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 remember your disappointment at the Morrisey Book Remus

Amazed that any book can be worse than Morrisey's autobiography, didn't make it out of the first chapter before assigning it to the charity pile.

44 Other People’s Houses by Lore Singer – Originally produced in instalments for the New Yorker this heavily autobiographical novel was first published in 1964. It’s 1938 and the main character Lore is ten. When the story begins. Lore is living with her family in Vienna. The opening chapters chart the slow takeover of Austria by the Nazis and the subsequent persecution of Jewish citizens. By pure chance a place for Lore is secured on the Kindertransport to England where Jewish children will be placed with foster families to live out the war and the remainder of the novel follows Lore through that period.
This, inevitably, reminded me of Judith Kerr’s accounts of her life during the war - although this account is quite clearly pitched at adult rather than younger readers. In addition, Lore’s time with several foster families across England created a more detailed picture of the everyday lives of Jewish refugee children, cut loose from everything they know and love. I thought this was a highly engaging, beautifully observed novel, it was also a fascinating glimpse into ideas of childhood and the place of children during the 1940s. Lore and her fellow refugees are clearly grieving and traumatised but there is no recognition given to these feelings or support provided. Children were clearly expected to be resilient, grateful and without depth of emotion. It was very much the sort of novel that would fit well alongside those published by Persephone Books, or on the old green Virago imprint. I also read a short article in The Guardian about this novel, where it was pointed out that the children of the Kindertransport fit the profile of children who would now be turned away by many countries – they don’t speak the language, they are unaccompanied, and they provide an opening for ‘chain migration’ through lobbying for their families to be able to follow them to England. It seems sad, to me, that while attitudes towards children’s psychological needs have improved dramatically since the 1940s that other forms of empathy have clearly declined, particularly reading this alongside what is happening in Europe as well as accounts of the treatment of refugee children by Trump’s administration.

That should be Lore Segal not Singer!

I loathed The Children's book - it spoilt a good idea with lovely writing by being insanely repetitive and self absorbed.

However, I was quite entertained by The Break, so what do I know?!

56. The Party by Elizabeth Day This is a Richard and Judy bookclub read and it is enjoyable enough summer fluff, derivative of The Talented Mr Ripley, with a slightly disappointing (to me!) ending.

Just finished 45. The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce. (well technically 46 as I read a book about Macbeth but since this took me about 12 minutes, I am not counting it, interesting though it was)

I am sure others have read Joyce's latest offering. It was OK. I am not a music aficionado, nor a vinyl lover so its appeal was a little limited. It is one of those up lit books, but I have preferred others in this genre more. However, it was miles better than that awful Keeper of Lost Things or whatever that bilge was called... because she writes jauntily and is good at humour (I liked the waitress). The ending was genuinely quite uplifting.

Good beach read, I'd say. I settled for the back garden.

"Word salad - that is my favourite phrase of the day, and I am definitely stealing it!

I finished another a few days ago, and had forgotten about it.

Book 68
Life after God by Douglas Coupland. I'd mixed it up with another of his, and it's not the one I thought it was and therefore not his best one. It's actually a bit meandering and daft, although there a couple of really wonderful sections of writing in it.

dottie, Maggie Nelson is a new find of mine thanks to DH, who bought me The Argonauts for my birthday last year. The Red Parts is on my To Read list - along with many others! I’ll definitely look out for your two recs, thanks.

Need to ad 32 and 33 - the fortunes and Hunger to my list!
Currently on Atlas shrugged which while more readable than I was expecting has slowed my down by virtue of how long it is

Just finished Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari
I thought this was an excellent read - if you're anxious and depressed, it's probably not because chemicals in your brain have gone haywire (at least as an ultimate cause), but because "You are an animal that it is not getting its needs met". He talks about the social causes of depression - lost connections to others, to meaningful values and work, to nature, and traumatic events. The solution isn't with individuals popping a pill, but in social changes.

I thought this was sensible and lucidly written. It matches my own views (or confirms my biases) so I didn't find it wildly controversial or new - he notes that the UN and WHO have pointed this out - but I think it's a useful attempt to provide an overview of what the research says.

20. Evening In The Palace Of Reason by James Gaines

This was excellent! That rare gem of well-written and profoundly researched historical fiction based on known facts as well as letters by/to the principal characters, in the spirit of This Thing Of Darkness. It is the story of Frederick the Great and Johann Sebastian Bach, parallel but separate for the most part, then coming together for one brief evening when Bach was invited to Frederick's palace and given the challenge of an "impossible" theme (which you can listen to in the first seconds of the link below) to improvise a fugue on. Bach not only improvised the fugue on the spot (which is magic, as far as I'm concerned) but followed up on it some weeks later with the hour-long collection of improvisations for solo harpsichord, trio flute-violin-harpsichord etc called with such incredible masterpieces as the Canon in Fugue that starts at 48:08 and the Ricercar that starts at 59:05.

However, this is not only the story of a monarch and a musical genius. It is also the story of the period's conflict between religious faith (represented by J S Bach) and Godless confidence in self-determination (represented by Frederick), a war that continues to our day without a clear winner. The author is brilliant where he describes how Frederick the Great was forged by his psychopath father, his constant fear for his life as a child and teenager, his very probable homosexuality and love of music suppressed by his father.

I have read quite a few books on Bach and other Baroque musicians, but have to say that this was by far the most interesting and well-written. I definitely recommend it to everyone here, even if you are not terribly interested in music history, for there really is something for everyone in this book.

I hope some of you will read this book.

37. No-one Ever Has Sex in the Suburbs - Tracy Bloom

Katy and Ben have just had a baby when he decides to give up work so she can return to her job. Looking after a baby will be easy won’t it?

The sequel to No-one Ever Has Sex on a Tuesday and a bit of light reading to break up all the crime and serial killing I read still not quite as interesting though!

Added Evening in the Palace of Reason to my wish list Cote, sounds right up my street.

Thanks to all who encouraged me to try Vanity Fair, have absolutely loved the 17% I have read and listenened to so far.

Evening in the Palace of Reason is only £1.99 on the Kindle. I have downloaded the sample cote

And Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie is one of the 99p offers today. I seem to remember good things about it from people on this thread so have snapped it up.

Blimey, 50 Bookers, it's been nearly a month since I finished a book. Had a couple of DNFs, then, bizarrely, read:
28. The Mother of All Jobs: How to Have Children and a Career and Stay Sane Christine Armstrong
When Armstrong had her first child, she blithely thought she could return to her 50+ hours a week job and slot the baby around the edges. When she discovered that wasn't going to work, she started interviewing successful women to see how (if!) they managed it. This book is the result of those interviews - basically everything she wished she'd known before she started a family.
I found this a surprisingly insightful book. I don't have anything like the sort of life lived by many of the women in this book (I work three-four days a week and get to set my own hours, which as she points out repeatedly, makes life a LOT easier.) So partly the book made me grateful I get to work and still have all the time I have with DS, and a bit less resentful of all the times I was trying to work while he napped.
Her advice on childcare is a bit basic/judgy (and yes, Mumsnet gets several mentions), but her advice on work/life balance is very sensible. She's very keen on the importance of local support networks of people in a similar stage of parenting - even if you think you have nothing in common with local mums, you need SOMEONE to socialise with who works on a similar schedule and wants to talk about toddlers. Prioritise exercise, and sex with your partner. Don't answer email when you're with your kids. Don't iron your kids' clothes. Be flexible - your two-year-old will have very different parenting/childcare needs to your twelve-year-old and you need to be able to adapt. Be frugal - kids are expensive and you don't want to be stuck in a job you hate because you have to pay a mortgage on a fancy house. But equally, recognise that no situation is impossible to get out of - you CAN downsize if you have to and your family will probably be happier if you do.
I expected her to say that you can't have it all, but she says some women DO manage to make big jobs and family work, though many don't. For herself, she quit her big job, started her own business with flexible hours, made her peace with a crap car and secondhand clothes for the kids and joined the PTA.

102. Are You Dave Gorman? by Dave Gorman and Danny Wallace

A drunken bet leads Dave and Danny to try and meet as many other people called Dave Gorman as possible. This was in 2000 and it’s interesting to think how much easier this would be now with Facebook and Google. Very funny.

That's great Satsuki & Scribbly I look forward to discussing Evening In The Palace Of Reason with you.

Cote - I read the sample of Carrion Comfort and half way through remembered I'd read it before, and that the intro firmly established Dan S in my head as a bit of a tosser. Think I'm going to give it a miss.

It wouldn't be the first time our tastes in fiction don't match

Giving up on The catalogue of shipwrecked books : young Columbus and the quest for a universal library by Edward Wilson-Lee

Second time I've abandoned a book by this author, after "Shakespeare in Swahililand*. I feel I should like his books but they don't quite do it for me. You're giving me too much information, man. Stick to the telling detail, not telling all the details.

Read Eat, Drink, Run by Bryony Gordon. If you liked Mad Girl by the same author (which I did) about her life-long strong with OCD, this explains what happened next - how she got to interview Prince Harry and he opened up about his mental health struggles, and how she managed to run a marathon, much to her own disbelief. It's not great literature, but she's very sincere and this did make me feel like I could run a marathon too.

45 Suite for Barbara Loden by Nathalie Leger trans. by Natasha Lehrer & Cecile Menon – Leger takes as her starting point the life of Barbara Loden and her film Wanda , the only piece of work completed before Loden’s early death, and a film which has become a cult classic. In this unclassifiable piece - part autofiction; part biography, part film criticism – Leger pays tribute to Loden and to Wanda. In meditative prose Leger teases out its relationship to Loden’s life and the lives of her contemporaries – as Leger points out Loden was born in the same year as Elizabeth Taylor, Sylvia Plath and Delphine Seyrig. Leger’s narrative starts with Wanda then pans out to consider relationships and power dynamics between men and women, the life of her own mother, Wanda's setting of working-class America and the landscapes of small-town Pennsylvania it represented, as she follows the main characters Wanda and her lover - who travelled like a ‘Bartleby’ and an ‘Ahab’ towards their separate fates. A small, exquisite work produced by the pioneering small press ‘Dorothy Project’ who publish two books a year, always by women.

46 The Swish of the Curtain by Pamela Brown – Children’s book from 1941, Pamela Brown’s first book was published when she was 16 years old. Seven children – ranging from nine to sixteen – live close to each other in a small town (not unlike Colchester). They adopt an unused building, transform it into the ‘Blue Door Theatre’, and with the able assistance of the local vicar and his wife, they put on a show. Their endeavours lead to more theatrical adventures: Christmas plays, Shakespeare at Stratford and beyond. If you like vintage children’s books I thought this was a charming example, good-natured, amusing and a wonderful glimpse of life in the late 30s – although the attitudes towards class are quite striking at times. It also set off a curious craving for cocoa, chips in newspaper and ‘lashings’ of tea and cake. The book’s been in and out of print since the 40s and was recently re-published by Pushkin Press, it was the first in a series and Pushkin is slowly bringing out the rest, endorsed by Eileen Atkins and Maggie Smith.

53. Dark Side, Belinda Bauer

Got this out the library after seeing her first book highly praised somewhere. They are both part of a loosely-related series (same setting, some crossover characters) but I have only read this one. Good, tightly written police procedural which morphs into more of a psychological thriller, only let down by a very twisty but WTF ending.

Have had a busy few weeks in real life, but I’ve just caught up with the thread and added three books to my to-read list! (The Fields Beneath, Evening in the Palace of Reason and Eat, Drink, Run.)

Will update my list later.

34. the cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway . This is a moving book about the siege in the 90’s in Sarajevo and the story of 3 people living through it linked through the true story of a cellist who plays the same piece at the same time each day for 22 days after witnessing 22 people losing their lives in a bomb waiting in a queue for bread.

It was a well written book and I don’t know why but I just never got in to it. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s relatively short (about 200pages) and telling the story of 3 people meant I was never completely invested in them as I didn’t have enough time to be swept away in their lives, or because the weather has been so darn hot that a book set in the war just wasn’t really where my headspace is at the moment. The most moving but was reading the afterword whilst playing on YouTube the piece the cellist would play every day in the background, it was such an emotional and sad piece.

Very excited to be reading ‘the road’ next as it’s been recommended to me from several sources and finally found a copy in oxfam books earlier this week :)

Biblio I read Bryony Gordon’s OCD book as mn sent me a copy when it was released via their book club. I might keep an eye out for that a summer I’m interested how her marathon training went and it’ll be a nice easy read (I imagine).