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?

46. Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly

Archaeologist / soldier Jack West is leading a small but courageous and resourceful team in search of seven missing pieces that make up the apex of the Great Pyramid of Giza. It’s a race against time, against several other competing nations, and at stake is the future of the world.

Entertaining fast paced action packed adventure, reminiscent of Indiana Jones. There’s ancient undiscovered tombs, temples etc, filled with traps all over the place. These are based on the seven wonders of the ancient world. The heroes are, for the most part, blessed with almost superhuman endurance, quick thinking in life and death situations, and an uncanny knack for getting out of tight situations (aside from the one or two unlucky sacrificial members of the team, that is). There’s also lots of helpful diagrams to help the reader visualise the descriptions of the deadly obstacles.
All in all a fairly undemanding good read.

Thanks shake! Hopefully I'm near the top of the reserve list as keen to read it!

Cote I second ExPat the 90s TV version of House of Cards is superb (and still so so on point - plus ca change and all that). Also I think it is on netflix if you have access to that

Thanks everyone. I'll check it out

44 The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas

Young adult novel based on the Black Lives Matter movement - very topical and about to be released as a film this year, I think. My 15-year-old DD read this last year and recommended it to me when I said I was interested in reading some YA fiction.

It is quite hard-hitting as teenage books go, but has the requisite (relatively) happy ending. Apart from the fairly grim subject matter, it was an easy read and rather predictable in places (e.g. scene of family at home all getting on and having fun - what could possibly go wrong? cue gunshots...) but I guess that is the nature of YA.

It does really bring home to you what the reality of growing up young and black is, particularly in America - having 'the talk' from your parents when you reach a certain age, not about sex but about racism and how to minimise the chances of being killed by police or others.

I have on my to-read list Gary Younge's Another Day in the Death of America (black British journalist writing on all the gun deaths of children and teenagers on one day in 2013) which probably tackles the same subject in a way I am more used to reading.

Fell off the read for a while both due to a reading slump and the first book i read afterwards;

48. How to Break Up with your Phone by Catherine Price

Does what it says on the tin really. Nothing that we probably don't already know but I found it useful nonetheless. I am one of those people who don't think they use their phone that much but when I actually installed a tracking app as she suggested i was really surprised at how many times i checked it and how all those minutes add up. I Wanted to reduce this primarily as I have young kids and I thought, how can i monitor their screen time without monitoring my own? Useful tips and not preachy, actually quite funny in places as well. I now have no social media apps on my phone , and my usage is down. The one line from the book that really stayed with me was "Your life is what you pay attention to."

49. A Room of Ones Own by Virginia Woolf

A classic I had read a university but remembered very little of. Quick read and depressingly still relevant today. The analogy of Shakespeare's sister still stays with me.

50.American Scream: the Bill Hicks Story by Cynthia True

Biography of American comedian Bill Hicks who sadly died aged 32. Unless you already know Hicks then there is no point reading it , but its a good biography and shows both how talented he was and how restricted US TV can be. (His set was banned from Letterman because of the joke "If you are so pro-life don't block abortion clinics, link arms and block cemeteries" )

51. Hagseed by Margaret Atwood

Not my favourite Atwood but still brilliant. A retelling of The Tempest where a bitter and grieving former Artistic Director puts on a play of The Tempest inside a Canadian prison and tries to exact revenge on those who wronged him. I read it in two days as the plot speeds along nicely and the characters are well developed.

Appalling typos in that post sorry!

52. Crudo by Olivia Lang

The summer of 2017 as told through the eyes of Kathy (who is based upon the author Kathy Acker). She gets married and travels to Italy all whilst the world events play out.

This has received a lot of praise but it didn't do anything for me. The events of last summer, well it was only last summer, so I don't think a novel where someone shouts out 'Steve Bannon has just got fired!" adds much. There is something interesting in how the news cycle is so constant and invasive now that you cannot escape it, but I don't think this book adds much to that conversation.

Its very much in the 'literary fiction' school, so there is a lot of stream of consciousness type sentences. I heard an interview with the author, where she said she wrote it in 7 weeks. I think it is well written but not sure its worth the hype it is receiving.

I love A Room of One's Own, Ellis. I'm staying away from Olivia Lang after being bored by The Trip to Echo Spring.

Just read a YA book (most unlike me!) after a recommendation in the ST, mainly to see if DS2 would like it. White Rabbit Red Wolf by Tom Pollock is a kind of sci fi spy thriller thing with a maths prodigy as a protagonist. Tries too hard as a book so becomes a bit convoluted. No more than OK.

My laptop is back with my numbered list so - hoorah- the random number generator speaks again! It has chosen Reservoir 13. I am interested to see whether I find this book a chore.

I'm not counting it as it's a short story but I really enjoyed a Kindle ebook by Ian McEwan that was published last month called My Purple Scented Novel, a story about plagiarism and the diverging lives of two friends.

113. Jane Doe by Victoria Helen Stone

I got this free as one of the Kindle Firsts, so didn’t have high expectations, but really enjoyed it. Jane is enticing Steven into her life in order to get revenge on him. Despite being a sociopath I couldn’t help quite liking Jane and really wanting Steven to get his comeuppance. The final event all happens a bit quickly though.

Biblomania I won’t be reading anything else by her after this. I can see why it gets praise for its skill but there was no depth to it

93. Fell - Jenn Ashworth This one I picked up from last year's thread. Set in Grange over sands it is the story of Annette and her parents. The family run a lodging house in the Cumbrian costal town during the 1960s.?Their life is turned upside down when Netty (mother) is diagnosed with terminal cancer and a young man who seems to strange but erratic healing powers arrives in their lives. The story is told across two time frames and narrated by the ghosts of the house. This had potential. It's portrayal of a father and husband struggling to cope with his wife's illness, of a woman desperate to survive and a young daughter utterly bewildered and excluded was well constructed and successful. I found the technique of using the ghosts to narrate the story less so. A friend has just heard the author speak about the novel and apparently the ghosts were added at a later date. It shows; they feel like a 'bolt on.'
It was interesting for me as it is very much a local novel but not sure I would rush to reread of recommend.
94. Hillbilly Elegy : A memoir of a family and culture in crisis- JD Vance. Had heard very good things about this one. It is an account of the author's own up bringing and childhood in the rust belt of America. Having survived a chaotic childhood, mainly through the care that of his terrifying, unorthodox but consistent Grandmother, JD joins the Marines, attends college and finally graduates from Yale. This book is his perception on his poor white background. He looks at why this community have been so clearly drawn in to supporting Trump. He is sympathetic of his peers but interestingly sees the idea of the manufacturing decline leading to unemployment and social deprivation as a red herring. He believes that the 'Hillbilly' (his choice of words) cultural identity is much more important. He believes that the idea there are no jobs, is not true. There are jobs, just people don't want to take them. They are seen as in the wrong sector, beneath them or antisocial hours. Vance is an advocate of social reform but not necessarily in the traditional way. He is very much of the 'helping people to help themselves' school. He is not unsympathetic but neither is he prepared to excuse all wrongdoing and poor choices under the 'social deprivation' banner.
Interesting reading.

TooMuch re: Hillbilly Elegy I read it too and have to say really hated it, thought it was very clearly informed by his Republican ties/roots. I found his approach really annoying, particularly the whole subtext that seemed to support the 'myth' of meritocracy and ignore wider economic/structural issues. Overall I thought that Justified was a more balanced view of what it must be like to be poor in the rust belt!

Dottie I didn't hate it. I found it offered a different view point, not necessarily one I agreed with, but an interesting perspective all the same. I will look out for Justified.

As people are talking about Olivia Laing, can I ask if anyone has read Lonely City? I keep seeing it in bookshops but haven't bought it yet.

exexpat I read it but got a bit bogged down in some of the more literary/cultural studies' style sections. I enjoyed To the River more.

TooMuch It's fascinating how much impact Vance's book has had. I've seen a lot of articles since it came out that say Vance's book has been used to justify legislation that adversely affects poor, but that it was taken up by more liberal readership in US trying to work out why so many poor communities supported Trump.

Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance review – does this memoir really explain Trump’s victory?
www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/07/hillbilly-elegy-by-jd-vance-review

J.D. Vance, the False Prophet of Blue America
newrepublic.com/article/138717/jd-vance-false-prophet-blue-america

I was born in poverty in Appalachia. ‘Hillbilly . Elegy’ doesn’t speak for me
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-grew-up-in-poverty-in-appalachia-jd-vances-hillbilly-elegy-doesnt-speak-for-me/2017/08/30/734abb38-891d-11e7-961d-2f373b3977ee_story.html?utm_term=.dc9d0dfa1f67

Hillbilly sellout: The politics of J. D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” are already being used to gut the working poor
www.salon.com/2017/03/11/hillbilly-sellout-the-politics-of-j-d-vances-hillbilly-elegy-are-already-being-used-to-gut-the-working-poor/

Dottie I think it is very hard when one person uses their own experience to try to justify and explain the experiences of others. The uncomfortable thread that ran through the whole thing was my feeling that certain sections of society would leap on some of the arguments and use them to support welfare cuts etc. Every case is very different of course. The author, for example, was lucky to have his strong Grandmother to bolt to when his mother was in crisis and incapable of parenting.
We do still have to consider some level of personal responsibility within our situations. I have worked along side real social deprivation. I have seen both sides of the coin. Of course we should offer all the support and help our society can afford. However the individual will always have to take personal responsibility grasping and maximising that support.

TooMuch think those are all really valid points, the problem is I suppose that the debate always seems to end up being polarized, the more sensible middle way that you propose gets lost, as requires more nuanced thinking.

Also the way he talks about thrift, for example ignores the fact that what is meant by 'thrift' such as not buying fast food requires funding to educate people on how to budget, cook and so on...Richer people not that thrifty either but never brought up for it. I am I think fairly thrifty but was taught to cook, budget, check pricing in supermarkets, balance accounts and so on...didn't come naturally. Also that poor people often end up paying more for things because they're poor, everything was 'on the drip' when I was a child, so furniture etc cost more because of interest. But there wasn't the money to buy things up front.

Also last rant about Vance, found it annoying that he ignored the fact that most poor people in the US do have jobs, but the jobs don't pay enough to cover what people need. Are the conditions are such that people don't have the energy to shop around, cook etc. Did you ever read Barbara Ehrenreich's book Nickel and Dimed? I thought she was really good on the poverty trap that certain kinds of work condemn people to.

32. The Pedant in The Kitchen - Julian Barnes. Non-fiction from the Booker-winning author about his culinary experiences being a foodie and the principal cook in his household. He's quite funny sometimes but I found his writing a bit dry and unnecessarily analytical here.

I've nearly finished Little Fires Everywhere which is a bit of a chore to read at this stage.

I haven't read Hillbilly Elegy but I have read Nickel and Dimed and can second dottie's recommendation (basically everything I've read by Barbara Ehrenreich is worth reading). A British writer recently followed her example and took a series of low-wage/gig economy jobs and wrote a book about it, which is on my excessively long 'books I might buy' list: Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain by James Bloodworth - anyone read it?

Poor Economics is also an interesting read with a more global perspective on the poverty trap and why people living in poverty make the kind of decisions they do, which can seem illogical or self-defeating to anyone who hasn't lived in those circumstances.

23. Jack and Jill James Patterson

This was aprettt good! I had given up on Patterson's Alex Cross series because the last two were a bit meh but this changed my mind. The story centers a serial killer couple who appear determined to kill the President as their final act.

Great beach read.

Apprett??? I meant pretty good.