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?

Brizzlemint a friend received it as a mother’s day present. I haven’t seen it yet but she loved the first box.

22. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Much read and reviewed on here. I felt this was slow to start but really picked up during the story of the war, which I found compelling and moving. Only slightly tainted by the fact that I found Achilles' ridiculous insistence on protecting his honour above all else strongly reminiscent of our current Brexit shenanigans.

Sadik Ha, that's an interesting thought!

22: Mrs Frensham Describes a Circle - Richmal Crompton

After reading and enjoying Leadon Hill, I'm now on a bit of a mission to seek out some more of Richmal Crompton's many adult novels. This one was published in 1942 and is full of vivid wartime detail which I thought was brilliantly done.

Mrs Frensham has lived her whole married life having to care for and protect her husband, Philip, who suffers from anxiety so severe that he's spent time as a hospital in-patient. She somehow manages to conceal from him the fact that war has been declared, but when a stray bomb hits their cottage and damages it badly, he's killed and she's injured. In order to recover, she has to go and stay with her grown-up daughter, Anice, whose three children, flamboyant next-door neighbours, and bossy mother-in-law provide most of the plotlines of the novel (actually, Mrs Frensham is a bit of a device enabling the interesting bits to happen).

This isn't a challenging read and nobody would pretend it's high literature, but Richmal Crompton knew how to write a rattling good yarn that drew the reader in, and I thoroughly enjoyed this. Not surprisingly, she's excellent at children and families, and it's very perceptive. Good stuff. On to the next now.

For sci-fi lovers, I see the Hugo award finalists have been announced. I've read (and enjoyed) Record of a Spaceborn Few, but none of the others so far.

30: Unnatural Causes - Richard Shepherd

By a forensic scientist and on Kindle deal the other day. He’s worked on many high profile cases, and it was interesting to read about those, but I thought this had too much about Richard Shepherd in it, and I wasn’t really (at all) interested in Richard Shepherd and would have far preferred more about his work instead.

Bringing my list over...standouts with a '' before them.

1. The Girls by Emma Cline
2. Coming Home by Rosamunde Pilcher
3. Becoming by Michelle Obama

''4. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnemann ''5. Chernobyl by Sergio Plokhy

1. Smut by Alan Bennett

''7. The body keeps the score by Bessel van der kolk - about trauma and its psychological, psychiatric and physical effects, and how to treat it. Another wonderful distillation of an entire career. Full of fascinating case histories and with a real sense of humility.

1. Convenience store woman by Sayata Murata. Sorry if this has been all over the threads. I really loved it but it's a bit of a one-idea novel, and so short! But I think it's exceptionally well written. Couldn't put it down.

@Sadik thanks for the link to the Hugo nominees. I usually read them if I haven't already.

Like you I've read Record of a Spaceborn Few (I still prefer A Closed and Common Orbit but this is still a good book).

I haven't read the others and will be adding them to my list except for the the Yoon Ha Lee one as I hated the first book in this series.

24. Brooklyn - Colm Tóibín

Eilis Lacey's sister engineers her emigration from Enniscorthy to Brooklyn, where she works hard in a department store and studies hard to become a bookkeeper, without ever really putting down strong roots in her new home (although she does get a boyfriend, Tony, who she seems mildly fond of). Her life is steered by others and her outward responses are flattened so as not to upset them.

So far, so pedestrian and ploddy, with very straightforward unpoetic language and little narrative drive. I was wondering why this novel had been so acclaimed.

The last fifth of the book was strangely brilliant though, when Eilis returns to Ireland and faces a choice between her two lives - and faces the consequences of her own reserve and emotional inarticulacy. I will read more of Tóibín if it crosses my path.

inmyownparticularidiom I really liked Brooklyn too - I had the same initial reservations but it was oddly compelling and plodded into something quite powerful. The Testament of Mary is quite interesting as a take on the life of Jesus from the perspective of his mother - kind of “he’s not the messiah he’s a very naughty boy” but treated seriously. His writing is so spare you have to be in the mood for it I think. I’ve just picked up The Master from the local honesty library which I am quite pleased about having been on the lookout for a while.

Thanks for the new thread South. Bringing my list across

1 Plumdog by Emma Chichester Clark
2 The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J K Rowling
3 Bookworm by Lucy Mangan
4 Their Lost Daughters by Joy Ellis
5 The Restless Girls by Jessie Burton
6 The Princess Bride by William Goldman
7 The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
8 Small Great Things by Jodie Picoult
9 American Overdose: The Odioid Tradgedy in Three Acts
10 The Hobbit: There and Back Again by JRR Tolkien
11 The Wood: The Life and Times of Cockshutt Wood by John Lewis-Stempell
12 Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian
13 The Magicians by Lev Grossman
14 The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: or The Murder at Road Hill House by Kate Summerscale
15 Erebus: The Story of a Ship by Michael Palin
16 A Place For Us by Fatima Fahrenheit Mirza
17 Upstairs at the Party by Linda Grant
18 Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
19 Normal People by Sally Rooney
20 The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore
21 Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment by James R Gaines
22 My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
23 Sherlock: A Study in Pink by Steven Moffat
24 A Long Way From Home by Peter Carey
25 The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane
26 Swan Song by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott
27 The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey

Reviews of the last two books to follow.
Looking at my list I haven’t given five stars to any fiction books for adults yet this year. Humph.

ScribblyGum - how did you get on with The Western Wind? I'm dithering over whether to commit to it. First chapter or so didn't make much of an impression either way.

scribbly ! Done your Bleak House yet?

18. The House Between Tides Sarah Maine Dual timeline novel, Hetty inherits a crumbling old house in the Outer Hebrides, sees it as a new start and chance to escape her own issues, but dark family secrets are uncovered with the discovery of human bones in the grounds. We flit between the modern day story and 1910 when said ‘dark family secrets’ take place. The past timeline is more successfully done than the present, I found it very hard to care about Hetty or any of the hugely predictable things that happened to her or any of the other walking cliches that populate those sections of the book, but although the central ‘mystery’ and events in the 1910 timeline were also quite predictable, the characters did really come to life and their stories were more compelling. Also annoying the way the present day characters just happened to find so many convenient plot devices (priceless paintings with handwritten explanatory notes on the back just shoved in a cupboard, letters helpfully detailing things so carefully covered up for generations just sitting untouched in biscuit tins 100 years later, that sort of thing) and seemed unnecessarily ‘tidy’ at the end. This really reminded me of Kate Morton books - which I usually have similar feelings about, largely enjoying at least one strand of the story but finding them a bit obvious and irritating at the same time.

BakewellTarts I agree, Closed & Common Orbit is definitely my favourite of the three Becky Chambers novels, though I did enjoy Spaceborn Few.

Satsuki - yes, The Testament of Mary is the other one of his that appeals to me. A couple of years ago I enjoyed Jim Crace's Quarantine, which is an off-beat take on Jesus' 40 days fasting in the wilderness (he's not the Messiah in that one either, I think he's a quite confused boy).

27. The Tall Man by Phoebe Locke

A not very thrilling psychological thriller.
The sort where you’re told at the start who the killer is, and the rest is slowly revealed. Not the worst I’ve read but definitely not a “must read” as claimed on the cover.

The Book of Dust, the prequel to Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, is 99p on Kindle today. I wavered a bit then bought it.

Terpischore I agree about Richmal Compton. I read a few of her adult novels a couple of years ago (Narcissa, Caroline, Chedsy Place, The old Man's bIrthday). They are easy reads and quite cheap on Kindle (around £2 to £3). Great when you are feeling low or a bit ill. Apparently, she was a top seller in her day with these adult books.

I've got Weatherly Parade on my wishlist, having been reminded of her . Thanks Terpsichore.

Yes, I was just considering The Book of Dust but it's an ebook I could borrow from the public library and I just can't get excited about it to be honest, so I haven't downloaded it.

I've read a couple more:
31. Friday Night Lights - H.G Bissinger
I certainly know a lot more about Texan High School American Football than I did before I read this classic study of a year in the life of the Permian Panther's. This book spawned the TV series of the same name. On the whole, a good study, taking in the state of America at the time (1988), racism, politics and the decline of the Texas oilfields. I'm really glad I read it actually despite it being a bit of a slog at times.

32. History of Wolves - Emily Fridlund
I really didn't enjoy this and had to force myself through it. Not because it's badly written, it's rather well written, but because I just didn't like the subject matter, which revolves around a child and his parents who arrive at a lakeside cabin close to where 15 year old Madeline lives with her ex-commune parents. I don't want to give the plot away, but I wonder what I would have done in the same situation as Madeline/Linda at the same age. I would call this a dark coming of age novel shot through with all the uncertainties and character flaws of real life.

Now reading The Diary of a Bookseller which is rather bland (but is in no way upsetting) before I carry on with other things. My TBR list is now a mile long and the pile of books on my bedside table would cause genuine damage if it fell on me in the night.

Piggy very nearly.should be done by end of the day.

26. Swan Song by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott

In 1965 Truman Capote published a chapter from his forthcoming novel Answered Prayers in Esquire. The excerpt was called 'La Cote Basque 1965' named after the famous New York restaurant in which the rich and the famous and in particular the ladies of high society West Coast would lunch. Within the piece Capote savaged, mocked and revealed the dirtiest secrets of a group of women he had called his Swans, his closest friends since his spectacular rise to fame following the publication of In Cold Blood.
The characters were all given new names in the chapter but anyone who was anyone knew exactly who Capote was referring to. By publishing Capote instantly and irrevocably severed his friendships with the women he had grown to love.
The story is told from the collective voice of the Swans. Each of them reveals their history and the nature of their relationships with Truman and the devastation that follows his betrayal. In between their stories you hear Truman's voice, his shock and sorrow at their reaction and his resultant spiralling downwards into alcoholism and drug abuse.
The first third of the book was absolutely gripping. I loved the bitchy, gossipy tone with the gorgeous backdrop of fabulous New York wealth and glorious 1960s fashion. The voices of Babe Paley and Slim Keith were the strongest, and their betrayal by Truman by far the cruelest.
As the book progressed though I found myself losing interest as more Swans were introduced, and by the end I was struggling to care very much about any of them. I wish it had been 150 pages shorter with the focus on the three central characters. An interesting read nonetheless. I should really read In Cold Blood shouldn’t I?

27. The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey Audiobook narrated by Nyasaland Hatendi

Set in the small medieval village of Oakham a rich man is washed away and drowns in the river. Accident, suicide or murder? The local priest John Reve is tasked to discover the truth by the rural Dean.

The story is told over the four days leading up to the start of Lent, and most importantly is told backwards by an unreliable narrator.

This really is a very accomplished book. It’s just been shortlisted for the Walter Scott prize and well deserves its place on the list.
Just as Reservoir 13 is and isn’t about a missing girl, this book is so much more than a mystery to be solved about a drowned man. Faith, loneliness, desire, greed, the relationship between a priest and his congregation, and economic pressures and changes within rural communities are interweaved in and around the characters known by the dead man.
Much of the book occurs from within the cramped and claustrophobic makeshift confessional. A clever device to bring dialogue between two people into clear focus.
I enjoyed it very much, even though it’s a dark and fairly relentlessly miserable read. The narrator was superb.
I couldn’t give it five stars as I just can’t love stories told backwards. It feels like a test of my memory, even harder when listening on audio and you can’t flick back to remind yourself what happened the day after. The Ah Ha! moments which I'm sure give pleasure to many readers just make me go Wait! Hang On! Oh right, Yes OK .

I'm now tempted to go and look for some Richmal Compton books - sounds right up my street.

I'm now a bit bored with my current book, The Wandering Vine. She travels to a new place every few paragraphs, but they all feel strangely similar.

scribbly I sent Swan Song back to the library unfinished and I’ve harboured misgivings about doing so so quite relieved to read your review of the end. It should have been right on my doorstep in terms of subject but found it a bit boring and the style at times too overdone and “workshopped” if you see what I mean.

whippet I loved the tv series Friday Night Lights so much my husband bought me a Dillon football t shirt. Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.

Dropped off the last thread because of life stuff but have been reading - it's keeping me sane :) Reviews to follow shortly.

Brizzle I read Things I Would Tell You last year - like The Good Immigrant I found it patchy but excellent in parts and an important book.

Splother I hadn't realised there was a Backlisted episode about Beyond Black! I need to dig that out. I find you can listen to Backlisted even if you haven't read the book (and it can certainly inspire you to try something new) but it's even better when you've read the book recently.

Yesilikeittoo I heard an interview ( I think it was R4 Open Book) with the author of this, a modern American retelling of Beowulf, sounded interesting as she tackles some of the issues with current US society and politics - I guess similar to what Madeline Miller has done with Achilles and Circe: www.theguardian.com/books/2018/dec/13/the-mere-wife-maria-dahvana-headley-revoew

If you don't think you like Colm Toibin but are willing to give him another try, can I recommend The Blackwater Lightship which I liked SO much more than Brooklyn (which was just dull IMHO). And for books about Jesus, I found The Tongues of Men or Angels by Jonathan Trigell to be really thought provoking.