50 Book Challenge 2019 Part Four

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fourth 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, the second one here and the third one here.

How're you getting on so far?

*The Manual: How to Have A Number One The Easy Way
*
I've been doing too much potty training and thought this was going to be about something different...

I've been doing too much potty training and thought this was going to be about something different...

Same.

@InMyOwn @Decumus same. I decided not to count Poo Goes Home To Pooland on my list, despite multiple recent reads.

Decamus & Idiom same and I don't even have the excuse of potty training.

I dislike it when the covers of Kindle books are smaller than the standard size, how fussy is that? Also, I am less than pleased when they just use one of the standard kindle fonts instead of the publisher font.

I've just had to change all of the audiobook editions I'd chosen on Goodreads to book editions otherwise the thumbnails were square for the CD cover rather then rectangular like the books and it made my reading challenge look untidy.

If you are potty training you need to read The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew It Was None of His Business.

I’m thinking about potty training more than actual potty training, sadly. 🙄 Child with SEN, but desperately need to start making progress soon.

And there’s nothing worse than the Dinosaur that Pooped the Bed and it’s many variants. I wouldn’t even mind the lovingly detailed depictions of a tsunami of dinosaur crap if the bloody text scanned properly. In each book there’s at least one line that makes my teeth itch, it’s so jarring to read.

@Decumus solidarity with one day making it through a day without saying poo. X

Commiserations Satsuki on having to buy the expensive version of the Wimpy Kid books. At least yours will accept second-hand; mine is suspicious of charity shop books, unless you put your thumb over any marks and convince him they are pristine and he won't catch anthrax from them.

16. Thin Air by Ann Cleeves (Shetland #6) Sadly I think this series is running out of steam and has no new ideas. Shetland is a wonderful backdrop, and the murder mystery was decent enough, but seemed to follow a very similar formula to previous books: locals and visitors, complicated family ties and unexpected connections between people, motivations based on secrets and honour that are a bit of a stretch to actually believe. The main character detective Jimmy Perez is interesting, and I will carry on and read the last two in the series.

25. Circe Madeleine Miller.

I didn't enjoy this as much as Song of Achilles. On reflection I think it was more my state of mind, than the state of the book. There was lots going on in real life and I was distracted while reading it. It has, at least, inspired me to read more books set in Antiquity. I'm debating Pat Barker's book, and has anyone read Mythos (?) by Stephen Fry?

12. The World I Fell Out Of - Melanie Reid. This is a memoir from the Times columnist who had a life-changing riding accident nine years ago and as a result became a tetraplegic. I agree with Best about this - it's a wonderful book, told with huge amounts of compassion, intelligence and humour. I've read many non-fiction books where the accompanying marketing narrative is that 'you'll realise how precious life is' after reading those people's stories but this is the first time where I honestly feel that and I actually feel slightly changed as a person. I can imagine this will be on many Books of the Year lists in December and it'll certainly be on mine.

EmGee I am halfway through Mythos but haven't picked it up since January. I'm not a fan but most other people seem to love it. I will try to finish it at some point.

I am currently reading and enjoying House of Names by Colm Tóibín, a retelling of the story of Clytemnestra (wife of Agamemnon). I've been planning to read The Silence of the Girls since last year but keep getting distracted by books in the library.

I was very pleased to discover a new charity shop across from the doctor. 3 for £1 and the books are all pristine and recently published.

EmGee I really enjoyed Mythos and have Heroes waiting for me. A word of warning though I found it was written very much in Stephen Fry's voice (if that makes sense!). Not a problem for me as I really like Stephen Fry but I know others have found it irritating.
Silence of the Girls is excellent.

41. The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories- Angela Carter I have only read Wise Children by Carter which is one is me favourite books. This is very different, a gothic retelling of popular fairy stories . Very heavy emphasis on sexuality, sexual awakening, link between the loss of innocence and death. Lots on the sexual power play between men and women. As with all collections of short stories there were some I liked more than others. One I will revisit.

For some reason the Randon Number Generator has subjected me to another mammoth read (The Goldfinch this time) so am rechecking into thread before I fall off! I liked the opening , as I did the opening of Secret History but now feel I am trudging through. He has left Vegas now and maybe things are looking up again. Halfway through! Am on holiday now so reading pace should pick up.

At least most of the other books on my tbr pile are sub 500 pages! I am not submitting War And Peace to the RNG list yet as I can guarantee what would happen!

Catching up on the thread, I was a bit meh about Brooklyn as well, one of the few that the film is better than the book.

I am in a reading slump at the moment, can't seem to settle into reading anything at the moment, so may be a bit quiet for a while. I am sure will pick up soon.

I’m coming up to the halfway point of Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty, my first book by her. I’m enjoying it and there have been a few genuinely funny moments, but I’m beginning to suspect it’s not the Agatha Christie-style And Then There Were None set-up that the blurb led me to believe. There hasn’t even been a murder yet.

EmGee Fortuna and TooMuch - I loved Mythos (though far preferred the Madeline Millers for Greek Myth retelling - particularly Circe ) and it’s probably a highlight of this year for me. Agree though that it’s very much Fry’s voice (literally in my case as I listened on audible) and, even though I quite like him overall, there were times it grated. I didn’t love Heroes quite as much, because it is quite literally a collection of ‘heroes journey’ type stories - man (usually) goes on quest, kills this monster, clobbers that monster, dismembers that beast the end. I mean the clue was in the title really, I just was less interested in those stories than the god ones.

I gave up on Heroes. It didn't have the same punch as Mythos. Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman is good in a similar vein, I thought.

39 The Genius in my Basement by Alexander Masters
Simon Norton - who died last month - was a brilliant mathematician and deeply eccentric lover of public transport. This is a biography - of sorts - of him. Masters was his tenant for several years and so got to know him on a much deeper and more personal level than is usual for a biographer and his or her subject. I'm still reflecting on this book now; I thought it was excellent on the nature of genius, on why and how some very clever people lose their way academically, as Norton seems to have done in his career, and on the maths itself. And it was very moving - Masters clearly had a lot of affection for Norton. But it was also irritating in places - the attempt to explain the maths got sidetracked by cutesy diagrams and I felt there was a wasted opportunity, given their relationship, to get a real understanding of Norton himself.

40 Another Planet by Tracey Thorn
Just wonderful. I listened to the audio book and do think there is something really powerful about memoirs narrated by the author. This is ostensibly about growing up in suburbia, but is also about music, mental health, parents, ageing and going back to where you come from. I don't know if I would have felt differently if I had read, rather than listened, to it, but I'd highly recommend it.

41 The Acceptance World by Anthony Powell
Third in the Dance to the Music of Time. Like the others, the narrator goes to parties, lunches and events and crosses paths with people he knows. They are entertaining and evocative; I'm still struggling to keep track of everyone but am beginning to have a better sense of who everyone is, and the inter-war mood is very evocative.

42 How to be Right by James O'Brian
I read this as a counterpart to I Find That Offensive by Claire Fox, and was interested to find that a book by someone whose views of the world align closely with mine is way less engaging than a book by someone whose views I don't share. It's basically a "how to argue against UKIP" primer and is in large part made up of verbatim interviews from O'Brian's radio phone in show. This didn't add anything to my view of the world and I slightly resent the time I spent on it.

Pepe I'm impressed, I simply couldn't get past the first few chapters of the Alex Masters book when I tred to read it when it came out, a few years back. My brain just wouldn't put the pieces together to let it make sense.

58. Toto: The Dog-Gone Amazing Story Of The Wizard Of Oz by Michael Morpurgo

One of DD’s books - a retelling Of TWOO from the POV of Toto the dog. I quite enjoyed this and the hardback edition is beautifully illustrated.

59. The Suspect by Fiona Barton

Two girls are found dead in Thailand and the journalist investigating finds there’s more to the story - and was her own son involved? Better than Barton’s previous books.

60. Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

Nine people sign up for a strict health retreat in the middle of nowhere, and soon find it’s even stranger than they expected. I enjoyed this although I expected a twist at the end which never came.

61. The Girlfriend by Karen Hamilton

Juliette is so obsessed with getting back together with her ex that she becomes a flight attendant for his airline (he’s a pilot) so she can stalk him. I read this in a day. You obviously can’t like Juliette - she’s a very creepy stalker - but I was gripped just to see what she would do next. Unfortunately the ending was a bit weak, and the reasons given for why she ended up so insecure didn’t ring true to me. The author is an ex flight attendant and it shows - she often drops jargon in but then needs to explain it which comes across rather clunky.

SapatSea, the first couple of chapters were a slog, and I nearly gave up. All that chat about tinned fish. But I had a personal interest in getting to the end, as I work with a lot of mathematicians, some nearly as gifted as Norton, and am fascinated by what makes them tick. And I did get some clarity on that, although I believe Norton is definitely an oddity even amongst some tough competition!

23. The Rotters Club
24. The Closed Circle

both by Jonathan Coe

I've cheated on my strict purchase order because I bought The Closed Circle a while back on a 99p deal, started it, realised it was second in a trilogy and serendipitously found The Rotters Club, also for 99p. So I read that one first.

I really enjoyed these. The story of a group of clever boys at school in Birmingham in the 70s, then the second volume moves to the New Labour years, following the samw characters and their families. A bit like A Dance to the Music of Time but shorter, more contemporary and a lot less annoying. Coe's style is funny, affectionate and immensely easy to read. By the end of volume 2 I was so immersed in the characters that I had to buy the third volume, Middle England for £9.99 and am now a good way through...so complete failure on my reading order but a total pleasure to read.

11. Octavia - Jilly Cooper

This offering from JC reflects the attitudes of the time towards women and as a modern reader it just irritated me. None of the characters were likeable at all, and I just didn't care about any of them.

Particularly unpleasant was the abuse and exploitation of the protagonist towards the end; it felt sadistic and voyeuristic.

The final nail in the coffin was how Octavia had to be rescued by a rich man, a man who had beat her previously and this is what made her realise she 'loved' him.

Not impressed Jilly. Not at all.

Alexander Masters is the same man who wrote Stuart A Life Backwards isn't he? Sounds like he has made a habit of meeting unusual people and writing about them....

Piggy it does pick up after the Vegas section - I think that bit is kind of deliberately dull and aimless but it has its place in the overall plot.

Speaking of which

30. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

I read this as a teenager and made very little of it - it seemed endless and a bit pointless. I decided to give it another go in anticipation of the Backlisted episode on it which is coming up next week, and I'm so glad I did.

Dickens can be a bit annoying (the silly names and the "comic" characters) but blimey, he knows how to plot. He sows all these seeds, and you have no idea how they might come together, and then he slowly and deliberately gathers them together to devastating effect.

And while some of the comic business is a bit tiresome, his wry descriptions can be laugh-out-loud funny - the part where Pip goes to watch the bad production of Hamlet was particularly good.

I've really enjoyed picking up some of the classics again. Thinking of giving Vanity Fair another go....

Piggy I adored The Goldfinch, even the Vegas section, but I know a lot of people who found that part really dragged but loved the rest of the book. Hopefully the rest will feel like less of a trudge.

It's been lovely to see people enjoying Sharon Penman books recently - I love her books and have read a few of them multiple times. I think a re-read may be in order.

Chessie I enjoyed The Child last year and The Suspect sounds great so I just had a sneaky look on Amazon and the kindle version is currently 99p. I snapped it up, thank you for the recommendation!

noodle , I read a good 120 odd pages today and felt it was picking up again. Not really into druggie type narratives but I do feel desperately sorry for Theo: so sad and neglected and damaged.