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.

15 for me on that list, which I was a bit surprised by, because I tend not to read much contemporary writing. Having said that, it's not all fiction, of course. I was pleased to see This House of Grief in there - Helen Garner's a really interesting writer and that's a great (though harrowing) book.

I have done 14 on the list and DNFd about 3 (very unusual for me to DNF!). The best books on there were written around 2000 in my opinion and just prove my theory that books are not as good as they used to be!

It also annoys me that they use stills from films to illustrate an article about books, as if that's why we like the book. I do like Atonement, film and book , and the film is a clever adaptation, but it certainly not make a run down of the top 100 films of the 21st century, I rather think.

I thought it was quite a good list. I'd read twenty. Though Shriver and Tartt were noticeable absences.

They'd be early 2000s as well, wouldn't they ?

You're right : they should be there.

I've read 20 and a couple of them - Notes on a Scandal and The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-Time - are two of my favourite novels. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is also terrific. I hated Outline.

I think I've read 29 of that list. I also love Notes on a Scandal and Why be Happy when you could be Normal. I think my favourites from the list though are Half of a Yellow Sun, Darkmans and Life after Life. I also loved The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I was absolutely gripped from start to finish.

I hated Notes on a Scandal.

Crippen by John Boyne.

This ought to have been my sort of thing. A historical crime, a long sea voyage, big ships. It really wasn't very good though. Far too long, poorly written, really lacking in subtlety, one dimensional characters, clumsy attempts at humour, and increasingly ridiculous and melodramatic. Not recommended.

I've read 24 on the list. I love Small Island, Cloud Atlas and The Corrections.
*
The Hare with the Amber Eyes* was so pretentious it made me want to remove my own head.

Just finished 60. The Descent of Man by Grayson Perry. Exploration of the pitfalls of the traditional masculine stereotype and the need for new masculjnities which reflect the egalitarian ethos of modern society. Very interesting on how the middle class man in a grey suit is seen as a sort of default human, when in fact it is just as much a performed role as any other identity. Sixty books was my personal target for the year, so I'm ahead - this thread is great for reading inspiration!

73 Open Secret by Stella Rimington

Autobiography of the former MI5 head. I generally like autobiographies of people with interesting jobs, & also spy books, so I'm not sure why I've not read this before. I really enjoyed it - there's more about the challenges of being a woman in a very male dominated organisation and about coping with childcare as a single parent in a demanding job than there is about spying per se, but Rimington writes well. I found the parts about the security services somewhat painfully moving from a 'people like us' model to a more modern organisation with at least a degree of political oversight particularly interesting, though of course the author is rather partisan and will inevitably present things in a favourable light.

Oops, forgot
74 The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
First of the Wayfarers books & a re-read, I wanted something light & so am revisiting this series. The first is the weakest for me, good worldbuilding, but the plot - such as it is - is really just a framework to hang her characters on. Still, an enjoyable read.

I've read 24 on the list, my stand outs were:
Cloud Atlas
Atonement
Wolf Hall
The Siege
Thinking, Fast and Slow
The Emperor of All Maladies
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Sorry not to see Barbara Kingsolver on that list.

Agree wholeheartedly tarahumara.

I’ve read 14 from that list, of which my highlights would be:
Half of a yellow sun
Small Island
The girl with the dragon tattoo (despite this not being a favourite genre of mine)
Harry potter and the goblet of fire (ditto)
Curious incident of the dog in the night-time

I agree with whoever said that The Hare with Amber Eyes was a painfully convoluted read.

Currently reading Autumn by Ali Smith and have several other titles from the list on my TBR pile. Must confess that many of the books listed I’ve never even heard of!!

It's an odd, biased and incomplete list, but then those things always are - they are the view of one person or a small group of people, and in this case are obviously biased towards books originally written/published in English, among other things.

I think I have read 30-odd from the list, and there were quite a few listings of authors whose other books I have read (and would rate quite highly), but not the title mentioned, .

Some are really odd choices, though. 'I feel bad about my neck' is a fun read, but in no way one of the best 100 books of the past 19 years, in my opinion.

I am guessing Barbara Kingsolver is not on the list because the novel most people say is her best (Poisonwood Bible) was published in 1998, so before the cut-off date.

And speaking of Barbara Kingsolver, "Unsheltered" is a Kindle daily deal today.

Also I see that Darkmans is £1.99, having happened to look it up after Welshrabbit listed it.

Just realised that Darkmans is by the same author as H(A)PPY which I read a while back - definitely an interesting book. I wouldn't have wanted to read it on Kindle, it needed to be on paper I'd say (lots of layout/font stuff going on) - is Darkmans the same?

Yes good question!

177. Adventures of the Yorkshire Shepherdess by Amanda Owen

Amanda lives on a very remote sheep farm in North Yorkshire. She has 9 children, runs B&B and cream teas, and has been renovating a house. I’m in awe of her lifestyle although it’s not one I would want. Her books are easy to read and she and her family come across well.

Satsuki and Sadik - Darkmans is a looong book and it is not entirely traditionally set out but it's not as unorthodox as H(A)PPY and I think would be fine on the Kindle. It's more a lack of lots of punctuation and one word lines sort of thing. I haven't read H(A)PPY yet but have seen a paper copy and haven't bought it on the Kindle for that reason!

Darkmans is not at all the sort of boom I normally like and based on reviews I probably wouldn't have read it all but it is just so much joyous crazy fun. I'm still not really sure what was going on, but I didn't care. I think it is literally the only book I have ever said that about (I like to know what's going on most of the time).

Boom = book, sorry.

69. Maybe This Time by Jill Mansell
70. The Art of Mindful Reading by Ella Berthoud
71. Forensics by Val Mc Deirmid Dnf: The Girl Across The Bay by Emerald O' Brien

I had typed out short reviews but lost them. Can't do it again. All ok reads except the dnf. Couldn't get beyond the first conversation between the two main characters. Flashback through dialogue? No thanks. "Remember that night when X happened and Dad was so mad we thought he'd whatever but Mum had phoned the police and when they came they said abc."

Of course she flipping remembers, it was so horribly traumatic that she'll never forget.

I think a great author manages a back story without the reader even noticing we've slipped into the past. Paragraphs of a story in dialogue with everyone's POV included is ridiculous. And I'm only 6% in. Definitely not finishing

48: Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward

So many amazing reviews, and very "worthy" themes of poverty, racism and family, but I found this book so tedious. It's only 300 pages long but it felt about 800. It should have been a 30 page short story.
It is certainly 'beautifully' written, to the point of complete overkill with the 'beauty'. A bit like really really good chocolate - you need a small amount to appreciate it. If you stuff your face with it, it will make you sick.
Potentially interesting characters - Jojo (teenage boy of a drug dependent mother, left to be primary carer for his younger sister), his mother Leonie who can't understand how to put her children's needs above her own, his father Michael, just released from prison, and Pop, his grandfather. All potentially good characters worthy of a good novel, but this was a long rambling mess of lovely but hard to follow rambling descriptions of a road trip where nothing really happens, three different narrators who sounded exactly like each other.
Then there are the ghosts.......again potentially interesting, but so jarring with the rest of it, they just seemed silly to me
I know loads and loads of people loved it, and it was shortlisted for a major award, but it really wasn't for me. I just found it a real chore and I have to admit I skimmed the last 30 pages or so.
A real reading low point for me. Maybe I am just shallow.

49: Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier
I would count Rebecca as one of my favourite books, but had not read any more Daphne Du Maurier.

It's the story of a young woman, Mary Yellan who goes to live with her aunt when her mother dies. Her aunt is the landlady of the notorious Jamaica Inn on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, and she soon learns that her uncle runs the inn as a cover for a major smuggling operation.

I did enjoy this, I liked Mary Yellan as a character and it was a satisfying read.

Am seriously behind with my reading - have started a new job but it's taking up lots of brain space, doing some online learning and just generally getting my head round it, so not been in such a reading frame of mind. Don't think I'll make 50 this year but still plugging away...

31. Cannery Row - John Steinbeck

Classic Steinbeck, a short and sweet collection of vignettes about the down-and-out residents of a California canning district.