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?

I've read 43 on the ST list but I agree, it will look very different in 10 years time.
I enjoyed The Goldfinch, including the Las Vegas section. I really like Las Vegas/Nevada/Arizona as settings in a novel in general. Houses that end up half-built, empty or crumbling into the desert have a lot of poignancy somehow.

33. Diary of a Bookseller - Shaun Bythell An easy, unchallenging read which was none-the-less mildly entertaining. I don't agree with the author about Kindles but it was interesting to have it spelt out quite how much Amazon has changed the landscape of bookselling.
34. Father and Son - Edmund Gosse This tells the story of the relationship between the father, a fanatically devout member of the Plymouth Brethren, and the son, who grows up and matures under the pressure of an extremely religious and devout upbringing. Apparently this was published anonymously in 1907 but it is essentially Gosse writing about his own upbringing in similar circumstances. It's an interesting study in domination and an eventual bid for freedom and autonomous thought.

I liked the Vegas setting too whippet but I think I have quite a low interest threshold for reading about what they were doing during that period and there was just so much of it.

I may be slightly influenced by the fact that Vegas is probably the place of all the places I have been that I would least like to go back to. Mind you, she captures that pretty well!

I've NCd and have reviewed my other books on other threads. Here are my recent reads. Good books are in bold :
20) The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne - interesting view of nazism through the eyes of an innocent/unwitting German boy.
21) Making it up as I go along by Marian Keyes - series /collection of usually funny essays. Laugh out loud at many points
22) Legion and The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson brilliant world building, especially in the second novella
23) Wych Elm by Tana French Tana French is one of my favourite authors but there's always a sense of impending doom which I find tense and oppressive. Toby is beaten up badly and moves into his childhood home to look after his sick uncle and recover from his own injuries. Then a skull is discovered in the eponymous Wych Elm out the back. I found the first movement of the book way too long. It was nearly halfway through before anything happened. The same with the next movement. Then suddenly a million things happen in what seems like the last seven pages. Still a great read though.
24) Steel heart by Brandon Sanderson. Another Sci-fi from Brandon Sanderson. Epics with amazing powers have essentially taken over the world. Think Superman using his powers for evil. The Reckoners are fighting back. Good, but not as complex/mature as The Emperor's Soul

Place marking - Morgan's Run is pretty good so far, but boy is it long!

28. Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier

Was really hoping this was going to be my first five star fiction book of the year. It wasn’t. What a load of old melodramatic running around on foggy moors, being tired, wet and sad and making poor relationship choices bollocks. God give me strength.

29. In Real Life by Cory Doctorow, illustrated by Jen Wang

YA graphic novel. Often appears on lists of ‘If you liked Ready Player One, you’ll like this’. I liked Ready Player One but I did not like this.
American teen joins all female MMORPG guild, gets a big sword and long hair but ends up befriending some Chinese bloke with back pain and giving him advice on healthcare rights.
Preachy and boring. The artwork was pretty good.

43. A Place of Greater Safety - Hilary Mantel (audiobook) Looks at the lives and loves of the three major players of the French Revolution from childhood to chopping block.

I struggled with this initially especially in audio format, but once I got going with Mantel's style again I was fine. She chops and changes between characters and time frames with wild abandon so it can be tough to keep up until you get used to it. I liked that the history element of it was by-the-by rather than the author trying to ram their research in at the expense of the flow. The narrator was amazing so it was an enjoyable listen overall, despite being really really long.

44. House of Names - Colm Tóibín (audiobook) A retelling of the story of Clytemnestra and her children around the time of the Trojan war. Her daughter is sacrificed by Agamemnon on the way to Troy and she plots her revenge for his return. The narrator switches between her, Orestes and Electra offering different viewpoints of events.

Skillfully done and well written breathing new life in to an old story, although the part of Orestes is a new imagining and easily the best part of the book. Tóibín is quite sparse with words in comparison with authors such as Madeline Miller, but I would argue this was much better writing than Song of Achilles. Well worth a read if you are working through modern takes on the Greek classics.

22. Running Upon The Wire Kate Tempest.
    Poetry collection depicting the end of one relationship and beginning of a new one. Loved this. I find poetry tricky as text but this worked - she’s excellent at ending each poem. The only thing I wasn’t sure about was the titles of each poem, they often bore no relation to the poems themselves and set me up with too many preconceptions. The point perhaps but there were a couple of short poems where I think the title is better than the poem itself.
23. The Silence of the Girls Pat Barker.

A retelling of The Iliad and the Last days of the Trojan War from a female perspective. Although it’s worth noting that the female perspective is just one Queen turned slave of Achilles. To be fair I think many female stories would probably be relentless and dull servitude from this war.

This is a great story mostly well told. I only knew the basics of the Iliad so actually found the plot a little surprising. I think the Novel lost its way in the second half a little and some of the dialogue got a little clunky but it was a nice easy read.

My TBR has gotten crazy thanks to this thread and the 99p deals on kindle so attempting to stick to the library and books I own for a little while now.

28. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Merricat lives in the Blackwood family home with her sister Constance and uncle Julian, mostly shunned by the outside world since the rest of their family were poisoned at the dinner table. But when cousin Charles arrives, their way of life is disturbed.

An atmospheric book. Merricat is a dysfunctional and increasingly sinister narrator who comes across as much younger than her 18 years in many ways.
I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this book now that I’ve finished it but I think it’s one that’s going to stick with me for a while.

43. Letters from a lost generation- First World War letters of Vera Brittain and Four Friends- Ed. Alan Bishop and Mark Bostridge Letters between Vera Brittain, Edward (her brother), Roland Leighton (fiancé and close friend of her brother) and other mutual friends, Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow. I read Testament of Youth years ago and Chronicle of Youth the diary it was based on earlier this year. The letters give another perspective. They reveal very much the character of each player and again show the progression of the War and how characters change as time moves on. Vera and Roland's letters dominate the first part and are quite moving and elegant. Two very intelligent and poetic young people who treat each other as equals, a rarity at the time. It Is worth noting that both remark how they find it easier to be honest with each other in letters and in fact they only had spent 17 days together in total, only 6 of these when in a relationship. One has to question whether had Roland's life not been cut so short their relationship would have survived. As it was Roland became a deity, worshipped not all by Vera but by his school friends and his mother.
As with the diary, the letters give a sense of this happening in real time. They are ordered in chronological order according to when they were written, not received and as such there are some tragic crossovers of mail. At times beautiful letters are written to men already dead.
44. Boy of my heart - Marie Connor Leighton Following on from the above this is the book written by Roland Leighton's mother and published in the aftermath of his death. Marie Leighton was a successful romantic novelist and this book is saccharine sweet. It is an extended eulogy to The Boy of My Heart. Set on Christmas night, as they wait for Roland to arrive home on his second leave, she goes back through his life detailing the very close bond they had and explaining why her Little Yeogh Wough ( pet name ) was the most glorious son who ever lived. Roland never returns, instead a telegram is delivered that night telling of his death. The devotion of a mother is key to this; it is very much of it's time and genre, not well written and at times the relationship feel like it borders on incest.
But what it does do is highlight a mother's grief, shows us what that woman gave up for her country. There is a moving scene where Leighton is sending out to the identity tags that Roland has commissioned. She is overwhelmed by what they represent- the means by which his body will be identified. Her pride in his achievements and grief at his loss are undeniable. One does have to wonder how his younger brother and sister felt reading this though!
Despite this being published anonymously in 1916 Leighton captured the hearts of mothers who had lost their boys. She received many letters which Edward describes in a letter to Vera. He is scornful that other mothers, of ordinary Tommies, are saying that Roland is just like their boy. But of course he was. He was their precious possession and in this was Leighton captured the mood of a grieving nation.
45. Because you died : Poetry and Prose of the First World War and After - Vera Brittain
Poetry written throughout the war, much of it dedicated to and inspired by her Fiancé and her brother.
The prose is largely written after the war, a mixture of diaries and articles. Vera's life was defined by the War. She writes about how it should never be forgotten, although she is aware that even by the 1930's it's memory is fading. She becomes a dedicated supporter of peace, believing firmly that the next war will wipe out everyone and everything.

I might be mad but I have decide after much messing about to attempt a book blog. Hence the extended reading of all things Vera Brittain. Hoping it will be my first review.
Now I have written about it on here I will have to do it ...

Great idea for a blog, toomuch and great reviews. It's a long time since I read Testament of Youth but I've always felt a sort of connection with VB because my family, like hers, came from Buxton and were living there during WW1. They may well have interacted in everyday life, although they were on very different levels of the social scale.

And my grandfather was a young man who joined up, full of patriotism, right at the very start of the war but, miraculously, returned alive. I think his experiences dominated the rest of his life, as they did Vera Brittain's.

Good to read your reviews above toomuchsplother. I think you should definitely write your book blog.

Link to your blog in due course, splother.

from childhood to chopping block - admirably pithy, Fortuna

41. The Coddling of the American Mind: Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff
I work in a university and this was lent to me by a colleague (and viewed with a curled lip by another colleague). It's about how students have come to view themselves and be treated by universities as fragile beings who need to be protected, and how this is doing them a disservice. On the whole I liked this and I agree with a lot of it, although I think there are some grey areas in the middle that aren't addressed. For example, they acknowledge the importance and legitimacy of Me Too and Black Lives Matter without fully acknowledging the tension between free expression and protection from harassment. Overall they argue for critical thinking and the value of diverse viewpoints and proper debate, and I can't argue with that. It's not the last word on everything, but it's a useful contribution to the debate.

Definitely do the blog splother. And make sure you include something about Barter Books!!

21. The Masqueraders Georgette Heyer Not my favourite Heyer but entertaining nonetheless. I couldn’t help picturing the father as Trump, ‘I am a great man, you couldn’t begin to understand how great I am’

Please do the blog splother - and perhaps you can set it up somehow that if we buy our kindle books via your blog you make a bit of book purchase money as well?

Thank you all lovely people for your support .
The blog is up! And I am scared!! No book review yet but a general ' hello it's me' type post

Link below as requested but please don't feel obligated to look.

bookbound.blog

I am going out with the dog to calm down Hide

And yes Mog I have a Barter books post all planned ...

You are all lovely 😊

It’s great toomuchsplother I look forward to reading your posts

Thanks toomuch, enjoyed your inaugural post. I'm following you now on my Bloglovin' account

Thank you Splother!
ToY is ALWAYS on my desert island list and my own copy falling to pieces following many many rereads. I've always said if it were obligatory reading for every teenager there'd be no more futile wars.
I first read it as a passionate pacifist in the 80s (who happened to have a boyfriend conscripted into his country's army which dealt a death blow to our lurve story)
I always found the character of Roland as described by Vera difficult though. I hope they wouldn't have carried on their relationship as he seemed such a drip compared to Vera.
I shall go and read your blog now!

Liking the blog splother

I have just picked up my library reservations The BFG to enjoy with my 6 year old DS and my second graphic novel From Hell which was recommended on the last thread (completely forgotten who by though).

Great start to the blog splother.

I'm 100 pages in to Ali Smith's Autumn and feeling largely ambivalent towards it. It's only 260 pages long so seems a bit churlish to quit, but I don't really hold with all this random bursting into poetry.

Thank you everyone.
Fortuna sounds like you and I had very similar experiences with Autumn

Love this @splother, I have the ‘mildly incapacitated’ fantasy too often