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?

Coffee - I've just given up on it. Really rambling and repetitive, I thought.

The 39 Steps would probably be okay. It's years since I read it, but I remember quite liking it.

It seems to have been a while since I updated - in awe of the number of books some of you have managed to read. Bringing my list over to keep track - highlights and recent reads in bold:

1. A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles
2. Alone in Berlin - Hans Fallada
3. Belgravia Julian Fellowes
4. Bel Canto - Ann Patchett
5. Curtain Call - Anthony Quinn
6. Life after Life - Kate Atkinson
7. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
8. Ghost Moth - Michele Forbes
9. I See You - Clare Mackintosh

Recent reads are:

10. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak - this was my second attempt to read this as I really struggled initially with the concept of death as the narrator and felt it was a bit too gimmicky and try-hard. However, once I persevered and got past the narrator I really enjoyed the story and characters. I am interested to see the film and how they deal with the whole death narrator in that or whether they simply ignore it!

11. The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith. Watched the TV series and wanted to see how closely they reflected the books particularly as I felt the second two books were crammed into too short a time to really get to grips with characters and plot. The relationship between the main characters is much better in the books (as you would expect) and you get much more insight into the personality of Strike in the books.

12. The Silkworm - Robert Galbraith - as above but murder a bit distasteful for me. Think I am getting more sensitive in my old age as used to read stomach-churning stuff quite happily when I was younger!

13. Career of Evil - Robert Galbraith - as above but again murder was a bit gory for me. However, the book gave much more detail on the potential suspects and their links to Strike (which I had found quite confusing and difficult to follow in the TV adaptation).

14. The Wonder - Emma Donoghue - I was not sure I was going to enjoy this from reading the blurb but actually found it more engaging than I expected and was really keen to find out how Anna was surviving without apparently eating. For a book where very little happens beyond a daily routine it was quite a page-turner. The ending was a little trite for my taste.

Next up, I am returning to a historical family saga I have been reading on and off for the last couple of years - Book 24 of the The Morland Dynasty by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. After that I think I am going to read My Cousin Rachel given all the glowing reviews on the thread.

Thanks Remus - I'm just not interested in reading anymore. Didn't want to walk away so far in if someone was going to say "Oh, it gets amazing from around 300 pages onwards!!"

20. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda - Becky Albertalli. YA novel about a gay teenager in Atlanta coming out and his online relationship with a secret fellow student. This was a pleasant read but nothing amazing.

Piggy DD11 has just got into Agatha Christie - the writing style and structure is really accessible. Needs a racism warning mind, but much of that period does.

Piggy, I just read The Prisoner of Zenda & I reckon I'd have loved it aged 13. I know teenage boys who like Cassandra Clare's mortal instruments books (seriously cool hero), though maybe a bit older. Also, what about the more teenage Diana Wynne Jones books - lots of male leads (ones like the Merlin conspiracy)

Sorry, just realised you didn't want fantasy. I've picked up a couple of Andre Norton books free on Kindle, Star Soldiers is YAish sci fi, might be worth a try

Remus and EmGee, yes, the Cherry A-G book was great but so very elegiac. I suppose it would be hard/near-impossible to come back from that experience and just shrug it off to live the rest of your life light-heartedly, but he was so young and the sense that the whole of his future existence was pretty well a matter of torment and obsession with the Antarctic trip is hard to escape as you read of his life after the Pole.

Also, Em, Cherry was at school with Mallory, iirc.....! and Remus, I'll look out for the Birdie Bowers book, thanks for the tip. I'm also now on the hunt for B. Bainbridge's The Birthday Boys, I think. Unless I already have a copy somewhere (which is possible )

I mean Apsley C-G of course, duh. Brain fry

28. The Fate of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

Final book in the Tearling trilogy.

Queen Kelsea is now a captive of the feared Red Queen of Mortmesne, having traded her freedom to stop the Mort invasion of the Tearling.
But there’s still trouble on all sides. Kelsea’s personal guards are working on rescue plans while the Tearling’s church plots rebellion against Kelsea, the Mort are angry about the invasion being called off and on the verge of rebellion against the Red Queen, and Kelsea has unwittingly released an ancient evil creature who commands an army of vampire children.
Meanwhile, there’s still lots of flashbacks to the early days of the Tearling and how things all started to go wrong there.

Lots of drama, action and suspense in the start and middle of the book, which kept me eagerly reading.
But the ending.... I’m not a fan of that. I can’t really say why without massive spoilers, but it was very much a deus ex machina sort of happy ending to the trilogy.

Piggywaspushed - what about some Isaac Asimov short stories? Or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep as another good classic sci-fi option? If he likes books that tug at the heart strings then what about some Stephen King (bear with me)? The Long Walk is wonderful and I think would really appeal to a teenage boy. Or The Eyes of the Dragon. Both good entry points and not scary (or at least, not horror). And King is a terrific storyteller and - I think - a decent writer, who paints very compelling and appealing characters. It’s not all scary monsters.
In a different vein, Diary of a Nobody, or Three Men in a Boat, or some PG Wodehouse for some light relief?

58. The RMS Titanic Miscellany by John D T White

A collection of information snippets about the Titanic disaster. I have read lots of Titanic books so was pleased to find a few things I didn’t know in this one. However, several facts were repeated in a different way later in the book which was irritating.

59. Quiet Power by Susan Cain

I didn’t realise when I bought this that it’s aimed at young adults. Lots of stories about how introverted teenagers manage to cope at school. Could be useful when DD is older as she’s showing signs of taking after me! I’ve now bought the original ‘adult’ version which I’ve just started.

60. The Reunion by Samantha Hayes

Standard psychological thriller. Claire’s sister went missing as a 13 year old and was never found. Twenty years later she decides to have a reunion of her friends to try and help her father, who’s suffering from Alzheimer’s. Not bad, but lots of things seemed to happen all together at the end which just felt implausible to me.

I loved Robin Jarvis' books at a similar age, Piggywaspushed, the Whitby Witches and Deptford Mice series are really good.

16. City of Friends by Joanna Trollope. Trollope's style is to take a theme (in this case, career women) and explore it by creating a cast of characters who are all affected by the theme in different ways. This is the first Trollope I've read for years, but I used to like her and I really enjoyed this one.

Piggywaspushed - how about Life of Pi or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time?

Hound a couple of other survivors have written accounts of the Everest 96 incident - Beck Weathers and Anatoli Boukreev - in case you are interested. There may be others but I remember reading these two.

The Boukreev book is particularly interesting after reading the Jon Krakauer account.

piggy I would recommend a few classics if he hasn’t read - Treasure Island, The Time Machine, The Thirty Nine Steps, 20,000 Leagues, The Scarlet Pimpernel The Three Musketeers, Around the World in 80 Days. James Herriot vet books if he wants a laugh and something lighter. I remember having loved TSP and TTNS when I was around 11.

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

A selection of essays about life, womanhood and aging, that I really enjoyed. Some of them are quite poignant as written only a few years before her death. This was short and entertaining and a little life line for me in a very busy and sometimes trying weekend (family, politics, ugh)

Ooh, Terp, I loved Weatherland. One of my favourite books of last year.

I'm just back from a couple of weeks' holiday, so got through lots of light reading on my kindle, much of which will be familiar to anyone else who stocks up during kindle sales...

Last book before I flew was
21. All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West
Woman subsumes all her own ambitions and desires to those of her husband, children and social convention during a long and successful marriage, but when widowed in her 80s finally seizes the chance to live on her own terms for the short time remaining to her. Apart from a handful of Woolfs, I have read nothing by the rest of the Bloomsbury set, so this was a long overdue read, and well worth it. Still relevant now.

22. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves - Karen Joy Fowler
Enjoyable read, but hard to say why I found it so interesting without giving away massive spoilers for the element revealed about a third of the way through the book.

23. The Cherry Blossom Murder - Fran Pickering
I think this was self-published. Strong on background detail about certain elements of Japanese society but the writing was rather pedestrian and the plot unconvincing.

24. Venetia - Georgette Heyer
I have never read any Heyer, despite both my mother and grandmother being big fans, so took the opportunity of a kindle deal to try one. A chapter or so in I was wondering what on earth the appeal was - it just seemed like pastiche Jane Austen, with the plot leading in a totally predictable direction - but then the characters blossomed and the sense of self-mocking humour started to come through, and I ended up really enjoying it. I can't say I am now a total convert, but it was good holiday reading so I may well read a few more in future.

25. I Feel Bad About My Neck - Nora Ephron
Not really my sort of thing, to be honest. Some one-liners made me smile and/or think, but on the whole it just reads like a collection of columns from a weekend paper or women's magazine, many of which sound like they were just written on deadline to fill the space.

26. The Keeper of Lost Things - Ruth Hogan
Sugar-coated cardboard.

27. The Miniaturist - Jessie Burton
A good read with enough substance to keep me going for a few hours on a long-haul flight, with interesting historical detail.

The Beck Weathers Everest book is dreadful - stay well away.

The Birthday Boys is worth a read, but nothing to set the world on fire. It's better than her Titanic one. Death on the Ice by Robert Ryan is pretty decent for a novelisation of the expedition.

I need book recs, please. Fiction - nothing too harrowing. Ideally set in Edwardian or Victorian period, but I could be persuaded otherwise.

remus some Monica Dickens? I got one cheapish on the Kindle recently and more well known might be obtainable at library. Mariana and The Happy Prisoner preferred the former but latter an amiable diversion.

I have also just bought myself Greenery Street by Denis Mackail which might fit the bill.

Thanks, Satsuki. All pretty expensive on Kindle. Will look in the library. I fear they may be a bit too 'women-ish' for me though.

I know what you mean about women-ish - Mariana quite smart and funny, Happy Prisoner male narrator with amputated leg, Greenery Street written by a man if helps

Male narrator with amputated leg sounds my kind of book!