50 Book Challenge 2019 Part One

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the first thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2019, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

Who's in for this year?

I loved The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob de Zoet, too. Here is my review from 2015:

CoteDAzur Sun 08-Nov-15 10:32:25

55. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell

Perfection. This exquisite book is the story of a Dutch clerk sent to Japan in late 18th Century to work at the Dutch trading concession bordering Nagasaki and a young Japanese midwife. The author being David Mitchell, it is also the story of humanity's best vs its worst, corruption, greed, and slavery as well as courage, integrity, and understanding. Clash of cultures and mentalities. The dawn of science and the crooked path that doctors took to unlock the secrets of the human body. The beauty and fragility of life. Injustices and cruelty people inflict upon each other. And the strokes of luck (fate?) that shape our destinies.

It's historical fiction at its best and I can only compare it to This Thing Of Darkness.

1. Dark Tower IV : Wizard and Glass by Stephen King

Continuing my reading of the Dark Tower series interspersed with other books this year. I keep saying this, but I think this fourth instalment was my favourite so far. I don't think that's a general fan view, as most of the book is taken up with recounting Roland's back story, but I found the tale of his experiences in Mejis properly enthralling and unputdownable (I should be working now but had to finish it). It's a story of teenage love and teenage certainties and the mistakes they lead us all to make, although for most of us the consequences are much less horrible. I knew I wasn't going to like what happened, but somehow King keeps you on board even though you want to shut your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears. The world of Mejis is wonderfully evoked and I think I will remember this book for longer than I'll remember the first three.

The next one is 800 pages long again, so I will be going for something shorter next. Plus I'm not sure I can stand the emotional intensity...

Have any of you read The Fairy's tale by FD Lee? It's 99p on the kindle today and it looks interesting but I'm not sure about reading a young adult book.

I forgot to share some of the books I have recently read which I would recommended.

1 - I Am Pilgrim I could not put this book down and when I did I couldn’t wait to get back to it. One of the best spy thrillers I have read. I was completely immersed in the plot which I found uncomfortable, alarming and gruesome in parts. I will return to this book again some time in the future.

2 - The Silent Companions I thought this was a great read. Creepy, eerie and spooky. The book unsettled me but I couldn’t put it down.

3 - The Immortalist the book follows the lives of 4 siblings who find out the date they die. I thought the book was interesting and intriguing although I must admit a bit depressing. Not my usual read but a good story.

My future reads include
1 - The Darkest Secret by Alex Marwood
2 - The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
3 - Me Before You by Jojo Moyles
4 - Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeny

First book finished: The Tenderness of Wolves by Steph Penney.

It's been sitting on my kindle for sometime & I am resolved to lessen my TBR pile.

I loved the descriptions of landscape & of the settlers lives in Northern Canada in the 1860s. But I didn't think the murder mystery was that well portrayed & also felt the the end of the book was very rushed & somewhat 'tidied-up' to give a satisfactory end.

Brizzle - The Fairy's Tale is not my sort of book but I do so often get tempted on Kindle by something being 99p & often regret the purchase.

Magimedi it's not really mine either but I have enjoyed Terry Pratchett in the past so I might give it a go. I'm with you on regretting it and usually only buy ones on my wishlist that come up as 99p.

@ArtisanPopcorn My Absolute Darling was one of my favourites of 2017 (second only to The Essex Serpent I think) I read it on kindle and bought the hardback because I felt so much for it. It is harrowing and hard to get your head around the beautiful words that describe awful scenes

A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead

Really interesting but harrowing account of women (although some were only teenagers) in the French Resistance. It details the work they did for the resistance, how they were caught and dealt with by the Gestapo and French collaborators, their experiences in the labour and extermination camps, and what happened after the war to those few who managed to survive (as well as French society's reaction).

It is horrifying and appalling, as you would imagine, but it is also a positive story of the courage and friendship of the women that helped them to survive.

The book includes photos of some of the women (and sometimes their children), but also a truly chilling picture of the guards at Auschwitz laughing and smiling.

A book that will stay with me for a long time and very much recommended.

Someone mentioned they were reading a book earlier in the thread and I meant to make a note of it - I even looked it up and now I can’t find it - all I can remember about it was they said Graham Greene liked it! It was possibly set in Brighton? Ring any bells?

Finished Animal Farm today. Was as good as I remember it though a couple of questions were thrown up. Particularly why did the animals admit to doing things they hadn’t?
Onto book 4 which my dad has recommended The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes.

The Missing Girl by Jenny Quintana has been languishing in my kindle TR folder since the summer when it was recommenced to me as a good "sunbed" read only I became absorbed on holiday by A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

Anna Flores was a child when her teenage sister, Gabriella, disappeared one day after school. The mystery of Gabriella’s disappearance was not solved at the time and the overheard fragments of conversations between the parents by Anna gave a glimpse of another hidden story. The plot alternated between two timelines, the present day and the 1980’s, and having grown up in the 80's it's was enjoyable to be taken on a journey from the past. The Missing Girl is an enjoyable mystery but also an absorbing and believable depiction of a family coping with the disappearance of a child. I quite enjoyed it.

My 3rd read will be another from my Kindle TR folder (which i wish I'd read over Xmas!) The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

mynameisMrG - I re-read both Animal Farm and 1984 last year. I thoroughly enjoyed them both but preferred 1984. when I last read them in the 1980's it was the other way around

SatsukiKusakabe - Was it The West Pier by Patrick Hamilton mentioned by Terpsichore ?

I looked it up and added it to my Amazon wish list. This thread just makes my TR piles expand

Yes, I think that was me - The West Pier. Really enjoying it in a 'horribly fascinated' sort of way. Hamilton was so good at creating evil characters. Full review to come shortly!

I'm keeping a list of what has been read so if you want to know if a book has been mentioned just let me know and I'll have a look.

@Sonnet I haven’t read 1984 before though it’s been on my bookshelf a while. I’ll add it to my list to read

Yes! Thanks sonnet and terpsichore - looking forward to the review. Imagine how big my tbr would be if I could remember them all!

I'm in please! Trying to read more fiction but also some memoir. Halfway through Annie Ernaux The Years - a fascinating well-written memoir spanning years since 1940s in France. Inspired by Cedar03 have just added Aspern Papers to my list of 50 at goodreads.com. Read some Henry James ten years back and enjoyed, but never wanted to revisit him somehow.
Next book depends on which library reservation arrives first.
Recently read The Reservoir Tapes by Jon McGregor - account of how a young girl's disappearance affects different members of village, told from perspective of about ten different people, one per chapter. Excellent taut prose and recommended if you're more interested in character development than plot.

I have probably said this before but I love Patrick Hamilton. I think The West Pier is far from his best, but still very good. I have Through A Glass Darkly - a biography of him - on the shelf at home to read soon, and am planning on re-reading at least some of Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky this year.

Finished my first of the year : One Hot Summer : Dickens, Disraeli and Darwin and the Great Stink of 1858.

This is a very detailed and informative history book about a few very hot and very smelly months of a year that might otherwise have seemed uneventful - Dickens wrote no novel ,and Darwin's Origin of the Species was a year off. I bought it because of passing interest in Bazalgette but the book says little about him. It focuses on all the Ds - plus two more: Derby (the PM) and Divorce. I studied this period in history at school and remember favouring Gladstone over Disraeli. Had I known how flamboyantly dressed Disraeli and his wife were, I might have had different views! I did not know quite how childish (or how celebrated) Dickens and fellow writers were in their spats. I didn't know about Dickens' divorce and , as an aside, the book is fascinating on(usually) men's desire to declare spouses insane and moves to change this.

For those of you who are Team Fitzroy, having read This Thing, this book utterly changed my view of Darwin, emphasising what a doting father he was, how generous and sensitive he was and how much the death of his youngest son (who probably had the as yet unnamed Downs Syndrome) shook him : it's very touching. It's all very sad and lets us know how un attention seeking he was, and how ill he was all the time.

Read it, though, just to encounter the indefatigable Rosina Bulwer Lytton!

@zebra31 all my siblings raved about I am Pilgrim I couldn't get past about page 20

Oh Piggy, that book is right up near the top of my wishlist jostling for position with about 500 others

Rosemary Ashton is a good writer of readable history. Although I've just had a massively frustrating struggle trying to download her Kindle biography of the Carlyles which ended, after about 5 attempts and repeated returns, with Amazon having to admit that they had an 'issue' and basically I had to just give up. I bought a hard copy in the end. Pity because it's a weighty tome!

This one is not too long : 285 pages. I did find myself glazing over at times but it was definitely well written and enlightening.

Oh and thanks terpsichore for name checking the author. I had not intended not to credit her!!

I've finished my 1st book of the Of Source to Sea by Tom Chesshyre, I've come to the conclusion that the author, who lives in London, much prefers the city to the countryside as the book picks up a lot when he gets to Teddington (the start/end of the tidal Thames) and he's more enthusiast in a dry way. I like the Bill Bryson books such as Notes from a Small Island but this book couldn't be more different from those but I still think it's worth a read.

He's published a couple of other books about train journeys which may well find their way onto my wishlist but I'm not sure.

Next up was going to the The Salt Path as recommended by toomuchsplother but I want a break from walking recounts so I'm going to go for Nevil's Shute So Disdained thanks to Cheminotte. Its not one of his books that I'd heard of so I'm looking forward to giving it a go before The Salt Path