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?

Crayolaa will be interested to see what you think of Snap

Do you all count the books that you read to your children? I'm thinking chapter books in particular, but the question relates to any book really.

Hug I don’t read to DD any more, but if I read the whole of something like Harry Potter to her I would count it, but wouldn’t count something like The Gruffalo.

Boiledegg I felt the same, nice to know other people remember it!
Pencilmuseum I had The Wind On The Moon too this very dated looking edition!

Same - chapter books if substantial ones but not the shorter ones or picture based books even if a lot of text, though I might sometimes discuss them without counting them I suppose.

Thank you. I'll be starting to read the Chronicles of Narnia to my two soon, and was hoping the books would count.

It’s taken me several hours to catch up on the thread but lots of great recommendations although, like others, I am trying to focus on my unread books both physical and on Kindle.

Latest reads are:

1. Men and Women - Haruki Murakami - this is a series of short stories mostly by men about women but not exclusively as one is about a man and his relationships with women. They give brief snapshots which in many cases left me wanting to know more about the characters - but, to be fair, I am not generally a fan of short stories because I like more detail about people than is possible in a short story. However, I enjoyed it even though some of the characters were a little odd and I would have liked longer stories!

1. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrow

I suspect lots of you have read this already. Written entirely in the form of letters between an author, her publisher, her friend and the members of the Society and set shortly after the end of WW2 and telling the story of Guernsey during WW2. I really enjoyed this and found the characters engaging. Notwithstanding the subject matter it’s quite a light and frothy read because of the attention also given to the author’s love life.

1 the little drummer girl John Le Carre
Very enjoyable read once it got going. Did lead to a few nights of insomnia and spy dreams.
Just started no 2 a country doctor's notebook Mikhail Bulgakov inadvertently following a theme of reading stuff I've seen on TV

1. Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco

First time I've read this in 15-20 years, having first read it age 17 and another two or three times in the years after. Delighted to enjoy it now every bit as much as I did then - it's kind of a thriller, kind of a historical romp through the legends of the Templars and the Holy Grail, packed with arcane knowledge, funny and sad; but really about the drive of humans to seek a deeper meaning to the randomness of life, and in doing so missing out on the actual good stuff of living.

1. Düstermühle by Stefan Holtkötter

(In German)

Set in a farming community near Münster, two old men die in suspicious circumstances. At first it looks like one killed the other and then had a fatal heart attack but when it is revealed this wasn’t possible, the local police start investigating. The theft of a photo album containing photos from the 1940s seems to indicate it must be some very old unfinished business. Meanwhile the sister of the police officer in charge is in hospital with sepsis and he’s avoiding facing reality. Lots of intersecting plots and a twist at the end.

9. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

The story is set in South Carolina in the 1960s, a time when racial segregation was still a way of life, despite the government passing legislation to change things. The book is told through the eyes on 14 year old Lily who runs away from her abusive father and takes their black servant, Rosaleen, with her. Lily’s goal is to keep Rosaleen out of jail after she was involved in an incident with three racists, and to find out about her mother, who died when Lily was 4 (possibly killed by Lily herself). They find themselves staying at the home of three black sisters where they run a beekeeping business, the same place Lily’s mother ran away to herself. Lily finds answers to some of her questions and learns that to live she must forgive herself and others.

I really enjoyed this book. The characters felt real, the descriptions were well written and I liked how it ended without wrapping everything up but still leaving a few questions unanswered. I’m sure most people will have read this already, but if not I would thoroughly recommend it.

3. Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor
Oh how I loved this!
Opening with the search for a missing 13 year old girl in the hills surrounding a rural village, this novel describes life in the community over the following 13 years.
This is so beautifully written, taking a perspective on rural life in which major events in the lives of the characters are only part of what's going on in the setting amongst descriptions of the landscape, weather and wildlife. I loved the imagery McGregor uses to talk about the changing seasons - life in rural communities is really influenced by the lengths of the day and he both shows the importance of this and uses language which made me see, for example, the "opening out" of the evenings in a new way. He says a lot about the characters in few words, and leaves some things hanging for the reader to wonder what might have happened to an individual or what their real story might be. Annual events come and go, some things stay the same and some change.
It all felt realistic and recognisable of rural life, with beauty and violence, unchanging landscapes and the ever changing weather and seasons, human inflence on the environment, long standing traditions and the developments of modern life. And because the whole is written very evenly, the occasional moments of humour made me burst out laughing unexpectedly.
This is a library book that I wanted to keep to savour, but I found The Reservoir Tapes in the library and so am now reading it as a follow up. I don't think it will live up to Reservoir 13 for me, but I'm pleased to stay in this world a little longer.

Hugandroll I counted the Narnia books in 2017.

I've got an urge to reread The Borrowers series and I'll definitely be counting those.

Book number two finished: The Secret Barrister. This has been reviewed a few times here I think, as well as mentioned fairly often on this year’s thread. The (anonymous at the time of publication) barrister makes the case that the legal system is somewhat messed up from top to bottom in the UK.

I found it interesting enough, but also a little bit depressing in general. I don’t really know much about the legal system but the case for the institutions involved in UK law being underfunded and under severe strain seems about right. Other people I know tell me that the health service is the same, ditto education. It just feels like a general malaise has crept in to life in the UK. This isn’t a party political point by the way, it just feels like a general trend over the last few decades. And so, although by every objective measure life is better now than it was in the past, it seems sometimes as though we haven’t had as much of a dividend from improvements in health and technology, for example, as we should have. But maybe it’s because I’m old and old people are hard-wired to feel this way ;)

Anyway, the book is okay, a bit repetitive at times but well written and with some nice dramatic examples of things going wrong. It was a work book club choice and I dare say I wouldn’t have picked it up otherwise, and it’s nice when that leads to something interesting and eye-opening.

On to number three, The Salt Path by Raynor Winn, because it’s been recommended a couple of times already on this thread.

Oh, does anyone else find that subsequent books always seem to have a connection? It’s obvious in this case since The Secret Barrister talks a lot about miscarriages of justice and changes to legal aid and The Salt Path starts with a miscarriage of justice exacerbated through not having access to legal aid, but other times the connections are not as straightforward, but they always seem to be there. I guess it’s just a human thing, to seek out connections and similarities...

Clueless I loved Reservoir 13. It has divided opinion but welcome to the 'loved it ' club.

1. The Explorer Katherine Rundell

Four children survive a plane crash in the Amazon some time in the 1920s, partly thanks to a meeting with an irascible explorer. Rundell is one of the current stars of children's fiction, mostly I think because of the adventurousness of her language - the modern style in children's books is for plate-glass fiction that tells a story, while Rundell relishes Wodehousian imagery: 'newspapers like people to sound like that. Like they have very clean shoes'. 'It tastes like a dead person's feet'. (They aren't all foot-related.) I admire her writing, but for me she doesn't quite get the emotional or character beats in quite the right place - and the writing isn't good enough to make the books worth reading for that alone, as Wodehouse is. I also didn't quite believe in her jungle; she writes as a visitor not someone who knows it intimately. I'm going to sound like a wanker here, for which I apologise, but I think I want to read what she's going to write in ten years time. I did like this one much better than Rooftoppers.

I have added Reservoir 13 to my wish list

I really enjoyed this and found the characters engaging. Notwithstanding the subject matter it’s quite a light and frothy read because of the attention also given to the author’s love life.

I really couldn't get into this book (Guernsey literary and potato peel society) when I got a paper copy in Borders quite a while ago. It's long gone so I got it on the kindle for 99p a while back but couldn't get on with the characters at all, they irritated me beyond measure and I think I gave up in the end. I think it was me not the book though as many others seem to have enjoyed it.

How far do you all go with a book before giving up? I tend to read 100 pages and if it's really not doing anything for me then I tend to move on.

A quarter of the way through is my rule about whether to DNF or not.

6. Behind Closed Doors by B P Paris

In bed early to recover from a cold so polished this one off very quickly. A very adept thriller about a "perfect" marriage that (inevitably) isn't all it seems. Economically written, claustrophobic and disturbing with a good ending. Not reinventing the wheel, but that won't be why you're reading it.

For me I can tell if it's a 'wrong place, wrong time' book within a few pages. I'm just not in the mood for it right now but will go back to it at another time.

Others I usually give more of a chance and if I've made some progress with it then I usually try to give it about 100 pages.

Is it just me or could most classic books knock your socks off in less than 200 pages but more modern books take at least 350-400 and usually only slighty make them fall down?

brizzle - I can see why you might have found the characters annoying - I think I was in the right frame of mind at the time I read it and found them endearing. I could have easily read it at another time and been itching to slap them!

I have to say that once I have started a book I tend to persevere. The only book I have not finished in the last five years is The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco - but otherwise I hate admitting defeat.

Clueless - is The Reservoir Tapes a sequel to Reservoir 13?

Can I join late?

So far this year I have read:

1. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng - a social issues sort of novel focusing on motherhood (adoption, abortion, surrogacy, etc etc) set in 1990s Ohio. Not my usual sort of thing but read for book club. A smooth read but too contrived and so many point of view characters it was hard to feel attached to any of them. 3/5

2. The Bull From the Sea by Mary Renault (from 1962!) - retelling of the Greek myths about Theseus, with supernatural elements removed and placed in a vividly imagined Bronze Age setting. Extremely clever at inventing a historical basis for all Theseus' famous adventures, and the tragedies of his life are all the more heartbreaking because (if you are familiar with the myth) you know what's coming. 5/5

3. Animal by Sara Pascoe - feminist autobiography in the vein of Caitlin Moran's How to be a Woman, with an emphasis on the evolutionary origins of our mating behaviours (but funnier than that). 4/5

4. Women and Power by Mary Beard - text of two recent lectures situating modern women's political disadvantages in a cultural narrative originating in the classical past. 4/5

As you can see, I am interested in feminism and classical history!

Now reading Dynasties (book of the BBC natural history series) and The Winter Isles by Antonia Senior (historical novel set in medieval Scotland).

I loved Reservoir 13 too, Clueless. It was one of my favourite reads from last year.

I like the sound of the Minette Walters books, FiveGoMad. I used to read her books a long time ago but haven't done so recently. My husband's from Dorset. We live just over the border now, so we know it pretty well too

Hi inmyownparticularidiom and other new joiners

I do tend to give around a hundred pages, or whenever I see something stupid, so sometimes I get half way through and read something that breaks the camel’s back, or it might be in the first couple of pages. I try and be patient if something just seems like hard work but is well written and intelligent and read through to the end.