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?

Love that review, Fortuna! even though I enjoyed the book

I saw Conversations yesterday at the library but thought better of it as I didn’t rate Normal People all that much and it sounds similar. I would applaud her accurate portrayals of these types of characters if I didn’t suspect she takes them a bit too seriously!

@bibliomania @Fortuna Me too. I can't get on with Sally Rooney's writing at all. I have had to conclude that it is aimed at younger people than me who may prefer a different style of language. I don't mind at all if characters in a novel are young but I struggle when the whole narrative voice feels a bit 'creative writing group try hard'. I know that sinking feeling because I am a terrible writer myself, which makes me really appreciate those who can find the words to make the story 'fly' and stop me noticing their writing.

Ultimately interesting characters and plot are not enough in themselves for me - I need the author to be able to write well. Which I hope isn't taken as snobbery - there are excellent writers across all genres. But, for me, Sally Rooney is not one of them.

Gosh! A new thread already... how quick these threads move. I've not been on since last Saturday so a quick update from me and then I'll curl up with a cup of tea to catch up
6. History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund
“Linda has an idiosyncratic home life: her parents live in abandoned commune cabins in northern Minnesota and are hanging on to the last vestiges of a faded counter-culture world. The kids at school call her 'Freak', or 'Commie'. She is an outsider in all things. Her understanding of the world comes from her observations at school, where her teacher is accused of possessing child pornography, and from watching the seemingly ordinary life of a family she babysits for. Yet while the accusation against the teacher is perhaps more innocent than it seemed at first, the ordinary family turns out to be more complicated. As Linda insinuates her way into the family's orbit, she realises they are hiding something. If she tells the truth, she will lose the normal family life she is beginning to enjoy with them; and if she doesn't, a life is at stake”
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It had a flavour of Winters Bone which I loved last year. The author spends a lot of time painting the image of the rough but beautiful forests of North Minessota which I found captivating. we learn from the start that Paul dies but we do not know why. Little clues are dropped in but the big reveal happens at the end. A good book for a book group discussion.

7 Purged by Peter Laws. This was a charity shop find purchased because it came with a recommendation from Phil Rickman an author I really enjoy and who was recommended from one of these threads a few years ago by ChiliiJean. I’m about a third of the way through and oh, what a disappointment it is. Improbable storylines and badly written. I’ll preserve but won’t be reading anymore of his!

Preserve should be persevere -need glasses when typing on my phone

I'm aiming for 25, rather than 50, but so far have read:

Our Man in Havana, Graham Greene (ok, but not really my thing)
I Let You Go, Clare McIntosh (loved the twist, but thought the book a bit too long and far-fetched towards the end)
The Road, Cormac McCarthy (brilliant, even though not my sort of thing usually)

and am currently listening to Milkman by Anna Burns
and reading In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware
and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

12 Panicking Ralph by Bill James I read this crime series on a permanent loop when I run out of new stuff. Nothing like it and some of the best ones (like this) are so funny and well-crafted they make a lot of contemporary stuff look woefully inadequate in comparison. I see Minette Walters is still popular. I used to read her when she started i.e. THe Sculptress etc and she was good then but am not so sure about historical fiction. I enjoyed Belinda Bauer - Snap last year as an enjoyable thriller and have read her backlist too. There are a few memorable lines - in an early one, a female detective has to move in with a suspect's family for observation purposes. She has a piece of white toast after a long layoff and it was "like crack cocaine …" Glad to see Agatha Christie still on everyone's playlist but no Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine yet. I also enjoyed Anthony Horowitz'srecent couple of novels and got the latest Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' Bill Slider and The Coroner series by Matthew Hall are not bad for crime fans.
Anne Tyler is very deft and I agree her easy style puts other writers to shame. Similarly Carol Shields used to be a good read and I am struggling to think of similar current writers of the same quality. Incidentally if a book is marked "sponsored" on Kindle, does this mean the author or publisher has paid to get it more coverage?

too many "enjoyed"s in that review. Must improve my word power. Post in haste, repent at leisure

Satsuki I would hope she had written it to be ironic but like you I suspect not.

Mine was also a library pick up. After slim pickings for most of last year my library have suddenly upped their game and there is a lot of new stock in. It's disrupted the reading plan I had at the start of the year, but I do like to support the library. I also took the opportunity of the children's library being empty (usually activities going on) to have a good browse through and came out with some Lewis Carroll. Wonderland here I come.

1. The Punishment She Deserves by Elizabeth George.

I've read nearly all of the Lynley/Havers books in Elizabeth George's series of crime novels & this was a real disappointment. Not an engaging plot & far too long at nearly 700 pages. It should have been edited by about 150 pages.

1. Arabia by Levison Wood.

I was so excited to find this in the library but I didn't like it as much as I was hoping to. The premise of it - his journey round the Arabian peninsula was thrilling but I felt the book was far too short to do justice too all the regions/countries he traveled through & at times it read very much like a diary rather than a finished book. DH read it before me & he was very critical of some parts as he has lived & worked in some of the countries & found quite a few inaccuracies.

fortuna I found her female characters especially not that well written - they didn’t feel real to me, and like grim says, hard to feel you’re in the hands of a great writer when you’re so conscious of the writer at all times. I think as well the way her books are promoted threw off my expectations a bit, went into it thinking it would be more perhaps.

I picked up The Fortnight in September from my library, one I’ve wanted to get hold of for a while from the Persephone range. The library throws off my reading plan a bit too, but like you I like to support them so I’m just trying not to reserve loads and only go when I’ve knocked a couple off my shelf first.

Phew... an enjoyable catch up.
Just bringing my list over:
1.Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
2. The Missing Girl by Jenny Quintana
3. The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
4. Swing Time by Zadie Smith
5. An Almond for a parrot by Wray Delaney
6. History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund
7. Purged by Peter Laws

Remus I did chuckle over your review of Lethal White. I have liked each one less. It is in DH’s to read pile and I was unsure about it but after your review I won’t bother 😄
Thanks ChessieFL for mentioning Artemis Cooper's biography of Elizabeth Jane Howard. It is now reading list. I remember vividly whilst reading her autobiography “I’ve read this bit somewhere before... and I had! In one of the Cazalet books!
The Last Hours appeals so thanks FiveGoMad
Loved Reservoir 13 - one of my best books of 2018 but a classic for dividing opinion .
I have every Dick Francis novel written! Not read many Felix Francis but I might give them a go.
Happy reading

The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter is my current book. I used to avidly read the Discworld books but haven't read any for many years now but saw this one for 99p and thought I'd give it a try.
I'm not very far into it but so far, so good.

Fortuna all your issues with Conversations are the issues I had with it too. Pretentious miserable people doling pretentious miserable things!

Sonnet - I'm still so cross about it. I WANT to read them and like them, but she's making it impossible. Robert Galbraith is the Marks and Spencers clothes department of the book world - I really try to buy stuff there, but it's as if they are not even trying to help me do so.

I read Spies by Michael Frayn years ago. I bought it on a wim in an independent book shop which has long since closed down. Of all the thousands of books I've ever read some stay with you and Spies is one of those


toomuchsplother - I didn't get on with Conversations with Friends either. I felt pretty much the same as you about it. Don't even want to try Normal People.

Rebus
DH has it lined up after Tombstone - I'll be interested in what he makes of it

My favourite Michael Frayn is Headlong.

Ah I see, everyone except me knew that Michael Frayn wrote proper books. I'm enjoying Spies but finding it a little slow. To be fair i haven't had much reading time over the last couple of days, and need to invest a bigger chunk of time in it.

I'm glad I bowed out of the Robert Galbraith series after book one, mainly due to issues that those that have persevered are citing now. [Smug]

Is Headlong the art one? I loved that.

I thought the characterisation in both of Sally Rooney's books was terrific. None of the characters are likeable but they were certainly understandable. There were scenes in Normal People that describe Marianne and her messed up family and I kept thinking 'Yes, that's exactly how it feels to have an abusive mother and sibling and that's exactly how they operate'. I thought the sex scenes were also really well observed and that the 'voice of the millennial generation' marketing has done her a disservice.

Is Headlong the art one? I loved that.

Yup, about a Brueghel painting. Great fun.

Southeast it wasn't that the characters were not easy or impossible to like, it was that I didn't care. It was all self serving navel gazing in Conversations and I was irritated and then just plain bored. Can't comment on Normal People as I haven't read it. **

I've read:

Normal People by Sally Rooney - well written, well observed. If I were younger I'd have loved it but it's about young people at uni which I'm a few years past. Very enjoyable though.

The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth by William Boyd - utterly fabulous short stories. I'm not usually a fan of the genre but loved every page of this.

The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Blythell - absolutely loved this gentle memoir of a man who bought a second hand book shop in rural Scotland.

Now reading: The Wild Remedy - How Nature Mends Us, A Remedy by Emma Mitchell I bought this after reading a beautiful excerpt in the papers and it's rather lovely. Makes me want to flee London and move to the middle of nowhere and just get lost in the countryside. Lovely.