irritating at times, but with a good twist. Worth it on a deal.

Happy birthday Just- I love my Fitbit too.

14. Death in a White Tie by Ngaio Marsh. Another good one, but she is driving me mad with her timings- people leave home at 9, go to work, write and article, and get to Scotland Yard by 11. Or in this one, enter a cafe for tea, and announce they have to be at the Yard in 20 min- and somehow have tea and cake and still get there on time! But otherwise most agreeable.

Scribbly, have you read Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year? I was utterly gripped.

Scribblygum I loved Robinson Crusoe when I read it years ago. I was expecting an Enid Blyton style adventure and that is not what I got! Brilliant book.

likeazebra I really didn't like that Marian Keyes, would love to know what you think when you finish. Mind you, I did read it in hospital so maybe that didn't help... I didn't particularly like her last one either.

1. Ghosts of Everest by Jochen Hemmleb and others.

For those who have enjoyed Into Thin Air and want to learn more about mountaineering's greatest mystery (i.e. did Mallory and Irvine summit Everest?), then this is your book. An American team of climbers, historians and cameramen climb Everest following the same route as Mallory and Irvine from the Tibetan side. You will be left in awe of Mallory, Irvine and other climbers from the 1924 British Expedition Team. Cracking stuff!

18. Confusion by Elizabeth Jane Howard

Third in The Cazalet Chronicles, all about a large extended family from the late 1930s to the 1950s. This one covers 1940-1945. I love these books but I know there are some here who don’t get on with them. It can take a while to get your head round who’s who when you first start reading them but worth persevering. I’ve been listening to this on Audible (have read in physical format before) and really enjoyed the narration.

13 Just What Kind of Mother Are You? by Paula Daly

This was really disappointing. The premise is a good one. Lisa is busy and overstretched and as a result, fails to let anyone know that her teenage daughter’s friend didn’t show up for a sleepover. The friend is the second girl to go missing in the area, which prompts a massive hunt for her. The writing was much better than I’d have expected, which kept me reading, but there were too many narrative threads to keep it all together, too many random characters with nothing really to add, and the twist didn’t seem very surprising or very twist-y. I live in hope of finding a really good, not particularly gory thriller but haven’t read one in ages. This wasn’t it.

12. Survivor Type, Stephen King.

I don't know if this counts as a book on its own - happy to demote it if so! Is it in any of his collections? I didn't think I had read it before until the last line and then suddenly I thought perhaps I had. Um. Ewwwwwww!

I mean, happy to demote it if not. Bloody brain.

I have been picking up and starting books and then losing them in the chaos that is my house. Grr. Also totally unable to concentrate on Kindle/phone Kindle app because I just mindlessly MN instead.

I'm counting Survivor Type, Tooextra. But then I am in 'The Slow Readers Group' What is the trick to forgetting it if this was a reread? I think I'm stuck with certain images in my head for ever now, and if they ever make it into a film I'll be giving it a VERY wide berth!

I've finished book 14 thelife she was given. It's about a girl with albinoism who is locked in the attic until she os about 10, then when her dad is away her mother sells her to the circus. This book caught my eye on my goodreads as trending thos week, so.I knew very.little about it before I started.I enjoyed it. I don't know how historically acurate the circus scenes were, but apparently some of the things that happened were based on real events.

I will be starting book 15 the diary of Adrian Mole. This is a re-read but it has been a long time so I don't know how much I remember.

bibliomania no I haven’t. Is A Journal of a Plague Year written in a similar style to Crusoe? I did find the non-Island bits rather a slog (and seriously wtf was with the chapter at the end with Man Friday up a tree taunting a bear in France??).

EllisIsland no, really not like Enid Blyton at all . Love the thought of Julian, George et al dealing with cannibals and getting the vapours at solitary footprints in the sand.

1. Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier. Good but not amazing, and not as good as Girl with a Pearl Earring.

(I am trying to work through my charity shop purchases and saving the Kindle for holidays).

9. The Dry

Really enjoyed this, although it's a little formulaic. Best bits: brilliantly gruesome opening chapter, evocative depiction of life in an isolated Australian town, slow ratcheting-up of the tension. Agree that the ending was rather naff though.

EmGee, have you read The Plot Against America? It's an imagined alternative history of the US in which Lindberg becomes president and starts to pass anti-Semitic laws. I would imagine it is well worth a read, especially in the current political climate.

I really enjoyed The Blackwater Lightship - I think someone sent it to me in a MN book swap. If so, and if that was you - thank you :) Lovely read. Persuaded me to give him a second chance (as I found Brooklyn entirely meh).

I assume I must have read Defoe at university but he hasn't stuck with me. Think I am going to have to give him another go after reading the comments above.

I'd have thought you'd need to read the collection, rather than counting Survivor Type alone. iirc it's in Skeleton Crew. Can anybody confirm/deny? I can check the contents of my bookshelf, if anybody wants to know for sure.

Book 9
The Nix – Oh dear. This went from something interesting to something deeply, deeply dull and I wish I hadn’t bothered with it. Up to about 30% it was an interesting depiction of childhood trials and tribulations, with some fun stuff on friendship and mostly amusing stuff on one of the children as an adult. A bit overwritten at times (far too much description of people playing video games) but generally quite entertaining. Then it fell to pieces. Cba to review more than that, other than to say I ended up hating it. I really don’t know what it was wanting to be, but what it was (imvho) was a failure of epic proportions. By the end I couldn't have given a toss what happened to any of them.

Wikipedia says it’s in Skeleton Crew - so the trick to forgetting it is to leave it for approximately 19 years, Desdemona! Might have to download that - borrowed a friend’s copy in about 1997 when I was just beginning my Stephen King odessey.

25. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo- Stieg Larsson This was compelling reading in the main. Kept the pages turning and wanted to know who done it. Lost interest in the final 25% with all the financial crime and double dealings. Will probably read the other two at some point.

1. Grief in the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter. This is the story of a man widowed and his two boys left motherless. In the midst of their grief is Crow (based on the poetry by Ted Hughes) who helps patch the family back together. Original and touching.

1. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. This was the first book Banks wrote, published in 1984, and also the first of his that I've read. Frank is a young man living on a tiny remote Scottish island with his Dad. He hears that his half-brother Eric has escaped from a psychiatric institution and is making his way home. Dark, disturbing, clever and compelling, I thought this was a good read.

Tarahumara try The Crow Road next if you fancy another Iain Banks book. It's less weird than The Wasp Factory - which I very much enjoyed - but recognisably written in Iain Banks' distinctive voice.

Iain Banks said that The Crow Road was about " death, sex, fate, cars, Scotland and drink". It's part mystery, part coming-of-age tale; on the surface a fairly conventional family saga, with a dry humour in the dialogue. Has one of the best first sentences in fiction too.

1. Eight Cousins L M Alcott

Sickly orphaned Rose goes to live with her uncle, six aunts and seven boy cousins on Aunt Hill. He cures her with fresh air, sensible underwear and housework. I liked this a lot more than Rose in Bloom, perhaps because Rose is less of a prig and the tribe of cousins are a lot more fun. Still dreadfully preachy though. Can't say I blame Charlie for turning to drink.

Wow, this thread has moved on quickly and I’ve got rather left behind - I was into a nice reading rhythm but it’s slipped a bit! However, I have now finished 11. A Very English Scandal - John Preston

This is a completely jaw-dropping book which I read with gasps of audible disbelief and yelps of laughter. It seems scarcely credible now that the leader of a British political party arranged for his male ex-lover to be killed, stood trial for conspiracy to murder, and was found not guilty, but this is precisely what happened in 1979 to the Liberal Party's Jeremy Thorpe. John Preston (who I knew before only as a novelist - he wrote 'The Dig') tells this incredible story with huge relish and makes it a cracking read.

It’s simultaneously riveting modern history and a totally entertaining page-turner with real details you just couldn’t make up.....for example, one of the cast of shady characters enlisted to kill Thorpe's hapless victim, Norman Scott, is called John Le Mesurier; initially the would-be killer heads to Dunstable in Bedfordshire to find Scott, mistaking the address for Barnstaple in Devon, and when the intended crime takes place, he messes the whole thing up, shoots Scott's dog (Rinka), jams the gun and flees, leaving Scott unharmed. Thorpe emerges as a deeply unpleasant, chillingly narcissistic character - there's no question that he was guilty of ordering Scott's murder - and the closing of ranks at the highest levels against the emotionally-fragile Scott makes for a very sobering read. I guess none of it should be surprising but it’s still quite a shock to realise just how this kind of cover-up operates (and yes, both Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith make appearances). I’d recommend the book, though.

A Very English Scandal is a very absorbing read. I can't wait for the BBC TV series later this year - I love Hugh Grant and he's a dead ringer for Thorpe - www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-10-02/first-look-at-hugh-grant-in-russell-t-davies-a-very-english-scandal/

Ah I’ve seen Hugh Grant talking about that, Ben Wishaw is in it too isn’t he (he’s wonderful) and they are also in Paddington 2 together. HG made a joke about spending most of the year trying to either kill or have sex with BW. That book does sound crazy. The things that just “disappear” from public consciousness when they want them to. And the poor dog.

Yes, southeast and satsuki, I discovered as I read that it's about to be dramatised. It’s such an unbelievable story (although, looking at the current political scene, maybe unbelievable isn’t quite the word). I vaguely remember Thorpe seeming to me, as a child, to be a rather frightening and forbidding character. Norman Scott is about the only participant in the whole gruesome drama who's still alive, ironically enough.

Great review, Cheerful!