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?

ScribblyGum would Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather be any good?

The only other vaguely seasonal one springing to mind right now is The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, but that might be a bit young for teenagers.

Scribbly has she read Northern Lights? The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase?

And might be too obvious, but A Christmas Carol?

Book no 38.
The island that dared by Dervla Murphy
Travels around Cuba in about 2006/7 , first with her daughter and granddaughters (the Trio) and a later visit on her own. She celebrates her 70th birthday there and resists any organised tourist trail as much as possible. An enlightening insight into Cuba’s political situation and the level of interference from its nearest neighbour.

Thank you for all the suggestions, most of which they’ve read or listened to sadly (dd1 doing A Christmas Carol for GCSE), however none of us have read Hogfather which will be perfect, really enjoyed the tv series with David Jason that was on a few years back.

1. Sisters and Lies - Bernice Barrington
2. Her Husband’s Secret - Janice Frost
3. Mount! - Jilly Cooper
4. They All Fall Down - Tammy Cohen
5. The Word Game - Steena Holmes
6. The Good Widow - Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke
7. Mummy’s Favourite - Sarah Flint
8. The Paper Year - Avery Aster
9. Gone - TJ Brearton

10. My Sister’s Grave - Robert Dugoni 11. Carrie - Stephen King 12. Based on a True Story - Delphine de Vigan 13. Every Last Lie - Mary Kubica 14. The Darkness Within - Lisa Stone 15. Anatomy of a Scandal - Sarah Vaughan 16. The Trap - Melanie Raabe 17. Flawed - Cecelia Ahern 18. Bring Me Back - BA Paris 19. Perfect - Cecelia Ahern 20. The Roanoke Girls - Amy Engel 21. He Said/She Said - Erin Kelly 22. 3,096 Days - Natascha Kampusch 23. Diamonds - K A Linde 24. First One Missing - Tammy Cohen 25. Lullaby - Leila Slimani 26. Just What Kind of Mother Are You - Paula Daly 27. Elizabeth is Missing - Emma Healey 28. The Fear - C L Taylor 29. My (not so) Perfect Life - Sophie Kinsella 30. The Roses of May - Dot Hutchison 31. The Serial Killer’s Daughter - Lesley Welsh 32. Then She Was Gone - Lisa Jewell 33. Never Let You Go - Chevy Stevens 34. The Mistress’s Revenge - Tamar Cohen 35. Don’t Close Your Eyes - Holly Sedden 36. Thirteen - Steve Cavanagh 37. No-one Ever Has Sex in the Suburbs - Tracy Bloom 38. The Idea of Him - Holly Peterson 39. Good Me Bad Me - Ali Land 40. The Trophy Child - Paula Daly 41. Watching You - Lisa Jewell 42. The Girl I Used To Be - Mary Torjussen 43. Clean - Juno Dawson 44. Open Your Eyes - Paula Daly 45. The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas 46. I See You - Clare MacKintosh 47. This is Going to Hurt - Adam Kay 48. Let Me Lie - Clare MacKintosh 49. Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng 50. Lethal White - Robert Galbraith 51. One Little Lie - Sam Carrington 52. The Break - Marian Keyes 53. Dead Woman Walking - Sharon Bolton 54. A Spark of Light - Jodi Picoult 55. The Summer Children - Dot Hutchison 56. My Name is Anna - Lizzy Barber 57. Resin - Ane Riel

Not sure where I left off but here is my updated list with favourites in bold. Only one I can remember being particularly disappointed in is in italics but there may have been more!

30. A very British Christmas by Rhodri Marsden
    I enjoyed this one. Started it last year but did feel like finishing it after Christmas. It’s a funny look at British traditions.

31. Reading people by Anne Bogel
    This was about various personality tests and how they related to the author. I was disappointed this didn’t relate to books like the authors podcast but it was readable enough.

32. Dark Pines by Will Dean
    There was a lot of hype about this book. It’s set in Sweden and is about a deaf journalist who is reporting on a murder. It was an ok read and I enjoyed reading about Sweden from a visitors perspective. I wasn’t convinced of her as a woman and I don’t know why exactly. I will probably borrow the next one from the library.

Anatomy Of A Scandal is the Kindle daily deal, does anyone know if it's worth reading? I enjoyed Our Endless Numbered Days by the same author.

Curtain Call is in the Kindle monthly sale and one of my favourite books from the last few years.

another spell of reading so slowly that I fell off the thread. this time the book I kept putting down was 48. Ashes of London by Andrew Taylor. It's 1666. Marwood, son of republican, is now working for the government under Charles II, and is charged with getting to the bottom of a murder uncovered in the debris of the Great Fire. This has had universally good reviews, and I like both period fiction and detective stories, but this left me cold. I didn't find any of the main characters engaging, and although there was plenty of plot I found it predictable and unevenly paced. I think I'm going to buy I Feel Bad About My Neck as a palate-cleanser.

104: The Happiness Project – Gretchen Rubin
105: I Feel Bad About My Neck – Nora Ephron

I wasn’t a fan of either of these two. Read the first because dd said she’d been enjoying the blog/podcasts and the second because it seems popular on MN. I found both writers vacuous and irritating, frankly. The only thing I liked was a bit about Wilkie Collins in the Ephron one. I wouldn’t recommend either of these – they’re basically the sort of lazy journalism by annoying women you get in something like Cosmopolitan magazine, or the Saturday Grauniad.

Southeastdweller I loved Curtain Call as well

Another thumbs-up for Curtain Call. The sequel, Freya (about the daughter of one of the central characters, a few years on) is on my tbr pile. I made an abortive attempt to start it a few months ago but got sidetracked - as I so often do. It's quite a hefty book so I might try and give it a go over Christmas.

54. The Descent of Man - Grayson Perry. Non-fiction book about masculinity. There wasn't anything in here that was new to me but I still enjoyed reading it and the writing is accessible.

55. Convenient Store Woman - Sayaka Murata. Compared to the terrible Eleanor Oliphant book, this was almost as poor as that overrated garbage and is about an unambitious thirty-something woman who works in a convenient store in Japan. The thin but compelling story was undermined by often clunky writing but maybe that was because of a bad translation job.

56. Twisting My Melon - Shaun Ryder. Tiresome and overlong memoir from the Happy Monday's frontman. If you're interested in a plethora of mostly tedious tales of his drug-taking, drug-dealing and thieving past, this is for you.

Nicely timed post Remus- you've saved me bothering with the Ephron.

Glad to be of service, Screw.

Just finished The Rotters' Club. I quite liked it at first but then found it increasingly stylised and tedious. I read it, like Waterland, because of its place in the A Level Lit spec. I much preferred Waterland , though, although they are occasionally similar. Graham Swift is just a better writer, essentially. I did find bits of The Rotters' Club amusing but I also found the book a bit Lad Lit. And that longest sentence in Enlgish Literature ever twadlle! Has anyone actually read that properly!!??
I definitely wouldn't teach this one.

Christams tbr books start now with Judith Flanders Christmas: A Biography but am going to eat Christmas ice cream first!

desdemona, I read Anatomy of a Scandal earlier this year. It was a notch above most such thrillers but not a work of genius by any means. For me the best bit was the fact it was set in Oxford in the early/mid 90s so I had fun spotting the references. But I wouldn’t recommend it for anything other than a fairly light and unchallenging read with a side order of anger at white male privilege.

123 The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan
This novel tells the story of a bomb that goes off in an Indian marketplace and how the lives of the people affected, from grieving parents to the Kashmiri separatists responsible, are affected. This was clever and affecting; I found the different points of view wove around each other cleverly and the parents’ grief and anger were beautifully conveyed.

124 Gut Symmetries by Jeanette Winterson
Ostentatiously clever novel about physics and love. I thought bits of it were captivating but the whole thing didn’t add up to the sum of its parts and the characters were all infuriating, with a very bizarre twist towards the end.

125 Swan Song by Robert McCammon
I’ve had this on my kindle for ages and don’t remember why I bought it. I can absolutely see why it’s always compared to The Stand which is one of my favourite books of all time - apocalypse kills 90% of the US population, multiple POVs, survivors group around charismatic leaders, both good and bad, there’s a climactic battle and some gruesome bits along the way (far more stomach churning than The Stand). Oh, and an “escape from Manhattan through a tunnel” scene that was almost identical, with water. A significantly better (or at least less WTF?!) ending than The Stand and some great writing, but although I thoroughly enjoyed it, it doesn’t move me like The Stand does, and certainly never made me want to cry. Maybe the characters don’t have the same depth and nuance - the good are largely good and the bad largely bad. But on reflection I think it is also because a post-nuclear USA is a way less appealing concept than a post-plague USA - the way King writes conjures up wide open spaces and the sense of the possibility of a fresh start from early on, whereas nuclear winter sounds muddy and grim. If post-apocalyptic fiction is your thing you’ll almost certainly love it, if you can get over the inevitable comparisons to the best novel of that genre.

Pepe - I thought I'd read Swan Song years ago, but having read your review, I don't think I have. It's a whopping £10.20 on Kindle though, so I won't be reading it any time soon!

90. Ben Aaronovitch - Whispers Underground

DC Peter Grant finds himself doing some 'proper policing' as he is attached to the murder squad after an American student who turns out to be the son of a US state senator is found dead on the tracks at Baker Street tube. It seems there may be magic involved. Given the status of the victim's father, FBI agent Kimberley Reynolds is soon on the case as well as Grant, Nightingale and Lesley discover that there are more than the tube tunnels underground.

50 (hooray!) We Have Always Lived In The Castle - Shirley Jackson

I thought this was just brilliant. Sisters Merricat (the narrator) and Constance Blackwood have holed themselves up in their mansion after the death from poisoning of everyone in their family but their Uncle Julian, who survived but has been left in failing health; Constance was acquitted of the murders but the villagers still gossip darkly about her. When their cousin Charles turns up hoping to get his hands on the family silver, their world starts to unravel. A superbly crafted, claustrophobic study of obsession and mental disturbance with touches of the blackest humour.

Thanks Pepe, think I'll give it a miss.

"... some great writing... If post-apocalyptic fiction is your thing you'll almost certainly love it"

I wouldn't be so sure I had to check the author of the Swan Song I read to see if it was the same book I read back in 2014 and found lacking in most criteria. There was some good description of life after catastrophe, but I wasn't impressed with plot & characters which felt shallow & undeveloped, or the fantasy element which was a bit silly.

Maybe I would have liked it 25 years ago but I have read too many excellent books in the last 2 decades to enjoy lazy YA fantasy.

Sorry I just realized that sounded a bit harsh