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50 Book Challenge 2019 Part One

999 replies

southeastdweller · 01/01/2019 09:28

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?

OP posts:
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7
VittysCardigan · 01/01/2019 14:10

I'm in. I managed about 40 or so last year i think. I have bought a book journal to keep track this year. Haven't got anything started yet as i deliberately finished A head full of ghosts by Paul Tremblay before NYE.

BookWitch · 01/01/2019 14:13

Jalepeno , I listened to Lethal White on Audible in December. I loved it, I have enjoyed the whole series but I thought this was the best one so far

brizzledrizzle · 01/01/2019 14:19

Hello Vittys Smile

Spieluhr · 01/01/2019 14:24

Thank you FortunaMajor. I'll definitely add that one to my list.

I can't decide what to read next. I'm terrible at choosing books. I'm sitting here with Did You Ever Have a Family? Nicholas Nickleby, The Leopard, Persuasion and Maureen O'Hara's autobiography trying to decide between them, and considering going upstairs to look at the rest of my TBR.

I started a collection of short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle and I've only read 4 of the, but I've had to give up for now. I love old fashioned ghost stories but most of these aren't ghost stories and aren't particularly good if I'm honest. I'll finish them in the next week or so but it'll be off to the charity shop after that.

silentcrow · 01/01/2019 14:25

Tentative yes? I read excessively because it's my job as well as my pleasure, but last year got horribly out of balance with the vast majority having been read for work on a deadline. So making sure I read 50 books of my own choosing, at my own pace and with no reviewing pressure would be lovely Smile

I always have a couple on the go, so today I'm reading Queen of the North by Anne O'Brien on my Kindle, and The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton in paperback. No audiobook at the moment as my stack of those is all for work right now. Confused

VittysCardigan · 01/01/2019 14:27

Waves to brizzle

DrMadelineMaxwell · 01/01/2019 14:30

I'm in. Just finished my first one. An anthropologist on Mars and will work my way through the other books of his I've got in the next few days.
I expect to read more than 50 as I read every night before bed and whenever dh is watching tv as there's not much I like watching.

toomuchsplother · 01/01/2019 14:39

Thanks for the thread Southeast. I am in again for my third year.
Not doing any reading challenges this year but making an effort to get through my huge piles of unread books not to mention overloaded Kindle. Really going to try not to buy any physical books until I have made a sizeable dent in my stash.
Just started The Salt Path

KeithLeMonde · 01/01/2019 14:43

Thank you southeast and hello regulars and newbies 😊😊

My current read is Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave.

slappinthebass · 01/01/2019 14:44

50! I think I managed about 10 last year and half of those were young adult books 🤣. I'd love to join in but a book a week seems unachievable. How do you all fit in so much reading?

Mumof3teens · 01/01/2019 14:50

Can I join in please? Have loads of unread books, so really want to get on with them (inst ad of faffing around on MN). Will start with Murder on Christmas Eve

BookMeOnTheSudExpress · 01/01/2019 14:51

May I join?
A NyR to get back into voracious reading and stop flicking aimlessly through social media!

I have a shelf of books to read, a kindle full of 99p offers and classics and old favourites to revisit.

I started Adele Parks I Invited Her In this morning and am about 80 pages in and enjoying it so far. Nicely written (which after Good Friday by Lynda LaPlante which I finished late last night, is a good thing)

merryMuppet · 01/01/2019 14:52

I'm in again - managed 54 last year although got very bad at updating on here (will try better this year) but did enjoy reading reviews from other people and ended up reading PIllars of the Earth by Ken Follett from so many good reviews here and then followed that with Fall of Giants and Winter of the World - some big meaty reads to finish off the year.

Just today I finished Transcription by Kate Atkinson - my first of her books despite having a few on my book shelf and it was a thoroughly absorbing and thought provoking read to start the New Year. She approaches a life working in intelligence in a very English way. I'd finished Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews a few days before which is an entirely more American 'action thriller' type account and although both deal with how little the lives of agents belong to themselves, Kate Atkinson's account is almost more disturbing for how it's not at all 'action thriller' in nature. I had family in intelligence in the war and when we visited Berlin in the eighties, they weren't allowed over to the East which all seemed so bizarre and melodramatic given how long ago it all seemed to teenage me but maybe it wasn't so melodramatic after all. I'm itching now to do more research into the true historical stories this book draws on...

Frogletmamma · 01/01/2019 14:55

Managed 48 last year so back on. I will...make it to 50

Indigosalt · 01/01/2019 15:29

Daphne thanks for recommending Fen. By Daisy Johnson I don't think I read any short stories last year so probably should. She certainly writes in a very interesting way.

PepeLePew · 01/01/2019 15:54

First book of the year finished - was nearly done yesterday but it was too good to race through. Severance, by Ling Ma - it's a zombie apocalypse novel but much more gentle and thoughtful than most with a lot of time (unusually) spent in the years and months preceding the catastrophe, which allows for reflection on capitalism and its consequences. Really good on all counts and a good way to kick off the year.

brizzledrizzle · 01/01/2019 16:03

39 books already on the go! I'm pasting them into a spreadsheet as I go to try and keep me going on the thread having always dropped out early in the new year every other year.

CheerfulMuddler · 01/01/2019 16:03

I think I'm in too. Currently reading Career of Evil and thoroughly enjoying it, although I'm not entirely sold on all the details.

HoundOfTheBasketballs · 01/01/2019 16:04

Hello all. Signing into the thread. I managed 40 last year and aiming for 50 this year. I'm currently working my way through Labryinth by Kate Mosse. Really enjoying it so far.

noodlezoodle · 01/01/2019 16:12

Hello all and thank you southeast for the new thread. I just managed to squeak over the 50 line yesterday and hoping to do the same again this year.

mum2jakie · 01/01/2019 16:13

Please count me in this year. I'm starting on some Agatha Christie re-reads and YA stuff but hope to tackle something out of the ordinary for me over the course of the year.

OlafLovesAnna · 01/01/2019 16:23

I'm in!

I'm doing the Boot Riot Read Harder Challenge which has 24 prompts and plant to read an extra couple of books per month too.

I'm starting the year with The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

DeusEx · 01/01/2019 16:28

Hello all! Would love to join you this year.

Lies Sleeping by Ben Aaronovitch on the go - and as I have done something ‘orrible to my back and can’t really move much, I am making serious progress.

This Is Going To Hurt next, I think...

DeusEx · 01/01/2019 16:30

@OlafLovesAnna would love to hear your thoughts on the Moonstone - it’s one of the books that was on my university reading list that I never got around to and entirely blagged having read in exams, so feel I should go back and give it a try...

mamapants · 01/01/2019 16:31

Thanks for the thread.
Joined last year for the first time and got to 46. Hopefully make it to 50 this year.