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'm going to give it a go - what's to lose at 99p?

I thought the same and so I've bought Endeavour

All of those are exactly the sort of book he'd like Biblio (esp as he paints as well as being very outdoorsy / nature lover). I might see if my DM knows if he's read Under Another Sky in particular.

Other ones I've wondered about are The Running Hare by the same author as Meadowlands, and Wilding by Isabella Tree (I read an interesting article by her recently in the Land mag).

I should find out if recipients can exchange books given to them on Amazon - that'd be really easy if so as he can just swap if he's read it already.

Glad they're on the right lines, Sadik! As far as I know you can return a gift on Amazon provided it's sold by/fulfilled by Amazon itself.

I'm really behind on the thread, but I've just finished:

12. Romantics & Victorians - Watson & Towheed (OU textbook). I'm counting this as it's a book and it was long, but I won't review it as I doubt anyone will want to give it a go unless they do the degree.

15. Past Tense by Lee Child. More Jack Reacher- not a standout one, whilst atmospheric, he has done this plot before, and there isn’t a standout supporting character, which is often his strength. A nice strong female “victim” though, and it moves at a nice pace.

Snap Tanaqui I've just finished a not outstanding Reacher. Read a couple of quickies (as I now call all other books that are not The Five Giants - progress report 52%). Needed a change of pace, plus they were library books that needed to go back.

1. Good Me Bad Me by Ali Land This came up in a side conversation with a CAMHS practitioner working with my son, that it had been written by one of her ex colleagues, and later the same day I saw it in the library, so picked it up. The author draws on her experience of children and families in the care and child mental health systems to portray a very extreme and disturbing account from the point of view of a 15 year old girl who has escaped from her serial killer mother. It builds tension really well, and is well written apart from the One. Word. Sentences. I. Hates. Them. The subject matter is darker and closer to the bone than I would normally go for, and ultimately left me feeling quite uncomfortable but it probably is a good book of its type for those that can stomach it.I

1. Personal by Lee Child I love Jack Reacher, and I mostly enjoyed this until the end, when a plot twist too far made things turn silly. This one involved missions to Paris and London, working with top level folks, which I never find quite as enjoyable as the ones where he is just mooching round small town America getting himself tangled in some local brouhaha. On the plus side, it was one of the ones written in the first person, and I always enjoy a few hours inside Reacher's head, noticing what he notices. Excellent fight choreography as always.

I've just finished a very mediocre book which none of you will have heard of so I won't mention it here. I'm now reading Up Sticks by Tim Moore which is the first in a long series of books about a couple who sell their cottage because the one next door is for sale and they don't want neighbours and set off with their dogs for 8 years (presumably a book per year) to travel.

MuseumofHam I'm also working slowly through Five Giants. 28%...It's not a hard read but there is a lot of it. That plus Infinite Jest is keeping me busy.

I'm resisting Endeavour. I have too many 'It's just 99p' books on my Kindle!!

14. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (read to the DC).

15. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell. This is strictly speaking a reread but I enjoyed it so much more the second time round. I thought it was pretty devastating. As I often find with dual time narratives, the past is so much richer than the present and I felt that the real story lay with Esme and Kitty with Iris being just a literary add-on to fill in the gaps for the reader.

Waves to Pepe from the start of the early 1990s recession. You may well catch me up. I always read non-fiction slower than fiction, and will probably take another break to read something quick and easy at some point.

13. Why Mummy Swears - Gill Sims. This was funny - silly, sweary, and pretty much as if it were cobbled together from Mumsnet threads, but funny.

I could relate to a lot of it, some parts were far more middle class than I could ever be, but Sims has captured the frustrations of being a mum (particularly a not very PTA mum, who happens to be on the PTA committee mum).

If you have children I'd recommend it. 4/5

up sticks was sexist drivel written by an idiot full of himself.
I've also finished hourly history's war of the roses and am now reading a short book about the royal family as the guinea pigs have forced me to go to bed.

21. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
I am very late to the party with this one. Always thought it was one I should read (and I’m fairly sure it was on my reading list at uni that I ignored) so picked it up this evening. I don’t know if I liked it or not. And I’m not quite sure I get all the hype either. On the plus side it is very short and only took a couple of hours to finish. I think if it had been longer I probably would have got bored and read something else instead. Maybe I need to mull it over a bit longer. Either that or I’ve missed something spectacular about it.

23. Kept: a American house husband in India This was by the American husband of a woman who was a junior diplomat for the American government. They both wanted to be diplomats but she passed the exams and her husband didn't. This book is the story of their experiences during her first posting to Chennai. It's interesting but some of his views are a little irritating, I'm not sure I'd read another one but some of the insight into the Indian culture was interesting if lightweight. It doesn't claim to be anything other than a light read though.

24. I use my thumbs as a yardstick This bizarrely titled book (the title is a bit of an in joke which becomes obvious when you read the book) is about the life of farmer and his tales. It's OK but not something I'd normally read - it's been languishing on my kindle for years after I saw it free when I'd just got it and wasn't as particular about the free books I got.

25. Up Sticks - book 1 France This was OK, I was quite enjoying it apart from the author's odd attitude to women but it was something I could ignore until I got to a totally unacceptable comment which made my blood boil. I'm glad it was a free prime reading book as I'd resent spending even 1p on it.

26. Hourly History's War of the Roses short and informative.

27. Prince George, the boy born to be king short and interesting it explains stuff that I didn't know about how the lives of George, Charlotte and Louis are mapped out for the and monitored by Buckingham Palace. Another prime reading book, it's good but I wouldn't have bought it so I'm glad I saw it on there.

1. Evil Under The Sun - Agatha Christie Poirot is on hand to discover who murdered a famous actress at a holiday resort supposedly Burgh Island. One of my favourite Christie’s.

Christie’s? Christies? I have apostrophe blindness this morning.

Half term here and that means some lovely reading time!
21. From a low and quiet sea - Dongal Ryan . This was a Kindle daily deal recently. A Man Booker Long lister from last year. Three separate stories of men who are all living in Ireland. One a doctor who fled from Syria and lost his wife and daughter on the crossing, the second a disillusioned and angry young man, pining his first love and hating his job, the third an elderly but successful man hiding dark secrets. The stories are told separately and the final chapter uses on incident to bring them together.
The writing is rather lovely. His portrayal of love lost and how each deals with it is believable and compelling. A short but affecting little book.

I managed to grab a day away in Northumberland yesterday which meant a visit to Barter Books. Amongst my haul I found 22. Bookworm. A childhood memoir of reading - Lucy Mangan.
Much reviewed on here I have been dying to get my hands on this. I read it in one day. I am completely torn about how I feel about it. In the main it was delightful, like sinking into a warm and cosy blanket of reading nostalgia. I am pretty much the same age as Mangan. I too was the child with her head permanently in a book. Unlike Mangan I wasn't lucky enough to have a book a week bought, but I was a regular at the library and reread my favourites until they literally fell apart. There were many crossovers in the books we read. Milly Molly Mandy, My Naughty Little sister, Charlotte's Web, Dahl, Stig of the Dump, Sweet Valley High all landmark and important reads in my life. I too read Blyton, but unlike Mangan I discovered her earlier and whilst I enjoyed the secret Seven, Famous 5 etc, my true and abiding love was the Enchanted Wood series.
There are books in this book I had forgotten and coming back to them was poor joy. How could I forget Teddy Robinson, and even further in the recesses of my mind Tottie: The story of the dolls house ?
Mangan lost me a little in their middle . I never read What Katy Did , or Anne of Green Gables, Ballet shoes etc or Just William.
But I feel a growing bond when I found she shared my loathing of Dr Seuss and couldn't engage with Tolkien.
I was ready to embrace this book as a special book but then Mangan ruined it all. Throughout my childhood my go to book has always been The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe. It was read to me by a lovely infant teacher and have held it dear forever more. Mangan claims to love it too, but she doesn't because she made a huge error and I quote ...
"On her first visit, Lucy meets a talking lion called Aslan who fills her heart with love and she promises that she will return to help him"
Cue loud shouty voice, in the car, DH nearly crashes on the A66. " NO SHE DOESN'T. LUCY MEETS MR TUMNUS!" Illusion shattered, Mangan doesn't love that book,if she did she would never make such a mistake. There was irrational anger, much ranting and an overwhelming desire to tell her SHE GOT IT WRONG!!
And irrational or not, so strong is my childhood allegiance that it was book ruined, right there. I left am wondering how much more of this book is an accurate representation? Is she a really Bookworm or an imposter??

27 Rabbit at Rest by John Updike this was read on radio 4 and I was quite impressed with TobyJones' American accent as he is one of my least favourites actors. For some reason I have never read any Updike but this was not bad as yet another take on the souring of the American Dream. 28 Maid by Stephanie Land was also a look at what's going/gone wrong in America. Young woman doesn't finish high school for various reasons including wastrel boyfriend and then has a child and has to support herself and daughter as boyfriend will not contribute. Everyone knows how boring cleaning is - this is a new level - describing cleaning and mostly for white trash without any Flash (or Jif) and with long journeys between jobs for a pittance. Eventually the narrator manages to drag herself out of penury & goes back to college.
29 Tales of Persuasion Philip Hensher - decent volume of short stories which made me do a bit of googling about the author. Like most his work is heavily autobiographical & I am intrigued to know about the article he wrote for a gay magazine which got him sacked from his House of Commons job. If it was that incendiary, why didn't he write under a pseudonym? Hensher is

Reread my Mangan review - lots of typos and errors! Yet again never post in anger!

… whoops posted too soon
a deft humorous writer but I find it hard to believe that all the predatory gays he writes about are so louche and so easily distracted by a pretty face. But what would I know. Stephen Fry seems to fit that stereotype and Tom Daly's other half. controversial or what.

Half teem here too Splother! When I read that bit in the Mangan, I took first visit to mean all the visits in the first book, iyswim; so Prince Caspain and Dawn Treader would be second and third visits; not her actual first visit, but maybe she just misremembered!

16. No Wind Of Blame by Georgette Heyer. One of her better detective novels, (which imo are not nearly as good as her regency novels), this is still pretty funny and satisfying, worth a read if you like Christie.

Tanaqui the paragraph goes on to describe how her brothers and sisters don't believe her, how Edmund is lying etc etc. It definitely refers to the plot of the book.
Sorry, can't accept misremembering, it's sloppy writing. Claims to be a bookworm, who loves this book. Not something you misremember. Claims to have the majority of her childhood books, so look it up!
And don't even get me started on how it got past the editors and the proof readers!!

10. Don’t you forget about me - Mhairi McFarlane

I like McFarlane’s books, well written chick lit/ rom com with humour and a bit of bite. I’ve mentioned before that she reminds me a bit of Marian Keyes. This one was maybe not the best, few too many cliches the author should have tried harder to resist, and the opening premise flimsy, but I still inhaled it in a day and enjoyed it overall.

splother, I get the indignation about Bookworm - when you identify with so much of what she writes, any divergences feel like a massive betrayal. I was irrationally annoyed that she either didn't mention or else paid insufficient homage to my all-time childhood favourites (The Borrowers, The Dark is Rising sequence, the Bagthorpe Saga). I lived in those books. I can't remember if you read Francis Spufford's The Boy that Books Built, but he also adored the Narnia books.

Splother I started Bookworm and didn't finish it because she irritated me at a particular point of the book - I can't remember now. Maybe I will go back to revisit it, today I have to work as I have a deadline tomorrow but I'm procrastinating. I really could do with my kindle developing a temporary fault for 24 hours!

I bought From a low and quiet sea and have promised myself that I will read it when I've met the deadline this may never happen