50 Book Challenge 2018 Part Seven

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the seventh 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, the fifth one here, and the sixth one here.

Got the new Red Rising book, Iron Gold, from the library today. Very excited!

Farewell my lovely by Raymond Chandler

Wisecracks, yes; fascinating locations, yes, memorable characters, yes.

Philip Marlowe, not yet a fan. I can’t put my finger on it, maybe I don’t like him, maybe I don’t understand him, or maybe it’s something about the way he shares (or doesn’t share) his detection with the reader.

73. Susan Hill - Dolly

Another of Susan Hill's novellas. Orphan Edward goes to spend the summer with his aunt Kestrel in an isolated old house in the Fens. Since she has no children of her own and to give the boy company of his own age, Kestrel also invites his cousin Leonora to stay. Leonora turns out to be spoilt and spiteful with a vicious temper. When she doesn't get the sort of doll she wants for her birthday, Leonora's violent rage haunts Edward for years afterwards. But it isn't until adulthood that either of them realise that there are more consequences to the act of violence than just bad memories.

Not as good as The Small Hand but creepy enough. Both are around 150 pages each, hence the quick reads!

41 to 57 Vera and Shetland series by Anne Cleeves. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading my way though both of these series - I’m not going to list them all here. It’s been very easy just picking up one book after an other and I’m not quite sure what’s next. Sorry to see that there won’t be any more Jimmy Perez books - I will miss him and Sandy.
58. Kennexstone Remembered local history book about a Gower farmhouse.

150. Skin Deep by Liz Nugent

This really wasn’t what I expected. It starts in the South of France, where a woman is out at a party trying to work out what to do with the corpse in her flat. I therefore expected the standard story about who the corpse is and why it’s in her flat. And you do find that out, but the book then changes and it’s the story of a poor remote Irish upbringing with lots of old Irish fairytales interspersed. It ends up as more of a character study than the thriller I was expecting. It’s also hard to engage with the main character - she’s very unlikeable yet men seem to become instantly mesmerised by her and do whatever she wants. I enjoyed one of Nugent’s earlier books but not sure about this one.

151. At The Wedding by Matt Dunn

Light story about a group of friends getting together in Barcelona for a surprise wedding. It was OK but I didn’t buy that they would all have been friends as they were all so different.

151. My Family And Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

A reread - have read this many times and still love it!

152. Now You See Her by Heidi Perks

Charlotte is looking after her friend’s daughter when she goes missing. The story is told from the POV of several characters and needless to say things aren’t how they first appear. Not bad, but the main twist is a few chapters before the end, so I was expecting something else but it just fizzles out a bit.

153. Lying In Wait by Liz Nugent

Set in the early 1980s this shows the way Lydia manipulated her husband and then her son into doing what she wants. Again, you wonder why a woman so awful has men at her beck and call, but this was a better story than Skin Deep above.

154. Sister by Rosamund Lupton

Beatrice’s sister goes missing and Beatrice thinks there’s far more to it than the police do. The book is written as Beatrice telling the story afterwards partly as a letter to her sister and partly to a CPS lawyer. The story itself is fine but the ending irritated me as it’s too inconclusive.

I’ve been reading a book about the Mitford girls but have had to give up as it’s so badly written - it just meanders about jumping from time to time and sister to sister with no warning so really hard to keep track of what’s going on. I will have to try and find a better book as they do sound like interesting subjects! It was by Laura Thompson and I recommend avoiding it!

Numbers don’t add up there! MFAOA was 152 and Sister was 155.

74. Mark A. Latham - A Betrayal in Blood

One in the Titan Books series of Sherlock Holmes tales by modern authors. In this one, Holmes is set by his brother to investigate the account of the death of a Transylvanian nobleman at the hands of a group including one Professor Van Helsing, an account which has enthralled London with its apparent evidence of the existence of vampires. But Holmes does not believe in vampires, and the inconsistencies of the published accounts reveal a conspiracy which points to the mountains of Transylvania.

I really enjoyed this. Latham has created a great detective story giving a very different interpretation on the events of Dracula.

I honestly thought I had read more books thna I have but apparently my latest is number 63 Taliban Cricket Club by Timeri N Murari.

Thsi is a readable book : a kind of Kite Runner with added cricket corssed with Escape to Victory. It's not fantastically well written. Feels like a creative writing student trying too hard . Lots and lots of similes, many cliches and very clear baddies and goodies.Despite claiming to be about empowerment of women, females are all saints and/or victims. However, it passed the time. The author eventaully avoids the tendency to worry that we may not understand either Afghanistan or cricket and stops the laboured explanantions. He also falls foul of that unwritten rule that male authors don't really do female protagonsists very well. And the Taliban do seem a tad incompetent : which I am sure undermines their ruthlessness rather.

If anoyone is interested in Afghanistan and cricket, I heartily recommend Out Of The Ashes which is both a non fiction book and film and genuinely interesting and genuinely uplifting.

I am trying to avoid UpLit but I keep ending up buying it in Waitrose : it seems to fall in my basket.

59 This is going to hurt- Adam Kay stories from an NHS Doctor. Read this overnight during a bout of menopausal insomnia. Probably not the best choice as some of it was quite upsetting and worrying. I need something a bit more jovial now.

43. The Dark Forest (Book 2 of The Three Body Project) by Cixin Liu.

Quite ‘bonkers’ science fiction, to borrow from Clarabellski’s review. I loved how the story tackles human nature and the role of the individual versus the community. I identified with ‘defeatism’; although rather than it being related to marauding aliens, mine is directed towards the environment and plastic - what can I do? Slow in parts and then speeds up to a ferocious explosion. I thought it was great!

Given up on Hearts of Atlantis (Stephen King) - not for me, in the same way that I did not like Mr Mercedes.

Best - I think peri-menopausal insomnia is perhaps my problem too. It's horrible. Any tips (other than buying lots more books)?

Have started Iron Gold but finding it a bit hard-going, as there are so many names/groups and I keep getting confused as to who belongs to who and whose side people are on. Hopefully that's just teething problems though.

Remus I’m a bit older so in full meno but it’s only just really hit me badly. I’ve just started HRT and been out today and bought a wool duvet. Friends rave about them so we’ll see!

In fact, there’s a good menopause thread in AIBU at the moment Remus. Lots of tips there.

Hope the duvet helps. Will look for the thread. Thanks.

Not read anything for a week. Insanely busy. So kick me off...

ps I have hot flushes...but it may be thinking about Jon Snow

Be interested to hear about your wool duvet Best - I've always been prone to overheating/erratic temperature control at night & at 48 I imagine it's only going to get worse I've wondered if a wool duvet might help.

Currently reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell - can't decide if I've read it before, or whether I'm just remembering random newspaper articles, but there's enough new (or forgotten) in there to keep my interest.

I shall report back on the duvet!

re Jon Snow.

My hot flushes (I hope) seem to have calmed down a bit, but I'm getting a horrible racing heart at night time, as if I've been mainlining cans of Coke.

So, just finished 70 - Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Gladwell is an expert at making a little argument go a long way, but overall his story here - exceptional people are made, not born, and chance (home environment, cultural context, timing of birth) is critical in determining who out of the 'good enough' becomes a star - is clearly and readably set out. He makes a good case that we should be making a better effort to make the most of everyone's potential, and not assume that a few are destined by their intelligence/natural aptitude to be winners.

(Also a good one to give to your teenagers if you want to encourage them in the message that hard work and perseverance will take them far )

Another one here struck by insomnia. usually at the weekend when I would like a nice sleep. Brought on by one glass of wine too many (by which I mean 3 low alcohol glasses. Gah. Bastards.) I have terrible terrible panic attacks when I can't sleep.

Not tried reading as it generally wakes me up.

When I cant sleep I go downstairs onto Challenge and listen to old episodes of "who wants to be a millionaire" with a pint of milk. But I'm weird...

Satsuki, I think I found out early that Richmal Crompton was female, but still flabbergasted at how fabulously she does 10-year-old boy :)

79. The Nest, Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney

Fun, if anodyne. A family of 4 New York adult siblings await the 40th birthday of the youngest, when they all stand to inherit a sizeable sum from the family nest egg. The only trouble is that the eldest, an entitled hedonistic charmer, has got himself into some bother resulting in the money being spent on legal expenses. The novel tracks the lives of the four siblings over the three months that he's asked for to try to come up with a plan to pay them back. I know someone reviewed this recently and hated it but I thought it had a sort of C18th charm - a botched inheritance, a sudden change of social circumstances etc? If you don't mind books about self-regarding rich white Americans, then this is not too bad.

80. All Passion Spent, Vita Sackville-West

Or "What the Vicereine Did Next". Lady Slane has been the dutiful wife of a politician and diplomat all her life. When she is widowed at the age of 85, her children expect her to docilely fall into the arrangements they are making for her. However, she has other ideas. An interesting, if flawed, viewpoint on women's freedoms (or lack of them) and well worth a read alongside "A Room of One's Own". I was interested in her takes on feminism and the dichotomy that she identifies not between men and women but between workers (including her husband, but also her hard-working and practical ladies maid) and dreamers (herself but also her male acquaintances who seem to be very good at doing very little!).

81. The Keeper of Lost Things, Ruth Hogan

My latest read from the montly book swap. This one was not for me, I'm afraid. The characters were such awful cliches and the mixture of snobbery and sentimentality turned me right off. It put me in mind of Major Pettigrew, which I really didn't like either. Sorry.

Yes it was me that hated The Nest keith. I don’t know - I was prepared to find it fun but it tried to shovel in too many “issues” in a heavy handed way that it left a bad taste. Also the way they were interspersed with all the talk of remodelling/renting of various properties and the minutiae of their financial predicaments was so tedious. Just didn’t care Yes William is so well done.

remus When I woke up repeatedly with a racing heart it turned out to be anemia so might be worth checking that. I am slightly younger than perimenopausal (I think!) but I got this a lot and always seemed worse at hormonal times. Much improves though when I remember my iron supplements.