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?

11. The Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfar

Jakub Procházka, The Czech Republic’s first astronaut is sent on a solo mission to investigate the Chopra cloud surrounding Venus, a phenomenon that has turned the night sky purple. Whilst on board he encounters Hanuš, (a possibly hallucinatory) giant alien arachnid with a penchant for Nutella and philosophy. Jakob also uses the time aboard to contemplate his deterioraing relationship with his wife, and his childhood memories of being raised by his grandparents and his father, a brutal communist informer.

Sounds crap right?
It’s not. It’s a great book, part Robinsonade but with elements of politics during and following the fall of communism , family responsibilities, ambition and its consequences on relationships, and finding your purpose in life. It’s certainly different and I don’t think I can really liken it to anything I’ve read before. A good read and something completely and marvellously different from all the historical fiction I’ve been reading of late.

1. Career of Evil Robert Galbraith- I enjoy this series though this third was possibly my least favourite of the 3 so far, still tore through it at a pace and looking forward to the 4th.

19. The Outcasts of Time by Ian Mortimer

Fiction by the author of the Time Traveller’s Guide series mentioned a few posts ago. This features brothers in the 1300s who are suffering from the plague, and who are told by an unearthly voice that they have 6 days to live and will live each of those days 99 years later - so they wake up in 1447, then 1546 and so on to 1942. Brilliant idea and I liked the description of the different time periods and how things had changed (e.g. the introduction of clocks and windows), but Mortimer didn’t make enough of the plot - in one time period they spent the whole day in someone’s house rather then getting out and about seeing things. There’s also a lot of talk about religion - obviously religion is going to get a mention but it was overkill here. I did like it but not as much as I hoped to.

20. The Power by Naomi Alderman

Much reviewed on here already. Disappointing, especially the ending - it just sort of stopped then had a weird epilogue. I don’t usually like science fiction (picked this up after someone recommend it to those who enjoyed Handmaid’s Tale) and this hasn’t changed that view.

That’s interesting, Chessie, I’d noticed that Ian Mortimer was writing fiction too, and had wondered what it might be like. With the best will in the world, I don’t think I’ll be trying it on the basis of your feedback!

Book 10 done : The Secret History

I know quite a few on here have read this and it has always lurked in the back of my conscious as something I should have read.

I did enjoy it : it's an unusual book, given the reader is basically told the major event in the very first chapter. It is well written but I did find it a slightly arduous read, owing to the length of the chapters (long!) and all the dialogue.

I got quite put off by the showboating Greek lesson at the beginning, but, thankfully, that seems to be the only real time Tartt does this.

No one in the book is likeable : but that doesn't bother me. It reminded me of Highsmith and Gatsby : odious self absorbed rich people up to no good..

I found the context puzzling : I still don't know WHEN all this is supposed to have happened (maybe I wasn't concentrating at the beginning) and for ages couldn't tell Henry and Francis apart (which is sort of important). The only two characters I could even now physically describe are poor Bunny and Camilla. I found having a Henry Winter ( real journalist!), a Charles and Camilla and then two characters whose names together make the name of a boy I teach a bit of a distraction! And I didn't know how to pronounce the narrator's surname...

There was some surprising humour in the book, which I rather enjoyed.

Lots of mentions of real people (eg The Kennedys) but the two made up countries? Why?

I thought Julian and the Greek classes were going to have more importance to the plot.

Overall, I liked it. I think I preferred it to The Muse but The Muse was an easier read.

My random book generator has now thrown up Sapiens : it really doesn't want me to have a light read!!!

It’s a shame Terpsichore as I’ve enjoyed the Time Traveller’s Guides (although not read the restoration one yet) but I just felt he could have done more with it.

21. How To Stop Time by Matt Haig

Another time travel one (well,sort of!). Tom was born in 1581 but ages incredibly slowly so is still alive over 400 years later, looking like he’s in his 40s. I know several on last year’s thread didn’t like this, but I did!

8. The Paper Year - Avery Aster

Piper Adler wakes up in hospital after seemingly attempting to take her life. However she knows she didn’t try to. But if she didn’t, who did?

This was a very short book apparently it’s a series from kindle unlimited. I’m glad I didn’t buy this as it felt very rushed and I didn’t get to know any of the characters really! Not rushing to read the next one!

Piggy I thought it was set in the 80s, but read it years ago so couldn’t be hand on heart certain.

What is this random book generator of which you speak?

Started reading the graphic novel of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in the library today. Has anyone read the actual novel and can explain, just explain what on earth?
I didn’t take it out.

I'd like to do this please. I'm reading

1. Watership Down by Richard Adams (Starting this today)
2. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
3. The Lord of the Rings Book 1 by Tolkien
4. Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon

scribbly I think 80s too (no phones or computers) but it never actually says. For most of the book, I forgot it was actually written in 1993; I thought it was more recent.

My random book generator involves me numbering all the books I intend to read/ have lying about gathering dust.

When I am about 100 pages from the end of the one I am reading I use google to generate a number. Occasionally I use DS2, although he keeps saying the same number (obviously it's a different book but I still feel like it's [predictable as it's the same number...)

I use this method so that I don't keep bunging books down the pile in favour of ones with the nicest cover.

Scribbly - I really enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

9. The Three Body Project by Cixin Liu.
Science fiction that has been well reviewed on last year’s thread (and possibly the year before?), I think discovered by Cote.

I bought this for my DH last year on the strength of those reviews. He subsequently bought, and read, the next two in the series straight away. Big praise.

I thought this was interesting and thrilling. A lot of physics, which goes over my head and scares me but also makes me want to learn more. It felt like the start of the story and my DH tells me the next books are full of new ideas with surprising plot turns. I’m looking forward to them.

I think Donna Tarrt went to university early 80s so presumed it was based around then, especially as it takes her ten years to knock a book out.

8. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

I quite liked this, and thought I was going to like it a lot, but it tailed off for me in the second half. A Korean woman in the 1930s falls pregnant out of wedlock; her reputation and the prospects of her unborn child are saved by a Christian minister (also Korean) who is passing through the village, when he offers to marry her and take her with him to Japan. Written with quiet simiplicity, I thought it would be slow going, but I soon found myself absorbed in the characters and their plight as they try to build a life in a hostile environment. The focus is on the people and their everyday struggles, but these are presented against the background of history, and continuously informed by the social and political upheavals going on around them. I felt like this book was a window into a world I had not been aware of - what life was like for Koreans under Japanese occupation, for those who tried to build a life in the land of the occupier, those who attempted to return and rebuild after the War, and for subsequent generations born in Japan, but always treated as “other”, and knowing no other home. This part of it was really interesting and I appreciated the insights I gained into the Korean immigrant experience, I also cared a lot about the characters and wanted to find out what happened to them. The story is told in a series of vignettes that are chronological but take random leaps in time, so the novel covers a lot of ground without labouring too much on non essentials; for a 500 page saga it never feels too long. This mostly works well, but for the latter half I felt it moved too quickly forward, and didn’t spend enough time on characters I’d come to be interested in, and generally the more modern day sections were not as absorbing as the earlier parts. Also - and this is a personal taste thing - but there was suddenly quite a lot weird sex stuff that felt a bit odd. I get that there was an element of seediness under the surface she wanted to allude to, but it was not done realistically, I didn’t think, and the perspective seemed curiously “Male” in the descriptions of women’s bodies. Now that may have been her purpose, but I find it tedious reading that kind of slavering prose using a particular language that women never use, and it was disappointing in a book written by a woman to find yet more of it I suppose. I’m glad I read it for the history that it opened up for me, and though it was bleak it had a warmth to it that made it easy reading. It was memorable, but it did lose something for me towards the end, and the characters and plot seemed less well-shaped.

I think I’m going to read Heartstone next as, forgive me 50 bookers, it’s been a year since my last Shardlake.

1. Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard. Reviewed a few times upthread. I found this thought provoking, but like most it left me wanting more. I understand it was from 2 lectures, but I think the subject had a lot more scope and could have been developed into a longer book. I'm going to look into the further reading suggested and might revisit a few of the Classics.

Satsuki you really are rationing the Shardlakes!

Piggy Random sounds good. I went through all mine a few weeks ago and gave away any I knew I was going to read. I have a bookcase in the kitchen with my books which I will never part with and reread every now and again. But all my other ones are in my front hall. I used to keep them in a unsafe pile beside the bed but it was getting out of hand and actually put me off reading as it looked so messy and no way to see what was there. After sorting them out all I got down to around 40 which are neatly piled in the hall and I only have one beside the bed. I have read so much more this way, but because I want to read each one I now have it takes me so long to pick up...lol

10 The War on Women by Sue Lloyd-Roberts Non-fiction, by a former TV news reporter and documentary maker, about some of the awful things happening to women around the world, including in the UK, such as FGM, forced marriage, prostitution and trafficking, the abuse of women by the Catholic church in Ireland (Magdalen laundries etc), pay inequality and so on. Not exactly a fun read, but one to fire up the inner feminist (or even just the inner human). The subtitle is 'and the brave ones who fight back', so there is an element of optimism, but I have to say it is outweighed by the knowledge that all these things are still going on virtually unchecked. Published posthumously, with a chapter or so finished by her daughter.

11 Harmless like you by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
Prize-winning first novel by a Japanese/Chinese American novelist, featuring a son going to find his mother, a Japanese American artist who abandoned him and his father when he was a baby, to go and live in Berlin. The story is mainly told through flashbacks, through the eyes of the son and the mother. Neither of them are entirely likeable or even sometimes comprehensible characters, but the messy complications of their lives and relationships make the book more real. The artist, Yuki, struggles with and eventually gives up on parenthood; her son also struggles with it but eventually attempts to embrace it. The book also has interesting perspectives on living between different cultures and fitting in, or not.

Marking my place - will share my '2018 reads so far' later on

fortuna I know, partly it’s because I don’t want to run out as I don’t have much go to light fiction, and partly it’s because as much as I’m fond of Matthew, we need our space, or else I find myself counting how many times he uses the word “stink”, or has a shudder go through him, or gets a twinge in his back. I wish my husband had rationed them more as there were a lot of exclamations of “hell’s teeth” and he also started calling me “goodwife” when he read too many in one go.

ladydepp you’ve spurred me to reading the Shardlake, and I’ve also reserved Endurance at the library.

just : mine are in the hall too! For the same reasons. You definitely need a numbering system!

Piggy, Going to give it a try as I got about 8 new ones for my birthday and I just know I am going to pick those first...lol. Have to choose my own numbering system though as if I let my little boy pick he will keep picking 6. He has autism and 6 is his favourite number at the minute, it will change to 7 as soon as he has his birthday though...lol

I like the numbering system idea, Piggywaspushed, I would love to geek out and make myself a spreadsheet of them but I'm a bit scared of the sheer number of books involved!

I'm currently reading my thrillers to clear some shelf space (I can't reread them once I know whodunnit so they will be donated to a charity shop):

1. Dead Sky by Tami Hoag a bit cheesy and predictable, but an entertaining enough thriller. Judge Carey Moore is viciously attacked following her ruling that an accused murderer's past wrongdoings cannot be used as evidence, on the same night that the accused escapes from prison: can detectives Lisca and Kovac save her?

I think this is part of a series, it may have helped if I'd read the preceding novels, I doubt Id seek them out to be honest though.

1. The Fever by Megan Abbott I finally got round to this mumsnet giveaway after this went missing in our house move! Many of the high school girls at Dryden school begin having seizures, and it is a race against time to work out what the cause might be.I wouldn't bother with this to be honest, it wasn't great.

I'm now on The Son by Jo Nesbo and enjoying it.

Satsuki - I’m so pleased to have discovered Shardlake and to have so many left to read, although I will try hard to ration them!

Yes, just - mine has no autism but likes the number 11, Google was more random (but still never picks 1...)

Satsuki Add sardonic to the Shardlake bingo. Since it stuck out in Shardlake it's pervaded everything else I've read recently, I notice it everywhere.

I do it with Austen, I read one book and it alters my speech pattern. Then I get an urge to flounce about in a frock.