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.

Thanks, June. Going on to my wish list.

Don't feel bad - my typos are legendary!

58. Lethal White by Robert Galbraith

Latest Cormoran Strike instalment; too long, of course (like everything JKR has written since The Goblet of Fire) but immersive and highly enjoyable. Pretty sure a few of the threads didn't tie up, but didn't spoil my fun at all. Nice set up for the next one too, both personally and professionally.

53. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. I thought this was really good YA fiction, it felt very real and was gripping! From an adult pov there were maybe a couple of over simplified bits, but I would absolutely recommend this to anyone, not just teenagers (but if you have a teenager, strongly suggest it to them!).

Tanaqui I also loved The Hate U Give - was very surprised to find it's her first novel because it's so well done. I recently read her follow up which seemed more YA to me and I didn't enjoy as much, but that may be because THUG is a hard act to follow!

Thanks for the Rundell recommendation, Piggy - have bought.

Fierce Bad Rabbis cries out for a movie adaptation by Tarantino.

Finished Fierce Bad Rabbits and enjoyed it to the end. It segued rather nicely into Footnotes, by Peter Fiennes in which the author wanders around the UK in the footsteps of various writers. He starts off with Enid Blyton (hence the segue) and carries on with writers such as Sommerville and Ross (authors of The Irish RM) and J B Priestley - not very fashionable now, but right up my street, or rather my rural byway. The book did make me laugh out loud on a train, with a paragraph on Kingsley Amis's recommended hangover cure. It may not be for everyone, but for me the author was a complete kindred spirit and I loved it.

33. Zazie dans le metro – Graphic novel by Clément Oubrerie, based on the novel by Raymond Queneau
This is supposed to be a hilarious French classic but the whole thing left me cold, and rather irritated. Bof!

Footnotes looks brilliant, bibliomania.

I've just ordered a copy and if I really enjoy it, as I suspect I will, I can think of a few friends and relatives it would make an excellent present for.

Hope you like it, highland!

I read a few early in the year but didn't track them and for the life of me can't remember what they were so have actually read slightly more than is below but I'm not counting them. Unlikely to make 50 with a baby due early December but I'll do my best!

Here's what I've read

1. Peter Pan (I know a children's book but I'd never read it)
2. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
3. The Second Sister by Claire Kendal (don't really rate it tbh)
4. Still Me - Jojo Moyes
5. Dear John - Nicholas Sparks
6. The Notebook - Nicholas Sparks
7. Storm Glass - Jeff Wheeler
8. Teen Mom Confidential - Sean Daly (Trash I know but still a book)
9. The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins
10. Broken Wings - VC Andrews
11. Midnight Flight - VC Andrews
12. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
13. My Best Friend's Girl - Dorothy Koomson
14. The Lying Game - Ruth Ware
15. My Sweet Audrina - VC Andrews
16. Bulletproof - Maci Bookout (guilty pleasure)
17. Vanishing Acts - Jodi Picoult
18. The Last Song - Nicholas Sparks
19. Sing You Home - Jodi Picoult (currently reading)

43. Becoming by Michelle Obama read by the author on Audible.
    I can't say I was keen to pick this back up in between listening sessions, and I sped up her reading rate (she does read quite slowly) to get through the 19 hours quicker. However I did tear up when she lost people who were close to her through old age and illness and when her husband won the presidency so she definitely connected with me on some level. Her story is a rags to riches inspirational one. If one takes what she says at face value then the Obamas are just the kind of people we need to have leading the free world and it's a tragedy that the US senate conspired to block so many of the reforms her husband tried to introduce.
    The contrast she draws between Obama and Trump couldn't be more stark and I'm incredulous that the US could go from getting it so right to getting it so wrong without missing a beat. She has stated that, unlike Hilary Clinton, she will not run for office. I hope she reconsiders.

44. The Girls by Emma Cline. This debut novel, set in the summer of 1969, follows Evie Boyd a 14-year-old desperate to be noticed. Her parents are recently divorced and Evie's mother is more interested in her new boyfriend and staving off the signs of ageing than her daughters whereabouts. To compound her sense of isolation Evie has fallen out with her best friend and is feeling alone and vulnerable. She becomes involved with a group of seemingly free spirited girls who fill the void that has opened up in her life.
    The girls take her back to their commune and introduce her to their charismatic spiritual leader, Russell (A thinly disguised Charles Manson figure.) As the commune starts to fall apart however and Russell is denied the fame and fortune he sought things take a darker turn.

I found the prose a bit bloated, everything has an adjective and/or an adverb attached to it. Faces aren't just attentive they are 'cupped and attentive as tulips.' Her thoughts don't just slow they 'slow to the pace of drifting snow,' and so on and so forth. It's also told over two time periods, Evie as an adult in her 40's or 50's staying at a friends holiday home, and Evie looking back on the events of the fateful summer of '69. I'm not sure how much the modern day story actually adds to the narrative, although it does show how the events that took place when she was 14 have gone on to haunt the rest of her life I suppose.
Overall this was an interesting read and it did demonstrate in a believable way how easy it would be for the vulnerable to get sucked into a cult.

36. Middle England by Jonathan Coe. The third book following siblings Ben and Lois Rotter and their friends through changing political landscapes. This episode finds us in the period from the Con-Lib coalition to the aftermath of the EU referendum.

It's been a long while since I read The Rotters Club and The Closed Circle but the characterisation is so good that it's easy to dive back in. The comic pieces are a treat, without distracting from the themes of identity politics, growing (a little bit) older, and lost love.

The Song Collector by Natasha Solomons is my 72nd book.

I loved Mr Rosenblum's List and this is , in many ways, similar. It concerns a man and tow time frames : post WW2 and 2000- 2007, and his family, his house, his wide, Edie, and classical music. Solomons writes beautifully but it can be laborious and I didn't warm to Edie, although I am sure I was mean to. Mainly because for half the book she is dead (not a spoiler!)

It is one of those wistful end of an era books. Lovely descriptive passages. If you like classical music, and folk songs, those bits of the book may well resonate with you more than they did with me.

I am terribly confused as to why she calls her central family the Fox-Talbots. Henry Fox-Talbot was the first proper photographer, and I expected her to mention this at any moment , but she doesn't. But bamboozled by that! Perhaps one is supposed to know!

It's a quality book, with a central love story... just a touch subdued. I have House of Gold , also by Solomons , on my tbr pile , so I await that with anticipation.

Apologies for typos. Am tired...

Not much in the monthly deals for me - a lot of political non fiction, if anyone can go from the news to reading more of that stuff at the moment I tip my hat. I’m on sitcoms herbal tea and Anne Tyler to calm myself down.

I did pick up Elizabeth Taylor’s Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont - the subject of this week’s Backlisted.

ALso Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman is an episodic, anecdotal trip through the biography of a Nobel-winning scientist, and how his scientific thinking manifests itself throughout his life. It is comic, intelligent and a pleasure.

I also went for a sample of The Right Stuff has anybody read it?

I also went for Mrs Palfrey and picked up The Glass Castle too as I am yet to read it. Not too much else, I agree.

83. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Fantasy, first in a trilogy, with central characters involved in a doomed angel / demon romance.

17 yr old art student Karou has spent her life between two worlds, ours and Elsewhere, where she acts as an errand girl to a teeth collecting creature with a monstrous appearance.
And now dangerous angels are arriving, things are changing, and forgotten secrets about Karou’s past will soon be revealed.

Very readable if a little on the YA side.

84. Ararat by Christopher Golden

Horror novel.
An avalanche on Mount Ararat reveals a massive cave, with an ancient ship inside it - just where many believe Noah’s Ark would have been.

A ship carrying a sealed coffin containing a sinister horned cadaver.
And as a blizzard cuts them off from the outside world, the team of scholars, archaeologists and filmmakers researching the ship find themselves struggling with the increasing fear that they’re trapped with an ancient malevolent entity...

Another good readable book.

And I’ve abandoned The Essex Serpent.
Couldn’t get into it and it’s due back at the library.

47. On Chapel Sands: My mother and other missing persons by Laura Cumming. This a family memoir about the author's mother, in particular a discovery of her roots as she was adopted as a young child. Dull and waffly. I found that the viciousness the author displays when talking about her long dead maternal grandfather rather uncomfortable to read. Really surprised by all the positive reviews on Amazon.

I thought The Glass Castle was a great read whippet, well worth 99p. Would probably appeal to lovers of Educated as it covers similar ground.

Satsuki I read The Right Stuff last year (or possibly the year before?), when I blitzed on space-related books, and loved it. Not a Tom Wolfe fan normally but I devoured this one. Fascinatingly informative but also funny. IMHO.

I just had a look at the kindle monthly sale and it does seem to be slim pickings. I have downloaded War and Peace, though - that's the kind of size of book which makes sense on a kindle.

I noticed Elmet was on there, which is a book I keep picking up and putting down again in bookshops. Would anyone recommend it? And I seem to remember that The Idiot got rather mixed reviews on here.

One of my favourite books is also in the sale - The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd - but it may not be to everyone's taste (novel following one independent-minded Scottish woman's life in China and Japan during the turbulent first half of the 20th century).

I bought Blacklands and The Ravenmaster in the monthly deals. Had somehow missed The Glass Castle so will go back and grab that too!

exexpat I enjoyed Elmet

Have fallen off the thread big time, mostly due to starting a masters course. I expect my reading will drop off a cliff for the next two years and I'll be only reviewing rereads of fantasy series as that's all I'll fancy reading outside of academic literature.

Have finished Bleak House which I mostly loved but not sure I got on with the 18 month serialised Looking forward to watching the tv adaptation now.

Currently listening to the distinctly underwhelming The Testaments.

Missing word in above post was readathon.

I loved The Ginger Tree too. A successful book club choice (everyone read it).