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?

Just finished reading Listening In - short plays/pieces written by Jenny Eclair. It was great reading some well written short stories that all had women at their centre ...

Failed to format that post properly! My stand outs so far are The Panopticon, The Power and Sourdough
I've fallen into a little bit of an urban fantasy rut because I quite like the genre and it's easy to read, but it's interesting that my stand outs aren't in this genre!!
I have to read Milkman for book group and I'm off to visit the in laws in the Highlands for the rest of half term so hopefully will finish that.

pepe I was going to try and do it a book a month to chip away over the year but I’ve got behind already! Same here, chugging along but not gripped. Hope to persevere though as guess the payoff is in the long game.

Thankyou southeast! My little list so far:

1. My Sister The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
2. The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie
3. Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
4. This Is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
5. The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul by Deborah Rodriguez
6. Confessions of a Barrister by Russell Winnock

I’m currently listening to my first ever audiobook to distract me while running: I Found You by Lisa Jewell. I’m on a mission to read the books I’ve been lent by various people so am reading the latest Dan Brown too which my mum foisted on me. I like the setting and plot and it’s certainly a page turner but the writing is just as “must explain everything labouriously to the beautiful female rescued sidekick and refer endlessly to “Langdon’s eidetic memory” usage” as I remember from the Da Vinci code

I’m enjoying these threads a lot - thank you

My list so far

1. This is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay
2. Normal People : Sally Rooney
3. Wundersmith, The Calling of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend
4. The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
5. The unexpected Joy of Being Sober by Catherine Grey
6. Eve of Man Giovanna and Tom Fletcher
7. On Palestine Noam Chomsky & Ilan Pappé
8. My Name Is Lucy Barton Elizabeth Strout. The narrator describes the 9 weeks she was in hospital in New York. Her mother comes visit her after a long time apart and they reminisce about a complicated past. Crikey this was lovely. Beautifully written and a story I could have heard a lot more about. I did find the snippets into the narrators writerly life a bit unnecessary. Just in case we didn’t get the symmetry between the mother’s stories and her own life, they were shoved down our throats here. Otherwise Excellent.

1. I Am Pilgrim Terry Hayes

Troubled billionaire is recruited to the ‘secret world’ to become ‘Rider of The Blue’ tip top spy. He has to return from retirement to save the world from the evil barely named Saracen terrorist.

More fool me because I picked this up because it had a pretty cover. It was utter, utter, garbage. Miss Marple / Scott clearly got through spy school because he’s good at being in the right place at the right time rather than any discernible skills.
To be capable of writing a character that’s this misogynistic and xenophobic whilst being this one dimensional perhaps takes it own skill. I didn’t DNF as I wanted to see how bad it got. Karmas a bitch and the final scenes were beyond offensive. Honestly one of the worst books I’ve ever read.

I’m not about a third of the way through Our House Louise Candlish. Was promised Gone Girl but not feeling it so far. Ugly people moaning about the price of houses and generally being ugly.

The narrator also just described the time between flirtatious texts she was having with a man as ‘a companionable silence’ which made me want to hurl the book away. As my partner pointed out when I read it out loud, he could have been on the loo!

palegreenstars thank you, I couldn't get past the first couple of chapters of I am Pilgrim and was berated by the rest of my family who loved it

Thanks southeast - it’s moving very quickly this year!

Bringing my list across:

1. The Hunting Party - Lucy Foley
2. Men without Women - Huraki Murakami
3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Schaffer
4. How Hard Can It Be? - Allison Pearson
5. Christmas Pudding - Nancy Mitford
6. Hangover Square - Patrick Hamilton
7. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
8. Any Human Heart - William Boyd
9. A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles

And currently reading Testament of Youth - Vera Brittain

skirmish, we can keep each other going. With that plus my ongoing assault on Infinite Jest, I’m going to have plenty of “duty reading” (bit harsh on Infinite Jest as it’s very diverting, just dauntingly long).

skirmish pepe - I bought Dance to the Music of Time when it was on Kindle offer last year. I read the first one - didn’t hate it, didn’t love it - just felt a bit meh and I could be reading other things. However, if I don’t read the next one soon I won’t be able to recall anything from the first one!

thanks south for the lovely new thread. i can barely keep up with you all. my rather modest list is:

1. Winter by Ali Smith
2. Help the Witch by Tom Cox
3. The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell
4. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
5. The Woman in the Window by AJ Finn

6. The Long Shadow by Celia Fremlin

1. The Reading Cure: How Books Restored My Appetite by Laura Freeman.

Five Good call. I’m going to get better at DNFing. 700 pages that I could have been reading else on my tbr.

20. Bodies of light - Sarah Moss. Set in the mid to late 1800's, Iain Manchester. Ally is the eldest daughter of wildly incompatible parents. Her mother is an evangelical social reformer, who is determined her girls will grow up understanding the life of the poor. Her intent is admirable, her methods are not. She decides Ally's future, one of the first female doctors, and pushes her relentlessly. Nothing Ally does lives up to her mother's expectations.
Ally's father is, by contrast, a successful artist and designer, in the Arts and Crafts style. His parenting style is in direct contrast to his wife and Ally and her younger sister May are often caught in the cross fire. May is favoured by both parents.
This book is filled with the issues surrounding women's rights and suffrage. Josephine Butler, Emily Davis and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson are bit players. It also has much to say on women's health, particularly their mental health.
It's is skilfully written, the style reminded me of Margaret Forster, and it is impeccably researched. I realised that it has a character link to Night Waking and there is a sequel Signs for Lost Children which I will certainly read.
An excellent and sometimes heartbreaking book, Moss is a newish find for me but really enjoying her writing.

I have Bodies of Light in my reading pile, toomuchsplother. You’ve just inspired me to move it to nearer the top.

Bodies of Light sounds great. I will suggest it for my book club.

Bodies of Light sounds great. Had a trip to our library (just been saved from council cuts!) with the MN app, but none of the books I fancied were there. I have thinned out my TBR shelf but lending my mum a Felix Francis and Birdcage Walk!

Continuing my reread of LM Montgomery's Anne books I have finished my Book 5 for 2019:
Anne of the Island by LM Montgomery, one of my favourites of the series; I love its description of college life for young "coeds" in late nineteenth century Canada.

pepe yes we must. I decided not to take on Infinite Jest but I did think I would do Proust this year not sure now. I had the same thing with Proust TimeforaGandT - read the first one about 9 years ago, enjoyed it but stopped there, now know I’ll have to read it again and it’s daunting. It’s funny how a long read can make you a bit nervous, but I usually get a lot more out of them once I’m in. Join us...

24 Lets explore Diabetes with Owls - David Sedaris - this was an audiobook read by the author. I heard one story on the radio and was fearing it would be too much like Lake Woebegone by Garrison Keillor but the author has a rich vein of vitriol and cynicism to undercut the potential tweeness and whimsy of his style. Some lines made me smile & I might read more to hear about his dysfunctional family and former crack and alcohol addiction.
25 Y is for yesterday - Sue Grafton - soldiered on through more than 400 pages of confused rambling about a crime that had been solved years ago. Even Kinsey Millhone (the heroine) says "I did not mention a few minor characters" when meeting a suspect so I don't know why the reader is expected to perservere.
The Friendly ones - Philip Hensher - enjoyable vast family saga about 2 neighbouring families - the Spinsters - none of whom are above 5'2 tall (I don't know why this is significant) and their Bangladeshi immigrant neighbours. Both families are dysfunctional and unhappy in different ways although the Spinsters have less cause to be than their neighbours. This author appears to have a long backlist so I can stop reading rubbishy psychological thrillers for a bit.

Bringing over my list which unfortunately has no highlights yet and already one stinker:

1. The Woman in the Window - A.J Finn
2. The Fast 800 - Dr. Michael Mosley
3. This is Going to Hurt - Adam Kay
4. Home Truths - David Lodge
5. Reading Allowed - Chris Paling
6. Lullaby - Leila Slimani

Currently reading Never Mind by Edward St Aubyn.

southeast I don’t know if you’ve already seen the tv series with Cumberbatch but if you missed it it is free to view on the Radio Times website for the next 2 weeks

I thought I was going to love A Dance to the Music of Time as generally I'm keen on fiction from that era. DNF the first book.

Just finished 21. March Violets, Philip Kerr, The first Bernie Gunther book: our hero is a PI in 1930s Berlin. The author is going for a Raymond Chandler vibe, which doesn't entirely come off, but mean streets don't get much meaner than this. How can you act with integrity when society is growing increasingly cruel and corrupt around you? I'll read others in the series but I think I'll need to pace myself given their bleakness.

I had noticed that already Skirmish but thank you

Pencilmuseum I love David Sedaris. I saw him live last year (including meeting him for a book signing). He was lovely to everyone which has made reading his books even more pleasurable.

bibliomania I love the Bernie Gunther books and like you I am pacing myself, just got number 5 to read.

As the Shardlake Chronicles seem very popular on here have swiped this months audible credit from under my children's noses and have just downloaded the first one

@SkirmishOfWit How was Old Baggage? I keep seeing this about. Do you need to read her other book?