25 (ish) books in 2019

[Chickoletta]

Inspired by, but also slightly overawed by, the 50 book thread, this is a thread for those who love to log their reading but don't have the time or inclination for such a high target. The aim is to read 25 books but it really doesn't matter if you don't get close to that or far exceed it - the idea is to exchange recommendations and thoughts.

I loved this thread last year and was really inspired by some of the suggestions so have taken the liberty of starting this year's version.

I only managed 19 books last year due partly to being a slow reader (even though I'm an English graduate and teacher) and also it being a rather busy and stressful year. I'm definitely hoping to beat that score in 2019.

Please number your books and give titles in bold to make it easy to follow as well as sharing thoughts about them.

My favourite book of last year was The Heart's Invisible Furies', as recommended here.

Just finished my first book of the year:

1. 'Why Mummy Drinks' by Gill Sims (bought for me by my own mother for Christmas - no offence taken!!)
Light hearted and well-observed, this was very enjoyable. Some laugh out loud moments as well as many wry observations about family life. I think I would have enjoyed it more if her children didn't sound so totally insufferable!

Looking forward to sharing our reading this year.

I’m slowly getting there. I’ve just begun # 8 though I’ve still to finish #4.
#8 is a fatty - The weight of ink, by Rachel Kadish. I’ve read 3 non-fiction about D-Day and events after that but I’m going to focus on fiction for a few months.

14. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling – with DS (and reading for the first time myself). Far, far too long and overwritten, but became very exciting in the end, which redeemed it somewhat. Definitely bit too much 'romance' – really not sure why I should care about Cho.

15. Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson – pretty good thriller if you ignore the plot holes and general unbelievability, which I did.

16. The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai – A book club choice about the AIDS crisis in Chicago in the Eighties. A little long but very good and well written. Something I never would have usually read, which is par for the course for my book club!

Now reading 17. Normal People by Sally Rooney - can't wait to finish it, and 18. The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller - which is brilliant so far.

@karmatsunami85, what's the Villanelle book like? I got that on Kindle when it was 99p. And yes, I was very disappointed with Kathy Reichs too, I have a soft spot for Bones the TV show but the books weren't good!

After Me Comes the Flood by Sarah Perry
I picked this up as I loved the Essex Serpent but was generally pretty disappointed with it. She writes well and creates an intriguing situation here - a loner gets lost in a remote area and arrives at an isolated house where the strange inhabitants seem to be expecting him and know him by name. That's as good as it gets though. Very little happens and the characters began to irritate me very early on. On the back, there is a review by Sarah Waters who describes this as 'dream-like narrative' a I'd agree but it was so bloody dreamlike at times that I had no idea what was actually going on.

PS - that was 9 for me. Took me ages. Now hoping to speed up!

28. When All Is Said by Anne Griffin on Audible. This book came to my attention when I heard the author speak at The Scottish Borders Book Fair the synopsis is: Over the course of a single evening in 2014, 84 year old Maurice lines up five drinks and proposes a toast for each, instigating extended internal monologues dedicated to the five individuals who have most closely shaped his life and experience. The first toast is raised to Maurice’s elder brother Tony, whom he idolised but who died of consumption at an early age. The second monologue is dedicated to Maurice’s stillborn daughter Molly, and the third to his disturbed sister-in-law Noreen, considered in the language of the time to be suffering from “melancholy” and committed to an asylum. The fourth toast goes to Maurice’s only surviving child, Kevin, who left rural Meath to pursue a journalistic career in America; before he finally raises a glass to his beloved wife Sadie, whose death two years ago is still raw in his memory.

I felt this was an excellent premise for a novel, and on the whole it was an enjoyable listen, initially I had high hopes, but I felt the sub plot of a valuable coin sort of petered out and the ending felt a bit telegraphed. Perhaps though, having seen the author speak about the novel, too much of the plot was given away before I read the book for it to hold any surprises.

29. The Tattooist Of Auschwitz by Heather Morris. Well covered on here and much criticised for the poor writing. I listened to this free via Borrowbox and many of the issues of the writing were well masked by Richard Armitage's excellent narration. It was a horrifying and gripping story that reduced me to tears at the end, no mean feat with an audio book when I'm usually multi-tasking and therefore not giving the story the 100% concentration demanded by reading a book. The atrocities witnessed by the protagonist are so numerous and so frequent that as a reader you almost find yourself, like the characters, becoming desensitised to the horror they are encountering on a daily basis. As always when reading WWII set novels I wonder where the good Germans were, many must have been dragged into this situation appalled by what was going on around them, yet here even the minor characters seem to have psychopathic tendencies. I also wondered how much the main character was an unreliable narrator, I don't think many would have blamed him for keeping himself alive in this hellish reality by what ever means he could, but here he is painted as an angelic figure who helps those around him and selflessly shares what extra rations he can obtain despite being on the point of starvation himself. (But maybe that's a reflection on my own mean spiritedness and a hope I'm never put to the test as Lali was!)

Oops sorry peeps, that was meant for the 50 Bookers thread, I'll repost. But I also lurk and follow all your reviews here and I've got some great recommendations as a result

@musicmaiden The Villanelle book was pretty good. Not a patch on the series, but you get a little more background on Villanelle. Worth a look.

Finished Travellers in the Third Reich, no 24, by Julia Boyd. About foreigners in Germany 1918 to 1945 including a few British wives who got stuck with their German husbands during the war.
Fascinating and not too dense either though I lost track of a few of the aristocrats.

15. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

This was a re-read from many years ago prompted by listening to the Backlisted podcast episode. Fabulously dark, gothic fairy/folk tales. The writing just begs to be read aloud but, given some of the dark content, probably only if you happen to be home alone!

I've lost my reading mojo a bit. It took me ages to finish The War on Women, it's a great book that all women and actually men should read. However, the treatment of women around the world made me so angry in parts I had to step away now and again. I do however, highly recommend it.

Book 20 was The Night Olivia Fell by Christina McDonald. I enjoyed this, it kept me wanting to know what happened until the end. I does get very mixed reviews on goodreads, but both friends I recommended it too liked it also....

I think Book 21 will be The Mother's Lies by Janne Sefton.

10. Normal People by Sally Rooney I found this very readable and engaging but was very frustrate s by both characters by the end. There is a whole thread about this novel, so I won't say much more, but I'm at a bit of a loss to understand why it won so many awards and was even Booker nominated. For me, it was very much like a David Nicholls novel but with less sympathetic characters.

Next one I finished was Crimes against a Book Club, light and somewhat amusing, no 25.

Been a bit communications dark on this thread but I've read a few:

11: I Found You by Lisa Jewell. A re-read because I was struggling with low mood etc and it impacted my concentration for reading so wanted something familiar and I love Lisa Jewell so got a bit of comfort from it.

12: Moving by Jenny Eclair. Borrowed from a friend a year ago, put off reading it because "famous comedian gets book deal" trope really irritates me but actually it was very enjoyable and interesting, I'd maybe go so far as to say it's intelligent.

13: The Friend by Teresa Driscoll Read on a kindle app on my phone in quiet moments while waiting around etc. Can't say I massively enjoyed it really. Posh mums in a posh village. It jumped around in terms of "before" and "today" and in the end I just wanted to know what happened in the end and not how any of them got there.

14: The Chalk Man by C J Tudor I bought this ages ago in my local Waterstones as they were promoting it because she wrote it in their Costa branch. It's ok. A bit of a Who Dunnit before and present day scenario again. I didn't guess who dunnit but I wasn't surprised. Strange ending though. Don't know if she was setting the character up for a sequel.

Finished no 26, Etta and Otto and Russell and James, which is actually my goal for the year but I'm not sure I'll get to 50!

16. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

Another re-read, this one inspired by the release of Big Sky. I thought I'd catch up with the earlier Jackson Brodie books as I remember really enjoying them first time round. Although, having said that I think I missed Started Early, Took My Dog first time round so I do, in effect, have two new Jackson Brodie novels to enjoy.

I think I first read this when it came out in paperback as I was a Kate Atkinson fan but not really a fan of the detective novel in general. I loved Jackson then, as I did this time round. I particularly loved the descriptions of Amelia, reading the book for a second time (one of the sisters of a missing girl). She is so in need of a happy ever after.

The plot twists and turns all came back to me as I read which proves to me that I was completely engaged with the book first time around. I'm looking forward to catching up with all the others now. Hopefully by the time I've caught up Big Sky will be out in paperback.

a couple of books down over the last month or so...

15. The Idiot by Elif Batumen
I didn't really enjoy this. It started well, showed some promise and then just went...nowhere? I'm unsure how I feel about the protagonist, she annoyed me but I'm not sure if the point of the book was that we shouldn't be annoyed by her because of external factors? The guy she was pining after was a douchebag though.

16. The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
Loved it. Submarine hunting, backroom deals, shady spies, is it going to work? Just great.

17. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
Couldn't put it down. A light read with big themes and a zippy plot. I should have seen the twist coming but I didn't. Flew through this in a day.

Currently on...

18. The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
Excellent fantasy fiction with dragons, queens, warring kingdoms, secret factions and likeable characters. Really enjoying it so far but only 30% of the way through. It's something like 800-900 pages.

32. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Goodness this was bleak. Not sure I would have finished it if I hadn't been away with huge chunks of the day to devote to reading. The blurb tells you it's about four friends who meet at College but it's really the story of the, abandoned as a baby, Jude St Francis (unlikely name aIert) who has been emotionally, physically and sexual abused from a young age until he leaves the care system aged 16.
    Although the abuse was depressing and disturbing it wasn't told in a gratuitous way and was told gradually in flashback throughout the book I therefore found it easier to deal with than the many and varied passages dealing with self harm. Many of which I had to skim read being squeamish. I didn't buy into the central relationship which seemed to be a little too convenient for my liking and I found the love and devotion inspired by Jude unlikely as he was unable to open up about why he was the way he was and would therefore probably come across as a distant and difficult person to those who he crossed paths with.

    33. This Is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay. I think everyone knows the premise of this by now - Ex Junior Doctor spills the beans - and I quite enjoyed it, certainly a lot more laughs than A Little Life! Although as mentioned above being squeamish I did skim read some passages, therefore don't know and don't want to know what 'ungloved' means in a medical context!

I'm a bit behind but hoping to make ground!

6 . A History of Loneliness, John Boyne
Enjoyed it but not as good as some of his others

7 This House is Haunted, John Boyne
Good ghost story

1. Macbeth

Read it for work but it was in my own time so I am counting it!

9 The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Stuart Turton
Would really recommmend this. Took a couple of chapters to get my head round it but I was really gripped and raced through the rest!

Now reading..
10 The Clockmaker's Daughter, Kate Morton
I love a Kate Morton. Finding it really enjoyable so far.

I've a got a bit of a spooky country house theme going on in my reading at the moment. Can't say i'm complaining though!

1 Surprise Me - Sophie Kinsella
2 The Cactus - Sarah Haywood
3 Remember Me? - Sophie Kinsella
4 The Cows - Dawn O'Porter
5 Elinor Oliphant is completely fine - Gail Honeyman
6 This is going to hurt - Adam Kay (part way through this book and gave up, the entries were too short for me and I couldn't follow it)
7 Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty
8 One of us is Lying - Karen M McManus

Finished no 27 Hot Milk by Deborah Levy.
I hate books where the characters are well written but irritating or have no insight. The main character Sofia should just have told her mother to get over herself instead of pandering to her and it would have been a much more satisfying book.

23. How Not To Be A Boy - Robert Webb
24. Unravelling Oliver - Liz Nugent
25. The Woman in the Window - A. J. Finn

These last 3 I highly recommend.

26. A Room with a View - E. M. Forster
I started this months ago but wasn't in the mood for it so I'm about to give it another go.

Been on holiday so read three in a week, loved it!

15: Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls Loved it. Loved his metaphors and similes, his ability to put you right there is fantastic and his characters are wonderful. Didn't have the ending I wanted (I shouted "Noooooooooo!" From my sun lounger) but it was still a brilliant book

16: The Man Who Didn't Call by Rosie Walsh. I ended up reading this in a day. I really enjoyed it. Once I'd got over her whining about him not calling I was intrigued about what had happened, thought I'd guessed but hadn't quite got it right. Made me cry a little bit at the end.

17: One Minute Later by Susan Lewis. Ugh. Do not recommend. Full of insufferable pricks. Persevered only because it was my last couple of days and my remaining book and I had used actual money to buy it. The characters are completely unrealistic, nothing whatsoever to relate to, almost like a Joanna Trollope type thing, no research into certain aspects and just really bloody irritating. Everyone so perfect and two dimensional, no personality whatsoever unless you count stereotypes. Only read it to find out who the father was and wasn't particularly surprised. Flicked through the last pages after that. Won't be reading another of hers in a hurry and she's written a boat load of books which I think is never s good sign...

Onwards!

Whoops, I plopped off this thread ages ago!
I have 8 books on my list, although I abandoned one as I just couldn’t get into it. I might try again at some point, it wasn’t crap or anything.
Here’s my list.

1. The Dun Cow Rib by John Lister-Kaye
2. The Mitford Murders by Jessica Fellowes
3. Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith
4. From a Distance by Raffaella Barker
5. Friday’s Child by Georgette Heyer (the unfinished one)
6. Anne of Avonlea by LM Montgomery
7. Anne of Ingleside by same
8. Old Filth by Jane Gardam

And then number 9 will be Lethal White by Robert Galbraith. It’s a big book but I’ve been wanting to read it for a while. A lot of my problem is that I’m just not particularly disciplined about reading I can go days without reading. I read 14 books last year; technically I read more but for this thread I’m counting new (to me) books only. I have a large pile of to-read books...

Finished no 28 An American Marriage by Tayari Jones.
I would actually really recommend this especially if you are not too familiar with the issues (random arrest and incarceration of black men in the US) but I did find the characters a bit stereotyped in their personality/ability to overcome challenges - it seemed like it was written for a non-savvy audience, rather than for people like the characters.

Very late to this, but may I join? With two small children, neither good sleepers, reading anything other than my phone during night feeds seemed impossibe to imagine. But hurrah, the baby has finally been moved into his own bedroom and after a whole year of waking hourly has decided he will sleep for some longish stretches, so I have started into the dusty to-be-read pile beside the bed.

Is it ok to count audio-books here? I listen to more books than I read, thanks to my daily commute.

So, my month-old list:

1. Normal People by Sally Rooney. I see many of you have read this one. I enjoyed it a lot, though I did want to give both of them a shake. I did get slightly irritated by the constant reference to Marianne's thinness. I know it's meant as a comment on her emotional fragility or whatever, but I find it a really lazy cliche. It reminds me of the way journalists talk about female celebrities in interview features in the Sunday supplements: "Elizabeth FamousPerson folds her delicate frame into the booth opposite me, shoving her oversized jumper up her bird-like arms as she peruses the menu. 'I'm ravenous!' she declares, and orders enough food for three builders." I mean, Sally Rooney is a smart woman so maybe she does it deliberately, but I feel not. But it was nicely observed, in general.

1. My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher. I loved this. It's narrated by an eleven year old boy, and tells the story of what happens to his family after his sister is killed by a terrorist bomb. Themes of grief, loss, depression, racism, friendship etc - very weighty themes, but they don't feel unbearably heavy through the boy's perspective. A really lovely study of childhood friendship and intimacy too. I listened to this, and it was read by David Tennant whose voice is brilliant.

I am currently listening to Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield and really liking it. Will review on completion.