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?

So there's been:

1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K Rowling.
2. The Truth Pixie by Matt Haig.
3. The Diary of A Bookseller by Shaun Bythell.
4. Our House by Louise Candlish.
5. Surprise Me by Sophie Kinsella.
6. The Widow by Fiona Barton.
7. Apple of my Eye by Claire Allan.
8. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (a reread)
9. The Suspect by Fiona Barton.

10. A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult.

Murine, I LOVE the fact that your book club actually read a play together! THAT is the kind of book club I'd like to join!

It was fantastic, nownearlyanicemum. Felt a bit awkward reading aloud to everyone at first as I so seldom do so but I ended up loving it! I’d really like to see the play performed in a theatre now.

12. Harriet - Jilly Cooper - this was a Kindle deal. I thought it was going to be awful as the beginning was fairly poor but it did improve. Entirely predictable but quite enjoyable.

Inspired by others on the thread, I am going back to A Dance to the Music of Time to read the second in the series (having read the first last year). I may be some time.....

TimeforaGandT, you prompted me to write my review of A Buyer’s Market, which I finished last week. I seem to have slowed right down on the reading rate - Infinite Jest is keeping me going, and I’ve got If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller half finished but it’s slow work - I think it’s an all or nothing kind of book.

Anyway...

26 A Buyer's Market by Anthony Powell
Second in the series of Dance To The Music of Time. It's a series of post-war set pieces - dances, country house weekends, funerals - with many of the same characters from book one appearing. I appreciate the fact that the narrator, Jenkins, is starting to have more of a fully formed presence than was the case before. The Backlisted podcast was helpful in getting me going on this, and I’m tempted by the Hilary Spurling guide purely because there are so many people it’s hard to keep track of them all. This was an entertaining read and I’m looking forward to the next one.

*27 The Bible For Grownups by Simon
Went searching for a King James Bible for dd’s RS lessons and came across this. I’m embarrassed by my lack of Bible knowledge but this didn’t really help me on the stories and chronology as it was more of an account of how the Bible was written, whether any of it is true, and what we should make of it. There was a lot in there that was interesting but it was very oddly written in places - like an over-enthusiastic GCSE student - and far too long winded in others. An interesting diversion from various other things I should be reading but not one I’d rush to recommend.

That will teach me not to preview - that was The Bible for Grownups by Simon Loveday.

Just finished 'Kavalier and Clay' and am very depressed. I don't know what I expected but I definitely didn't expect it to be so very sad. Proper review to follow.

Thanks Pepe for your review of A Buyer’s Market - that’s encouraging!

12. Dark Fire - C. J. Sansom
Second in the Shardlake series - just as enjoyable as the first. The whole politics of the Tudor period makes me very glad I wasn’t around then.

Murine, what a brilliant way to read She Stoops to Conquer. I had to read it for A Level English Lit many years ago and really enjoyed it.

Mog, I was the Bel Canto reviewer recently. I hope you love it, I keep thinking back to it. It was such a nice time, locked up in the house with the international hostage contingent listening to opera!

Pepe I too am pushing ahead with DTTMOT.

10. The Acceptance World by Anthony Powell. I raced through A Question of Upbringing but had to force myself along a little with A Buyer's Market. Nothing I could put my finger on, perhaps it was the wrong book at the wrong brain time. This time, however, the story fell over me like a familiar blanket - not too many new characters were introduced, I knew all the back stories and the relationships of those mentioned. He certainly has away with words, old Powell. Many times I though 'I love how he says that, must write it down', but then the story carries me along and the moment is lost.

My husband and I have very different tastes in books, but he is following behind me reading these. I'm enjoying talking books with him like the good old days when we were dating and trying to impress each other with our reading!

Panda, that’s good to hear. When I’ve made some more progress with Infinite Jest and finished a couple of other books on the go, that’s next on my list and I’m quite looking forward to it.

30 Lying in wait - Liz Nugent another psycho thriller which belted along at a satisfying pace but again was about 100 pages too long. This one had a southern Irish background with a mad neurotic mother who had a complicated relationship with her son & anyone else who crossed her caused by abandonment issues as a child. I was quite intrigued by some of the Irish turns of phrase e.g. "I was not able for" meaning "I couldn't". Side issue - has anyone else noticed the pages of acknowledgements which accompany almost every book these days? Worse than a Gwyneth Paltrow acceptance speech, with everyone from the editor and publisher to the writer's latest pet getting an honourable mention.

31 THe Quickening by Julie Myerson - this was an imprint of a new publishing phenomenon Hammer something (could have been Arrow which aims to replicate the offerings of classic Hammer horror films with short books aimed to be read in one sitting by "literary" writers such as J Myerson & Jeannette Winterson. This was quite neatly done but again, too long and not scary as I don't believe in spirits or ghosts but Philip Hensher (quote emblazoned on the front) was certainly disquieted.

32 The Quickening ofSilence by Rosamund Lupton Ice Road Truckers plus Duel (film by Stephen Spielberg) together with rekindled love between glamorous scientist and nature film maker and cute deaf daughter. Yasmin goes to Alaska with her deaf daughter to track down her missing husband using a massive truck in the midde of winter. She has to deal with various obstacles and eventually a fracking incident gone wrong and its cover-up. not bad for an easy read.
Everything I know about love by Dolly Alderton. This is the memoir of a 30 year old girl stretched out to 300 pages which seems to incorporate a few articles and blogs cobbled together into book format with heavy influences from Bridget Jones, Adrian Mole, Bryony Gordon, Caitlin Moran & any number of others. Dolly appears to be a truly entitled child who has managed to do exactly what she likes by virtue of rich parents and seemingly having a few key contacts in the world of media. She does suffer from anxiety and has come the point of "what is it all for " perhaps quite early on in life but she manages to overcome this with her self-involvement and delight in "Dolly's World". Somehow she managed to get approving quotes from Marian Keyes, Liane Moriarty and Sharon Horgan to plaster on the cover - and this is the only book I've seen with an extra sheet of cardboard at the front to accommodate all the glowing reviews. This is angering me again now so I will stop it before I throw the book through the window.

In the did not finish category - The Librarian by Salley Vickers - supposed to be about the joy of reading but about as thrilling as a Miss Read (village schoolteacher) on Valium novel,
Sara Taylor - the Shore - linked stories about being dirt poor and abused in America through the generations. Again.

Back to the library.

oops - should be The quality of silence by Rosamund Lupton not quickening.

I've just finished

14. Differently Normal - Tammy Robinson - I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I'm not a chick lit fan, so I guess it'll appeal to those audiences more, but it was gifted to me because I'm autistic, as are my children, and the female protagonist's sister is also autistic (with other disabilities).

I liked the selflessness and care given to the disabled girl, but it felt really "woe-is-me", and that makes me feel uncomfortable. I do think that the reactions to her by the male protagonist's family was pretty realistic, and I guess that carers often do get days where it all feels a bit much, but this book almost glorified that feeling in parts.

That said, it was by no means the worst depiction of disability and being a carer, and if I liked chick lit I probably would have given it more stars (possibly 3). I'm not going to advise people to avoid it if that's their bag. 2.5/5

Desdemona- I spent ages last night going through old threads to read reviews of my
13 The Angel's Game by Ruiz Zafon

Mainly to see if, after 400 + pages someone had understood what the feck was going on.
I enjoyed it, but have to 'fess that apart from a Faustian/devil thing going on, and an almost laughable change of pace about 100 pages from the end where the mild writer protagonist seems to turn into James Bond and Jack Reacher's lovechild (complete with lots of people ending up dead and dangling out of cable cars) I didn't have a clue.
Still don't know who the writer was, who his "angel" was, whether he was alive or dead by the end.

It reminded me of another bonkers conkers Spanish book I had to read at university where I never understood of the narrator was a dog, a man who thought he was a dog, or a man whose wife treated him like one. All I know is he slept in a kennel.

Am now debriefing from insanity with Lisa Jewell Watching You (or sth like that)

I have bought virtually all the recent Kindle daily deals; the Ann Cleeves' John Le Carre's and Philippa Gregory's. I didn't buy Memoirs of a Geisha because I hated it.

I am dipping in and out of an early Nigel Slater, little snippets of observations about food rather than glossy recipes. What is curious, and a little disconcerting is how nasty and snobby he comes across. He is horrible about older people in supermarket queues "come on love, get your purse out" etc. Makes me wonder if the present day gently bumbling foodie is a construct or if he wanted to be Ramsayesque but the post was already taken.

BooksandCaffine What did you think of The Truth Pixie by Matt Haig.

12. The Wood: The Life and Times of Cockshutt Wood by John Lewis-Stemple.

Audible Daily Deal purchase after a recommendation on here. John Lewis-Stemple is a farmer and writer who details a year in the life of Cockshutt Wood. Full of nature facts about trees, animals, insects, mushrooms interspersed with recipes and poetry. I liked it, points off as I was slightly irritated by the narrator and not that interested in the recipes (I’m more of a baker than a chef).

I liked Bel Canto but (spoiler!) (I really wanted a happy ending!).

18. This is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay. A couple of really grim bits, some very funny bits, and when compared with Trust me, I’m a Junior Doctor, does suggest the NHS is really really treating their staff increasingly badly. I didn’t warm to Kay, but I do hope that this book makes a difference to the way the nhs is run, despite knowing that that is sadly unlikely.

19. Why Mummy Swears by Gill Sim. I’ve read the first one and as am full of cold and feeling sorry for myself this fitted the bill. Lots of mumsnet style rants, a slightly forced point about working mothers, but a jolly way to pass the time.

I feel like if I don't update every so often, I'll get kicked off the honour roll... so now feel the need to report that I am on page 1313 of A Suitable Boy 220 to go. Getting there!

I also have to read my February chapters of Bleak House

I'm not sure where I last was when I updated but here's my recent reads

10. Gray Mountain by John Grisham dire. Would have been a good novella. Don't bother reading it.
11. Believe Me by JP Delaney. From the author of The Girl Before OK addition to the unstable female narrator genre. The plot centres on a serial killer of women though. Why are women always being murdered to advance/provide a plot?
12. Copy Me and Other Science Fiction Stories by Laston Kirkland. I really liked this, I've had it on my kindle for ages. Short sci fi stories. Good creation of believable worlds/futures. Thumbs up
13. Snap by Belinda Bauer i borrowed this from the library after seeing it mentioned here. I thought it was OK. Didn't love it and almost put it down about a third of the way through but it picked up. However, another book where the plot pivots around a murdered woman.

Excuse my poor punctuation

Just finished #18 1984, wow it’s every bit as good as I remember and a very disturbing book. I have even less of an idea how they sanitised it for children @FortunaMajor. There is sex in it but that is really implied and not graphic. About a quarter of the book deals with torture. It’s not PG.

I needed something very different so have started #19 24 Hours in Ancient Rome: A Day in the Life of the People Who Lived There which so far is fascinating looking at everyday life for Romans and really shows how the city worked. I’m fascinated by Rome and so this is right up my street.

Bakewell It was a version for non native students of English as a foreign language, not children I don't think even Ladybird could have worked their magic on 1984.

It's done a lot to make literature accessible for ESOL students and is usually more simplifying the language used than modifying the content massively. It happens for different levels of students, tenses changed and standardised to meet a certain level of study, more difficult vocab replaced with other words, linguistic quirks taken out. Essentially the 'story' doesn't change, but the way it is told is. This is why I am a bit torn, can I claim to have read it if it is not 100% the author's words as he intended it? The essence of it would have been the same and it was for fairly advanced students, but not 100% the original version. I wouldn't know how much it was different without sitting with both in front of me. However if it wasn't that far off (highly likely) is there any point me reading it again? Basically is the most important part of that particular book the message or the exact language used to tell it? I don't reread often these days as I feel there are too many books out there and not enough time!

I'm currently reading Circe, I love it so far. I have abandoned We Need to Talk About Kevin, three sessions with it have got me as far as page 29.

Piggywaspushed

It is some years since I read A Suitable Boy - but I loved it & it took me ages.

And am sure you won't get kicked off - look forward to hearing your verdict.

HaventGotAllDay not just me wasting reading time searching threads then!
Funny you should say that about Nigel Slater, this is my Goodreads review of his biography Toast, which basically comes to the same conclusion:
I really enjoyed the book but thought Slater, perhaps unintentionally, revealed himself to be something of a 'nasty piece of work'. His insinuation that his father was masturbating in the shed and his insistence that his step mother was trying to 'feed' his father to death (unlikely at best) were just two examples of 'memories' that reflected badly on the author. Following his fathers death he recounts the following in relation to his step mother:
'Joan fussed over me all week, making steak for my tea and calling me 'son'. A sign, some said cruelly, that Dad's will had yet to be read. But then she needn't have worried, for, as anyone knows, there is nothing that quite turns an old man's attention in your direction like an offer of sex and home-made cake.'
Who I wonder are these 'some' who cruelly think this, my guess is Slater himself, and 'Toast' is peppered with similar character assassinations. Given it's a memoir, and as such written entirely from Slater's point of view, it's unusual to feel so strongly that you are dealing with an unreliable narrator.
It is though well written, often funny and a wonderful trip down memory lane, for those who grew up in the '60's & 70's, conjuring up the culinary 'delights' of yesteryear. Surprise peas, Frey Bentos pies, Angel Delight and many more are vividly evoked, the author may be petulant and bitchy but he's good literary company nonetheless.