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?

@cherrypi I’ve not read it yet but I have The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell on my TBR after online recommendations

Cherrypi have you read Moss's fiction books? I love those too.

five

Five, I am very sorry to hear your news

Now finished Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie. I am not particularly familiar with Antigone, upon which this is based but it is a good and thought provoking read in and of itself. It seems really rather prescient , given recent debates about Shamima Begum, too. The book is told from different perspectives, the least likeable of which is the final one. It's not a long book and feels a bit slight to me. But it was interesting to read. Shamsie has actually written six novels - and, yet, I had never heard of her before I became aware of Home Fire. Some might find it a bit over dramatic - but, that, I think, is its legacy from Greek tragedy. Certainly, the central adult male is deeply flawed and hubristic, in the spirit of the genre.

Just stopping by to say that 8 hours into the 36 hour Audible book of David Copperfield I'm blown away, it's funny and sad and wonderfully performed by Richard Armitage.
I've seen an adaptation of the story but I think that was when I was pre teen.
I could remember the characters of Micawber, Uriah Heep and Dora but little of the actual plot or other characters stuck in my memory. It's such a treat to rediscover them now, I hope it continues to be this good if so it will be vying with Great Expectations as my favourite Dickens novel.

31. Everything Trump Touches Dies by Rick Wilson

An analysis of the extreme and varied awfulness of the Trump presidency by a Republican strategist & commentator who has worked for Bush, Rudy Giuliani & others. Interesting for the fact that it's written from the right, and entertaining & polemical (as you'd expect from a man who has made a specialty of producing attack ads). Definitely well worth a read, though I thought it was a shame that the author didn't examine in more depth why the Trump phenomenon came about.

Catching up with recent reads.

10. Watching You, by Lisa Jewell. I really enjoyed this at the time but it's a couple of weeks since I read it, and I think it's telling that I had to just look up what it was about, as I had no memory whatsoever of the plot. Well written but apparently I found it fairly forgettable!

11. Bad Blood, by John Carreyou. Oh this was excellent. Non-fiction about Elizabeth Holmes and her company Theranos, which developed technology to perform complex blood tests on just a few drops of blood. Holmes raised millions of dollars, had a board made up of the great and the good, and signed partnerships with huge US companies like Safeway and Walgreens - but the whole thing was a scam; the technology never worked, and the company was run in a way that deliberately disguised this, with anyone asking awkward questions being swiftly sacked. This reads like a thriller, and it's an absolutely mind boggling story. Highly recommend.

12. Milkman, by Anna Burns. Still working out how I feel about this. I nearly gave up halfway through as I was struggling with the style. The lack of names didn't bother me at all but the hugely long sentences and stream of consciousness did - until it suddenly didn't, and I ripped through the last half in a day. Incredibly atmospheric and brilliant at conveying the way a strange unspoken culture can form around a country that's suffering through conflict or civil war. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time to come.

13. Duped: Double lives, false identities, and the con man I almost married, by Abby Ellin. Very quick, somewhat slight read. Ellin became engaged to a man who turned out to be a pathological liar, and this book is partly her telling this tale and partly investigating why people lie in this way and how they get away with it. Helped a plane ride pass interestingly enough but think it could have been just as well done as a longform read.

14. Harriet, by Jilly Cooper. I have no excuse, I needed an easy comfort read and this perfectly fit the bill. As with all of her books, you have to be willing to ignore the social attitudes that now seem very anachronistic, but I still love her despite that.

48. The Fry Chronicles- Stephen Fry This was great: I enjoyed it almost as much as Moab is My Washpot. This memoir covers Fry's years at Cambridge and his early career.

49. Nick Drake: Remembered for a While- John Murray This sumptuous volume on singer-songwriter Nick Drake has much to enjoy. There are some of Nick’s letters to his parents from Cambridge, Aix-en-Provence and Marrakech, recollections of close friends, fellow musicians and his sister (the actor Gabrielle Drake), and plenty of analysis of his lyrics and music. More difficult to read, but very illuminating, are the extracts from his father Rodney’s diary chronicling the last few years of Nick’s life, leading up to his fatal overdose of pills in 1974. I would recommend this book to all Nick Drake devotees.

50. The Child that Books Built- Francis Spufford This has been much discussed on these forums, but I found it a little disappointing. The author makes some interesting points, but I hugely preferred Lucy Mangan’s Bookworm.

51. More Fool Me- Stephen Fry This was the first book of my Audible trial. In the early chapters, Moab is My Washpot and The Fry Chronicles are rehashed a fair amount, but at least Fry makes a joke about it. This, Fry’s third memoir, documents his years of debauchery at the Groucho Club and elsewhere with the likes of Keith Allen and Alex James. Fortunately, this isn’t nearly as irritating as it sounds. I was glad I listened to the audiobook, as Fry (as you would expect) read it extremely well and this added a great deal to the experience.

The year of Danishly is a good call as I loved that. I'm working my way through Moss's wonderful fiction.

I have read one chapter of Christie Watson's The Language of Kindness and started sobbing. It's a good antidote for anyone who found Adam Kay too misogynistic flippant.

I also loved The Year of Living Danishly.

Thank you all, sorry was feeling a bit sorry for myself, I am now ensconced in And Then There Were None and it's just as good as I remember. Also I now have a permanent contract at work instead of bank contract which I have had for 4 years, so celebrating with wine and a huge sigh of relief. Happy Tuesday

Hope everyone had a good Easter. We were out and about enjoying the sunshine.

I love "And then there were none* one of the best Christies. Yes very creepy I read all of the Christies as a teen and this is one of the good ones. I remember seeing a film adaptation which softened the ending. The new adaptation a couple of Christmas's ago was OK but agree that making the crimes worse was unnecessary.

DD1 adores Trebizon she describes them as her happy stories.

So finished #35 The Wicked King which continues the story from The Cruel Prince having won the crown of Faerie the next challenge is to keep it. Not easy with all the factions at court. I enjoyed it whilst covering familiar ground there were surprises and I didn’t see the ending coming. I will be finishing the series.

After that was #36 Trail of Lightning picked up as it’s on the Hugo Best Novel shortlist. A very different type of fantasy mining Native American mythology. Crossed with Mad Max. The world has suffered an ecological disaster the heroine has clan powers and uses them to hunt and stop monsters preying on the remaining humans. Overall not bad.

I then finished off the All Souls Trilogy with #37 The Book of Life. Continues the story of Mathew and Diana and tries to wrap up all the endings. Puply but a reasonable ending.

I’m now reading #38 Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy which is completely different. I vividly remember the accident and am finding it a compelling if horrific read. The accident was just waiting to happen and the attempted cover up by the Russians amazing. I shouldn’t have been surprised but how the Russians dealt with this is one of the causes of the continued animosity between Ukraine and Russia.

Five

www.amazon.co.uk/firstreads?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

For Prime Members, the first book in Mark Lawrence’s new series, One Word Kill, is free as part of the Prime First Reads offer. I’m not sure when the offer ends, possibly the end of the month. I’ve heard it’s really good.

Meanwhile I am currently trudging through The Psychology of Time Travel, for my book club this weekend, and it is so painfully dull. Some interesting ideas, but the writing is stilted and the characters interchangeable apart from the one who’s a bit like Delores Umbridge. The first real clunker of the year.

Piggy I thought The Language Of Kindness was wonderful and vastly superior to Adam Kay.

My mum's book group did The Year of Living Danishly a year or so back and I can’t remember what the connection was, but somehow Helen Russell was told and sent them all a little video clip to say hello and thank you for reading her book which I thought was jolly decent of her.

18. The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler

First of the Philip Marlowe novels and absolute epitome of the hard-boiled detective story. Dark and unflinching, with tremendous pacing that never lets up and cracking prose that set the standard for noir authors.

Think it might be time for some Chandler rereads soon.

New books!

five I'm sorry to hear your news.

13. Conversations with friends - Sally Rooney
Much reviewed on here and clearly a marmite book! I'm somewhere in the middle - I didn't love it but I certainly didn't hate it either. I much preferred Normal People though.

Currently have several books on the go. Particularly enjoying Fruit of the Lemon by Andrea Levy. Have also just started Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver which I've been looking forward to tremendously.

33. Washington Black by Esi Edugyan, audiobook narrated by Dion Graham

This story of 11 year old Washington, a Barbadian slave chosen by the plantation owner's brother Titch to become his assistant in his scientific and naturalist endeavours started out so well. I was completely gripped for the first third of the book which follows the start of Washington's and Titch's relationship and their wild adventures beyond the hellish nightmare of Washington's slave existence on the island.

Good writing, good plot, good characters, all good...

And then I think maybe Edugyan suddenly decided that she couldn’t be arsed to write a 1000 page novel, or maybe her editor told her to cut out 50 chapters or it wouldn’t sell.
Just as a huge event has happened and poor Washington finds himself pretty much alone in one of the most desolate and difficult locations on the face of the planet, a place where an 11 year old slave from Barbados absolutely should not be, and I’m all ‘oooooh how’s he going to get out of this situation’ [nervous feelings for fictional child]
and right at this moment Edugyan suddenly just didn’t give a crap anymore, and pulled a ‘let’s fast forward 10 years and here’s some feeble filling in the highlights, and now I can start writing the rest of the story again' move.

Urgh!

Then I pretty much couldn’t be arsed with it either. Thought the latter half was pretty dull with some drooby-drawers love interest tacked on to round poor Washington out a bit.

Piss poor nothing ending too.

Great, and then disappointing.

ScribblyGum I haven't read the book but I can totally feel your frustration. Great review but I'm sorry it didn't deliver :( Particularly as it sounded so promising.

Very sorry to hear about your husband, five.

30. The Darkness by Ragnar Jonasson

Not really sure what to make of this one. It all felt very truncated. There was a decent plot in there - Hulda Hermansdottir, a female detective on the verge of retirement, is pushed out of the force but given the chance to solve one last case. As she does so, echoes from her own past arise and we learn about her and the case in tandem. I think this could have been very good but the writing felt perfunctory (perhaps the translation?) and developments in the case just seemed to fall into Hulda's lap without her doing anything much. It's one of a trilogy and I'm a little intrigued by some of the hints dropped in the book - maybe enough to buy another at 99p - but certainly not at full price.