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?

26. Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years by Sue Townsend

Listened to this on audiobook. Adrian starts the book living in the box room of Pandora’s flat in Oxford. Pandora is married and has a lover. By the end Adrian is living in London, working at a restaurant and just starting a new relationship. Not quite as good as the first two of the series but still funny.

37. Pemberley by Emma Tennant

Sequel to Pride & Prejudice. Don’t bother.

27 not 37!

Sadik, did he also write An Instance at the Fingerpost? I read that some years ago - very good historical whodunnit told from multiple viewpoints.

I've also added the Mermaid book to my wish list. Will wait for it to come down in price a bit.

He did boldly - in fact I've got that one reserved at the library so will be reading it when it comes in.

Chessie = Pemberley is one of the worst books I have ever read. I ritually murdered my copy after finishing, in order to save any other poor soul from reading it.

1. Faceless Killers - Henning Mankell

An elderly couple are found murdered in their farmhouse, and detective Kurt Wallander has to solve the case while dealing problems in his personal life.

I'd assumed this would just be a typical whodunit, but it was actually much more about Wallander - presumably setting it up for the rest of the series. It wasn't bad, but if I'm going to read a murder mystery, I want to be able to guess at who the murderer is, and you couldn't do that with this, as the focus wasn't really on the mystery side of things. Probably my misunderstanding what the book was going to be about though, so I won't hold it against the author - but not sure I'm in a rush to read any more.

Remus, have you read The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford? It’s been years since I did and I wonder if it has aged well but perhaps one to think about if you enjoyed Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.

18 Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
I wound up liking this more than I thought I would about 50 pages in. I didn’t really have a good grasp of what was going on and by the time I did I was well over half way through. I’ve never read any VW before and this didn’t make me want to rush to read more. But I can see it was clever and well written and rather beautiful in places.

Thanks, Pepe. I haven't read it but have heard a lot about it. Will investigate.

I think I need to use your random book generator piggy just stood in front of bookshelves for about a quarter of an hour and come back without a book.
I've collected most of my unread books and I have about sixty and nothing appealing to me. Not sure what kind of thing I fancy.

mama I totally agree about The Goldfinch. And re the film I see that a bit part unknown actress Hailey Wist called is playing the part of his mother, which suggests that the screenwriter has cut out much of the section at the beginning of the book .

What's this random book generator then?

I've fallen into the habit of rereading and need to shake myself up a bit!

Although am currently rereading tommyknockers in the bath which is rather a marvellous book to while away an hour in the tub with...

Also got another chuck Paulanuik book on the kindle on the go as I seem to be in that sort of mood at the minute.

Took a break from the Victorians to read

1. A Skinful of Shadows Frances Hardinge

The Fellmottes have a strange gift; they can not only see ghosts, they can offer them a home inside their heads. When Makepeace, a bastard Fellmotte, is brought to their ancestral home, she discovers that the Fellmottes have dark plans in store for her. But when war breaks out between Parliament and King Charles, can Makepeace make her escape and bring the family down?

I didn't hate this, but I didn't love it either. Couldn't really see what the point of it was. It's very competently written and a fun idea, but ... I dunno. Not much more. I mean, it's fine, but I have friends who raved about it, and it's certainly not rave-worthy.

clash, I have numbered all my books (got a typed list and everything) and then when I nearly finish one I use google to select a number . Stops me procrastinating and doing what mamapants juts described!

11. Carrie - Stephen King

Weirdly I’d never read this but knew the premise from film trailers. Thoroughly enjoyed this and imagine it would have been a terrifying read as a teenager.

I loved instance of the fingerpost when I read it about 9 million years ago.

14 The Power
Arggg I just felt this had so much potentially but I really didn't enjoy the writing style at all.

1. Birdcage Walk - Helen Dunmore
2. Wonder - RJ Palacio
3. Why Mummy Drinks - Gill Sims
4. The Trouble with Goats and Sheep - Joanna Cannon

5. The Rosie Effect – Graeme Simpson I read the The Rosie Project when it first came out and have been meaning to read this for ages. I've seen a few reviews from disappointed readers but I'm surprised as I genuinely felt that if you liked the first book, then this one was a natural progression. There was a whole central section that I found very irritating - due to the sheer dimwittedness of all the characters - but fortunately I kept going and was satisfied by the ending :)

8 Brazaville Beach A fabulous story told in flashback and flitting between London and Africa. I enjoyed this very much. Hope Clearwater is a PhD who has come to Africa to put her failed marriage to a mathematician behind her. She works at a research centre which is recording the behaviour of chimpanzees. All of the characters, including the chimps, are convincingly drawn in a thoughtful, metaphorical book about maths, marriage, chimps and conflict in Africa. At 400 pages it’s a book you can get stuck into. I haven’t read any Boyd before so I’m looking forward to putting some more of his novels onto the tbr pile now. Next up is Matthew Haig How To Stop Time.

1 Everything I Never Told You Celeste Ng
2 Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine Gail Honeyman
3 Women and Power Mary Beard
4 Where’d You Go Bernadette Maria Semple
5 This is Going to Hurt Adam Kay
6 The Essex Serpent
7 Midwinter Break Bernard MacLaverty
8 Brazaville Beach William Boyd

Reading 'Aberfan' by Gaynor Madgewick. She was one of the few survivors on that awful day.

(Also colouring in a book,if that counts 'Colouring Welsh Tales by Dawn Williams.).My grandparents live in South Wales and send me gifts of books now and again.Getting quite a library !

13. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

I liked this. It's a quick read and accessibly written . A teenager could easily read it. I suppose that may also be why I am underwhelmed after all the praise heaped on it. It is (deliberately) episodic so I don't fully engage with any one character, and some of them I wanted to know more about. The beginning was very strong.

It's her first novel and I am sure there will be many more to come. Although it's heavy on the history , it doesn't feel preachy or coldly ' researched'. I did learn some history I didn't know (eg black convicts post the abolition of slavery)

I think some authors do a better job of creating dialogue in historical novels. This one always felt modern : perhaps for accessibility.

A good read. Not a great read.

As I said upthread, she has been compared with Toni Morrison : this does hold up if you compare with, say The Bluest Eye. But it has nothing of the power of Beloved or Song of Solomon.

Hopefully, Yaa Gyasi can shake off any 'comparisons' and just be seen on her own merits.

Got 10 pages into God Help The Child and realised I have read it before! Am not a rereader so have abandoned it.

Random Book Generator has picked out This Thing Of Darkness which everyone on here adores.

It's really long, so I may be some time...

Oops , no. Forgot to adjust numbering before I looked it up. It's Jonathan Sopel : If Only They Didn't Speak English

froglet Song of Achilles is one of my favourite books, glad to see someone else enjoying it.

I’m just checking in to say I’m still trundling away reading 4 books at once but haven’t finished one for ages. The Trump book Fire and Fury is infuriatingly badly written but gossipy and scurrilous so I will carry on with it.

Lots of talk about the Goldfinch, I think I might need to bring that one back to the top of the TBR pile.

I am sorry i don't bite Piggy - was it in The Staffroom.

I am looking forward to reading Mermaid - The Moon and the Sun by Vonda McIntyre is a historical novel with a real mermaid if anyone wants to read one (and as I recall it was very enjoyable!).

20. Died in the Wool by Ngaio Marsh Not one of the best - written partly as if in retrospect, as Alleyn came to the case a year late, and I wouldn't recommend it.

Morning tanaqui , it indeed was!

14. Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders

Very glad I read this. Loved some parts, other parts left me cold. I thought that the experimental format worked, and parts of it made me want to weep over our shared humanity (for me, the voices of the spirits were essential in that regard). I wasn't sure where he was going with some bits though - the ghosts who were having an orgy? What were they all about?

15. Night Waking, Sarah Moss

Another one much-read and much-discussed by Mumsnetters. I'd read this described as a wonderful depiction of life with a non-sleeping toddler, which it is, but I hadn't realised that it would be so multi-layered. I started off a bit disappointed, as I thought that Moss was setting Anna up as a "typical" modern mother, and I found myself getting annoyed at some of the choices she was making. It became apparent, however, that the book is much more subtle than that, and actually very well done. I read a few Amazon reviews after I finished it and found that a number of readers have given up in disgust after a few chapters, being irritated by Anna's attitude and poor parenting - I'm glad I stuck it out and worked out what was really going on.

A book with many stories, some of which only ever get half told. Was it me or did she leave a massive Anna-related loose end hanging unresolved? (sorry, not wanting to start a spoiler-ish discussion for anyone who hasn't read it).

Not a good book to read when you're feeling a bit narked at your DP, as the description of passive-aggressive marital tension between two exhausted people are so awful and yet so brilliantly familiar that you will end up resenting your other half for the sins of Giles.