50 Book Challenge 2018 Part Five

[southeastdweller]

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

How're you getting on so far?

Thanks, South.

My list so far: Stand outs in bold.

1: Quiet London
2: Walking in Berlin: A Flaneur in the Capital - Franz Hessel
3: Death at the Dolphin by Ngaio Marsh
4: Our Man in Havana – Graham Greene
5: Whatever Happened to Baby Jane – Henry Farrell
6: The Berlin Wall – My Part in its Downfall by Peter Millar
7: The Winter Queen – Boris Akunin
8:: The Thorn Birds – Colleen McCullough
9: The Nix – Nathan Hill
10: N or M – Agatha Christie
11: A Presumption of Death by Jill Paton Walsh
12: The Attenbury Emeralds – Jill Paton Walsh
13: An Almond for a Parrot – Wray Delaney
14: Strong Poison – Dorothy L Sayers
15: The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst - Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall
16: Christine – Stephen King
17: From Here to Eternity – Caitlin Doughty
18: Miss Pym Disposes – Josephine Tey
19: Forever – Judy Blume
20: Munich – Robert Harris
21: Corpus – Rory Clements
22 Blood Brothers – Ernst Haffner
23: Have His Carcase – Dorothy L Sayers
24: Artists in Crime – Ngaio Marsh
25/26/27/28: Little Women series – Louisa May Alcott
29: The Masqueraders – Georgette Heyer
30: Enigma – Robert Harris
31: Venetia – Georgette Heyer
32: Gaudy Night – Dorothy LS
33: The Last Necromancer – CJ Archer
34: The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – Stuart Turton
35: Larkinland by Jonathan Tulloch
36: The Silent Companions – Laura Purcell
37: Last Ditch – Ngaio Marsh
38, 39, 40 Jeeves Omnibus Volume 2
41: The Reluctant Widow – Georgette Heyer
42: Died in the Wool – Ngaio Marsh
43: The Guns of Navarone – Alistair Maclean
44: Berlin’s Third Sex - Magnus Hirschfeld
45: A Clutch of Constables – Ngaio Marsh
46: Swing, Brother, Swing – Ngaio Marsh
47: Off with his Head – Ngaio Marsh

That's an impressive list!

Thanks South. I have a couple of books to update but not tonight.

Thanks south

1. I Love Dick by Chris Kraus
2. The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy

3.Game of Thrones 1 by George R R Martin

1. The Nix by Nathan Hill

5. This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson 6. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent 7. Mariana by Monica Dickens

1. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

9. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 10. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers 11. You Play The Girl by Carina Chocano 12. Heartstone by CJ Sansom 13. Life Moves Pretty Fast by Hadley Freeman 14. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson 15. The Happy Prisoner by Monica Dickens 16. The Wild Other by Clover Stroud 17. My Favourite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris 18. Enigma by Robert Harris 19. I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron 20. The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie

I’ve had a very slow month!

Thank you South!
My list so far:

1. The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale
2. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
3. The Descent of Man by Grayson Perry

4. What A Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe

1. Death in the Clouds but Agatha Christie
2. The Road Home by Rose Tremain

7. 21st Century Yokel by Tom Cox

1. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
2. Murder At The Vicarage by Agatha Christie

10. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry 11. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre 12. Keep on Keeping On by Alan Bennett 13. A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon 14. The Witch Finder's Sister by Beth Underdown 15. The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster 16. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier 17. The Last Tudor by Philippa Gregory 18. Conclave by Robert Harris 19. The Girl on the Landing by Paul Torday

Not reading anything right now as I finished The Girl on The Landing today (see last thread for how crap this turned out to be). I have just received Eleanor Oliphant, Reservoir 13 and London Under by Peter Ackroyd as presents, so it will probably be one of those next. I did get The Underground Railroad from the library but wasn't really feeling it.

Good Evening and thanking you!

Mine:

1. Munich – Robert Harris
2. Continuum Contemporaries : Studying The God of Small Things
3. Cleverlands – Lucy Crehan
4. The Learning Rainforest – Tom Sherrington
5. Middlemarch – George Eliot
6. An Almond For A Parrot -Wray Delaney
7. The Muse – Jessie Burton
8. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
9. Daisy Christodoulou : The Seven Myths of Education
10. Sapiens – Yuval Noah Harari
11. The Secret Of Literacy – David Didau
12. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
13. Homegoing –Yaa Gyasi
14. If Only They Didn’t Speak English – Jon Sopel
15. Northanger Abbey –Jane Austen
16. 1606 –James Shapiro
17. Tall Oaks – Chris Whitaker
18. Rise Up Women! – Diane Atkinson
19. Cheer Up Love- Susan Calman
20. The Book Of Dust - Philip Pullman
21. I, Coriander – Sally Gardner
22. Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
23. Fatherland – Robert Harris
24. The Nightingale –Kristin Hannah
25. The Witchfinder’s Sister - Beth Underdown
26. The Travelling Cat Chronicles – Hiro Arikawa
27. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

My list below. Highlights would be The Grapes of Wrath, The Heart of the Matter and Fermat's Last Theorem.

This thread is terrific - it's really motivating me to read, and read widely. And my TBR list is growing at a pace, so I need to keep up the speed. Happily I'm spending less time on Mumsnet (this thread aside) and watching TV, so it's got to be good, right?

1 A Life of My Own by Claire Tomalin
2 Exquisite by Sarah Stovell
3 The Marriage Pact by Michelle Richmond
4 Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
5 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
6 How to Read a Novel by John Sutherland
7 The Nix by Nathan Hill

1. On Writing by Stephen King
2. Hot Milk by Deborah Levy

10 The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown 11 A River in Darkness by 12 Just What Kind of Mother Are You? by Paula Daly 13 Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. 14 The Shining by Stephen King 15 The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene 16 How to talk so teens listen and listen so teens talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlisch 17 Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf 18 Mythos by Stephen Fry 19 Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie 20 Endurance by Alfred Lansing 21 Quantum Mechanics by Jim Al-Khalili 22 Night Waking by Sarah Moss 23 A Woman’s Work by Harriet Harman 24 Hiroshima by John Hersey 25 The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell 26 The Novel Cure by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin 27 Behind Closed Doors by BA Paris 28 Eve Was Framed by Helena Kennedy 29 Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi 30 a very dull but quite useful work related book. 31 The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton 32 Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift 33 Women and Power by Mary Beard 34 Vital Conversations by Alec Grimsley 35 You Don't Know Me by Imran Mahmood 36 Wasp Factory by Iain Banks 37 Map Addict by Mike Parkes 38 The Weight of Numbers by Simon Ing 39 Educated by Tara Westover 40 How to Hang a Witch by Adriana Mather 41 Bookworm by Lucy Mangan 42 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck 43 -Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh 44 Ready Player One by Ernest Cline 45 Eat Up by Ruby Tandoh 46 Little Fires Everywhere by Cecile Ng

Most recently...
47 The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

Revisiting a text I read for A level English. Man sells his wife and child while drunk, gives up drink then rises to prominence in a market town before losing it all. Hardy writes beautifully and I was rooting for Henchard all the way through, while loathing the far more superficially appealing Farfrae. I recall writing an essay one Sunday on "character is fate" and not really understanding what I was talking about. With a bit of life experience behind me I can see much more clearly what Hardy is trying to do. And what he isn't doing - the number of times someone's fortune changes because of a hugely unlucky piece of timing or mistiming or chance is intriguing. It's an immensely clever book, but I found the sheer number of coincidences and "if only" moments problematic.

48 Mindset by Carol Dweck

Work-related reading, championing the advantages of a growth mindset (in essence, learning from mistakes and developing because of them, and seeking out tough challenges). Fine and probably quite sensible, if a bit long winded.

49 East of Eden by John Steinbeck

I read this as a teenager and loved it. I loved it less second time round although the prose is beautiful. It's the story of two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - farming in California and their stories. I loved the way each character had their own narrative and the way patterns repeated through the years, as the cultural and political background changed. But arch-villain Cathy didn't seem nearly as strange and terrifying as when I first read it, and some of the story arcs didn't quite resolve in a satisfactory way. Nonetheless, after this and Grapes of Wrath I can say Steinbeck deserved his Nobel prize. I can't think of anyone who writes quite like him and does such beautiful things with language.

Thanks South.
Just moving my list, as predicted a return to FT teaching as slowed me right down!
bold = standouts
^italics = stinkers
^
1. Golden Hill - Francis Spufford

1. How to measure a cow - Margaret Forster

3. 21 women who made British History - Jenni Murray. 4. Home Going - Yaa Gyasi 5. The reader on the 6.27 - Jean- Paul Didierlaurent

1. Fire and Fury - Inside the Trump White House - Michael Wolff

7. Sugar Money - Jane Harris 8. Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë

1. The Book of Eleanor - Pamela Kaufman

10. The Victoria Letters - The Heart and Mind of a Young Queen - Helen Rappaport 11. A place called Winter - Patrick Gale 12. Fingers in the Sparkle Jar - Chris Packham 13. Amy and Isabelle - Elizabeth Strout 14. Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson 15. Brooklyn - Colm Tóibín 16. Night waking - Sarah Moss 17. How to stop Brexit - Nick Clegg 18. Life after Life - Kate Atkinson 19. A thousand acres - Jane Smiley 20. A God in Ruins - Kate Atkinson 21. Birdcage Walk - Helen Dunmore 22. All quiet on the western front - Erich Maria Remarque 23. Gut Symmetries - Jeanette Winterson 24. Fall down 7 times get up 8 - Naoki Higashida 25. The girl with the Dragon Tattoo- Stieg Larsson 26. Priestdaddy - Patricia Lockwood 27. The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock - Imogen Hermes Gowar 28. The more you ignore me - Jo Brand 29. The Reservoir Tapes - Jon McGregor 30. The bone clocks - David Mitchell 31. Unless - Carol Shields 32. The Co-op’s got bananas- Hunter Davies 33. The Witch Finder’s Sister - Beth Underdown 34. Burial Rites - Hannah Kent 35. A Very English Scandal - John Preston 36. Jane Austen at Home - Lucy Worsley 37. When you disappeared - John Marrs 38. The Wolf Border - Sarah Hall 39. Moon Tiger- Penelope Lively 40. Sacrilege - S J Parris 41. Perfect - Rachel Joyce 42. The night rainbow- Claire King 43. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks 44. The passion - Jeanette Winters 45. Lady of the English - Elizabeth Chadwick 46. Behind the scenes at the museum- Kate Atkinson 47. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine- Gail Honeyman 48. Sing, unburied, sing - Jesmyn Ward 49. When I hit you : Or, Portrait of The Writer as a Young Wife - Meena Kandasamy 50. Three things about Elsie- Joanna Cannon. 51. Amsterdam- Ian McEwan 52. Nelly Dean - Alison Case 53. A Boy in Winter - Rachel Seiffert 54. A life in the day - Hunter Davies 55. A hero for high times: A younger readers' guide to the Beats, Hippies, Freaks, Punks, Ravers, New-Age Travellers and Dog-on-a-Rope Brew Crew Crusties of the British Isles, 1956 - 1994 by Ian Marchant. 56. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness - Arundhati Roy 57. Educated - Tara Westover 58. White Houses - Amy Bloom 59. Plot 29 - Allan Jenkins 60. Uniquely Human: A different way of seeing Autism - Dr Barry M. Prizant with Tom Fields-Meyer 61. My name is Leon - Kit De Waal 62. The Trick to Time - Kit De Waal 63. wildflower Hill - Kimberly Freeman 64. Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders

Bringing over my updated list:

1. Sirens - Joseph Knox
2. Winter - Ali Smith
3. Diary of an Ordinary Housewife - Margaret Forster
4. But You Did Not Come Back - Marceline Loridan-Ivens
5. The Dry - Jane Harper
6. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
7. Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout
8. How to Be Champion - Sarah Millican
9. A Monk’s Guide to a Clean House - Shoukei Matsumoto

10. Inside the Wave - Helen Dunmore 11. Postcards From the Edge - Carrie Fisher 12. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell 13. Exit West - Mohsin Hamid 14. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White...- Reni Eddo-Lodge 15. Women & Power - Mary Beard 16. First Love - Gwendoline Riley 17. The Gender Games - Juno Dawson 18. The Good Immigrant - various 19. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro 20. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda - Becky Albertalli 21. Straight Jacket - Matthew Todd 22. Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders 23. Reservoir 13 - Jon McGregor

Thanks for another thread! Afraid my reading has slowed to a crawl for a variety of reasons, but I did snag two books from my wish list at a charity shop at the weekend (hardbacks in mint condition), so I'm all set to get going again. Also, less happily, I succumbed to the latest Sophie Hannah despite having sworn never to go near one of her infuriating books again. Someone give me a good shake, please

Anyway, my list so far:

1. Van Gogh's Ear - Bernadette Murphy
2. Sleeping in the Ground - Peter Robinson
3. No Fond Return of Love - Barbara Pym
4. What She Ate - Laura Shapiro
5. The Home-Maker - Dorothy Canfield Fisher
6. The Blackest Streets - Sarah Wise
7. Searching for Caleb - Anne Tyler
8. Two Kinds of Truth - Michael Connolly
9. The Party - Elizabeth Day

10. Sunday Morning Coming Down - Nicci French 11. A Very English Scandal - John Preston 12. The Time Traveller's Guide to Restoration Britain - Ian Mortimer 13. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - Winifred Watson 14. What Dark Clouds Hide - Anne Holt 15. Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer 16: A Life of my Own - Claire Tomalin 17: The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst - Nicholas Tomalin & Ron Hall 18: A Life in the Day - Hunter Davies 19: Adult Onset - Ann-Marie MacDonald 20: Doctor's Children - Josephine Elder 21: A Life in Questions - Jeremy Paxman 22: An Academic Question - Barbara Pym 23: Still Waters - Viveca Sten 24: A Talent for Murder - Andrew Wilson 25: The Pedant in the Kitchen - Julian Barnes 26: Mother Country - Jeremy Harding 27: The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau - Graeme Macrae Burnet 28: The Fact of a Body - Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich 29: Cherry: A Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard - Sara Wheeler 30: Closed Circles - Viveca Sten 31: A Glass of Blessings - Barbara Pym 32: The Small Back Room - Nigel Balchin

Here's my list so far:

1. White Teeth - Zadie Smith
2. According to Mark - Penelope Lively
3. Conversations With Friends - Sally Rooney
4. Grief is the Thing With Feathers - Max Porter
5. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
6. The Game Theorist's Guide to Parenting - Kevin Zollman and Paul Raeburn
7. Out of Time - Miranda Sawyer
8. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman
9. Gut Symmetries - Jeanette Winterson

10. Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury 11. Born A Crime - Trevor Noah 12. The Silence Between Breaths - Cath Staincliffe 13. A Girl is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride 14. Shadowlands: The True Story of C.S.Lewis and Joy Davidman - Brian Sibley 15. The Pedant in the Kitchen - Julian Barnes 16. City of Friends - Joanna Trollope 17. The Position - Meg Wolitzer 18. A History of Britain in 21 Women - Jenni Murray

Thankyou Southeast! My list so far (highlights in bold)

1. Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting
2. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
3. He Said/She Said by Erin Kelly
4. River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey
5. The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter
6. The Girls by Lisa Jewell

7.Dead Sky by Tami Hoag

1. Fever by Megan Abbot
2. Court of Lions by Jane Johnson

10. The Son by Jo Nesbo 11. Nothing On Earth by Conor O'Callaghan 12. I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh 13. Fukushima Dreams by Zelda Rhiando 14. The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee 15. The Wrong 'Un by Catherine Evans 16. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys 17. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 18. Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood 19. I See You by Clare Mackintosh 20. Monsters by Raphaela Weissman 21. Reader, I Married Him edited by Tracy Chevalier 22. The Seagull by Ann Cleeves 23. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jessmyn Ward 24. Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon 25. Cousins by Salley Vickers 26. When I Hit You by Meera Kandasamy 27. The Pumilio Child by Judy McInerney 28. I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O'Farrell 29. Love Bites by Elena Kaufman 30. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier 31. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell 32. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty 33. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt 34. A Boy In Winter by Rachel Seiffert

Is it just me that inordinately enjoys updating my list at the start of a new thread?!
I'm currently reading Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan which I'm enjoying.

Marking place! I have lost track of my list. Will try to work it out later.

cheddar I have lost my list too. Will just report memorable ones at end of year. Know I'm on 23. Orderered Mermaid from library just hope I don't have to wait 4 months for this one.

Bah! No sooner have I posted my list than I finish a book and have to make it all untidy . Nevertheless.....

33: All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers - Larry McMurtry

This was a peculiar book. Written in the early 70's, and centred on a young, hippyish American college graduate who's written a novel that suddenly gets picked up for publication and then optioned as a film - this happened to the young McMurtry when his first novel was made into the film 'Hud', so I suspect a certain degree of drawing from life. The narrator, Danny Deck, embarks on a picaresque journey from Texas to California and (eventually) back to Texas, encountering some weird characters along the way, falling in and out of love, and having a lot of sex. It's also rather funny and quite literary (Danny references Lawrence, Stendhal, Ruskin). Ultimately, though, I didn't quite know what to make of it - he ends up trying to drown the manuscript of his novel in the Rio Grande - so I guess I'd rank this as a worthy experiment.

But it also made me think again about how we choose the books we read (apart from the random number generator ) - Dh subscribes to the NY Review of Books and this was mentioned in an article about McMurtry. It just took my fancy for some reason, and a kindle sample grabbed me - it has a very good opening. Just wondered how everyone else decides what to read - do you stick to what's on your shelves? Or read only newly-published books? Or does serendipity guide you?

Thanks for the new thread. My list:

1. Make More Noise! Various
2. Rose in Bloom L M Alcott
3. Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll
4. Alice Through the Looking-Glass Lewis Carroll
5. Eight Cousins L M Alcott
6. How to Be a Victorian Ruth Goodwin
7. A London Child of the 1870s MV Hughes
8. Hostages to Fortune Elizabeth Cambridge
9. A London Girl of the 1880s MV Hughes

10. Star by Star Sheena Wilkinson 11. A Spoonful of Murder Robin Stevens 12. How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen Joanna Faber and Julie King 13. Falconer's Lure Antonia Forest 14. Life After Life Kate Atkinson 15. Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading Lucy Manga 16. This is Going to Hurt Adam Kay 17. Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary Ruby Ferguson

Currently reading Mapp and Lucia, but finding it a bit disappointing.

Picking books - mixture of presents, books I've heard good things about, a fair few I have to read for work, a few classics I feel like I ought to read, some borrowed from DH's bookcase ...

I'm currently looking for books that are light but well-written, so went to the library last week armed with that 1000 books list someone posted upthread and ordered a selection of the lighter-looking ones. The Agatha Christie end, basically. So those are next once they come in.

Thank you for the new thread.
I've liked most of what I've read this year apart from Aaron's (bloody) Rod and I wasn't keen on Red Rising but my favourites are in bold.

1. Zuckerman Unbound – Philip Roth
2. Our Man in Havana – Graham Greene
3. Women and Power – Mary Beard
4. Between the Acts – Virginia Wolf
5. The Gift of Rain – Tan Twan Eng
6. Inside the Wave – Helen Dunmore
7. Aaron’s Rod – D.H Lawrence
8. Edgelands – Paul Farley
9. A Song for Issy Bradley – Carys Bray
10. Everyone Brave is Forgiven – Chris Cleave
11. Zoology – Gillian Clarke
12. The Mezzanine – Nicholson Baker
13. Turtles All the Way Down – John Green
14. The Dark Flood Rises – Margaret Drabble
15. Midwinter – Fiona Melrose
16. The Stranger in the Woods – Michael Finkel
17. Reservoir 13 – Jon McGregor
18. Conversations with Friends – Sally Rooney
19. The History of Mr Polly – H.G Wells
20. Little Fires Everywhere – Celeste Ng
21. Eleanor Oliphant – Gail Honeyman
22. Closely Watched Trains – Bohumil Hrabal
23. Winter Holiday – Arthur Ransome
24. Book of Clouds – Chloe Aridjis
25. Red Rising – Pierce Brown
26. Love, Hate and Other Filters – Samira Ahmed
27. The Cutting Season – Attica Locke
28. The Party – Elizabeth Day
29. The Melody – Jim Crace
30. The Opposite of Loneliness – Marina Keegan
31. The Dry – Jane Harper
32. Sight – Jessie Greengrass
33. Hillbilly Elegy – J.D Vance
34. Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
35. Exit West – Moshin Hamid
36. Anything is Possible – Elizabeth Strout
37. Sweet Days of Discipline – Fleur Jaeggy
38. In the Blue Hour – Elizabeth Hall

Oh goodness, I thought I was doing well having read 11 books so far this year. I've slowed down quite a bit recently due to various reasons, but hoping to pick it back up again this summer! My list so far...(faves in bold)

1. Jim Butcher - Fool Moon
2. Michael Dirda - Browsings
3. Rafael Sabatini - Captain Blood
4. Ali Smith - Winter
5. Jane Austen - Persuasion
6. Jeff Vandermeer - Annihilation
7. Camille Perri - The Assistants
8. Jeff Vandermeer - Authority
9. Rainbow Rowell - Carry On

10. Andy Weir - Artemis 11. Maggie O'Farrell - Instructions for a Heatwave 12. Kate Quinn - The Alice Network (currently reading)

The only one of the lot I haven't enjoyed was The Assistants. The narrative seemed rushed, the characters felt 2-D and overall it didn't live up to what was a very interesting premise.

I pick a lot from reviews on here from people I seem to chime with more often than not, also I read a lot of classics and modern classics until recently so work my way through those. Mostly it’s subject matter and then a read of the first chapter. If that’s not well written then book goes back on shelf/is deleted. Certain subjects and scenes grab me more than others too - I like Westerns, certain periods of history etc

I recently picked up The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald because I hadn’t read anything by her but often heard it mentioned, read a page and like the style.

I’m trying to read more female authors this year that I’ve missed because I have a definite leaning toward males for my favourites, and would like to find more among women.

14/20 by women so far, but even split on faves.

I agree, satsuki, I've definitely been inspired a lot more from being on this thread.

I also tend to jump from one thing to another in slightly connected ways....eg reading the Laura Shapiro What She Ate book made me read more Barbara Pym (because Pym is one of her subjects). Claire Tomalin's memoir led me to her husband's book about Donald Crowhurst. Into Thin Air meant I read the biog of Apsley Cherry-Garrard, thanks to the heroic/endurance feat aspect, though it's not something I might have considered reading previously. I quite often find myself going off on tangents like this.

New thread placemark!

My list so far (I'm also on the slower side karma don't worry! It is only April!)

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.

Currently half way through 13!

I have a page at the back of my diary to jot down books I'd like to read (a friend told me about goodreads so may need to start doing this electronically!). I get inspiration from the usual sorts of places - recommendations from friends/family/colleagues, themed displays in library or bookshops, book reviews in magazines,, social media (you know it is holiday season when friends ask 'what book shall I take on holiday'), the acknowledgements/further reading sections of books I am already reading...and now this thread (thank you thank you!)

Satsuki you might find the Glasgow Women's Library website worth a short explore for inspiration re female authors: womenslibrary.org.uk/ There's a reading ideas section. If you are ever in Glasgow the library itself is well worth a visit as more than just a library but a whole museum

Just finished #23 - Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell about a man who goes out to buy a newspaper during the 1976 heatwave and doesn't come back. I enjoyed it, but found the ending a little unsatisfying (family secrets, but they didn't have a reunion with him at the end to confront him about disappearing like that).

Thanks for the new thread. Had a trip to Waterstones at lunchtime and have some new books waiting for me to finish work. Might have an early night and snuggle up with one of them - especially if The Woman In White isn't worth watching. Shame, I really enjoyed that book.