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?

[Piggywaspushed]

Another Go Between fan. I first read it on a beach in Rhode Island and shouted out loud when the big, sad event (spoiler avoidance) occurred. Awkward.

[StitchesInTime]

Tanaqui my local library back when I was a teenager had loads of those Cheerleaders books. I remember reading lots of them but I don’t think they’d stand up well to rereading now!

The bits where they kept comparing the boys to sexy heartthrobs like Robert Redford or Woody Allen would definitely need updating

[CorvusUmbranox]

51.) This Thing of Darkness, by Harry Thompson Now this is how you do historical fiction. There's some beautiful moments here standouts for me include the opening of one of the middle chapters, where insects swarm the ship, the account of the battle in New Zealand, and the final section of the penultimate chapter, where FitzRoy gets off the train and walks home. It's long, but every time I started to flag, something would happen to recapture my interest again. I wasn't expecting it to be quite so funny either, with lots of wry little asides and McCormick's parrot. The scientific theories here are beautifully captured and explained, without it ever feeling clunky.

Frankly I'm a little that it only made the Booker longlist and wasn't shortlisted. It really is an astonishing piece of work, and like all good historical fiction it left me wanting to know more about the subject matter.

~~

A few quick short easy reads to follow, I think, starting with Thin Air by Michelle Paver, which feels a little like a rehash of Dark Matter set up a mountain, but I loved Dark Matter, so I don't much mind.

[Piggywaspushed]

Every time people mention This Thing , I remember he's dead again

[CorvusUmbranox]

Oh, and made the ‘mistake’ of venturing into a local charity shop in town. Picked up Black House by SK and PS, the second Merrily Watkins book Midwinter of the Spirit, The Gallows Curse by Karen Maitland, and Six Weeks by John Lewis-Stemple, about soldiers in the First World War. All for 1.98.

[ScribblyGum]

EmGee I believe the Australian young ladies passed into a historical fiction subterranean teleporter and re-emerged in Injun Joe's cave where they were saved by the valiant Tom Sawyer.

[noodlezoodle]

15. Neon in Daylight, by Hermione Hoby I enjoyed this, but primarily because I'm a sucker for books set in New York. Kate, a young English woman, moves to NYC to apartment-sit in the summer before Hurricane Sandy. She falls in with Inez, a rebel without a cause who's just finishing high school, and her father Bill, a famous but fading writer. Oddly she meets them independently of each other, which seemed to me to be both a massive and unnecessary coincidence which bugged me a bit. This is very overblown in places but I found it very good at depicting the feeling of being young, confused and alone in a strange place, and I enjoyed it very much.

16. New People, by Danzy Senna This was a complete mess and batshit crazy to boot. The key characters are Maria and her fiance Khalil, a mixed race couple living in Brooklyn in the late 90s. The couple are just a few months from getting married, but Maria is becoming obsessed with another man - "The Poet" (whose name we never learn). Another strand of the novel is Maria's dissertation on the Jonestown Massacre. In addition to all this, there are lots of flashbacks to Maria's time at college and her childhood and relationship with her mother. The writing is very self assured and there's a lot of interesting stuff here on race and finding your place in the world, but this has dual problems in that there's very little plot but too many elements that get very messy, plus what little plot there is veers off in a very weird direction and an abrupt end. This was on lots of 'best reads of 2017' lists which I find absolutely baffling.

[Dottierichardson]

MegBusset Agree his diaries are brilliant. I have a treasured copy of Derek Jarman’s Garden full of magnificent images and a postcard of him on my desk. I envied how he managed to make every aspect of his life an ‘art’, if I tried to do that with the garden (or house or me even) it would never work.

Ellisisland Great recommendations/anti-recommendations(?) have just now ordered the Riddell from the library, number one on the list. I quite like books where nothing happens, or at least sometimes, and hadn’t heard of Sackville, so I looked her up, I thought I might try Orkney so added to my list.

Ontopofthesunset I like the sound of the Molly Hughes, reminded me of Period Piece, so added to list. I concur re: Rooney, a lot of hype for a pretty inconsequential novel. If you like books about childhood from around that period, have you read Edmund Gosse’s Father and Son? It’s about his childhood in the 1850s/60s growing up as part of the Plymouth Brethren sect. It’s a favourite book.
I loved Eustace and Hilda I lost my copy, moved a lot at one point and had to keep leaving things behind. It’s on my wishlist to buy again but wasn’t sure if it was one of those books that would be good if I went back to it. But sounds as if my memory of it is fairly reliable based on your comments: will have to wait a while as tapped out on this month’s book allowance and beyond.

Clarabellski Thanks. Have added Leckie to list, haven’t read the Dan Simmons but have contemplated them in the past, also have The Terror on list from a recommendation here. I will add those too. I have the Tchaikovsky Children of Time on my tbr pile and I’m looking forward to that.

Whippetwoman Thought In Cold Blood was a fascinating book and also enjoyed Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song which has a similar style, have you come across it? I wouldn’t normally go for Mailer but was surprised by how great it was. In a typically contrary manner I’m sold on trying out the Baume now, as had thought her books might be completely unreadable, so hadn’t even attempted. I think that usually the Goldsmith books are impossible, as if they deliberately select the least reader-friendly titles.
I have The Go-Between on my tbr pile, I saw the Julie Christie and then the BBC version, and thought that the story seemed a bit Hardy-esque, which put me off so it keeps getting bumped. But if it’s like Lawrence may have to banish it now. I hated Lady Chatterley’s Lover - gave me a whole new perspective on daisy chains. Everything’s just too ‘fecund’ for my taste. As for Orfeo also gave up, I listen to a lot of classical music and didn’t like this, so not just that that’s the problem.

EmGeethe missing chapter tells where they went, but almost as bad as the ‘it-was-all-a-dream’ ending.

Tanaqui thanks, although honestly think GTTW is now haunting me. I was reading something completely unrelated, looked up an article about the author, and there was yet another reference to GTTW. Apparently, the Nazis distributed it in occupied France as anti-American propaganda, which led to French adopting it as a favoured book. And second-hand copies then sold for vast sums on the black market.
Book People have seven Marsh titles for 5.99 at the moment, about eight quid with delivery. I don’t use the site much but it often has some decent collections buried in the lists. They may be ones you already have, but might be worth a look?

[Sadik]

Yes, agree some great recommendations EllisIsland - I've added Death In Ten Minutes and the Leonardo da Vinci bio to my tbr list :)

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Corvus - so glad you loved This Thing of Darkness.

Piggy - Stop it! When I next re-read it, I'm going to stop before I get to the end, and then he won't be dead at all. :) :(
Every time I read about Captain Scott etc, I hope that this time it will be a different ending.

I haven't read The Go Between, so have just got the sample.

[Piggywaspushed]

No, I meant the author is dead !!

I haven't read the book yet...

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Lol. Hope I didn't spoil the novel for you! You MUST read it - it's one of the few novels on here that's had, if I remember correctly, universal love.

64: The Pale Criminal – Philip Kerr
The second Bernie Gunther, and better than the first. It’s 1938 in Nazi Germany, and if that isn’t horrible enough in itself, there’s a serial killer on the loose in Berlin targeting blonde, blue eyed good German girls. Bernie Gunther is called back to his role as policeman, on the orders of Heydrich, and you definitely don’t argue when Heydrich tells you to do something. What follows involves corruption, homosexuality, madness, sex and séances and a whole load of trouble for Gunther. The best moment involves Himmler putting the boot in. Pretty gory and pretty misogynistic in places, but I really enjoyed it anyway.

[Piggywaspushed]

It's on my pile, remus awaiting the call of the random number generator!

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

I admire your patience.

[SatsukiKusakabe]

dottie it is not like Lawrence particularly; it has echoes in the set up of a central storyline, but the style is very different (more Laurie Lee, perhaps, though for me, better) and the perspective is that of a child, so has more a coming of age/reflecting on the lost innocence of childhood type of feel.

I haven’t read any other LP Hartley ontop so will look out for Eustace & Hilda (despite being a possession naysayer!)

[CheerfulMuddler]

Have never read The Go Between, but it's now on my list.

Talking of lists, read The Gruffalo again to DS tonight, and frankly, it's a work of genius which will be in print long after half the books on that list have been forgotten. (I'd read 34. Agree, odd list.)

Guess I'll have to read This Thing of Darkness too. Am not really in the mood for long and hard work ATM, though.

[SatsukiKusakabe]

TTOD is long but not especially hard work. Lots to think about, but in a pleasurable, page-turny way. And then come the tears.

[Toomuchsplother]

82. The end we start from - Megan Hunter Very short novella about London being submerged in a huge flood. In the midst of this a woman delivers her first child. It tells the story of her and her partners journey north as refugees. Simple premise but really well done. Sounds grim but actually ends on a hopeful note.

[BellBookandCandle]

@CorvusUmbranox - Midwinter of the Spirit is my favourite of the Merrily Watkins series. Denzil Joy oozes evil. It was a pity the tv adaptation of it was so poor - hardly surprising no more were commissioned.

[CorvusUmbranox]

I seem to remember enjoying the TV series at the time, but that was after not having read any of the books. Although, actually, I remember very little about what happened, so maybe that just goes to show... :P I do remember Denzil Joy being incredibly creepy though.

I read Wine of Angels a while back and hugely enjoyed the eerie ambiguous mix of crime, the supernatural and pagan mythology.

[southeastdweller]

New thread here