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?

That books sounds good, Terpsichore. I'm also intrigued by the sound of The Dig - did you read it and is it good?

Scribbly, from yesterday, A Journal of a Plague Year reads like a journalistic account more than a novel. There's not really a plot as such - it's more like an eye-witness account of events as they unfold, day by day. Admittedly you need to be in the right frame of mind for it.

"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?"

It might be. I read Skeleton Key a long tine ago but wouldn't know where to find it now.

I agree, it's a bit cheeky to count a single short story as a book

Have been reading the thread with great enjoyment but not found time to update my own reading until now. Here goes ..

1. Sweet Little Lies.

A debut crime novel by Caz Frear. Interesting portrayal of the way in which the young woman detective, Cat Kinsella, is torn between her job and complicated loyalties to her father who doesn't always operate on the right side of the law. I would read another by this writer.

1. North Water by Ian McGuire.

A brilliant book, described by the reviewer in The Independent as "Subtle as a harpoon in the head, but totally gripping". I McG doesn't hold back in his stomach-churning descriptions of the horror of whaling and the brutality of some of the men who earn their living in this savage environment. Some great descriptive writing plus a gripping tussle between good and evil. A great read.

1. A Room With a View by EM Forster.

This was a total antidote to North Water, above. A lovely evocation of Florence and an interesting discussion of appropriate behaviour in Edwardian times, with some dry, witty observations of human nature. Really liked this and will now search out the Merchant Ivory film to rewatch.

1. A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny.

The latest in her Inspector Gamache series. Cosy crime set in French Canada in the fictional village of Three Pines. I think LP has found her form again with this book, as Gamache takes over as head of the training college for the Sûreté in order to root out corruption there. But murder follows ...

1. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.

Last read at university almost 40 years ago, when I remember focusing on the social/political aspects of the novel; however this time I was struck by the character of Margaret and how she changes throughout the book. A huge number of references to religion and how that would inform one's life .. very different from most literature now.

Next up is Eleanor Oliphant is Absolutely Fine. Have heard a few extracts being read on the radio so looking forward to it.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine .. sorry!

7. Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

Fantasy. Sequel to The Queen of the Tearling. Queen Kelsea crossed the Red Queen of the neighbouring kingdom of Mortmesne in the previous book, and now a mighty and unstoppable army is preparing to invade the Tearling. The story is split between the goings on in the Tearling, and the tale of a pre-crossing woman called Lily, living in a dystopian near future USA, who is somehow linked to Kelsea.

I would have liked a bit more Tearling and a bit less dystopian USA in this book, but it was still entertaining enough.
I did sort of wish I’d got the audiobook version though, because the question of how to pronounce “Tearling” was bothering me. Is it “tear” as in a teardrop, or “tear” as in to tear a piece of paper?

I think I have read Survivor Type, but if it is the story I remember I don’t want to read it again!

15. The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida. Translated by David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas) and KA Yoshida. This was written by a 13 year old Japanese boy with autism, and is an interesting insight into his view of autism and how his world works. He was only 13, so it is easy to forgive explanations that feel like over-generalisations to me, and I shall look at his blog to see if his thoughts have changed now he must be in his early 20s. It’s short, so definitely worth a read, unless perhaps you already know a lot about autism.

@ChessieFL The Trouble With Goats And Sheep by Joanna Cannon

Same! Wanted to love it, but the first part was really confusing until you realised the chapters moved between households, and I felt like lots of the characters were only surface deep, with parts of their pasts thrown in for good measure. Also got no idea why she left!

Currently reading Exit West by Mohsin Hamid which is fantastic! It's essentially an allegory for Western approaches to war produced immigration and is beautifully written.

I think it’s fine to talk about and review a short story if you’ve read a good one, as I enjoyed the discussion of Survivor Type, but agree only whole collections should count for book total, otherwise museumofham is up by about ten for Stories of Your Life - I downloaded that last year after watching Arrival, museum, haven’t yet got to it, but liked reading your review.

14. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. This is a bit of a strange one really. The story of five sisters and the boys who watch them. This is beautifully written and the voice of the boys is very authentic with a very real and vivid evocation of their childhood life, longing and obsession. I got a bit fed up in the middle as I felt the lack of an actual story however by the end I really had become immersed in the minutiae. I think you end up feeding into the boys obsession and it's a very strange feeling. Thinking of downloading the movie next, would be interested to see how it's transferred to the big screen.

mamapants I really liked the film adaptation. I think it captured the mood of the book really well.

It's ok - I have downloaded Skeleton Crew and will read it to ensure my book total is correct! As an aside I got it as Audible as well (my first try at an audio book!) because someday soon I intend to start running and I thought short stories might work well to take my mind off the actual running!

bibliomania I did read ‘The Dig’ but it was a good while ago - I remember enjoying it, though! It's about the archaeological dig at Sutton Hoo in the 30's (and put me in mind of Angus Wilson's 'Anglo-Saxon Attitudes').

I was bored rigid by The Virgin Suicides which is quite a feat for such an eventful book. Put me off trying Middlesex, which I had quite fancied up until that point.

Book 9 Seven Myths Of Education by Daisy Christoudoulu. Some of you might remember her a s a ferociously bright contestant a few years back on University Challenge.

This book is much lauded and some people say it is a fresh new way of looking at education. Like Lucy Crehan, she annoys me because she spent precisely three years teaching to desert the classroom to write books and pontificate. Maybe the teacher shortages are actually about all these Bright Young Things going off to 'Research Roles' and heading up academy chains.

I actually am not sure what the fuss is about. Youc an tell she is bright and has thoroughly researched her work. However, there are so many words form others as evidence, I found I lost interest : if it was a sixth former's essay, I'd tell them off for over relying on the words of others!

Basically, she says to empower students we need to go back to imparting knowledge and privileging that over discovery : not a new debate, really. And she doesn't talk at all about how she imagines all this looking in the classroom but talks plenty about what the 'opposite' looks like, with multitudes of extracts from Ofsted.

Meh. Still prefer David Didau.

Might give up on education books for a while. I can't hold it all in my head!

Well skeleton crew is an excellent collection of short stories anyway, well worth the read.

It's one of my 'comfort' books although what that says about me I don't know!

I just love the concept behind survivor type. Had a few fascinating discussions down the pub based on it too.

Anyways, book ten Nix.

Now this is a book that really falls off a cliff. It's a shame, because the first 30-40% shapes up very promising and then it goes swiftly downhill.

The author can write; it just turns from a book with interesting, engaging characters into a book where you don't really care what happens.

Of all the various stories hinted at in the first half of the book, the author chooses to focus on the plight of the protagonist's mother. And it's a pretty bloody boring plight.

I gave up on Daisy's book.

Book 10
N or M – Agatha Christie – just what I needed. An easy, fun read. Tommy and Tuppence are such fun characters and this had a nice balance of humour and tension. I don’t require anything more from a Christie.

Clash - Agree entirely re The Nix. I just don't understand why the author made the choices he did, and why an editor didn't tell him they were stupid choices. Such a shame it didn't anywhere near live up to its early promise.

I suppose I didn’t really see the Nix as first half good/second half bad, rather the whole thing seemed a big jumble with some good writing and some dull/weird stretches, but actually looking at it that way, perhaps if it had picked up some other threads in the second half it might have evened it up. The thing is nothing in the mother’s backstory came anywhere near motivation for acting as she did, and the way he tied it all together was weird, and like it had been written by a child. I forgot I’d read it the other day when I was writing my list out, took me ages to remember it. It was very lightweight, but how did it all get through? There were whole sections that could have been lost without causing a ripple.

Yes remus like a first draft, that could have been sent for rewrites. He was very good at writing the different character perspectives I thought but didn’t seem to know where he was going with it all.

1. The Tin Drum - Gunther Grass

Phew! This has taken me three weeks - it's just so dense and had to be read in short bursts. I enjoyed it a great deal, though I'm sure there are many allusions that went over my head. It's the story of Oskar, who's born in Danzig (now Gdansk, in Poland) just before the outbreak of WW2, stops growing at the age of three and interacts with the world by playing his tin drum. By turns deeply moving, bizarre, and darkly comic, it's a kind of shaggy dog story that bears comparison to Thomas Pynchon and is recommended to those who like that kind of thing.

The trouble with people who have only taught for a few years is they don’t have a decent overview- but once you have taught for years and years you become jaded!

16. An Old Fashioned Girl by LM Alcott. There is a ghost of a lovely story in here- particularly in the second half with its early feminism and Pollyanna-ish heroine, but the characters never come alive as they do in Little Women, and so it’s hard to care so much about them. I wonder if it was an influence on Pollyanna as it must have been written 40 odd years before. Still, Alcott voice is still surprisingly fresh, and her observations of girlish behaviour are still sometimes spot on!

Thanks for the recommendation highlandcoo

You calling me jaded Tanaqui ??? How very dare you!?

Tanaqui I have just read the follow up book to The reason I jump. I think on balance he is a little less prone to over generalisation but think some of that may be linked to the way he sees the world. Very interesting though.