50 Book Challenge 2018 Part Four

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fourth 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, the second one here and the third one here.

How're you getting on so far?

12. American Gods - Neil Gaiman. Absolutely loved it - I was hooked from the very start (I do love mythology and the various retellings). I loved the big epic feel of the story as Shadow travels across America. By contrast, the book shows you how "small" America is - each state is different with it's own quirks and "gods" brought over by the early settlers.

The old gods are there but a new guard is rising in the form of the new gods and they have plenty of worshippers – the gods of TV, the internet, of shopping malls and credit cards. Gods who are fighting as much for their survival as the old gods are.

The whole story is based on conmen/grifters working their "magic" At its heart are misdirection and deception from the very beginning. Shadow teaches a young boy a coin trick and Gaiman has him tell us that "If you act like it’s in your right hand, no one will even look at your left hand, no matter how clumsy you are.” Which is exactly what he does - I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the American Gods Quartet - just hope they are as much fun.

Full list below:

1.	Mythos - Stephen Fry
2.	Origin - Dan Brown
3.	The Mitford Murders - Jessica Fellowes
4.	Paris - Edward Rutherford 
5.	The Four Quartets - T S Eliot
6.	The Magus of Hay - Phil Rickman
7.	Innocent Traitor - Alison Weir
8.	The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood (audio R4)
9.	Land Rover: The story of the car that conquered the world - Ben Fogle
10.	The Good Terrorist - Doris Lessing (audio R4)
11.	Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel
12.	American Gods - Neil Gaiman

@CoteDAzur - your thoughts onStation Eleven made me smile. I thought it was ok, but I think I read it on a superficial level - not as SF. Agree there were many plot holes but to me, the message was about hope.....even in a world that had been heavily depopulated/devastated, people could still find beauty in words and music from the past. It seemed to be that she was saying that we remain "human" /civilised whilst we have culture and things of beauty. To me that is one reason why Clarke's museum was important and why people harked back to the "golden age" of air travel, air con and electricity etc. It felt to me that travelling to the airport was like an act of pilgrimage. I wondered if that was why the prophet left - he recognised he could have power by controlling people through chaos and fear.

Of course I could be talking hogwash - and probably am.

18. was a book I picked up from the library - my local library often has books that I wouldn't have known about otherwise - One Breath: Freediving, Death, and the Quest to Shatter Human Limits by Adam Skolnick. It's about an American freediver called Nick Mevoli who sadly died in 2013. I wouldn't normally read books about competitive sport, but this was really interesting, both as a human interest story and a psychological insight into what drives people to dive to great depths just holding their breath. I quite like reading about dangerous attempts of mountains and the like, even if I have no desire to do it myself - although after this book I really want to go scuba diving or at least snorkelling somewhere warm again.

The first book in the Sharpe series, Sharpe's Tiger, is 99p on Kindle if anyone's interested.

19. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro. A much discussed book on these threads over the past few years, I'm in the liking but not loving camp. I think what was very much lacking was conflict and that's what made the last half very slow-moving for me. And the implausibilities were irksome - why did they ALL accept their fates and why did nobody from outside intervene? The naivety of the donors did work to a small extent and I found this aspect quite moving but the level of suspension of disbelief Ishiguro is asking the reader for is too much, I think. I also thought the narrator's character could have been better developed.

16. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier
Recommended upthread, and rightly so. Philip is bereft when his cousin and protector Ambrose marries after a whirlwind romance during a period of convalescence in Italy. Worse is to come, as Ambrose dies shortly after his marriage, but not before sending worrying correspondence to Philip, raising Philip's suspicions about Ambrose's widow Rachel. When Rachel travels to meet Philip for the first time he is determined to get to the truth.

This was a great did-she-didn't-she mystery. Atmospheric and tense. Du Maurier puts us right into Philip's poor confused mind, and keeps a high degree of ambiguity and doubt throughout, without sacrificing any sense of satisfaction.

Hello turn of the screw . I found myself definately in the pro-Rachel camp but the ending was a real surprise. Got Frenchmans Creek to read next once I have finished the mystery I'm on

Pepe, I read The Grapes of Wrath for the first time 4 years ago and was blown away. It is now one of my favourite books and helped kick-start my reading again, as did joining this thread. I’ve been steadily reading quite a few classics and, like you, have been pleasantly surprised to find them so interesting.

13. Monarch of the Glen - Neil Gaiman. A novella in the American God's quartet. It was a fun read - was maybe hoping for a Sawney Beane storyline, but it seemed not. I enjoyed the nod to Beowulf and how Shadow like Beowulf is returning home after fighting the Grendel.

Next book is from my subscription it is The Management Style of the Supreme Beings: a novel by Tom Holt. Looking forward to this - having enjoyed the slightly surreal Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages

I'm midway through My Cousin Rachel at the moment, I'm really enjoying it! I wouldn't have chosen it without the recommendations on here, so thankyou!

30.) The Running Hare: The Secret Life of Farmland, by John Lewis-Stempel Utterly delightful. Non-fiction about a farmer who rents a field with the intention of turning it into a traditionally farmed wheat field. There are some beautifully written descriptions here the way the author writes about the hares, for example, is so evocative -- but the overall message is of how modern farming depletes the land (the vicious circle of ever heavier machines being needed to plough compacted fields for example), but that it might not be too late to turn things around. The author's love for the subject shines through, and I'll be seeking out more by him.

31.) The Woman in Black: Angel of Death, by Martyn Waites -- Oh dear. Picked this up in the library on a whim because I fancied a spooky ghost story in the vein of the original (although I never was all that keen on Susan Hill's writing). I should have looked more closely at the cover. I didn't realise (although I should had done, really) that this was a tie-in with the Hammer horror film sequel to the Daniel Radcliffe Woman in Black film. You would have thought, really, that the Hammer logo on the book's cover might have given it away, but apparently not.

During the blitz, a young school mistress escorts a bunch of evacuees to take refuge in Eel Marsh House for some reason. Even though the village is apparently completely deserted and the house is a ruin. The kids are interchangeable, and I'm pretty sure one of them is going to grow up to become Lord Voldemort.

Definitely not the spooky slow-paced ghost story I was hoping for. It's a film tie-in and it shows.

~~

Next up, I'm going to be rereading the first Game of Thrones novel with the intention of ploughing through all of them over the next couple of months.

Corvus you'll never look a field of wheat again after reading that book. I think there is a push for changes in agricultural farming to have strips of wildflowers/plants set aside by the edges or running through fields to promote biodiversity. You'll have to read Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Field now, very smilar in tone and equally wonderful. I love how he runs history and poetry alongside the wildlife observations.

I still can’t decide whose team I'm in after finishing My Cousin Rachel, I still think about it such a lot. Took dh into Waterstones in Liverpool today to give him birthday present ideas for me next week. They had a display of all the beautiful Du Maurier clothbound Virago classics. “These will do” I told him. “Which one?” he said, “All of them please. Thank you.” Worth a try.

25 An Unnatural Vice by KJ Charles.

Sequel to An Unseen Attraction, reviewed above, and I much preferred it (to the extent that I've spent far too much of today reading it, and far too little doing all the things I was meant to be doing). More Victorian set melodrama and mystery, but with more interesting main characters - a successful medium, and a crusading journalist (who at the start of the story has been sent to write an expose of the medium). The story started in the first book (a missing heir) has got going, and there's plenty of action as well as the romance. Book 3 up next, as well as a read/re-read of some of the various books on cold reading & mediums that the author mentions in the afterword.

Corvus I can't believe there are any tie ins to that awful film!! It gave me the rage!! Turned a perfect chilling and atmospheric ghost story into a two bit horror.

Scribbly, I completely agree about never looking at a field in the same way again. That has been my experience! Reading The Running Hare has completely changed the way I think about fields and agricultural farming. It made a huge impression on me and it's important to read nature writing from the point of view of someone who farms the land.

I loved Meadowland as well, a beautifully written account of the changing seasons. I liked when the horses wanted to play with the author at night.

As an aside, I was struggling to think of any books by women nature writers - it seems to be a field (pardon the pun) mainly dominated by men. The ones I can think of - H is for Hawk, The Outrun and Wild - are more about women overcoming their demons through nature and the outdoors. (Going back in the 90s I remember reading books about badgers by Chris Ferris).

Corvus I can't believe there are any tie ins to that awful film!! It gave me the rage!! Turned a perfect chilling and atmospheric ghost story into a two bit horror.

For the love of god, splother, don't ever read it! I haven't seen the film: I don't think I'll bother now. And 'two-bit horror' would be an accurate description of the book too. There were moments that were very clearly were just descriptions of what was happening on screen, which might work (crappily) in a (crap) horror film, but absolutely did not work in prose. So neither a decent ghost story nor a decent horror novel. Meh.

As an aside, I was struggling to think of any books by women nature writers - it seems to be a field (pardon the pun) mainly dominated by men. The ones I can think of - H is for Hawk, The Outrun and Wild - are more about women overcoming their demons through nature and the outdoors. (Going back in the 90s I remember reading books about badgers by Chris Ferris).

Germaine Greer wrote one called White Beech: The Rainforest Years about reclaiming an old dairy farm and giving it over to the forest. It never really grabbed me so I didn't finish.

Jilly Cooper has written a non fiction nature book I believe.

On my - now terrifyingly large - TBR pile is a book by Alexandra Harris called Weatherland, if that can be counted as a nature book - though it's more about the responses of artists and writers to weather. I'm really looking forward to it, though (I think it might have been a R4 Book of the Week once, or perhaps I've misremembered).

Off to look for Jilly’s nature book. I think she’s seriously underrated as a descriptive writer and excellent on nature.

29 The Dry - Jane Harper Excellent Australian detective story.

The Jilly book must be The Common Years which is more a diary of her dog walking on Barnes and Putney Common. However she does talk a lot about the changing seasons and the plants and wildlife - and it is one of my all time favourite comfort reads. My first copy fell apart from re reading.

*13. Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer
*
I requested this from the library solely based on reviews from this thread. I finished it in less than three days.
I had already seen the film, Everest, of the disaster so I was familiar with the story. However the first person telling of the tale makes it all the more harrowing.
Probably my book of the year so far.

26 An Unsuitable Heir by KJ Charles

More Victorian set melodrama/romance, and final book in the trilogy. The missing heir is found, but has less than no desire to inherit, and murder, kidnapping attempts etc continue. Very nicely done - readable, fast moving, and enough but not too much pastiche with nods to Collins, Trollope (and Fanny & Stella).

I never imagined Jilly Cooper as a nature writer! Weatherland might have to be added to my mean-to-reads as well.

She’s great on the English countryside Ghosts

Just finished 25. The Witchfinder's Sister by Beth Underdown. Another one I bought in Waitrose because I liked the cover!

This is Underdown's first novel and it does feel a bit like it is. There is some overwrought writing and rather too many analogies and extended similes. The story drags on without much happening : it's all atmosphere. But it's generally a good read and quite chilling in its descriptions of witch-hunting. I did like the last sentence, although I saw it coming (I gave a self satisfied smile of approval!)

Shorter than most books these days and nice big typeface!