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.

31. Last Man Standing by David Baldacci

FBI's hostage rescue team gets ambushed, with only one survivor on whom falls all suspicion.

At 659 pages, this was far too long for a dick lit beach read, albeit somewhat better than the average Jack Reacher story. Some of it was pretty good but I really didn't need to read so much about horse breeding.

Thanks everyone my first 16 are as follows:
2019 books

1. The Alice Network - Kate Quinn
2. This is going to hurt - Adam Kay
3. Where’d you go Bernadette - Maria Semple
4. The couple next door-
5. The boy in the dress - David walliams
6. The truth about the Harry Quebert affair - Joel dicker
7. Dear Mrs Bird
8. The moon is a balloon - David Niven
9. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

10. When Hitler stole pink rabbit- Judith Kerr 11. The Cactus - Sarah Haywood 12. Bombs on Aunt Dainty - Judith Kerr 13. Educated - Tara Westover 14. The Sisters - Claire Douglas 15. Time and how to spend it - James 16. Why Mummy swears - Gail Sims

Am reading The Great Gatsby at the moment and am then moving on to Murder on the Orient Express

Sorry to read about your troubles splother and meg

A quick update before I have to return these to the library:

58. Ascension by Victor Dixen

This was just silly.

It’s a bit like Love Island in Space, only with TV producers planning on killing off the contestants as soon as they get to Mars in case they die slowly and it’s bad for the TV ratings.

And frankly a lot of the TV production decisions only make sense from a point of view where the contestants aren’t expected to survive.
Such as picking a contestant who’s first introduced wearing what’s essentially a tin foil hat because he’s got a phobia of space radiation and a million other things. Or filling the spaceship with luxury items like dressy clothes, jewellery and make up which will be absolutely useless on Mars. Or taking a pair of dogs to represent the animal kingdom instead of something that might be useful for food purposes.

All very implausible.

59. Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
A sequel to Strange the Dreamer, this continues straight on from that.
The characters are dealing with the aftermath of events at the end of the first book, while also facing new foes. Lots of backstory filled in for the reader too.

60. Hope For The Best by Jodi Taylor

Latest in the Chronicles of St Mary series. All much as expected and full of the usual chasing around history. If you’ve enjoyed the other books in the series you’ll probably enjoy this.

61. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Another enjoyable read which has been reviewed by a few other people upthread.
A fairy tale style novel with magic and well fleshed out characters.

Meg

I can't settle with anything at the moment so keep starting new books. Very frustrating.

I have discovered Men Writing Women on Twitter which has been good for a chuckle. Some of them make Follett look good.

I've hit the target at least with 50: The Longest Journey - E. M. Forster

Unfortunately it turned out not to be the greatest book to mark my moment of achievement but wasn't my choice (book club requirement) so I persisted till the end, but quite honestly, had this been the first Forster I ever read, I doubt I'd ever have picked up A Room with a Vew, Howard's End or A Passage to India.

The main protagonist is Rickie, a sickly and 'lame' youth, product of an unhappy and broken marriage. We meet Rickie first at Cambridge, where he revels in the company of his friends and the all-male environment (Forster was at King's and spent a long period later in life as an honorary fellow there). All the women in the book are portrayed as awful to various degrees and even have names to match - Mrs Failing; Mrs Silt.

To cut a very long story short, Rickie eventually marries the prim Agnes, whose petty conventionality hobbles him and breaks his spirit, even as she schemes to get hold of his aunt's money and cut his half-brother out of the picture. Said half-brother is portrayed as a sort of uncouth noble savage, socially beyond the pale but, as Rickie comes to see, worthy of love despite being irretrievably common and uneducated.

There's endless agonising about minute social gradations and much dark talk of 'hereditary taints' (Rickie's 'lameness' is handed down to the daughter he and Agnes produce, who's promptly killed off - worst of all, though, she's a girl).

Actually the more I think about this, the more I really didn't like this book. As you might be able to tell. However, I must be forbearing and note that as a novel of 1907 it's above all a production of its time and place.

44. Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of the Empire.

Passionate and articulate, Akala sets out his opinions about race and class in Britain, on the backdrop of his life so far. I was shocked by his stories of racism in school and the stop-and-search infringement of personal rights of young black and brown men. I keep learning about the history of civil rights and the realities of the British Empire and I hope this discussion of class, race and history continues, with particular emphasis on Britain rather than the USA, so that we can improve life here.

“This is partly because, despite much seeming and some very real progress, public discourse about racism is still as childish and supine as it ever was. Where we do discuss race in public, we have been trained to see racism - if we see it at all - as an issue of interpersonal morality. Good people are not racist, only bad people are. This neat binary is a great way of avoiding any real discussion.”

“Is it possible to critically and honestly reflect on Britain’s history in an attempt to build a more ethical future?”

“I make no pretensions to super humanity and I wrestle everyday with my own doubts, weaknesses, egotism and greed. I often look at the world and just think fuck it, why bother, but I know that’s how we are supposed to feel, that’s why the corruption is so naked and freely visible- to wear down people who have the conviction that things could be better.” This could be said about so many issues - environment, plastic, class, poverty, race - take your pick..

I thought this book was great, truly deserving all its positive press, sparking discussions at work and at home.

45. From a Low and Quiet Sea by Donal Ryan.

Told predominately from the POV of three male characters - a Syrian refugee, a young Irish lad and an elderly Irish man - all converging at the end. All a bit ‘misery-lit’ for me and I did not feel engaged by this mostly-male, mostly-Irish saga with all the usual issues. Short, though.

Back from a lovely trip to France. It was so hot all I could do was either swim in the pool or lie by the pool reading, grudgingly lifting my eyes from the page from time to time to check all children were present and correct.

I finished up Milkman by Anna Burns, which I thought was excellent. I loved the main character and her habit of 'reading while walking', which is something I am prone to do and I really liked the characters of her 'wee sisters' with their precocious intelligence. It's such a unique book, set during the troubles in Northern Ireland and I really can see why it won The Booker. As another poster commented, there is an underlying sense of dread and tension all the way through and this, combined with the dense prose and rare paragraphs, make it a challenging but fulfilling read.

l also read:
73. Last Stories - William Trevor
I was not keen on these rather meandering and old-fashioned stories. They all seemed to be set in the 1950s, so I had a genuine shock when someone mentioned Starbucks!
74. Oleander, Jacaranda - Penelope Lively
I really enjoyed this short book about Lively's early life living in Egypt during WW2. The palpable horror when she has to return to the very cold, dull and rainy post-war England is very well described.
75. Tokyo Ueno Station - Miri Yu
This novel about a homeless (dead) man was a miss for me, although some of writing was very good quality, particularly the descriptions of his past life, before he became homeless. I do wonder how much is lost in translation with Japanese novels. The book drew my attention to the homelessness problem that exists in Tokyo and the way homeless communities are routinely moved on to make way for various events, such as the Olympics.
76. Asymmetry - Lisa Halliday
I unexpectedly loved this even though I thought I wouldn't as the first section, set in New York, deals with a love affair between a very young woman and a very old man! However, it is so well handled that I found myself pulled in - and the second section about an Iraqi/American was also excellent.
77. Cassandra at the Wedding - Dorothy Baker
Written in the 1960s, and perhaps somewhat of its time, this novel tells the story of Cassandra, who returns from Berkley to attend the wedding of her twin sister Judith. However, all is not as it seems, as Cassandra feels she cannot live without her sister and feels betrayed by the 'split' between them. There are subtle undercurrents in this novel and events take an unexpected turn but it's the sort of book that moves very slowly and where you have to read between the lines to make sense of events. This means it won't appeal to everyone.

Phew, sorry that was so long!

Does anyone have any recommendations from the new Kindle monthly sale? Mine is The World I Fell Out Of by Melanie Reid. It's by far the best book I've read so far this year and one of the best memoir's I've read.

I really loved both Into Thin Air - recommended from this thread and another popular one - and Where’d You Go Bernadette from the Monthly deals. I also quite liked American Wife as a time passer.

I have downloaded samples of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, Restoration by Rose Tremain - a famous one I’ve never got round to - Diary is a Somebody by Brian Bilston as I follow his humourous and topical poems and this is his comic novel in the same vein I believe, The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy as I’ve read her first volume of memoirs, and The Science of Storytelling

A quick update on my last few days’ reading and listening:

130. Making History- Stephen Fry This is the fifth Stephen Fry book I’ve read this year, but the first of his novels I’ve tried. It tells of a History graduate student who travels back in time to stop Adolf Hitler being born, with disastrous consequences. It ticked quite a few boxes for me: World War 2, time travel/alternate history, gay characters etc. I loved it and raced through to its delightful ending.

131. The Shining- Stephen King I was glad to have read this, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I expected. This is probably a controversial opinion around here, but I prefer Stanley Kubrick’s film. Also, the character of Danny is a little odd- even taking into account the fact that he is gifted with psychic powers, he is unbelievably precocious and nothing like any five year old I’ve ever met!

132. Wild- Cheryl Strayed I found this audiobook on BorrowBox, about a woman who spends three months hiking the USA’s Pacific Crest Trail by herself, in order to think about her life. I really enjoyed all the parts about hiking, camping and the interesting people (and animals) she met. The many sections about her mother’s death and her marriage break-up became a little self-indulgent at times.

133. The Librarian of Auschwitz- Antonio Iturbe This is far superior to the Tattooist of Auschwitz! It is much better written, especially considering that it is a translation, and I think it will stay with me for longer. Like the Tattooist, it is a fictionalised version of a true story, but this time the protagonist is a teenage girl. I liked her relationship with the (tiny) library of books and the risks she took in order to look after them and make them available for others to read. The realities of life and death at Auschwitz are described in their full horror, including the most vivid description I’ve ever read of the effects of Zyklon B.

134. Jurassic Park- Michael Crichton I thought this might be a little dry in comparison to the films, but it was really characterful and sparky. There are lovely descriptions of the dinosaurs and of Isla Nublar. I don’t always do too well with science fiction, but concepts such as genetic engineering and chaos theory were clearly explained so that (I think!) very little went over my head. As previously mentioned on one of these threads, the female characters are rather weak in comparison to their counterparts in the film: Ellie has too minor a role, and Lex, the little girl, spends most of the time complaining that she is bored or hungry. All in all, though, I loved this.

135. Joseph Stalin- Hourly History This is not as well written as some of the other Hourly Histories, but is still very informative. I loved Stalin’s quotation ‘Everyone has a right to be stupid, but some people abuse the privilege’.

136. Wonder- RJ Palacio I thought I’d reread this, as I’ve got Auggie and Me on reserve at the library. It is a beautiful story, which shows how cruel- and sometimes, how awesome- kids can be.

I’ve downloaded a few samples, but I’m not feeling particularly inspired by the Kindle Monthly Deals.

southeast I thought this month's kindle sale was a vast improvement on the last few! Seem to be lots of 'holiday reads' in there. I bought a few things - the Deborah Levy because I'm sure I've seen it recommended here (or perhaps it was Satsuki's review of the first volume), The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly, and On The Come Up by Angie Thomas because I loved her first novel, The Hate U Give.

Thanks for the heads up southeast, I've been waiting for The World I Fell Out Of to come down in price.

Satsuki - Snow Crash is wonderfully brainhurty Don't expect grand literature, just buckle up and enjoy the ride! Iirc, the story takes a wild turn at about page 200 and you go It's a brilliant story stitching together history, myth, archeology, and computer tech.

32. Recursion by Blake Crouch

This was excellent! I started it yesterday and finished it at 3 AM, less than 15 hours later. Fast-paced, brainhurty, and weird, it was everything I wanted in light entertainment

A new disorder called False Memory Syndrome where people's psyches are plagued by vivid memories of a life they never lived is causing suicides and general mayhem. Meanwhile, we also follow the story of a neuroscientist from a decade ago, who is tying to preserve and reactivate individual memories. A policeman's investigation into a suicide he couldn't prevent puts him on the same path as the neuroscientist whose accidental discovery is now a weapon of cataclysmic proportions hreatening to unravel the fabric of reality itself.

I wasn't that impressed by Dark Matter, the other book I read by this author, but this one is intriguing and well thought out, as well as a great story. I recommend it to everyone here.

That sounds good Cote, will add it to my list.

Fortuna, I know I’m a few days behind, but I agreed with you about Picnic At Hanging Rock in that it didn’t really have an ending and was left unresolved. However, I read later that the author did write a final chapter but was advised to leave it out of the final book. You can find it if you google it and while it does resolve the loose ends you can see why it was dropped!!

Ooh, that's interesting about Picnic at Hanging Rock, Chessie.

The World I Fell Out Of is great book. I recommended it earlier this year and I can’t remember who it was but I know one of you was holding on for a price drop.

Thanks for jogging my memory Best about The World I Fell Out Of, that it was you who first recommended it back in March, so thanks again. I know it was a great read because I still think about it months afterwards.

Just popping on to say that The Doll Factory is 1.99 on Kindle monthly and I really enjoyed it !

I'm considering The Doll Factory, Grayson Perry's Descent of Man and Under the Knife - the last one is a history of surgery and it's probably just me who wants that

Altered Carbon is 99p on the Kindle

32. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Goodness this was bleak. Not sure I would have finished it if I hadn't been away with huge chunks of the day to devote to reading. The blurb tells you it's about four friends who meet at College but it's really the story of the, abandoned as a baby, Jude St Francis (unlikely name aIert) who has been emotionally, physically and sexual abused from a young age until he leaves the care system aged 16.
    Although the abuse was depressing and disturbing it wasn't told in a gratuitous way and was told gradually in flashback throughout the book I therefore found it easier to deal with than the many and varied passages dealing with self harm. Many of which I had to skim read being squeamish. I didn't buy into the central relationship which seemed to be a little too convenient for my liking and I found the love and devotion inspired by Jude unlikely as he was unable to open up about why he was the way he was and would therefore probably come across as a distant and difficult person to those who he crossed paths with.

    33. This Is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay. I think everyone knows the premise of this by now - Ex Junior Doctor spills the beans - and I quite enjoyed it, certainly a lot more laughs than A Little Life! Although as mentioned above being squeamish I did skim read some passages, therefore don't know and don't want to know what 'ungloved' means in a medical context!

51. Conversations with Friends - Sally Rooney

This is well known to be a marmite book, but luckily I really like marmite. Briefly (as I know lots of you have read it), Dublin-based student Frances and her ex-girlfriend Bobbi form a complex relationship with older, wealthier married couple Nick and Melissa. What I loved about this was the 360 degree psychological portrait of Frances, damaged and not often likeable, acutely observant of those around her but constantly misinterpreting their behaviour, and tragically unable to communicate her own feelings. This was very much a 'realist' novel in that there was little pandering to the reader in terms of character development or resolution; Frances learned a little about herself, but not a lot, and (like everyone) at age 21 she still has a long way to go.

Bracing myself for book club on this on Monday, where I already know most people didn't like it!