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 finished book no. 30 which was the lovely Howel's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones.
I missed this as a child, perhaps I was just a tad too old by the time it came out so have enjoyed it as an adult, but really felt it was my younger self reading it and loving and identifying with the character of Sophie. In fact the characterisation in the novel was definitely its strong point. I also found the concept of the moving castle and the doorways into different worlds made a strange kind of sense. Reading this made me happy, which is a good thing

Oops, that should read Howl's - a random attack by the letter 'e' there.

whippet Howl's moving castle is great, I love the sequel too , Castle in the Air, which I inadvertently read many years ago to my daughter first.
The chrestomanci books are also great. Loved reading all the Diana Wynne Jones books to my children.

17. Mr Peacock's Posessions by Lydia Syson Really enjoyed this. It is set on an uninhabited (although previously inhabited) supposed paradise island near New Zealand in the 1800's. A family with a horrible, domineering father go there to try to calim it and improve their lot. After a really difficult start, some young "Kanukas" (native workers) are brought by a boat to labour for the family for six months. The joy at this turn of events is marred by the disappearance of the eldest son. The book is narrated through the eyes of the youngest daughter and occasionally by a worker she befriends as they search for her missing brother and her father becomes more dictatorial.
The book has been described as "Swiss family Robinson meets Lord of the flies" which is over egging it. It's pretty easy to gues what happened to the son but enjoyable following the trails there.

18 The Confessions of Frannie Langton based in Jamaica and then Victorian London following a mulatto slave girl and how she comes to be in prison awaiting hanging. This was a bit of a mess, part Andrea Levy "Long song" wannabe and part Sarah Waters wanabee and part "Frankenstein" tribute it failed for me.

19. My Lovely Wife easy read about a couple who seem to get their kicks from murdering young women. The story reveals how they came to meet, how they started killing. Why they are such great parents and what the "lovely wife" has been plotting all along. It was pretty easy to guess what the "twist" was but it all zipped along, with the husband as the (un)? reliable narrator

20. Circe by Madeline Miller bought this months ago and tried to read when I was unwell but didn't get past the second chapter. Had another bash as everyone on here seems to love it and I also loved it!

Howl’s Moving Castle was one of my all time favourite childhood books by one of my favourite children’s authors. I didn’t enjoy the sequel as much, but then I didn’t come across the sequel until I was an adult.

YesILikeItToo I'd recommend The Dispossessed as the obvious next read after Left Hand of Darkness, but it's quite different.

I'd also really recommend the short story collection The Birthday of the World - the first story in the collection is set on Gethen (AFAIK the only other of Le Guin's writings set there).

Not sure what number I'm on, as I'm on a new laptop and haven't worked out how to transfer documents yet.

Book Murder by Matchlight – one of the British Library Crime Classics : Can't remember the writer and cab to check!
This was okay. I liked most of it – found it interesting and funny, but was very disappointed with the ending.

25!

I quite fancy Mr Peacock and have just got the sample to try it, Sapatsea..

I’m going to join the thread. I’m making a conscious effort to read more this year and I think this thread will be a good motivator!

8. My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

Mixed feelings about this one. The characters are deliberately awful, which is not necessarily a problem...the issue is that they are awful in a not very interesting way. The writer is skilled and the voice kept me turning the pages, but the book as a whole left very little impression on me. I do think there is the kernel of an interesting idea here (woman medicates with prescription drugs so she can sleep for a year), but it needed to be developed a bit more.

What were books 1 to 7 Blankpaper?

And welcome to the thread I should have said!

37. Abide with me - Elizabeth Strout I really rate Strout. She has a way of getting inside characters heads, making them believable and compelling but ultimately flawed. This book is set in a small town in the 60's and centres on a young pastor with two young children whose wife has recently died. It is musing on grief and loss, not just that of the pastor but other characters within the community. It reflects on what happens when people suppress grief, trauma and ultimately their feelings.
There are some awful but wonderful characters such as the pastor's overbearing mother and the elementary school counsellor who is determined to explain everything away by Freud.
Really enjoyed it.

I’ve just namechanged (from blankpaper)

Books 1 to 7 were:

1. A tale for the time being - Ruth Ozeki
2. Give me your hand - Megan Abbott
3. Normal People - Sally Rooney
4. History of wolves - Emily Fridlund
5. Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens
6. Lavinia - Ursula Le Guin
7. The Dry - Jane Harper

I also got 3/4s through War and Peace but I’m burnt out. I hope to pick it up again in a few months, perhaps.

13. Not My Fathers Son by Alan Cumming. Listened to on Audible. Cumming deals with three stands of story telling in this book. The first, and by far the most interesting, deals with his childhood and youth growing up on a Scottish rural estate coping with a verbally and physically abusive father, the second is his life more recently as an actor and celebrity and the third is the story of his maternal grandfather, Tommy Darling, as researched and described on the BBC series ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ (Not a show I watched.) I have little interest in celebrity culture and wasn’t grabbed by the Tommy Darling strand of the book so whilst I think Cummings did a good job of narrating his auto biography ultimately I wasn’t grabbed by the book.

14. After You by Jojo Moyes. Follow up to Me Before You (which I enjoyed for the characterisation and dialogue between the two main protagonists, paraplegic Will and his carer Lou, and despite the slightly ludicrous long haul holiday towards the end!)
    I wasn't so taken with this follow up which lacks the sparkiness and humour that Will brought that, to my mind, lifted 'Me Before You' above a run of the mill chick lit.
    This was a Borrowbook freebie and I reserved the final book in the trilogy Still Me when I took it out which becomes available next month, not sure I'll be investing in reading another whole book however I may skip to the resolution to see what Lou's happy ever after is instead.

Just finished 12. Whistle In The Dark by Emma Healey. Healey wrote Elizabeth Is Missing, which I enjoyed so had high hopes. She does write well and the short chapters push you through. She has a good sense of voice and I like her eye for real little details about people's lives. But some of it is far fetched, frankly silly. The ending is a bit contrived. Bit of a curate's egg.

Vikram Seth aside, I'm not having much success so far this year! Although the Catherine Chidgey was divertingly quirky, I guess.

Thanks Sadik - it’s interesting that these are well known titles, but not well known as a set, they’re like break out hits. I’ve just seen a deluxe edition of everything on Amazon that claims to have her own hand drawn map of Gethen included - I did miss having a map!

39. The Book of Life (All Souls Trilogy #3) - Deborah Harkness More Twilight for grown ups.

Final book in the trilogy and a bit of a disappointment compared to the others. I think a gap between them would have helped as reading 2 back to back gave me world fatigue. I don't usually read this sort of stuff so my patience was waning towards the end. It all worked out a bit too neat and tidy.

Note to self - no more series binge reading.

Welcome to the thread PaperFlowers How did you find Where the Crawdads Sing? I really quite fancy it.

Toomuch I hear Elizabeth Strout has another book out later this year. I understand it will be a follow up to Olive Kitteridge which was one of my standouts from last year. Am looking forward to it!

HaventGotAllDay Thank you for talking about When Christ and his Saints Slept. My medieval history tutor lent it to me 20 years ago and I couldn't for the life of me remember what the book was despite really enjoying it. It's been bugging me for years. She used to encourage us to read novels based on the period we were studying to try and get a sense of historical figures as real people and not cardboard cut outs from text books. It improved our essays apparently.

I also remember borrowing and enjoying The Morning Gift by Diana Norman aka Ariana Franklin set in the same period.

Indigo I haven't yet read olive kitteridge or Anything is possible. Trying not to binge! Welcome paperflowers

Matilda I really liked Close to Home as well, I've bought In the dark by the same author but I haven't read it yet.

Indigo I really enjoyed where the crawdads sing. It had a great sense of place, and a lot of heart without being too melodramatic. When I was reading it I couldn’t help comparing it to Eleanor Oliphant which is also a story about a solitary young woman. Crawdads felt much more fleshed out and real. I recall reading that the author spent ten years writing it, and I think it shows.

@brizzlemint I’ve added her other two books of the same author to my wish list. I have more than enough books to keep me going at the moment

@Matilda2013 you and me both.