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?

Corvus I've only ever listened to Wolf Hall as an audiobook and absolutely love it. It's on my dad's kindle as an e-book, and am considering reading it, but I realise there's a risk I might fall out of love with it (and he, Cromwell) in that format.

I actually came on to review my latest completion, but I can't decide what type of cheese it is, so obviously haven't analysed it enough. Will come back tomorrow.

I know it's a while since I read it but isn't Mermaid set in the Georgian period? My memory is that it was late 1700's. It is a very different period to the austere Victorian values that run through Serpent. I do agree that Serpent will stand the test of time better but I honestly don't see that there is a lot to compare within the two books other than the superficial things I noted yesterday. For me Serpent's strength is its themes, drawn from Victorian Literature and the period in general. Mermaid however relies on its strength of character - I really enjoyed the way Gower brought characters to life - and its sense of fun.

25. Swimming Lessons Clare Fuller “Ingrid Coleman writes letters to her husband Gil about the truth of their marriage, but instead of giving them to him, she hides them in the thousands of books he has collected over the years. When Ingrid has written her final letter she disappears from a Dorset beach, leaving behind her beautiful but dilapidated house by the sea, her husband, and her two daughters"

This, like Fullers first novel, is told across two timelines. It alternates between the letters Ingrid writes and her perspective, and that of her now adult daughter Flora. I found Flora a really quite infuriating character, selfish and childish, but as the story develops it becomes understandable why. I like the way the story is revealed layer by layer almost, and how your perspective switches throughout. I didn’t love it exactly, but it definitely kept me interested.

This was a library book I need to return soon, but now I really will get back to Snow Falling on Cedars

I don’t think I can put it as clearly (or entertainingly) as you ScribblyGum and I love the idea of Uplit in petticoats but perhaps it boils down to what some readers expect before they engage with the texts? In that sense I’m probably more like Remus. Since I’ve not read either I’d go on who published them, where they’re reviewed and how they’re presented/packaged in marketing terms. I know that those facts tend to sway me when considering ‘literary’ novels by authors I don’t know. So, taking that as a way of comparing them they both seem to be positioned as ‘literary’ (the agent for ‘Mermaid ‘explicitly states this): they’re both on ‘literary’ lists, Harvill Secker publishes work by Coetzee and Binet and prides itself on being a home for ‘Nobel’ and ‘prize-winning’ writers, and Serpent’s Tail has similar associations although a bit more transgressive/avant-garde; they also have very similar cover designs. Hermes-Gower makes a point of the fact that she did the UEA writing course, which is associated still (?) with a certain quality of writing, certainly it bestows an upmarket brand identity on its writers (not sure that’s really deserved personally) but that leads me to a comparison with writers like Rose Tremain. Although, before reading the comments here, I’d assumed that ‘Mermaid’ would be more like ‘The Luminaries’ which was an explicitly literary work, although I didn’t actually like it. I assumed ‘Serpent’ would be more ‘frothy’ I suppose simply because it’s everywhere.
In actual terms I find the boundaries between the literary and the commercial difficult to define. Take Sarah Waters, her work’s quite commercial but she manages to operate on a number of levels, so it’s not necessary to recognise references to Foucault/Bentham (? long time since I've read it) in ‘Affinity’ when she discusses prisons, and that fact doesn’t make the book harder to read or necessarily more/less enjoyable So does her background in academia and how that informs her novels make them ‘literary’? Or does their ‘readability’ make them ‘commercial’? Also, as a reader I find the distinction can be annoying: I consider Chandler as great a writer as Faulkner, say, just working in a different set of traditions. Similarly, I don’t think ‘Never Let Me Go’ - which has been so lauded as a literary work - would do so well if it was up against the science fiction it borrows from so heavily.
I think I'm ending up coming down on both sides and on neither does 'Mermaid' seem to triumph. Sounds as if it's been marketed as 'literary' setting up expectations it doesn't meet and reads as 'frothy' but disjointed?

Sounds interesting Shakeitoff have added to the pile!

I watched A Very English Scandal, Southeastdweller and I'm reading the book. What did you think of the adaptation?

I thought the tone of the book was captured really well. The acting was terrific, especially from High Grant. I’m glad there’s two more parts to come because there’s still a lot of the story to be told and I don’t like rushed adaptations.

36. The Expats by Chris Pavone

A pair of US expats with lots of secrets move to Luxembourg for a new start. But it’s not long before another American couple arrive and seem a bit too interested in them. Are the dark secrets in their past catching up with them?

Entertaining but not outstanding. The sort of book that’d be a good holiday read.

37. My Sweet Revenge by Jane Fallon

When Paula discovers that her husband Robert is having an affair, she resolves to make Robert fall back in love with her before leaving him, so that she can break his heart.

I struggled a bit with the central premise here - I can understand someone wanting their ex to see what he’s missing, but spending months and months love bombing the husband you secretly despise seemed to be stretching plausibility a bit too far for me.
However, despite that, I enjoyed reading this.

SouthE agreed. Initially I thought Hugh Grant was way off beam casting wise, (Given I thought Jeremy Thorpe shared a greater likeness to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's child catcher than the very attractive HG) but he and Ben Whishaw did a great job. They also made Paddington 2 in 2017 & HG has said 'I've spent all year trying to either kill, imprison or bugger Ben Whishaw…'
The Jeremy Thorpe scandal is one of those stories that would be rejected as being too unbelievable if it weren't true!

20. Blake - Peter Ackroyd

Highly illuminating, fascinating, and very moving biography of the visionary poet-painter who was never recognised in his own lifetime. I was only familiar with Blake's most famous poetical works (and had never really encountered his painting) but they have an incredible power, which this book really helps to put into context.

Just finished Mary Beard's very interesting Women and Power. It is, as many PPs have pointed out very short! Though provoking and made me look at how I view power in some new ways. I also used some of her points about women in mythology in a lesson today so thanks Mary!

No reading tonight : big interview to prep for...

Meg - I must admit that I think Blake's paintings are vastly superior to his poems.

60: The Forest Lake Mystery - Palle Rosenkrantz Published in 1903, this was a Kindle monthly deal, and touted as the first Danish detective story. I enjoyed it. It was a bit too long and it meandered a bit to swoon over Venice for a while, but it had some nice touches of humour, and a really endearing central character. It reminded me a bit of an earlier version of Boris Akunin's Erast Fandorin books, if anybody knows those.

Remus I agree - it's the kind of art that looks like it was beamed down from another planet - he was clearly all kinds of crazy, but what an incredible vision of the world.

21. One Trick Pony - Nathan Hale

Read at the behest of DS1, this is a cool little graphic novel from an artist I hadn't come across before. It's set in a dystopian future where creepy alien 'pipers' have harvested all the planet's technology; Strata and her family are salvaging what remains of humanity's technological history when they unearth a robot horse that turns out to be a bit special. Simply, but atmospherically illustrated and a good, pacy story.

Good luck for the interview Piggy

Sorry, Piggy - missed that. Good luck!

Meg - Imagine seeing life in such colours/shapes though.

Thank you stitches and remus . I regularly grumble on MN about not getting interviews and now I have had three this year!

Good luck Piggy - now stop mumsnetting and do your prep!

Yes mum !

Good luck Piggy

Thanking you!

Good luck piggy

Agree Blake’s paintings are out of this world. I think his poems have a deceptively simple power though. There are a few standouts. Just the other day I said “o rose thou art sick” as I was pruning.

Good luck, Piggy!

Fingers crossed for you, Peggy.

I also read Mary Beard's Women and Power a while back, but didn't count it due to shortness. I thought it was okay, but wasn't blown away. A reluctance to hear women's voices can be traced back to Classical civilisation, oh shock and surprise. I'd be more interested to read about cultures where this wasn't the case.

Failed to finish Landskipping by Anna Pavord and Deaths of the Poets by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons. Nothing really wrong with either of them, but I found I was counting the pages till the end, so decided I might as well save myself all that dutiful page-turning.

I did finish 58. Miss Pym Disposes, by Josephine Tey. Published in 1946, set in a women's physical training college. About two-thirds of the way in, you finally get the crime. This was enjoyable both a period piece and because of its unusual take on a crime mystery.

*15. Carnival of Shadows - RJ Ellory
*
This has taken me ages to finish and I really didn't enjoy it very much. In hindsight I should have cut my losses early on and given up on it.

The premise seems good enough. An FBI agent is sent out to a small town in middle America to investigate the death of a man at a travelling carnival.
Michael Travis, our FBI hero, has a bit of a past himself. His mother murdered his father in front of him when he was a teenager. This story is told in parallel to the main narrative and is, if anything more interesting.
The entire thing just felt really laboured. Travis interviews the members of the carnival, trying to establish who, if any of them were involved in the murder. He can't figure out if they are confidence tricksters or if they can really read people's minds. These scenes and Travis's internal conflict feel like they go on forever.
I know he doesn't trust the carnival people, I know they don't trust him, I know he's beginning to lose trust in his own judgement, stop telling me the same things over and over again!
After about 400 pages, things pick up a bit and we finally get to the big reveal. However, by this point I just wanted it all to be over and so it felt like I didn't get the payoff I deserved. The conspiracy/cover-up aspect of the whole thing felt a bit far-fetched and I was hoping for something a bit more imaginative.
In summary, not really worth the effort.