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 have Death At Wolf’s Nick by Diane Janes on my shelf. It’s non fiction looking at a case of an unsolved murder in the 1930s. Haven’t read it yet so don’t know what it’s like!

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan is one of my all time favourites. It has a lot of blood and sex, true, but it's not so much a horror as a playful literary exploration of what it would mean to be the last monster standing.

7. Catriona Macpherson - A Step so grave
   The latest in the Dandy Gilbert series of crime novels set from 1918 onwards. We're now in the 30's and up in the Highlands where Dandy's son Donald is getting married. There are murders and bits about clothes and "odd" Gaelic customs. I've really looked forward to these books coming out but I feel the author has lost interest. I suspect she'll finish the series on the eve of WW2.

   8. The Mangle Street Murders - MRC Kasasian This was slightly odd. Another murder mystery about an orphaned young woman in Victorian times who is taken under the wing of a guardian who is a noted private detective. I liked the detail of Victorian slum London but the detective was just strange!

1. The Two Towers - JRR Tolkien

More Hobbity fun. Suffers a little from 'middle book of a trilogy' syndrome and the second half, dealing entirely with Frodo and Sam's dreary march to Mordor, drags a bit; but it is livened by the appearance of Faramir who along with Aragorn was one of my teenage crushes in the books [grin

Hasn’t Mo Hayder written a book called Wolf? Not that I can recommend it - far too scarred by Pig Island to ever pick up another one. Terrifying!

Odd coincidence but I just found 15 year old DD lying on the floor of the spare room reading Wolf’s Magnificent Master Plan and chuckling away to herself. I hadn’t seen it in years but it was a big favourite of all the DCs when small. She’d highly recommend it!

Only just finished first book of the year

1. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

Was OK, a better ending than the tv series (which I found a bit of a let down) but not the fab read I was hoping for.

Am trying At Home with Jane Austen (Lucy Worsley) next - hopefully I'll get through this one a bit more quickly!

Ooohhhh kindle monthly deals look decent this month for a change! Worth a look - I'll update later with a list of what I'm buying.

They do indeed, KeithLeMonde! I picked up:
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie
The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
Brainstorm by Suzanne O’Sullivan
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

Murine you are obviously a woman after my own heart, whose first action on waking up on the first day of the month is to check the Monthly Deals

I too switched off the alarm and immediately checked the Monthly Deals!

I was coming on to say that Monthly Deals are the best I've seen for ages. I've only skimmed through them but will go back & pick later.

Hey, there's a wolf book The Wolf in the Attic. Doesn't look too gripping but doesn't look terrible either.

Would I like The Rosie Project? I know many of you read it way back, but I never got round to it, and I'm trying to remember if there was something putting me off.

Going off topic, sorry. Have any of you had this problem with your kindle?

It will download books that I buy on the kindle without problems.
If I buy a book on my laptop it will not download it to my kindle despite it being the default device.
Amazon insist that the only problem is that my kindle will not connect to wifi but obvious that's nonsense because it will download books that I buy on the kindle.
If I go to the amazon website and tell it to download books to my kindle it won't do them.

I have just spent 2 hours on the online chat with them telling me rubbish and it's still not fixed!

On the monthly deals I got

Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore after a recommendation on here.
Heist by Howard Sounes
After the crash by Michel Bussi
Born under a million shadows by Andrea Busfield
SIlent Tears by Kay Bratt*
Open Secret Stella Rimington
The Secret Mother by Shalini Boland - I've read a few of hers and they have always been good.
The wife before me

The Postcard by Leah Fleming is one of the deals, I read it not so long ago and can recommend it. The Secret Piano is another, as is The Apothecary's daugher

Have not had that problem. My kindle recently (3/4 days ago) had a big update - has yours?

I would also try shutting your kindle down completely & then restarting it (fixes a lot of things).

And I'd try disconnecting it from your wifi & reconnecting it.

Hope I haven't been stating the bleedin' obvious..............

Thanks...I'll try updating it - I've not had that.
Amazon customer service were, unusually, totally useless.

Silly question, perhaps, brizzle, but in your kindle library you should be able to see all the books you own, including the ones not on your device. Can you see them and download them manually from there?

5. Whispers Underground - Ben Aaronovitch

Another fun escapade with DC Grant and the supernatural beings of London. I didn't enjoy this one as much as the first two; there seemed to be a long lull in the middle where it felt like not a lot was happening. As usual, the final chapters were pacy and action packed. An enjoyable read.

That's reminded me, Decmus that when I buy my monthly free kindle book that comes with my subscription to The Times, I have to go to my kindle library & and download it manually from there.

Have you tried disconnecting your laptop from wifi & reconnecting it?

DecumusScotti Sadly not, that's the problem - it only shows me books that I bought on the kindle. If I go to the manage your content page on the Amazon website I can see them and tell it to download them but it doesn't work. Amazon are insisting that it is because my kindle won't connect to wifi which is incorrect.

thank you.

MuseumOfHam did you enjoy Eleanor Oliphant? The Rosie Project is of the same ilk IMO.

How annoying, brizzledrizzle. I haven't had this issue, hope you sort it out.

Loving the wolf chat!

1. Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted by Andrew Wilson. This is not the first biography of Sylvia Plath that I've read, but it added significantly to my knowledge of her. So much has been written and speculated about the Plath/Hughes relationship that it was refreshing, not to mention fascinating, to read one which focuses on her as a girl and a woman rather than a wife (the narrative ends in the spring of 1956 when Sylvia has just met Ted). Plath was a prolific letter writer and journal keeper, so there are numerous sources to draw upon (many of them previously unpublished). Highly recommended to those of you who like this sort of thing.

1. The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Seer Green. Set in the 1950s, Pearlie Cook is married to her handsome childhood sweetheart Holland, and is living in San Francisco with him and their child. Their lives are calm and ordinary until a man from her husband's past turns up on the doorstep. Why has he come, and what does his presence mean for their marriage? I loved this. Similar vibe to Anne Tyler.

So many brilliant wolf books! Thank you fantastic book lovers - there are loads I hadn't heard of or thought to read and I am going to try and read them all
I did laugh when I noticed a wolf book in the daily deals.

I'll stop going on about wolves now...

Oh damn, that’s weird. More potentially silly questions (sorry): do the details of the kindle on your amazon account match the details on your kindle itself, the email address you can use to send documents to and the serial number?

Thanks for The Rosie Project / Eleanor Oliphant comparison Tara. I liked the concept of Eleanor Oliphant but thought the execution was a bit hit and miss. The Rosie Project doesn't need me to read it, but I'll see what mood I'm in towards the end of the month when I have another look through the deals before they go off.

15. The Cactus, Sarah Haywoood
Prickly woman ( the cactus metaphor is unsubtle) with few social graces faces up to childhood traumas (less lurid than Eleanor Oliphant's, thank the good Lord) and is rewarded by being tucked up cosily into nuclear family by the end of the book. We'll be seeing lots more of this plotline, thanks to the success of Eleanor Oliphant.

I like spiky heroines, but am heartily sick of the Shrew being Tamed, the woman learning to conform to social norms and thus finally to be happy.

If Orwell had been more of a feminist: "But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. She had won the victory over herself. She loved Big Hubby".

I want the heroine to evade the clutches of the hero and run, cackling, towards the wide blue horizon.