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?

1. Why Mummy Drinks by Gill Sims.
2. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
3. Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie.

4 Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie.

1. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman.
2. "Blink" Malcolm Gladwell.
3. "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig.
4. "Persepolis RIsing" by James SA Corey.
5. “Guernica” by Dave Boling.

10. “Harvest” by Tess Gerritsen. 11. "Grit" by Angela Duckworth. 12. "The Hive" by Gill Hornby. 13. "The Nix" by Nathan Hill. 14. "That's My Boy" by Jenni Murray. 15. "The Dispossessed" by Ursula K Le Guin. 16. "Room" by Emma Donaghue. 17. "No Logo" by Naomi Klein. 18. "French Children Don't Throw Food" by Pamela Druckerman. 19. "The Martian" by Andy Weir. 20. "Freedom Climbers" by Bernadette McDonald. 21. "From Dictatorship to Democracy" by Gene Sharp. 22. "Children of Time" by Adrian Tkchaikosvky. 23. "Three Body Problem" by Cixin Liu. Another sci-fi recommendation from here and I can now see it was Sadik, thanks! I enjoyed this after a bit of a ropy start I thought. I raced through the last half of it wanting to know what would happen next. I see it is part of a trilogy (how fitting given the subject matter - a tri-solar system) and I want to read the rest (Now Now Now!!!!) but I finally got a copy of the Darren McGarvey book from the library on 2 week loan so need to get on to that one first!

Thanks so much for the list, Dottie. Going to peruse it now!

64. Modernists and Mavericks: Bacon, Freud, Hockney & the London Painters by Martin Gayford –Published 2018. Gayford’s cultural history/survey of London artists from the 1940s to the 1970s. A mix of history, anecdote, art criticism and analysis which takes in ‘key’ painters such as Freud and Hockney, and ‘key’ schools like the Slade and Camberwell, to chart the development of this significant area of British art. Some extremely informative and enjoyable sections and far broader in scope than the title suggests – which was good because although I’m keen on Bacon and Freud, I’m not a fan of Hockney’s work. Sometimes the analytical dimension is a bit superficial and sweeping but overall an enjoyable read if you’re interested in the development of art movements or enjoy gossip about art and artists. As a bonus the book is beautifully produced and contains a wide range of excellent illustrations. I got this one from the library but would be tempted to buy a paperback version for the illustrations alone.

29. Reservoir 13 - Jon McGregor - I was worried about reading this after some of the previous comments.

On the plus side, I thought it was a clever device to show the passage of time with the cycle of nature and I enjoyed the descriptions (but, as previously mentioned up thread, paragraphs would have helped) and it was an easy read. On the minus side, I disliked the ending and found it difficult to engage with any of the characters as there were so many of them and I knew too little about each of them. Overall, it would not encourage me to read anything else by this author.

Next up is Painter to the King - Amy Sackville

21. The Talisman Ring - Georgette Heyer
My first Georgette Heyer thanks to a recommendation by Remus I think, and a 99p kindle deal.
I spent the first quarter of the book thinking 'what on earth is this?' and the remainder thoroughly enjoying it. I look forward to reading more by this author and would be grateful for any recommendations.

Re my previous post - please tell me which you would plum from the following list by Georgette Heyer and at 99p:

• The Toll Gate
• The Nonesuch
• Faro's daughter
• Powder and Patch
• Footsteps in the dark
• My Lord John

Iirc The Toll Gate and &F's Daughter were my favourite of those. I hated Powder and Patch*.

Here's my Powder and Patch review:
Utter nonsense. This felt like Heyer had whipped it out in a day by taking paragraphs from all her other novels and sticking them together, without any attempt at plot or characterisation. Pages and pages of it involved nothing more than the hero’s stockings, and most of the other pages were the heroine either crying or being stupid or doing both simultaneously. I hated it.

And here's my Footsteps in the Dark one:
Heyer does ghost/adventure story. Loved this. It’s essentially Famous Five for grownups; it was very silly, very predictable, very snobbish and very good fun.

Brilliant. Many thanks Remus. Have splashed out on all 3 for my hols :)

Powder and Patch was just awful. Possibly the worst Heyer book I’ve ever read.

Have enjoyed reading about all the ripping yarns. Frightfully good show, chaps. Carry on

Another bit of synchronicity - I was just about to come on and celebrate reaching book no. 50 when I noticed Tanaqui mentioning The Blackest Streets by Sarah Wise, as I think recommended by me a few threads back. My latest book is another by Sarah Wise, in fact her first - The Italian Boy.

I honestly didn't plan it this way but I'm glad that book 50 is one that so fascinatingly combines my love of history, the 19th century, London and true crime. In 1831, three 'resurrectionists' - body-snatchers to you and me - were apprehended for the murder of an adolescent boy whose body they'd offered for sale to a medical school. Wise unravels the often gruesome but compelling story of what happened next, and also tries to fill in the probable facts of the crime(s) that had occurred (the boy may not have been Italian at all, but there had been other murders committed by the resurrectionists, too impatient to wait for nature to take its course ).

As an aside, what really grabbed my attention at first was that the villains drank in a pub in Smithfield called 'The Fortune of War', and it stood on a spot that I know well today, opposite Barts Hospital (at Pye Corner, where the Great Fire of London had been halted in 1666). The pub was a notorious resurrectionists' hangout, and just a short walk away from Newgate prison (now demolished)....where two of the accused were later hanged. There's so much gripping history here, and Wise tells it brilliantly. It's not one for the faint-hearted, though, because some of the detail is full-on, and the grimness of life for the underclass in early 19thc London (especially for the many impoverished and abandoned children) is heartbreaking.

I enjoyed The Italian Boy iirc.

55 Ma'am Darling by Craig Brown

Reviewed upthread by Terpsichore. I read this expecting it to be entertaining, but - despite being a hard core lefty/anti-monarchist - I actually found it rather sad. Amongst other things I hadn't realised that Peter Townsend was so very much older than Princess Margaret (or that she was so very young at the time). There was also a certain car-crash element about all the extracts from diaries (mostly written by spectacularly bitchy men who appear to have been equally scathing about pretty much everyone). A good read in a voyeuristic sort of way, but rather less fun than I'd been expecting, and made me feel that the monarchy should be abolished as much for their benefit as for everyone else's.

64. VE Schwab - A Conjuring of Light

Last in the trilogy featuring the four Londons - Red, White, Grey and Black. Red London is under threat from an ancient power which has arisen in White London after being freed from the ruins of Black London and the world it had destroyed. Kell, Lila, and Alucard are in a race against time to find an ancient artifact which may be the only thing that can save their home city and the world.

This has been a brilliant fantasy series, I can very much recommend it to anyone interested in the genre.

Sadik I certainly agree that Princess M was a deeply unhappy woman who wasn't able to find any real fulfilment within the narrow confines of her role and what was expected of her. It definitely bore out the truism about money not buying you happiness, I felt.

Sadik agree with you about the monarchy but have been anti for years although good for tourism revenue I suppose, I've heard of this book vaguely, is it supposed to be a biography?

It's sort of a biography - it's subtitled '99 glimpses of PM' and its basically a series of anecdotes running through her life, together with some (rather unsuccessful IMO) fantasy 'what if' sequences by the author. It's definitely intended to be lighthearted, rather than a serious bio. TBH I mostly read it because my dad bought it on the kindle deal of the day - we have a family library sharing our books - and I fancied something lightweight.

Sadik thanks, I suppose the popularity of shows like The Crown have stirred interest in the history of the royals, so publishers cashing in.

I've also just read Ma'am Darling (book #34). It was an entertaining read for the most part, quite sad in places, and by the end I felt a lot of sympathy for PM. But the book is a bit repetitive, and about fifty pages too long, and I agree with Sadik that the fantasy chapters didn't work. I also found it frustrating that there's virtually no mention of her children. It's still in the monthly Kindle sale, by the way, for £1.99.

I’ve found a new word, tsundoku, that describes the shelves in my bedroom very well.
I seem to acquire at least one new book for each one I finish reading

Thought that some of you might also identify with this:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-44981013

clara - I envy you because you have the 2 sequels of The Two-Body Problem to look forward to! They are brilliant

Stitches - That sounds familiar

I have a tsundoku pile that is soon going to topple!

59. How to eat Better by James Wong. This is the plant guy who does the TV programme with Micheal Mosley. This is quite interesting about maximising the nutritional value of your food- Black grapes rather than white, cooking and cooling carbs to increase the resistant starch, that kind of thing. I found the information about cutting food and leaving it meaning it improves in some phytonutrients quite surprising! I knew some of this stuff already, but there are some lovely looking recipes (the tomato sauce was so good I made it two days running!).

Yes tsundoku is very real - I high five myself to death when I pick one up from the bottom of a stack. The library is my problem - I tend to read those so purchases get pushed back. Even if I have a lot to read I feel hard done by if I don’t leave the library with a book