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 for the link to the Glasgow Women’s Library clarabellski, will have a good browse

Hello! I’m getting very behind, list so far:

1. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan
2. Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders
3. The Ice Princess - Camilla Läckberg
4. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine- Gail Honeyman
5. The Silkworm - Robert Galbraith
6. The Talented Mr Ripley - Patricia Highsmith
7. Career of Evil - Robert Galbraith
8. The Wicked Boy - Kate Summerscale
9. The Wonder - Emma Donoghue

10. Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St Mary’s) - Jodi Taylor 11. Ella Minnow Pea - Mark Dunn 12. The Shadow of the Sun - Ryszard Kapuściński 13. Everything I never told you- Celeste Ng 14. The Wee Free Men - Terry Pratchett 15. The Minority Report - Philip K Dick 16. Old Rose and Silver - Myrtle Reed 17. David Copperfield- Charles Dickens 18. Early One Morning - Virginia Baily 19. Money for Nothing - PG Wodehouse

Just finished 20. All For Love Dan Jacobson - about Princess Louise of Belgium, and her lowly soldier lover she ‘gave up everything for’. Despite the soppy title it’s more a story of ambition, greed, recklessness, damaged people and the way they damage themselves and others. Interesting story, but written in a style somewhere between fact and fiction and kind of ended up not quite being either. The story gets really fascinating towards the end, when the soldier’s other lover Maria comes into it - she’s a remarkable character and I’d actually rather have read her story in more detail.

Finished 13. The Alice Network by Kate Quinn.

I enjoyed this, but I don't think I'd read it again. The character of Evelyn Gardiner was well written and fleshed out, but the other fictional characters (those not based on real life historical figures) fell a little short and the 'Scots burr' of Finn Kilgore started to irk me more as the book went on. The story itself really drew me in, moved back and forth between the two eras well and was quite gripping overall although there was a point in the final third that felt a little flat and rushed.

Now what to read next...I think I'm going to read The Lives of a Cell - Notes of a Biology Watcher by Lewis Thomas. I saw someone asking about how to find book recommendations - there's a website called bookpickings that's really good for a whole variety of non-fiction: bookpickings.brainpickings.org/

1.) Gossip From the Forest, Sara Maitland
2.) Ritual, Adam Nevill
3.) The Penny Heart, Martine Bailey
4.) Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman
5.) The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Library Volume 1: Histories
6.) The Fishermen, Chigozie Obioma
7.) The History of the English Puppet Theatre, by George Speaight
8.) The Year of Reading Dangerously, by Andy Miller
9.) Republic of Thieves, by Scott Lynch
10.) Women & Power: A Manifesto, by Mary Beard
11.) Wychwood, by George Mann
12.) Sleeping Beauties, by Stephen King and Owen King
13.) Last Days, by Adam Nevill
14.) The Owl Killers, by Karen Maitland
15.) Confessions of a Shopaholic, by Sophie Kinsella
16.) Happy, by Derren Brown
17.) A Surfeit of Lampreys, by Ngaio Marsh
18.) Death Knocks Twice, by Robert Thorogood
19.) Cheer up, Love, by Susan Calman
20.) The North Water, by Ian McGuire
21.) The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters
22.) A Morbid Taste for Bones, by Ellis Peters
23.) Rogues, edited by George RR Martin
24.) End of Watch, Stephen King
25.) Brave, Rose McGowan
26.) The Blackest Streets, Life and Death of a Victorian Slum, Sarah Wise
27.) Eligible, Curtis Sittenfield
28.) The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro
29.) The Essex Serpent, by Sarah Perry
30.) The Running Hare: The Secret Life of Farmland, by John Lewis-Stempel
31.) The Woman in Black: Angel of Death, by Martyn Waites
32.) Game of Thrones, by George RR Martin
33.) The Fire Child, by SK Tremayne
34.) Death of Kings, by Bernard Cornwell
35.) Here Comes Everybody: The Story of the Pogues, by James Fearnley
36.) The Land of the Green Man: A Journey through the Supernatural Landscapes of the British Isles, by Carolyne Larrington

and my most recent finish:

37.) The Break, by Marian Keyes I read this on my Kindle, so I can't be sure, but is this book the size of a brick or what? I found the first half dragged interminably, going over the same ground shock, heartbreak, rage -- over and over again. Stuff was happening but in agonising slow-motion, to the point where I was tempted to give up. Thankfully, after the 50% mark it picked up, and I started to get a bit more into it.

Currently reading Under a Pole Star by Stef Penney, which I picked up a while back after reading someone's review was it you, Scribbly? saying it was full of sex scenes. Which had absolutely no bearing on my decision to buy it, honest. I'm only 15% in and I'm quite impressed at how much sex the author's been able to pack in in that short space of time. Also finding it an entertaining read so far.

Odd though, how my reading choices have seemed to be linked recently -- the early section on a whaling ship made me think of The North Water.

Book 49:
Grave Mistake – Ngaio Marsh
I think I’ve now read all of her 99p on Kindle ones. This was one of the weaker ones. An oldish woman goes to a sort of health farm place and is then discovered dead. I found the revelation about whodunit really rather weak and anti-climatic.

Just finished 23.Coastlines by Patrick Barkham which was a rather pleasant jaunt around Britains coast. It made me want to visit places-especially in Northern Ireland. The bit about Beachy Head was rather sad, but the overall tone is quite light and a bit nostalgic. Now reading PG Wodehouse The code of the Woosters as I need something to make me LOL!

1. Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
2. North and South by Gaskell
3. Just one damned thing after another
4. La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman
5. The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory
6. Dream Hunters by Neil Gaiman
7. Mrs Zant and the Ghost by Wilkie Collins

The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe

1. Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
2. The Witchfinder's Sister by Beth Underdown

10. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by Fitzgerald 11. Lord of the Flies by Goulding 12. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman 13. The Unbroken Line of the Moon by Johanne Hildebrandt 14. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides 15. Fatherland by Robert Harris 16. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt 17. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova 18. The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida 19. Ubik by Philip K Dick 20. War of the World's by HG Wells 21. The Quality of Silence by Rosamund Lupton 22. Good Omens by Gaiman and Pratchett 23. Temples of Delight by Barbara Trapido 24. Room with a view by EM Forster 25. Push by Tommy Caldwell 26. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley 27. The Ringmasters Tale by Helen Wallace-Iles 28. King Lear 29. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'engle 30. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

31. The Illustrated Treasury of Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales Lovely book bought following Scribbly's recommendation. Me and my son really enjoyed these. Lovely illustrations.

I'm not doing very well on the reading front this month, only read two books. Have started Neurotribes which I'm finding quite tough going and so never pick it up.

mamapants I've just finished Neurotribes and it wasn't what I was expecting.

18. The Spirit Level by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson Decade old leftist text setting out very plausibly the evidence for people doing better in more equal societies. I have been pretending for years at work that I have read this. Now I have. It was good.

19. Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel Dystopian novel about what would happen if a deadly flu virus struck a world populated entirely by hapless dull theatrical types with absolutely no common sense or agency. The only saving grace for me was how it was structured, moving back and forward between pre and post flu, gradually revealing links between characters and significance of objects - if only I could have cared about a single one of them.

20. Neurotribes by Steve Silberman This did not, as billed, tell me how to think smarter about people who think differently. It told me more than I ever want to know, biographically, about clinicians involved in early iterations of the diagnosis of autism, which would have been superficially interesting if it had been summarised by way of introduction. At about 80% into the book, the more interesting and insightful stuff started, scratched the surface, then stopped. A real missed opportunity.

at "I have been pretending for years at work that I have read this" - now I want to know what you do . . .

And many thanks for the Neurotribes review - I have always felt I'd hate it, but simultaneously that it is something I ought to read. I think now I can sit solidly in the 'no' camp.

Totally agree about Neurotribes. Total yawnfest. I saw him speak at Hay a couple of years ago and he was great so the book was a real letdown.

19. Dr Horrible and Other Horrible Stories Zack Whedon
    Graphic novel spin-off of Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, the Joss Whedon web mini-series, bought by DH who is a Whedon completist, and read by me mostly because I'd run out of books and hadn't been to the library yet.
    Meh. I love the original (do watch if you're a Buffy fan) but this was a bit pointless. Half-baked origin stories for the main characters.

20. The Murder at the Vicarage Agatha Christie
    Another origin story, this one Miss Marple's. Cracking whodunit, made more enjoyable by the fact that the vicar (who narrates) clearly thinks Miss Marple is an old busy-body with an overactive imagination.

Thank you

Here is my list so far, I'm on a go slow currently! I seem to fall asleep as soon as I pick my kindle up at the moment.

1. Totlandia Book 8 by Josie Brown

1. Just what kind of mother are you? By Paula Daly

1. No-one ever has sex on Christmas Day by Tracy Bloom.

1. The woman who met her match by Fiona Gibson

1. The bookshop on the corner by Rebecca Raisin

1. #dearcancer: Things to help you through by Victoria Derbyshire and friends.

7.	The Woman who Stole My Life by Marian Keyes.
8.	Adele by Sean Smith
9.	Little Girl Left Behind by Sheena Harrison
10.	Knife Edge by Malorie Blackman
11.	The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan
12.	Checkmate by Malorie Blackman
13.	Double Cross by Malorie Blackman

Sadik my actual job title makes people's eyes glaze over, but my colleagues and I do like to talk a good talk about inequalities, so I've known the punchline of The Spirit Level for years; now I can fill that in with the detail too.

Pepe glad I'm not the only one who found Neurotribes disappointing. I was under the impression that it was really well respected, which frankly left me wondering: why? Maybe if it billed itself as a history of people involved in the development of the diagnosis it would help people decide if that's really what they want to read about.

Loving everyone's lists. Here's mine (numbering slightly revised in my favour from above, as I spotted I'd missed one out)

1. The House at Sea's End by Elly Griffiths (kindle)
2. The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (hard copy)
3. The Enemy by Lee Child (dad's kindle)
4. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (library)
5. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (library)
6. Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (kindle)
7. Poverty Safari by Darren McGarvey (kindle)
8. A Death at Fountains Abbey by Antonia Hodgson (library)
9. Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters (kindle)

10. Amnesia by Peter Carey (library) 11. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (library) 12. Telling Tales by Ann Cleeves (kindle) 13. Murder on the Riviera Express by TP Fielden (audible) 14. Running Hot by Lisa Tamati (library) 15. The Hard Way by Lee Child (dad's kindle) 16. Bad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child (dad's kindle) 17. The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross (library) 18. The Play of Death by Oliver Pötzsch (kindle) 19. The Spirit Level by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson (hard copy) 20. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (audible) 21. Neurotribes by Steve Silberman (kindle)

A Very English Scandal (about the Jeremy Thorpe scandal) is on Kindle deal today. All of us here who've read it enjoyed it.

Btw, the TV adaptation is on in a couple of weeks.

Just finshed Eleanor Oliphant - don't think I've hated and loved a book equally before. Loads that frustrated me about it but I couldn't put it down and did care about her.

Also recently finished Will in the World about Shakespeare's life. God, that was good. If you love Shakespeare and are fascinated by how he managed to be so brilliant, read this.

18 Queen Lucia by E F Benson
Social comedy written in the 1920s. Lucia is the Queen of her social circle. She's snobby and opinionated but things don't always go her way. Rereading these books I'm struck by how poorly written Lucia's husband is as a character. Enjoyable though.

19 Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther by Elizabeth Von Arnim
The book is a series of letters written by Fraulein Schmidt to Mr Anstruther. We only get her side of the correspondence and only learn of his by her replies. She is a young German woman, he stayed with her family to learn German and the letters chart the progress of their friendship after he has returned to England. They are both funny and sad - heartbreaking in the way that a young woman is written off because she has not married by her mid twenties (I think it is set in about the 1880s or 90s). A bit over wordy in places but on the whole a good read.

20 The Darling Buds of May by H E Bates
This is a joyous book. In which the local tax man visits to ask Pop Larkin to complete his tax return and finds himself enticed into staying. It was lots of fun.

21 A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Count Rostov has been staying in the Metropol Hotel in Moscow since the beginnings of the Revolution. At the start of the book he is sentenced by a tribunal and becomes a non person. His punishment is that he cannot leave the hotel. The book is a reflection of the changes in Russian society through the eyes of a man who can never leave the building to see for himself. Very good book. Only irritated slightly by one or two Americanisms which seemed out of place - the use of the word 'gotten' for example which reminded me suddenly as I was reading that this is a book written by an American. And disappointed that the entire Second World War was skipped over.

Corvus yes it was me who reviewed Under a Pole Star, but iirc Satsuki penned the rather elegant summary “Too much pole, not enough star”

Thanks south, have just bought A very English Scandal.

Another one who's bought A Very English Scandal. MinaPaws I am about 2/3rds through Eleanor Oliphant and enjoying it, although I agree has a few sizeable flaws - full review when I'm done!

This is my list so far

1. The Good People by Hannah Kent
2. The Burning Page by Genevieve Cogman
3. The Lost Plot by Genevieve Cogman
4. The Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb
5. Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb
6. Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor
7. The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson
8. Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
9. Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb

10. All of a Winter's Night by Phil Rickman 11. The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway 12. The Underground Railway by Colson Whitehead 13. The Whitchfinder's Sister by Beth Underwood 14. Commonwealth by Anne Pattchet 15. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden 16. The Girl in The Tower by Katherine Arden 17. Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss 18. Elmet by Fiona Mosley 19. Hue and Cry by Shirley McKay 20. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

I'm amazed that I've been able to read so many and can't wait to get on to more !
7.

Re how you choose the books you read I like to pick a book or two at random from the library. I read a couple of Arnold Bennett's last year doing this for example.
I also belong to a book club and pick up recommendations there. If I enjoy the book we've read for the club then I'll find others by the same author. We did 'The Beginning of Spring' by Penelope Fitzgerald a while ago. I enjoyed that so have read a couple of others of hers
I do pick up recommendations here as well, of course, but I try not to read the reviews of books I want to read so it doesn't spoil it for me.

This year I've been trying to read the books I already own rather than having a great pile to be read waiting for me. But it is hard to resist buying a new book!

12. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Reviewed previously on here, I chose this as I believed it to be a bit of Scottish classic, but I found it really odd. The only aspect I found interesting was the way that the author played around with the reader's perceptions of what Miss Jean Brodie is like and what others really think of her - she's remembered fondly by some but ultimately appears quite a pathetic figure. Towards the end I found some elements of the plot quite disturbing. Odd.
13. Last Chance Saloon by Marian Keyes
A good read for beside the swimming pool on holiday. Enjoyable chick-lit.
14. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
I know that this splits opinion a bit on here, but I really enjoyed it. I was raising an eyebrow at one aspect of the plot, regarding the future of a small child. However, I liked the way details were unveiled through the letters of the characters and found the setting fascinating - both the sense of place and the time period of life under German occupation. There was a lovely mix of descriptions of dark times and lighter, humorous moments. My kind of book :)
Currently reading The Four Pillar Plan (enjoying it) and listening to Behind Closed Doors by B. A. Paris (not my kind of book, not loving it but I'm in too deep and need to see it through now!).

I've also bought A Very English Scandal and look forward to starting it. My most recent reads:
34. A Boy In Winter by Rachel Seiffert Saying I enjoyed this feels wrong due to the subject matter (Nazi occupation and implementation of the Final Solution in a small Ukrainian town early on in WWII) this is very well written. Shocking and stark, despite knowing what is coming I still found myself hoping for the impossible, despite this there are beautiful moments of hope written in amongst the brutal, inhuman events.
35. The Moor by Sam Haysom a free read with Pigeonhole. Set in remote, reportedly haunted Dartmoor-like moorland, where disappearances and strange animal deaths frequently happen, this is a creepy story of 5 thirteen year old boys on a school camping expedition interspersed with news clippings of the disappearances and odd events in the area they are exploring. The depiction of the boys group dynamic was very good, and I didn't predict the (bonkers) cause of the strange goings on, which once it is revealed I really had to suspend my disbelief for!
36. The Hunger by Alma Katsu Historical fiction/horror, this is a reimagining of the tragic Donner Party's journey with gruesome, supernatural elements introduced (as if events weren't bad enough as they already were), which doesn't make it sound great admittedly, but it was surprisingly good. I found myself googling the real events and survivors lives, and would be interested to read more on the subject.

In now reading Miss Burma and Manhattan Beach from the women's prize longlist, I'm getting there with my challenge to read them all!

Murine Manhattan Beach was my favourite from the long list. The only book on the list I gave five stars to. It is my sort of perfect thoroughly enjoyable read. Doesn’t do anything weird, political or controversial; it’s a solid, immersive well written story with believable characters doing interesting things. I'm disappointed (but not surprised) that it wasn’t shortlisted.