50 Book Challenge 2018 Part Six

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the sixth 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, the fourth one here, and the fifth one here.

How're you getting on so far?

I have been lurking this week but I haven't posted. It's been a hell of a week in RL, have fitted in lots of reading for all the wrong reasons.It's the upside of sitting around in hospital waiting rooms. Have enjoyed the chat in here as always.

87. From the heart- Susan Hill- vaguely readable but ultimately fairly unexciting story of an intelligent young woman. It is a story of forced awakening and coming out. It feels like a tale told a hundred times before and Hill doesn't tell it all that skilfully at all. Feels very forgettable.
88. Commonwealth- Ann Patchett I really enjoyed this. The story of 6 step children and their parents, it moves forward and back in time. Examining relationships and the central tragedy of the book; how this was allowed to happen and how it shaped futures. Beautifully constructed, one of my standouts. I thought I had read other Patchett but a look at her back catalogue makes me unsure. Will certainly look out for her in the future.
89. The Djinn in the nightingales Eye- A.S.Byatt Five contemporary fairy tales. 4 very short, the 5th- the title story- much longer. I enjoyed The Children's Book and Possession but I struggled with this. I suspect it was a case of wrong book, wrong time. The stories clearly have strong feminist subtexts and meanings but I wasn't really up to decoding them this week. The final story felt particularly meandering and baffling. I should probably have given up and returned to them later. But I ploughed onI may try and decipher them again at a later date, but some how I doubt it.
90. An equal stillness - Francesca Kay This was a fictional biography of a renounced British female artist. The descriptions of her fictional work were quite memorising and I really wanted to 'see' them. It focuses heavily on the influences of her work and how her difficult marriage to a fellow painter at times compromised her. It felt genuine and believable until the identity of the biographer was revealed. At this point I struggled to believe this person could have told the story this way. It undermined the integrity of the novel and left me disappointed.

ScribblyGum ISBNs sound like a brilliant way to distinguish, used to work in publishing many moons ago and never even thought of that! I think that Audible doesn't help in having a misleading tagline about being an audiobook site and nothing more. I looked them up again as thought since so popular should think about joining and when looked at terms this came up:

'Audible is an Amazon company and the world's largest producer of digital audiobooks. Our selection includes over 200,000 best-selling digital audiobooks, radio and TV programs, and audio subscriptions to popular magazines and newspapers.' audible-uk.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/6053/~/what-is-audible%3F/session/
It's on their customer service page.

When I checked on Hancock, The Archers and Museum's examples like Yes Minister (no offence meant Museum) they are under the category Film, Radio and TV as are radio adaptations/dramatizations of several books such as the Dorothy L. Sayers I mentioned. So it looks to me as if the site started out doing just books but branched out into other recorded content and that has blurred the boundaries.

Sorry for doing this in chunks. My WiFi is being a complete dick.

57. Dracula by Bram Stoker Audio book narrated by Greg Wise AND Rachel Atkins (from Audible’s The Monster Collection which contains the unabridged versions of Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein and Dracula.) The reason I capitalise AND is that Audible for some inexplicable reason don’t see fit to put Ms Atkins name on the cover as a narrator, despite her doing approx half of the work.

Very happy to now know the story of Dracula. It’s so odd hearing his name spoken by the characters at the start of the book as a mysterious person when of course the name Dracula is now synonymous with vampire. It’s an interesting novel. The set pieces are fantastic, Stoker cranking up gothic hyper-drama to 11. I half expected dry ice to start pouring out through the air on vents in the car. At some point it was so OTT it made me laugh. Still hugely entertaining. At other points oh god does it drag, an excess of hurry up and wait. The ending gah! So anticlimactic, there is such a huge build up and then the action is all over and done with in a moment. Maybe I'm so used to vampire films finishing with an epic extended fight scene.
Now I need to watch a good BBC documentary or read an article about what Dracula is actually about. Is it about sex? Van Helsing was certainly very animated about different types of brains.

TooMuch I hope that whatever is leading to the hospital setting is something that resolves itself soon and glad that you can take refuge in a book. I know how hard it can be to spend time in hospitals, my OH has been having a lot of tests and my DS has a long-term illness and find our local hospital settings very demoralising.

I loved The Children's Book the historical period/setting was really fascinating, I was surprised that so many of my friends didn't like it. I haven't read Commonwealth but I read Ann Patchett's State of Wonder (?)and thought it was a brilliant book, great story, good plot, excellent writing.

Sorry to hear that splother hope all is well now

dottie yes Audible do seem to be branching out now and doing lots of additional audio content. I think my my personal list I'll check for ISBN numbers before adding items to my list.

58. The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien Audiobook narrated by Rob Inglis Started listening to this in Feb with the dds on long car journeys so glad to have finally finished it. Excellent narration. Highly recommended if you can endure the first few hours where so very little happens. There was almost a mutiny from the backseat “THIS IS SO BORING. WHY ARENT THERE ANY WOMEN IN IT?”

ScribblyGum I will do the same if decide to join Audible, which should be good news to all on this thread as given how long-winded my reviews are, sure nobody would want to read 40 reviews of Hancock stories or my thoughts on Archer's collections - all of which can wax lyrical about at great length!

Given the non book stuff on Audible, the 'has it got an ISBN?' test is genius Scribbly . Just to be clear, my post wasn't meant to come across 'wah, not fair, I want to count Yes, Minister', rather pointing out that there are audio'books' on Audible that aren't really books, so I personally wouldn't count them. Dottie you have looked into that and set it out more eloquently than me.

Museum thanks, had a feeling you might be raising a 'test case'. Although do like Yes Minister but only know the TV version, we have it on DVD as one of OH's favourites.

Toomuchsplother did actually study Dracula but ages ago, from what I remember theories about its meaning could fill several books, I know I wrote an essay on how it related to fear of the 'other' and anti-Semitism, but issues around sexuality definitely a major theme/reading of it. There's a great 4-minute overview on YouTube by a guy called Roger Luckhurst, who works at Oxford University Press (part of a series on classics) not sure if it's useful to you but it's at

I have the Penguin copy and the introduction by Christopher Frayling is quite reasonable and has the added virtue of clarity, sometimes Amazon previews/samples include the introduction so might be worth checking that out.

Aargh, somehow managed to embed Dracula video in my post, not sure how? Time for more coffee I think.

Just updating. I have recently read 27. Autumn by Ali Smith, my first by her, and I now hope to read others. 28. The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock - lots of discussion here about it. I think it was a bit overdone, but good for a first novel. 29. Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller, which was excellent. 30. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman - made me both laugh and cry. 31. After Me Comes the Flood by Sarah Perry. 32. This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson - absolutely wonderful, the kind of book I want to tell everyone I know to read.

52. Stay With Me, Ayobami Adebayo

This was lovely, but so sad. Set in 1980s Nigeria, a modern country where old beliefs (witchcraft, polygamy) still hold strong, and a country beset by military and civil unrest. Against this background, Adebayo tells the story of Yejide and her marriage to Akin. It's a story that grabs you right from the beginning, with the arrival at Yejide's home of a delegation of in-laws there to introduce her to her husband's second wife. A lovely, and heart-breaking, book about love and motherhood.

Thanks everyone. It's is on it's way to being sorted. Luckily not serious, just terrible timing. It also meant I broke me 'no new books resolution' by buying 8 books in the Oxfam bookshop! Some people comfort eat I buy books!
Have just started I am Pilgrim.

Comfort buying of books sounds very wise and...well, comforting

MuseumOfHam with regard to Lion: A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley I almost didn't want to pick this up as I was so sure I would sob my way through it and yet I was amazed to find that I didn't. Whilst the story itself is clearly heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure I found that the writing itself stomped pretty hard on both of those emotions and meant that I (almost) got through the book dry-eyed. I think you totally put your finger on it in your criticism of the ghost-writing. It was so bland and repetitive it got on my nerves. I've heard that the film is better - will have to give it a go.

94. The Secret Barrister: Stories Of The Law And How It's Broken by The Secret Barrister

As the title says really. I thought this was going to be a collection of tales about different cases, and while there were some cases it's more just an explanation of how the whole justice system works. While this was still interesting in places (and a bit scary!) I was overall a bit disappointed because it wasn't what I had expected.

95. The Woman In The Window by A J Finn

Reminded me very much of The Girl On The Train, so if you liked that you will probably like this. The heroine is an agoraphobic alcoholic who rarely leaves her house and one day sees something through a neighbour's window that she shouldn't have seen - but nobody believes her. One 'twist' is revealed halfway through but to me this was glaringly obvious from the start, but I didn't guess the twist at the end.

96. The List by Joanna Bolouri

Phoebe breaks up with her boyfriend and decides to reinvent her life by creating a list of sexual things she's never done, then doing them with her best male friend. Pretty graphic in places, and the ending is predictable, but the main character is really annoying and one dimensional.

97. Force of Nature by Jane Harper

I enjoyed her first book, The Dry, but this wasn't as good. Five women go on a hike in the Australian bush, but only four come out. We're told the story in the present with detectives investigating, and flashbacks to the hike itself. It just didn't grab me - all the women were irritating, especially the one who went missing, and I wouldn't have blamed any of them for doing her in! It involves the same detective from The Dry but he has much less to do in this book.

98. An Almond For A Parrot by Wray Delaney

A recommendation from this thread - the story of Tully who grows up to be a courtesan in the late 1700s. There's also some magical elements. I enjoyed it although I wasn't sure what the magical bits added. Again, this is a bit racy (although much tamer than The List mentioned above!)

99. When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman

Told from Elly's point of view, starting when she's a young child and finishing in adulthood. Mainly about her relationships with her brother and her best friend. It was OK but I did find some bits confusing as Winman refers to 'he' and 'she' a lot without making it very clear who she's talking about so I kept having to go back and reread bits.

100. Thanks For The Memories by Cecelia Ahern

Very predictable chicklit. A man donates blood. A woman has an accident and receives some blood. She then knows things about architecture and languages that she never knew before, and starts to investigate. This was so predictable I found it dragged because I knew what was going to happen so just wanted it to hurry up and get there. However, the woman character's father is very funny and there's a good bit in the middle where they visit London together and end up on The Antiques Roadshow!

Now reading Islanders by Patrick Barkham but haven't really got into it so have started reading All Quiet On The Western Front.

Thanks for the Dracula clip dottie. I think if you link a YouTube clips on here it will automatically embed itself in the post. So glad Mr Luckhurst says that at points it is hilarious. I felt a bit guilty about laughing at the absurdity several times but apparently that’s OK.

I Am Pilgrim is one of my all time favourites. I absolutely revelled in it from start to finish. Enjoy splother!

I haven't read the book of Lion, but I have seen the film. It is very moving, but much stronger in the first half than the second.

33. still alice this book tells the story of 50 year old Alice who is a doctor at Harvard diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. It’s an insightful book in that it really made me think about what it must be like for someone in the early stages of the disease but it wasn’t as depressing as a previous novel focusing on the disease I had read (which I forget the name of but involved and older couple where the husband had to look after the wife and it was quite upsetting)

i am pilgrim was a great book. It’s been a few years since I read it but I remember being completely absorbed by it and giving my copy to a friend thinking she would love it as much as me and she didn’t get on with it at all.

Dh has started moaning that a corner of the bedroom looks like a second hand book shop as my ‘to read’ pile gets ever higher (currently about 50 books there!).

Good to hear good stuff about Pilgrim , Hound and Yule.
*
Yule have you read any other of Lisa Genova's* books? I believe she is a neurologist and has I think she writes well and compassionately about the human side of neurological conditions.

I’ve never read any of her books before and didn’t realise she was a neurologist too , that’s interesting. It seemed like she was very knowledgable about the medical side of diagnosis and recommendations for medication etc but I assumed she had just done her research or it was fictionised.

54. Alan Garner - Boneland

Follow up to The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath, but for the adults who read them as children rather than being a children's book. Colin is now a professor working at Jodrell Bank on the radio telescope and a ridiculous number of postgraduate degrees, including a masters in theology which is a bit of a departure for an astrophysicist. He's also not quite right in his mind, which is why a large part of the story covers his therapy sessions. Colin has perfect recall, down to the minute, of everything since he turned 13 but a complete blank before that - including what happened to his sister. Alongside this story is the life of an unnamed man of prehistory who lives on Alderley Edge and sings and dances to keep the stars in the sky and the sun in its course.

It's quite a weird one and I'm not sure what I make of it. Poetic, I suppose, and there's a slow emergence of understanding which mirrors Colin's own emergence fro his mental anguish. I'm just not entirely sure I see the point.

30. A Reunion of Ghosts - Judith Claire Mitchell

Three sisters, burdened by a terrible family legacy, guilt passed down from generation to generation, and a seeming family obsession with suicide, plan to end their lives together at the turn of the new century. But first they write their ‘suicide note’ in this novel, a collection of family stories and legends mixed with their own rather sad stories.

This was an ok read for me. Lots of reviews focussed on it being ‘darkly funny’ ‘smart’ etc, I could see that it was trying to be but I never found it so much as mildly amusing, and whilst the family history side was interesting (the fictional patriarch is based based on the real scientist who invented chlorine gas) in parts, the book was inconsistent and by the end just quite irritating.

Just popping on to say that I've taken a leaf out of splother's book (pun intended!) and I've comfort bought This Thing of Darkness on Amazon to try and cheer myself up.
I'm having a dreadful Monday at work and knowing it will arrive on Wednesday has made me feel a bit better.