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?

Welsh - I love The Drawing of the Three so much. The fight scene is one of the best I've ever read.

Don't get Cote started on the lobstrosities though!

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.

Oh dear. I’ve got a horrible feeling I might have been the one who recommended them a while back. If so, I’m sorry. I’ve enjoyed the ones I’ve read, but they are very, very silly and I would definitely not have recommend them to someone who was looking for a sensible crime thriller. Dear god no.

Sorry if it was my rec, biblio. (have namechanged since then)

49. Hello World, How to be Human in the Age of the Machine by Hannah Fry.

This book is nominated for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction this year and I listened to Hannah Fry (a mathematician, lecturer and public speaker) do a good narration of her own book on Audible. The book is about AI algorithms in various settings - judiciary, medicine, cars, music, crime - so if you have bought and read the other Algorithm book that has been hanging about this thread I’m not sure you would learn anything new. I thought she explored each topic well, illustrating with relatively current examples. Interesting to compare to the other machine/AI book I read this year; I thought this one was more geared towards a collaboration between AI and people, using AI to complement rather than replace humans.

Only one book to go to hit my target!

I’m enjoying all the reviews! Have added The Recovering to my to-read pile. Chillie, a friend just recommended The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, nice to see you enjoyed it too.

Hi Dec, no worries! I saw them on the library shelf and picked them up on a whim, so it didn't cost me anything. In the right mood, I can see that they'd be over-the-top fun.

I'm always nervous about someone trying anything I recommend, because it's such a personal thing whether you like the author's voice, and it depends on mood etc.

50. (Yay!) What We Cannot Know by Marcus du Sautoy. Du Sautoy is an Oxford professor in mathematics with a particular interest in popularising science and mathematics (he holds the Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science). In this book (which I listened to on Audible - he narrates it himself), he discusses some the questions of maths and science which lend themselves to further investigation - he refers to them as the "edges" of current knowledge - with a particular emphasis on whether we will ever be able to understand them. Examples are chaos theory, the nature of the universe, time before the big bang, theories of consciousness, quantum particles and physical/biological limits to human understanding. This was pitched at the right level for me, stretching my mind while still being accessible, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Was just going back to consolidate my list and realised I got my numbering wrong, so I'm actually on book 39 not 38! Although that still won't help me reach 50 by end of December!

1. Why Mummy Drinks by Gill Sims.

1. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
2. 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. 24. "Poverty Safari" by Darren McGarvey. 25. "Quite Ugly One Morning" by Christopher Brookmyre. 26. "The Secret Lives of Colour" by Kassia St Clair. 27. "The Dark Forest" by Cixin Liu 28. "Revolting Scotland" by Jeff Fallow. 29. “This is Going to Hurt” by Adam Kay 30. "How to Talk so Kids with Listen and How to Listen so Kids will Talk" by Adele Faber and Elaine Maslish 31. “Divas and Dictators” by Charlie Taylor 32. "Death's End" by Cixin Liu 33. "Snap" by Belinda Bauer 34. “Don't Let Go" by Harlan Coben 35. "A History of the World in 21 Women" by Jenni Murray 36. “Fat Is a Feminist Issue” by Susie Orbach 37. "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes 38. “Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine who launched modern China” by Jung Chang 39. "The Wife Between Us" by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. Psychological thriller but a decently fleshed out protagonist. I enjoyed it.

48. The Cry by Helen Fitzgerald

Picked this up on a Kindle deal and I note it's been read and reviewed by many of those on this thread. A compelling read and I thought well written. I found the first part a little slow but as I got into it was surprised to check my progress and see I was 75% of the way through. I liked the way the characters were drawn and presented, especially the main character. I particularly liked the device towards the end of seeing her through another character's eyes and the realisation that led to. I found the ending a little sudden and rushed but otherwise would definitely recommend. Has anyone been watching the TV adaptation? Is it any good?

94. The Statement, Brian Moore

Tense thriller set in 1980s France. Pierre is on the run, going from one monastery to another seeking asylum. He's a war criminal, wanted for a crime against humanity, the murder of 14 jews during the war. Who has been helping him to hide from justice for all this time, and who is after him now?

An interesting subject for a thriller, and based on a true story, it manages to combine the storytelling and tension of your average Dan Brown while raising some interesting moral questions. I must admit I got a bit confused as everyone seems to be known by at least two names or titles and I wasn't always 100% clear who was who, who was where (Moore will drop a twist by saying "He realised he must phone Nice immediately" and you think "Oh, who was in Nice? Is it the good monk or the bad monk? Did we know these two were in cahoots or is it a twist?"). My fault I am sure for reading too fast!

I've fallen behind on my reviews again, so here are brief write-ups of my last few:

70 The Examined Life - Stephen Grosz
Series of short case-studies of his patients (anonymised) written by a psychoanalyst. This gave some interesting insights into some (possibly common) elements of human psychology and people's lives in general, but some of the conclusions/analyses seemed to me to be a bit trite and simplistic - but that may be inevitable if you are extracting or summarising from years of analysis to make a particular point.

71 The Street Sweeper - Elliot Perlman
Perlman is a major prize-winning novelist in Australia, but no one over here ever seems to have heard of him. One of his earlier novels, Seven Types of Ambiguity (not to be confused with the classic book on criticism by William Empson) is probably in my all-time top-50 novels. I went to a book event promoting The Street Sweeper when it was released, and was a bit surprised (as was he, no doubt) to find fewer than a dozen people there, most of whom seemed to work for the publisher or bookshop, and judging by the questions, I was the only member of the public present who had read any of his books.

I'm not sure why it has taken me five or six years to get round to reading this one, but it's possibly because it is not exactly a cheerful read: it revolves around Auschwitz (with some very graphic descriptions of the process of getting people into the gas chambers and what happened next), the American civil rights movement, a wrongly-convicted man, several troubled relationships, survivor guilt and someone dying of cancer. It is well written, thoroughly researched and I found it gripping, but you would have to be feeling mentally strong to tackle it, I think.

72 The London Train - Tessa Hadley
I've only read one Tessa Hadley book before, and remember not being keen. I picked this up in a charity shop on a day trip to London (seemed appropriate), and while it was a good-enough read, I would not rave about it. The book is split into two halves, focusing on two different characters and their lives, which turn out to have been interlinked at one stage, but I did not find any of the characters or the plot elements particularly convincing. It is competently written in its way (she is a creative writing teacher, I believe) but ultimately a bit meh.

I loved the Audible version of What We Cannot Know Tarahumana.
Doesn't he have the most wonderful voice as well :)

53. The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock Imogen Hermes Gowar This was reviewed quite a lot earlier in the year on these threads and I don’t think it was very well liked. I listened on audible and thought it was never going to end, it was well read by Juliet Stevenson which I think helped to bring it to life, but I did find it a bit rambling and unevenly paced even so. I enjoyed the character of Angelica, frustrating as she was at times.

Thanks biblio and Tara for the Shelley recommendations

73 The Odd Women - George Gissing
A late 19th century novel which feels ahead of its time. 'Odd' here is used in the sense of 'the opposite of even' or spare, and refers to women who are not married, whether to due to the lack of suitable men or on principle.

All the central characters are female and single (at least to start with), and are struggling to make their way in a world where an unmarried woman has very few options for how to make a living and how to be accepted in society, so that marriage - any marriage, at any cost - can be seen as the best option. Two of the main characters are radical campaigning types, who try to educate women for independent careers; the most interesting plot element for me was the dilemma faced by one of them, who has independent means and has always been opposed to marriage in principle, when she meets a man she might possibly love enough to agree to marry. Another character decides to marry to escape the grind of the only work available to her (and to avoid the fate of her miserable spinster older sisters), but then pays a heavy price for her choice.

If I had read this without seeing the name on the cover, I would probably have assumed the author was female. Gissing seems to have had a very good understanding of what it was like to be stuck as a woman with so few choices, and his portrayal of a husband turning from a love-struck romantic to a controlling nightmare reads just like a post on the MN relationships board. Oddly, from reading a bit about him, it sounds like Gissing was a nightmare controlling partner himself at times - was this a knowing self-portrait?

I read this due to a random recommendation on Facebook (someone was doing one of those 'post a book a day that has been significant to you' challenges) and was glad I'd spotted it. I had heard of New Grub Street, Gissing's best-known book, but never read it; it has now been added to my wish list.

73 East of Croydon - Sue Perkins I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for Sue Perkins and took DM to hear her talk about her new book the other day. She was very funny and very sweet and sharp all at the same time. The book is similar although I found some of the ‘funny’ dialogues a bit forced and irritating. But she writes well and movingly - the death of her father is very tender. It improved as I went along.

46. On Silbury Hill - Adam Thorpe

Having hugely enjoyed his Ulverton a few weeks back, I thought I'd check out this short book (described as a 'monograph') which is a series of musings on the ancient landscape of Silbury, made in Neolithic times for unknown reasons and since reused and reinterpreted by countless generations for their own purposes. Thorpe weaves in his own memories (he was a pupil at nearby Marlborough public school) in a thoughtful and intriguing investigation into landscape, place, and memory.

Remus - I was trying hard not to comment on the stupid lobster things

Sorry, Cote!

Welsh - No worries. Remus and I have this thing

By the way, I'm reading Dan Simmons' The Abominable and it's got some of the best writing on mountain climbing that I have ever seen in print. I'm 25% in, and this is the most I have ever read about Mallory and Irvine's disappearance during the 1924 Everest expedition, as well as about the details of alpine climbing.

Remus - I'm pretty sure that you said you won't touch another Dan Simmons book but I think you should read at least the first 1/4 of this book, where it's all about what happened in Everest expeditions and very detailed descriptions of all aspects of mountain climbing. I think you will like it.

Sadik - yes! I ended up feeling that I really liked him as a person after listening to him read the book

Welshwabbit I saw the TV adaptation of The Cry, I got a copy of the book after the TV adaptation finished and I’m about 75% of the way through the book now.

I thought the TV adaptation was good, compelling viewing, it handles the story differently from the book but I felt it worked well.
The book tells the story (at least as far as I’ve read!) in a pretty linear straightforward way. The timeframes in the TV adaptation jumped around all over the place, which made it far more of a whodunnit sort of story e.g. the truth behind Noah’s disappearance is clear almost immediately in the book, whereas in the TV adaptation it’s unveiled slowly over the first few parts of the adaptation.

Phew, that's a relief, biblio. Actually I think I've read Two Graves. If it's the one where we find out that his long-lost wife's tragic death at the hands of a man-eating lion on a safari in Kenya wasn't all it seemed, I think I found it a bit disappointing. It wasn't quite bonkers enough.

86.) The Feed, by Nick Clark Windo -- a post-apocalyptic thriller that really wasn't the book I thought it was going to be at the outset. In the (not-too distant?) future almost everyone has implants that allow them to survive in an augmented world and access the Feed, a constant social networking stream that, frankly, seemed like a massive pain in the backside. When the Feed is lost, panic ensues and the world spirals into chaos, with people unable to cope, their minds and memories left stunted and damaged by overreliance on the technology.

6 years after the collapse a group of survivors are scraping by, wary of strangers, and watching each other sleep, because while the Feed may have been switched off, the technology still exists, dormant in the brain and at risk of being hacked.

This was okay. The writing was a bit disjointed, and it wasn't really grabbing me until about a fairly major twist halfway through and then it got considerably more interesting.

There were a couple of concepts that I struggled to buy, either because the logistics of it were handwaved over clumsily, or because I couldn't see any reason why a company would create a particular piece of technology and effectively 'give it away' for free, but on the whole I found it interesting and timely. Bloody depressing though.

87.) Cartes Postales from Greece, by Victoria Hislop -- Short stories from various parts of Greece. Interesting and mostly entertaining, although I think we're supposed to find the premise romantic and charming.

Yeah, no. Essentially, after being jilted by a woman, the narrator travels around Greece, sending the woman postcards, which she never receives because she no longer lives at that address. Instead Ellie reads them, finds them romantic and charming and falls in love with Greece by proxy. Then a notebook arrives, filled with stories about Greece, interspersed with the narrator bitching about the woman who jilted him, who he sent the notebook to so she could read it. WTAF, dude? At no point is there is no suggestion in the narrative of what creepy obsessive behaviour this is.

The stories themselves were interesting about although I found the writing style a bit stilted. But dear god that premise.

*34. Dunstan - Conn Iggulden
*
Dunstan was a 10th century bishop. He began his life as a scholar at Glastonbury Abbey and went on to become Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury. He was canonised as a saint in 1029.

This is a heavily fictionalised account of his life. During the course of his life he witnessed the reign of seven English kings and according to this novel, was a significant influence over some of them.
I really enjoyed this.

Iggulden portrays Dunstan as a deeply flawed individual. The traditional story goes that the devil came to Dunstan's workshop to tempt him and that Dunstan took his metal tongs out of the heat of his forge (he is the patron saint of blacksmiths) and pinched the devil on the nose with them so he ran away. Iggulden's telling of this story certainly doesn't suggest that Dunstan always behaved in a good, Christian fashion!

The author's note at the end explains that, due to the lack of available primary sources, very little is known about how Dunstan actually lived. If you don't mind your historic fiction heavy on the fiction I would definitely recommend this.

tara, the Du Sautoy book is terrific. It really warrants a re-read as there is so much going on. I thought he struck a good balance between detail on the concepts and broad coverage. It really zipped along and I was engrossed. Definitely going to pick it up again soon.

115 Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
This - I think - was recommended on here and I picked it up plus the next two in the series in a recent Kindle deal. Agent Pendergast solves - with help from an array of other characters - the mystery of a serial killer stalking the halls of a New York museum. The actual mystery is solved relatively early on, and then there is a lot of time devoted to catching the killer. It was a compelling mix of police procedural, anthropology and off-the-wall bonkers and not quite like anything I’ve read before; I got a little bogged down in the second half as half the characters spend hours trying to escape, and I wasn’t convinced I would race to read the second book until I got to the Epilogue, which made me think otherwise. It was quite silly, but had a few moments of really shocking gore. Quite an oddity, all in all.

116 Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell
Bythell runs a second hand bookshop in Wigtown in Scotland. He’s grumpy and irascible and doesn’t think much of most of his customers. This diary was interesting in parts, particularly on the changing nature of bookselling in the age of Amazon, but it got a little repetitive towards the end. I didn’t mind that particularly, as there was something quite soothing about the lack of drama, though his misanthropic schtick got a little wearing occasionally. I’m very tempted to sign up for his Random Book Club - for £59 you get a book a month picked at random from his stock sent to you. Would love to know if anyone is a member of the RBC and what sort of things you've been sent.

117 The Aspern Papers by Henry James
Wonderful and atmospheric account of a young academic’s attempts to get hold of a poet’s letters to a woman he loved. The real star of this is Venice - James is terrific at conjuring up the decay and silence of Venice and it’s a character in its own right. This is short but perfectly done. It’s been about 20 years since I read any James and I have a vague memory of it being “difficult” but am tempted to go back to him on the basis of this novella.

Pepe I read Diary of a Bookseller recently and was also tempted by the Random Book Club, but I fear it may be a bit too random for me and I have far too many books already that I haven’t read!!