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.

69 The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment by Isabel Losada
This follows the author through a range of different workshops and therapies seeking enlightenment and general wellbeing. This was recommended by a friend, and I generally enjoy a light-hearted self-improvement-project kind of book, but it didn't really hit the spot for me - it was a bit too Bridget-Jones-esq.

70. Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan The final book in the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy. The plot here gets even more improbable (if that's possible) than in the previous books but great trashy fun if you like that sort of thing. I listened to this on audio, and the reader does a great job with all the different characters & accents.

I'm also part way through Evening in the Palace of Reason which is a sad example of right book, wrong time - I really need to read it on long winter evenings when I have time to stop every few pages to listen to the music described. I've got it from the library, and can't decide whether to stop & take it back, or whether I won't actually ever then re-order it at a better time of year.

Tara if you enjoyed Empire of the Sun (and I've been meaning to re-read it for years and never got round to it) try his autobiography Miracles of Life and see how much of JG Ballard's extraordinary life story overlaps with Jim's. It's very moving too.

Thank you for the recommendation Museum - I will put that on my to-read list. Hope you enjoy it, Chessie!

37 Maestros by Steve Skroce et al
Most graphic novels come into our house through DH's recommendations and media - which is probably as it should be. I picked this up in a shop on the basis it "looked a bit different", which turned out to mean "it had a very pretty cover." I found it dull.

38 Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
FBI Hostage negotiator gives us his insights into negotiation. I enjoyed this a fair bit, it was thought provoking. I don't read many business books, so I may be easily impressed, but he seems to have done a lot of work and a lot of thinking to get to his conclusions. I did have a slight concern that, having analysed negotiation in terms of real people and real emotions, he went on to recommend some techniques that amounted to simply lying about your own agenda. I'll reflect further on that, though, I might be being unfair. And he has a host of other ideas about questioning and listening that are very convincingly presented.

100. As Kingfishers Catch Fire, by Alex Preston
The book for the poetry-loving birdwatcher in your life. It's a physically beautiful volume, and the content is rather lovely too: each chapter is about a different bird, seen through the lens of literature and with a dollop of memoir. I can tell an owl from a gull and my ornithological knowledge stops there, but I found this delightful and have been trying to pay more attention to the birds around me ever since.

101. London in Fragments: A Mudlark's Treasures, by Ted Sandling
I was looking for the new book out, Mudlarking, but my library only had this. Like the Thames finds it details, it's an unexpected treasure. I've had a wander around foreshore and picked up pipe stems and pottery, but the frustration is not knowing what they are. The author has consulted experts on his finds - nothing extraordinary, but that's the charm: everyday history brushing close. Lovely.

102. Joe Country, by Mick Herron Latest in this spy series. It would be better as a winter read, as there is lots of stumbling around Wales in the snow, trying to avoid assassination. It's comic in an extremely bleak sort of way. I didn't see enough of my favourite characters. It definitely helps to read the novella "The Drop" first, as it sets up the plot for this book.

103. The rise and fall of the dinosaurs : the untold story of a lost world, by Stephen Brusatte
I really enjoyed this - the story is interesting, and it's lucidly told, and the author is very engaging. He's clearly of the view that paleontologists are the coolest people ever - hell, one conference in Argentina there was dancing till late, and a make-your-own-taco-bar at 3am! It made me burn with enthusiasm to excavate dinosaur fossils (the book as a whole, not the 3am taco bar specifically).

104. City of Mirrors, Justin Cronin
Grand finale to the trilogy - will our band of heroes fight off the final threat? Will there be a dramatic showdown in a crumbling New York? Will a ragtag bunch of survivors head out for a new life? I seem to remember that some readers were not particularly impressed with this volume - my expectations duly managed, I thought it was fine. There was definite overuse of the trope by which a character goes into a hazy otherworld where they garden in rural bliss with their beloved other, but overall, yes, good fun.

Tara - I agree with Museum. Miracles of Life is extraordinary.

36. The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham

I really enjoyed this book and I am amazed that Wyndham published it in 1953. It is better written and more realistic than most SF published in this decade.

This is basically a "first contact" story, where a multitude of mysterious luminous objects drop into the deep seas around the world. The way they explode like a balloon when hit with projectiles suggest that their interior is highly pressurized, meaning the come from a place with high pressure. Indeed, they appear to have settled in the deep trenches of the oceans.

You would think that the clear separation of our territories and the fact that they can't live in ours and we can't live in theirs would mean cordial relations. You would be wrong. What follows is an eerily realistic masterclass in game theory, and an exposé of human stupidity.

I heartily recommend this book to everyone, especially the fans of shockingly inferior books that are supposedly apocalyptic SF such as Station 11 and On The Beach, that moronic nonsense about dimwits drinking sherry while waiting around like sheep, talking about who will marry whom and what fishing season will be like next year as if they will live that long.

tarahumara glad you liked Brazzaville Beach too - funny you mentioning Ann Patchett because I thought it had a similar feel to State of Wonder, though ultimately I liked it more.

Thanks cote I like the other Wyndham novels I’ve read but haven’t come across this.

Finished All The Wicked Girls, Chris Whitaker's second novel after Tall Oaks, which I enjoyed. This is not as good, the symbolism is heavy (characters called Lumen and Black and a weather system called Dark all in a town called Grace. A boy called Noah even rescues a girl from a flood!). However, it is a good read, on the whole. It lacks the humour of Tall Oaks and I didn't warm to the characters.

Whitaker writes in an Alabama vernacular, which is a bit tedious and hard to get into. And odd, since Whitaker is British!

Sorry to be pedantic again but the book is set in Alabama, somewhere nearish to Mobile. Snow is mentioned a few times. Hmm, my BIL lives in Mobile. I couldn't say it has never snowed there, but it would certainly make the news if it did! I think the fact that Whitaker is British and has set his tale in the Deep South has made him resort to quite a few Bible Belt tropes, too. Although, given my BIL and SIL's views, they aren't too wide of the mark!

It must have been you who recommended it recently Satsuki - sorry, I couldn't remember who it was! Yes, I can see what you mean re State of Wonder.

I read Kraken as a teenager and can remember precisely nothing about it, other than that I happily gobbled up as many of his books as I could get my hands on. Might need a re-read.

Finished The Lost Man by Jane Harper very quickly, and quite enjoyed it. Regular readers will know I love me a bit of outback setting, and it had plenty of heat, dust and death by dehydration to keep me happy. She's a clunky writer and quite formulaic, with too much back-story, but on the whole this was diverting enough and the ending had a nice sense of poetic justice.

I loved Wyndham as a teenager too - I seem to remember The Trouble With Lichen was my favourite - have you read that one Cote?

100. The Heart's Invisible Furies - John Boyne

Absolutely loved it. One of my best reads of the year. I won't review it as I know nearly everyone here has read this already, but if you haven't, go get it at once!

"plenty of heat, dust and death by dehydration to keep me happy"

Remus

Tanaqui - I had not heard of The Trouble With Lichen but will check I out now. Thank you for the recommendation

105. On Chapel Sands, by Laura Cumming
This got rave reviews in the broadsheets - non-fiction account of a woman delving into her family history, centred on the brief abduction of her mother as a toddler in 1929. The drama is waaay overdone - it boils down to a dispute over which household the child should be raised. The author is convinced that there is a code of silence amongst locals for generations after, when it seems more likely to be that nobody is very much bothered about a long-ago squabble.

I did like quite a lot of the book - the author pores over old family photos and tries to read them, while questioning how legitimate such a reading can be. I don't know if it's the fault of the publishers for trying to make it more sensational than it is, or if really is a case of nice lady author in "not everyone grows up in nice nuclear family" shock.

14. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. I think lots of people have read this, so I won't rehash it. I know it's had a lot of critical acclaim, but I just don't really get it. I mean, it's fine, but not brilliant in my opinion. It was a very spare - not just the length (more a novella) and the language/expression, which I guess is a deliberate style choice on Braithwaite's part, but I thought there was a lack of nuance, and lack of a real interior life in the characterisation, that made the novel feel a little thin to me. People raved about the way she wrote the sibling relationship, but I just didn't feel it. Both sisters were underdeveloped, in my opinion.

Can’t quite believe I’ve reached 50! Only read 25 last year. Probably a combination of this thread and my toddler not quite toddling anymore.

50. My Brother’s name is Jessica by John Boyne.
    The protagonist is a 13 y o boy who is coming to terms with his brothers m 2 f transition. This has received a lot of criticism because Boyne is not transgender and he should ‘write what he knows’. I don’t find his story problematic or think authors should restrict themselves but it does highlight the lack of trans authors I’ve read (probably only Juno Dawson in the last year). Overall I enjoyed this but I can see Boyne has a lot of style / narrative tropes that will probably get tiresome soon.

51. Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

A 15 year old goes missing walking to the library and the story flute between what happened that day and her family 10 years on. This was awful. Unrealistic, nasty and predictable. I’ll be honest I was gripped to start with but the nastiness and darkness was more in the ‘Hostel’ vibe than anything more interesting. I can see her other novels follow a similar vein, I’ll be steering clear.

1)This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
2)Paper Aeroplanes by Dawn O’Porter
3)The Glass menagerie by Tennessee Williams
4)Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler
5) Endurance by Alfred Lancing
6) Lord of the Flies by William Golding
7)Animal Farm by George Orwell
8) Hagseed by Margaret Attwood
9) Tin Man by Sarah Winman
10) Heartstone by CJ Sansom
11) The Light Between Oceans by ML Steadman
12)Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
13)Weird Thing People say in Bookshops
14) Educated by Tara Westover
15)Llywbrau Cul by Mared Lewis
16) Lamentation by CJ Sansom
17) Jane Seymour -The Haunted Queen by Alison Weir
18) The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
19) 12 babies on a bike by Dot May Dunn
20)Everything I Never told you by Celeste Ng
21) Becoming Michelle Obama
22)Elizabeth II – The Life of a Monarch
23) A Month in the Country by JL Carr
24)The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend
25)Eighty Days around the World by Michael Palin
26) The Librarian Salley Vickers
27)Mortal Engines by Phillip Reeve
28) Notes from a Big Country by Bill Bryson
29)Artemis by Andy Weir
30)Just William by Richmal Crompton
31) Small Island by Andrea Levy
32) Take Six Girls by Laura Thompson
33) Mythos by Stephen Fry
34) Ffenestri (Short Stories in Welsh)
35) Monarchy by David Starkey
36) Hywel Dda by Catrin Stevens
37) LLywelyn the last Prince by Aeres Twigg
38) The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullogh
39) The Queen and Lord M by Jean Plaidy
40) Trwy'r Ffenestri (Short Stories in Welsh)
41) Owain Glyndwr by Aeres Twigg
42) The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell
43) The Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
44) In the Days of Rain by Rebecca Stott
45) The Island by Victoria Hislop

46. Blott on the Landscape by Tom Sharpe My DH kept telling me how I MUST read Tom Sharpe and how HILARIOUS he is.

It's the story of a dysfunctional British aristocratic family, a dominatrix, blackmail, a proposed motorway, the department of transport, a gardener with an agenda and the consequent hilarious shenanigans.
It is well-written with some good characters, and it did make me smile at some points but I didn't really find it really hilarious as I was promised!
It is an OK story, but wouldn't rush to read any more Tom Sharpe.

56: Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me - Kate Clanchy

Undoubtedly one of my stand-out reads of the year. Kate Clanchy is a writer, a poet, but also a teacher of many years’ experience. Here she looks back on her interactions in many different schools, often with deeply-damaged children (many of her pupils were asylum-seekers who had suffered terrible personal losses and seen appalling things).

She writes with wit, sparkle, wry realism and deep tenderness. She is also a mother, and her care for these children (even the ones she finds difficult, exasperating or worse) infuses every line of this short book. As a once-painfully-shy, book-loving child who managed to stay resolutely unnoticed under the radar for most of my years at school, how I wish I’d had a teacher like Miss Clanchy to spot me and reassure me that I had talents and could use them. This was an inspiring book that had me in tears more than once.

Medb22 - Totally agree re My Sister.

I've bought something called Under the Knife about surgery, for 99p on Kindle. I can't remember if anybody has mentioned it before.

What I really want to read though is a novel - something gripping but relatively lightweight, and ideally not a re-read. Ponders...

29. Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
I'd never read this when I saw it on my DD's suggested summer reading list I thought it was about time! I'm sure most of you have read it. I thought it was very good and look forward to discussing it with DD when she's finished it. I left the UK 20 years ago - Is this still a popular set text for GCSE English?

I tried listening to Hannah Jewell's 100 Nasty Women of History, but sadly only made it through 1.5 women before I had to abandon it, because I was sadly not finding it "so, yah, like, totes LOL" and her mentioning "This is my book, and everyone gets laid" before moving on to St Brigid of Kildare, who I imagine most likely did not.

"St Brigid of Kildare died around 524 AD. It’s not known when she was born, ’cause I guess being born wasn’t a big deal in those days. When you die you’re a whole person, but when you’re born you don’t even bother to remember it. You don’t even have any friends when you’re born, but when you die it’s a whole big thing." At which point I decided I would rather die than put myself through ten and a half hours of this juvenile shite.

I then seriously revised my ambitions and settled for a mere 21 women, and what I missed in quantity, I more than gained in quality with Jenni Murray's A History of the World in 21 Women. I love Jenni's enthusiasm and warmth for the women she chose and feel like I learnt a lot about them. I liked that she included so many living women and enjoyed the anecdotes about those she had spoken to for Women's Hour. I thoroughly enjoyed it and she didn't make my ears bleed which is always a bonus.

That Hannah Jewell book sounds stupendously awful, Fortuna, but you did make me laugh (or ROFL, as the author would probably say).

Great review, Fortuna. It sounds abominable.