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 read and loved Catcher and The Bell Jar as a sixth former, both recommended by my brilliant English teacher. However I have no desire to re-visit either of them in my late forties. Although I am thinking seriously thinking about re-visiting The Handmaid's Tale before the sequel lands next week, which I first read in my twenties.

indigo I reread The Bell Jar recently and wondered the same but I enjoyed it a lot second time round. I saw more of the wit and also was interesting to think about how women’s opportunities have altered (or not so much in some ways) since she was mapping out the possibilities for a smart graduate in the 50s. The writing is delicious too. I wasn’t keen on Catcher though either time I read it but can see why it connects.

Jane Austen’s Persuasion improved the last time I revisited it.

And I enjoyed the Handmaid’s Tale for the first time only a year or two ago.

Perhaps I'll re-visit The Bell Jar too after hearing that Satsuki. I rarely re-read, as there's too many interesting looking books I haven't read yet.

www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/entertainment/books/100-books-for-the-ages/?noredirect=on

Hope the link works. The Washington Post did a guide to a book for every age earlier this year. Ties in with recent conversation about how some books seem to have a 'right age', not sure I agree with all of these but it is interesting!

I don’t either much indigo. The other year I had a bit of a drought and reread a couple of old favourites. I meant to do more but got going on my tbr instead.

CluelessMama Thank you for that list. It's interesting to see their take on it.

I abandoned Gilead and now I see I am just far too young for it!

CluelessMama what a great list!

There’s loads on that list I have never even heard of! I now see I was 20 years too early for The Remains Of The Day which explains why I found it really boring! Interesting that none of the books mentioned so far on this thread (Catcher, Mockingbird etc) were mentioned in that list (unless I missed them!)

I think their ages for children are a bit ambitious! I was reading Ramona The Pest aged about 9 or 10 and Harry Potter at aged 8 would leave quite a lot of children rather put off reading.

It's (naturally) a very American list!

I wonder if the writer thought Mockingbird and Catcher were too obvious. I'd replace most of the teen year choices.

Love that list - it's really funny!

40. Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty. This is set at a health resort in Australia. The nine characters arrive for a 10-day health retreat and we get to know them - their personalities and histories - as it progresses. Enjoyable.

Persuasion was one of my A-level Eng Lit set books, Satsuki. It put me off Austen for many (many) years, until I realised how funny she could be, but also how compassionate, and that in fact Persuasion is probably one of her most poignant and subtle pieces of writing.

As a 17/18 yo I didn't have the life experience to see this, natch.

Such a great discussion. Reading Sons and Lovers for A-Level sparked a love of Lawrence that has continued into adulthood. I then went on to read The Rainbow and Women in Love which left a huge impression on me. I really do like D.H Lawrence for my sins. I know I'm in the minority but I do like a good bit of lush, descriptive writing and Lawrence is the king of that.

I've stalled a bit in my reading as I am finding The Pisces hard going - way too much fish love in the latter part of the novel. I haven't updated for a while but have read the following:

79. The Savage Detectives - Roberto Bolano
80. Still Water: The Deep Life of the Pond - John Lewis-Stempel
81. Measure for Measure - William Shakespeare
82. Confession With Blue Horses - Sophie Hardasch
83. Ulverton - Adam Thorpe
84. Amateur - Thomas Page McBee
85. Mother Ship - Francesca Segal
86. Bird Therapy - Joe Harkness
87. The Lost Man - Jane Harper

I LOVED The Savage Detectives and was sad to finish it. It kept me company crammed into one of the two back seats of a seven seater car all the way back from the South of France. I loved the Mexican madness of it and the way the story of the Visceral Realist poets unfolded. I think you either love or hate this and I loved it.

I wasn't keen on Ulverton at all, which surprised me as that sort of thing is usually right up my street - a novel set in the same place that jumps through time from the early 1700's to the 1980s. I didn't engage with the writing and only liked one of the sections, set on the eve of WW1.

Mother Ship, however, was a well-written account of the premature birth of the author's twins and their subsequent long stay in neo-natal units. This was actually rather life-affirming. Thank God for the NHS.

The Lost Man was an absolute page-turner. However, remind me never to go to the Australian outback any time soon. I would expire immediately. Probably en-route to it actually.

Belated hello to OopNorf. Europe in Autumn is great isn't it? I'm currently halfway through book 2, which is going off at tangents hinted at in the later chapters of Autumn, earning it its sci-fi credentials and totally not disappointing.

44. Old Filth by Jane Gardam Old Filth was a judge in Hong Kong, now retired in rural England and looking back over his long life. Observers and casual or professional acquaintances think his whole life has been lived in a privileged bubble where nothing has ever happened to him or touched him. We gradually discover the events that have shaped him, particularly his far from idyllic childhood as a 'Raj orphan'. While he is not always a likeable character, the book is crafted with such a level of emotional intelligence and wry understanding that I was totally pulled in. I preferred this, by a very long way, to that other life story of the changing fortunes of a not always likeable privileged old man book Any Human Heart that everyone else seems to like. Then again I also hated Brazzaville Beach which a couple of people have enjoyed recently, so maybe I just have a William Boyd problem. I definitely don't have a Jane Gardam problem, and would read more.

106. Lanny - Max Porter

I don't know whether I can do this justice, or where to start reviewing it. The story of Lanny (a very unusual child, obsessed with the natural world) is told from the multiple perspectives of his very different parents and Pete, an elderly neighbour who befriends him. When Lanny goes missing from a small English village, nobody believes that Pete and Lanny's friendship could be innocent. Dead Papa Toothwort, a Jack-of-the-green type character, also looks at the world around him and how it is changing, with the voices of the village reacting to events ringing in his ears.

This made the Booker longlist, but hasn't got through to the shortlist. I think it might have been just a little too bonkers for it. In the print version there are parts printed in a non-linear, almost word cloud type way. I listened to the audiobook which was an assault of different voices for the Dead Papa Toothwort / snakey words/ voices of the villagers' parts of the book, which worked so well. Gorgeous language that sucks you in to a mad fantasy world with superb imagery. It is only short but sweeps you along at an alarming rate. I wasn't initially sure about the sound effects added to Dead Papa Toothwort sections, but it did lend a sense of atmosphere to it. I still don't quite know what to make of it, but it was an interesting experience. I almost feel I need to read it in print version too to get a better sense of it, however I would fully recommend the audio version for the experience of it. Pure lovely madness.

As of tomorrow I am off on a group 'activity' trip to the French Riviera staying at a golf and spa resort. While the menfolk are wandering around with golf bats or poncing about on bikes in lycra, I shall also be in lycra but sitting on the beach or abusing the spa with a book in hand having an 'inactivity' holiday. Hopefully lots of book updates to come.

I enjoyed all the Fractured Europe books - I think Europe at Midnight was possibly my favourite of all of them.

71. Happy by Fearne Cotton

A self help book about happiness. In terms of advice, exercises etc, it’s very similar to other books on this subject I’ve read.
The main difference to those other books is the background detail about Cotton’s personal struggles with depression.

72. Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

Recommended for those of you who enjoyed watching Scooby Doo.

In 1977, the Blyton Summer Detective Club unmasked the a fortune hunter masquerading as the elusive Sleepy Lake Monster.
Fast forward to 1990, and the surviving former detectives are still haunted by the events at Sleepy Lake, so return to find out what really happened back then.

It is a bit on the silly side, but on the whole it was a fun read.

73. The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden

Fairytale themed fantasy set in medieval Russia.
Another good read.

Educated by Tara Westover is in the daily deals for 99p today

Finally updating my list:

Books 2019

1. Insomnia, Stephen King
2. The missing girl, Jenny Quintana
3. The backpacking housewife, Janice Horton
4. Close to home,Cara Hunter
5. The woman who kept everything, Jane gilley
6. The handmaid’s tale, Margaret Atwood
7. Her last day, t r ragan
8. Deadly recall , T R Tagan
9. The unit Ninni Holmqvist

10. Vox, Christina dalcher 11. Carrie, Stephen King 12. The tattooist of Auswitz, heather Morris 13. The Power, Naomi alderman 14. The lido, Libby Page 15. Buried deep, T R Ragan 16. The last dog on earth, Rian Walker 17. The postman, David Brin 18. The long walk, Stephen King 19. Roadwork, Stephen King 20. The running man, Stephen King 21. After the end, Clare mackintosh 22. The Hot Zone Richard Preston 23. Little Fires Everywhere Celeste Ng 24. Child’s play (Kim stone book 11) 25. Gerald’s game, Stephen King 26. How to be famous Caitlin Moran 27. The Midwich cuckoos John Wyndham 28. I am pilgrim, Terry Hayes 29. Sheltering rain, jojo moyes 30. Rubber necker, Belinda Bauer 31. The Holiday T M Logan 32. The Farm, Joanne Ramos

Feel like I am sneaking back in here with my tail between my legs. I am so hopelessly behind with updating my list that I am not even going to try. Life has been so busy. Some good - kids passing exams, blog, family time but the whole dementia thing I mentioned before is a bit of a looming cloud. Please forgive a useless Mumsnetter who has been reading but not updating.
Best things I read over the summer were 10 minutes and 38 seconds in this strange world , Lanny and Frankissstein. Disappointed only one made the short list.

41. Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion by Noah J Goldstein, Steve J Martin and Robert B Cialdini. I find behavioural science interesting and have read books on the subject before. As the title suggests, this well-researched book looks specifically at techniques that can be used to persuade or influence others. The good thing about this is that, by focusing on such a specific area of the topic, I learnt some interesting new things that I haven't come across in other books. The flip side is that, even though it's not a long book, it did become rather same-y after a while. I listened to it on Audible and it worked well in that format, because it's divided into bite-sized chunks so it was easy to stop listening when I reached my destination (I usually listen while driving).

Just checking in, and kind of echoing toomuchsplother - I've been off the thread for weeks due to a very eventful summer (some good, some not so good); I have been reading, but possibly not quite as much as usual despite some long flights and solo train journeys.

I think since I last posted I have read:
36. Ways to Disappear - Idra Novey
37. Apple Tree Yard - Louise Doughty
38. The Evenings - Gerard Reve
39. Life Reimagined - Barbara Bradley Hagerty
40. South of the River - Blake Morrison
41. The Peppered Moth - Margaret Drabble
42. Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows - Balli Kaur Jaswal
43. Pull Me Under - Kelly Luce
44. New Finnish Grammar - Diego Marani
45. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce
46. The Great Passage - Shion Miura
47. Reasons to be Cheerful - Nina Stibbe
48. The Bookish Life of Nina Hill - Abbi Waxman
49. The Sound of the Mountain - Yasunari Kawabata
50. The Haunting of Henry Twist - Rebecca F John

I don't have time to review them all, but will just say that of all of those, the ones I enjoyed most were Ways to Disappear and Pull Me Under, both of which are published by Daunt Books (the 'bookshop for travellers' in London). They are my favourite booksellers, so I suppose it is not surprising that their publishing arm is also in tune with my tastes.

40. Any Human Heart by William Boyd the fictional collected journals of Logan Mountstuart (aka LMS) together with footnotes and amendments. The journals cover key episodes of LMS's life, which spans from 1906 to 1991, with other periods covered by an authorial voice who briefly details the events not covered by the diaries. (It's a clever conceit and did make me wonder how Boyd decided what was 'journal worthy' and what wasn't.)
    LMS is a kind of 'Zelig' character who manages to become personally involved in many historical events, and also rubs shoulders with the (non-fictional) great and the good in literature and the arts. LMS himself becomes a journalist, writer (with varied success) and an art dealer. He is frequently an unlikeable character, who does pretty despicable things, but he is never boring, and I was always interested to see what the next chapter of his life would bring.
    For me this book didn't quite reach the dizzy heights of The Hearts Invisible Furies, which it is often likened to, but it was very enjoyable.

41. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novak read by Katy Sobey.
    Wow, this was great. A fairytale for YA/Adults, loosely based on Rumpelstiltskin, told largely from the POV of three women, money lenders daughter Miryem, Lords daughter Irina and peasant Wanda. All three woman are oppressed in different ways by the patriarchy but ultimately, thanks to their ingenuity and bravery, manage to triumph.
    The audio book was a little confusing initially as the POV changes mid chapter without warning, but once I got used to this it was easy enough to follow and I thought Katy Sobey did an excellent job of bringing this dark magical tale to life.

Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father’s too kind-hearted to collect his debts. They face poverty, until Miryem hardens her own heart and takes up his work in their village. Her success creates rumours she can turn silver into gold, which attract the fairy king of winter himself. He sets her an impossible challenge – and if she fails, she’ll die. Yet if she triumphs, it may mean a fate worse than death. And in her desperate efforts to succeed, Miryem unwittingly spins a web which draws in the unhappy daughter of a lord, Irina.
Irina’s father schemes to wed her to the tsar – he will pay any price to achieve this goal. However, the dashing tsar is not what he seems. And the secret he hides threatens to consume the lands of mortals and winter alike. Torn between deadly choices, Miryem and Irina embark on a quest that will take them to the limits of sacrifice, power and love.

Uprooted by the same author is definitely going on my TBR list.

Spoiler Alert:

I did feel the female protagonists deserved a more radical ending to their respective story arcs than the traditional 'happy ever after' Novik provides. But not withstanding my hope that the two women would turn their backs on men and walk into the sunset together at the end, I must confess I was routing for the Staryk King by the end.

Splother I have totally lost count and no idea where I am - you are not alone. I can’t even claim an eventful or busy summer. re the dementia.