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?

@remus I thought it had some lovely bits but it was missing something for me .. :s

6. A Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh. This was her first novel, and if you are picky it does show, but still, a very accomplished debut! Clearly influenced by Christie and Sayers, but stands up very well to peers like Allingham I think.

I have bought the “Why I am no longer talking...” for when I get over this cold, and the schoolgirl book sounds very interesting, but will need to hope for the library!

Might try Skellig as I’m only fit for children’s books atm.

@best. I’m loving reading kids books..

Skellig and Heaven Eyes are Almond's best works, imo.

1. The Human Stain by Philip Roth

1. Days Without End by Sebastian Barry - a bit disappointed with this one, probably because it came so highly recommended in the best 2017 lists.

Hot Milk by Deborah Levy next. I picked this up in a charity shop and now realise it's not by Andrea Levy(!), completely different author. Oh well, will give it a go. This thread is giving me so many books to add to my must read list.

Lots of threads have multiple postings around 19:37/19:38. Must be a site glitch!

1. He Said, She Said by Erin Kelly a good psychological thriller, I read this in about 3 days despite it being quite slow moving for maybe the first third.

During the 1999 solar eclipse, Laura and her boyfriend Kit are witnesses to a brutal attack and later testify in court. Fifteen years on,both are scarred by the events of that summer. A fearful Kit is now known as Christopher and is on a ferry to Norway to view another total eclipse, leaving an anxiety suffering, pregnant, Laura at home alone. I enjoyed this, and hadn't guessed the twist, if you can call it that.

I'm now reading the hippo ranching book, Rivers of Teeth by Sarah Gailey. I'm sorry, I can't remember who previously reviewed this but I thought "that sounds bonkers, I must read it!" As it's so short I'm already 10% in, and thoroughly enjoying it!

Bertie Project (Scotland Street series)- easy read but lovely by Alexander McCall Smith

My list - if you can call it that:

1. Make More Noise! Various

I'm with Remus on Skellig. Wonderful book. Short and powerful and highly recommended.

Currently reading Rose in Bloom by LM Alcott about which I have thoughts. I am reading quite a lot this year, just not finishing much!

Rose in Bloom! Haven't read that for donkey's. Now I need to read it. Kindle maybe...

5. Private Eye - the first 50 years - an A to Z by Adam Macqueen A good read. I like coffee table books and books about the media. Still think Stick It Up Your Punter is one of the best books ever about the 80s on this country.

12. Amy and Isabelle- Elizabeth Strout have been stuck inside with a poorly DC who mainly slept so good reading time! This is Strout's first novel and I preferred it to Lucy Barton which I read at the beginning of last year . A mother with her own secrets struggles to come to terms with her daughters sexual secrets. Set in a small town in America this is a wonderful portrait of loneliness, secrets and the hidden lives of ordinary people. Beautifully written and well rounded characters, like Anne Tyler at her very best. It is never mentioned when the book is set but I think from references it could be 1970's. For some reason knowing when things are happening is important to me when reading a book!
I see have other Books by the same author on my Kindle, probably a monthly deal at some point. Looking forward to reading them.

Actually that was book 13.

49p on Kindle, for Rose and Eight Cousins, Annandale. Liked Eight Cousins a lot as a child, but never knew this one existed ...

Oh, I loved 'Eight Cousins' when I was a child. Must find my old copy.

Right, just finished 5. The Home-Maker - Dorothy Canfield Fisher

This is a Persephone reprint, first published in 1924. The first part could be a MN thread - 'AIBU to be fuming that I do ALL the chores and DH and DC just come home and mess up my lovely tidy house?'
Evangeline Knapp is a woman of formidable energy and drive, who, despite loving her husband Lester and children Helen, Henry and Stephen, can't relax her iron grip on her routine of non-stop housework, and has turned into a domestic tyrant who keeps the whole family in a state of fear. Lester - a dreamy, poetic lover of literature - loathes his job as an accountant at a local department store. Everyone is ill, unhappy and full of nervous tension, until events conspire to make the parents change domestic roles....but with an uncomfortable sting in the tail.

I really enjoyed this. There’s some beautiful writing, especially about the children, and the relationships are sensitively drawn and full of tenderness and insight. The rigid gender roles in early 20thc small-town America, and the expectation that the man would be the breadwinner, give plenty of food for thought... we're still wrestling with some of these ideas today. I’d recommend it.

10. The Rebecca Notebook and Other Memories by Daphne du Maurier

This contains the notes she made when planning Rebecca, plus some thoughts on the book and an original epilogue. Really interesting to see what changed in the final book. The other essays cover members of her family (did you know that her cousins were the Llewelyn-Davies boys who inspired J M Barrie to write Peter Pan?), finding and moving into Menabilly (the house that inspired Manderley) and thoughts on widowhood. A short book but very enjoyable if you like her writing.

1. The People vs Alex Cross by James Patterson

Well. I read this because I said I’d make an effort for work book club. But, meh. Clearly he’s doing something a lot of people like, if the hyperbole on the back is to be believed. And this is number 25 in a sequence. But it’s just not for me. There’s nothing here really to think about beyond the immediate description of the story, which reads more like a movie script than a novel imo.

The one interesting aspect of the story, the irony of Alex Cross being black and becoming the focus of attempts to clean up “killer cops”, is mentioned precisely once, Cross saying “I didn’t want to play that card”. Meh.

Upthread someone talked about estimating how many books they might have left to read in their life. As I was reading this I was thinking something similar, and whatever the number is, it’s not enough to include nonsense like this. Will just have to be more firm when it comes to ignoring some book club suggestions!

1. How to read a novel by John Sutherland

This was a quick read and informative. Lots about the relevance of reviews, literary prizes, book shops and so on. I'm not sure it actually taught me how to read a novel, as it isn't literary criticism as such, but it was an entertaining insight into the publishing industry.

6 Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott Found it on Project Gutenberg. There's a glimmer of something special in the start of this, something like An Old Fashioned Girl which I always loved. But quickly settled into a romance. I'm intrigued as always by Charlie and reading it as an adult it's even more fascinating to have an alcoholic in a children's novel. I wish there had been more about him but then it would have been a tragedy...

(1) Witch is When Life Got Complicated by Adele Abbott
(2) Witch is Where It All Began by Adele Abbott
(3) Coming Clean by Kimberly Rae Miller
(4) Die Last by Tony Parsons
(5) Restaurant Babylon by Imogen Edwards Jones
(6) The Sugar Men by Ray Kingfisher
(7) Fade Out by Rachel Caine

Finished book 7 last night. It is an okay easy read. I cleared out bags of books that I have had for ages that I knew I was never going to read. My husband bought me the full set of Morganville a few years ago and I read the 1st 7 so figured I should finish them off.

1. Smoke and Mirrors - Elly Griffiths

The second in the Stephens & Mephisto series by the writer of the Ruth Galloway crime books. Same genre but completely different feel. Set in the early 1950's in Brighton, a policeman and a magician try to solve the disappearance of two children during a snowy winter. I enjoyed this for the atmosphere of post-war Brighton and backstage at the panto. She hasn't really developed the relationships from the first book, but I remember that character development took a while in her other series too.

Ooh, did you like Skellig, Remus?

1. Romantic Moderns, by Alexandra Harris

Looking at culture in the 1930s - not just art, literature and architecture, but cooking and gardening too. The tension between looking forward and outwards, and backwards and inwards. Not all the subject-matter enthrals me, but the author writes well enough to carry me through.

I think she did like it. But maybe she could confirm?

Marking place - Couple of hundred pages into This Thing of Darkness and absolutely loving it.

1. Brave New World by Aldhous Huxley - for a book group discussion, read rather quickly quite late at night so I didn’t digest every detail. Overall well written, thought provoking but very sexist. A couple of members who’d read the book 30 years ago and then again now felt they enjoyed it more first time round, because they were younger or perhaps society has moved on?

Another one looking forward to Diary of a Schoolgirl, just wish it wasn’t so expensive.

Just finished my first audible experience and am a bit unsure really. I found it quite hard to stay focused, was listening while tidying, worked fine when I was folding clothes but when I tried to organise paperwork I couldn't concentrate on both. So need to just listen while doing very simple jobs I think.

1. Mrs Zant and the Ghost by Wilkie Collins not a very gripping or interesting read and the narration was quite lacklustre. Disappointing.