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?

Ahh Hedd Wyn was one of the faces on the beaches today in Danny Boyle's wonderful Pages of the Sea initiative .

Wish I could have gone - our local pages of the sea was a 19 year old woman munitions worker killed at work in an explosion.

Sadik thanks for the heads up on Testament of Youth. Have bought that and Goodbye To All That (also 99p). Have read them both before but a long time ago.

Oh, I did want to know the stories behind the women but couldn't really find details.

I have been showing my students the Duffy poem in the Gaelic version all week. They could not spot what langauge it was. Is it German, was my favourite question...

54. Transcription Kate Atkinson I very much enjoyed this, I thought the ending came out of nowhere though and it’s a shame I have to take it back to the library tomorrow because I would like to go back and see if I’d missed something, also I had to do quite a bit of flipping back to figure out who the various male MI5 types were as each time one came up I’d have forgotten which one he was. But like I say I did really like it, she writes so well it’s hard not to enjoy anything by her.

We did An Inspector Calls for GCSE. (And Macbeth.)

I’ve just remembered we did A View From the Bridge! (Not that anyone else cares, but it’s weird when things just disappear from your head )

Speaking of, I went to buy Testament of Youth and found I’d bought it in 2012 Best get reading that... have Goodbye in book form.

I taught A Taste of Honey decades ago. It hasn't aged terribly well, Love some of the lines though (and so did Morrissey!) - "I dreamt about you last night - fell out of bed twice".

Just listened to Carol Ann Duffy’s new poem for Pages in the Sea, read by Fiona Shaw. The Wound in Time. Beautiful.

Of the sea, sorry

I bet Fiona Shaw reads that brilliantly better than Carol Ann does

It's a really moving poem , I think, especially when seen with the images on the beaches.

This is it for those who want to read:

The Wound in Time
It is the wound in Time. The century’s tides,
chanting their bitter psalms, cannot heal it.
Not the war to end all wars; death’s birthing place;
the earth nursing its ticking metal eggs, hatching
new carnage. But how could you know, brave
as belief as you boarded the boats, singing?
The end of God in the poisonous, shrapneled air.
Poetry gargling its own blood. We sense it was love
you gave your world for; the town squares silent,
awaiting their cenotaphs. What happened next?
War. And after that? War. And now? War. War.
History might as well be water, chastising this shore;
for we learn nothing from your endless sacrifice.
Your faces drowning in the pages of the sea.

There are also Welsh and Gaelic translations.

Saw that on Twitter earlier. It's lovely. Duffy can occasionally be rather trite, but at her best she's wonderful.

Urgh - I am reading so slowly I fell off the thread. I blame
46. Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss Set in the late 19th century, married couple Tom and Ally are temporarily separated as he travels to work in Japan, and she remains in England to continue her work as a doctor in an asylum. Having enjoyed The Tidal Zone last year, I was quite up for this, but it was pretty dull. The narrative is split alternately between husband and wife. His chapters were dull from the outset, but I persevered as those set in the asylum felt more authentic. Sadly, halfway through the book, Ally leaves the asylum and her half of the story takes a nosedive as well. Glad to see the back of this one.

I listened to Duffy first and found it very moving, then treated myself to the Shaw

Yes I feel she is particularly sensitive to this subject.

I picked up Testament of Youth too.

88.) The Wolf Border, by Sarah Hall -- After the death of her mother and pregnant from a one-night stand with a colleague, Rachel Caine returns from America to take a position working for an eccentric Earl intent on reintroducing a breeding pair of wolves into the Lake District.

I liked this a lot. There's a lot going on, and it all melds together beautifully, although I found the description of the landscape and the wolves most compelling. Fascinating to see how Rachel, who at the start of the novel has clearly been left damaged by a difficult relationship with her mother, gradually changes with a passing of time and the seasons that's rendered beautifully.

Currently reading The Fatal Tree, a historical novel about the underworld of the eighteenth century. So far, I think it goes a little overboard with the thieves' cant, but still enjoying it.

I have seen a non-musical straight play production of Blood Brothers and enjoyed it for what it was. It's a very simplistic story which worked for an hour or so of stage based entertainment, but surely there's not enough depth to it to make it worthy of studying.

I have fallen behind with reviewing, but not with reading, so have a few updates. Will come back later and do those.

Finally, catching up:

126. Wheat Belly, William Davis.
     Don't mention healthy whole grains to this author - he'll tell you the many and various ways they will kill you, and make you miserable in the meantime.

127. Crimson Shore, Preston and Child (and abandoned Two Graves by the same authors)
     I have previously expressed my disdain for this. Probably quite good fun if you're in the mood for some overblown chase scenes but not for me, at least that day.

128. Why Mummy Swears, Gill Sims.
     
     Second book, though I hadn't read the first. Minor tribulations of a middle-class mummy. Had low expectations, but found it a mildly enjoyable holiday read, though very derivative (I Don't Know How She Does It, The Pile of Stuff at the Bottom of the Stairs and many, many others, with Bridget Jones being the granny to them all).

129. Death in the Dordogne, Martin Walker.
     Crime fiction set in France. Competently enough done, although with one eye clearly on northern Europeans who're meant to sigh after the food/setting/community.

130. Walking the Nile, Levison Wood.
     Not one for lyrical descriptions, he was clearly having a lousy time. All a bit testosterone-heavy, but also a good holiday read, as the reader has the consolation of knowing that they're having a better time than he was, no matter how basic the breakfast buffet.

131. Burial of Ghosts, Ann Cleeves
     A one-off rather than part of her Shetland or Vera series. Competent enough, although she seemed to be channelling Jacqueline Wilson when describing her heroine.

132. RisingTideFallingStar, Philip Hoare
     Self-consciously lyrical stream of consciousness on all things maritime. He pulled it off - there were a few dullish sections, but also some that I really enjoyed, such as the death of Nelson.

133. Why Mummy Drinks, Gill Sims
     As I though the sequel was okay, I went back to read the original, which is much worse, so on the bright side, the author is getting better. It's all so very unoriginal and worse, not done with any real wit. At the risk of being po-faced, that level of problem drinking isn't hilarious, teehee, and I say that as someone who feels the tug of alcohol, not someone who gingerly sips a sherry at Christmas.

134. Queen Victoria, by Lucy Worsley
     LW's method is to pick out the plums from other people's work and put them together in an accessible way. It's all very readable and enjoyable, but if you've read a couple of her sources (which I have), then it is all very familiar. She was rapped over the knuckles with regard to her Jane Austen book for relying heavily on Paula Byrne without making it clear, so she has made more effort to highlight her sources here. On the whole I liked it and picked up some ideas for other books I'd like to read.

Cote
I bought The Abominable and am about a quarter of the way in.

I'm liking it, but Simmons is definitely the king of padding - several pages about the architecture and garden arrangements of a large country house and a bit of a lecture about the rising of Hitler have both felt totally unnecessary to the novel as a whole so far (although both happen to be things I'm quite interested in, so haven't annoyed me too much!).

LW's method is to pick out the plums from other people's work and put them together

SO true, Biblio. Unfortunately, I think LW is a pretty dull writer too. It's irritating because she writes about things I'm really interested in (Austen, English murders) and I therefore ought to love her, but I just can't. Part of it is that it's repeating stuff I know already and have read better texts about and part of it is that it's just like sitting with a rather fussy and repetitive aunt, who nobody really wants to get cornered with.

Just checking in to keep this on my TIO list. Currently reading Stalin's Englishman, about Guy Burgess, and though I'm struggling a little to keep straight who is who (not helped by limited reading time right now) it's absolutely fascinating / hilarious / horrifying in about equal measure.

If this little quartet were to have a theme, it would be: 'by men, for men, but women can read them too.'

56. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch A fun sci-fi romp exploring the multiverse model, which probably isn't quite as inventive as it thinks it is, but is pacy and engaging. Full of annoying single word paragraphs. Stop it, please. It's one of those ones that has lots of 'devoured in a single sitting' reviews, which make me wonder how long some people sit down for. I mean, it's a fairly quick read, but really?

57. Any Human Heart by William Boyd Cannot deny that it was well written, and the protagonist lived through some of the most fascinating events of the 20th century. However, the diary format meant sharing the innermost thoughts of someone I struggled to like and cared little what happened to, and that felt by turns dull and uncomfortable, or both together. He improved with age, but then of course (spoiler) he died, so I was just left thinking what was the point of all that then? Not a fan.

58. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre This was his first novel, and subtle it isn't. A satire on management culture in the NHS that sadly doesn't feel too dated today. Plenty of OTT gore from the outset.

59. Safe House by Chris Ewan Readable thriller set on the Isle of Man. Local guy takes a young woman for a spin on his motorbike and wakes up in hospital with everyone denying that said young woman ever existed. It all gets very complicated from there, but once revealed, the motivations seemed a bit too nothingy to justify the level of subterfuge and violence resorted to. Apart from this, and too much superfluous description, it was ok.

I really enjoyed your clutch of reviews, biblio

Back to say I've finished 74: The Right Stuff - Tom Wolfe

I bought this when it was 99p on Kindle, and given that I've recently seen the Neil Armstrong film, First Man, this seemed like a good time to immerse myself in all things space-related.

It was huge fun, often very amusing, didn't pull any punches and certainly couldn't be described as reverential in its account of the development of the early space programme, and of the elite test-pilots who, being deemed to possess enough of 'the right stuff', found themselves becoming America's first astronauts. A blast.

75. Successor’s Promise by Trudi Canavan

Fantasy novel. Book 3 of the Millenium’s Rule series. Continues Rielle and Tyen’s adventures.
It’s rather mediocre and dragged in places, but it did held my interest enough for me to finish it.

76. Do No Harm by Henry Marsh

A neurosurgeon writing about his work. An interesting and sobering read. Probably one to avoid if you’re going to be having brain surgery though.

77. Never Saw It Coming by Linwood Barclay

Fake psychic Keira watches the news for stories of missing family members, then goes to see the worried family and offers to tell them about her fake vision in exchange for a hefty fee.
It all goes wrong when she visits a man who’s wife went missing a week ago, and her “vision” is too close to the truth....

Entertaining lightweight thriller.

78. The Cry by Helen Fitzgerald

Reviewed up thread.
A compelling read. Very abrupt ending though.

84. Jo Nesbo - Macbeth

Inspector Macbeth, head of the SWAT team, is one of the best officers in the service. After cleaning up a drug bust that went wrong, he gets recognition for this skills from Duncan, the new Chief Commissioner, who is intent on cleaning up the corrupt town controlled on the one hand by a particularly vicious biker gang and on the other by Hecate, a drug dealer and his highly addictive Brew. But Macbeth is an ex-addict living with Lady, a woman of with as shady a past as Macbeth who owns one of the two casinos in town, and a man like him won't get to the top. Not unless he murders his way there.

A decent retelling, inevitably clunky in places as the play has to be fitted into an entirely different set up, although I thought what Nesbo did with Birnam was inspired. He is a great thriller writer so part of the joy of the book was seeing how he was going to get to the next elements of the play.

The Haunting of Hill House is 99p today in the Kindle daily deal.

I had The Right Stuff with me in hospital when I gave birth. I remember finishing it off when we got home and saying to DH that it was a good job it was such a good book, many lesser books might not have made it through!