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?

24 - Everything I never told you
I think I’m the last person alive to read this but I was really really fantastic.

I love books and love choosing the next one to read from my long and growing list.

This thread is great for recommendations, and it’s definitely challenged me to try new authors (am about to start Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race on the back of recommendations here), while also helping me avoid some over-hyped books that I might otherwise have bought.

I have a shelf of books I’ve owned for a while but not read and I’m trying to work through those, as well as covering off a list of books I feel I should have read (Love in the time of cholera and Anna Karenina are next up).

Aside from that, I add titles to my kindle wish list when I see recommendations that appeal in magazines (Stylist, The Guardian and The New Yorker, mostly - DP sometimes suggests things he’s read about in the Economist and the LRB).

Then there are the outcomes from random bookshop browsing and a couple of friends whose judgement I really trust - we often share tips and suggestions which usually turn out well.

DP and I have “book club” - we read the same book at the same time and talk about it. I have more time to read than him and read faster so most of the titles are his suggestions but it’s meant I’ve tried lots of different things as our tastes are quite different. And then I’m starting to do the same with the DC - I will often read a book that one of them is reading so we can talk about it afterwards. DS and I enjoyed Ready Player One recently and DD and I are currently reading Nancy Mitford.

Finally I’m trying to do more work-related reading, with a focus on leadership and coaching, so that’s a side project with titles mostly coming from LinkedIn and trusted work associates.

Ah, new thread. Here is my list so far. Recommended reads in bold.

1. A Dangerous Crossing by Rachel Rhys.
2. The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan.
3. Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough.
4. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng.
5. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng.
6. The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne.
7. The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich.
8. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry.
9. Into the Water by Paula Hawkins.

10. Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon. 11. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. 12. The Woman at 72 Derry Lane by Carmel Harrington. 13. Almost Love by Louise O'Neill. 14. How to Stop Time by Matt Haig. 15. Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

lastqueenofscotland, I agree, Everything I Never Told You is one of the best books I've read in a long time.

New adds:
16: The Dry by Jane Harper. A detective returns to his hometown in the aftermath of the discovery of the bodies of his childhood best friend and his family. Everyone assumes the friend has killed his wife and child and then shot himself, but is that really the case? He also has to deal with the fallout from the death of another of his childhood friends twenty years earlier, which everyone in town believed him to be responsible for, and which led him to leaving town in the first place. Verdict: Fine. I'm not a huge crime fiction fan (though I do like a bit of Tana French), but this was ok. I think there's another book with the same detective, but I don't feel like reading it, so I guess that's telling. The title refers to a drought that's hit the region, and that has caused a lot of hardship in the town. I wish she'd done more with that - I'd have liked to read more about the Australian landscape and the small-town vibes etc. But it was ok.

17. The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn. A woman with PTSD and agoraphobia witnesses a murder in the house across the street, but nobody believes her because of her mental health problems and alcoholism, and her neighbours seem to be gaslighting her into thinking that she imagined it all. This book massively irritated me. I listened to it on Audible, and the narrator was incredibly annoying and read all of the sections where the protagonist was upset or panicked - which was a LOT - in a really hysterical, shrieky voice - I guess to mirror the panicked nature of the prose, which I get, but I can't tell you how infuriating it was while driving. It was like having a whinging toddler in the back, which frankly I get enough of as it is. So I don't know whether that was the real problem, or the book itself. I found the main character incredibly irritating, the prose was repetitive (Anna sees something, she tries to leave her house, she has a panic attack, we hear lots and lots and lots about what it feels like to have a panic attack, nobody believes her, she drinks, she sees something...over and over again), and I had mostly figured out the main story and her back story by about a fifth of the way through because of her hobby. I do not recommend, especially on audiobook, and I fully expect to see it appearing on the big screen in the near future.

He doesn't say anything very unexpected, and I am guessing is preaching mostly to the converted

That was exactly my impression of Descent of Man when I read it last year! But still well written.

I pick some of my books from the BBC A Good Read programme on Radio 4. Even if the books they discuss don't appeal, it's always interesting to hear the discussions. I like to listen to the shows on my phone after I've downloaded them. Link here to listen on your computer and to download them to your phone you search 'A Good Read' in your podcasts app.

A lot of the books I’m reading at the minute are ones that have caught my eye on the recently returned shelf at the library. Youngest Stitches is now toddling, which makes it tricky to browse library shelves in any more depth!

Other than that, I have some accumulated unread books at home (which do tend to get picked pretty much at random piggy, although I’ve not gone as far as a random number generator!). Other book selections include those that follow on in a series I liked or books by authors I’ve read and liked. And books I’ve seen recommended on here. And also books on or about autism, as eldest mini-Stitches was diagnosed with ASD last year, so I’m trying to learn and understand more about that.

Terpsichore - 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

I have a similar problem with Sophie Hannah
I think my problem is that I generally enjoy reading her books as they’re going along, so it’s all pretty much good going until.... the ending. Which, more often than not, has me all at the sheer implausibility of things, and it shatters my suspension of disbelief so that I’m exasperated with both the book and with myself for picking it up in the first place.

And then a few months later, I see a new one, remember that I enjoyed most of it, and convince myself that the last one wasn’t all that bad and this time there’ll probably be a believable conclusion to make it all worth the reading.

(Right now I’m still in the disillusioned with Sophie Hannah phase, having read one not too long ago. But I suspect in a few months time I’ll also need a good shake and a reminder of why I shouldn’t pick another of her books up )

Catching up on some of the posts, VanderlyleGeek, have you read Claire Kilroy's novel The Devil I Know? It's about the financial crisis in Ireland, an excellent piece of gothic fiction. Highly recommend.

I've just downloaded Elizabeth Strout's Amy and Isabelle on Audible, on the strength of Anything is Possible. I thought the narrator was going to annoy me, but I got used to her after about fifteen minutes this morning. Thank goodness, I didn't want a repeat of The Woman in the Window.

(1) Witch is When Life Got Complicated by Adele Abbott
(2) Witch is Where It All Began by Adele Abbott
(3) Coming Clean by Kimberly Rae Miller
(4) Die Last by Tony Parsons
(5) Restaurant Babylon by Imogen Edwards Jones
(6) The Sugar Men by Ray Kingfisher
(7) The Hospital by Barbara O'Hare
(8) Fade Out by Rachel Caine
(9) Yellow Crocus by Laila Ibrahim
(10) Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
(11) Would You Like Some Magic With That by Annie Salisbury
(12) The Ride Delegate by Annie Salisbury
(13) The Magdalen Laundries by Lisa Michelle Odgaard
(14) Just What Kind of Mother Are You by Paula Daly
(15) Amber Earns Her Ears by Amber Michelle Sewell
(16) Breathe by Sarah Crossan
(17) Kiss of Death by Rachel Caine
(18) Ghost Town by Rachel Caine
(19) A Pocketful of Holes and Dreams by Jeff Pearce
(20) Dead Man Running by Martin McGartland
(21) The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
(22) Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
(23) The Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
(24) Cell 7 by Kerry Drewery
(25) Day 7 by Kerry Drewery
(26) Final 7 by Kerry Drewery
(27) Unwind by Neal Shusterman
(28) Unwholly by Neal Shusterman
(29) Unsouled by Neal Shusterman
(30) Sleepers by Lorenzo Carcaterra
(31) The Plane That Wasn't There by Jeff Wise
(32) Why Queen Victoria Was Such A Prude by David Haviland
(33) Fresh Eggs and Dog Beds by Nick Albert
(34) Bite Club by Rachel Caine
(35) The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks

Life hasn't gotten much easier this month as not only do we still not know about husbands ankle but our wee man came down with chicken pox. Managed to get 5 more books read though so not all bad.

badb it’s brilliant isn’t it? I virtually read it in one sitting

BookTube is almost entirely responsible for all my purchases of newly published books. As time goes by I'm honing down the number of channels whose opinions I trust so if several of my favourite booktubers give a glowing review of a book then I'm quite likely to put it on my Goodreads Want to read shelf.
Positive book tube reviews + mn 50 books thread recommendation + interesting premise = very likely to purchase/borrow/listen.

I’d forgotten about Booktubers! The only one whose taste overlaps with mine and who isn’t afraid to say a book is crap is Lauren from Lauren and the Books. The others are a bit too polite and timid for me (apart from Insert Literary Pun). I suspect a lot of them don’t want to upset publishers.

Mercedes from MercysBookishMusings is pretty good at saying a book is crap if she thinks it’s crap, abookolive is too,
Britta Böhler and Barter Hordes are both small enough not to worry about upsetting publishers, old enough to be cynical of hype and smart enough to point out shite writing. I really like all their channels. Steve Donoghue is a law unto himself . His drunken Women's Prize Longlist review with Jennifer from InsertLiteraryPun was hilarious.

Agree though south that lots of the big channels can’t give a fully honest review for fear of upsetting their bezzie mate author pals. When they do a luke warm review I'm thinking “you bloody hated that didn’t you.”

Cheerful I didn’t get on with the Mapp and Lucia books either but I loved the TV series they did a few years ago.

badb, thank you for the recommendation! I'm going to download the sample today.

Odd, perhaps, but Instagram is also a place where I look for recommendations. Some are from bookstores' or libraries' accounts, but others are from people/institutions I follow whose tastes seem to coincide with mine.

Thanks for the new thread. Posting my list for the first time I think;

1. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
2. In Consequence - Trudy Brasure
3. North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell
4. A God in Ruins - Kate Atkinson
5. With the End in Mind - Kathryn Mannix
6. Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race - Reni Edo-Lodge
7. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (reread)
8. Birds, Beasts and relatives - Gerald Durrell
9. Howard's End is on the Landing - Susan Hill

10. Larchfield - Polly Clark 11. This thing of Darkness - Harry Thompson 12. Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders 13. 11.22.63 - Stephen King 14. Animal Farm - George Orwell 15. Everything I Know About Love - Dolly Alderton 16. The Travelling Cat Chronicles - Hiro Arikawa 17. The Godfather - Mario Puzo 18. Feel Free - Zadie Smith 19. Watch Me - Angelica Huston 20. Heartburn - Nora Ephron 21. Eat up - Ruby Tandoh 22. This is the Story of a Happy Marriage- Ann Patchett 23. Sweetbitter - Stephanie Danler 24. The White Album - Joan Didion 25. In the days of Rain - Rebecca Stott 26. History of Wolves - Emily Fridlund 27. Conversations With Friends - Sally Rooney 28. The Girls - Emma Cline 29. H is for Hawk - Helen MacDonald

Book 30 To Throw Away Unopened by Viv Albertine
This is her second memoir but you don't need to read that or even know anything about Viv to enjoy this book. Each chapter is intercepted with a vignette from the night her mother passed away. This book is essentially about how you become the person you are. How much of your character is defined and created by those around you. This is also an angry book. She is very angry about a lot of things and her encounters where she loses her temper are very vividly reproduced. Overall I really liked this book. Its very honest and raw about becoming an older woman. She talks about everything from body hair to dating in your fifties, elderly parents and broken families.

Anyone who listens to book podcasts, there is a great episode with Viv Albertine on Literary Friction which gives a great flavour of this book.

Stitches, your post made me guffaw, as that's exactly my thought process re Sophie Hannah. Except I must have progressed slightly further along the continuum this time to allow me to buy the next damn book when I saw it cheap in a chazza shop . I have no doubt that before too long I'll be bellowing RUBBISH and throwing it across the room

Does anyone else read the dovegrey reader blog? I do from time and it can be really good for picking up recommendations (there's also a certain amount of chat about her family, gardening, crafts etc, which I quite like, but you can tune all that out if you don't).

Meg - How does the book Requiem For A Dream compare to the film?

Ooh, new thread. Must remember to transfer my list tomorrow. In the meantime I've succumbed to a couple of Kindle 99p books:

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, and Red Sister by Mark Lawrence. Particularly excited by the latter: it's the first in a fantasy series I've been eyeing up for a while.

I read Red Sister earlier this year and loved it

Thank you for the new thread Southeast. Have enjoyed very much reading everyone's lists as they continue to grow. Here's mine, highlights in bold. Haven't read anything awful so far, although I did give up on The Heart's Invisible Furies as it wasn't my cup of tea.

1. All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr
2. Closely Watched Trains - Bohumil Hrabal
3. Women and Power: A Manifesto – Mary Beard
4. The Road Home – Rose Tremain
5. No is Not Enough: Defeating the New Shock Politics – Naomi Klein
6. Home Fire – Kamila Shamsie
7. The Blackwater Lightship – Colm Toibin
8. Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism – Yanis Varoufakis
9. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
10. Thin Air – Michelle Paver
11. The Beet Queen – Louise Erdrich
12. Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
13. Testosterone Rex: Unmaking the Myths of Our Gendered Minds – Cordelia Fine
14. Gillespie and I – Jane Harris
15. Run – Ann Patchett
16. Men Explain Things To Me: and Other Essays – Rebecca Solnit
17. Sugar Money – Jane Harris
18. Elmet – Fiona Mozley
19. Stay With Me – Ayobami Adebayo
20. Digging to America – Anne Tyler
21. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race – Reni Eddo-Lodge
22. The Lost Daughter – Elena Ferrante
23. Exit West – Mohsin Hamid
24. Conversations With Friends – Sally Rooney
25. Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi
26. In the Days of Rain – Rebecca Stott
27. Midwinter Break – Bernard McClaverty

For book 28 I have returned to my old favourite, ever reliable Anne Tyler for Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. This is slightly darker than her other novels and IMO all the better for it.

Thank you for the new thread south- and for mentioning that Good Read is available as a podcast- despite the fact that I listen to lots of other radio 4 pods I had never thought to look for it!

I don’t have a master list to bring over as it is in pencil in my diary (and doesn’t always quite match what I have here if I look through!)

36. Scales of Justice by Ngaio Marsh. This had a lovely setting, cast, and build up, but a disappointing “whodunnit”. I am still reading them in order so next is Off With His Head that Remus just reviewed- I will start it with low expectations but am waiting for it from the library.

I read books people lend me, random ones that catch my eye in the library, and recommendations from here- and this is where I have widened my reading most, so thank you all!

Interesting to hear how everyone chooses their next read. I tend to see what takes my fancy at the library, and I'm more likely to take a risk on a new writer as it's free. I'm lucky that my local library replenishes the stock regularly.

If I find a writer I like, I look for their other books. For example, I'm working through Ann Patchett's books as I know I'm pretty much guaranteed an enjoyable read. The bookshop close to where I work is great for browsing and usually has 3 for 2 on popular new releases and books shortlisted for major prizes.

Finally, I've picked up lots of great ideas from this thread, notably Grayson Perry last year who would have fallen totally off my radar and Reni Eddo- Lodge.

Was planning to bring my list across but will have to wait until I’m on desktop rather than phone. In the meantime, several updates:

61. Quiet by Susan Cain

A book about introverts. I recognised a lot of myself here and really enjoyed it.

62. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

Listened to this on Audible read by Jake Gyllenhaal. Short but perfectly formed.

63. America’s Back Porch by Daniel Jeffreys

Non fiction about different groups of people living in the USA. Covers women in San Francisco who bind their feet, vigilante groups, Native Americans and lots more. Interesting insight into how different America can be.

64. Notes From The Sofa by Raymond Briggs

This is a collection of columns written for The Oldie magazine. I’m not the target audience but found these mildly amusing, if a bit curmudgeonly at times.

65. Saturday Requiem by Nicci French

Sixth in the Frieda Klein series. Again Frieda sticks her nose into police business and nobody stops her. Good story though.

66. Never Greener by Ruth Jones

I was really looking forward to reading Jones’s first novel, as I really enjoyed ‘Gavin & Stacey’ and ‘Stella’ which she wrote/co-wrote. However, this was disappointing. It lacked the quick wit of her TV writing, and I didn’t like most of the characters. It was just average chicklit.

67. Let Me Lie by Clare Mackintosh

Anna is getting over her parents’ suicides when a card arrives suggesting it wasn’t really suicide. Enjoyed this and I didn’t guess the twist.

68. This Is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay

Diaries from his time as a hospital doctor. Lots about working on a maternity ward so probably not one to read if you’re pregnant, and at times he’s quite irreverent about patients/illness/death so also not one to read if you don’t like that attitude. However, it’s an eye opening view of what the job’s really like.

69. A Wild Life by Martin Hughes-Games

Before becoming a presenter on Springwatch and Autumnwatch, Martin was a producer of wildlife programmes. This is a collection of stories of different films he made, including measuring how fast peregrine falcons fly by leaping out of a hot air balloon, swimming with elephants, recreating a vampire bat attack and following polar bears. I found it fascinating how they film all this stuff, and Martin is a good storyteller. Recommended if you like wildlife and/or are interested in how nature filming is done.