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?

Hound I once emailed Alexandra Heminsley to ask her for a favour and she did something very kind in response. I believe her to be a genuinely nice person (and I love her writing too)

The Beast sounds great exexpat - when I get over my self imposed 'no more new books on the tbr' rule I'll have to get a copy!

Having said that, I've realised that the great advantage of re-reads is that I am automatically only reading books I enjoy (well durr as my dd would say ). Currently remembering just how very good George Orwell's essays are.

Gosh keith, if it were possible I think that makes me love her even more.

"The Luminaries Eleanor Catton. A Booker winner. 800 pages...
Very clever and all I’m sure, I just found it extremely dull. So many boring characters who have dull conversations endlessly, but usually only talk to one other person at a time. Some guy goes to talk to some guy, then some other guy has a conversation with some other guy"

I was by this review, not just because I loved The Luminaries but also because I couldn't understand how people talking to each other in a book made it dull, until I came to this sentence:

"then another guy has a conversation with, wait a minute, oh it’s a woman at least, so mildly more interesting"

If you think a book becomes more interesting when a female character appears in it, then The Luminaries probably wasn't the book for you. It was complex, beautifully written, skilfully crafted, insightful. What it wasn't was "women's lit".

Meanwhile, I'm nearing the end of a great political thriller by Frederick Forsyth called The Avenger

I've been on a reading spree!

1. Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde
2. The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya
3. Vox by Christina Dalcher
4. Suicide Club by Rachel Heng
5. Bird Box by Josh Malerman

And just started - 6. The Psychology of Time Travel

I really liked Vox - a book by neurolinguists, about neurolinguists, for neurolinguists Not dissimilar to The Handmaid's Tale in theme, a right wing christian fundamentalist government comes into power, and women and girls are limited to 100 words a day, via a wristband which gives them increasingly strong electric shocks if they exceed their limit. Much like The Handmaid's Tale, men stand by saying 'there there darling' as women's jobs, rights and passports are taken away. It's chilling in many places - quite near the beginning, the main character Jean's daughter has a nightmare and wakes up screaming - her mother, already at 100 words, is unable to tell her it's all ok, and has to helplessly hand her over to dad who can reassure her before she goes over her own limit and gets shocked. That sense of powerlessness is awful. Girls are rewarded at school if they go the whole day without speaking. If you're lesbian or gay, you're forced to marry the opposite sex, or imprisoned. The main character was developing a cure for aphasia when her job was taken away, but could her work save the country, or ruin it? Really well written, strangely believable (especially men's attitudes towards women) and a great read. The ending did feel quite rushed, and it could have done with being a few chapters longer and a bit clearer. The only thing that grated was Jean's husband's habit of calling her babe in every single sentence.

Suicide Club Technology has evolved so humans can keep themselves alive (and looking young and beautiful) for 200 years. Any damage, and your body automatically regenerates. So far so good, unless you want to end your life. There's an underground movement to assist people who want to end their lives, but are they a force for good or evil?

The premise was interesting, but I didn't really enjoy reading this.
There's far too much reference to long glossy hair, smooth unwrinkled faces and enviably toned thighs. We get it, everyone looks young, we don't need reminding every chapter. The main character is pretty unlikable and most other characters remarkably bland.

Bird Box on the other hand, has very little reference to glossy shiny tumbling curls and trim stomachs, so I enjoyed it very much A tense, post apocalyptic story about the world being overrun with 'creatures' that send you mad and murderous if you see them. Malorie lives shut in a house with her 2 children, who she has taught to rely on their ears and uses their eyes as little as possible, using blindfolds for the few times they venture outside. I liked the structure of this - the chapters alternate between the present, with Malorie making a decision about her future, and the past, from when the creatures first arrived, to how she ended up in the house with the children. It's not a great literary treat, but it certainly keeps up the tension. You're never quite sure what the creatures are, where they are and why. They could be breathing down your neck or you could be alone. The only way to know would be to take off the protective blindfold and risk your life. A good, if grim, read.

Off to a slow start as I've been grappling with a uni assignment and the book I've just finished was a bit slow in places. It was...

1. The Woman in the Window - A.J Finn. This is a slightly above average thriller contemporary thriller set in New York about an agoraphobic woman who believes she's seen a murder in the house opposite her home but nobody believes her. At 447 pages, this is 50-80 pages too long and one of the twists is very obvious but the characterisation of the lead character is good and the story generally gripping.

5 A Short History of England by Simon Jenkins
Lazy cliches aside (“cap in hand”..., “sick man of Europe”) this was a readable and whirlwind tour of all the bits of English history you think you should know but don’t. It was highly focused on kings and queens and great men (not many great women) and didn’t - as far as I can tell - challenge any generally accepted tellings of history. For me it was a helpful overview of history - I know about certain periods but very little about others so it was good to see how it all fits together and learn about periods (e.g. the Georgian era) I knew very little about. But probably not one for anyone with any more than the most basic knowledge of English history.

6 The Penguin Lessons by Tom Michell
A 99p kindle deal but one that I had seen recommended in various places. Tom meets a penguin on a beach in Uruguay, rescues it from an oil spill and brings it back to the boarding school in Buenos Aires where he works. All this against the turbulent background of Argentina in the 1970s. The episodes with the penguin were charming and well done, particularly the accounts of how the penguin immersed himself into the life of the school. The book shifts half way through to focus more on the author’s travels in South America. In other circumstances I’d have enjoyed these but I wanted more penguin by that point and didn’t have much patience for his stories of Bolivian peasants.

7 Lethal White by Robert Galbraith
I wrote about this earlier this evening. Good story, likeable characters, far too long!

1. Becoming by Michelle Obama.

A great read. Thoroughly enjoyed reading about her childhood, education, career, meeting Barack, the transformation of their lives once he entered political life. Can recommend!

#daphnecandobetterthanfred the k you for that revjew, adding vox to my list

4. No.More.Plastic. What you can do to make a difference. By Martin Dorey.

A slim easy to read book with a positive can-do attitude about reducing plastic consumption. Most of these tips can be found on-line if you are worried about the amount of plastics we use and the legacy we are leaving with our fast, one-use culture. But I enjoyed reading them all in one book and having a checklist at the end.

So to start I will buy a Guppy bag, to reduce microplastics from clothes entering the oceans and try to avoid buying cheap clothes made with man-made fibres. I have a policy to never buy plastic bottles of water or juice or coffee(unless in my own recyclable cup) and will stop getting any plastic bags particularly from the local bakery, just pop the bread/rolls into a clean tote bag till I get home, where I wash and reuse plastic bags. Come on people, let’s reduce our plastic consumption! We can make a difference by thinking hard about what plastic we are buying, it is unavoidable, but companies will have to change if we don’t buy or at least reduce buying their products.

Lucky you Stitches, it’s not in my library yet. Though mustn’t complain about my library, it is very good too.

Crazy RIch Asians is 99p on the kindle today. I'm buying it based on reviews here.

Sorry to double post, and off topic at that. I tend to get plastic bags for life at supermarkets every now and then and use them as bin liners. I wonder what is worse in terms of plastic - using white bin bags for small bins or the bags for life. I use them several times for shopping first.

I'll be reading that book to cut down on plastic.

With the end in mind - Katherine Mannix is on Kindle Daily Deals today. It's been in my wish list for ages.
Just finished 7. Snap -Belinda Bauer. This was a Man booker long lister last year and I was reading it with that in mind. I think that coloured my judgement too, or maybe focused it. I have to say I am completely bemused about how it was long listed. It was an average thriller / crime novel at best. The story zipped along but the essence of the plot and many plot drivers were so far fetched to be unbelievable. The writing was mediocre and at times down right clunky. There was nothing groundbreaking or unusual. And I was further annoyed at a sneering throw away comment directed at Hull university, but I accept that will be personal to me!
I can only assume that Val MCDermid's presence as a judge was responsible for this one's Booker credentials.

On the subject of no plastic, we use wax wraps in the place of cling film here

If you like travel writing, Stanfords has released its award shortlist:

Stanfords

I've bought With The End In Mind on the Daily Deal.

Cote, I have to disagree with your comments about The Luminaries. There are many books which stand perfectly well without diversity of characters, and others which become a bit dull when the numerous, rather uniform, characters start to blur into one another. I'm afraid i'm with the PP in putting The Luminaries into this latter camp, but I appreciate that you, and the Booker judges, disagree. I think it's rather dismissive to make it a point about "women's lit" - what is women's lit anyway?

Thank you Chessie, I've added a few to my wish list.

3 To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
Set in Key West and Cuba in the early 1930s. Harry Morgan runs fishing trips for wealthy businessmen and smuggling trips on the side. Down on his luck he is forced into taking jobs he doesn't want to do. I was a bit confused by Morgan's actions in some places which, early on in the book gets him into more trouble than I thought he needed to be in. It jumps from first person narrative, to third person back to first person narrative but from a minor character which was odd. Good descriptions, particularly towards the end of the difference between those who have money and those who are struggling with virtually nothing.

4 A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler
Young man works for a company that helps elderly people with jobs around their home that they can't manage themselves - from mowing the lawn to finding the Christmas tree in the attic and putting it up and decorating it. He is the black sheep of the family - a teenage delinquent - and is still trying to find his place in the world. Tyler is very good on the dynamics of families and their reactions to each other. Enjoyed this one.

Can I join please? I am aiming to read 80 books this year and have read three so far.

1. The Teacher by Katerina Diamond - a good read if a little far fetched. I think it is the author's first book and I would definitely try another. It is a little graphic in parts.

2. Closer to Home by Heleyne Hammersley - introduces DI Kate Fletcher who returns to her home town in Yorkshire following her divorce and promotion. It is a good read and will probably lead to a series.

3. Hide and Seek by P S Brown - a good story, with a predictable ending.

I am trying not to buy any more books and to read from the bookshelves or my Kindle - I have lots and lots of choice

5. Wolf By Wolf by Ryan Graudin
I love an alternate history and this is fantastic - it's a "what if Hitler won" scenario, following a young girl who has been drastically affected in the camps and now has a top secret mission. I don't want to say any more than that as I picked it up virtually blind myself and not knowing anything about the story made it really compelling. If you enjoyed Jo Walton's Small Change series this is well worth a look, although I did find the first chapters set in the camps had me on the edge of nausea the whole time. It's really unusual for me to react like that, so something to be aware of, but the rest of the book is a really pacy adventure. I think it's technically YA, so a great one to read alongside a teenager.

6. Storm Hound by Claire Fayers This is adorable without being in the least bit twee. It's middle grade (I'd recommend it for 7-10s) and due out on 21st Feb. Follows the story of Storm, one of the hounds of the Wild Hunt, who falls to earth by accident in the form of a puppy and is adopted by Jessie and her family who are new to the area after a divorce. But creepy men are out to get Storm for his magic - and why is the new boy at school (and the cat next door) so interested? I loved this story, it weaves believable modern life with Welsh and Norse legend beautifully. I enjoyed Fayer's first book, Mirror Magic, but Storm Hound is a clear step up in her writing and I think she's a children's author to watch for the future. Definitely getting a copy for school even if I have buy it myself.

Currently struggling through A Letter For The King by Tonke Dragt, a Dutch children's classic which is rather like Narnia without the magic or...well...any interesting bits, really. And I've read a bunch for work but I'm not listing them here as this is my "read it because I wanted to" list.

Satsuki, I'm now longing to read Into the Chlorine with Maureen. You have to write it.

Will be interested in your review of The Psychology of Time Travel, Daphne. I enjoyed her take on it.

I too want to read Into the Chlorine with Maureen, quite urgently actually. I know it will inspire me. The title alone inspires me. I have a good feeling about Maureen.
I do Taekwondo with the kids and it's rather good for stress relief as you get to punch and kick stuff. Sometimes I get to kick grown men and that's always fun.

Finished 6. On the Black Hill - Bruce Chatwin. I loved this novel, which tells the story of the whole life of twins Lewis and Benjamin, born on a farm on the border between Hereford and Wales. The story runs from their birth early in the twentieth century and follows their lives, and that of their community, through all the changes that occur including two world wars. This was a beautifully written and at times moving novel and the first Chatwin I have read. I will be reading more!

BOOK2 read, UNDER THE PAW , sweet cat book, nothing more!
BOOK3 ,THE HEARTS INVISIBLE FURIES by john Boyne, really looking forward to reading this novel!