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?

Piggy so so sorry about the job, take some time to pamper yourself or better still make other people do it.

Tanaqui thanks so much for your comments, after I posted I thought 'aargh' I sound so pompous, so you made me feel much better.

Sadik I really hope you enjoy the Wilkerson, there's something a bit daunting about feeling responsible for someone's credits!

Coffee it might be too light but there's a reprint of one of Celia Fremlin's crime novels coming out in November from Faber. It's called 'The Long Shadow: a Christmas Story with a difference'. I read some of her books when she was on the Virago crime list and really enjoyed them. Also 'Christmas Pudding' by Nancy Mitford. Or could do 'Dubliners' isn't the main story set at Christmas? I second the Cooper have re-read that and Wilder's 'The Long Winter' many a time at Christmas.

Here's my next one:
21 Kudos by Rachel Cusk – the conclusion to her ‘Faye; trilogy, after ‘Outline’ and ‘Transit’.; ‘Kudos’, like its companions, has a cool, detached air and Cusk apparently seeks to challenge traditional novel forms. Each instalment in the trilogy features a central figure ‘Faye’ who constructs passages from her life – a trip to a literary festival this time - through encounters with seemingly random people. They talk about their ideas or tell her stories about events in their lives, these are interspersed with her brief counters to/interrogation of their narratives. I thought the stories sometimes had an artificial quality, the language used mannered or oddly old-fashioned and they often read like dramatic monologues, particularly the ones that flirted with philosophy; so that they seemed to me more ‘imagined’ than real, as if Faye was projecting what might have been revealed rather than what was actually said.
‘Kudos’ adheres so carefully to the format established in ‘Outline’ and ‘Transit’ that I found it repetitious. I read a review that said her theme here was ‘dislocation’ (or perhaps estrangement particularly between parents and children). However, I couldn’t always see what she was doing that she hadn’t already done or what was being said that hadn’t already been communicated. I did find elements of the stories mildly provocative or entertaining: the publisher talking about what contemporary readers want, the novelist using a ‘hamster’ as a device to talk about her family. I also found the later sections of the novel, in particular the hotel sequence, more engaging - some great descriptive passages too. But, overall, I found ‘Kudos’ uneven and curiously unsatisfying.

Coffee sorry also 'Ice' Anna Kavan, it's recently been republished by Penguin. I really like it but it's quite a weird read, I suppose it's dystopian science fiction, set in a frozen world after some unspecified disaster - like all her work it's not desperately cheering or festive though.

22. Sevastopol Stories and Hadji Murat by Leo Tolstoy These are two novellas or long short stories. The first is set during the Crimean War and Tolstoy obviously drew on his first hand experience of the soldiers who were defending the town during its siege by the British and French. The second is the story of Hadji Murat who fought both against the Russians and others who were opposing Russian expansion.

23 The Lubetkin Legacy by Marina Lewycka
Bertie's mother dies and his home in a council-owned Lubetkin designed block of flats is threatened. So he invites an old woman he met in the hospital to come an impersonate his mother. This book is very funny but also quite uneven. There are two main stories - that of Bertie and also of Violet a young woman who also comes to live in the flats. They don't quite connect in the way they could do and in the end drift off in different directions. There are some very funny set pieces though. It was a good read but I thought that the plot could have been tightened up.

24 Lucia in London by E F Benson
Enjoyed this but I think he had too many characters to keep going and so some weren't developed as well as they could have been. Lucia, leading social light of her small village launches herself onto the London social scene and is soon hobnobbing with artists, actors, duchesses and royalty.

25 The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslave Hasek
I hadn't heard of this book before I picked it up on impulse in the library but it is a classic in the Czech republic. A satire on the First World War and the experiences of the Austro Hungarian empire, it follows the experience of Svejk during the war from the moment he is arrested for daring to say there will be a war, through his attempts to join his regiment and his capture as a Russian. It satirises the multi lingual army where half the time they don't understand each other, the laziness, corruption and incompetence of the officers, and the chaos and confusion of war. Svejk has a long rambling story to tell for every occasion, and in spite of his many trials and tribulations somehow always manages to come out on top. I haven't read a novel from that side of the war before and really enjoyed it.

It was nearly 900 pages left (and he didn't finish writing it before his death) so I'm going to read something a bit shorter next!

Sorry, Piggy.

Coffee, MR James short stories are good Christmas reads.

59. Start Fall, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Another police procedural. She doesn't do anything fancy with it, just follows the rules of the genre. No ridiculous endings (I'm looking at you, Sophie Hannah). Enjoyable repartee between characters. Satisfying for what it is.

Currently on Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race, by Reni Eddo-Lodge and so far rather underwhelmed. Chapter 1 is a brief canter through black British history, fine as far as it goes, although rather basic. What galls me is when she said that until she started looking for this information, she didn't know it, so she was "kept ignorant". This smacks of the worst kind of Millennial attitude (no, not all of them!), expecting to be passive recipients of knowledge without having to make the slightest effort. It's all out there - her bibliography is a mere 14 books, indicating that you don't need to do a major trawl through the literature to find out this stuff. If she'd picked up one relevant book or watched one documentary, she would have discovered everything she relates in chapter.

Chapter 2 is a lucid explanation of structural racism, and she makes some good points, but there is also a lot of over-simplification. She gives the example of a young black boy starting school with high hopes, only to have worse outcomes at each stage. If she had disaggregated the statistics (distinguishing east Asian/SE Asian/Black African/Afro-Caribbean), it would have been clear that structural racism, while undoubtedly a factor, is not the only factor.

So far, it's at the level of a perfectly decent undergraduate dissertation, which is fine, but it's not the dazzling tour-de-force it seems to be perceived as. And I'm aware that I might sound like a defensive bigot and intellectual snob by saying all that. I just a feel Emperor's New Clothes about it.

Sorry to hear about the job Piggy .

Apologies for late replies. Splother Yes, you are absolutely correct, Mermaid is Georgian. Dottie thanks for your reply. I hadn’t ever considered looking at the publisher as means of establishing before reading what type of book it is likely to be. Having thought about it I've realised how much expectations play a part in my enjoyment of a book and if I have pigeon holed it as literary then I'm likely to be far more critical when I come to review it, and maybe that impacts on my overall enjoyment. One for me to keep thinking on.

I'm in dire straights with regards to my audiobook listening. I’ve just DNFd my fifth book in a row. Listened to over four hours of the new Kate Mosse book The Burning Chambers and it has had to go back. So, so very bored. Can someone recommend me something that is going to grab my interest from the start. I don’t care what is is, fiction, non fiction just something anything that going to be an exciting and non-taxing listen that is well narrated. Thanks.

Dire straits even

Coffee if you are still compiling Christmas suggestions then I will heartily second Pepe's suggestion for The Dark is Rising. Would make for a good discussion too, I love all the Christmas traditions that are mentioned in it.

Winter by Ali Smith is an obvious suggestion. There is a whole scene set during Christmas dinner that I thought was absolutely fantastic, funny and beautifully observed.

Thanks all for sympathy!

scribbly, I am having a similar problem. Too much hype surrounds books!

I have heard The Sealwoman's Gift is good. It's by Sally Magnusson (Magnus's daughter) . I went to school with her for a while, so am ordering it out of interest but it has been well reviewed.

The only book that really hooked me this year was Gillespie and I which you have read I believe. And lots of us liked An Almond For A Parrot but it has no pretensions to high literature, really.

Have you read Beloved and/or Song of Solomon?

Scribbly, Meg Wolitzer’s new book The Female Persuasion is on Audible (not in print yet) and is tremendous. I find it hard to listen to fiction when read aloud as my attention wanders but this is so well narrated and so...now that I found reasons to go out for a walk with my headphones on so I could carry on listening. It’s very people-driven which helps with listening (long descriptions of nature don’t work for me when read aloud!) and it’s a great analysis of women’s roles and second wave feminism in the 21st century.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Pepe that so funny, the last book I listened to was The Female Persuasion. I thought it was excellent. Maybe it’s the reason I'm in such an audiobook funk.

Piggy I've read and also enjoyed Gillespie and I. One of the few books that has been unanimously given a thumbs up by my book club.
Isnt An Almond for a Parrot rather, ahem, racy? Last bonk buster audiobook I listened to left me all in a bit of an unprofessional state unconducive to patient home visits.

I'll go check out Beloved and Song of Solomon (not the book from the Bible I assume )

Just realised you asked for audiobooks. if there is one of Beloved, I'd imagine its' amazing.

There's an ancient God Of Small Things narrated by Diana Quick but it's hard to source.

Search online for the Radio 4 play The Laughter of Stafford Girls High. Narrated by Joanna Lumley, it's a hoot.

Song Of Solomon is also Toni Morrison! It's a bit unsettling.

Almond is indeed vvvvv rude! In a fun way.

an unprofessional mental state.

I can work with fun rude

Almond is indeed vvvvv rude! In a fun way. I shall never look at a maypole in the same way again

45. Behold the Dreamers, Imbolo Mbue

A sweet and touching story about a family from Cameroon trying to make a life in New York. At a time when even refugees are seen as "illegals", the author gives her characters no morally upright reasons for wanting to be in America - they just want a nicer life, a nicer home, more opportunities, and she asks, not entirely rhetorically, why shouldn't they have them? A story that seems quite simple but doesn't always lead where you expect it to, and which asks a lot of questions. Would be a good book group read (and that's a compliment BTW!)

Thank you to Noodle, Terpsichore, Shakeitoff and Dottie for your reviews which have expanded my TBR list yet again.

A MAYPOLE??!!

Well I'm going to have to download it now aren’t I.

Scribbly, I'm currently listening to Logical Family by Armistead Maupin, read by the author (which I often find makes for a particularly good audiobook, esp with autobiographies). I should imagine anyone who liked his Tales of the City series would enjoy this - it's deceptively gentle but fascinating.
My previous listen The Secret Barrister was also excellent, an examination and exposé of the state of our criminal justice system (a much, much better This Is Going to Hurt, but for the law).

Going further back, books I've particularly enjoyed on Audible include

• What We Cannot Know, by Marcus du Sautoy, again read by the author (who has the most gorgeous voice IMO - I wanted to kidnap him, lock him up in my house, and make him talk to me about science and maths.)
• Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City - may not sound promising (is a sociological work about housing in US cities), but is absolutely fascinating, it is told through the stories of a number of families & landlords, and really makes it clear the multiple piling on of factors that make the poor stay poor. Also has an excellent narrator.
• First Bite: How We Learn To Eat by Bee Wilson, an examination of the psychology of food & why we eat what we do - historically, as children learning to eat, and as present day adults.

Most of my audible choices are non-fiction, mostly because I tend to go for things I'd like to read which are expensive / not available from the library!

Ha, scribbly, then it was almost certainly you who inspired me to buy it as I read a review on here! So, thank you and I will follow up on some of the other (and more helpful!) suggestions you’ve had as well!

Thanks for all your non-fic suggestions Sadik, they all sound really interesting. I've started a new list for recommended audiobooks.

Scribbly I'm a bit obsessed with publishers because it's one of the ways I find things to read. There are so few book reviews now and so many seem to focus on blockbusters and I find it hard to ferret out stuff I might like. I used to browse a lot in bookshops but my local is tiny and has such a small range. So - revealing obsessive streak - I regularly download catalogues or scroll through forthcoming titles from particular publishers/imprints and put them on my wish list. Also helps to beat the queue at the library as can pinpoint when titles are likely to be on the catalogue - someone local eats Wotsits and then licks their fingers when turning pages, sadly we share taste in a number of books and get tired of orange-smeared pages!

Corvus is ''The Terror' something you'd recommend generally? I quite like reading horror/ghost stories, but I find it hard to know which ones are worth reading. I used to like Stephen King but I think his were better before he got big enough to refuse to be edited, and the most recent horror book I liked was 'The Passage' but then hated the sequels.

I might use my audible credit on The Female Persuasion thanks pepe, scribbly

dottie fascinating and distrusting wotsit detail.

That meant to say disturbing

Corvus is ''The Terror' something you'd recommend generally? I quite like reading horror/ghost stories, but I find it hard to know which ones are worth reading. I used to like Stephen King but I think his were better before he got big enough to refuse to be edited, and the most recent horror book I liked was 'The Passage' but then hated the sequels.

Definitely worth reading, I think, although it does fall apart a bit at the end. There's some genuinely creepy bits that have stuck with me, and it's been a while since I read it. I've been meaning to reread it for a while.

If you're looking for a new horror author, I really like Adam Nevill's books, although I wasn't so keen on his latest -- Under a Watchful Eye but my thoughts on it are a bit spoilery so I won't go into details. Last Days and Ritual are excellent though.

Corvus thanks I've added those to my wish-list.