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?

Remus, I like Gaudy Night but it is probably worth reading whilst imagining yourself at the time it was written iyswim, as I think at the time it was quite groundbreaking for the genre. Also, Venetia is a v popular Heyer but I much prefer The Masqueraders, so will be interested to hear what you think!

Corvus and Piggy I will definitely look out for the Calman, and I am sorry your love for the brother was unrequited!

27. Spinsters in Jeopardy by Ngaio Marsh. Marsh takes on the “murder glimpsed from a train” trope, but it isn’t a patch on the Christie. It does have Troy Remus, and quite a jolly part for their son; but it also relies on a dodgy pseudo religious cult, and drug taking, which never seems to work for me in this type of crime fiction. Corvus, Lampreys was also the first one I read (because recommended on here!) and Mike Lamprey has appeared very briefly in a couple of others (so far!).

Thanks, Tanaqui. Never a fan of religion, so might steer clear of that one, unless I'm desperate and it's 99p.

AnotherWastedSecond - I think you were definitely supposed to spot the 'twists' and read it with a sense of inevitability about it all.

11. Under Attack by Edward Marston - the latest in his Home Front series. Very formulaic comfort reading but pleasant enough and of course a quick read!

Not sure what to read next, I have so many on my Kindle.... bought The Good Immigrant, How Hard Can it Be?, The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Talking to the Dead in the monthly sale oops!

Well the cultists are the bad guys, but I find it overdone (shame as there was a lovely heroic chaffeuer!).

Just found Fatherland on ds’s bookshelf (unread!), so that was a happy surprise (especially as Overdrive don’t have Miss Perrigrew which I really fancied!).

I could post you my copy of Miss Pettigrew to borrow, if you'd like?

12. The Shadow of the Sun - Ryszard Kapuściński Wonderful book, wonderful writing, I learned a lot and have added tons to my reading list as a result of this book exposing my ignorance on an awful lot of African history/geography/everything.

Lazily copying over amazon blurb as full of a cold so this probably does the book more justice than my fuzzy brain can:

'Only with the greatest of simplifications, for the sake of convenience, can we say Africa. In reality, except as a geographical term, Africa doesn't exist'. Ryszard Kapuscinski has been writing about the people of Africa throughout his career. In a study that avoids the official routes, palaces and big politics, he sets out to create an account of post-colonial Africa seen at once as a whole and as a location that wholly defies generalised explanations. It is both a sustained meditation on the mosaic of peoples and practises we call 'Africa', and an impassioned attempt to come to terms with humanity itself as it struggles to escape from foreign domination, from the intoxications of freedom, from war and from politics as theft.

15 Life Moves Pretty Fast by Hadley Freeman
Subtitled 'The lessons we learned from eighties movies . . . and why we don't learn them from movies any more.' Excellently reviewed upthread by Satsuki, an enjoyable chocolate box of a book that makes some serious points. Ideal for a snowy Friday evening stuck at home, my only complaint was that the perfect Heathers (a strong contender for my favourite film of all time) doesn't get it's own chapter.

Adding The Shadow of the Sun to by tbr pile, Alias!

I've recently discovered the pigeonhole website and app, I love it! They release digital "staves" of novels each day (though these don't disappear if you fall behind like me!) and you can chat with others who are reading the same book, including the author for new novels. There's a lot of free classics on there such as Northanger Abbey, Middlemarch, Vanity Fair and Wuthering Heights as well as pre release books.

I'm currently rereading Jane Eyre and very much enjoying it, I have Wide Sargasso Sea to read for book club so I'm determined to refresh my memory first! I think I was in my teens last time I read it, how could I have forgotten Helen Burns?! sobs quietly

Perdido Street Station blew me away when it first came out. It seemed so fresh and innovative. The next couple of his I found hard to get into, then there was a long gap until I read The City and the City which was a great concept, but lacking a plot and characters.

1. Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters She is so skilled at evoking time and place, in this case the seedier side of Victorian London, through domestic detail, clothing, a turn of phrase. Just too much sex description for me, but it's a Sarah Waters novel, so I knew we wouldn't just be coyly leaving the characters at the bedroom door. The main character Nancy I found hard to warm to, as she seemed so selfish and weak, and made poor choices (from the admittedly limited choices available to lesbian women at that time).

1. A London Girl of the 1880s MV Hughes

Sequel to London Child. Molly is now 16 and enrolled at the London Collegiate School. This book follows her through school, two terms at an early women's teacher training college at Cambridge, her first couple of teaching jobs and her engagement. I didn't find this one as engrossing as the first. It's interesting - the descriptions of a Cambridge college with fourteen pupils and no indoor toilets are fascinating - but there were an awful lot of descriptions of various dull holidays and moans about teaching, which I found less fun than her stories of childhood.

10. Amnesia by Peter Carey 'Australia's last serving left-wing journalist' investigates a young female hacker who has deployed a virus affecting prison security systems, causing thousands of prisoners to be released. This quickly descended into a confused muddle, all written in the most beautiful prose. But I had no idea what was going on. Some knowledge of Australian politics, the history of computing, and clues about what character was speaking or being referred to, which of the confusing timelines we were on at the moment, and what they were on about might have helped me. Though this one was a bit of a struggle, I'm definitely prepared to invest more in Peter Carey.

I loved Perdido Street Station when I read it many years ago. Remember it as a real page turner. There are some things [non spoiler] in there that if someone said “Name a thing in a fictional novel that has given you the biggest case of the willies?” then it would be these things in Perdido Street Station.
The book also comes with a map. I like a map in a fictional fantasy city, very useful.
Did The City and the City come with a map in the physical copy? I only listened to it, and that with a fever, hence not really knowing what the fuck was going on for quite a lot of the time.

I confess I’ve lost count and haven’t got time to go back and check but it must be around no 15.

Excellent Women - Barbara Pym . I’m trying to see the positives. The writing is good, the tiny detail about people’s lives is the kind of thing I usually like but, well it lacked plot and overall I found it a bit dull.

*6. The Map - TS Learner
*
This has been a bit of a mission to get through.
One of those post Dan Brown, perilous treasure hunts. This time set in the 1950s. We have our hero; a scholar and ex-solider. There is the Chronicle, a mysterious book/map he is translating and following clues from. And eventually there is a beautiful, yet damaged woman for him to fall in love with.
It plodded along for 580 pages and then crammed the climax into the last 20, which was a shame. And there was too much magic. I don't like books with random magic in. A world is either magical or it isn't, you can't just throw a bit of magic about to move the plot along.

hello all.
Plodding on s-l-o-w-l-y as usual. It will take me an age to catch up with all your posts and reviews, but I will do so later.
Finally catching up with the zeitgeist, I picked up
10. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry. No need for a summary, everyone's read it. Really enjoyed it. I love a bit of Gothic Victoriana anyway, and this was an excellent stab. The plot strands weaved together well. The changing seasons and landscapes were beautifully depicted, and I thought the male and female characters were equally well-drawn, which is depressingly unusual.

Has anyone read Perry's first novel, and is it worth a look?

11. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre A wry but sturdy rubbishing of how science is misreported and misunderstood, particularly in the press, and an effective take-down of those who deliberately seek to abuse the facts for their own ends.

Yes sadik Heathers was on repeat with me and my friends at school. I would have really enjoyed some individual chapters on some of the films I was more interested in, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed those on the ones I wasn’t that bothered about. A lot of the points she made have stayed in my mind when watching films now - I watched Jumpin Jack Flash with Whoopi Goldberg last night, which I really liked when a kid, and was struck by this movie, an action-comedy, basically being totally carried by a non-White woman, her intelligence and sense of humour are the focus, not how she looks or dresses, and it was directed by a woman, and wondered what the hell has happened since that this is still such a rare thing - I can think of many fantastic actresses but not many leading roles for them that aren’t period or ensemble pieces.

Will see how Perdido Street goes down but found City boring and this is so long to take a flier on!

Have started Enigma

turnofthescrew Haven’t read Perry’s first, reviews a bit lukewarm, but looking forward to her third which is out later this year, called Melmoth

God I love jumpin’ jack flash. That was my sick day movie as a kid. Heathers was mine and my sisters fav film for a long time. We still quote it at each other now

24. The White Album by Joan Didion
    Started reading this after watching the documentary on Netflix. As with all essay collections some stand out more than others and the ones on California in the last 60s and early 70s are fantastic. All are well written though and enjoyable to read.

25. Sweetbitter by Stephanie Dainler
    This is about a 22 year old woman who moves to New York and gets a job working in a famous restaurant. It’s great at describing that environment and really evocative of New York nightlife and generally feeling new in a place or job. Downside is the plot. Gaping holes and some of the characters just don’t make sense. I read it in 2 days as I was enjoying the writing so I would say it’s a good read. Just light on plot. She is a debut author though and I would read others by her as the style was good.

If you like podcasts there is a good one called Literary Friction where they have a different author each month and then talk about various books around a theme with loads of recommendations. Sarah Perry was on an earlier episode before Serpant came out and she talked a lot about how she writes and the themes of her first book. Worth a listen.

1. Deadwood - Pete Dexter

Not, as I thought when I picked it up in the library, the book on which the TV series (which I loved) is based - this features the same town, many of the same characters, and some of the same events, but the story differs in many ways - particularly in the characterisation of Al Swearingen and Seth Bullock, who were much more sympathetically portrayed on screen than they are here.

Nonetheless this is a fantastic book, once I let go of my expectations from the TV show - a vivid, compelling and moving portrayal of the dirty truth of the real Wild West.

Yeah it was one of my favourites - I made dh watch it, and it still stood up.

This is a thread where I wish there was a Like button like Facebook... I'm so happy I've found you guys!

Thanks for podcast recommendation ellis I don’t always manage to follow them up quickly, but I do like a good podcast so I will look out for that.

Welcome carnt. Join in with what you’re reading whenever you want

Yes, thanks for the podcast rec, I love a good podcast when I'm out running and this sounds perfect.