50 Book Challenge 2018 Part Eight

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the eighth (and probably final) 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 and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.The lurkers among you are also very welcome to come out of the woodwork and share with us 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, the sixth one here and the seventh one here.

How have you got on this year?

Just popping on to share this
www.youngwriteraward.com/2018-shortlist-announced/

I have read Mermaid, Reading Cure and Elmet ( although that was published last year- never sure how these things work!!)

45. The Broken Road - Patrick Leigh Fermor

I finished this - the last of PFL's epic trilogy of his journey by foot across pre-war Europe - with the satisfaction of completing a long journey mixed with the sadness of saying goodbye to an old friend. In fact PLF never finished this book in his lifetime due, it seems, to an unwarranted lack of confidence in it; it has been sympathetically pieced together and edited from his manuscripts along with excerpts from his diary. As with the first two volumes this is cracking writing packed with memorable characters and high-spirited adventures but with a shadow cast by the devastation soon to be wrought by WW2.

Checking in, my reading rate has slowed to a snails pace and I can't see making 50 books by the end of the year at this rate 😏

38. We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson. I enjoyed this book and it was refreshing to have a genuinely insane narrator, not misunderstood or maligned but genuinely disturbed, and to be inside her reality. I wanted to read this before the film release and I'm glad I did, I've subsequently looked up a clip on YouTube and was a bit disappointed that their interpretation of Cousin Julian was very different to mine. He's far too young and dapper looking imo. The ending petered out a bit I thought, but endings are difficult.

I found the entire book as a pdf on line (is this legal or akin to a pirate video?) and given that The Haunting Of Hill House is in the public domain in Canada this is also available in several formats - including a Kindle download via this link
https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20180856
If I've uploaded is correctly! I've added Hill House to my Kindle as I've not plucked up the courage to watch it on Netflix yet!

39. Bleak House, I couldn't restrict myself to the Victorian pace read along and began to fall behind as I put the book aside and then forgot to pick it back up, I therefore downloaded the audio book to accompany my Kindle addition and powered through rather than lose interest, plus Books & Things hasn't posted a video since August's chapters (unless I'm missing something) so I will catch up with analysis as and when it's posted. I enjoyed this but less than the four other Dickens books I have read. I found the third party chapters to be a bit dour and verbose in parts and Esther's narrative, whilst more engaging, was a bit wet. (All that 'my pet, my darling' stuff) As always with Dickens some master storytelling intermingled with a social conscience, and some memorable characters the awful Mr 'Shake Me Up Judy' Smallweed, the arch villain Tulkinghorn, Detective Bucket and so many others, but special mention to Mr Guppy who was wonderful.

96: Icy Graves: Exploration and Death in the Antarctic - Stephen Haddelsey

This was okay. It’s basically an account of various unpleasant ways in which people have died in the Antarctic since exploration began. Lots of it was interesting, but there was too much about the various types of planes and snow vehicles which might have been of interest to a mechanic but was of no interest at all to me.

I did like that it wasn’t just about the ‘big’ stories but also had plenty of post-1950 accounts too, which I’d not come across before.

I'm now bookless again. What shall I buy?

These days I'm an Audible listener, rather than a reader.
I average 160+ hours listening time in a month and I'm amazed at how many books I've got through so far this year.
I haven't written reviews for them but I'm happy to tell anyone about any of the books if you are interested.

1. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
2. The Invisible Ones by Stef Penney
3. What Does This Button Do by Bruce Dickinson
4. Maestra by L. S. Hilton
5. A Divided Spy by Charles Cumming
6. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

7 & 8. Fall of Giants and A Column of Fire by Ken Follet

1. Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty

10. The Shock of The Fall by Nathan Filer 11. Do No Harm by Henry Marsh 12. How Not To Be A Boy by Robert Webb 13. To Be Someone by Louise Voss 14. Smile by Roddy Doyle 15. Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton 16. Cheer Up Love by Susan Calman 17. Help by Simon Amstell 18. Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny 19. The Things You Can Only See When You Slow Down by Haemin Sumin and Chi-Young Kim 20. Uncle Dysfunctional by A A Gill 21. Not My Fathers Son by Alan Cumming 22. Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty 23. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce 24. Lost Connections by Johann Hari 25. Paper Cuts by Colin Bateman 26. It's So Easy by Duff McKagan 27. What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty 28. The Men Who Stare At Goats by Jon Ronson 29. Heartbreak Hotel by Deborah Moggach 30. Going Off Alarming by Danny Baker 31. The Nix by Nathan Hill 32. Cultural Amnesia by Clive James 33. Going On The Turn by Danny Baker 34. An Another Fing by Micky Flanagan 35 & 36. The Black Echo and The Black Ice by Michael Connelly 37. The Hearts Invisible Furies by John Boyne 38. Rock Stars Stole My Life by Mark Ellen 39. The Silence Of The Lambs by Thomas Harris 40. Girl On Fire by Tony Parsons 41. Love In A Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford 42. The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein 43. The Best of Adam Sharp by Graeme Simsion 44. The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick 45. Taoism by Daniel Hajime 46. & 47. Die Last and The Hanging Club by Tony Parsons 48. & 49. The Murder Bag & The Slaughter Man by Tony Parsons 50. Exile by James Swallow 51. Northern Lights by Philip Pullman 52. A Day In The Death of Dorothea Cassidy by Ann Cleeves 53. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty 54. Split Second by David Balducci 55. The Secret Barrister by Anon 56. The Stories We Could Tell by Tony Parsons 57. The Brightest Star In The Sky by Marian Keyes 58. That Old Black Magic by Cathi Unsworth 59. Single Woman Seeks Revenge by Traci Bloom 60. The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer 61. Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory 62. All I Ever Wanted by Lucy Dillon 63. Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes 64. Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool by Peter Turner 65. What Happened That Night by Shiela O'Flanagan 66. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen 67. Making It Up As I Go Along by Marian Keyes 68. The Cows by Dawn O'Porter 69. Tin Man by Sarah Winman 70. The Fourth Protocol by Frederick Forsyth 71. The Marriage Game by Alison Weir 72. Five Families by Selwyn Raab 73. Headhunters by Jo Nesbo 74. Checking Out by Nick Spalding 75. This Charming Man by Marian Keyes 76. One of us is Lying by Karen McManus 77. Tennison by Lynda La Plante 78. Every Exquisite Thing by Matthew Quick 79. The Hypnotists Love Story by Liane Moriarty 80. The President is Missing by James Patterson and Bill Clinton 81, A Brief History Of Seven Killings by Marlon James 82. Just One Damned Thing After Another by Marty Ross 83. The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes 84. The Husbands Secret by Liane Moriarty 85. The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin 86. The Woman Who Stole My Life by Marian Keyes 87. Confessions of a GP by Benjamin Daniels 88. Hidden Killers by Lynda La Plante 89. Less by Andrew Sean Greer 90. Last Night at the Chateau Marmont by Lauren Weisberger 91. 92 & 93. Angels, The Other Side of The Story and Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes 94. Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx 95. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin 96. Appleby Farm by Cathy Brantley 97. The Break by Marian Keyes 98. A Quiet Life In The Country by T E Kinsey 99. Something Blue by Emily Giffin 100. And The It Happened by Linda Green 101. Dissolution by C J Sansom 102. & 103. Can You Keep A Secret and My Not So Perfect Life by Sophie Kinsella

There are more but I'll leave it there for now.

132. Everything I never told you- Celeste Ng
A quick read, I agree with many others on this thread that it wasn't as good as Little fires but Ng certainly has a way of getting under the skin of a family and making the little things matter.

Remus have you ever read Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition by John Geiger and Owen Beattie? I read it years ago, but there is a much newer revised edition out now. It assesses forensic evidence from the frozen bodies of the men who died on the expedition to determine the cause of the large number of fatalities on board.

Sidney - yep! I read the updated version - it's good.

Did you manage to see the Franklin exhibition at the Maritime Museum?

I've also read one called The Man Who Ate His Boots.

There's also Captain Francis Crozier: Last Man Standing? which I'm hoping to read soon.

And as for the Haunting of Hill House, I finished watching the Netflix series this week, Desdemona, and it's completely different from the book -- different characters, different plot, different themes, with only a few common links. I found the final episode infuriating though, although I was sort of enjoying the series otherwise.

Remus this is on my Amazon wishlist:

Erebus: The Story of a Ship www.amazon.co.uk/dp/184794812X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_N433Bb0FTVXGA?tag=mumsnetforum-21

*@noodlezoodle My favourite Robert Goddard books are Past Caring, Caught In The Light, Days Without Number, In Pale Battalions, Dying To Tell, Into The Blue. He studied history so many of his books are based around historical events - Into The Blue isn’t so maybe start there if you don’t like the history angle. If you enjoy that there are two others featuring the same main character - Out Of The Sun and Never Go Back. The Book People are currently selling a set of 5 Goddard books for £7.99.

178. Last Letter Home by Rachel Hore

This is one of those books told in the present day and in the past. Briony discovers some letters dated during the Second World War in a ruined villa in Italy and realised there’s a family link so goes investigating. Enjoyed it although could have been a bit shorter as it did drag a little.

179. Tilly And The Bookwanderers by Anna James

This is a children’s book and I would have loved it as a child. Tilly lives in a bookshop and keeps meeting characters from her favourite books and then discovers she can step into their worlds. Obviously as it’s a children’s book the ending is all wrapped up neatly and there’s a bit of a moral in there, but it’s good fun and I recommend if you have a reader aged around 9-11. My DD loved it!

180. The Readers Of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald

Swedish woman goes to visit a pen friend in a tiny town in Iowa, and discovers that the pen friend has died. So instead of going home or travelling America like anyone else would, she stays in the dead woman’s house then opens a bookshop with all her books. As you do! It’s all very predictable and twee, but the main character has no personality. I wouldn’t recommend this.

I did Remus - I thought it was excellent. Continuing the theme, I've just remembered Captain Francis Crozier: Last Man Standing by Michael Smith (only £2.48 on kindle). Will put my thinking cap on.

I've got that Geiger and Beattie book somewhere, SirSidney and Remus - didn't they originally conclude that a lot of them died from poisoning due to inadequate 19thc canning technology, and is that what's been revised (I haven't read the updated version)?

It also has very alarming and poignant photos of the almost perfectly-preserved bodies iirc....

35. The Good Father by Noah Hawley
Novel, the story of a man who is living a 'normal' life which changes forever after his adult son assassinates a popular American politician. The author moves between his main focus on the 'current' story of the father's life after the event, while flashing back to share details of the son's life leading up to the shooting. There are also chapters telling the stories of some of those who have committed other assassinations and assassination attempts, and I found these so bleak that I was tempted to skip sections. I didn't enjoy the novel as a whole, but was glad I read to the end to get the point of it, the message that made the whole thing feel worthwhile to me.
36. Daunderlust by Peter Ross
A recommendation from here and I really liked this. A series of separate articles about life in Scotland, one or two of the early ones made me wonder what I was getting into but the whole was interesting and enjoyable, conveying the sense of the personalities and enthusiasms of the communities the journalist visited. I listened on Audible and this was brilliantly narrated by Robbie Coltrane - I especially liked the bit when he struggled with a place name and swore before having another attempt at getting it right!
37. The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson
Had low expectations of this - a brief glance at the chapters showed me that the 'Britain' Bryson visited was almost entirely a long way south of anywhere I know, and I'd read a few reviews on here that were less than positive. Then an anecdote in the first chapter made me laugh out loud so I got my hopes up! Overall, I felt that there were some brilliant observations and funny stories, but they were a bit thinly spread and the parts in between were a bit dull. The tone is a bit mean-spirited at times, which was a bit of a contrast after the warmth of Daunderlust. Not really recommended IMHO.

Halfway through The Break by Marian Keyes which is just the kind of thing I'm needing at the moment.

That's right, Terpsi. This link (the website for the exhibition mentioned below) has a bit of info about it here

Thanks, Meg. I mentioned Erebus down-thread - have asked for it for Christmas, so am not allowed to buy it!

I'll get the sample of the Crozier one now - just need to check I haven't read it before, but I don't think I have. Thanks, Sidney.

Matthew Smith also wrote An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor which is worth a read.

And I Am Just Going Outside: Captain Oates - Antarctic Tragedy is also by Smith and good! I didn't realise when I read them both that they were by the same writer.

84. Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig

Picked this up from the library as thought it would be a good companion read with How to Break Up with Your Phone with Haig going into greater depth about the science and psychology of screen addiction. He didn’t (much). More of a rehash of the material in Reasons to Stay Alive with lists and tiny chapters which darted about with different themes and left me feeling cross and somewhat agitated rather than full of resolve to continue to chip away at my screen time.

85. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
    If someone could point me to an article that explains why this is considered a classic I would be most grateful. Thought it was dull, sermonising nonsense. I can suspend my belief and get on board with someone cobbling together an eight foot monster but when said eight foot monster then hides round the back in a pig pen and learns language and politics by eavesdropping in on the cottagers (straight face) and they never notice, I mean COME ON.
    Also, Frankenstein:
    Spends two years assembling a giant hideous monster.
    Attempts to bring monster to life.
    Monster comes to life.
    Completely freaks out that he has assembled a giant hideous monster.
    What did you think that would happen you total spoon?
    Saw the live screening of the play with Cumberbatch and that other bloke a few years ago and that was loads better.

86. Red Notice: How I Became Putin's No 1 Enemy by Bill Browder

Autobiographical account by Bill Browder about how he came to become a hedge fund manager specialising in the Russian markets where he made a huge fortune and then fell foul of the political and economic corruption entrenched in Putin's Russia. The latter half of the book then details the arrest, torture and murder of one of Browder's Russian lawyers, Sergei Magnitisky who exposed the huge theft of tax payers money, and Browder's attempts to seek justice for him in the US.
A compelling if disturbing read.

87. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne.

Obviously a book of its time, but racist stereotypes notwithstanding a very enjoyable read.
Next time I miss my connection at Crewe or am trapped in a standstill in the M56 I will channel Phileas Fogg. Also discovered that Passepartout is French and not Indian which is probably good to know for the general knowledge store.

88. Under Milk Wood:The Definitive Edition by Dylan Thomas

Read the book then immediately downloaded the Richard Burton + Welsh cast version and listened/read it all over again.
Utterly wonderful.
Will be rereading and listening to this play for voices for dthe rest of my life. One of my favourite reads of the year.

Scribbly - I think Matt H is seriously overrated. His work is an excellent example of writers dumbing things down because we're too used to reading in snapshots on screens - he basically writes in bullet points.

Re Frankenstein - I'm currently reading this which so far is mostly about how rubbish Shelley's novel is!

And What did you think would happen you total spoon? is the best thing I've read on here for ages!

At the risk of outing myself , I have just got excited as my maiden name is Crozier (only speltcorrectlydifferently)!

Anyhoo, that aside I have just finished Norse Mythology . Not much to say , really. It's a beguiling read. Witty and occasionally lyrical but I don't think it will have a lasting impact on me because it is so lightweight really. Very readable, I think I'll pass it on to my 14 year old DS to see if he likes it.

Bit of a strike out fail above.... oops.

desdemona, I am still sticking to the BH readlaong but am tempted to speed up,. I tweeted Katie and got a rather terse assurance that she would post her chapter summaries butwasn't promising anything.

Piggy - Exciting! I wonder if you're a distant relative?