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?

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Tanaqui
Nope, I wasn't on the Heyer threads. I liked Damerel well enough, although found his first action and her reaction to it rather disturbing, but it seemed to have very little plot and a lot of repetition. All fun enough but certainly nowhere near as good as The Masqueraders.

Not sure if I've read them all yet or not, as I can't remember the names of the ones I read a few years ago. Really, only The Grand Sophy and The Masqueraders have been 'really' good though, imvho.

[ChillieJeanie]

27. Ben Aaronovitch - The Furthest Station
    
    Quick little novella in the Rivers of London series. Ghosts are disturbing travellers on their morning commute, but although the commuters call the police themselves they completely forget about the encounter within about ten minutes. The ghosts appear to be trying to deliver an urgent message, so PC Peter Grant, Nightingale, and a few of the newer recruits in the series, go on a ghost hunting expedition.
    
    I did feel a bit miffed about the price of the book being £7.99 when it's only a bit over 100 pages long, but still, it's good to have another story whilst awaiting the next full length novel.

[SatsukiKusakabe]

17. My Favourite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris

This is a graphic novel in the form of the notebook/diary/sketchbook of Karen, a preteen girl in 1960s Chicago who is obsessed with monsters and horror comics. When a neighbour, a beautiful and eccentric woman who is kind to her, dies suddenly, Karen becomes drawn into a real world of darkness and horror as she seeks to solve the mystery of her friend’s death. This book covers so much ground - the Holocaust, the death of Dr King and ensuing riots, art both low and high, as seen and sketched by a child. It is about family, love, race, sexuality, poverty, power, and also about identity. At heart is about a young girl growing up trying to make sense of what it is to be female in a world in which the cards are stacked against females, and trying to carve out an image of herself as a woman when the images of womanhood that surround her are dissonant from her own desires and experience. The artwork in this novel is just extraordinary; haunting, disturbing, yet starkly beautiful. If you like graphic novels I really recommend it, though the story is left unfinished as it is only Volume 1 of 2 I will definitely be looking forward to it - the second instalment isn’t available at my library yet. Just a note that this very much an adult graphic novel, in case anyone is misled by the child narrator. My ds was intrigued by the name when I collected it but a quick flip through confirmed it was not one to leave lying around! I’m going to attach some images as they are really essential to getting a feeling for it. Interesting, imaginative, and different.

[Toomuchsplother]

Sadik , Sing, unburied, sing is currently under £2 on Kindle

[FiveGoMadInDorset]

14 The Thorn Birds

Blast from the last but not a good one, I didn't remember it being this long, skipped the last 150 pages or so

[Sadik]

Thanks for the heads up splother

[whippetwoman]

I too have finished Eleanor Oliphant and although that sort of book isn't usually my thing, I can't deny I enjoyed it.

Red Rising, on the other hand, is not working for me at all. I'm 33% in. Does it get better? It reminds me of the first "Divergent* book, which I think I actually prefer. Is meant to be YA?

[SatsukiKusakabe]

I didn’t get on with Red Rising whippet. Gave up a bit further on than you, I had to check it wasn’t YA too. Thought it was poorly written.

[mamapants]

25. Push by Tommy Caldwell
    I really enjoyed this autobiography of a big wall climber. A very personal account of climbing obsession and endurance.
    Jon Krakauer calls it 'astounding, captivating and unfailingly honest'.
    I think this would be accessible to non climbers and his personal life, drive and his adventures would I think keep readers engaged. I was pretty much gripped throughout.

[PandaPacer]

Hello everyone, I have been following this thread since the beginning of the year. I am also aiming for 50 books on the Goodreads challenge and am loving the suggestions here. I tend to lean towards classics so hearing about the new releases you are all reading is good for expanding my horizons! I also read every night to my kids, usually books I have not read myself, so I include them on here too.

1. The Gathering by Anne Enright
   
2. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
   
3. What Management Is by Joan Magretta
   
4. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
   
5. The English Spy by Gabriel Allon
   
6. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
   
7. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling
   
8. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (neopolitan novels 3) by Elana Ferrante
   
9. Emma by Jane Austen
   

10. Regeneration by Pat Barker
11. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
12. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
13. The Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
14. Imperium by Robert Harris
15. Little Lord Faultneroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett

[Toomuchsplother]

Welcome Panda

[AliasGrape]

Copying over my list to date:

1. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan
   
2. Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders
   
3. The Ice Princess - Camilla Läckberg
   
4. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine- Gail Honeyman
   
5. The Silkworm - Robert Galbraith
   
6. The Talented Mr Ripley - Patricia Highsmith
   
7. Career of Evil - Robert Galbraith
   
8. The Wicked Boy - Kate Summerscale
   
9. The Wonder - Emma Donoghue
   

10. Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St Mary’s) - Jodi Taylor
11. Ella Minnow Pea - Mark Dunn
12. The Shadow of the Sun - Ryszard Kapuściński
13. Everything I never told you- Celeste Ng

Just finished 14. The Wee Free Men - Terry Pratchett, Pratchett not massively my thing but this was a prompt on the popsugar challenge (book mentioned in another book). It was fun in a way though I did lose interest towards the end.

Still slogging through David Copperfield on audible, it’s read by Richard Armitage who is doing a grand job.

[Kikashi]

Tanaqui I think that is a really apt summation of Sugar Money. I felt much the same.

[Toomuchsplother]

49. When I hit you : Or, Portrait of The Writer as a Young Wife - Meena Kandasamy Read following Scribbly's excellent review upthread. It is grim reading but also empowering. This is a tale of survival by intellect and choice. The writing is challenging, not just in content but also in style. There are portions of the book where reading was easy; it flowed well. But then the structure changed and I had to up my game. It wasn't as easy to follow, passages needed to be reread. I guess this reflects the author's situation and state of mind.
This is skilled and powerful writing, thoroughly deserving of it's place on the Women's Prize Longlist. Yet again making me question the place of other book ( Oliphant I am looking at you!)
About to start Three things about Elsie - will report in Scribbly.

[CoteDAzur]

Satsuki - That graphic novel looks amazing.

[SatsukiKusakabe]

cote the work in it is amazing, especially as the woman who wrote it started it while in recovery from West Nile Fever, which had left her unable to draw due to paralysis There are so many ideas expressed in the illustrations.

[CoteDAzur]

It sound great. It's quite expensive on Amazon, though.

Would it not be appropriate for DD (12)?

[SatsukiKusakabe]

Yes it is expensive - I managed to get it from the library.

No for 12 - it’s not that the story itself is unduly complex but it does feature violence, in particular violence against women, concentration camps, prostitution, and child abuse in the form of prostitution as a backstory, in addition to which the illustrations depict nudity and sexual acts. There are a lot of creepy drawings as well, but not as creepy as the real world themes!

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Book 32
Gaudy Night – Dorothy LS
I’m a bit scared to admit this, but I didn’t think much of it. Nothing at all happens for the first 150 pages or so, other than that HV mooches around a bit. Then we’re introduced to a couple of silly young men and there’s a few pages of jolly good fun amidst loads of silly women wittering – so many of them that it’s almost impossible to tell one from the other. Lord PW arrives about two thirds of the way through and it final starts to look as it things are looking up, but then there’s the usual pages and pages and pages and pages and pages of nonsense between PW and HV in which they are incapable of having a conversation so spout quotes at each other for what seems like forever. Then there’s one exquisite page where HV looks at PW but then PW falls asleep and nothing happens again for ages. Then the revelation of whodunit (and they didn’t dun much) is revealed (and is both dull and badly done) and then it’s the end and the thing everybody has been waiting for finally happens but it’s about as anticlimactic as it’s possible to get. I’m afraid I was deeply unimpressed. I like PW but I’m not sure I like HV terribly much, and I definitely don’t like DLS.

[ScribblyGum]

25. Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked The World by Pénélope Baglieu (graphic novel)
    
    Bought this for dd2 (12) who currently will only willingly pick up Manga and graphic novels to read , following a good review in the Guardian.
    
    Contains thirty short stories about a diverse selection of women, many of them forgotten by history, who all have made a big impact on their communities, their field of speciality, and in the progression of women's rights and feminism.
    Really enjoyed it. The art style is unfussy and at each chapter end there is a beautiful double page illustration encapsulating the contribution each woman has made.
    Some really fascinating women. Loved the story of Agnodice from the 4th century BC. Infuriated by the lack of obstetric care, high maternal and infant mortality rates but also that training to become a doctor was forbidden to women in Greece, left for Eygypt, became a doctor, returned to Greece and then disguised herself as a man so she could save lives.
    Along side her story you have that of Leymah Gbowee, social worker and political activist during the civil war in Liberia who won the Nobel peace prize in 2011. There’s a real mix of characters from all walks of life, periods of history and parts of the globe.
    
    Baglieu does not shy away from the realities of these women's lives so domestic violence, rape and child abuse feature (not pictured graphically), and several of the women featured die in the persuit of their agendas but this is overwhelmingly an uplifting and inspiring book. Dd2 says “yeah, it’s good” which is praise indeed.

[ScribblyGum]

Thanks Satsuki for the review of My Favourite Thing is Monsters. Looks really good.

[PepeLePew]

30 - Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Outstanding graphic novel about the Iranian revolution. I loved her style and story telling and it brought the history to life in a very personal and tangible way.

31 - a very dull - too dull to name - but quite useful work related book. Like most management books it had one idea repeated in different ways but I can see how I can apply the ideas in a practical way.

32 - The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

This is extremely clever. Almost too clever as I was often a bit bewildered by the plot twists and the characters. But it is a highly entertaining read if you just go with it and enjoy the frequent WTF moments. Incredibly well done and not like anything I've read before, and I want to go back and reread it again soon to see what I missed first time round.

[TheTurnOfTheScrew]

12. Keep on Keeping On by Alan Bennett
Collection of diaries and prose. The former were warm, funny and often deliciously ordinary, if occasionally unsympathetic. The second half of obituaries, sermons, speeches and scripts I will admit to skimming over in the end. Half a good book.

*13. A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon.
George has a late mid-life crisis, brought about by his wife's infidelity and his own health worries, which spills over into a serious mental health breakdown. Not especially interesting or believable.

[Murine]

19. I See You by Clare Mackintosh a quick, light read of a psychological thriller which kept me engaged, in which a woman spots her own picture in an advert in the paper and is understandably rather concerned about this!
    
20. Monsters by Raphaela Weissman a free read with Pigeonhole, much better than expected! A New York dysfunctional couple trying to cope in the aftermath of 9/11 try to make sense of their seemingly precocious 8 year olds behaviour and his fear of monsters.
    
21. Reader, I Married Him ed. by Tracy Chevalier really enjoyed this collection of short stories inspired by Jane Eyre, some very subtly, others as sequels or reimaginings, for example Helen Dunmore wrote her wonderful piece from Grace Poole's viewpoint. There's a few duff ones in there but overall would definitely recommend, I loved discovering the new (to me) authors who have contributed, expanding my TBR list yet again!
    
    I've just started Sing, Unburied, Sing after seeing the recommendations here, it really is very well written.

[Indigosalt]

Have added Sing, Unburied, Sing to my TBR list - thanks to all reviewers!