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?

84 Disobedience by Naomi Alderman

Ronit, now a successful financial analyst in New York, returns to Hendon and her orthodox Jewish roots after her father - respected rabbi and spiritual leader of his synagogue - dies. The centre of the book is her reunion with her cousin Dovid and old school friend Esti, and the way in which all of them have to reexamine their relationships with each other and the community.

This really isn't the sort of book I'd normally choose, but I bought it after reading an interview with the author (who later wrote dystopian hit The Power). I'm really glad I did, it was an excellent read, fascinating and thought provoking.

Enid Blyton made me an avid reader too and I was also a Malory Towers fan, along with the FF and Barney mysteries. I remember buying my very first book - we used to get 2p a day to spend in the sweetshop on the way home from school (we were 7 and used to walk the mile home in a little gang) - anyway, the sweetshop sold EB books for 36p and it was the first time I ever saved for anything.

Sadik, I recently saw the movie based on Disobedience, but I didn't realize it was an adaptation of the novel, which I will now seek out. Thank you!

83. Four Past Midnight by Stephen King

A collection of four novellas - The Langoliers; Secret Window, Secret Garden; The Library Policeman; The Sun Dog.

Enjoyably creepy reading. I liked The Sun Dog with its possessed Polaroid camera best.

Cote I meant we studied Bach's Musical Offering and the circumstances in which it was composed (I did a music degree). I've hardly read any books about classical music since my degree but your glowing review persuaded me to try Evening in the Palace!

VanderlyleGeek, I guess the interview was because of the film release. Was the film good? It was a very interior book IYKWIM, and I'd wondered how it would translate to film.

Just read Christmas: A Biography - a book in which the erudite authoor, Judith Flanders (and presumably an editor and soem proofreaders!) fails to notice there is no 31st of November!

That aside, it's a diverting enough account of how Christmas has evolved, with some snippets about Carols and about films, that I was interested in. it's possibly my own historical bias but I found the chapters about modern Christmas the most interesting and wish she had examined this in more depth.

Flanders is Canadian by upbringing , and British by birth an residence (she is also Jewish, and did teach me some new things about Chanukah). But it feels like over half the book focuses on the US . My family is American, but even I found that a bit of a bias. She also does not delve at all into the fascinating Santa/ Father Christmas dichotomy which would be useful for facts for tedious MN anti-Santa threads

The book is a touch dry, as some reviewers have said on Amazon. Not sure I would read another by Flanders.

Christmas fiction to move on to next. Trees are up (being an 'American',I have two!!), Sloe Gin awaits. Time to get Christmassy!

Re Blyton : I was more of a St Clare's girl but did love Malory Towers, too.

However, I preferred always Streatfeild (and no one on The Chase yesterday seemed to have heard of her!) , Bawden ,and also The Chalet School books and I cannot for the life of me remember who wrote those.

52. The Beginning Of Spring - Penelope Fitzgerald

Had never heard of Fitzgerald until introduced to her by the Backlisted podcast (which itself I recommend to all and sundry), whose Andy Miller provides the introduction here, pointing out that by rights she ought to be hugely more popular than she is. I flew through this book with utter delight; set in 1913 Moscow, it concerns the English printer Frank Reid whose wife gets on a train back to Norbury one day leaving him with three children to bring up. It's very funny, packed with brilliant characters, highly evocative of Russia before the war and Revolution, and just a sheer pleasure to read.

Stitches - The Longoliers is one of my favourite King stories.

108: The Wolves of Willoughby Chase – Joan Aiken

I must have read this as a child, but could remember very little of it. Utterly loved it – perfect for a cosy bedtime read in December. And now I feel another Aiken Kindle splurge coming on.

Managed to get The Rescue Man by Anthony Quinn in the library today.

Sadik, the movie, which I watched on Netflix, was very good: quiet, thoughtful, full of desire. As some reviews point out, it presents female sexuality outside of the male gaze, which is uncommon.

Or even The Langoliers - The Longoliers is nowhere near as good!

Chrissie surprised and pleased to see Trebizon books reviewed. I loved these as a child and had the whole set.

Sorry, autocorrect changed Chessie to Chrissie there. My phone has a mind of its own sometimes...

Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race is 99p on today's Daily Deal. Myself and many other 50-Bookers loved reading this.

Yes, The Langoliers is excellent. I remember seeing the film some time back on one of the more obscure free TV channels and that doesn’t do the story justice at all.

53. Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan

Recently on the Kindle Daily Deal, I picked this up without knowing much about it (although I have seen it mentioned on here). I loved it. I think this was at least in part because so much of it was so familiar - I went to Oxford in the 90s from a comprehensive school background (although I'm glad to say that not everything that happened to the main character in this novel happened to me) and like her, I'm a barrister. Both of those aspects of the novel were, I felt, extremely well done (very much not always true) - I almost felt as though some parts were written from my own experience. The flashback technique is employed in so many novels now and can feel hackneyed, but I felt it was well done here. Don't want to reveal too much about the plot, although I felt it was pretty predictable in places - the real value was in the rounded characters, the atmosphere and sense of time and place, and the writing about an experience very often seen from a man's point of view, here primarily from two women's. Hard to divorce my appreciation of the novel from my personal experience but I thoroughly recommend it.

192. Melmoth by Sarah Perry

I know this has had good reviews on here but it wasn’t for me. I didn’t find any of the characters particularly engaging and the story of Melmoth just fell really flat. I liked the bit in the Manila hospital where you find out why Helen has hidden away in Prague, but found all the rest a bit dull and hard going because I just wasn’t interested enough. I don’t think I’ll bother with another by Perry.

78: The Shepherd's Life - James Rebanks

Book club choice (not mine). This came prefaced with three pages of swooning praise from various blurbers so I was rather taken aback by my lukewarm reaction to this.

Yes, it's an evocative and honest account of the punishingly-hard life of a Lakeland sheep farmer, and Rebanks's love of the place he comes from, and of the animals he farms, shines though. But I felt he was disparaging about people who don't 'belong' ( unless your family's been rooted in a place for generations, like his) and his reported childhood scorn for education doesnt show him in a great light - smashing up school property was a favourite 'game'. That he later ended up going to Oxford doesn't seem to have changed his thinking much at all, but was more to prove the point that he could do it if he wanted to; even then, he kept to himself and spent as much time at home on the farm as possible.

Then he reveals at a late stage that, because he now can't make the farm pay full-time, he finances it by working as a consultant on tourism to the Unesco World Heritage Centre...... which is fine, but makes some of his comments elsewhere in the book feel jarring. And don't get me started on the presence of women - notably his grandmother and mother - as providers of food and childcare services and helpmeets to farmer (and sometimes philanderer) husbands. Though there are a couple of women sheep-breeders, and Beatrix Potter.

A strange mixture of a book. Didn't really work for me, unfortunately.

ChessieFL: completely agree about Melmoth. Having also read The Essex Serpent, I rather think that Sarah Perry is very much a second rate Sarah Waters.

In the same vein, it struck me that The Corset by Laura Purcell was inspired by Affinity by Sarah Waters and, again, not a patch on it.

43. Two Brothers by Ben Elton I think this is universally disliked on this thread so I won't say much other than I actually really enjoyed it.

Mamapants I too thought two brothers was very readable.

53. A Child's Christmas In Wales - Dylan Thomas

Very slim (I read it over breakfast this morning!) but I'm counting it as a book anyway. It's a beautifully lyrical account of a Christmas Day of Thomas' childhood, complete with snow, turkey, snoring uncles, tipsy aunties and all the festive magic you could wish for.

I’ve recently discovered Backlisted toomeg agree it is great.

Just finished the British Library's rather beautiful Literary Christmas: An Anthology. This is a collection of seasonal poems, extracts, short stories and the occasional diary. It ahs gorgeous illustration. Easy to dip into, as it is divided into sections like Advent, Nativity , Christmas Day and so on.

This'd be a lovely gift for anyone who likes to read and likes a Christmas themed gift.