50 Book Challenge 2019 Part Two

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the second 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, it's not too late to join, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

The first thread of the year is here.

What are you reading?

I’m fairly immune to the ‘and then Binky shrieked and we simply roared’ school of writing but I have to admit I really enjoyed the Waugh-Mitford letters. They are a bit like that but with a subversive and, I think, knowing undertone.

Thanks for that, Terp.

Yes thanks Terp and Satsuki will be interested to hear how you get on with Proust! DH keeps threatening to read that but has never got past the first 50 pages. I think that I am going to be realistic and save it until I retire. I do eat madeleines from time to time though so will count that as preparatory research.

grim I read the first volume 10 years ago when I had a long commute and really enjoyed it, but never moved on to the next. My dh bought me the others one year and they’ve been sitting there for years now. Andy on the Backlisted podcast - which is great btw - worked his way through the whole lot last year at around 500 pages a month and I so I thought I might try, in keeping with clearing what’s on my shelf! He said the last 200 pages was one of the best reading experiences he’s had so I’m going to try and bear that in mind when it gets gluey in the middle!

Sorry for all the exclamations, I’m obviously hysterical at the idea of it

I do eat madeleines from time to time though so will count that as preparatory research.

Excellent prep!

oooo satsuki I love Backlisted too! I noticed this morning that they are 'doing' Jilly Cooper so am looking forward to listening to that on the way home tonight.

And am clearly equally hysterical (!!!!)

One of my favourite reads of last year, A Month in the Country by JL Carr, was only on my radar because of the Backlisted podcast :)

I’m listening to the Jilly Cooper one now! It’s rather good and funny. I hope this might deflect any accusations of snobbery after my Proust outburst. I’m also buying a Madeleine pan ASAP!

Backlisted is possibly even worse for the to read list than this thread - I got Month in the Country from there too waawo. Although it had been on my radar as there are a few JL Carr fans on here who spoke highly of him previously. I picked up Fortnight in September from it which I’m currently reading.

I have just finished book 8 The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden. It's the final book in a trilogy and I read the first 2, The Bear and the Nightingale, and The Girl I the Tower, last year. They're set in medieval Russia and include a lot of fantasy and magic. I loved them. They have great characters, especially the heroine, and lots of action.

Book 9. The Mortal Word by Genevieve Cogman.
More fantasy, must be the time of year and my rather dreary life at the moment. This is the latest in a series of books about a Librarian, who moves between worlds, attempting to track down vital books, and having adventures with dragons and fae - very attractive fairy folk. I'm currently unemployed, and I've decided I want that job.

Can anybody recommend an accessible book about Russian history please? I was talking with somebody about St. Petersburg the other day and realised that my general knowledge about Stalin was woefully lacking

Brizzle - Simon Sebag Montefiore's Stalin book is good (The Court of the Red Tsar). Do not recommend his Romanov book though. Helen Rapport has written some decent books about the Romanovs.

Brizzle - for more recent Russian history, I found The Man Without a Face (a biography of Putin) to be an interesting, if rather depressing, read.

Brizzle, Catherine Merridale's The Red Fortress, though ostensibly a history of the Kremlin, is actually a very decent introduction to Russian history. Not so detailed on the 20th century as other works but I found it a good compact introduction to a massive subject.

11. Henry VIII and the men who made him - Tracy Borman . I have a real weakness for Tudor history and this book was a great addition to the collection . Borman writes knowledgeably but is very readable. The human interest in the facts is never lost but neither is the pudding 'over egged' so to speak. This is a rare biography of Henry which doesn't labour the '6 wives' angle and looks in more detail at the way scheming and intrigue shaped the court and the course of British law and religion. As always you are left with the feeling that the Tudor court was a dangerous , brutal and fickle place to be. Have previously read Borman's The Private Lives of the Tudor's and will search out her biography of Thomas Cromwell.
Would recommend to anyone else with a Tudor interest obsession

1. The Collectors (Camel Club #2) by David Baldacci

Here comes the Camel Club again - a couple of nerds and misfits plus an ex-CIA-assassin, who solve another murder mystery together and unravel a spy ring.

This started out OK and I enjoyed the development of various story lines but then it all got a bit ludicrous. It's the kind of book you would want to read on a long haul journey and nothing more.

1. A Game of Thrones (A Song if Ice and Fire #1) by George R. R. Martin
2. Avenger by Frederick Forsyth
3. Mr Spaceship by Philip K Dick

"Does anyone else frame plots as posts on MN? "

That would be difficult with the sort of books I read

Aliens have contacted the Earth. WWYD?

I'm a dead Baroque musician who works in a church. AIBU to want to be a court composer?

Cote for your first query, can I suggest the Preppers topic might be appropriate

Wasn't their a similar thread about book characters on Mumsnet a couple of years back?

There not their!

I've had to do a lot of uni reading recently as I have an assignment due on Thursday morning, so I'm behind in my 'for pleasure' reading. I did, however, have to read ETA Hoffman's The Sandman (can't class it as a book as it's only a short story). I really enjoyed it though - I can see why Poe was influenced by Hoffman. If you like Gothic stories or the Sublime, you should give it a go.

Still plodding through The Winter Isles by Antonia Senior (historical drama set in twelfth century Scotland in a Norse-Gaelic context) and not enjoying it at all.

Failed my driving test for the second time today so I imagine it will get on my nerves even more now.

CoteDAzur, what's the book about a dead Baroque musician who works in a church and wants to be a court composer? Is it fiction (or I can think of a few real composers it could be about)?

bibliomania, thanks for the Reading Allowed rec, I've placed it on hold at the library (seemed appropriate).

And thanks all for the Backlisted podcast rec - I've downloaded the Jilly Cooper episode and am really looking forward to listening.

HugandRoll I read The Sandman for a uni course over a decade ago and you’ve just reminded me of it. Such a weird and twisty tale