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?

Clueless I went to see the film version of the Guernsey..... book last night. It was well made and a total advert for Guernsey! I'm a bit embarrassed to admit I had no idea that Guernsey was occupied during WWII. I also now have a bit of a girl crush on Lily James - she just seems so lovely in anything I've seen her in but not in a boring way like Emma Watson

I'm enjoying the first few chapters, Scribbly, the characters are definitely drawing me in. I've got high hopes for The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock too, not least because it was so pretty I couldn't resist buying it!

Book 31 The Party - Elizabeth Day
This book has been described as Brideshead Revisited mixed with Talented Mr Ripley and I think that sums it up pretty well. A lifetime of secrets come spilling out on one night. An easy fun read

clarabellski - so glad you liked the film! The book made me want to go to Guernsey and I can imagine it will look stunning on film. I'm hoping to see it when it comes to our local cinema...late June!

I've just gone through all 5 threads, and my amazon book wish-list is absolutely bursting at the seams! Very grateful for some of the reviews here, even the ones I disagree with (Station Eleven).

Cote I watched the film of RFAD many years ago and can't remember too much about it apart from that it was intense and thoroughly bleak... so not too different from the book! Will have to rewatch.

Meanwhile, as an antidote to the darkness of Hubert Selby Jr:

16 The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Universe - Douglas Adams

A reread for the umpteenth time and surely everyone here has read and loved it so I don't need to go on about its utter brilliance. If you don't like it, I have nothing to say to you

34: Force of Nature - Jane Harper

Follow-up to The Dry, also featuring financial 'tec Aaron Falk. A group of staff from a Melbourne company go into the bush on a team-bonding-type exercise which splits up the men and women. But one of the women doesn't return....

I galloped through this at top speed. Entertaining if not hugely demanding.

I've also bought A Very British Scandal on the daily deal, we can have a group read!

My list so far:

1.	<strong>Our Endless Numbered Days</strong>
2.	The Universe versus Alex Woods 
3.	Skellig 
4.	A Monster Calls 
5.	Skeleton Crew 
6.	<strong>Wolf Hall</strong>
7.	Gallows Pole 
8.	<strong>84 Charing Cross Road</strong>
9.	The Duchess Of Bloomsbury Street
10.	Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine 
11.	Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day 
12.	Burial Rites 
13.	The Martian 
14.	The Durrells Of Corfu (Audible)
15.	Dunstan
16.	Wonder
17.	<strong>Nelly Dean</strong> (Audible)
18.	<span class="italic">T</span><span class="italic">he Light Between Oceans</span>
19.	When I Hit You

And now
20. The North Water. This was a rollicking good read. Populated by, mainly, hugely unlikeable and some downright despicable and psychotic characters, even the protagonist has some dodgy past deeds. Despite this it still managed to draw me in to the story of a disgraced surgeon on a doomed Whaling boat. A real page turner I had to skim read some sections because they were too graphic or disturbing, for example the section devoted to Bear hunting, but all in all one of the stand outs so far this year.

I also bought A Very English Scandal and after my commute and a bath, am already about 40% through it and loving it. Has everybody read the excellent Prick up your Ears by John Lahr, about playwright Joe Orton and his lover, Kenneth Halliwell? If not, and you like Scandal, you'll almost certainly like this too.

37. Kelley Armstrong - Industrial Magic

Another re-read and the immediate sequel to Dime Store Magic. Paige (ousted head of the American Coven of Witches) and Lucas (son of the CEO of the powerful Cortez Cabal of sorcerers) are settling in Portland with Savannah (13-year-old daughter of a witch and a sorcerer). Paige is working on starting a new, more modern coven while Lucas continues with his legal work on behalf of supernaturals. But then they learn of a killer targeting children of Cabal employees - one with superhuman skills and a clear grudge against the supernatural community. As Paige and Lucas get drawn into the case they not only have to balance keeping Lucas' father and his plans for Lucas at arms length but also find the killer before he finds them.

I've been working my way through Scandal for ages, and it's never really quite gripped me - I pick it up whenever I finish a book, but then it falls by the wayside when something more interesting comes along.

I remember Prick Up Your Ears as a film - didn't realise it was a book too.

I enjoyed Prick Up Your Ears and I also liked the Joe Orton Diaries, which John Lahr used for his book. It's a shame neither are available on Kindle.

I’m really not enjoying The Heart’s invisible Furies. Hope it improves.

Oh I loved the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society book and am really annoyed I missed it this week in our local cinema. Do recommend it to anyone who's not read it.

Also picked up A Very English Scandal - thanks!

21. Magpie Murders - Anthony Horowitz - strange one for those who quite like a cosy murder mystery book. It's a book within a book. Editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of "Magpie Murders" - a book set in 1950s with a German private dectective in a cosy English village. (All very Agatha Christie). You are given the Magpie Murders story and then move to Ryeland's attempt to unscramble mysteries within the book and the Author's life/death. Very good for a good cosy mystery type!

22. Norse Mythology - Neil Gaiman - a retelling of the main myths of the Norse people. Entertaining and quick read.

20. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. Eleanor is very awkward, and very lonely. It's largely exploration of whether she's lonely because she's awkward, or whether her awkwardness is caused by her extreme isolation. It's made clear from the start that Eleanor has experienced a tragic event in her childhood which has lead to her becoming entirely estranged from her family. The plot centres on how her life changes as she gradually learns how to deal with her past and let people in.

I quite liked this. Although the idea of trying to make "up-lit" A Thing is a bit grim, it was nice to read a warm, gentle novel where people's lives are improved by kindness. I did find Eleanor's total lack of even the most basic social understanding just a little bit too overdone to be entirely credible though.

All Quiet On The Western Front is 99p on daily deal today. I have bought it as I’ve never read it.

70. Anything You Do Say by Gillian McAllister

Joanna meets a dodgy man at a bar. When walking home she is convinced he’s following her, and in self defence pushes him away down some steps. She then makes a decision - ring for an ambulance or run away. The book then follows both decisions so we see what happens in both scenarios. I really enjoyed this, thought it was well done and I didn’t get confused between the two stories.

I've just bought All Quiet on the Western Front too.

45. A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal by Ben Macintyre (Audiobook narrated by Michael Tudor)

I'd heard of Kim Philby and the Cambridge Spy ring but before listening to this book had a very hazy knowledge of the characters involved and what they had done. I have spent quite a lot of the twelve hours it took to listen to it like this . Then I'd tell dh about it and he'd be like this . Bloody hell.
The book follows the life of Philby but alongside this extraordinary biography Macintyre also writes about the lives of two of Philby's closest friends: Nicholas Elliott of MI6 and James Jesus Angleton, the (eventual) CIA intelligence chief. The story is of how Philby lived a double life for over thirty years, rising within the ranks of the intelligence service most in part due to his old boy school connections, but also because he was supported by these two men. The title of the book not only refers to Philby's great betrayal of his country, but also to his friends who supported and trusted him right up to the end when Philby was finally exposed.
Gripping, fascinating and at times ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ stuff. Le Carré, Graham Greene and Ian Fleming are all mentioned as all had experience of time spent with these characters.

The audiobook is excellent. Tudor's narration of upper class gents is spot on.

Has anyone else's Amazon wishlist's disappeared overnight?

No, mine was there, and now I've bought something off it. Eyes southeast suspiciously - do you work for Amazon? It was the third Ann Cleeves Vera book which had dropped to £1.90, so actually very happy about that.

Yes everyone should read All Quiet if they haven’t, devastating but necessary.

Made a mistake last time! Enigma was 65.
No. 66 is Victorians Undone: Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum- Kathryn Hughes. This was disappointing. Takes 5 well known Victorian figures / tales and claims to look at them from the point of view of key body parts. The 1st, Lady Flora's Belly deals with the case of the lady in waiting who Queen Victoria wrongly accused of being pregnant whilst actually dying. This was well told and interesting, as was the last Sweet Fanny Adams. This deals with the tale of a young girl, Fanny Adams and her horrific murder and dismembering. It also explains how the say Sweet Fanny Adams, came into being.
However the middle three stories Charles Darwin's Beard, George Eliot's Hand and Fanny Carnforth mouth were tedious in the extreme. Very little about the actually titles and more slight biographies of the figures involved. The Chapter on Darwin dissolved into a list of well known Victorian men who had a beard and why they might have grown them. Nearly gave up with the mind numbing drivel that was the discussion of George Eliot's hand!

My wish list is fine, except it’s still all expensive

Thanks for the heads up Chessie, I've bought AQOTWF too.