50 Book Challenge 2019 Part Three

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the third 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 and the second one here.

What are you reading?

I have been ill throughout half term and have done a great deal of reading. These are my most recent few books:

22. The Year of Reading Dangerously- Andy Miller I’ve read this before but have greatly enjoyed it both times. I really like the idea of the ‘List of Betterment’ and might try to read a few more classic novels this year.

23. De Profundis- Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde wrote this to his lover while in imprisoned in Reading Gaol for gross indecency. It is beautifully written, as I expected, and includes the author’s feelings on issues such as his sexuality, his career and Christianity.

24. Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops- Jen Campbell This was mentioned upthread and is very funny. It made me want to spend more time in bookshops and less time on Amazon.

25. Scrublands- Chris Hammer This is 99p in the Kindle Monthly Sale. Having lived in Australia, I really enjoyed the descriptions of Riversend, a fictional country town. The story was quite gripping. The only thing that prevented this being a stand-out book was that I felt there was possibly one subplot too many.

26. More Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops- Jen Campbell See 24: almost as funny as the first book.

27. Life Skills: Stuff You Should Really Know by Now- Julia Laflin I bought this for myself at Christmas, as my best friend had given a copy to her teenage son and I thought it looked very interesting. It includes instructions on how to change a fuse, clean an oven, make a fire, ace a job interview, etc. etc. It is not designed to be read from cover to cover, but I did so anyway: I found it very informative and will definitely return to it when the need arises. I'm not sure what age group it is aimed at, but as a woman in my 40s I knew how to accomplish some many of the tasks already.

The Swish of the Curtain is by Pamela Brown Brizzle- I read it just recently on Overdrive, although sadly they didn’t have the sequels.

17. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. A missionary and his family go from America to the Congo in 1960- this is what happens there and afterwards. Beautifully written and feels really well researched; I saw this reviewed up thread and also had a real life friend recommend. That, and the fact I had to wait ages for a copy (I love how Overdrive makes you queue for the e books!) made me think this was a recent novel, but it was first published in 99. It’s probably a highlight of the year, I loved it. Also made me want to reread Heart of Darkness. Highly recommend.

BrizzleMint I'm in the Old Gimmer category too, O Levels not GCSEs for me but unfortunately I had to study Far from the Madding Crowd for English, killed Hardy forever for me. I would rather have had 1984.

BookWitch I'm about a third of the way through my reread it's even better than I remembered. Scary how much applies to politics in the 21st century. I think Momentum members need to reread it!

The Swish of the Curtain is by Pamela Brown Brizzle- I read it just recently on Overdrive, although sadly they didn’t have the sequels.

I knew that! Sarah Greene was in the TV adaptation, I knew she had something to do with it. See, I'm an old gimmer after all

BakewellTarts We did Schindlers List and the French Lieutenants Woman and Taming of the Shrew plus Lord of the Flies. I can't remember which was O level and which was A level.

Brizzle not a Lemon fan then ?

1. She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith I can count a play, right? Read for book club and thoroughly enjoyed it. We drew names and read this aloud while drinking way too much wine, which really brought this extremely funny work to life.
2. Science-ish: The Peculiar Science Behind the Movies by Rick Edwards and Michael Brooks The science from films ranging from Jurassic Park, Gattaca, The Martian to The Matrix and many more were explored in an accessible, entertaining way which I enjoyed. I found the sections of the authors “text conversation” banter really irritating however. The book is inspired by the duo’s podcast which I had never heard of unfortunately, hopefully the humour translates better in that!

10. The Death and Life of Red Henley by Philip Wilding free read with Pigeonhole, the nothing-much-happens plot with a confusing cast of many similar characters let down the writing in this one. 11. The Girl Next Door by Phoebe Morgan another free Pigeonhole read, if you like psychological thrillers this is to be recommended. The 16 year old, beautiful girl next door is found murdered, shocking the small backwater town and the perfect mother and doctor’s wife Jane. Full of twists, this was a good page turner, and I didn’t guess the culprit for once!

bestiswest you're very astute.

1. How To Stop Time by Matt Haig
2. Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney
3. Killing Eve by Luke Jennings
4. Power by Naomi Alderman
5. Unwanted by Kristina Ohlsson
6. The Haunting Hill by Shirley Jackson
7. The Darkest Secret by Alex Marwood - just finished reading this and I thought it was a brilliant read. I couldn’t put it down and would definitely recommend it.
8. The Corset by Laura Purcell. Just starting this. Really enjoyed The Silent Companion so hoping this is as good.

I loved The Swish of the Curtain and all the rest of them.

Books covered for O and A level included, Pride and Prejudice, for both, Nostromo, Chaucer, She Stoops to Conquer, Othello, Julius Caesar.

12. Lethal White Robert Galbraith I enjoyed this, as I have all the Strike books, and perhaps a fair bit more than the last one. As always with Rowling, this really could have done with tighter editing but I love the way she draws such interesting characters (although Robin gets increasingly dull) and I enjoyed the central mystery.

37. The Daughter of Time - Josephine Tey First of her novels I have read. Inspector Grant is ill in bed and begins to research the cold case of the Princes in the Tower. Did Richard III really kill them? I enjoyed this, the historical subject matter appealed. Not sure if I would be compelled to seek out other Tey novels though.
Also can does anyone have any insights into why she call it The Daughter of Time? For some reason it is really bugging me!

And that was no 27 not 37!

Also Ann Cleeves Shetland Books no's 2 -5 are 99p each on Kindle today.

1. The distance between me and the cherry tree by Paola Peretti

An Italian novel written from the perspective of a nine year old girl who knows she will lose her sight sometime in the next six months. She talks about school, friends, her cat and her plans for the future. There is added poignancy that the author also has this sight condition.

It was a sweet little novel and I'm glad I've read something translated this year already. I don't think I would have picked this up if I wasn't reading it for my bookclub.

9. Union Street -Pat Barker The story of a residents from a single working class street. Nothing really happens, as I guess is the case for most people’s day to day lives. Enjoyed it but it didn’t blow me away

Sir Francis Bacon wrote 'Truth is the daughter of time, not authority.'

24.) Moving Pictures, by Terry Pratchett - After all the Pratchett talk in the thread I came across this in the library and snatched it up because I hadn’t read it for years and remembered enjoying it. Well, again I loved it: for the bickering wizards, the swipes at students, the take on the film industry and the birth of Hollywood/Holy Wood, the way it uses the Cthulhu Mythos, Gaspode and Laddie... too many things to mention.

25.) Star of the North, by D B John — Christ, this was good. A thriller about North Korea, centred around the kidnapping of a half-Korean young American woman from a beach in South Korea. A decade or so on and her identical sister is recruited by the FBI.

I thought this was excellent, but where it really excelled was in the chapters in the POV of the two North Korean characters, Mrs Moon and Cho. The Jenna chapters weren’t quite as good, and verged on being a little silly at times (with her climactic scene coming across as a bit Team America), but the chapters where the focus was on North Korea were superb and deeply chilling.

Really, really good.

~~

I’m now finally on to Wyntertide, the follow-up to Rotherweird, and I’m enjoying it a lot. After that I need to crack on with whittling down my backlog of library books - it’s starting to get silly now.

Thank you sirsidney that makes sense now.

8. Everyone Brave Is Forgiven by Chris Cleave, looking back (Is it just me who wastes time looking at old threads to see what everybody else thought of their just finished book?!) this was a very popular read in 2017 which is when I bought it on a daily deal. Not sure why I've left it this long to read. Following the lives of four young people during the Second World War this book is full of Blitz spirit, stiff upper lips and sparkling repartee, even in increasingly dire circumstances. (I love the writers humour but can't help but feel that not all of his characters can be quite so witty and urbane as he obviously is.) Overall I really enjoyed this book, and was completely wrapped up in the lives of Mary, Alistair, Tom and Hilda, although I did find the sudden and enduring attachments made after one meeting a bit far fetched, (Having said that I know my own DH's grandparents met and married within six weeks during the war so I can appreciate lives were lived at a faster pace with the very real threat of sudden death.) Cleaver does a good job of reflecting the institutionalised racism of the time and as a modern reader it's shocking to read and makes you realise how far we have come in one generation. I found the ending a bit of an anticlimax, but I appreciate that his characters have been through hell and are damaged in both physical and emotional ways so wrapping everything up with a neat happy ending is not realistic. I read this hard on the heels of another WW2 set book All The Light We Cannot See and both have been excellent. Now I'm dithering about what to read next, I have The Green Road on Audible that I picked up as 'the other book' on a two for one deal but it's not really grabbing me.

20. Educated by Tara Westover

Much reviewed (& enjoyed) on here & for me it's the best book I've read this year.

I was amazed by how level she was about all the awful things that happened to her & for someone so (relatively) young how mature she is in the way she tells her story.

I'm sure I'll re-read this before the year is out.

Real life has become rather crazy for me in the last few weeks and so I have completely fallen off the thread. I have spent a very enjoyable afternoon catching up on everyone's book talk, especially on Sir Pterry. I was lucky to have met him at some conventions and he was lovely.

Today I went to a local community second hand book sale and it was just fabulous! This morning someone on the thread recommended Bel Canto by Ann Patchett and I added it to my Goodreads 'WTR' list. Then it turned up in the book sale today! Fate. I found some other titles this thread has recommended too.

I love seeing other people’s book hauls.

Testing out a name change (I was DecumusScotti). Nothing seems to stick for long. This is probably too long, right?

22. Rape: A love story by Joyce Carol Oates

This was a bit odd. A horrendous attack on a woman and witnessed by her young daughter. The story is written as if someone is talking to the daughter in later life. The style was interesting at first but it quickly became annoying as it was difficult to keep track in some places as to who was in each scene. It ends very abruptly and I felt it had a few more chapters in it to explain a few things but it didn’t. Not sure I’d recommend though it has fairly good reviews online.

My challenge is 52. Currently on my 11th book.

I'm reading a great thriller/crime fiction called Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh. It's original as I've never read a plot like it, on page 60 so far.

Good book haul mog
I loved Bel Canto