50 Book Challenge 2018 Part Nine

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the eighth (and definitely final) thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge was to read fifty books (or more!) in 2018, though reading fifty wasn't mandatory. 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, the seventh one here and the eighth one here.

How have you got on this year? Feel free to list your stats, full lists, favourites and disappointments!

I don’t know Piggy - I seem to recall The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock having a moment, and This Thing of Darkness too- what do you reckon? Lots of people read Elinor Olyiphant, or was that last year too?

I have just been reading the Guardian article about this year's top 100. In it, they refer to literary fiction. A question: who decided and how that Elinor Oliphant is literary fiction, but not other 'up lit' books? Is there some sort of committee?? Is it to do with publishing house? I quite liked it but didn't find it literary...

I would say the ' everyone on MN has read it in 2018 list is :

This is Going To Hurt
Bookworm
and probably followed by Mermaid and Mrs Hancock, Elionr Oliphant and a few others, such as Celeste Ng, This Thing... and Why I Am No Longer Talking To White People etc (but I haven't read that one!). I did start a minor sub set cult of Almond For A Parrot!

Very happy that we have a final thread because I'm refusing to accept defeat yet

I had a long plane journey yesterday and some annoying jetlag overnight, so managed to finish:

47. X, by Sue Grafton - fairly standard Kinsey Millhone mystery - you know what you're going to get with these but I find them reliably absorbing and an easy read. This one had three storylines that were entirely unrelated but I particularly enjoyed the one with the glamorous art thief protagonist.

And 48. The Hunting Party, by Lucy Foley - highly enjoyable thriller, set in the Scottish Highlands at a hunting lodge, where nine old friends are spending New Year's Eve - one of them is murdered, but by whom? Despite most of the characters being thoroughly dislikable, this drew me in and I appreciated the various misdirections from the author. A tiny bit slow in places but definitely superior to some of the other thrillers I've read this year.

Right, away to see if I can scrape through to 50 - planning to read A Month in the Country next as it is both short and seems universally loved.

Can anyone work out , if we did a giant Venn diagram, what the one book nearly all of us read this year? I reckon I know!

Place your guesses and I'm sad enough to work it out - I'm feeling a bit down and it'll keep me busy.

brizzle !

See my guesses above!

I think it's The Heart's Invisible Furies.

OK, I've collected all the lists from this thread and the previous one up to this post and will see what I can do.

Pepe Thank you. I will look out for that version in print. It feels a bit like doing my homework before I'm allowed to play out, but I've a feeling it's got to be done.

I’m reading The Hearts Invisible Furies further to recommendations on here. Loving it so far, so I’ll keep an eye out for other suggestions.

I'm going to go for Bookworm (reading it at the moment). Wasn’t Eleanor more of a 2017 hit?

Thought I was going to finish another book this year, but looks like I probably won't, so here's my list:

1. Make More Noise! Various
2. Rose in Bloom L M Alcott
3. Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll

4 . Alice Through the Looking-Glass Lewis Carroll

1. Eight Cousins L M Alcott
2. How to Be a Victorian Ruth Goodwin
3. A London Child of the 1870s MV Hughes
4. Hostages to Fortune Elizabeth Cambridge
5. A London Girl of the 1880s MV Hughes

10. Star by Star Sheena Wilkinso 11. A Spoonful of Murder Robin Stevens 12. How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen Joanna Faber and Julie King 13. Falconer's Lure Antonia Forest 14. Life After Life Kate Atkinson 15. Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading Lucy Mangan 16. This is Going to Hurt Adam Kay 17. Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary Ruby Ferguson 18. Mapp and Lucia EF Benson 19. Dr Horrible and Other Horrible Stories Zack Whedon 20. The Murder at the Vicarage Agatha Christie 21. A Month in the Country JL Carr 22. The Mysterious Affair at Styles Agatha Christie 23. Stranger Karen David 24. No Fixed Address Susin Nielsen 25. Behind the Scenes at the Museum Kate Atkinson 26. The Skylark's War Hilary McKay 27. To Sir With Love ER Braithwaite 28. And Then There Were None Agatha Christie 29. The Mother of All Jobs: How to Have Children and a Career and Stay Sane Christine Armstrong 30. The True Deceiver Tove Jansson 31. Meadowland: The Private Life of a British Field John Lewis-Semple 32. Goodbye Stranger Rebecca Stead 33. Liar and Spy Rebecca Stead 34. Death in a White Tie Ngaio Marsh 35. The Secret Barrister: Stories of the law and how it's broken The Secret Barrister 36. The Other Half of Happiness Alisha Malik 37. Monsters Sharon Dogar 38. The Methuen Drama Book of Suffrage Plays ed. Naomi Paxton 39. The Cuckoo's Calling Robert Galbraith 40. Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children's Nanny at the Turn of the Twentieth Century Noel Streatfeild 41. Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth Frank Cottrell Boyce 42. The Silkworm Robert Galbraith

Children's/YA: 34%
Non-fiction: 24%
Female authors: 71/74% (depending on the identity of the Secret Barrister)
BAME authors: 7% (pretty shameful)
19th century: 10%
20th century: 36%
21st century: 54% (which is higher than I'd expected)
Books liberated from my mouldering tbr shelf: 5% (an abject failure)
Books picked from the Guardian 1000 books to read before you die list: 14%

Top five, in no particular order:
The Silkworm Robert Galbraith
Goodbye Stranger Rebecca Stead
The Mother of All Jobs: How to Have Children and a Career and Stay Sane Christine Armstrong
No Fixed Address Susin Nielsen
Hostages to Fortune Elizabeth Cambridge

Not a very adventurous year, 2018 - I've had a lot of (mostly good) Life Stuff going on and not much mental energy for reading. This thread has been a joy once again, though. Thank you all.

Haven’t read Bookworm, didn’t finish Mermaid or Hearts.

I didn’t think Eleanor was literary, though I enjoyed it.

Little Fires seemed popular.

See? Bookworm and Adam Kay in cheerful's list!

Added your list Muddler

This is Going to Hurt is my guess, though I know some of us read it last year.

And my mum gave me Eleanor Oliphant completely randomly for Christmas.

Just finished number 97 and am not intending to get another book read in its entirety tomorrow! List is:

1. Stephanie Garber - Caraval
2. Jo Nesbo - The Thirst
3. Mercedes Lackey - Magic’s Pawn
4. Mercedes Lackey - Magic’s Promise
5. Mercedes Lackey - Magic’s Price
6. Neil Gaiman - Norse Mythology
7. Lee Child - No Middle Name
8. Sue Lloyd-Roberts - The War on Women
9. Genevieve Cogman - The Lost Plot

10. Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory 11. Mercedes Lackey - Arrows of the Queen 12. Mercedes Lackey - Arrow’s Flight 13. Mercedes Lackey - Arrow’s Fall 14. Lucinda Riley - The Shadow Sister 15. Susan Hill - The Travelling Bag 16. Charlaine Harris - Midnight Crossroad 17. Trudi Canavan - Thief’s Magic 18. Sarah Bakewell - At the Existentialist Café 19. Ernest Cline - Ready Player One 20. Virginia Woolf - Orlando 21. Jordan B. Peterson - 12 Rules for Life 22. Mary Beard - Women & Power A Manifesto 23. Laini Taylor - Dreams of Gods and Monsters 24. Sergei Lukyanenko - The Sixth Watch 25. Cordelia Fine - Delusions of Gender 26. Natasha Pulley - The Watchmaker of Filigree Street 27. Ben Aaronovitch - The Furthest Station 28. Val McDermid - Insidious Intent 29. Oscar de Muriel - A Mask of Shadows 30. Andrew Taylor - The Ashes of London 31. Andrew Caldecott - Rotherweird 32. Ali Shaw - The Trees 33. David Lagercrantz - The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye 34. Lee Child - The Midnight Line 35. Hannah Kent - The Good People 36. Kelley Armstrong - Dime Store Magic 37. Kelley Armstrong - Industrial Magic 38. Tom Holland - In the Shadow of the Sword 39. Naomi Novik - Crucible of Gold 40. Naomi Novik - Blood of Tyrants 41. Naomi Novik - League of Dragons 42. Jean M. Auel - The Clan of the Cave Bear 43. Alex Grecian - Lost and Gone Forever 44. JD Oswald - Dreamwalker 45. John Le Carré – A Legacy of Spies 46. JD Oswald - The Rose Cord 47. VE Schwab - A Gathering of Shadows 48. Kim Newman - Angels of Music 49. Tom Holland - Athelstan: The Making of England 50. George Mann - Ghosts of Empire 51. Albert Camus - The Myth of Sisyphus 52. Kim Harrison - The Turn 53. Robert Harris - Conclave 54. Alan Garner - Boneland 55. Ragnar Jónasson - The Darkness 56. Max Adams - Ælfred’s Britain 57. Benedict Jacka - Marked 58. Carolyne Larrington - The Land of the Green Man 59. Edward de Bono - How to Have a Beautiful Mind 60. Kim Newman - Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters 61. Charlaine Harris - Sweet and Deadly 62. Sarah Hawkswood - Ordeal By Fire 63. Attica Locke - Bluebird, Bluebird 64. VE Schwab - A Conjuring of Light 65. Pierce Brown - Iron Gold 66. Evelyn Waugh - Scoop 67. Stephen Fry - Mythos 68. Lucinda Riley - The Love Letter 69. Terry Pratchett - Making Money 70. JK Rowling - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire 71. Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray 72. Susan Hill - The Small Hand 73. Susan Hill - Dolly 74. Mark A. Latham - A Betrayal in Blood 75. Wilkie Collins - Miss or Mrs? / The Haunted Hotel / The Guilty River 76. Robin Lane Fox - Pagans and Christians 77. Daniel O’Malley - The Rook 78. JD Oswald - The Golden Cage 79. Joanne M Harris - The Testament of Loki 80. Laura Purcell - The Silent Companions 81. Robert Harris - Munich 82. Peter Frankopan - The Silk Roads 83. Stuart Turton - The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle 84. Jo Nesbo - Macbeth 85. Terry Pratchett - Men At Arms 86. Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London 87. George Mann - The Affinity Bridge 88. George Mann - The Osiris Ritual 89. Ben Aaronovitch - Moon Over Soho 90. Ben Aaronovitch - Whispers Underground 91. George Mann - The Immorality Engine 92. Ben Aaronovitch - Broken Homes 93. Ben Aaronovitch - Foxglove Summer 94. Susan Cooper - The Dark Is Rising 95. Andrew Caldecott - Wyntertide 96. Miranda Aldhouse-Green - Sacred Britannia 97. Christina Henry - Alice

Alice is really good - a take on Alice in Wonderland, but with 'Wonderland' being the Old City, a dangerous place where the poorer people live separately from the New City and where life is brutal and gangsters such as Mr Carpenter, the Walrus, Cheshire, the Caterpillar and the Rabbit rule territories with fear. Alice is 26 and in a mental hospital with only snatches of memories of her encounter with the Rabbit and no realy idea of what happened to her. Her only friend is Hatch, a madman in the neighbouring room. One night a fire in the hospital gives them the opportunity to escape, but a fearsome creature, the Jabberwock, escapes as well. Alice and Hatch have to enter the Old City in search of a means of destroying the beast, the Old City where the Rabbit is waiting.

Stats: 56% male, 44% female; 86% fiction, 14% non-fiction.

116 and 117 My Week With Marilyn – Colin Clark
This was two books, first Clark’ diaries of working on set during the filming of, “The Prince and the Showgirl* and then his account of a week spent in fairly intimate company with Monroe (but not THAT intimate). I preferred the former to the latter, and must admit that I like the Eddie Redmayne version of Clark in the film far more than I liked diary Clark.

chillie I have that Alice Book it was a gift, I wasn’t sure about it but looking forward to it now after your review.

remus I am interested in all the things those books are concerned with but couldn’t get on with them. Wonder if I’d prefer the film?

My master list is only in pencil and paper so I won’t be in your statistics Bizzle! I must keep a typed one (I said that last year too!).

75. Fatherland by Robert Ludlum. A rec from this thread ages ago! I liked the second half much more than the first, and can see why it was so highly recced. A horribly downbeat ending for probably my last book of the year though!

Hello 50 bookers! I have dipped in and out this year but am well short of the 50.

My books this year are

Hidden Depths - Ann Cleaves *

1. Rather be the Devil - Ian Rankin
2. Our Endless Numbered Days - Clare Fuller *
3. I Hear the Sirens in the Street - Adrian McKinty
4. Burial rites hannah Kent **
5. Raven black - Ann cleaves *
6. The Wonder - Emma Donoghue **
7. The Witchfinders sister - Beth Underdown *
8. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman *

10. Heads or Tails - Damien Boyd * 11. The Keeper of Lost Things 12. The Toy Makers 13. White nights - Ann Cleaves * 14. Red Bones - Ann Cleaves 15. The Tatooist of Auschwitz 16. Damien Boyd 17 Black Widow - Christopher Brookmyre 18. The Mistletoe Bride - Kate Mosse

I went back to work in June having had a year off on mat leave hence the major slowing - I read three books from May.

I am hoping that 2019 will increase my book reading again though so checking in again for inspiration.

Thanks for the last thread, South. I am loving reading everyone’s stand out reads for the year.

Tara, without a book thread for 2 days!! 😮😭

Re:parenting and reflection - I completely agree, Satsuki. I usually find whenever my shouting increases, it’s time for a bit of reflection of my behaviour, never mind my DSs. 🙈😓

And here is my final list of 2018, no way I’ll fit in another book as I’m back at work tomorrow and then out in the evening. My round-up of the year is at the end - who doesn’t love a good round-up with percentages? 🤓

1. The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette De Bodard.
2. My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout.
3. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent.

4. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

1. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin.

6. The Outrun by Amy Liptrot.

1. The Story of the Lost Child (Book 4 of the Neapolitan novels) by Elena Ferrante.
2. The Lunatic Cafe (Anita Blake novel 4) by Laurell K.Hamilton.

9. The Three Body Project by Cixin Liu. 10. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. 11. Small Island by Andrea Levy. 12. The Invisible Guardian by Dolores Redondo. 13. The Antidote by Oliver Burkeman. 14. The Places In Between by Rory Stewart. 15. The Furthest Station by Ben Aaronovitch. 16. The War on Women by Sue Lloyd-Roberts. 17. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Audible narration by Simon Callow. 18. World of Trouble (The Last Policeman Book 3) by Ben H.Winters. 19. Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann. 20. The Risk of Darkness (Simon Serailler Book 3) by Susan Hill. 21. SPQR by Mary Beard. 22. Tess of the D’Urbevilles by Thomas Hardy. 23. Bloody Bones (Anita Blake Book 5) by Laurel K Hamilton. 24. Autumn by Ali Smith. 25. Malice by Keigo Higashino. 26. The Crow Road by Ian Banks. 27. In a dark, dark wood by Ruth Ware. 28. The Descent of Man by Grayson Perry. 29. The Endless Summer by Madame Nielsen. 30. Red Sister (Book of the Ancester, Book 1) by Mark Lawrence. 31. To Be a Machine by Mark O’Connell. 32. La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman. (Excellent narration by Michael Sheen.) 33. Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien. 34. Bluets by Maggie Nelson. 35. The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter. 36. Poverty Safari by Darren McGarvey. 37. Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive Book 2) by Brandon Sanderson. 38. When I Hit You by Meena Kandasamy. 39. The Lonely City by Olivia Laing. 40. Middlemarch by George Eliot. 41. War for the Oaks by Emma Bull. 42. Circe by Madeleine Miller. 43. The Dark Forest (Book 2 of The Three Body Project) by Cixin Liu. 44. The Colour Purple by Alice Walker. 45. The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer. 46. The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker. 47. Gone: A Girl, a Violin, a Life Unstrung by Min Kym. 48. How to Read Poetry Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster. 49. Hello World, How to be Human in the Age of the Machine by Hannah Fry. 50. Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier. 51. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie. 52. The History of Britain in 21 Women by Jenni Murray. 53. The Rook by Daniel O’Malley. 54. Uprooted by Naomi Novic. 55. Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett. 56. Calmer, Easier, Happier Parenting by Noël Janis-Norton.

57% female authors,
27% non-fiction
12% were a translation
50% paper, 25% audiobooks
23% from the library

19 (34%) stand-outs, (14 fiction, 5 non-fiction)

I thought I’d read more books from the library. But, on reflection, I think I borrow a lot of books from the library but then don’t have time to read them.

I did try and knock it down to five but it’s a Top Ten from me (in order):

1. Tess of the D’Urbevilles Thomas Hardy.
2. Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe.
3. Do Not Say We Have Nothing Madeleine Thien.
4. The Silence of the Girls Pat Barker.
5. The Colour Purple Alice Walker.
6. All Quiet on the Western Front.
7. Calmer, Easier, Happier Parenting Noël Janis-Norton.
8. The Outrun Amy Liptrot.
9. The War on Women Sue Lloyd-Roberts.

10. Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive Book 2) Brandon Sanderson.

My reading plans for 2019 are to keep reading the Classics, to read about the same percentage of non-fiction and continue to borrow books and support my excellent local library. Hopefully I’ll have as many as 19 stand-outs again!

Did quite a lot of us read All Quiet on the Western Front this year?

piggy - my guess for book most people on this thread have read this year would be Eleanor Oliphant, as it was the best selling book in the UK by far this year (top 100 bestselling books this year). I have read it, though I haven't read the #2 in the list, which was This is going to hurt, or indeed any of the other popular ones you mentioned, except Why I Am No Longer Talking...

Eleanor Oliphant is one of the 'most read' books I have actually read, and that was because it turned up in a charity shop and so many people had raved about it that I thought I ought to do the decent thing.

The other is Little Fires Everywhere, and I enjoyed that a lot more. I haven't read any of the others people have suggested, though.