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?

Scribblygum thank the Lord I am not the only one. I know life is busy and finding time to read is hard but why join a book group if you aren't going to read?! Last night we talked max 10 mins about the book. Don't get me wrong they are all lovely people but I joined to talk about books. Wondering if I should knock it on the head.

Had a good but disappointing mooch round the hospital charity book shop while DH was having treatment today, came away with 6 books in the Montabalno series for £2 and The Art of Fielding, which I did read when it first came out but fancy a re-read.

toomuch and scribbly - same here re book groups. Dh and I also take bets beforehand on how long we can keep the focus on the actual book before things drift into local gossip. Sometimes not very long at all

(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
(8) Yellow Crocus by Laila Ibrahim

Today was a snow day for my son so I have spent the morning quite happily reading on the sofa whilst he is snuggled up with his quilt and tablet.

Yellow Crocus was one that had been on my Kindle for a while and I am so glad I finally read it. It is a wonderful book with a well thought out ending. It gives a glimpse into slavery and how some white people just didn't agree with it and tried in their own small ways to stop it.

The blurb is....
Moments after Lisbeth is born, she’s taken from her mother and handed over to an enslaved wet nurse, Mattie, a young mother separated from her own infant son in order to care for her tiny charge. Thus begins an intense relationship that will shape both of their lives for decades to come. Though Lisbeth leads a life of privilege, she finds nothing but loneliness in the company of her overwhelmed mother and her distant, slave-owning father. As she grows older, Mattie becomes more like family to Lisbeth than her own kin and the girl’s visits to the slaves’ quarters—and their lively and loving community—bring them closer together than ever. But can two women in such disparate circumstances form a bond like theirs without consequence? This deeply moving tale of unlikely love traces the journey of these very different women as each searches for freedom and dignity.

Missed one off my list.

(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) The Hospital by Barbara O'Hare
(8) Fade Out by Rachel Caine
(9) Yellow Crocus by Laila Ibrahim

Toomuchsplother and Terpsichore every month I come home after bookclub and climb into bed, DH rolls over and whispers ”Are you very angry right now?”
Obviously there is a repeating pattern of me coming home and ranting in bed about the inability of my fellow bookclubbers to even attempt to finish the damned books that are chosen. I too wonder frequently whether to give it up.
I quite enjoy the wine and fancy crisps though.

Scribbly have similar conversations here. I too enjoy the wine and nibbles but not sure I enjoy them enough to keep reading stuff no one else can be bothered with. Especially when I could be a home reading stuff I want to read and eating crisps and drinking wine.

6. Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell - not sure why I had this book. I think it was a charity shop purchase last Autumn. Set in Ozark Hills of Southern Missouri, this is the story of feisty teenager, Ree Dolly, who undertakes the daunting task of tracking down her feckless father before he breaks the terms of his bail and loses the family home. A powerful, bleak novel that was a great read!

I'm not jumping on the bandwagon as I started this before I caught up with this thread..... Book 7 - This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson - Only 25 pages in but enjoying it so far. I may have to put it aside next week to fit my Book Group book in though

Talking of Book Groups - mine is fab! - we are very strict and have a 20 min catch up and then its all about the book! I have ploughed my way through some dire choices though but the flip side of the coin is I've read and enjoyed books i would never have picked up . One member did leave as she thought we "pontificated" about the book too long.....it was the wrong group for her!

I long for book pontification Sonnet oh and strict 20 minute catch up but do you have the fancy crisps?
I do take your point Spother about being master of both my book and snack domains and doing away with the club altogether.

I really liked The Home-Maker too, Tepischore.

I should have known you lot would all be LM Alcott fans. I thought no one would have a clue what I was on about! Okay:

1. Rose in Bloom LM ALcott

Sequel to Eight Cousins in which orphaned heiress Rose goes to live on 'Aunt Hill' with seven boy cousins and various aunts and uncles. Rose is now twenty and has to cope with fashionable life, men (and cousins) keen to woo her for her money, and an attempt to figure out what to do with her life. Stuff I liked about this: For a book written in 1876, it's incredibly readable and vivid. I also liked the emphasis on a girl having her own purpose in life besides getting married, the traditional LM Alcott love for the awkward geeky bookworm over the handsome charmer and the emphasis on waiting until you're sure before rushing into marriage. I too was fascinated by the portrayal of an alcoholic in a classic kids' book. And how difficult it is when someone you don't love but want to keep in your life and behave well towards is in love with you - that's very well done. Stuff I didn't like: Urgh, it is SO preachy and sentimental. As in Little Women some of the preachiness is baffling to a modern reader. (Don't dance a round dance, girls, you might end up having to hold hands with someone you haven't been introduced to! Gasp!) And all the women-as-saints stuff is sickening. (Though Alcott does point out its hypocrisy, which is something). I was also most annoyed that Rose didn't go off to train to be a doctor, which would have been awesome, and that Phebe had to give up being a singer when she got married. Overall, I enjoyed this, but not as much as Eight Cousins.

Oh, Rose's two main suiters are a master-class in how to behave well or badly towards a woman though, which sadly still felt very topical today. And I liked the nuance portrayal of the family - even the nice ones aren't all saints, which was a pleasant surprise.

Cheerful have never heard of those two LM Alcott books. Have added to my list.

sonnet your book club sounds amazing. Can I join? I am actually a member of two. I am supposed to be going to the other tonight. This one is pretty much the same, lovely people, lovely snacks, minimal book chatter! Will report in!

5, How hard can it be - Alison Pearson Follow up to I don’t know how she does it. Should have called it I don’t know why I did this to myself

Every cliche imaginable about menopause/mid life crises in men/ stroppy teenagers etc. One of those books where the heroine is too broke to fix household things but can afford a Harley street gynaecologist.

There were some nicely written bits - she writes quite sensitively about old age and Alzheimer’s but on the whole it gave me the rage.

I should have known better. I’m not a fan of Pearson and only read it because I quite liked the David Cassidy book.

BestisWest I read How Hard Can it Be last year and felt the same. Really frustrating about the cliches. The only redeeming feature I did really like was that she had female friendships in the book. I realized when I was reading it how so few modern female characters make good solid female friends in novels.

I’m really keen to read a good biography of L. M. Alcott, as she had such an interesting weird background, but I’ve read very mixed reviews of the available blogs. Anyone have any recommendations?

Available biogs, that should say. Really struggling with the new keyboard in the latest IOS update!

Finally copying over my list.

1.) Gossip From the Forest, Sara Maitland
2.) Ritual, Adam Nevill
3.) The Penny Heart, Martine Bailey
4.) Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman

5.) The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Library Volume 1: Histories

This is the first in a 3-volume set collecting together all the in-game books found in the RPG game Skyrim (Why, yes, I am a massive geek -- why do you ask? ). In all seriousness it's a fun read, and it's fascinating to delve a little deeper into the lore of the world. I particularly enjoyed the Decumus Scotti books and the Wolf Queen history.

6.) The Fishermen, Chigozie Obioma -- When their father takes a job in a distant city, four brothers start to fish at a nearby river with a bad reputation. There, they run into a local madman, who predicts that the eldest boy will be killed by one of his brothers, resulting in tragedy.

I started this one last year, but put it down a third of the way in and didn't pick it up again. I enjoyed it, although I think you'd need to know a little bit about the history of Nigeria to get the most out of it. I think there was a lot I missed.

Currently reading The History of the English Puppet Show, which for a book originally written in the 50s about puppets contains rather more talk about sex and phalluses than I'd expected .

I don't go to a book club but a few of us do a book swap club which helps saves us buying books. We meet bring two or three books each, do a precis and then its first come first served to whoever takes them. It works well for us.

Whippet when I have to take DS to his weekend football matches (usually DH does it) I long to take out my book but feel it would be frowned upon by the other parents. Maybe I should take a leaf from your book!

7 Visiting Mrs Nabokov by Martin Amis
Fantastic. I'm hopeless at reading Amis novels, have managed 1.5 of them without much joy but I'm not sure why as Experience and books like this collection of reviews and articles from 1977 to 1990 or so are just so enjoyable. I loved his interview with Polanski where he manages to both condemn his actions and appreciate his work. Somehow we have to deal with criminals and bad hombres making art that the world may not want to lose. It's frustrating that he is such a talented reader but somehow apart from Austen has never found a female author worth this sort of appreciation. It was a while ago though. Interesting to read about Reagan's America when rose-tinted glasses are being used to look back on that era. The insane nukies of the Reagan SDI era are being confirmed into Trump's administration - I checked.

1. Surfacing by Margaret Atwood this was a charity shop buy that I haven't managed to read beyond about fifteen pages on previous attempts. Kept going this time, for such a short book it is very thought provoking as one would expect from Atwood. The nameless narrator returns home to remote Canada looking for her missing dad and brings up memories and reflections on the past. Canada, national identity, gender identity and politics, nature and superficiality are all examined here. Weirdly the effect of the whole book is much greater than the story. As I was reading it I can't say i was enjoying it that much but by the end it had really got me thinking.

Also read The Tell Tale Heart not counting it as was just the one story but very well written and atmospheric.

Investigates Penguins Stopped Play thing immediately.

Cheddar - I read the sample and really liked it, but the Goddishness would definitely annoy me, I think.

Read Visiting Mrs Nabokov decades ago and really liked it. Never managed to finish an Amis novel though.

I have an announcement to make.

I have finished Middlemarch which I began at the beginning of thread One!!

Hallelujah!

It is technically Book 3 and I cross a classic off. It is very very long but the Kindle kept me going and- as with all Victorian plots- it has a great plot. I loved Dorothea and Will and felt sorry for Bulstrode. Bloody Rosamund though. She reminds me of a year 10 girl.

I have numbered all my tbr books and DS2 picked the number 14 which is a book I picked up in Waitrose because I liked the cover so it would probably be shit

It's called An Almond For A Parrot No idea what it is about! The Guardian says it has 'shade's of Sarah Waters.' That could go either way, then!

This Thing of Darkness is low stock on Amazon. The power of Mumsnet!