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?

102: The Mystery of the Blue Train – Agatha Christie

I don’t know if the problem here was with me or with the book. I was very, very tired when I finished it. I cared little, if at all, for the victim and must admit that the revelation about ‘whodunnit’ didn’t seem to make much sense, and it either wasn’t clear, or I totally missed, the WHY they dunnit. I’m not sure I care enough to look back and check.

49. Marcovaldo - Italo Calvino

I absolutely loved this. Marcovaldo, a poor Italian labourer, lives in a cramped city apartment with his wife and brood of children, but dreams of a better life in the countryside. In a series of short fable-like stories - one for each season, over a few years - he strives to reach his dreams, or at least better his situation a little ; but things never quite turn out as he hopes. The stories are very funny, but it's not just a comedy book - running through it is beautiful writing and a sense of magic and wonder in the everyday, even if only glimpsed for a moment.

82. Savage Island by Bryony Pearce

5 teenage friends enter a geocaching competition, located on a remote Scottish island. It all sounds straightforward enough.

Over the course of 3 days, compete with 10 teams to locate 7 checkpoints, open the geocaching box at each, remove the contents and replace it with something of equal or greater value. The winning team of 5 teenagers stands to win £1 million each.

But when Ben and his friends open the first box to find a bloody human tooth, it quickly becomes clear that the stakes they’re playing for go a lot higher than they’d bargained for....

A quick and utterly gripping read, if a little predictable in places.

And now I’m forced to abandon Station Eleven halfway through, as someone has reserved the copy I borrowed from the library so I have to return it tomorrow.

So far I have not been finding Station Eleven particularly gripping, don’t particularly care about what happens to the characters, and probably won’t be going out of my way to find another copy and finish the novel.

The bitter tone in Heartburn pissed me off
I think I would have a bitter tone if I had discovered my husband had been having an affair when I was very heavily pregnant. It's bad enough just being heavily pregnant! I thought she showed great levity, despite her circumstances. Maybe that's just me though...

At the time she found out about the affair, I would also feel bitter, but to write and publish this overly harsh book a few years later, which includes lines like 'he would have sex with a Venetian blind' smacks of tacky, vindictive revenge. If she didn't have kids, I'd feel a bit kind to her.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one

It's so seldom that women actually do get to take 'revenge' (or have their say as I would put it) in this scenario and in my opinion this means they lose twice. Not only are the wronged initially, they are wronged again for speaking out. I think it's great that she used her writing talent and humour to be able to do this. I think she was speaking for a lot of women by writing that book, women who weren't able to use their voices to express themselves in that way. Why shouldn't she write a book like this? I found it to be the opposite of tacky. I like the line you quote!

But this is why the thread is so good. We can have completely opposing views on the same thing

Funnily enough, I've just been listening to the section on Nora Ephron in Sharp by Michelle Dean. (I'm not sure having done so whether I'm more or less sympathetic to her re. Heartburn!)

40. Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children's Nanny at the Turn of the Twentieth Century Noel Streatfeild Those of you who've read A Vicarage Family might remember Gran-Nannie, Victoria's father's Nannie. This is her biography. Born in the 1870s, she went into service as a nursery maid aged 11, rising to assistant Nannie then Head Nannie. This book was very readable, assembled mostly thorough family legend and conversations with Streatfeild's family. The characters, as in Streatfeild's books, are drawn with broad strokes - Socialite Mother, Cruel Bullying Nannie, Show-Off Child etc - but she writes with real human understanding. And she has a real eye for the details of life above and below stairs. Three different changes of clothes in a day, two course breakfasts and three course lunches, all the layers required to keep a baby warm in an unheated house. Four servants to look after two small children (hand-washing all those nappies!) A quick read, without much plot, but fascinating if you're interested in the social history of childhood, as I am.

I thought she was surprisingly restrained in Heartburn.

103: Uncle Paul - Celia Fremlin

I’m having a run of bad luck with this and the Christie. I really liked The Long Shadow so bought this one off the back of that. It began well enough – weird sister, wittering sister and practical younger sister are brought together in a seaside town because weird sister is being weird and wittering sister can’t cope.

There were a couple of quite creepy moments of practical younger sister finding herself ‘catching’ weird sister’s worries and feeling as if she doesn’t know who she can trust or whether or not she herself might really be in danger. Unfortunately, it’s all a bit repetitive in establishing all that and then descends into utter farce.

56. Travelling with Pomegranates Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor I’m not sure now how/why I came across this, it’s a mother daughter collaboration of travel writing about trips to Greece, Turkey and France with particular emphasis on the ‘sacred feminine’ in various religious sites. It’s very navel gazey and everything is Just. So. Very. Symbolic. Some interesting snippets of myth but not a great read overall.

62 Happy Little Bluebirds by Louise Levene
Picked this up at random in the library and thought it sounded good. A young British woman is posted to Hollywood during early WW2 as an assistant to someone who is trying to encourage Hollywood to make films in support of the British. What I thought was the main plot (spies and all that) fizzles out about half way through and we're just left with lots of descriptions of parties and Hollywood types. Some good writing in there but I wasn't convinced by the main character or half the plot. Would the British really have wasted a woman who can speak nine languages on a trip to Hollywood? And wasn't convinced by her love affair either. Some good writing in there, just needed a better plot.

63 They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell
This books is divided into three parts, it is the view of a woman told through the eyes of her two sons and her husband. Maxwell writes so simply but clearly. The section on the husband/father is particularly powerful. This story is an expansion of some of the short stories told in All the Days and Nights which I read earlier in the year. I now want to look at it again to see how they coincide.

64 Sourcery by Terry Pratchett
The eighth son of an eighth son is a wizard. The eighth son of an eighth son of an eighth son is a sourcerer and has a massive amount of magical powers. This is why wizards are not supposed to have children. When one is born, the existence of the entire Disc is threatened. Featuring Rincewind, the Luggage, Conina daughter of Cohen the Barbarian, and Nijel who wants to be a Destroyer. Thoroughly enjoyed re-reading this after many years.

65 The Power by Naomi Alderman
One day young women around the world develop a new power - an electrical force. They women can awaken the power in older women. Suddenly the tables are turned on men as oppressors - the force can be used to defend and attack, to control, to arouse. The book focuses on a handful of characters at the centre of 'what happens next'. A good read. The sudden discovery of a new power reminded me of The Long Earth books by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baldwin where people learn to 'step' into a different world. Completely different direction but exploring similar themes of how societies adapt and change when a major event happens.

57. The Holy Vible Elis James and John Robins Feel like it’s cheating to include this, the book from my favourite podcast (podcast of the Elis James and John Robins show on Radio X) but I listened to it in audiobook format, with lots of chat between the chapters it just felt like listening to the podcast really. Nevertheless it’s technically a book and therefore it’s going on the list. I adored it but you need to be a PCD (podcast devotee) I think. Having said that I did drag my partner to the live show/reading of the book on the day we got engaged of all days (already had the tickets) and he’s never listened to the show but did say he ‘kind of enjoyed it’.

58. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase Joan Aiken Another one finished today as I’m in bed recovering from a sickness bug - officially not thrown up in 12 hours now and just managed some toast so things are on the up, and this very undemanding children’s book was not a bad distraction- for popsugar challenge prompt of a children’s classic I’d never read. Not sure it’s a classic but I’m counting it.

41. The Abominable by Dan Simmons

If you love mountain climbing and huge books, look no further. This was a very very VERY long adventure starting shortly after Mallory's disappearance at Everest between WWI and WWII, mixing extreme mountaineering, espionage, murder, Nazis, and Yetis in one incredibly detailed tale.

I mostly enjoyed this but have to say that it was monstrously long. Most people can only take so many descriptions of mountaineering clothes and shoes.

89. Ben Aaronovitch - Moon Over Soho

Second in the Peter Grant series, in which the trainee wizard (and Metropolitan Police Detective Constable) goes in search of whatever is killing otherwise healthy jazz musicians shortly after they come off stage and leaving the sound of a 1940s version of 'Body and Soul' as vestigia on the corpses.

I adored The Wolves of Willoughby Chase as a child Alias. I think in the end my mum had to tell me I couldn't renew it from the library anymore and I had to choose something else!

Oh yes, me too. And Black Hearts in Battersea by the same author.

Another childhood Joan Aiken fan here . Night Birds on Nantucket was a favourite of mine. Her titles were so exciting - they just made you want to read on.

Midnight is a Place by Joan Aiken haunted me as a child, at least the bit where the two children went to work in the factory.

I also loved The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. I've never read the sequels though - when I read the descriptions they didn't seem to feature the same characters so they didn't appeal. Am I missing out? Should I read them?

Marking place. Have embarked on a re-read of the Ruth Galloway books. I need something easy to read as both work and RL are stressful.
I am halfway through the book on Lister which is very good but perhaps not the best choice as my dear Dad has spent the last two weeks on the vascular surgery ward. Thankfully he’s home now so I will pick it up again.

Ahhh loving all the Willoughby Chase love, I kind of cheated on the prompt (childhood classic you’ve never read) because I certainly knew the story, I think I’d had it read TO me and I’m fairly sure I saw a children’s film or tv programme or something.

I did like it, suitably wintery and snowy and comforting when feeling ill. I was wishing I had a friendly and fiercely loyal made to whip me up a posset to help me recover.

Just googled and there WAS a film, it’s all coming back to me now ....

Sorry to hear about your Dad, Best