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?

[ScribblyGum]

24. Three Things about Elsie by Joanna Cannon (audio book)
    
    The book starts with Florence lying on the floor in her flat within a sheltered accommodation complex, waiting to be found following a fall. While she lies there she thinks about the recent and distant past; the memories having been stirred up by the recent arrival of a new resident Gabriel Price, a man who she is sure is not who he says he is. Florence, her best friend Elsie and another friend Jack investigate the mystery of why he is there and who he really is. As the mystery unravels Florence reflects on her relationship with Elsie and the other staff and residents in the home, and the consequences of getting older and her failing memory.
    
    Oh dear. This was pretty bad. Over written, overly long (I kept on looking at my phone and thinking “How can there be still four hours left to go, I’ve been listening to this story FOR BLOODY EVER.” and very sentimal.
    
    The plot was preposterous and deploying the device of using cognitive decline as method for injecting tension into a story is so lazy and irritating. It’s been done before and better in Elizabeth is Missing, “If only Florence could remember what really happened on that fateful night...” [eye roll]. Oh please.
    
    Astonished that it’s on the long list with Eleanor Oliphant, so many similarities it’s embarrassing, except this book is about old people so that’s different of course. If the Women's Prize judges are wanting to check some tokenism boxes is this really the best book that has been written by a woman about issues relating to ageing in the last year? Depressing if it is.

[ScribblyGum]

Yy Splother, wispy washy answers indeed from Gail Honeyman last night.

Wish I could have asked her now if she'd read Three Things About Elsie. Never mind the similarities between the two books, there’s even a character in Elsie called Mrs Honeyman. She's asleep for most of the time

[Toomuchsplother]

Scribbly I was so disappointed in her answers. In fact half the time she just ignored the questions!!
I have Three things about Elise to read either next or next but one. I didn't mind The trouble with Goats and Sheep but wondering now if the nostalgic pull towards a 70's childhood might have been the draw.
Will let you know what I think.
Currently off work so reading a lot. Halfway through Sing, unburied Sing which is power if bleak stuff.

[Toomuchsplother]

*power = powerful

[KeithLeMonde]

That's a shame about Gail Honeyman, I heard her interviewed on the radio (maybe on Open Book R4?) and thought she sounded interesting. I hadn't been tempted to read Eleanor until I heard the interview.

[MegBusset]

10. Sir John Franklin's Erebus and Terror Expedition - Lost And Found - Gillian Hutchison
    
    Book to accompany last year's major exhibition at the National Maritime Museum about the doomed expedition to find the North West Passage, which ended with the loss of both ships and the grisly death from disease or starvation of all aboard.
    
    The text itself is a little dry and not as compelling as Owen Beattie's book on the tragedy, but it is filled with lots of interesting maps and photos of artefacts, and brings the story up to date with the discovery of both wrecks in 2014 and 2016.

[Frogletmamma]

Just read 17. the adventure of the engineers thumb by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle . Really enjoyed these though surely I had read them before in different collections. Ploughing on meanwhile with the GoT but not nearly enough Jon Snow in it

[Terpsichore]

Biblio, glad you enjoyed as in 'was gobsmacked by' 'A Very English Scandal'. It was indeed quite staggering.

I did like ‘An Academic Question', although it wasn't vintage Pym and I could feel that she was trying to be more up to date in her settings and situations, but her tell-tale preoccupations kept pushing their way in. I had to laugh at golden Maeve, the 'ancient Irish queen'.....er, hedgehog

I’m struggling a bit to finish 'Y is for Yesterday'. I've read the whole Sue Grafton series but am finding this last one rather hard going, sadly.

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Christ on a bike but Gaudy Night takes a long time to get going. The first 125 pages or so are dullsville and then suddenly we get some charming young men dropped into it and now I care.

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

I LOVE The Engineer's Thumb - properly scary.

[EmGee]

15. Before we were yours by Lisa Wingate. Based on the true story of the Tennesse Children's Home and it's founder, Georgia Tann, in the 1950s. Poor children were stolen from their parents who were forced, or coerced into handing over adoption rights, and their children were sent to the children's home where they were abused physically, mentally and emotionally before being 'sold' to wealthy families.
    
    It's a dual time storyline which I don't much care for. The story from the past, recounted by one of the children, Rill, is better than the present day storyline with the IMO irritating Avery, who is trying to resolve a mystery involving her grandmother.
    
    While the subject matter is shocking, and it is quite astonishing that Tann managed to get away with such atrocities - indeed, she became an early expert in adoption, even advising Eleanor Roosevelt on adoption matters, the book itself is just ok. I wasn't bowled over by it and thought the writing style a bit twee.

[highlandcoo]

Agree that Gail Honeyman's answers weren't very incisive but just wondering whether she wasn't at her best for personal reasons? She had to cancel the planned chat the previous week at fairly short notice. No real reason given so who knows.

I've also heard her interviewed on the radio and found her sharp and funny so the other night wasn't typical of her to be fair.

[ChillieJeanie]

26. Natasha Pulley - The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
    
    Lovely book. Thaniel Steepleton is a lowly telegraph clerk in the Home Office in 1883 London, where a bombing campaign by Irish Nationalists has Whitehall in fear. He returns home one evening to find a pocketwatch on his pillow, but it isn't working and can't be opened. When the watch saves his life in a bomb attack he goes in search of the maker and finds Keita Mori, a lonely Japanese immigrant with a huge talent for clockwork. Meanwhile, Grace is trying to complete her studies at Oxford by finding proof of the existence of the luminiferous ether before her family push her into marriage. As their three lives slowly start to entwine it becomes clear that clockwork is not the only talent Mori has.

[KeithLeMonde]

That sounds good, thanks for the review Chillie

[starlight36]

10. Belgravia by Julian Fellowes It took a while for me to get into this novel but it was quite a good story. Quite chick-lit in style and like Downton the story featured characters from both the servants and their masters / mistressses. Not sure I'd rush to read another novel by Julian Fellowes but likeable enough
    
    
11. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman Plenty of us have read this. I enjoyed the story and how the events unfolded. It was quite a compulsive read and I thought it was a great first novel.
    
    
12. Islander, A Journey Around Our Archipelago by Patrick Barkham A really interesting book about some of the small islands around the UK and both how people have historically lived there and continue to live there now. I particularly found the chapter on Alderney interesting as knew little about the Nazi occupation there and the forced relocation of the people who lived there.

[Toomuchsplother]

Chillie I really enjoyed The Watchmaker.

48. Sing, unburied, sing - Jesmyn Ward
this was really good. Beautifully written and a good place to go to understand some of the the tensions behind race relations in the US. It tells the story of JOJo , a thirteen year old boy in Mississippi. His mother Leonie is young and black and is unable to put the needs of him and his young sister before her own drug habit. His father is white and when the novel opens is in prison. JOJo is close to his grandfather Pop who he lives with and who was in his youth in the same prison as his father - Parchman.
This is set in the present day but weaves the past into the story. It is a timely reminder of real poverty, lack of opportunity and just how recent the history of segregation and slavery is. It is reminiscent of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker.
Powerful stuff and deserving of it's place on the Women's Prize list. I have to say with something of this quality, it is hard to see a novel like Eleanor Oliphant making the short list but stranger things have happened.

[Cedar03]

13 Three Houses by Angela Thirkell
This is memoir about three of the houses the author lived in/visited when a child. It's a world of nannies and holidays in Sussex. She was the granddaughter of Edward Burne-Jones and a cousin of Rudyard Kipling. There are descriptions of her grandfather drawing on the walls of her nursery and of playing with Kipling's children on holiday in Rottingdean. A gentle book. Was amused by her descriptions of how hard the Pre Raphaelite designed furniture was.

14 Trouble for Lucia by E F Benson
Lucia is now Mayor of Tilling and getting a bit carried away with her own grandeur much to the irritation of the other characters. The usual mixture of gossip and minor intrigue.

[ScribblyGum]

splother just wait until you read Three Things About Elsie. Having read both now I'm going to make a punt and predict Eleanor Oliphant will make the shortlist. If the judges want a book that is ticking boxes for accessible, whimsical and making a point about marginalised women in modern society making an impact on others' lives then they should choose Eleanor over Elsie.

Sing Unburied Sing is on my kindle, looking forward to reading it now following your review.

Two hours into Manhattan Beach on Audible. Enjoying it so far.

[Toomuchsplother]

Scribbly, Elsie is next on my list. Also need to get myself a copy of Manhattan Beach.

[likeazebra]

Books 2018

1. Totlandia Book 8 by Josie Brown

1. Just what kind of mother are you? By Paula Daly

1. No-one ever has sex on Christmas Day by Tracy Bloom.

1. The woman who met her match by Fiona Gibson

1. The bookshop on the corner by Rebecca Raisin

1. #dearcancer: Things to help you through by Victoria Derbyshire and friends.

7. The Woman who Stole My Life by Marian Keyes.
8. Adele by Sean Smith
9. Little Girl Left Behind by Sheena Harrison
10. Knife Edge by Malorie Blackman
11. The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan

Currently reading the 3rd book in the Noughts and Crosses series Checkmate by Malorie Blackman

[CoteDAzur]

Just popping in to say that Daughter Of Eden (the latest sequel to Dark Eden) is 99p on the Kindle atm. Dark Eden was much appreciated on 50-Book threads.

[CoteDAzur]

Dark Eden is also 99p

[Tanaqui]

Thank you for the new thread South.

Cheddar, I felt exactly like you about Temeraire- in fact I gave up at about book 5! It just felt like the same story over and over again, and I never felt like the characters really came alive and developed- shame as it was a great concept.

Remus, were you on the Heyer threads a few years ago? Venetia is (oddly to my mind!) very popular, especially Damerel I think. But it is one of my least favourites. Have you read them all now?

28) Sugar Money by Jane Harris. After reading Lionel Shriver’s comments (in the times? Or the guardian? Can’t find the paper!) I decided that in general I thought it was okay to write a story not culturally your own; however I didn’t love this. It does feel quite young adult, very Huck Finn, and also in style and content very reminiscent of Nick Lake’s In Darkness. I felt the ending was rushed and didn’t like the fake discovery bit (hope that isn’t a spoiler!), but overall I did enjoy it.

[Sadik]

Just added Sing Unburied Sing and Three Houses to my tbr list - thanks splother and Cedar

[Sadik]

I also gave up on Temeraire probably around book 5 or 6 - I enjoyed the first one, but like you Tanaqui didn't feel it really went anywhere further. (TBH I'd have stopped after no.2, but dd read the others and I tend to read anything of hers I halfway fancy so that we can chat about them.)