50 Book Challenge 2018 Part Three

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the third 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 and the second one here.

What are you reading?

Oh I didn't spot that in EleanorOliphant, I like that Desdemona! A bit more subtle than Sarah Linton's family in Karin Slaughter's books: cousin Hareton and Isabella, and mother Cathy Linton

Just checking in...

I've had way too much work on this past week but am hoping the next fortnight will be a bit more chilled and I'll actually be able to read during the evenings. Oh the joys of being self-employed!

Thoroughly enjoying hearing about what everyone else is reading though. Love this thread!!

Ellis / satsuki I read Mennonite in a little black dress by Nora Ephron last year, after a good friend told me she cried with laughter during it and I just didn't get it. It irritated me so much I don't think I ever got to the end, which is rare for me.

nowannearly I just looked that up as I hadn’t heard of it and found one written by Rhoda Janzen? I thought Heartburn was Nora Ephron’s only novel but could be wrong.

14. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day by Winnifred Watson

Charming story about a down at heel governess who gets suddenly caught up in a whirlwind of activity when she mistakenly turns up at the house of a glamorous night club singer for the wrong job interview, and in the space of 24 hours sorts everyone’s lives out for them, and changes her own along the way. It is a funny quick read, of it’s time, yet surprisingly modern in some ways. I found the story of the author and how the book came to be reprinted quite as interesting as the book itself. It went very nicely with hot lemon and honey and a soft dressing gown.

you are absolutely right satsuki - my bad!! now I remember it said 'in the style of Nora Ephron' across the cover and I must have lumped the two together - whoops! good catch ;) my apologies to Nora :)

I didn’t notice that either in Eleanor Oliphant - well spotted Desdemona! And Miss Scatcherd too!

Just finished The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan. It was good in parts and a bit too irritatingly sweet and cloying in others. It was quite disjointed and there were so many similarities between the two threads running through it, that I got a bit confused at times. I wasn't expecting a supernatural element, which is not my thing at all. But I did finish it and I had some water leaking from my eyes, so it had an effect on me!

Now revisiting Oranges are not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson, having read it when it was first published, ahem, in 1985. Christ, I'm old ....

15. Anatomy of a Scandal - Sarah Vaughan

James Whitehouse is a successful politician accused of a crime. Kate is the barrister determined to get justice. Will his wife Sophie stand by him? And what secrets has she hidden from their past in Oxford?

This didn’t work out exactly as I was expected and although I worked out a twist or two I wasn’t completely taken with how it ended up. An interesting read on the life of a politician and his wife.

Just checking in to say I am now half way through the mammoth undertaking that is Diane Atkinson's Rise Up Women but what an interesting read it is (the first chapter or so are actually the dullest). It has made me laugh (they were intrepid women and not afraid to scale castle walls and stalk prime ministers), cry (the force feeding is truly dreadful and vividly described) and gasp (I really did not know about all the sexual assaults and about what twats Churchill and Lloyd George were). The description of how a wheelchair bound woman was treated beggar belief. It also draws attention to other suffragettes who died and the many men who took risks to support the cause.

Every woman (and man) should read it, really.

It's in hardback, though and is RRP £30 (£17 on Amazon at the mo). Kindle is cheaper but you'll lose the pictures.

Glad you enjoyed Miss Pettigrew, Satsuki and that it made lemon and honey go down nicely. It's a perfect comfort read.

Book 23
Have His Carcase – Dorothy L Sayers
Mixed feelings about this one. When it’s good, it’s witty and clever and pithy. But it’s not always good. I find the silly conversations between PW and HV, where they ram a load of quotes at each other, annoying and boring and there were pages and pages of ‘code cracking’ which were very dull indeed. I also like PW far better when he’s a) not wittering and b) not proposing to HV every other minute. It was too long and then the wrapping up all seemed rather sudden and convenient. I’ll read Gaudy Night when it’s ready at the library, and then I think Dorothy and I will be parting ways for good.

17. Assasin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

Holiday comfort re-read having finished all the Farseer/Rainwilds trilogies last year.
Fitz Chivalry Fraser, a royal bastard, is adopted into the royal household and is requested to become the apprentice to the king's assassin. He is gifted with the ability to Skill (something like telepathy) as well as having the much maligned gift of the Wit (communication with animals). This first book in the Assassin trilogy charts his early years within the castle and beginnings of a loyal servant to the crown and court intrigue.
I'm a huge fan of Hobb's books and it was such a joy to meet Fitz and the Fool again as young people having followed their relationship and adventures through many many hundreds of pages of numerous novels. Pure immersive enjoyment. Superb world building and wonderful characters who you really learn to love despite their many faults. Already itching to pick up the next volume in the trilogy.

18. Under The Skin by Michel Faber.

Isserly spends most of her day driving up and down the A9 through the highlands of Scotland looking to give lifts to hitchhikers, all of whom must be young muscular men.
And that’s pretty much all the review I can write without spoilers. I went in pretty much blind having not seen the film or knowing much about what the book was about and I'm glad I did. The explanation of what she is up to builds slowly and when what she is up to is revealed I did indeed emit an expletive. In some respects Isserly reminded me of Eleanor Oliphant, but Eleanor Oliphant gone to the dark side, the dark dark side. I really enjoyed the short interactions between Isserly and each of the hitchhikers she picks up, each like a short story within themselves. Really like Faber's writing style, so that’s three books of his I have read now and enjoyed so think maybe I should give The Crimson Petal and the White a proper chance.
Bought this to take on holiday in the highlands where we spent many hours driving up and down the A9. Was very sad not to spot a single hitchiker and was thus denied the opportunity to decide if Isserly would have picked him up or not.

Piggywaspushed Rise UP women sounds very good - on the wanted list.

Matilda I read a preview copy of Anatomy of a Scandal a while back. I felt it all just didn't add up or hang together. Early on one of the main characters does a frankly unbelievable thing that had a big risk of actually stopping them achieve their objective so it kind of lost creedence for me after that. The "twists" were generic and could be seen a mile off. The Bullingdon style club stuff felt like an American frat rehash. In places it was well observed but I was very disappointed by it given the "hype" around the book.

@kikashi that’s the part that left me feeling like it didn’t work. I think it would have worked better without that cause it was just so unrealistic and nothing happened about that! Could have been better but I was very interested in it from the hype and the general idea.

10. was All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr - it came highly recommended and I enjoyed it very much, although occasionally I had to remind myself who I was reading about when it constantly alternated between characters.

We have just been to Norway so I thought I would read some books about cold places. 11. was Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, which I found very interesting despite not being a climber, and I'm now reading 12. Names for the Sea - Strangers in Iceland by Sarah Moss. I've always wanted to go Iceland but have yet to make it there. The author first visited Iceland as a student in the mid-90s (she gives two conflicting years) and then spends a year teaching at a university in Iceland. Some things, like the lack of fresh fruit and vegetables in the shops, or the greater freedom given to children, I would have expected, but was really surprised to read about Icelandic drivers' disregard for safety (for example not indicating or using phones or computers at the wheel).

When I went to Iceland , DH - a very confident driver- hired a car. We were bloody terrified the whole time. Their attitude to driving in a 'bit of snow' a full on white out blizzard is certainly cavalier.

I don't recall not indicating as there is really only one road but I do recall coach drivers overtaking us in said blizzard when there was zero visibility.

I think if I do ever get to Iceland, I'll rely on public transport!

Yes, might be for the best...

Oh dear, Remus, Gaudy Night is one of my all-time great books, and I have a horrible suspicion you're not going to like it ...
I do agree with you about Sayers' flaws (not the wittering and the proposing, I rather like both of those, but the code-breaking never adds much, and she could definitely do with a good editor). I forgive her though, because I love her world so much.

Yes, she definitely needed editing. It's a shame, as I'm very fond of PW when he's not wittering too much. I just don't find his instant 'love' for HV believable and their sparring just isn't funny/clever enough for me.

I definately had a crush on PW when I was about 14 but then I was a very strange teenager and with my then reading habits it was that or Hercule Poirot. Broken off from the Game of thrones megabook to read Once Blind By Kay Marshall Strom book 17. This was about John Newton who abandoned the slave trade to campaign against slavery, preach and write Amazing Grace. It was not brilliantly written but his life had enough incident in it to make it enjoyable. Reading now a Tracey Chavalier that I need to return to the library as I am racking up fines on it while half the nation seems to want it (Naughty use of library card I know.) Waiting to return to see what Jon Snow (who I now have a crush on) does next. I'm not sure my taste in men has improved...

@nowannearlynicemum. It reminds me my husband bought me a book once that I’d never normally go for because it said on the cover that Kate Atkinson liked it. I thought good for her, but not a substitute for a book actually written by Kate Atkinson

Yes remus re: Pettigrew did you say the film was good or did I hear that somewhere else?

frogletmama a crush on Jon Snow is what keeps me turning those R R R R R R R pages, you are not alone.

Ah, but he has a near-Sherlock-Holmesian ability to appraise a person at a single glance. So an afternoon watching her in a witness box is probably the equivalent of about a year's relationship to the rest of us.
I totally forgive that cos he's supposed to be a slightly overblown romantic, and also because she takes literally years to make up her mind about him, which is something you see so rarely in fiction.

Well, I liked Peter better before he was in love.

Yes to the film of Miss Pettigrew, Satsuki. It's very good, except for Shirley Henderson's silly voice, but she seems to do that in everything. Never quite understood why.

I like the code in Have His Carcase (or I did as a nerdy teen- loved her long solitary walk too), but haven’t read them for many years. I like Murder Must Advertise, that doesn’t have Harriet although it does have a very silly drug party in the middle.

23ish) The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly. Bosch being Bosch, but I do think I preferred the earlier ones- they were harder to read but I remember the plots as being very clever- maybe I was more stupid though! And it is hard now to read a book set “now” where the hero was in Vietnam. (In the tv show they sensibly switch to the gulf war I think). A nice break from the existentialists though!