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?

6. The Tattooist of Auschwitz - Heather Morris
Much reviewed on here. This book really touched me and I still cannot comprehend that people survived such awful things or that so many people believe this didn’t happen. A true story which will not leave me for a long time.

For crime fans, I have just seen that the first in Tana French's excellent Dublin Murder Squad series, In the Woods , is currently 99p on Kindle.

noodlezoodle I know, like a book in itself!

alias it’s The Closed Casket you could probably skip it but the plot is central because of parallels in the real world and Sophie Hannah herself features quite prominently.

OMG Satsuki - that New Yorker article !!!

(Now even less tempted to read his book than I was before)

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller is £1.09 in today's kindle daily deal.

11. The Harpole Report - J. L. Carr

The excellent Backlisted podcast on Carr's A Month in the Country mentions how diverse all his other books are - and this one's certainly different. It's probably his best-known other than AMITC, a frequently-hilarious chronicle in letter, journal, official log and other documentary form of the interim reign of George Harpole as Acting Head of Tampling St Nicholas Primary School.

Carr was a teacher for 37 years so he knows what he's writing about, and there's a distinct Diary of a Nobody flavour about a lot of this - it passed my test of making me laugh out loud on public transport. Admittedly it's very dated, even for 1972 when it was first published (administering a sound smacking to persistent miscreants will sure raise some eyebrows in 2019), but I still raced through this with great enjoyment. There are a couple of quasi-sequels so I'll be seeking those out at some point.

Just came on to say the same thing, magimedi!

7 Conversations with friends - Sally Rooney

I may be alone here as it’s not popular on this thread but I really liked it.
Bobbi is a lot like my sister so maybe I “got” her a bit more.
I may also be the target audience too, late twenties, love life a mess just trying to muddle through.

Thought the last 30 pages lost momentum but otherwise I enjoyed this.

Ah, @Terpischore, I too remember your recommendation for The Whites and it has been on my wish list for some time. I intend to read it this year at some point and I'm looking forward to it. No pressure

Yes, The Whites was a good call, Terp

Satsuki, I'm amazed The New Yorker's lawyers let it print that story. What a take-down.

Yes biblio it really pulls no punches.

Satsuki and others re Daniel Mallory/“AJ Finn” - I’ve started a thread in site stuff to find out whether the web chat with Daniel is going ahead tomorrow www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/3499866-AJ-Finn-webchat-promo-needs-reconsidering-no?msgid=84712527#84712527

Also to try to get them to put more thought into their book of the months promos. This thread is evidence of the readers on MN, and it would be great if those slots could be somewhat curated, so we find wonderful new writers who might otherwise get overlooked. They’re always filled with highest bidder (I think), which means it’s the same old dross as is on large display in the supermarkets. Fair enough for Hq to charge for the advertising but it doesn’t stop them being a bit more picky.

I don't understand at all the fuss about his alleged lies - what's it got to do with the novel he's written?

He got the book published so easily by knowing all the right people through working in an editorial role at a publishing house... (which he seems to have managed by lying about a PhD and DPhil when he didn’t even complete his masters). Also there is an insinuation that he copied the storyline from a film.
At its heart though, there is a belief that for all their talk of inclusion, publishing remains pale, male and stale and this is proof.

It’s distasteful for sure and of note to past and future colleagues, and an interesting look behind the curtain of the publishing world, but he didn’t commit a crime.

I’m not really the market for these thriller of the month type books as it’s not a genre I enjoy, but lots of people do.

The Growing Summer was one my favourites as as child too :) I read back through all my Noel Streatfeilds when dd was younger, and it was lovely to re-visit them.

Happy to see more JL Carr love too - though I guess a lot about The Harpole Report reflects the period when he was teaching, it's still very funny. My favourite is What Hetty Did (though perhaps influenced by the fact that I first read it when I was Hetty's age), followed by When Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won The FA Cup. There's a very enjoyable biography of him too, by Byron Rogers.

OK, but that still doesn't detract in my view from my enjoyment of the book (which was fine but quite forgettable). It's all a bit of a non-story for me personally, but it was interesting to read the article so thank you Satsuki for that.

It doesn’t distract from your (lukewarm )enjoyment of the book, but it would do for me. (I hadn’t bought it). That’s just personal taste, I suppose. I don’t expect/need writers to be whiter than white, but this leaves an incredibly nasty taste in my mouth. Probably because I’m widowed - my older kids lived through a parent dying of cancer, and it has overshadowed every part of their childhoods. Whereas this poor excuse of a human being lied about losing parents to cancer (and a brother to suicide, and experiencing cancer himself) for personal advantage. I’ve found it upsetting.
(My question will be along these lines if he comes for the webchat tomorrow... wonder if I’ll get deleted?)

southeast I mean I agree I’m not sure how much it should have to do with the book and its sales now it’s out there as nothing he did was criminal. I found the whole thing fascinating - all the interactions with publishers and other authors, the auction etc, the fact the piece has been done in that way - but not sure to what end it all is!

That article leaves a very nasty taste. He is a cruel, manipulative liar. Having lost one parent to cancer, and one who tried to kill himself several times (he was a depressive alcoholic all the time I knew him), to have someone pretend about such things in order to gain advantage, is beyond despicable in my opinion.

I am ashamed now that I bought his book. My husband read it, but I don't want to. It has coloured my opinion of him. I'm glad it hasn't done so for you, southeast, but I am angry that someone can lie and lie and lie like that and expect to get away with it.

Finn/Mallory's touch of the Walter Mitty does perhaps go some way to explaining why The Woman in the Window felt so poorly researched and lacked credibility - the man appears used to making stuff up on the hoof and blithely ignoring any suggestion that things don't hang together properly.

Gosh, just caught up with the NY article. I really enjoyed the book, I had it down as a "superior" sort of psycho thriller, but I certainly look at it differently now.
Hmm.

I understand your feelings artemesia

re A J Finn/D Mallory New Yorker article - I read that with some incredulity too but nothing would surprise me. The book was in the library so picked it up for a quick skim before I saw the article but wouldn't pay for it. I do begrudge the 99p I spent on the kindle version of The Shooting Party by Lucy Foley - yet another sketchily (shoddily I might say) written psycho thriller. Again, she has already sold the film rights (mentioned in her acknowledgements) & I expect they will lose half the characters as some add nothing to the plot or are so cliched as to be laughable. Snowy Scottish scenery always transfers well the to the big screen doesn't it? I also picked up for 10p in the withdrawn library stock Y is for yesterday by Sue Grafton. I don't think she made it to Z but her daughter might have finished off the last one. I stopped reading them mid-alphabet years ago as they were a bit groundhog day - I am waiting to see if her lovable geriatric landlord is still alive. Or perhaps it will be a close relative ...

also re literary intrigue - have just seen Can you ever forgive me by Lee Israel for which I had high hopes but was underwhelmed. Richard E Grant was as good as ever but I found it hard to warm to Melissa McCarthy as Lee who was apparently bemused as to why she had an infestation of flies when she had loads of fossilised cat shit under her bed. Pets eh.