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?

Palegreenstars Oooh that is such a tough question! I would probably say Needful Things. Loved the story (a mysterious shop sells exactly what you need at a price you can afford - apart from the cost to your soul), and the writing was typically King-ish. Feel the urge to re read it now

brizzlemint It does get a little bit creepy! I was thinking at first, hmm this monster is clearly just a metaphor for the intense loneli... ah, it’s literally ripped a man’s head off and thrown him across the ice. I see. Also, if you don’t enjoy descriptions of scurvy, frostbite and fairly intense stomach upsets, you might want to swerve this one!

@palegreenstars The Stand has always been my standout Stephen King book, Misery is also very good

My first Stephen King a few years ago was 11.22.63 and I’ve since done Carrie, Needful Things, Pet Semetary and Misery. I’d say 11.22.63 and Misery were my favourites.

Have added The Terror to my wish list

Probably Needful Things!

Thanks all! I bought The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon as it looks like the shortest of the ones mentioned. Added the others to my wish list which is ever growing thanks to this thread (well except Misery because the movie was terrifying enough)!

21: Becoming Michelle Obama
I really enjoyed this, I don't read a lot of autobiographies, but this was excellent.
Starting with her childhood in a deprived area on the south side of Chicago, where she was brought up in a tiny apartment with her mother, older brother and disabled father. There was a huge extended family and not much money, but Michelle worked hard at school and ended as one of the few black students at Princeton. She became a lawyer but her heart wasn't really in it and was looking for something more meaningful. When Barak became involved in politics, when her children were very small, she really wasn't keen.
Once Barak was on the campaign trail for the presidency, it is clear how proud she is if him, but determined how being the wife of a politician will not define her. That said, once she finds herself as the first black First Lady, she realises that this might be the role that she had been looking for. During the two terms of the Obama Presidency, she becomes an advocate for education, particularly for girls and kids in deprived neighbourhoods, healthy eating and lifestyles for children and gun control.
Michelle Obama comes across as a likeable and genuine person, far from perfect and with a real sense of humour.
Very worthwhile, interesting read.

29. How to be Champion: My Autobiography by Sarah Millican

This is not my usual choice of book, I’m not really a fan of celebrity autobiographies but I saw it on kindle deals so thought why not. It’s quite an interesting read with some laugh out loud moments. Sarah is quite an open book in her stand up so there weren’t any real revelations. She intersperses stories of her life with advice for readers which are quite funny but also quite touching at times. An easy enjoyable read though.

mog - I love books that evoke powerful responses, even the sad ones. Have you been to Kew Gardens? It is one of my happy places, so I'm adding A Thousand Paper Birds to my TBR list too.

I think I have but I'm not sure. I can thoroughly recommend the book, also read some of the reviews on amazon afterwards. One person said it was the kind of book that makes it hard to know what to read afterwards and I know exactly what they mean. It'll be my book of the year I expect. It was written three years ago so I was hoping that the author had written another book by now but she hasn't

The Kindle Monthly Deals look pretty uninspiring, unless anyone knows something I don't? However I can really recommend Can't Stand Up for Falling Down by veteran rock journalist Allan Jones. I saw him live last year too, on his book tour, and he was very entertaining.

15. Educated - Tara Westover A memoir from Tara who grows up in a survivalist Mormon family and escapes to get a mainstream education. Really powerful, and at points slightly heartbreaking. Completely believe the hype it has received!

Fran yep very uninspired. Can recommend The end we start from though. Awful lot of cookbooks in there.

Monthly deals - The Female Persuasion is there for £1.99 so I've snapped that up. Can recommend Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner for crime fans. Her earlier non-crime novel, Homecoming is also on there and worth a read.

I was pleased to see Seven Signs of Life on the Daily Deal, as I've been eyeing that up in hardback for a while. I also bought Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test in the Daily Deal - I've a feeling I may have read it years ago, but have had a bit more life experience since then, so will read with fresh eyes.

I didn't see anything I really wanted in the monthly deal. The cookbooks sound good, but I need cookbooks in hard copy. I bought a Josephine Tey book I hadn't previously read, and What a Complete Aisling!, which I've heard mentioned as nice fluffy read, although I'm wary of chicklit as a rule.

Otherwise I'm ploughing on with Nina Caplan's The Wandering Vine. It doesn't have much forward momentum, as she wanders around Europe doing wine-tastings. It's the kind of book to keep by your bed and read a few pages before sleep, so you can drift off to pleasant reveries about a nice civilised holiday.

I've realised the new Ruth Galloway book (by Ellie Griffiths) is out, The Stone Circle, so I've put my name down it at the library. Apparently I'm number 32 on the list, so it may take a while.

Two picked up in the bookshop next to dd's ballet lessons:

15. Little Culinary Triumphs Pascale Pujol

Marketed as a whimsical tale of creating a neighbourhood restaurant in Montmartre, but actually quite a coarse farce which I didn't really enjoy maybe because it wasn't what I was expecting. That said, I could see that the finale was pretty amusing so maybe on a day when I had a stronger stomach I'd have got more out of it.

16. Dept. of Speculation Jenny Offill

A sort of horror story for the inattentively married. Goodreads said I would like this. I need to tell it more about my tastes.

The Sunday Times said that I could "become cleverer" by reading Beouwulf so I hunted out from the spare bedroom a translation by Seamus Heaney that we were given as a wedding present. The introduction carefully explains how hard it's going to be to read, so I gave that up. I imagine that exactly the same thing happened when I first received it...

11. The Haunting Party by Lucy Foley. It was recommended to me and rightly so. Thoroughly enjoyed reading this who done it crime thriller set in a remote Scottish estate. I don’t want to share too much but I would definitely recommend this book. I could not put it down.

Of the monthly deals, I would recommend Love's Executioner (classic book of psychological case studies) and Indian Summer (Partition in India, with a focus on the Mountbattens and Edwina Mountbatten's affair with Nehru).

@UtterlyPerfectCartoonGiraffe Thanks for all the seafaring recommendations! I seem to be a bit obsessed with books about sailing ships and exploration recently so glad to add Terror, Erebus and the Darwin one to my list.

Sadik I also found Stiff Upper Lip interesting but depressing. I had an on/off relationship for several years with someone who had been at Fettes and it certainly explains a lot, I wish I had been able to read it back then.

The Wood: The Life & Times of Cockshutt Wood by John Lewis-Stempel has been on my TBR list for a while, it's half price now so I've snapped it up.

10. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
    Started off loving this but three quarters in I found it all a bit tedious and couldn't wait to finish it. Bit like being trapped in a slapstick movie.

11. Blue Lightning - Ann Cleves
    Slowly working my way through the Shetland series. Not one of my favourites - a bit too contrived for a plot.

12. Always Look on the Bright Side of Life - Eric Idle
    Good fun. He's a bit of an eejit but he knows that. Interesting insight into the other pythons. Some laugh out loud bits along with heart breaking stories - all well told.

13. The Silence of The Girls - Pat Barker - Really enjoyed this telling of the classics from the perspective of the women. Kind of book that lingers provocatively once you've finished.

14. War Doctor - David Nott Best book so far this year. So nakedly honest, brutal, caring, heart wrenching stuff. Autobiography of a doctor working in war zones.

15. Two Faces of January - Patricia Highsmith - no idea why I picked this one. Maybe because it's not my genre, but it just didn't work for me. Unlikeable characters, weird, unlikely plot.

16. The Boy from Nowhere - Gregor Fisher - don't know why I selected this one either. Not a fan but wow - what a hard childhood he had. A series of foster homes and childrens' homes and family secrets. Harrowing, but some very funny bits, too.

I've bought The Psychopath Test and Indian Summer from the daily deals - and threw in the Graham Greene for good measure. Currently on book 5 of the Shetland series Dead Water and it's gripping. Best one (of the series) yet.

I am probably the last person to hear about this but look at this for an amazing idea. I am definitely subscribing.

www.booksthatmatter.org.uk/?fbclid=IwAR0OdMjAVT-BZ6m-iMUiEm4ajZHrXEvj1QmnDu2pDDBky_z3lzK1MWruNHY

So finished #28 The Blade Itself overall I thought it was very good indeed. Interesting characters. Believable world. I'll definately be reading more by Joe Abercrombie.

#29 The Lord God Made Them All more memoirs of a Yorkshire Vet. Enjoyable undemanding reread.

Boiledeggandtoast agree it is very depressing. Having said that, I know a surprising number of people (including close friends & partner) who boarded from very young and if I'm honest I couldn't say that they were any more messed up than the average, or that you could pick out who they were without being told. (Not sure what the take-home message from that is, except possibly that parents can also do a really good job of messing up their children without institutional help... )

That looks good Zebra31 - does anybody on here subscribe?