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?

Thanks splother it’s been bugging me forever! Good to know.

26. Tenth of December by George Saunders.

Modern-day satire in accomplished short story form. Reminded me of Slaughterhouse Five as the stories often have a dark, fantastical side. Very good.

Chessie, you are not alone. I’m not the biggest fan of Agatha Christie either but then I’m not the biggest crime fan. I enjoyed the BBC production of And then there were none, the book was okay.

💐 I’m so sorry to hear about your DH, Five.

@FortunaMajor thank you! I am so unbelievably on-trend. Plus I have just started wolf book number 4 which is Of Wolves and Men by Barry Lopez which is actually ABOUT wolves. It's all wolves and gulls here at the moment. On balance, I prefer the wolves.

There was a good article about Agatha Christie by John Lanchester in a recent LRB (you get a number of free articles per month without subscribing):

www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n24/john-lanchester/the-case-of-agatha-christie

Lanchester defends Christie against accusations of "mawkish" writing and compares her favourably to her contemporaries, Margery Allingham and Dorothy Sayers. I found it very interesting and it sent me back to her books for the first time in years.

Five I'm so sorry to hear the news about your DH

I have skimmed over the last page of the thread as I'm currently halfway through Washington Black so am avoiding spoilers! Was gutted to miss the nine free books that expired yesterday.

You may remember that we spent Easter in Rome, and managed to find some good topical reading.

34. SPQR, Mary Beard

Long and detailed history from Rome from a discussion of founding myths and the reasons why a small Italian town grew into one of the greatest Imperial cities of all time, through to the conversion to Christianity under Constantine. I like Mary Beard but found with this that the book's strengths were also its weaknesses: the amount of detail, the chatty tone, the painstakingly equivocal approach to things that may or may not have happened as described in the available sources. She certainly gets across the point that we know relatively little about most aspects of Roman life and history, even those for which there are written records, but because it's all a bit vague, and because she darts back and forth between topics, it can all get rather confusing especially if you come to it from a relatively ignorant POV.

About halfway through I paused to read:

35. Ancient Rome (Hourly Histories)

which is about 40 pages long and covers the same period. I should have read this first TBH, it gives the simple view of the same time period and would have been a good background into which I could then add the more detailed and nuanced information in the Beard book.

36. Conclave, Robert Harris

Much read and reviewed here previously, this is a thriller set in the Vatican, where the 180 cardinals from around the world are gathering to choose a new Pope. Great book to read while visiting Rome as it's been well researched and contains lots of (apparently realistic) behind-the-scenes information about how the Vatican clerics live. I really enjoyed the first two thirds which show the shifting relationships between the cardinals as they consider who to vote for, with differing views on the role of the church and the best way to deal with the challenges of the modern world. It then gets a bit thriller-y as Harris introduces what was to me an unnecessary new level of excitement and peril, and a rather silly ending.

A bit of light relief perhaps, if you know the Wiki game
then www.thewikigame.com/?code=641153

and you can join a game to get from Chris Packham to Agatha Christie in as few wikipedia clicks as possible.

I'm just giving it a try.

I've just finished Silent Tears: A Journey Of Hope In A Chinese Orphanage by Kay Bratt.

It took me several days to read as I had a lot going on but it was well worth reading, there are some very sad stories but some very special ones as well so I'd recommend it. The ending was sad because what I thought was going to happen didn't happen.

The author has also written some fiction books but I haven't read any of those.

I'd never heard of The Wiki Game before, Brizzle. Can see it could be quite addictive!

17. A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini
Two women's lives during turbulent times in Afghanistan. Mariam is an illegitimate child of a wealthy man and Laila born fifteen years later to a teacher. The book follows their lives for twenty five years.

I read this for bookclub. It was a page turner and I read it quickly. It's a bit schlocky. The characters were either good or evil. There was lots of exposition. I did learn more about Afghanistan's history.

I just won one getting from Sistine Chapel to film genre!

Won again getting from Aqua (band) to secondary education. Tbh that one was easy!

Might have to stop now : books to read....

I'll do a new book challenge later when I've done some reading.

Kate Atkinson's first book in the Jackson Brodie series, Case Histories, is on Kindle Daly Deal.

I stumbled across this fascinating article on Locked Room mysteries on Reddit. Well, I say fascinating but really it’s just a long list of recs, most of which have gone on my ‘Ooh, I’d quite like to read that’ list.

crimereads.com/locked-room-mysteries-a-beginners-guide/

I definitely need to get my hands on some John Dickson Carrs.

48 The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es
This has been reviewed by lots of people here and I’d highly recommend it. It is the story of Lien, a Dutch Jewish girl, written by the son of one of the children whose parents hid her from the Nazis after her family were taken to the camps. The wartime story is good but for me it was the story of what happened after that made it for me, as the author examined the impact of her experiences on Lien herself and those around her.

49 Inventing Ourselves by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore
This is all about the teenage brain. I’d hoped for more practical insights - “because the teen brain does x, parents need to do y” - but that isn’t her intention. As a popular science book this was ok. As a parenting manual, not so good, though the next time a teen in my vicinity does something insane I will try to remind myself it’s normal.

50 Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
The title sums up the book, and as Dolly is way younger than I am, I approached it with some scepticism. And I think I’d have got more out of it if I’d been closer to the author’s age but nonetheless I recognised many of the mistakes and situations she describes from that post-teen, pre-domestic phase of life. It was funny and touching and very good on female friendships in particular.

51 Unnatural Causes by Richard Shepherd
Someone upthread said this was as much about Richard Shepherd as forensic pathology which is a fair comment. I mostly skimmed the introspective stuff and his domestic travails but he was very compelling on disaster management, identifying the dead and how the practice and funding has evolved, and not always for the better. His observations on the impact of the string of disasters and incidents in the 1980s (Kings Cross fire, Herald of Free Enterprise sinking, Hillsborough, Clapham Rail Crash, the Marchioness sinking) were particularly interesting, detailing the impact on health and safety standards.

For my fellow Dance to the Music of Time readers, I came across this on another thread, which I thought was interesting. It nailed the character of Nick for me - he is quite a shadowy figure, and I thought it was me who was failing to read attentively enough to get a sense of him but it seems that is the intention. And I’m approaching book five with renewed enthusiasm for Widmerpool’s ghastliness. He’s not properly loathsome yet but you can see how it’s developing.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/12/how-anthony-powell-wrote-his-twelve-volume-masterpiece

Pepe if you want a practical teen-handling manual, I'd recommend Divas & Doorslammers by Charlie Taylor. (He's a head teacher so knows of what he writes) I like "Get out of my life - but first take me & Alex in to town" to tell you why they're being impossible, then Divas to tell you what to do about it Fortunately these days I have a 17 year old who cooks meals / organises me / moves heavy things for me etc - shame they get to that stage just before they're about to move out!

I'm tempted by Unnatural Causes but I have a bit of a phobia about death and dying so I'm not sure I could stomach it.

I'm currently reading The Chain of Curiosity by Sandi Toksvig. It's heading for 5 stars at the moment, I can't put it down.

33 The Beast by Alexander Starritt

Fictionalised story of the Daily Mail newsroom - I picked this up after it was reviewed by exexpat at the start of this year.

Not as much fun as Scoop IMO, but a good read all the same & a good change from the various nature/farming books I've read lately. I particularly enjoyed the details of how the newspaper is put together, the pages going off to print etc, perhaps more than the story itself, though I did like the ending.

Thanks sadik, will check it out. I found Get out of my life... a bit light on practical tips so that would be good. Mine are relatively manageable but I don’t have the skills - feel as if I am stuck in the mindset of parenting tweens, and don’t have the arsenal to get me through the next few years.

30. Bill Bryson - Little Dribbling I always turn to Bill Bryson when I need for comfort reading and I’ve been full of cold and miserable this week. Not his best and I know many on here didn’t like this but I quite enjoyed it second time around.Already the Britain of 2012 ( when this book was written) seems like a better place even if Bill didn’t think so.

Oh, Best. How bloody depressing. :(

Yeah, the LIbDems basically said the same thing in their party political broadcast yesterday.

Decumus my bookclub’s read last month was a locked room mystery.
Murder in the Crooked House by Soji Shimada.

I had to DNF it at about 100 pages in. An utter pile of steaming shite. Comprehensively unbelievable and unbearably terrible.
The kind me blames the translator.

It's ages since I read that but I think 2012 was probably better. That said I'm tearful and miserable tonight so god only knows what is better and what is worse