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?

Oh dear, Scribbly. there was a book by that author recommended in the article, but a different one - The Tokyo Zodiac Murders. Not sure I’ll bother with that one in that case. It’s a popular genre in Japan, apparently, and I do really like the sound of The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji. A group of people on an isolated island ( termed a ‘Closed Circle’ apparently)? Oh hell yes.

The Death in Paradise novels are pretty fun locked room mysteries too, and i was pleased to find the latest in the library. Pretty much the same as the show, and it’s nice to have Richard Poole back.

I’m currently reading the massively trashy, trophy and slashy first novel in The Captive Prince trilogy. Load of bloody bollocks but fairly entertaining.

brizzlemint, have some and . Sorry you’re feeling rubbish. And 2012 was definitely better.

Thank you Pepe. I have no idea why
I can't even get into a book

Brizzle . What cheers you up usually?

I was definitely feeling more optimistic about the future in 2012. Hope you’re feeling better soon Brizzle

34. The Last Four Things by Paul Hoffman

Sequel to The Left Hand of God. Thomas Cale is back in the hands of the fanatical Redeemers, who are plotting the destruction of mankind. And their Lord Militant believes that Cale has been chosen by fate to act as the Angel of Death.

I enjoyed The Left Hand of God a lot, but I really struggled to get into this one. Plenty of political and religious intrigues and bloody battles, but it just wasn’t working for me.

35. The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School by Kim Newman

Set in an alternate 1920’s, Drearcliff Grange is a boarding school that takes special girls. Like Amy, sent there after her mother found her sleeping on the ceiling.
Amy and her friends find themselves at the centre of a struggle to stop mysterious conspiracies happening at the school.

I liked the idea of it, but this was another one that didn’t really work for me. Very slow in places and the inter-dimensional stuff the bad guys were trying to do made very little sense.

Any book usually does, I was chortling over the Toksvig book earlier but I've been reading it in bed and finding it dull as ditch water which is down to my mood not the book. I can't sleep so got up and just read a really sad thread on MN.

13. In the Days of Rain by Rebecca Stott. Very much enjoyed this memoir of the author and her father and their lives in and out of the Exclusive Brethren. I thought she handled the dilemma of how not to write about her mother more than her mother wished, particularly well, though it left a gap for me - in particular, how she ever reconciled with her father. She also issues a challenge to teachers and other professionals who encounter children living in extreme religious cults- how much do we compromise 'liberal values' to leave those children to be brought up in destructively restrictive practices?

The wonderful Cazalet chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard are on Kindle daily deals today.

Sending Brizzle. I too am feeling a bit 'meh'. Low energy and achy. Probably a virus from first week back at the chalk face. Hence falling by the way side with up dates.
54. Signs for lost children- Sarah Moss Fantastic Book. I am falling a little bit more in love with Sarah Moss each time I read her. This is the wonderful follow up to Bodies of Light I raved about earlier in the year. Because it is the second book it is difficult to review without giving spoilers to the first. It continues to explore issues surrounding women's health at the turn of the century, this time focusing on mental health and the treatment in asylums. Moss has lots to say on how our experiences in childhood shape us and what we need to do to find our own path in life. As always with Sarah Moss, recommended.
Just started A Little Life which seems to divide opinions everywhere. Not made up my mind yet other than it is quite slow going and Kindle tells me I am only 5% of the way through!

Yeah, I've had 3 days teaching and feel like someone has put a collection of razor blades and sandpaper down my throat.

Piggy temperature and banging head here! Oh and the tennis elbow is back with a vengeance. Amazing how short a time it takes to undo all the good stuff from a holiday!

Piggy and Splother I'm back at the chalk face tomorrow. Can't wait. Lovely children, paperwork not so lovely.

I've really fallen off this, but still lurk.

Just to say that all The Cazalet Chronicles (five volumes) by Elizabeth Jane Howard are on kindle deal of the day today.

25. How to Stop Time Matt Haig

The main character realises in the 1500s that after puberty kicks in he stops ageing at a normal rate and has a life expectancy of 950. In the age of witch trials this causes problems for him and his loved ones and doesn’t improve as the centuries continue.

I really enjoyed this concept and his experiences with the changing times. I think Haig is a great writer and I will definitely look out more of his work. I did question Tom’s belief in the society that ruled his life but it didn’t stop me enjoying the rest of the story.

26. Slay In Your Lane: The Black Girls Bible by Yomi Adegoki & Elizabeth Uvibinene

A guide to growing up and getting on as black women in the UK. Read this for book club. It was pretty interesting as a white women reading this and feeling a little shut out from some bits, imagine that’s how black women feel regularly with self help books and why it’s important it exists.

The writers are quite young and at times it felt a little like a dissertation and very statistic heavy. I think probably different people get different things from this. I found the business section really relevant to me and learnt things I didn’t know such as colourism and micro-aggressions.

Chessie et al - I think it is a truth universally acknowledged that Agatha Christie's ingenious plots overcome her poor writing style. I agree with p.p.'s comments on P D James - the word "clunky" was coined for her.
In other news I have read The trouble with sheep & goats which I think has probably been discussed here some time ago as it was published in 2017. Two mis-fit girls attempt to investigate the mysteries never spoken of in their part of suburbia. Not very good really - too long - as usual and derivative of practically everything else in this style. There are also various references supposed to evoke the 1960s and 1970s which do not ring true.

All my puny sorrows - Miriam Toews - another one I might have missed or did not finish first time round. Wish I hadn't bothered as it is too tragic - about suicide, mental health and minority religion (yet again). How the author found the strength to carry on herself is incredible.
Local Girl Missing - Claire Douglas - crap psycho thriller again. Need to stop reading these asap. New note to self - any glowing reviews by writers of similar novels should be disregarded as a matter of course. I watched the film of GOne Girl the other day - that & Girl on the Train started this trend I believe. I always like to think of Jane Garvey interviewing Paula Hawkins on Woman's Hour and saying that she hadn't finished GIrl on the Train. haha
I agree with previous reviewer of The Librarian. How did it get published?
I can feel a re-read of Barbara Pym and Adrian Mole is due ...

13. The Only Story - Julian Barnes. I thought his usually detached and cerebral writing just didn't work here in this love story. Bland and forgettable.

14. Tell Me a Secret - Jane Fallon. Holly is a TV script executive in London who's just had a big promotion. Dodgy things happen at work that suggest someone is out to sabotage her on her probationary period so Holly and her best friend Dee try to figure out how Holly can keep her job and turn the tables on the perp. I had a bad week and wanted something escapist and super easy to read so I picked this up at the supermarket before Easter. It hit the spot and I found it hard to put down at times despite the occasional far fetched twists. I thought the main character was well drawn, loved the humour, and the workplace politics very recognisable. I'm new to this author and I'll definitely read her other books.

Currently reading Started Early, Took My Dog which hopefully will set me up nicely to read the newest Jackson Brodie book which is out in June.

37. Washington Black, Esi Edugyan

Found this an easy book to read (entertaining and beautifully written) but a hard one to fully understand. Hopefully the review below isn't too spoiler-y.

We start with a familiar story. Washington is an 11 year old slave boy, living on a plantation in the Caribbean under a cruel master. One day he is plucked from the fields by his master's brother, an eccentric scientist, who needs a boy to fetch and carry for him. He is kind to Washington and soon spots his talent for drawing. We think we know what is going to happen here - Titch (the brother) will take Wash under his wing, see him for who he really is, rescue him from the plantation?

Well, yes, to some extent, and also no. Edugyan said that she wanted to tell a story about black people which hadn't been told before, and she walks away from the well-trodden path into a very different story. It becomes a picaresque adventure, with strange half-hints of magic realism and a steampunk-ish mix of science fiction and history (Washington exploring the sea bed using an early scuba diving rig, for example). Characters disappear, are thought to be dead, come back to life, die again. Wash (who is a wonderful character, and for whom you are rooting from the first page) searches for these characters from his past and receives strange, mixed-up stories - their appearance changed, they were the same person yet not the same.

It's not a full-on switch to fantasy, though, and some of the difficulty of grasping what's going on is that the book still has one foot in realism at the same time as all of this is going on - a bit like a strange dream where you think you might still be awake. There are few answers to the questions that are raised.

I loved the way that Edugyan picked up, explored, and rejected the "White Saviour" trope, and the ideas that she explored about Wash's ability to be free and to have agency. In this it reminded me of the thought-provoking ending of Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie, which blew my mind when I first read it a few years ago.

This book turned out to be much more than I thought it was going to be, but I think I will be discussing it and reading about it for months to come, seeing what others thought of it and discussing some of its fascinating and slippery questions.

33: 111 Places you must see in Berlin – not as good as the ‘On the trail of the Nazis’ book in the same series, but gave me a few interesting ideas

34: Frederica – Georgette Heyer I’d somehow missed this one, or, if I’ve read it before, had totally forgotten it. Enjoyed it immensely.

Finished #38 Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy probably the best non fiction book I've read this year. A compelling in depth book looking not only at what happened but why it did and how the politics of the USSR at the time made the accident so much worse (A May day parade was allowed to go ahead in Kyiv just days after the accident with radiation collecting in a valley needelessly exposing so many more people). I thought I knew about the accident but this was an eye opener.

Now reading #39 Artemis which is Andy Weirs follow up to The Martian. Artemis is the first and only city on the moon. Life is pretty tough and expensive so the protagonist thinks that smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband is a good solution. And then she is offered the chance of a very dodgy but financially rewarding deal. What can go wrong?

17. Outer Order, Inner Calm by Gretchen Rubin
Tips, inspiration and advice for decluttering "to make more room for happiness". I'm a fan of Rubin, have found her previous books interesting and helpful and listen to her podcast. I therefore knew I would like the style of this, but it also meant I'd heard a lot of it before. The format makes it better suited to dipping in and out rather than reading in longer sittings, but I'm not sure how easy it will be to quickly find bits that are relevant. Having read it through, I'm keeping it to hand to pop back into. Might only be over time that this book's usefulness, or otherwise, becomes clear.
18. The Husband's Secret by Lianne Moriarty
There are so many secrets in this that I'm not sure what I can say about the plot without spoilers! My second book by this author, it didn't have the humourous moments of Big Little Lies but was enjoyable enough without being a highlight.

southeastdweller

The Only Story - Julian Barnes. I thought his usually detached and cerebral writing just didn't work here in this love story. Bland and forgettable

just finished reading this too & agree. Was really disappointed & though there were moving moments, far too slight & unconvincing. Really hard to see any of the characters' motivation.

I'd recommend Notes to Self by Emilie Pine. A slim book, set of essays, beautifully written, honest & extremely raw, hard reading in places (especially for someone experiencing infertility, though maybe it would also be helpful?)

I also just read A Good Time to be a Girl by Helena Morrissey.
Better than I expected, though I cringed at her encouragement for women to use their 'feminine' attributes to succeed. In fairness, she develops the concept in a more nuanced way to mean essentially being true to yourself is more important than acting in a perceived 'male' approach.

74. Sovereign by C J Sansom

Third in the Shardlake series. I enjoyed this better than the second (Dark Fire) although felt it was a bit long. Shardlake is sent to York to guard a prisoner but soon finds someone is trying to kill him due to some papers he found hidden which relate to Henry VIII’s claim to the throne.

75. The Language Of Kindness: A Nurse’s Story by Christie Watson

It was only after finishing this that I realised (when adding it to goodreads) that I read it last summer. Bits of it had felt familiar but not much! Still a good insight into what it’s really like to work in the NHS.

76. How Not To Get Married: Confessions Of A Wedding Photographer by George Mahood

A mixture of anecdotes from weddings he photographed and advice based on his experiences. Quick light read.

77. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

I have been listening to this on audible for what feels like years! It’s long. Good book though and very well read.

78. Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

A reread of the latest Jackson Brodie in advance of the new one in June. I love Atkinson and this is a really good one. Hope the new one ties up the loose end and we find out who Courtney was - I suspect we will never know though!

I finished no.40 this weekend which is Notes to Self by Emily Pine, coincidentally just mentioned upthread. I thought it was, in places, very well written, particularly the first essay on her father and the essay on infertility. For me, it didn't quite reach the heights of Deborah Levy's Things I don't want to know or Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts, but if you enjoy that sort of autobiographical (living autobiography), feminist writing, then Notes to Self will be for you.

I'm noting those suggestions @whippetwoman; I didn't think I'd like The Argonauts but I'll look at it again after your recommendation. I never heard of Deborah Levy's book, surprisingly, and I reckon I would like it. Thanks