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?

1. This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
2. Paper Aeroplanes by Dawn O’Porter
3. The Glass menagerie by Tennessee Williams
4. Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler
5. Endurance by Alfred Lancing
6. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

7. Animal Farm by George Orwell
There has been so much written about this I can hardly add much more, except that I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would. I can't actually believe that I had not read it before (we did 1984 at school, and I loved that, and re-read it recently)

On the surface it's an odd little story about a group of farm animal who get rid of the useless, abusive famer and decide to run things for themselves. They make ideal rules for their new society, such as All Animals are Equal, and the animals pull together to make the best of their new lives. Slowly and insidiously, things start to become worse and worse as the more powerful animals start to take advantage of their position and abuse their power.

Having done a degree in Russian and Russian literature, it is instantly recognisable as an allegory for the Russian Revolution and the following decades as things degenerate from the ideal of equality and democracy into corruption and tyranny.

Brilliant read.

I've finished Tickling the English, now I'm in a reading lull as I can't work out what to read next. I should be working today but I'm in a CBA mood and that seems to apply to choosing the next book as well

1. Sweet Little Lies - Caz Frear
2. The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
3. Gillespie and I - Jane Harris
4. This is Going to Hurt - Adam Kay
5. Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde
6. The Well of Lost Souls - Jasper Fforde
7. Something Rotten - Jasper Fforde

I've been listening to the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fford recently. The books are fun and I can listen while doing paperwork so they've got me through some boring days working at home. Irritatingly they have changed the narrator for the 4th book in the series. I liked the first narrator and found her easy to listen to but the new one pronounces some words and names completely differently (for example can't say minotaur) and is truly awful at the male parts - they all speak really slowly and with an odd accent. I'm going to read the next one on kindle as she narrates that too. Luckily, the audiobooks go back to the original narrator after that.

1. Highland Fling by Nancy Mitford. First story in the collected works by this author (bought on Kindle sale for 99p which I thought was rather bargainous).

Quite enjoyed this. It's quite funny in places and some of the conversations are hilarious. She must have been an astute observer of people.

1. Watching You by Lisa Jewell. Another 99p deal of the day so I thought 'why not?'. Galloped through it in one day as it was not very challenging, just escapism.

Still reading a few chapters per day of The Hidden Life of Trees. Also bought The Walker's Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs which was also 99p.

(Sorry for the lack of bold highlighting - can't work out how to do that on my phone.)

Now finished Becoming which is book number 4, so I am not really on track, considering I read 80 books in 2018. In my defence, my random number generator keeps throwing up tomes!

Becoming is very interesing, very well written and quite uplifiting, although as noted above her fear for the US and her disdain for Trump do come across strongly.

I was somewhat distracted by the breezy way she wrote about the opportunities and advantages she and her DH have given their daughters (meeting Spielberg at a party, for example, and then being offered an internship!) and I would have liked her to reflect on this. But it was a compelling insight into how little they could ever escape the rarefied world of the White House. Although I generally don't like American militarism. the passage where she described meeting veterans injured in conflict was very moving. She and Barack O invested a lot of time and energy into the ordinary and the marginalised : and she is clearly so proud of him , and herself. The bit where she gets a lift with Prince Phillip made me smile wrily : maybe she had a lucky escape that day! She doesn't really delve much into why Hillary lost against Trump : I think maybe out of diplomacy and tact towards the US citizenry. But she does express her disbelief that so many women voted for him : who she out and out calls a misogynist.

A detailed book, but a great read. Worth the time.

Thanks for the Robert Graves heads up Magimedi - have snapped that up for future reference. Ironically enough, I’m languishing somewhat on my fourth book of the year, Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman - maybe I need to get back to Greece pronto!

4. Marilyn Monroe - Hourly History

This was ok, I didn't learn anything new and the whole thing felt very superficial and rushed. Hardly surprising though as it is clearly meant as a short introduction.

I would recommend this series to readers who know nothing about the person being written about, maybe as a way of finding out if they want to research them more deeply.

Clueless, The Antidote is a self help book “for those who don’t like positive thinking” iirc! It’s a good read.

Yyy to January 74th (or 96th!)

6. My Naughty Little Sister by Dorothy Edwards. More nostalgic charm!
7. Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter. I know this book is divisive but I love it- I think you have to have read it as a child though. Which brings me to...
8. Bookworm by Lucy Mangan. I know it has been done before but I loved this - I must be 2 years older than Mangan, so it was incredibly familiar territory. I did have one jarring moment when she mentioned Hairy Maclary in the context of the 70s (too early!), but that is because almost everything else was perfection. That reliance on libraries, jumble sales and the lists on the backs of books! I wasn’t in London and I had Dahl before Ramona, and I was a fraction too old for the Sweet Valley High phenomenon (at least where I lived, my little sister had them); but the utter pleasure of Forest, the moment of “fitting in” with Blume, really resonated. It also reminded me of books I often saw but inexplicably never read- Phantom Tollbooth, Bridge to Terabithia- and ones I did read but made no impact (the trouble with Donovan Croft).

But! No Diana Wynne Jones! My favourite author for a huge formative part of my childhood (and early adulthood tbh!). I knew huge parts of Charmed Life, Power of 3 and Howl off by heart (probably still do). And for me at least there was a long overlap between children’s and adult fiction- at 12,13,14 I was reading Dick Francis and Georgette Heyer at the same time as Brent Dyer and Forest. But I loved this wallow in the past (and the very accurate mention of mumsnet!).

Wow this thread moves fast! Thanks for the Robert Graves tip - have snapped that up for future reading and American Overdose sounds fascinating (if somewhat depressing) too.

This week I’ve read (or more accurately finished) my 5th and 6th books Moby Dick which I began last year and The Sleep of Reason by David James Smith about the James Bulger murder, prompted by the reporting this week about the new Oscar-nominated film. I’m very easily distracted into non-fiction books when I want to know at least some of the actual facts behind the sensationalised media versions of news stories. Of course like everyone else who was a teenager or older in 1993 I was aware of this tragic case but didn’t know much about the backgrounds of the two boys who committed the murder and found this a very balanced account. Of course James’ poor parents have suffered a pain that the rest of us can only begin to imagine and are entitled to say whatever they like about the case and its outcome, but I wish the wider debate was not conducted in such vengeful and intolerant terms. This book was first published in 1994 so doesn’t really reflect the later debates on Venables’ reoffending but it’s interesting to read the background in the light of that.

As for Moby Dick I’m not sure enjoy is the right word (although it was very funny in places and the whaling detail was fascinating) but I can now understand what Andy Miller was saying in The Year of Reading Dangerously when he held it at arms length and felt different for having finished it. Need to read more chunky fiction and stop being distracted into newsworthy non-fiction I think

grimupnorth There is a novel Boy A by Jonathan Trigell which looks at the situation from the other end. A 24 year old is released from prison, convicted of killing a younger child when he was a child himself. It looks at his new relationships and how he navigates the world with a fresh start and a new name. It also looks at the way the media portrays these things. The author said it was not specifically about the Bulger case, but it is impossible not to draw parallels. It's about 10 years since I read it, but I remember thinking it was very good at the time.

Grimupnorth does The Sleep of Reason include lots of details about the violence? I would be very interested to read it, but just couldn't if the violence was described in great detail.

16 the wonder - Emma Donoghue - I swerved Room by the same author because of the upsetting subject matter. This one was also harrowing but well-written and finally a happy ending. An English nurse is brought to Ireland to observe a girl who is seemingly surviving without food. Lib the nurse has a tragic back-story of her own but is an impartial observer of the unfolding situation which is enough to put you off organised religion for life & to prompt pity for the ignorant peasants who accept whatever is presented to them or twist the circumstances of their tragic lives in order to meet the criteria for acceptance to heaven.
17 The Crime Writer - Jill Dawson - a fictionalised account of Patricia Highsmith's stay in Suffolk and what might have happened as a result of her lesbian liaison. Gripping stuff & the writer has quite effectively emulated the cool Highsmith narrative style to deliver an effective narrative.

Re The Greek Myths - this probably isn't news to a lot of people, but while the telling of the myths themselves is very good, Robert Graves' own interpretation of them is very out-of-date, and even at the time highly idiosyncratic. And I say this as a fan (who had a strict archaeology professor who drummed this into us)!

Enjoying catching up on all your reading. I’m still joint reading and listening to Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of our Nature - very interesting but lengthy, it’ll take me a while.

Museum, I bought Five Giants too. Lord knows when I’ll get round to reading it!

Another vote for The Antidote. I read it last year and thought it was very good.

I read Beloved more than 5 years ago and thought it extraordinary. A difficult and emotional story, Fortuna, I have always meant to re-read it, maybe this is the year..

@DecumusScotti The Tale of the Duelling Neurosurgeons is one of my favourite ever books!

10: The Allington Inheritance - Patricia Wentworth – A bit ‘thin’ but fine for reading on a Sunday morning lie-in.

Hi Fortuna yes I read Boy A about 10 years ago too - remember quite enjoying it at the time but not much else. Might try it again.

Mog Yes, The Sleep of Reason describes the injuries. The writing didn’t feel gratuitous to me but pretty upsetting and probably one to avoid if you’re especially sensitive to violence. I’ve turned to Wodehouse this afternoon for a deliberate change of tone - hope that doesn’t sound too frivolous or dismissive but I think you can recognise that things are tragic without wallowing in them....

14. The Children Act by Ian McEwan
I enjoyed this, particularly the insight into how a judge comes to their conclusions (though this is not done in depth it was a bit of a clarity moment). I was less interested in the private life of the judge as I was the case she was involved in (a 17 year old Jehovah Witness with Leukemia denying a life saving blood transfusion).
This is the second of McEwan's books I have read and find his writing enjoyable.

8. A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine- a reread from donkey's years ago. Really enjoyed it, and hadn't remembered the two major twists. Modern psycho domestic thriller writers could take a leaf.

Am about to finish * 9. John O'Farrell Things Can Only Get Worse" I know much of his Things Can Only Get Better by heart and as someone who also spent the 80s marching and sticking CND posters on lampposts I felt it was about me. This one is still good, but he's grown up and lost some of his fire, and I suppose so have I.

The Tolkien talk is interesting- not least because I've been thinking of re-reading. The Hobbit thrilled me as a child. I would have been maybe 7 when Mrs Day began reading it to us at primary school, and I had to run out and get my own copy to devour at the weekend as I couldn't wait for the next schooldays (see also Narnia and Watership Down)
I read Lotr when I had glandular fever about 20 yrs ago and I didn't read them "well" if that makes any sense. (I also skip campfire songs and elvish poetry)

We recently watched all the films again and the Hobbit being 3 is as though it's had JK Rowling's book editor on the job. "Nah, stick another 250 unedited pages in, they'll buy it anyway".

Was googling bits about the lotr characters and was amused to read the zillions of comments about Frodo-Elijah (surely a rival for Harry-Daniel as woeful miscasting?) never blinking and how Legolas only speaks directly to Frodo once in all the films and clearly thinks he's a prat.

I may audible them...

Just reading poem of the day from my poetry book (A Poem for Every Day of the Year).

Today is designated Holocaust Remembrance Day and the chosen poem is the very moving 'First they came for the Jews' by Martin Niemöller, which I thought I would share with you. I had forgotten just how moving it is in all its truthful simplicity.

First they came for the Jews'
and I did not speak out -
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists
and I did not speak out -
because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out -
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me -
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

I hadn't heard of The Antidote before but it's added to my wish list now :)

EmGee thank you for sharing, "moving in all its truthful simplicity" is a very good description

EmGee - thank you for that - I hope many people read it.

12. Lullaby by Leila Slimani

The book opens with the murder of a baby by the perfect nanny. It then flashes back to how it all came about.

Translated from French, this is an exploration of class divide and modern motherhood. It read like a Mumsnet bingo of cliches. I think I am too jaded / familiar with the themes from on here that it was nothing new or insightful. It was also pushed as a thriller, but didn't work as one. Only short (just over 200 pages) and an easy read, too busy on the social commentary to really focus on what is fundamentally a very dark theme.

It would make a very good book club read as there would be a lot of talking points, but the book itself only signposts them rather than tackling them. It felt a bit too much of a light touch for the subject it was handling.

EmGee thank you for sharing that today. Saddened by the 1 in 20 statistic going round. That poem gives a lot to think about with modern politics being what they are around the world.