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?

31. The Opposite of Loneliness - Marina Keegan
Essays and short stories by the young writer Marina Keegan whose life was cut short in a car accident just after her graduation from Yale. Such a shame as there is a lot of promise in her writing and her essay "The Opposite of Loneliness' was read by millions online.

32. Sight - Jessie Greengrass
This is on the long list for the Women's Prize and is my kind of novel; interior musing on the death of her mother, pregnancy and her own motherhood interwoven with historical scientific discoveries. Dense prose, which reminded me a little of Proust, with long, snaky sentences. I had to concentrate but found it very worthwhile. I hesitate to recommend as it's not everyone's cup of tea and can see how it could be dismissed as pretentious or dull, but it certainly worked for me.

33. Hillbilly Elegy - J. D. Vance
Well-reviewed on here already. I found this to be an interesting read and knowing very little about working class white Americans from Kentucky/Ohio it was certainly an eye-opener, going some way to explain why people make 'bad decisions' that keep them trapped in a destructive cycle when it comes to making life choices.

I'm currently reading Fugitive Pieces and loving it. I'll be sad to finish as the writing is so beautiful.

whippetwoman I have Sight on my tbr pile. Based on your review I will read it next. Sounds right up my street as well.

*14. Reservoir 13 -Jon McGregor
*
Reservoir 13 tells the story of many lives haunted by one family's loss. A teenage girl on holiday has gone missing in the hills. The villagers are called up to join the search, fanning out across the moors as the police set up roadblocks and a crowd of news reporters descends on their usually quiet home.

Meanwhile, there is work that must still be done: cows milked, fences repaired, stone cut, pints poured, beds made, sermons written, a pantomime rehearsed.

The search for the missing girl goes on, but so does everyday life.

I really enjoyed this. I found it had a natural rhythm that suited me. I liked the insights into village life; the descriptions of the mundanity of everyday life were also strangely rhythmical. The theme of the missing girl like faint/fading background music.

It appealed to my sense of order that lthe girl was 13 when she went missing, that there were 13 reservoirs, that the book is made up of 13 chapters and the epigraph is from "Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird".

It was definitely not a crime/murder mystery novel, I'm not sure what genre it is, but it was a pleasing and relaxing read.

Now back to The management style of the supreme beings - Tom Holt.

32: The Small Back Room - Nigel Balchin

Well, this was a corker, to use language appropriate to the era in which it's set. Upper lips have never been stiffer as scientist Sammy Rice (unable to serve in the forces because he's lost a foot and is still in near-constant pain) plugs away in an eccentric department of boffins trying to find solutions to technical problems that may help shorten the war. But this decent, tormented man is up against complicated office politics, a game he can't and won't play. This was made into a great Powell & Pressburger film with David Farrar as Rice and Kathleen Byron as his staunch girlfriend Susan - but the book is a rollicking read, largely in dialogue. Full of suppressed emotion, as un-PC as you'd expect for 1943, but I whizzed through it in just over a day. A good buy for 30p from a bookstall

I'm now on the lookout for his novel about the Blitz, Darkness Falls From the Air.

Incidentally, Nigel Balchin was a fascinating character - an industrial psychologist who worked for Rowntrees and was very involved with the development of Black Magic chocolates.....!

Piggy I went and read that Times article and now looking forward to the book. Probably shouldn’t have read the section on bodily fluids while eating my lunch.

Have downloaded a sample of her Costa prize winning book.

Oh yes, it was -ermmmm- graphic!

Can't get hold of Lincoln in the Bardo . Ordered it in library January... maybe will have it June. Meanwhile read Frenchmans Creek by Daphne du Maurier . Think this is the most romantic book I have ever read. Even though in the cold light of day the heroine is quite irresponsible I ended up rooting for the impossible love affair with a French pirate. Seriously READ THIS!!!!

39. Sight by Jessie Greengrass

Just reviewed by whippetwoman so no need to review what it’s about. I didn’t enjoy this. I don’t mind reading this type of prose, reading a sentence two maybe three times in order to unpick the meaning behind what the author is saying, just so long as the climb is worth the view. For me it wasn’t. There were plenty of really beautiful passages but there was so much dense, overwritten introspection that I just became more and more disengaged and alienated.
There is a line I think, for every reader, where a protagonist's self evaluation crosses from intelligent and illuminating to Jesus wept woman would you just pull your head out of your navel and get on with living. Greengrass bulldozed over it for me at around page seventy.

Upon reflection the problems I had with the book are to do with me as a reader and not the book itself. It’s well written, it just didn’t work for me. Seems it’s getting marmite reviews on booktube too. Will be interesting to see if it’s shortlisted.

Running Blind- is that the one set in Iceland Sadik? If so I have wanted to go there since I read it!

Am currently reading a collection of Malcolm Gladwells columns, but not enjoying it as much as Blink or Outliers.

It is indeed Tanaqui. I also always wanted to visit Iceland after reading it as a teenager and have met many other people who felt the same way - he should have been given a special literary award by the Icelandic Tourist Board I reckon (I was then deeply disappointed by Sarah Moss's deeply tedious Names for the Sea written about her time living there.)

26. The Crow Road by Ian McEwan.

I was bored and irritated by this Scottish family saga. Told from different points of view, all of them male, and moving about in time. Most of the female characters are underdeveloped and from a privileged middle-class boy’s perspective. Just what I wanted to read. Not. I might have liked it if I’d read this 25 years ago but, as it is, this is my worst book of the year so far.

Whippet, I liked your reviews of both Sight and Hillbilly Elegy and I’ve added them to my wishlist. I’ll be interested to see if I feel the same as you or Scribbly.

I went to school on The Crow Road though. Nostalgia!

Looking forward to starting this tomorrow after I finish Lincoln in the Bardot. Isn't the cover lovely?

Southeast that one is one my wish list

Whippet , Scribbly - Sight seems to be dividing opinions. Insert Literary Pun was again quite scathing about it. I am not sure I have seen her be that positive about any of the Women's Prize list.
I am about to start The Idiot.

43 -Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh
Account of how one of the most famous problems in maths was eventually solved. But also it's about maths itself and answers the question "what do mathematicians do?". It's really accessible and the small amount of actual maths is very well explained in a way that doesn't over simplify but doesn't ever over explain.

44 Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
This was terrific. We watched the movie then each of us read it in turn (I bought it so I went first). Really well done, even for a non gamer like me. And the first book ds has read in ages that wasn’t a graphic novel, so hurray for that.

45 Eat Up by Ruby Tandoh
Ruby Tandoh muses about food. Some of it’s interesting, some a bit left field, some plain dull.

46 Little Fires Everywhere by Cecile Ng
I’d heard really good things about this, but it didn’t quite live up to its billing. I thought the way she painted the lives of the two families was well done and the themes of motherhood and alienation were well done but I never quite believed in any of the characters.

I really liked Fermat's Last Theorem Pepe - if you've not read it The Code Book by the same author is also excellent.

14. Jurassic park- I loved this!!
15. Currently started Sense and sensibility.

1. Why Mummy Drinks by Gill Sims.
2. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
3. Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie.

4 Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie.

1. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman.
2. "Blink" Malcolm Gladwell.
3. "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig.
4. "Persepolis RIsing" by James SA Corey.
5. “Guernica” by Dave Boling.

10. “Harvest” by Tess Gerritsen. 11. "Grit" by Angela Duckworth. 12. "The Hive" by Gill Hornby. Daft fluff. Someone in work had recommended it

Tanaqui if you're into podcasts Malcolm Gladwell does a good one called 'Revisionist History'. There are a couple of corkers in there (golf one springs to mind - "I hate golf, and by the end of this podcast, you are going to hate golf too")

Thanks Sadik. Will check that out.

The Hive is a shocker. I read it a couple of years ago. Had no choice but to finish it because I was away and had no other books but I still remember its truly terrible plot, style, everything...

That is gorgeous, Southeast. I've looked it up andmy local library has it. One to add to the list I think.

I'm in a book buying mood at the moment. There was a book about forensics reviewed in the SUnday Times that sounds excellent - I think it was All That Remains? well, anyway, I want it. That and a social history book called Medieval Bodies which is also beautiful.

Is it just me or has there been a push lately to make non-ebooks covetable objects? Seems like the quality of the design and covers have gone up a couple of notches lately

In terms of Sight it seems I am in the minority! I'm not surprised because I also rate Transit and Outline by Rachel Cusk, which are similar sorts of novels and it seems to me that Rachel Cusk is often disliked as an author. I'm pretty sure someone on here said that Outline was one of the worst books they'd ever read but I liked it a lot.

Just finished: 34. Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels which I loved. Beautiful writing, sometimes abstract, sometimes more traditional in its flow. It's the story of Polish Jakob, rescued from the Nazi's and raised by Greek geologist Athos, first in Greece, then in Canada. There are some very evocative descriptions of place and it's such a sad novel as Jakob is haunted by the loss of his family, particularly his sister Bella. It's going to be a hard one to follow. By coincidence, Robert Macfarlane posted an exert from it on Twitter which I read just minutes after finishing the book.

Whippet, I think you’ve read a run of very interesting books.

Corvus, I think you have a point about covetable covers and promotion of ‘real’ books. But I think there is also the “seek and you will find” aspect - that reading more books (you can’t help it on this thread!) and regularly talking about books makes you notice them even more. Like when you’re pregnant or trying to get pregnant, you notice all the pregnant women, it’s not that there has been an epidemic of pregnancy but there has been a change in how you see the world.

I got it from the library pepe so glad I didn't waste £ on it!

Just finished #19 - This Must Be The Place by Maggie O'Farrell about a reclusive former film star living in Ireland, narrated from different perspectives and moving between different times and places. #20 Lincoln In the Bardo by George Saunders. I may be lowering the tone here, but it reminded me of an old music hall song my grandad used to sing bits of called The Goblins in the Churchyard, in which ghosts describe how they met their end. There were some passages of lovely writing, but I kept getting confused about who was speaking and think I prefer slightly more conventional novels. I might check out some of the author's short stories however. #21 was A Column of Smoke by Rebecca Nesbit. Sally is doing a postdoc in plant genetics when her field trial of GM wheat is destroyed by anti-GM protestors and some of her team compromise their research integrity trying to salvage their results. The descriptions of the lab and the pressures on scientists to publish felt very realistic. It wasn't published by a mainstream fiction publisher and felt in places - not sure how to describe it - amateurish? very slightly clunky? I was less keen on the romantic side of things and am now beyond the mid-20s flatsharing stage of my life, but on the whole it was pretty good and explored some important issues.

Glad you didn't spend any of your own money on it, Clara. I paid actual £ and was outraged. If it had been on my Kindle I would probably have returned it and I almost never do that!