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?

Not critiquing the idea of SPEW I don’t think just that it all got unnecessarily long-winded and a bit daft.

45: The Green Road - Anne Enright

A novel that could be read as a series of short stories about an Irish family - capricious mother Rosaleen and children Dan, Constance, Emmet and Hanna. An introductory chapter sets the scene of Rosaleen taking to her bed when one of her children does something to displease her, a pattern that will be repeated over the years. We then see snapshots from the lives of the grown-up children, with a final reuniting chapter as all come together for a fairly gruesome Christmas in the soon-to-be-sold family home.

I loved this. Enright's writing is muscular and funny, and as I'm insatiably curious about how families live and inter-connect (or fail to), this was right up my street. I'm now tearing the house up trying to find my copy of The Gathering, which I know I've got somewhere.

I've had poverty safari on request from the library for over 3 months now and still no sign so also looking forward to your review 'shakeitoff

Hello, have been trying to keep up with you all but failing miserably. RL continues to be full on and frantic.
Have read :
91. I am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes This was very long but very good. Proper thriller about an American agent trying to hunt a lone wolf bio- terrorist. Not my normal kind of thing at all, much more like some DH would read but I enjoyed it. Kind of wish I had saved it for my holiday as it was the perfect absorbing book that needed a good amount of time to lose yourself .
92. The final solution- Michael Chabon
This was a very short book. I have to hold my hand up and say that I didn't realise then retired but brilliant detective in the novel was supposed to be Sherlock Holmes. I have never read a single Conan Doyle so I suspect a lot of very clever references were completely lost on me. It probably explains why I found it all a bit baffling.

Those are quite lame reviews!!

28. Aching To Be - Joyce Raskin

Joyce was the bass player in Scarce, one of the great lost bands of the 90s who were on the verge of success when their singer Chick Graning had a massive brain haemorrhage. This is her account of the band's rise and fall, and although it's not especially brilliantly written (and littered with typos) it's a gutsy and honest tale that's fascinating if you're a fan.

Just stumbled across this diverting article on the BBC. I particularly liked the on about women orientated fiction.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5XmjRsgywfr97t4VJ2tkDyh/judging-books-by-their-covers-five-publishing-design-cliches

I did once contemplate changing my username to TheGirlOnMumsnet

and just seen a trailer for Picnic At Hanging Rock!

Excited!

Piggy haven't seen the trailer for Picnic will look it up. Also quite excited that Mumsnet are reviving the Tales of the City series and making a new mini-series bringing back Olympia Dukakis and Laura Linney, so hoping that means they'll soon be streaming the older episodes too. Think I'll dig out the books and re-read.

Grr that should be Netflix!

@Terpsichore I’ve had The Green Road on my kindle for a while, thanks for the review!

34. I’ll give you the sun - Jandy Nelson - again read for a challenge prompt, this time it was a book featuring twins. (I could and should have re-read I know this much is true by Wally Lamb for this). Found this one on a goodreads list and the ebook was available from the library so that was that. It’s YA and oh boy is it YA - the 13 year old characters talking like 35 year olds in therapy, falling in just THE MOST LOVE EVER OK ITS TOTALLY MAGICAL AND STARS ARE EXPLODING AND SO WHAT IF IM 14? Etc etc. It’s quite an interesting story setting all that aside, and nice messages about being true to yourself etc etc. Reminded me of an episode of Dawson’s Creek, which in all fairness I used to love, so that’s probably why I read this in a day, but did so knowing what a load of nonsense it was.

19 Men at Arms Evelyn Waugh

Aristocrat Guy Crouchbank is alone and lonely in Italy when war breaks out. The book sees him return to England to sign up with the Halbediers. There is an interesting exploration of the relationship between being an officer and coming from the "officer classes". There are funny incidents and characters. I always tend to read these through these with a straight face, but when I was relating the key jokes to DH afterwards, I could see it was really great stuff. (When I know material is meant to be amusing, I sometimes make an effort to see the film of the book in my head!) The ending was very deft, and I'm keen as mustard to get on to books two and three in the trilogy.

Nothing to add, am still bookless (sob) but marking place.

Why are you bookless Remus?

Can't find a single thing I want to read. Is there an excellent novel about somebody submerging him/herself in cold water for two weeks and then waking up when it's the end of term?

Not long now Remus!

We are dreading the end of term here. Stitches Jr has been sobbing about having to move up a year and leave his beloved class teacher. She’s been absolutely fantastic with him this year and he is not coping well with the impending transition

Oh no. Poor little Stitches.

If there is Remus Let me know. That is my fantasy life at the moment!

Maybe you could peruse the Kindle summer sale Remus. I've just bought Ma'am Darling.

I am actually reading a book about someone giving up work during a long, very, very cold winter. On reflection it may not have been the most apposite choice for right now.

Remus, Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris is a quid on kindle this month. Nicely silly whodunnit set in a boys' public school. Might appeal if you're having murderous work-based fantasies ?

I was disappointed by the Summer Sale - gutted as I've been looking forward to it starting for weeks! Gentlemen and Players is a good read though (there are a few good ones on there but I've read them all).

54. Opening NIght, Ngaio Marsh
I've never read any of her books and thought I would give her a try as she's popular here. Parts of this felt very modern - the mysterious, potentially unreliable narrator was cleverly done. And the descriptions of theatrical life were as vivid as I'd expected. However, I found the plot frustrating. She lays many red herrings, and misdirects your attention all over the place, but the big reveal left too many questions and loose ends for me. I'd read another by her to see whether it's a common trait or if this particular book just wasn't for me.

55. Another Day in the Death of America, Gary Younge
This was brilliant - so, so good. Younge is a black British journalist (writes for the Guardian) who lived in Chicago for some years. For this book, he chooses a single day, at random, and writes about each of the ten children and teenagers who were killed by gunfire on that day. There are no official records, so he has scoured local newspapers, social media etc for reports. In some cases, the child's family and friends have spoken to him in detail, in others they have not wanted to talk to him at all. He writes more about the circumstances of the children's lives than about the details of their deaths, and gently pulls apart some of the many strands that lead the kids to end up in the path of a bullet - social, economic, racial, legal, personal. Younge is clearly anti-gun but this isn't a diatribe. It's more a state-of-the-nation book about young people in the US and the lives that they're living. He writes with a brilliant contained passion - thoroughly researched and appropriately backed up with facts and statistics, yet emotional, human and moving. I read this straight through in a few hours and couldn't put it down - probably the best book of the year so far for me.

56. Eve Was Framed: Women and British Justice, Helena Kennedy
A recommendation from here so thank you whoever mentioned it. Kennedy draws on her knowledge and experience as a barrister to write convincingly about how social attitudes, lack of female representation and other factors prevent women from being treated fairly in court. I don't know much about the law (so all the stuff about the life and work of a barrister was interesting in its own right) but this is more than just a book about legal processes - it is more about the ingrained sexism that seeps its way into every interaction that women have. I'd love to put this into the hands of very ignoramus who says that feminism has won now and that women have everything cushty - there's so much here about battles which have been hard fought, as well as those which we are still fighting.

Keith brilliant reviews, I thought the Kennedy and the Younge books were really excellent too, I keep hoping Kennedy will write something new, she has an enviable ability to be really sound/informed and engaging at the same time. It would be interesting to see what she thinks has changed, or not, for women in the last few years.

Ooh I AmPilgrim! That book pressed my buttons big time

Here is my review from 2014:

50. I Am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes

This was a pretty good thriller, a bit too obviously written to be made into a film, although some of the plot/details ranged from improbable to downright impossible. This is exactly my kind of beach read, but its myriad mistakes dampened my enthusiasm somewhat:

A large chunk of this 700-page book takes place in Bodrum in Turkey, and I am sorry to report that it is not only the author's ignorance about the country, its people, and the language that shines through but his condescending arrogance and Western superiority complex. And not just about Turks. Here is what a minor character has to say about Saudi Arabians:

"Don't forget - those guys where you're going, they're garbage wrapped in skin"

• SPOILERS - SPOILERS - SPOILERS - SPOILERS - SPOILERS -

If anyone is interested, here are some of the errors in this book:

1. "A province called Mugla", he replied. "The name of the town is Bodrum". >>> Mugla is a city. Bodrum is a town within the city of Mugla. Turkey doesn't have provinces.

1. Bodrum is on the Western coast of Turkey, not "southern Turkey" as the book keeps saying. It is on the Agean Sea, facing Greece, on the West. If it were in southern Turkey, it would be on the Mediterranean Sea.

1. "he knew that one of the foundations of democracy was the separation between religion and state. Yet to many Muslims, religion is the state". (pg 82) >>> Wrong. Religion and state are separated in secular regimes, not all of which are democracies. And of course it is entirely possible to be a democracy that doesn't separate religion and state, like the UK.

1. People smoking in police stations and hospitals all through the book >>> No smoking in public buildings in Turkey since 2008 (book was published in 2013).

1. "... with a few lire to spare." (pg 343) >>> The currency is called Turkish Lira. Plural is Liras, not "lire".

1. The character of Leyla Cumali is laughably unrealistic:

..... Her English is too perfect - she has better command of spoken English than most of my classmates' written English after about a decade of full-time schooling in English. ..... Impossible that a policewoman could be wearing conservative headscarf and long coats, especially on the job. They have uniforms, would you believe. ..... Impossible that a policewoman would refuse to ride in a car with a man. (It isn't even true that Turkish women in general wouldn't ride in a car with a man. How does the author think women take taxis?) ..... Impossible that a Saudi Arab could even become a policewoman. Foreign nationals, even after naturalisation, will not be accepted into the police or the army in Turkey.

1. re "Not possible to watch foreign news channels like CNN in Bodrum" >> Who believes this?!? Surely everyone knows that (1) these are cable channels, and (2) even if you didn't have cable, all you need is a satellite dish.

1. "If you couldn't get the stations in that part of Turkey... it meant that she could have come from hundreds of miles away - from Iraq or Lebanon." >>> Why not the centre of Mugla or Izmir, another city nearby? Why not a small Greek island that is a stone's throw from Bodrum? (see map) Strange to think of Iraq, which is about 2,000 km from Bodrum!

1. Turkish characters' bad English is overdone and has no relation to how a Turk would speak English.

... "they have no kissing-love" (pg 383) >> No such expression in Turkish ... "It was of the nature very simple" (pg 386) >> This is more like how a French person would speak bad English. There are no articles like 'of' or 'the' in Turkish and adjectives don't follow nouns so a Turk would conceivably say "It was simple" or "It was simple nature". ... "Squashed - flat like the cake of a pan" (pg 495) >> No foreigner would speak like this, certainly not a Turk who would either know what pancake is, or would just say 'flat like a pan'. ... "a house belonging to a cop of the female" >> Again, not how a Turk would speak. And if he knows the word "belonging", he can speak better than this.

10. "... there would also be a king low tide and far more of the old city would be revealed... the marble platform would be out of the water" >> This is completely wrong. There is no noticeable tide in the Aegean Sea, since it is a corner of the Mediterranean, not the ocean. (I actually checked this and found that Bodrum made the news in 2002 with a shockingly high tide of 30 centimetres.)

11. Re partying among ancient ruins - I don't know if you can do this anywhere in the world but you certainly can't do it in Turkey, even if tides exposed undersea ruins (and they don't).

12. Bass player Ahmut Pamuk - No such name, and no such name is possible. Ahmet, yes. Mahmut, yes. Ahmut, no.

13. "Seni" he said, and then repeated in English "You" (pg 487) >> Wrong. Sen = You. Seni = To you. It is the difference between "I" and "me".

14. They take him to an archeological site to torture him >> Why would anyone want to set up their torture chamber in a place that will surely be guarded and where tourists can wander in at any moment?!?

I know why, actually: So it looks good in the movie.

Remus - Read a sample of Midnight In The Palace Of Reason. I dare not recommend fiction to you because our tastes are so different, but we do OK with factual/historical fiction, so...

Cote, my review is slightly shorter than yours - I thought I Am Pilgrim was tosh.