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?

[TheTurnOfTheScrew]

27. Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor

The book opens with the disappearance of a thirteen year old girl on holiday in a rural Northern village. It follows many of the community across the years that follow, looking how their lives are and aren’t shaped by this event. The passing of the years is reflected in the beautifully rich nature writing, which conveys well how the world keeps turning despite whatever difficulties we face. I liked in particular how McGregor described equally well the lives of people from all sorts of backgrounds without ever drawing comparisons or moralising over class and societal structure, and the dominant voice is that of the village rather than any one character. Ultimately very little of great consequence happens, but the strength of the book was that I found it no less satisfying for that. Loved it.

[Ellisisland]

TheTurnOfTheScrew I bang on about it all the time,but there is a great podcast called Literary friction, the latest episode is with Jon McGregor and its really interesting.

[StitchesInTime]

42. The Four Legendary Kingdoms by Matthew Reilly

Thriller.
Jack West Jr is kidnapped and forced to compete in the Games, a series of deadly classically themed challenges that will leave just one competitor (at most) alive.
At stake is the future of the world - if no competitor wins, then a galaxy hurtling towards the Milky Way from the other side of the universe will destroy the Earth along with the rest of our galaxy. There’s a heck of a lot of potential collateral damage here - are we seriously expected to believe that humanity is so all important that our entire galaxy will be wiped out if some mysterious extraterrestrial force decides humanity isn’t worthy?

Anyway, as long as one tries not to think about minor little details like that, it’s an entertaining, if somewhat predictable action packed read.

[Dottierichardson]

35 Things I Don’t Want to Know by Deborah Levy - I’ve never read anything by Levy before, the descriptions of her novels just didn’t appeal. But I kept coming across articles about her autobiographical series – the second came out this year – and they’re short so I thought I would try one. This is the first, each is a response to a famous work. The second one apparently to Simone De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. This is the first in the projected trilogy and is a loose reply to Orwell’s essay Why I write. Orwell talks about his childhood and its impact on his writing impulse, as well as listing four categories he thinks account for why writers write, so Levy has four sections in her book that correspond. I wasn’t entirely sure about the overall approach Levy takes, and the first section which is clearly about a moment of depression was hard to relate to, not because of her feelings, but because she could just pick up and go to a beautiful, secluded hotel in Spain. Not an option many of us have, I think. However, the second and third sections are basically autobiographical sketches and I thought they were really striking in how they represented displacement and loss. The first is a snapshot from her childhood in apartheid South Africa just after her father, an ANC member, was imprisoned for his political activities, it’s an amazing look at a horrific period of history through a child’s eyes. The second is an episode from her teens, just after her parents separate, and captures brilliantly her teenage angst and confusion. The writing here was lyrical and lucid. I thought the entire book was worth reading for those two sections, regardless of the project as a whole. I still don’t think I’ll try her novels, unless anyone recommends them? But I’ll definitely seek out the next episode of her autobiographical work.

[BellBookandCandle]

Updated list - highlights marked by an *

1. Mythos - Stephen Fry *
2. Origin - Dan Brown
3. The Mitford Murders - Jessica Fellowes

4.Paris - Edward Rutherford

1. The Four Quartets- TS Eliot *
2. The Magus of Hay - Phil Rickman
3. Innocent Traitor - Alison Weir
4. The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood (audio) *
5. Land Rover:The story of the car that conquered the world- Ben Fogle

10. The Good Terrorist - Doris Lessing (audio)
11. Station Eleven - Emily St John Manuel
12. American Gods - Neil Gaiman
13. Monarch of the Glen - Neil G 1.Mythos - Stephen Fry

1. Origin - Dan Brown
2. The Mitford Murders - Jessica Fellowes

4.Paris - Edward Rutherford

1. The Four Quartets- TS Eliot
2. The Magus of Hay - Phil Rickman
3. Innocent Traitor - Alison Weir
4. The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood (audio)
5. Land Rover:The story of the car that conquered the world- Ben Fogle

10. The Good Terrorist - Doris Lessing (audio)
11. Station Eleven - Emily St John Manuel
12. American Gods - Neil Gaiman *
13. Monarch of the Glen - Neil Gaiman *
14. Reservoir 13 - Jon MacGregor (audio)
15: The Management Style of the Supreme Beings - Tom Holt
16: Stone Mattress - Margaret Atwood *
17. Burial Rites - Hannah Kent *
18: Animal - Sara Pascoe
19. Friends of the Dusk - Phil Rickman
20. Fools and Mortals - Bernard Cornwell
21. A Very English Scandal - John Preston *

Really enjoyed A Very English Scandal - it seems incomprehensible how this could have happened. The coincidences and cover-ups are so far fetched it seems unreal.

Thinking I might try Queen Lucia by EF Benson next, but I'm not convinced it's my thing.

[Tanaqui]

Good choices Remus- Sophie is one of my absolute favourite Heyer, and the Talisman Ring is genuinely lol funny. I’m a bit meh about Bath Tangle though (though might have to reread to check!). Let us know if she enjoys them!

53) I’ve got your Number by Sophie Kinsella. I enjoyed this a lot- funny, and a nice modern take on a very traditional romance plot!

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Will do. Bath Tangle is the most recent one I've read, so was just in my mind.

I was mostly going for 'v cheap on Kindle and I liked it' recs.

[ChillieJeanie]

49. Tom Holland - Athelstan: The Making of England
    
    A very short book in the Allen Lane/Penguin series on British monarchs. At only 94 pages it gives a superficial overview of the formation of England and Athelstan's place within it, looking at Alfred's battles for the survival of Wessex, the expansion of Wessex under Alfred's son Edward, and Athelstan himself, who was king of both Wessex and Mercia and who went on to conquer Northumbria as well. These three men, plus Aethelflaed, Alfred's daughter and Lady of the Mercians, were key to the unification of the various kingdoms of the Angles and Saxons which brought 'Englalonde' into being.

[ShakeItOff2000]

33. Do No Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien.

This novel, shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2016, is set in China just after the Great Leap Forward through the Cultural Revolution to the present day.

The story follows two families through these tumultuous times. I thought the author mixed historical detail with themes of love, duty and family very well. I loved the characters, believable and flawed, trying to live in difficult times. Music and story-telling also played a big part in the book.

Revolutions are terrifying with strikingly similar themes no matter where they happen in the world. An ideology with worthy intentions can quickly spiral out of control. In China millions of people, including large numbers of educated ‘bourgeosie’ who were in fact just middle-class people like me, were killed or sent for re-education in isolated areas, separated from their families and forced to choose the state over the individual. And then, the cycle happened all over again with the next generation, with the student protests and riots in Tiananmen Square, demanding rights of the individual.

An absorbing read and an inspiration to read more non-fiction about Chinese history.

Dottie, interesting review of Things I don’t want to know. It is also on my reading list after I read an article with Deborah Levy.

[Toomuchsplother]

Shakeitoff - I have that on my too read pile. If you are looking for China nonfiction I would recommend Wild Swans.

[Dottierichardson]

Shakeitoff2000 the Thien sounds like one to look out for my pile, I,ve read Frank Dikotter's books on China, might be worth looking out for. There's one on the Cultural Revolution and one on Mao's famine, both were very sound/informative but quite 'dry' reads and the one about the famine was quite harrowing as you can imagine.

I had the Levy on my pile for the same reasons as you, I read the Orwell essay first because I didn't know it and it's really short, but it turned out it wasn't necessary.

[DesdemonasHandkerchief]

Another vote for Wild Swans - the only book I've read three times. Would definitely be in my top ten ever.

[Toomuchsplother]

86. The child - Fiona Barton read for book club and it was utter bilge!
Basic premise is that a reporter investigates when a babies body is found on a building site. Premise had promise but was so badly written. Barton is a Daily Mail journalist and I guess she was writing within her sphere of expertise but this would have worked much better as a straight crime / police story. The layer of reporter cracking the case added nothing to the story. Just made it twice as tedious.
And believe me the style was so tedious. It was basic ' he said' then 'she said' type writing. You would expect someone who writes for a living - even if it is the Daily Fail(!) - to do a much better job.
Some basic factual errors too. Who had email and voicemail in 1992? And since when do police need to be phoned and given advice on DNA results by a trainee reporter who's facts have come from Wikipedia and Google?? Lazy, sloppy writing and crap editing.
Absolute stinker!

[Dottierichardson]

I couldn’t get on with Wild Swans when I tried it, probably just the wrong time, but I remember being confused about time periods and settings. It sounds as if I should try it again, I’ve often gone back to books and found that I liked them the second time round. I did read her book on Mao, which I was completely absorbed in until I finished. But then I read an article that said it was quite a biased account -although given her background why wouldn’t it be? So, I read the Dikotter for balance. As it turns out, it seemed to me, where Mao’s regime was concerned hard to exaggerate the appalling loss and waste of it all. I think Shakeitoff’s comments were really apt, Mao’s regime was so depressingly similar to Stalin’s (and Pol Pot’s and the list goes on) even down to the famine, which mirrored Stalin’s manufactured one in Ukraine, despite being almost 20 years later.

[Toomuchsplother]

And that should be baby's not babies!

And I saw the 'twist' a mile off - it was hula dancing in neon knickers by about page 50!

[Dottierichardson]

Toomuch I hope, at the very least, your fellow 'clubbers' felt the same way. I had to abandon my last bookclub, because I hated most of the books, so either had to keep silent or end up an outcast.

[Dottierichardson]

And 'hula dancing in neon knickers' is a brilliant line!

[Piggywaspushed]

I read a good fiction book set in China a while back. I think it was nineteenth century Shanghai and was about a woman living in wealthy person's house. I think there may have been concubines. It was Amy Tanesque but not Amy Tan. It is bugging me now as I can't find it on my shelves. Does this description mean anything to anyone?

[Piggywaspushed]

OK, just done some goggling and suspect it now was Amy Tan, The Valley Of Amazement... I usually remember her books better than that!

[Piggywaspushed]

or googling even...

[Sadik]

Not history, but for anyone with an interest in China, can I recommend Peter Hessler's books, particularly River Town and also Factory Girls by Leslie Chang, which is a fascinating read, all about the lives of factory workers in modern China (and not at all depressing!)

[Matilda2013]

34. The Mistress’s Revenge - Tamar Cohen

Sally and Clive have been having an affair for the last five years. When Clive breaks up with her she goes into freefall and begins inserting herself into the lives of his son, daughter and wife. Is this all perfectly innocent or is she concocting revenge.

I was very much looking forward to the premise of this but the format of a journal from the ex-mistress’s point of view made a lot of this feel like one long rant. I presume this was to build up the tension but this is not my favourite by this author!

[KeithLeMonde]

Dottie, fabulous reviews as always, I have added Asymmetry to my (ridiculously long) TBR list.

49. My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante
I feel like the last person in the world to read this and I was looking forward to it so much..... Did anyone else find it a bit of a slog? There's no doubt that she's a great, vivid writer but the pacing and lack of action just felt bizarre; pages and pages about the shoes that Lila was drawing, or yet more repetitive internal monologues over whether Lenu was jealous of Lila or vice versa..... One of those books where you can stand back and say "Yes, this is clever" but you feel great relief when it's finished.

50. Rook, Anthony McGowan
More like a short story than even a novella, it's one of the books nominated for this year's Carnegie award. On the surface a simple story about two teenage brothers who find an injured bird, it deals with bitter-sweet relationships both inside and outside the family. The two boys' differing feelings about the bird's chances of survival (one naively optimistic, the other cynical) reflect the way that their different personalities, maturity and understanding lead them to view their other experiences. Like all good short stories, contains so much more than the sum of its parts.

[CorvusUmbranox]

54.) Prince of Thorns, The Broken Empire Book 1, by Mark Lawrence -- First in a fantasy trilogy about Prince Jorg, who at thirteen, leads a brutal gang of mercenaries across a war-torn landscape. Mixed feelings on this, although I will be getting the second in the trilogy for definite. I liked the Clockwork Orange feel to it, and that the author didn't shy away from that. It started well, I wasn't quite so convinced when the sci-fi elements started to creep in. It's like when you have a POV character overhearing dialogue in a language they don't know, yet the words are transcribed perfectly. It doesn't make sense to me and it's jarring, a POV slip. There's a couple of moments like that here. I'm also not sure how well the sci-fi elements really fit with the fantasy: it's an odd mash-up and I'm not sure it entirely works.

55.) Shopaholic Abroad, Sophie Kinsella -- It's been a crappy horrible stressful week, and I needed some silly fluff to cheer me up. This did the trick. This is the second book in the series and I'm not at all ashamed to say I think I'll be going on to read them all, and immerse myself in a world where shopping is both the source and the solution for all of life's problems and everyone is a borderline idiot (actually that second one's not far off the mark).

56.) Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes: The Story of Women in the 1950s, by Virginia Nicholson -- Oh, damn this was good. A social history of women in the 1950s. Extremely readable, detailed and compelling. I picked this up on a whim in the library, and I'm so glad I did, because I thoroughly enjoyed this, and I'm eager to read the author's other books, particularly Singled Out, which focuses on the women left single in the wake of the First World War. You know when you stumble by chance across a brilliant book by an author you've never heard of and are thrilled to find their back catalogue? Yeah. That.

[KeithLeMonde]

Just seen on Twitter that Shirley Barrett, author of Rush Oh! (much loved by people here though I have not managed to get my hands on a copy through our library yet), has a new book out in September. "Where’d You Go, Bernadette? meets Turn of the Screw" apparently, which sounds intriguing.