50 Book Challenge 2019 Part Six

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the sixth 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, the third one here, the fourth one here and the fifth one here.

I have been rubbish about posting on here recently but am now on holiday so have no excuse! Holiday also means lots of reading.

143. Close To The Edge by Toby Faber

This sounded good. A woman witnesses a man falling in front of a Tube train and becomes convinced there is more to it, so decides to investigate. I’m fascinated by the underground for some geeky reason so this appealed to me. Unfortunately, it was terrible. The main character acts in completely unbelievable ways and makes ridiculous decisions. Not recommended.

144. Doctor Who Psychology: A Madman With A Box by Travis Langley

A psychological analysis of the Doctor and his companions. Not quite as light as I expected - I was expecting pop-psychology but it was actually quite heavy going in places. Entertaining though!

145. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

A reread as I’ve just finished watching series 2 on TV and wanted to remind myself of the original. I had forgotten how much they changed for the TV series. I had also forgotten the characters’ annoying habit of saying ‘oh calamity’ a lot!

146. Rules by Jane Beaton (Jenny Colgan)

Malory Towers for grown ups. It was ok but I don’t think I will bother with the rest of the series (think there’s 3 altogether).

147. Alone Time: Four Seasons, Four Cities, and the Pleasures Of Solitude by Stephanie Rosenbloom

This is half travelogue (Paris, Istanbul, Florence and New York) and half self-help book encouraging people to travel alone. I enjoyed this although she keeps encouraging lone travellers to meet people while they’re travelling - as an introvert part of the appeal of lone travelling for me is not having to talk to others! There are some helpful tips at the end if I ever do get to go on holiday alone.

148. I Looked Away by Jane Corry

Grandmother Ellie takes her eye off her grandson for a minute and he disappears....the book then moves on telling you the story from both Ellie’s point of view and a homeless woman called Jo. This didn’t go the way I expected and I didn’t guess the connection between Ellie and Jo. Definitely worth a read if you like this sort of genre.

149. Curious: True Stories And Loose Connections by Rebecca Front

A collection of real life stories by the actress about her family life. Really enjoyed this.

150. The Bookish Life Of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman

A kindle cheapy, billed as similar to Eleanor Oliphant. It was ok but it tries very hard to convince you how quirky the main character is when actually she’s not quirky at all.

Feeling a little ridiculous posting just after Chessie - 150 books??? Astounding!!

Anyhoo

28. Still Me - Jojo Moyes
Following on from Me before you and After you this is the third and final (I think!?) instalment of the series featuring Louisa Clark and her outlandish outfits. Cute romance. Clumsy in places but laugh-out-loud hilarious observations in others. Perfect holiday read :)

A quick update, but no proper reviews as I’m still recovering from my operation:

148. Gig- Simon Armitage A book documenting Armitage’s love of music, sometimes contrasting the life of a rock star with that of a poet. I forgot I’d already read it, but I enjoyed it anyway. My favourite chapter was the one about his stint on the Mark Radcliffe Show.

149. No Way Out- Cara Hunter This was OK, but not as good as her previous two.

150. Why Mummy Doesn’t Give a Fuck- Gill Sims This was also OK but not a good as her previous two!

151. The Invisible Man- HG Wells Not as good as I expected.

152. The Dark Lake- Sarah Bailey A fairly gripping Australian thriller.

Happy hols to Chessie and anyone else who’s on holiday!

54: Dead Lions - Mick Herron

More highly enjoyable capers with the washed-up spies exiled to Slough House under the dubious command of Jackson Lamb. No spoilers so I won't go into the plot, but there are two new members of the team and they all find themselves taking a very close look at events far back in the past.

I've just bought the next two in the series but I'll try and force myself to read something else first. They're far too addictive.

nowanearlyNicemum I was given Still Me but haven't read the earlier books in the series...do you think it would make sense on it's own?

Just read Moon Tiger, Penelope Lively's Booker winning novel. Very short, but intense. I quite enjoyed the wartime bit but I found the multiple layers a bit distancing and have definitely read more involving novels with similar conceits (eg Atonement) and (I know this is the point) didn't warm to haughty Claudia.

I was reminded that I started a book by Lively a few years ago and disliked it (Family Album) so probably should not have read this, but it was one of those 'probably should have read it' books on my list!

@CluelessMama I would definitely recommend reading the other books first.

47. Big Sky Kate Atkinson - been desperate to read this latest Jackson Brodie instalment but trying really hard not to buy books, the wait list at the library was going to take about a decade and I had some audible credits to use so I got my Jackson fix that way. I think I’d rather have read it myself, I wasn’t sure of Jason Isaacs narration at first (I never watched him as Brodie in the tv series) but he grew on me and I really enjoyed this in the end.

book 23 for me was Red Snow by Will Dean. A scandi-noir murder mystery with deaf reporter Tuva Moodyson as the main character. Follows on from Dark Pines, which I read late last year and started me reading again. really enjoyed it, though it really helped having read the first book as it cross references a lot and many of the same characters are in it. but really good - I hope the author does more in this series

nowanearlyNicemum thank you!
ClosedAuraOpenMind I enjoyed Dark Pines too and have been keeping an eye out for Red Snow, good to see your positive review :)

Updating before I fall off the thread -

65. The Disappearance of Emily Marr by Louise Candlish

Adultery, tragedy and secrets. Okay.

66. The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

Thriller. 4 old school friends (who told lies to everyone for fun) are reunited when a body is found on the beach. Time for their biggest secret to be revealed.
This didn’t really work for me. All a bit meh.

67. 666 Charing Cross Road by Paul Magrs

A mysterious grimoire unleashes a vampire plague on New York City. All rather silly but quite a fun light hearted read.

68. The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller

Retelling of the story of Achilles from the perspective of Patroclus. Anyone familiar with The Iliad knows how this is going to end.
Unfortunately I found Patroclus rather irritating for most of the book, pretty much up until it’s time for his key role in the war to play out. Patroclus spends far too much time sitting around mooning after Achilles.

69. Ragnarok by A. S. Byatt

Retelling of the Norse myths, framed around a thin girl in wartime reading the tales.
I thoroughly enjoyed this. My only complaint would be that it was too short.
I read Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology earlier this year, which covered much of the same ground (although Gaiman includes more stories), and I definitely prefer Byatt’s version.

70. Holy Sister by Mark Lawrence

Conclusion of the Book of the Ancestor series. A great read and great end to the trilogy.

151. Chocolat by Joanne Harris

Reread - I read the new one, The Strawberry Thief, earlier this year, and wanted to reread the rest of the series. It must be a while since I read this - there were some details I didn’t remember. Loved it again.

I've never read the book, but Chocolat is one of my favourite films! (That sentence probably counts as sacrilege on this thread!)

24 was 21 Miles by Jessica Hepburn, a book about the author training to swim the Channel to try to come to terms with 11 failed IVF attempts. her experience is interspersed with interviews with other woman who have achieved great things, with or without children. It's a really interesting examination of motherhood, an inspiring read and was a surprise hit for me

152. The Lollipop Shoes by Joanne Harris

Another reread - number 2 in the ‘Chocolat’ series. Not as good as Chocolat, but still enjoyed it. I know I have read it before, but I didn’t remember much about it so it was like reading a new book.

Tara I like the film of Chocolat too but it is a bit different to the book - the film makes much more of the romance between Vianne and Roux than the book does, and the film makes certain bits more dramatic than they are in the book.

43. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Absolute blinder of a read. This book is about the Joad family who are kicked off their land in Oklahoma and migrate west to find work and a new life in California. I found the themes really contemporary - economic migration, distrust and fear of migrants among others. What an amazing writer.

44. The Cut Out Girl by Burt Van Es. Memoir of a Jewish Dutch girl, Lien, who is looked after by different families during the Nazi occupation of Holland. This was a quick read and I was interested to read about WW2 from a Dutch perspective.

45. The Descent of Man by Grayson Perry. Started reading this last year and it's been unfinished on my Kindle since. Had nothing else downloaded to read today so finished the last 10%. From what I remember, it's quite witty and he makes some good points. Can't say more that that though as I don't remember much about the first 90%!

I got The Strawberry Thief on Kindle daily deals a few days ago so going to start that now!

Hi everyone, will you accept a late joiner? I’d like to see if I can get to 50 by the end of the year!

My first contribution

1. Viral by Helen Fitzgerald (she wrote The Cry) this was about a young woman who was videod drunkenly performing a sex act on holiday and the video subsequently went viral. It was really far fetched but I did like it!

I was on here a long time ago but then I had a baby and the baby didn't sleep for a year so I didn't do much reading. Though I did listen to audiobooks. But now the baby sleeps and I am reading again, so I'm rejoining. Here is my 2019 list (some are listens). I will bold the ones I really liked and briefly say why. The others I will pass over.

1. The Cactus by Sarah Haywood
2. The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths
3. The Humans by Matt Haig
4. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
5. Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman
6. Now You See Her by Heidi Perks
7. When All is Said by Anne Griffin
8. My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher. I really liked this. It is narrated by a young boy whose family has fallen to pieces in the aftermath of the death of his older sister in a terrorist attack some years earlier. The boy moves to a new town and becomes good friends with a Muslim girl in his class, which he hides from his father (who is bitter and an alcoholic). Pretty weighty themes of racism, loss, grief, parental neglect, bullying etc but dealt with relatively lightly. It's a very moving story. I'm not sure if it's meant to be a YA adult, given the child narrator, but I thought it beautifully written.
9. The Taking of Annie Thorne by CJ Tudor

10. Milkman by Anna Burns. I listened to this, rather than read it. I do have the paper copy, but I found it hard going - a little too Joycean for me, and felt too much like work (probably specific to me - I work in the field). The audiobook was fantastic though. I liked it a lot, loved the whole obscurities about names and language - that section about the names that weren't allowed was wonderful and made me laugh out loud in places. All in all, great. 11. The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley 12. Normal People by Sally Rooney 13. Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield. A historical novel, set in the late 1800s. A little girl is carried into an inn on the Thames, apparently drowned, but a few hours later comes back to life. Her identity is a mystery, though two different families claim her to be their lost daughter. I loved this - it ticks a lot of my boxes: lots of different narrative threads that eventually come together in interesting ways, multiple narrators, self-reflexivity (one of the themes is story telling itself, and the way fact and fiction interact), supernatural elements competing with scientific ones, historical setting, strong female characters. It was great! It reminded me of both The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock and The Essex Serpent in those respects, but I think it's actually better than both of those - it's not as self-consciously literary.

I am amazed that I have got to book 50 already - and slightly surprised as I realised I had failed to update sometime ago on one of A Dance to the Music of Time so was actually a book ahead of where I thought I was. Last year was my first year and it was late December before I hit 50. Thank you to everyone who has recommended books which has clearly encouraged me to step up my reading!

50. Frederica - Georgette Heyer

An excellent book for my 50th. Lots of humour and most enjoyable.

51. Perfidious Albion - Sam Byers

Sadly, this was a stinker for me. It’s set in the post-Brexit near future and moves between a couple of Internet journalists, a tech company and one of its workers and a Nigel Farage type parliamentary candidate. They are all based in the same market town and their stories interlink. The internet journalists spent their time being pretentious, the tech company was too futuristic and none of the characters were likeable. It says something about the book that the parliamentary candidate who was clueless and arrogant (and also a pervert) was the most likeable....

Obviously, could just be me but interested to know if anyone else has read it .......

52. Soldier’s Art - Anthony Powell

Book 8 of A Dance to the Music of Time. It is WW2 and Nick spends most of his time in Northern Ireland working for Widmerpool. Another schoolfriend unexpectedly appears at the NI base and Nick also gets a period of leave in London where he is reunited with old friends/acquaintances. A joy. I found the previous war book slightly hard work but this was back to form.

Next up is Earthly Joys - all about a seventeenth century gardener.

34. Fist of God by Frederick Forsyth

Another great book by F Forsyth, who is slowly but surely shaping up to be one of my favorite authors. This one was about the events leading up to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the US response, weaving a totally believable and incredibly detailed story about how Saddam managed to build a nuke and a British spy lived under cover in Kuwait and then Iraq to defuse it.

I recommend this book to everyone, not just because it's a great story but also because it gives a fascinating insight into the geopolitical background of these wars that have defined the last two decades.

35. Judgment by Joseph Finder

This was a bit silly. Lady judge has a one-off one-night-stand and finds herself blackmailed. She has to let the bad guys go free or she will lose her job, her husband, and possibly her life. However she is a clever little bunny so manages to outsmart the bad guys and even Russian FSB, and all is well in the world again

I'm not recommending this book, in case that wasn't clear.

153. Humble Pi: A Comedy Of Maths Errors by Matt Parker

Examples of when maths goes wrong in the real world. This sounded interesting but I found it hard going because a lot of it is about computers getting things wrong and I just didn’t understand a lot of the explanations. I did like the chapters about randomness and roundings as I could understand those! This book would be more appreciated by people who have a good understanding of maths already.

91 Lost Souls by Poppy Z Brite
I thought this could be fun, and if I had been 15 I’d have been right. Naughty vampires roam the US occasionally doing bad things. It was dark and violent and reasonably well written but didn’t really float my boat.

92 In Your Prime by India Knight
Ways to avoid descending into premature middle age. Mostly involving pedicures and radio, as far as I can remember.

93 Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce
This wasn’t the book I thought I had ordered - I wanted Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller. I was a couple of chapters in before I realised it wasn’t an English Secret History set in the 1960s, but a family psycho thriller with a legal background and tech-based plot twists set in north London. Nonetheless I persisted even though I promised myself no more rubbishy psychological thrillers last year. I was glad I did as actually it wasn’t terrible. Even though the main plot was predictable, the other plot strands dispensable, the main character was really annoying and everything that happened happened despite her doing anything about it, it was still a moderately entertaining read and not nearly as bad as some.

Is it ok if I'm a late joiner?
I read as much as I can cram in!
Recent highlights include:
The Pisces by Melissa Broder (crazy fish sex and rehab!)
Queenie by Candice Mcarty Williams (wonderful lovely thoughtful book about being a bright black woman in your 20's in London, loved it)
French Exit by Patrick De Witt (if Wes Anderson wrote books)
Tangerine by Christine Mangan (Moroccan Pat Highsmith!)

Crazy fish sex?! Sounds intriguing....