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?

Well, I enjoyed that review, Piggy.

Thought you might

Great review of The Monsters We Deserve, Remus. I misread the article and thought it had been actually written by a rl anonymous horror writer (how disappointing). Now I want to read it because of the Frankenstein dissing but don’t want to read it because of stupid ending

A friend on Goodreads suggested this article from the New Yorker to help me understand why it is the classic that it is. Oh poor Mary Shelley, that poor woman losing all those babies at such a young age, no wonder she was having such terrible vivid nightmares. Need to read more about her and her crazy life now too.

Desdemona I didn’t mind knowing the twist in Jekyll and Hyde. I enjoyed it because it all felt so atmospheric and dark. Isnt it all just set in London? I liked that slightly claustrophobic foggy, dark cobbled streets feel, whereas in Frankenstein Victor and the Monster have a long angsty chat up a nice Swiss mountain. Not scary Mary sorry.

I'd love to hear your thoughts if you do read it, Scribbly. It was only about £1.50 on Kindle and the 'debate' on 'Frankenstein' plus the biographical stuff (the babies are in there, briefly) made it worth that, I thought.

Jekyll and Hyde - I surprised myself by really enjoying teaching it. I think the description of Utterson at the start is dullsville, and the final chapter annoys me, but the rest is actually really good fun.

And I ahve now arttled through Armistice : Carol Ann Duffy's selection of poems to mark the centenary. They are not all WWI poems by any means, and lots of them were commissioned. In fact, there were few poems I recognised, even the ones by renowned poets. And some poems I have seen with fresh eyes , never having read them as war poems as such. I loved Thomas Hardy's 4 liner, 'Christams, 1924', typically pessimistic and ending 'After two thousand years of mass/ We've got as far as poisonous gas'. There is also a beautiful and thought provoking Japanese poem, which I cannot replicate here!

Worth owning if you like poetry collections. I have also read her sonnet for Danny Boyle's 14-18 Now project which I rather love and is not in her book.

Any excuse to link to Duffy's The Last Post - one of the most beautiful war poems ever written by a non=soldier, imvho.

Yes, it is indeed a wonderful poem (I love Duffy) but, depending on when exactly she wrote this her new collection has made me realise she seems to have pinched the backwards concept from a very very clever and compelling poem - 'Progress'- by Alan Gillis, written in 2004.

That’s beautiful Remus.

Have duly bought the Monsters We Deserve book on the kindle.

Off to check out the Duffy poetry collection now.

She wrote it in 2009. It's not unusual for poets to consider similar things/techniques though. I don't think she will have stolen the concept, just that they both had similar ideas. The idea of wishing we could turn back time occurs often enough in literature, I guess.

I hadn’t seen that Progress poem - very good. Think although the idea is the same, the subject matter and the point being made is quite different; there’s nothing new under the sun after all. Or perhaps they both borrowed from Coldplay’s video for the Scientist like both very much.

I might use 'Progress' in class. It's excellent. Love "coalescing into the clarity of a window".

Yes wonderful line. Thanks piggy

satsuki , the Japanese poem is called Anti War by Seiichi Niikuni. It's ace!

There are some good recent biographies of Mary Shelley, Scribbly - Romantic Outlaws, by Charlotte Gordon (double biography of Shelley and her mother), In Search of Mary Shelley, by Fiona Sampson, but my favourite, which covers a wider group, is Young Romantics, by Daisy Hay.

I have a few books to report back on, but for now I will say only that in my quest for a new crime series, I tried two books by Preston and Child, Crimson Shore, which I finished, and Two Graves, which I did not. They were by far the worst thing that has sullied my eyes this year. Unbelievably bad. Crimson Shore started with our enigmatic and super-suave hero being asked to trace some stolen wine, veered into Famous Five territory (wreckers used to lure ships onto these wrecks - can we find the missing treasure? Why yes we can. Plus skeletons), and takes in a wild man murderer and a witches' coven that has created a demonic creature. This plot was a slice of kitchen-sink realism compared to Two Graves, which involved kidnappers, Nazis and genetically-engineered humans. I'll be staying well away from that library shelf in future.

I really enjoyed Romantic Outlaws recommended by bibliomania above.

39. Scoop - Evelyn Waugh
This satire of foreign correspondents and journalism in the 1930s left me cold. Having heard it was "hilarious" I was expecting some giggles but for every vague smile that crossed my lips there were 5 or 6 racial slurs that quickly wiped that smile off my face. (I know, it's a classic of it's time but that aspect made it very difficult for me to appreciate).
On top of that the main character irritated the hell out of me. Actually ALL the characters irritated me! It's not a particularly long book but it felt like a long slog.
Moving swiftly on...

pff - 'its'

83. Stuart Turton - The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Oh, this was good! Evelyn Hardcastle is murdered at a party thrown by her parents. Again, and again, and again. Every night Aiden Bishop is too late to save her, and every morning he wakes in the body of a different guest as the day begins again. The only way he can escape this cycle is to identify the killer, but he is not the only one trapped in this looping day, and the others are each determined that they will be the one to solve the mystery and escape.

40. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

As most of you probably know, this was an autobiographical graphic novel about an Iranian girl, starting from before the Islamic revolution. The story was disjointed and turgid, and drawings were not the best I've ever seen. I didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I would.

79. The Left Case Against the EU by Costas Lapavitsas

Disappointing. I'm an EU agnostic (partially due to too much time spent working with the Commission... some of it paid as an 'expert', which is alarming in itself), wish there had never been a referendum, but certainly not passionately pro-remain. I was hoping for a left analysis of the political structures of the EU, and in particular whether the current lack of effective democracy is inevitable or fixable.

Instead, this was 90% about the Euro. Frankly, making the case against the Euro is shooting fish in a barrel, and it's done better elsewhere without the heavy-handed Marxist overtones (for example by Martin Wolfe from the centre left, and Mervyn King from the centre right). Also, of course, and particularly in the British context, the Euro is not the EU (though it's an interesting question whether if we were to seek to reverse Art. 50 a commitment to join the Euro would be demanded).

Another chapter was evidently score-settling wrt Greek politics. Only the final chapter (less than 30 pages) addressed political structures, with minimal useful analysis.

On the plus side, there were some interesting points about the economic relationship between Germany and the new members in the East, and a good analysis of German productivity in different sectors.

But overall, didn't do what it said on the tin. It's a shame, because the other recent book on the subject (The Left Case for Brexit) looks to be pretty much entirely about the economics of leaving, rather than looking at democracy, sovereignty and the rise of populism across Europe, all of which I think should be important questions for the Left (whether pro-remain or pro-Brexit).

47. The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King

The second novel in the Dark Tower series. Oooh, I loved this. Much better than the first one. Loved the characters, loved the description of the way in which they were "drawn". May be permanently freaked out by the lobstrosities. And Randall Flagg thrown tantalisingly in towards the end. I think I prefer fantasy novels where there's a bridge into our own world, so this was perfect for me and I hope the others continue in the same vein. I am trying to alternate Dark Tower books with other reading, but I may get sucked into number three straight away instead.

51. Blowing the Bloody Doors Off - Michael Caine. His third memoir, it's an easy read with an emphasis on tips to actors, but the tips are for transferable to everyone. Nothing groundbreaking here and his old-fashioned views won't be to some people's tastes but from this book and hundreds of his interviews I've read over the years, I really like him and have bought his first book, What's it All About? on Kindle (for 99p).

60. Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver I only realised this was a sequel because someone mentioned it upthread. I had coincidentally borrowed it from the library and started reading it. I think it stands as a book in it's own right but I do wonder whether one or two things might have been a bit clearer earlier in the book if I had read The Bean Trees first. Anyway, small girl Turtle is visiting the Hoover Dam with her mum when she sees a man fall into a hole. No-one believes them at first. This triggers a series of events which see Turtle and her mum fleeing their home. It is very well written, funny and heart breaking with sympathetically drawn characters. Now have find and read The Bean Trees.

37 Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang

This took me 3 weeks to read!! I wanted to read it off the back of reading one of Jenni Murray's history of the world books earlier in the year. It was a meaty book and full of interesting observations of China in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Pretty glad I live in the here and now after reading this!

No chance I'm making it to 50 this year but without this challenge I doubt I would have made it past 20!

Still laughing at What did you think that would happen you total spoon?

93. The Secret Barrister: stories of the law and how it's broken

Thought this was excellent, thanks to everyone who recommended it. It's so big surprise to discover that TSB is able to write balanced and persuasive arguments, setting out the case both for an against our model of justice before convincing you that what they do in courts with wigs on is good stuff. What really impressed me, though, was the empathy and compassion that runs through this book - the important truth that being in court is a terrifying and life-changing experience for many people, that tiny decisions and failures can have huge consequences, and that it isn't always easy to balance the needs of vulnerable individuals with the needs of society. This compared so positively to the awful Adam Kay book about the NHS, in which the doctors are the (flawed, yes) heroes and the poor bleeding, dying, scared patients are just walk on parts and often the butt of nasty jokes.

Completely accessible to someone (like me) who knew little if anything about how the law works, even if I did need to slow down from time to time and concentrate on what was reading - that's not a bad thing.