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?

Thanks for the new thread southeastdweller

Bringing over my list so far:

1. Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid
2. Grey Sister by Mark Lawrence
3. The Christmasaurus by Tom Fletcher
4. The Mistake I Made by Paula Daly
5. The Magicians by Lev Grossman
6. Skyward by Brandon Sanderson
7. An Argumentation of Historians by Jodi Taylor
8. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
9. The Darkest Secret by Alex Marwood

10. The Atlantis World by A.G. Riddle

I'm a Bernie Gunther fan but agree they need pacing, more because they get a bit samey otherwise, than because they're too bleak. I definitely prefer the ones set in Nazi Germany than the ones set later.

22.) Lagoon, by Nnedi Okorafor -- This was really, really odd. At first glance it's a science fiction novel about first contact set in Lagos, Nigeria, and interwoven with African folklore and mythology. I don't read a lot of sci-fi, so can't really say how this fits in with other first contact novels, but I did enjoy it, and I liked the lingering doubt about the motivations of the aliens. I think having some familiarity with Lagos would have helped though.

One thing I am a little annoyed though at is how the blurb misrepresents the story. It talks about a tidal wave caused by a meteorite, which meant that I was expecting a very different sort of story. I'm not sure why copy writers seem to be writing about completely different books at times, but it gets on my bloody nerves.

Thanks for the new thread southeast

I’ve completely lost my reading mojo. Enjoying listening to Michael Palin reading Erebus to me but have no desire to pick up a book whatsoever .
You know things are bad on the reading front when you find yourself rooting for a contestant on Ru Paul’s Drag Race

Enjoying reading book reviews on here though.

If anyone likes Cold War set spy thrillers, The Envoy by Edward Wilson is on 99p deal today. It's not the best thriller ever, but it's a decent read and does a good job of evoking the era.

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje is also 99p currently. I'd been meaning to read it, so I've snapped it up.

The English Patient - sooooooooooooooo dull. Sorry! Beautifully written dullness in places, but definitely dull.

Remus I'll let you know what I think when I've read it!

cantstandmlMs I really enjoyed Old Baggage - an interesting look at what the suffragettes did with themselves once the battle for the vote was won, really good female characters and a close look at women’s lives after the Great War. The main character appears in her other book Crooked Heart which is set a decade later, this is a prequel to that but covers quite different ground you could read them whichever way round.

Thanks for the new thread Southeast

My list so far:

1. Tied up in Tinsel - Ngaio Marsh
2. Nine Lessons - Nicola Upson
3. Bookworm - A memoir of childhood reading - Lucy Mangan
4. A History of Britain in 21 Women - Jenni Murray
5. The Mystery of Three Quarters (New Hercule Poirot Mysteries #3)

by Sophie Hannah

1. Cider with Rosie - Laurie Lee
2. Mythos - Stephen Fry
3. The Bear and The Nightingale - Katherine Arden

Just finished 9. Heroes - Stephen Fry on audible today. Enjoyed it but not quite as much as Mythos, maybe listening to them back to back is why, but also the stories are pretty repetitive in nature - mortal man (usually) goes on quest, kills this person then that beast etc etc. Only got more interesting when the women came into the picture, I find Medea’s story quite fascinating for example.

The English Patient is one of those very rare examples of a film being superior to a book.

Anil's Ghost , also by Ondaatje, is a more readable book.

So #15 is Crazy Rich Asians which I picked up on daily deal for 0.99p. Its OK, light fluffy RomCom and certainly different from recent reads. It's not going to be a stand out book but good enough to unwind with after a busy day.

AliasGrape I missed that there was a New Hercule Poirot Mysteries is it any good?

harpygoducky I enjoyed it! Here is my review from the last thread:

The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Seer Green. Set in the 1950s, Pearlie Cook is married to her handsome childhood sweetheart Holland, and is living in San Francisco with him and their child. Their lives are calm and ordinary until a man from her husband's past turns up on the doorstep. Why has he come, and what does his presence mean for their marriage? I loved this. Similar vibe to Anne Tyler.

What did you think of it?

13. Did You See Melody? - Sophie Hannah

Cara Burrows books herself into a luxury Arizona resort to get away from her family problems, but is accidentally given the key to a room that's already occupied, and thinks she sees Melody Chapa, who is supposed to have been murdered by her parents 7 years before. Cara's holiday goes downhill from there, without giving any spoilers.

As always with Sophie Hannah, this was a page turner that I got through in a couple of days. I also found the ending and final twists and turns extremely satisfying (I sometimes find the denouement in Hannah's books a bit of a let down, but she struck gold here).

1. Something Rotten, Jasper Fforde
2. The Lonesome Bodybuilder, Yukiko Motoya
3. Vox, Christina Dalcher
4. Suicide Club, Rachel Heng
5. Birdbox, Josh Malerman
6. The Psychology of Time Travel, Kate Macarenhas
7. 11:22:63, Stephen King
8. Lightspeed Magazines Futures & Fantasies, ed. John Joseph Adams
9. The Bees, Laline Paull

10. The One, John Marrs 11. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, Stephen King

Well, I had a run of two magnificent books together and then a mild stinker.

Stephen King's 11:22:63 was very different to what I expected. Recently divorced Jake discovers a portal to the 1950s and rather unwillingly takes a journey into the past for the sake of a dying man. Does he have the ability to change the future? Can he save JFK? And if he does, will the world have a better or worse future?

I didn't know huge amounts of the politics surrounding JFK's death. I was aware of who had done it, the conspiracies around him and JFK but didn't know much about Lee Harvey Oswald's history. I was a bit unsure if I'd like this but it's classic King. He can do no wrong with his writing in my opinion, and despite it being eleventy billion pages long, it still finished too soon. It's a clever mix of history and usual King strange, unsettling characters and situations.

The Bees by Laline Paull was another unexpected great read. Flora 717 is a sanitation worker bee, the lowest ranking bees in the hive. She, though, is much more than her 'lowly' birth status would suggest. Her type are normally mute, but she can speak. She can forage, feed newborns, do tasks that sanitation workers could never achieve. But when she discovers something even more incredible that she can do, she risks being exiled or killed. I loved the writer's style, and was totally invested in the lives of these bees and the workings of the hive. Absolutely recommend, especially if you like your characters strong, kick arse, furry and female

The One The premise is that a DNA test to find your perfect match has been developed, and it turns the lives of various characters upside down. While some of the ideas and twists were interesting, it just kept making me cross. Like, 'she made a mental note to get her, red curly locks trimmed at the weekend.' I think this is my pet hate in books - lots of 'tell' and not enough 'show'. It's so lazy and unnatural. As a woman, I look in the mirror and make a mental note to get my hair cut cos I look a mess. (note hair, not wavy brown locks - locks ffs!!) Far too much description of characters hair, rugs and every single thought that goes through their heads. The author seems to write a lot of peripheral female characters as screechy twats too, which doesn't help. Overall, a good idea but it needed to be written by someone who can write women. And dialogue.

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams is a Stephen King short story collection. Each has its own foreword from Stephen King, and he speaks often of which writer/style has inspired each story. Rather than being typically King-ish then, you have stories written by King in the style of Raymond Carver for example. If you like Stephen King short stories, you should be happy with this.

I've just started The Terror by Dan Simmons. Terror is the sister ship of Erebus, and the story is based on the doomed Northwest passage expedition in 1845. The Terror' is based on the facts of the journey, but is a fictionalised, supernatural take on the very real life horrors the crews experienced, as the ice-bound ships and crew are stalked by a deadly, unseen 'something'. Looking forward to getting stuck in to this.

Thank you for the new thread. My reading list so far:

1 Family History by Vita Sackville West
2 The Aspern Papers by Henry James
3 To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
4 A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler
5 The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
6 The Household Spirit by Tod Wodicka
7 Third Girl by Agatha Christie
8 All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville West

9 Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie
Hercule Poirot is asked to help a wealthy man in France but before he reaches him, the man is found murdered in a freshly dug grave and his wife is tied up in the house. None of the servants heard any noise and the front door is open. Whodunnit and why. Enjoyable read - this is an early one when I think she was still getting into her stride. The plot was a bit convoluted.

10 NW by Zadie Smith
By complete contrast to the previous book, one set in contemporary gritty north London. Three characters whose lives are intertwined, the story is told from each one's view point. She writes really well - has a good ear for dialogue - and I enjoyed reading it. I didn't really have sympathy for the main characters, though, and I don't think she really explained why they did the things they did (can't explain more without giving away the plot). In the first part the main character ought to tell her husband something but she hasn't and it isn't explained why she hasn't done this - what her reasons are - when in other ways she is such an articulate person. Similarly, with a later character there's no real sense of why she indulges in some very risky behaviour. Yet, for lots of the book we know exactly what those characters are thinking and why. So I felt that part was missing.

Bringing my list over from the last thread:

1. Dark Tower IV : Wizard and Glass – Stephen King
2. Normal People – Sally Rooney
3. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – Stuart Turton
4. Mornings in Jenin – Susan Abulhawa
5. Convenience Store Woman – Sayaka Murata
6. Behind Closed Doors – B.A. Paris
7. Elizabeth is Missing – Emma Healey 8. Commonwealth – Ann Patchett 9. A Gentleman in Moscow – Amor Towles 10. The Wife – Meg Wolitzer

As you can see, I've had a good hit rate so far!

Currently reading Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, which I am finding really interesting but can't zip through like I can zip through fiction!

My list so far is rather short, but I am very nearly half-way through Infinite Jest, which is going to take as long to read as at least half a dozen normal novels...

1 The Anxiety Solution - Chloe Brotheridge
2 Me - Tomoyuki Hoshino
3 Arlington Park - Rachel Cusk
4 The Beast - Alexander Starritt
5 A Sense of Direction - Gideon Lewis-Kraus
6 To Throw Away Unopened - Viv Albertine

and most recently (as a light diversion from IJ):

7. The Lady and the Little Fox Fur - Violette Leduc
This is an odd little novella, a French modern classic from the 1960s, in which an elderly woman (well, she is described as being old, though in fact it turns out she is only 60) is basically impoverished and starving, wandering the streets and metro of Paris, almost hallucinating with hunger, but is given a new impetus for living when she finds a ragged old fox fur stole. I found it a little hard to really immerse myself in this, but the descriptive writing is superb.

14. A History if Britain in 21 Women - Jenni Murray (Audible)

Potted histories of 21 significant British women. Didn't hold my attention as well as Murray's History of the World in 21 Women, and I was a bit alarmed by Murray's apparent use of Manda Scott's novels as a source for the life of Boudicca (who she insists on calling Boadicea ), which put my inner historian on edge for the whole book.

I'm reading quite a lot of books that have come through strongly on these threads at the moment. The latest has been We have always lived in the castle by Shirley Jackson. I would never have picked this up on my own, but I loved it. I didn't expect it to be quite so eventful, the blurb is quite good at giving a sense of the thing without revealing the direction things are going to go.

I've started Grey Mountain by John Grisham. I thought his first few books were great but then became writing to a template. There has been a lecture in this book on strip mining, how its done and the environmental and social impact. One lecture is fine. I have a feeling There'll be many more though....

I spent a really long time and could have spent an awful lot of money in here today!

On page 711 of A Suitable Boy but off out for day trips tomorrow and Saturday so can't see me getting much beyond halfway by Sunday. Could probably do with a bit of a break anyway as , in typical Piggy style, I am now speed reading it in overly mechanistic fashion and it deserves slower relishing, I feel. It's somewhat sobering that 771 pages isn't even half way through yet!

So far I have read

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 - this is a classic crime story. It’s the first book written by Kristina Ohlssin. Killer vs cops. Generally the book is ok if you are s crime fan and an easy read. Personally its not in the I can’t out it down page turner camp but nor is it in the what a waste camp. The characters deceive characters are what you would expect. Although personally I was left wanting more from each detectives character/ background. I thought the killers characters had much more depth. Overall it all felt a little superficial. The author tried to put a few twist and turns in the story but in all honesty I felt the twists lacked punch and the turns didn’t really exits. It definitely didn’t have the “oh my go, no way” factor that Sometimes I lie had. All that aside if you are looking for an easy to read crime story then this is it for you.

1. The Haunting Hill by Shirley Jackson. Just starting this. I have heard some great things about it so I have high expectations

Excuse typos but I am sure you get the gist.