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?

Tenant not Tenenant. That’s not a thing.

Have been reading the thread and lurking this week. It's been a strange old week, my lovely Grandad died on Monday. A life well lived but very sad.
I was reading book 28. All that remains : A life in death - Sue Black when I got the news. Perhaps not ideal but actually turned out to be strangely cathartic and comforting. Black is a Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology. She details her work and her own personal experiences with death in a very readable, matter of fact but also compassionate and respectful way. Her work in war Kosovo identifying war crime victims and here in the UK solving crime was fascinating and very moving. Full of amazing facts; for example did you know that the ink from tattoos builds up in your lymph nodes? So even if a body has been dismembered forensic science can tell whether some one had a tattoo and what colours were in it!
Made a big impression on me and I am seriously now thinking about donating my body to medical science.
29. London Lies Beneath - Stella Duffy Based on the true and tragic tale of a 8 boys scouts and a ship's boy who lost their lives in a sailing accident off Leysdown in 1912. Set in the Eastend of London it is a collection of interwoven stories and portraits. Worth a read.

The ending of Alias Grace made me so angry that I refused to ever read any more of her novels!

Sorry about your grandad, Splother.

I'll look out for that exexpat. Thanks.

Sorry to hear about your grandad splother

Sorry about your Grandad, splother. My mum is donating her body to medical science.

Thin Air by Anne Cleeves

I seem to have a thing for books with Thin Air in it, this is the third in as many months. Book 6 of the Shetland series. Starts with a wedding party on the furthest north of the Shetland Isles, Unst, and a ghost story. Four friends have travelled up to celebrate the wedding of two other friends, sometime after the wedding one of them is missing and later found dead. Bring on Jimmy and Sandy and a cast of characters and the fabulous scenery. I did think it was someone else so she got me again. A definite comfort read, I love these books but can't get on with the Vera series at all.

I have been planning my trip to Shetland since reading Peter May's Black house Trilogy and the Shetland books and will be adding Unst to the tri.

Sorry about your grandfather Splother.

I have found the real Kindle monthly deals and bought far too many. There's just something about 1-click 99p books that turns me into an addict. Still, I could be addicted to worse things I guess.
Can't remember all of them but I grabbed:
Corelli, the first Cadfael, Eleanor and Park, a couple of Michael Palin's, the Co-op's got bananas, a Mo Hayder (who I have left alone for a few years as I just find her crimes too sick generally)

Can I just say that this has become my comfort food thread this year. You've all been so welcoming and my love for reading has been reborn after spending so many evenings faffing around flicking through Facebook and watching shite on Netflix just because everyone else seems to be. Apart from the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice and a couple of Dr Who DVDs with dd I haven't watched any telly since Christmas.

Thank you!

Sorry about your Granddad splother

What about Little Women? - didn’t like how Jo ended up really.

My dad donated his brain and spinal cord to medical research. He had MS. It did lead to some slightly Pythonesque telephone calls on the morning of his death
“Oh yes, good morning. I’m wondering if I’m speaking to the right person to organise the removal of my father’s brain please?” I think he would have appreciated the comic absurdity of it all.

Sorry about your grandad, too splother.

The ending of The Handmaid's Tale is shit, too.

I quite like the ending of Atonement , but I know it is not a view widely shared.

Sorry to hear about your Grandad, too much.

13. The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell.

The first half is a vivid picture of Britain with a particularly in depth description of what it would be like to work down a coal mine and live in the slums of the 1930’s. The second half of the book is not as ordered and is a polemic/call to arms for Socialism and dismantling of the class divide. I could admire his passion for Socialism and it does demonstrate the deep class divide of the time with some other interesting points about industrialisation and capitalism (what would he think of the world today?!). But his tone is so patronising and argumentative rather than demonstrating how he thinks these ideals can become reality. If he were alive today I wonder what his Twitter-tag would be...

Kindle books - I have no upper limit, really, though I think I would balk at paying more than £10 for a kindle book. I try and save by not buying too many £1 Kindle books and putting that money towards books I actually want to read! Currently I have the third book in Brendon Sanderson epic fantasy The Stormlight Archive series on my wish list - it is over 1000 pages long, has been £12.99 for at least year and a half and has recently gone down to £10.99. I could buy the paperback for less but then I would have to lug that around with me. I’m continuing to wait and see. 🤨

splother

Brandon Sanderson

Sorry about your grandad splother.

It's the right order of things but it doesn't make it any less painful to lose a loved grandparent, sad news splother.
Always the first thread I check too Havent it's really broadened my reading horizons and recaptured my reading mojo.

toomuchsplother So sorry to hear about your Granddad

For anyone considering body donation www.hta.gov.uk/donating-your-body

The ending of Alias Grace was such a cop out. It ruined the book

27. Partners in Crime (Tommy & Tuppence #2) by Agatha Christie (Audiobook)

Although I enjoyed this, I was disappointed. It lacked the energy and sheer joy of the first. She aged the characters significantly and instead of being caught up in an ongoing mystery, they are running a detective agency so it was written as a series of short stories for each individual case. I do like the characters but now won't be in a rush to finish the series.

I have banished Kevin back to the library for now as I have a Jane Eyre project in mind. A re-read, Wide Sargasso Sea and Reader, I Married Him in line soon.

I'm about halfway through The Good People by Hannah Kent and deliberately going slowly. I love her writing, every description to be savoured.

Sad news about your Grandad toomuchsplother

splother so sorry to hear of your loss.

7. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne Started and finished this today and this is my Goodreads review:

I read this in a day and really wasn't sure how to feel about it.

In some ways this is a softer introduction for younger readers to the atrocities of the Holocaust, but it is also widely inaccurate in its content and therefore dishonours the victims. I do not believe that Bruno could have been anywhere near as ignorant as he is depicted in the book and this irritated me.

The ending was pure artistic licence, which is fine in a work of fiction of course. However, I disliked that the reader was encouraged to side with the grief of the Nazi family. It left a bad taste.

I always thought the Mr Men were a bit of a chore!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47426551#=

I love the bit where the man cautions against giving Steinbeck to primary children!

The Mister Men are awful to read aloud! The worst. I love reading to the kids and will happily read most things but they always make me wince.

splother.

When I was with my first grandchild as number 2 was making an appearance I must have read Mr Greedy at least 40 times in 10 days!

Anything for peace.

Can't tell you how happy (& how shared) that BBC article made me.