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?

5: Lethal White – Robert Galbraith

Well, I’m afraid I thought this was terrible. I really like Strike – I care about him and want him to be happy – but do I care enough to keep investing in huge novels (this one was almost 700 pages when 350 would have done) that are both boring and badly written? Probably not. The plot was really slight, the characters two dimensional (even Robin and Strike) and some of the grammar was bloody awful. There’s a limit to how many times I can cope with Strike limping or caressing his stump, and a limit to how many times I can cope with Robin and Matthew hurling the same insults at each other. Tedious. I’m out.

ITV did a five part adaptation of Testament of Youth in 1979. It was excellent, much better than the later BBC version. It was watching that that led me to read the book.

Testament of Friendship (about Vera's friendship with Winifred Holtby) is also well worth a read.

Updating with books 5 and 6:-

1. Stephen Fry's Victorian Secrets. Not strictly a book, but an audio series from Audible. I put in the listening time, so it's going on my list!

This was, in the main, an interesting listen. He covered all kinds of subjects, from slavery, to music halls, crime, pornography (they got up to some weird stuff), treatment of the mentally ill (disturbing and very sad), and improvement of public health through building of sewers, and investigating causes of cholera outbreaks.

I liked it, although some of it was a bit patchy and overworked.

1. How to go Vegan. Produced by the Veganuary movement, and not particularly edifying for anyone who is already vegetarian or vegan, which I am. It would work very well, however, for anyone who is a meat eater and contemplating switching to a vegan diet. It does explain thoroughly about the damaging effects and cruelty of the meat industry. Thought-provoking, and interesting.

magimedi It was the ITV series that led me to read the book too. ITV did some good series around then (Love in a Cold Climate, The Good Companions, To Serve Them All My Days, all of which I went on to read).

Just finished book 2, I'm not fast at the moment! The Memory by Lucy Dawson. I love the premises of her books but there's an awful lot of 'my/his/her mouth felt open', 'padding' somewhere in the house and 'paling' of a face.

This thread moves so fast! Just finished my second book of the year today .

1) The perfect family
2) Birdbox

I so agree about the wonderful dramas from the 70s/80s. I also read To Serve Them All My Days on the back of the TV series, A Horseman Riding By, Fame is the Spur and loads of others.
I have added the VB book to my wishlist. It will be a hard copy as Important Books go on my shelves to be held and touched, and not on my Kindle.

remus I really think Rowling is one of the most frustrating writers. Her characters and ideas are often left to drown under too much other stuff. It makes me think of that quote “sorry for the long letter, I didn’t have the time to write you a short one”

I also read The Jewel in the Crown (Paul Scott, Raj Quartet) having watched the series which was amazing. I still have it on DVD & rewatched it a couple of years ago.

Satsuki - she'd be so much better with a brave/ruthless editor.

Oh, interesting to hear about Pies and Prejudice - I saw it in a charity shop last week and didn't buy it, but I'll go back now!

I am on a roll

3 The Turn of Midnight by Minette Walters

This is the follow up to The Last Hours, both books set in Dorset at the time of the Black Death, definitely not a heavyweight book but a likeable enough read. I heard her speak at our local literary festival about the first book and it was good enough to want to read the second. It helps that she is a local author, and I know all the villages and towns she was talking about. I don't doubt that she does her research about customs and law in the 1300's was accurate

Next book is A Kiss before Dying which was my blind date with a book this month

7 Educated by Tara Westover this should really belong in the "misery memoir" (yes this is a real thing I saw in WH Smith a few years ago) section. It's the autobiography of a girl brought up in Hicksville USA in a strict Mormon family who is saved by access to an education. Enough to put you off organised religion (of whatever denomination) again. There is also the psychopathic father figure and passive mother enabling him and the rest of the abusive family. I can't quite see the correlation between not washing your hands after going to the lav and worshipping God, nor can I believe her parents managed to build up a hugely successful homeopathic medicine business but hey ho. Not badly written but again, could have been 2/3rds the length and not suffered.
8 Milkman by Anna Burns - 350 pages of thinly veiled references to "The Troubles" in N Ireland in a stream of consciousness style? No thanks.
Books like this make me want to copy Kingsley Amis (who I think borrowed this from someone else) in that his later years wouldn't read a book unless it began in the style of a "a shot rang out". i.e. thriller, crime or whodunnit.

re children'sbooks - I also borrowed Half Magic several times from the library as a child and often used to "wish twice" for something to happen. Also The wind on the Moon by Eric Linklater was a favourite.

I'm in! I used to read o much prior to having ds and I've kinda lost my way with reading. I've read about 10 books the past 5 years. I started getting books from the library at the end of last year and I picked up my first book of the year in a charity shop. I'm starting with:

The age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker.

1. My Name Is Anne, She Said, Anne Frank by Jacqueline van Maarsen

The subtitle of this is 'a wartime memoir from Anne Frank's best friend' and that is a much better indication of the content of the book. Anne Frank doesn't feature in it much at all - they become friends a few months before Anne goes into hiding. However, I expected that this would be the case so that didn't disappoint me. It was interesting hearing about the war from Jacqueline's perspective. She had a Dutch Jewish father, and a French mother who was Catholic but converted to Judaism when she married. Jacqueline started the war as Jewish, but as a result of her French mother she was 'delisted' as Jew. This meant she didn't have to go into hiding, and wasn't sent away as so many of her friends and neighbours were. Almost all her schoolfriends disappear at some point during the war, and most don't come back. While reading about all this was interesting, my gripe with this memoir is that it's very factual and emotionless. There's almost nothing in there about how Jacqueline felt about any of it. The memoir is also structured oddly - it starts with some background about Jacqueline's mother (although it's not clear at first that this is who is being discussed), then comes Jacqueline's memoir, then it ends talking about her father and how he met her mother, and then ends very suddenly with no conclusion. Overall, I'm glad I read it, but there will be better wartime memoirs out there.

I'm now reading Artemis Cooper's biography of Elizabeth Jane Howard. I read her autobiography a few years ago, so I'm interested to read about her life from an outsider's point of view. The Cazalet Chronicles are some of my favourite books, so I'm hoping to find out how her family viewed their publication given how autobiographical they were.

Sorry I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I loved Half Magic and am so glad to see it mentioned here as I have never met anyone else in real life who has heard of it, never mind read it.

4. Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig

Set before the outbreak of WWI, a young cavalry officer is invited to dine with a local nobleman, and commits a faux pas in asking his daughter to dance. In his attempts to make amends he commits further acts, driven from a sense of compassion, which lead incrementally to his becoming enmeshed in a web of obligation and shame, of his own misguided making, that threatens to overwhelm him. The interior life and muddled motivations of the main character are skilfully observed and captured in beautifully expressive, yet measured, prose. The story becomes truly gripping in the final third as the net tightens around him, and one has no idea what decision he will ultimately make to try and resolve his situation; his flawed and temperamental thinking is rendered so fully up to that point that all possibilities feel genuinely up for grabs in a way that still feels wholly within character. I won’t say it was a ripping read all through, it did require some patience and attention in the middle for a spell, but I also had a heavy cold at that point so can’t be sure if it was the book or my mind that became sluggish; I did begin to feel it lag and repeat its emotional beats somewhat. However, to take a small act of clumsiness and spin it into a spiralling internal turmoil which subsequently spills into life-altering actions, and to invest the reader so completely in how it turns out, is quite an achievement. It isn’t a book that grasps for the heart, but rather the mind, as it draws you into an examination of human emotions that provokes thought instead of sentiment, as the protagonist veers haplessly between callousness and compassion. Also worth noting the translation I read was by Anthea Bell, who I believe died only recently. After having read about her life and achievements in the papers I was happy to find I had, by coincidence, an example of her work on my tbr pile.

pencil Milkman was one of my best reads of last year

I also like Kingsley Amis.

3. In our mad and furious city by Guy Gunaratne.

A fantastic debut, well deserving of its positive reception.

It's set in a London estate just after the killing of a British soldier, and riots are spreading. 3 young men are trying to focus on their own lives but all get caught up in the swirling, crushing tension that's building in the streets around them. Their experiences are all the more poignant for the chapters of their parents reflecting on their own troubled histories.

On one hand the men are insignificant, their daily plights unremarkable, on the other they symbolise so much about what is great and what is flawed amongst our capital and country.

Will be interested to see what this author produces next.

Playing catch up here:

2.Help me - Marianne Power about her year of doing self help books. Funny and entertaining but I got annoyed with the fact she kept going on about how fat and a mess she was and I finally googled her and she was far from those things! Felt a bit inauthentic as to why she was doing the self help books - just to write a book not to actually learn something 3/5.

3. The Child - Fiona Barton a Skelton of a newborn is found on a building site, the story unravels through the eyes of 3 different women. Good story but I saw the twist coming a mile off, it was really obvious to me so why not the police officers investigating? Also the last chapter was completely bloody pointless. 3/5

4. Tell Me a Secret - Jane Fallon loved this book! Holly gets a promotion on the tv soap she works as an editor on. Suddenly things start going wrong and it appears someone is out to get her fired. This book was great, packed with drama and twists. 4/5!

I've decided last year I was too liberal with my 5 star ratings so have adjusted my rating system this year lol that's why first two have 3 stars!

I should also mention book number 5 is Queen of Bloody Everything by Joanna Nadin only 6% in atm but enjoying it!

Pencil I thought educated was an amazing story and far from seeing it as a 'misery memoir' I saw it as a triumph of education and determination over terrible adversity. Not sure how she could have made it shorter without cutting out several important incidents . I think it a situation like that the years of relentless abuse and trauma are key to how the author acted and related to the world. Without the full story it's not a true representation of the facts. I do see though that all these stories have a cathartic and self healing element for the author. And I guess only they can decide how to tell their story.

Updating with book 3 The Cactus by Sarah Haywood.

I didn't enjoy it at first and couldn't stop comparing it unfavourably to Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, but as the character/plot blossomed, so did I. Even had tears pricking at my eyes, and I really don't do sentimental! Would recommend for a weekend read (and it's only 99p on Kindle, right now!).

Just downloaded The Last Hours thanks to a recommendation upthread from @fivegomadindorset. I'm going to make book 4 Snap by Belinda Bauer though, as am massive thriller fan and don't have the brainpower today to step back to the 1300s.

And am with you @pencilmuseum - really struggled with, and ultimately gave up on, Milkman.