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?

I recommend The Dry for that price.

30. The Roses of May - Dot Hutchison

This is the sequel to The Butterfly Garden by the same author. It feature the same three FBI agents and carries on after the first book with some of the characters filtering in with a different crime. Priyas sister was murdered by a serial killer who kills once a year at spring. When she begins to receive gifts from him can she stop him killing again?

I was hooked on this one and I thought i was going to be disappointed and it wouldn’t live up to the first book. While not as twisted as the first it kept me interested and I enjoyed seeing how life was after the first book. The third book is out soon.

26. The Skylarks' War Hilary McKay

Another children's book. I've been in love with McKay's writing since I read Saffy's Angel, and this one is similarly joyful, despite the subject. Unloved siblings Peter and Clarry live for summers in Cornwall with their grandparents and their golden cousin Rupert. But then war is declared and Rupert is sent to the Western Front. And everything changes ...
There isn't much of a plot, but it doesn't really matter. It's really the story of Clarry's growth and fight both for an education for herself and for happiness for the people she loves. Despite the awful home she lives in, this is a story filled with hope and love and flawed people doing the best they can. An utter delight.
(Another proof copy I nabbed through work. Out September.)

Probably coming in on this far too late but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to compare ‘Mermaid’ with ‘Essex Serpent’ there are so many Victorian pastiches in bookshops isn’t it fair to say it’s become a genre in its own right? I just assumed that the success of books like ‘The Crimson Petal and the White’ prompted publishers to go for ‘look-a-likes’, in an attempt to cash in on successful titles and things just built from there: easy to market too. I was excited by the Michael Faber and by the take on the Victorian era by Sarah Waters but then, for me, it all got a bit tired. However, I might try ‘Essex Serpent’ now based on other posters’ recommendations. I’m a bit of a curmudgeon as far as contemporary fiction is concerned these days, so much stuff seems badly edited and poorly structured or just plain annoying like ‘The Miniaturist’ that I’ve pretty much given up on reading recent stuff: unless I read a really convincing review or someone I trust recommends something.

14. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Anne-Shaffer & Annie Barrows
Thoroughly enjoyed this story set in post-war Britain and told by means of correspondence sent back and forth between the main protagonists. Heart-warming tale of love, friendship and strong women. Maybe I was suffering from post-good-book loss but I found the afterward by the author's niece extremely touching.

71. Faro's Daughter, Georgette Heyer

Not as impressed by this - it wasn't as irreverent as False Colours or The Foundling. Ravenscar was a bit too brooding and masterful for me - and he was too bloody perfect. Handsome, incredibly rich, drives brilliantly, can floor ex-pugillists (who then wax lyrical about him in a very unrealistic way)...No.

72. The Star Scroll, Melanie Rawn

I've had this in my house for about 15 years and never finished it before. The first third is a hard slog. It suffers from a common fault - the author falls in love with her main characters so much, that even though she is meant to be telling the tale of the next generation, she can't resist harking back to the originals, and it winds up bloated and she hasn't managed to make the reader care about her new characters. That said, it did eventually get going and I want to know what happens next (and I have owned the third book in the trilogy for as long as this one and I am determined to read it). It's a very long book and could have done with some ruthless editing. I like the concepts (Sunrunners, the diarmadhi, the dragons) much more than the actual plot so far. And Pol is too perfect and has too many extra special gifts.

Okay Satsuki and Remus ordered a copy of 'The Essex Serpent' your comments made it sound too good not to, thanks!

If you liked False Colours, I'd try Black Sheep and A Civil Contract if you haven't read them TooExtra.

Dottie no my objection to comparing the two isn’t because they sit in the same genre of Victorian historical fiction (with elements of magical realism) it’s because it’s a comparison of literary fiction (Serpent) vs commercial fiction (Mermaid). On a thread like this full of intelligent and articulate readers Serpent is going to get more praise because it’s asking more of the reader, and in turn the reader receives more of a reading legacy from it (generalisation there, I hope you get my drift).
Mermaid isn’t a complex book, and I don’t think it was intended to be. The words used to describe it here, “frothy” and “shimmering” (iirc) are right. For me the bum notes in it occurred when the author tried to include deeper themes. I thought the racism story line felt out of kilter with the rest of the book. It worked for me as a listener (and I do believe that some books work really well, possibly even better as audiobooks) because it was a bright and vibrant but light and easy novel. I'm wondering if its Uplit in petticoats? Sometimes as a reader that’s what hits the spot, but I seriously doubt it will maintain the longevity of praise and respect that Serpent has. It’s like comparing that really fancy crumbly cheddar aged in a cave for a year with the (nice) sainsburys grated stuff.

God I hope Ms Hermes-Gowar doesn’t ever reads that I just likened her book to grated cheese. I like grated cheese Imogen.

I actually think that the Mermaid writer thinks she's writing literary fiction, and that's why it annoyed me. If it had only been froth, I'd have forgiven it more.

Agree that the racism issue/sub-plot was a bolt-on (I alluded to it in my review) and that the novel jarred because it couldn't decide if it wanted to be fun fic or serious lit and therefore ultimately failed at both.

Dottie - hope you enjoy Serpent

I'd say The Dry is definitely worth a punt at 99p. I liked it, other than the end - which I thought was lazy and too heavily reliant on coincidence. DP hated the whole thing though (but he did love Serpent)!

I thought Mermaid was literary fiction. That's why I wanted to read it! I don't think Imogen Hermes Gowar thinks she is writing 'commercial fiction ' at all. So I agree with remus on that. I do love a good book debate!

Maybe it's Mozzarella or something? Or Brie...

Bit posh but not something no one's ever heard of.

My test is : will it make it on to A level syllabuses at some point? I am not sure anything I have read recently will. Perhaps Wolf Hall if it weren't so long. The Essex Serpent possibly might : but teenagers wouldn't on the whole like it, I feel.

I thought it thought it was literary fiction as well. I think.

Hope you enjoy Serpent dottie

On the cheese spectrum I thought it was definitely towards the cheese that goes in sandwiches end. No judgement of that mind. Who wants an epoisses in their lunchbox at work?

If anybody tells me I have to teach Wolf Hall for A level, I will resign.

This cheese talk is making me feel terribly lowbrow, can we get back to books

remus I quite liked WH trying to get a bunch of 6th formers to follow all the he, Cromwell’s and tell Tom from Tom from Tom is a thankless task if ever there was one.

I don't know scribbly as I have no idea what an epoisses is. Waitrose anything passes as a bit too posh for me let alone fancy French cheese!

I wouldn't teach Wolf Hall either remus : no fear!

26. A Very English Scandal - John Preston

Not sure if "enjoyed" is really the right word for this book, but I found it fascinating. I didn't really know anything about it as I was too young to care at the time, but looking back now it's shocking to think this is a true story. The characters are unpleasant, and you do question how they could become MPs, given their apparent levels of ineptitude - but maybe I shouldn't go too far down that line of thought!

Will be interesting to see the TV adaptation - recorded it but haven't watched it yet. But Hugh Grant definitely doesn't fit my vision of Jeremy Thorpe!

I watched last night. Loved Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw ( a local boy for me!) . t really captured a bygone age brilliantly and was strangely Wes Andersonesque I its aesthetic and editing style.

Epoisses stinks about as much as Wolf Hall but it's always obvious who's being referred to - one knows where one is with cheese, unlike with Cromwell.

I’ve been in love with Ben Whishaw since Bright Star. I think he’s a great actor. And he and Hugh Grant have previous in Paddington.

Yes, although that is a somewhat unsettling notion satsuki (I love thePaddington films with a passion unbridled)

He was in The Accused first, I think. As a youngster . And he makes recent Bond films for me :)

31. To Be a Machine by Mark O’Connell.

This is a non-fiction book about the Transhumanist movement, who are a group of people (from this book they would appear to be mostly men, with a large base in Silicon Valley) who believe in the melding of humans with machines and technology in order to improve ourselves and also to prolong life, amongst other beliefs. Mark O’Connell interviews and hangs out with various sects of this movement beginning with a chapter on cryo-storage; where the dead (either full body or just as heads) are in frozen storage, waiting for the day when they will be re-animated in a new body.

I liked it for challenging my own views on life and death. Would I want to be immortal or even live for another 200 years? What is it to be human? Are we already part machine, attached as we are to our phones, tablets and laptops? Would I want to be uploaded to a computer network and down loaded into a more reliable and long-lasting body (a wave to Altered Carbon)?

I don’t think I want to live forever, or for that matter, even for a few more hundred years. According to the arguments of one transhumanist that is because of ‘deathist’ ideology - “a need to protect myself against the terror of death by trying to convince myself that death is not actually not so terrible.” But I think living for hundreds of years just makes me feel incredibly tired, maybe I could be rejuvenated to my 20’s energy and current mindset?

There is a chapter about the slightly terrifying prospect that machines will eventually destroy the human race, not maliciously but because they are following their programming. Or just because someone made a mistake in their programming or didn’t fully consider the consequences of their actions.

My one gripe is the series of unnecessary complex words, maybe to make it seem more ‘sciencey’ but all it meant to me is that reading certain paragraphs could be quite an ordeal. Overall, though, an interesting read.

I also think The Dry is worth a try for 99p, it’s a good holiday page-turner.

If anybody tells me I have to teach Wolf Hall for A level, I will resign.

I think you're safe. Not enough symbolism in it to waffle on about, surely?

i struggled with it first time round, but gave it a chance as an audiobook and got into it then. Breastfeeding, so a captive audience. Also wanted to get my money's worth from my free audible credit.

It's a wonderful book but I think it has more to say about history than it does about literature, if that makes any sense.

40 Blood Charged by Lindsay Buroker

Book 3 in the Dragon Blood series. Sorceress Sardelle, pirate-scientist Tolomek, and Biggles-esq fighter pilot Ridge (along with suitably colourful supporting cast) are sent on a secret mission into enemy territory to retrieve a devastating new weapon.

About as far from literary fiction as you can get, but pleasingly enjoyable all the same. Books 1-3 came as kindle freebies, but I'll definitely buy book 4.