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.

On holiday in Gran Canaria. Rather lovely! Have managed to get through Love Is Blind by William Boyd. It's a good read and I won't say too much about the ending. I did think the protagonist left trails everywhere and then seemed astonished to be tracked down. The lovely loyal Brodie was a bit dim, really.
I feel obliged to report in on Breastwatch. They belong to only three women, I think but are copiously mentioned at points. As are a few other things. DH looked over my shoulder at one point and declared I was reading porn.

36. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky I think before reading this I somehow had it conflated in my head with Outcasts of Time by Ian Mortimer so I wasn't expecting this perfect slice of space based hard sci-fi. I loved it. It spans vast stretches of time and space, introduces the best space spiders ever, and explores big subjects, including the survival of the human race, while still managing to have a story line with human interest. Glad to see there is now a follow up (Children of Ruin) and will definitely be reading that.

37. Europe in Autumn by Dave Hutchinson Picked up through a recommendation on this thread, this was sci-fi on a more domestic and intimate scale. Europe has fractured into many tiny idiocyncratic states, making the movement of people and goods a bit of a lottery. Which is how Rudi, a chef with a flair for languages, gets recruited to a mysterious organisation of courers. Written in a wry humourous style, I really enjoyed this, but could see it wasn't perfect. For example, I don't think his writing of female characters was great. I also found myself mentally arguing with the author's new map of Europe as extrapolating from the cultural / social / economic situations prevalent at the time of writing (pre-Brexit) I would have argued for things panning out in different ways - but, you know, it's his book, and it's sci-fi, and it's certainly a fantastic concept and a highly entertaining read.

MuseumI can definitely recommend reading Children of Ruin. A really solid flow up with some equally interesting ideas. I'm audiobooking Cage of Souls also by Tchaikovsky at the moment and really enjoying it. I think I might give some of his fantasy ago at some point.

137. Odd Girl Out- Laura James This book describes how autism, including a late diagnosis in her mid forties, has affected the author’s life and relationships. As someone on the edge of the spectrum, I can particularly relate to her feelings about her career: she enjoys her job, is good at it, but finds many aspects really difficult. Her thoughts about Brexit are also very interesting: she points out that all the uncertainty is even worse for autistic people, who struggle with change (the book was published in 2017 but her comments are still very relevant!).

138. Reading Aloud- Chris Paling This book has been discussed several times before on these threads. Ostensibly about libraries, it is mainly about the various oddballs, homeless people and other interesting characters who frequent them. I was very happy that my local library- whence I borrowed this book- was mentioned! I also learned an new, interesting fact, that ’reading silently to oneself reduces stress levels by up to 69%’. This is a rather eccentric- but mainly enjoyable- book. Towards the end, the focus inevitably shifts to the recent cuts to library services, and therefore becomes rather bleak.

Wish I'd found this sooner! Can I join, I'll be good and start at 1?

1. Starting - John Grisham - The Chamber.

(If anyone can recommend fantasy books in the style of Eddings my number will become bloated very quickly....)

It's All in Your Head Suzanne O'Sullivan Thought-provoking and sympathetic account of psychosomatic illnesses written by a consultant neurologist. She makes a compelling case for more understanding of the underlying psychological issues manifesting as unexplained physical diseases. As she points out, we all display physical responses to emotion, for example crying when we are upset.

Grr, Ms O'Sullivan can do one, she's a pompous asshole who essentially demonises people with certain conditions, and is far too fond of the word "psychosomatic".

Idiom - The Descent of Man is excellent. This Butchering Art is a history of surgery, and well worth a read.

Steve - welcome!

This Butchering Art is a history of surgery, and well worth a read.

Love medical books, I highly recommend Henry Marsh - Do No Harm.

Remus - thanks, I will look up The Butchering Art. My degree is in history, but my career has been supporting medical research, so that's where my interest comes from.

Steve - yes, I really enjoyed the Henry Marsh books too.
Re: Suzanne O'Sullivan's All in Your Head - yes, she did argue that many illnesses are psychosomatic. However, I thought her whole aim was to stop 'psychosomatic' being a dirty word and show that, while the origins of the illnesses may be mental, the symptoms are still very real and debilitating. They just need psychological, rather than medical, treatment - and this should not be a source of shame.

Steve - yes, I really enjoyed the Henry Marsh books too.

Books, plural? Seems I missed his second. Think the Grisham book can wait!

As for Suzanne O'Sullivan I have one of the conditions she profiled in her book and it made me feel uncomfortable, the condition is joked about and shrugged off already when it's massively debilitating and the treatment options she detailed have been proven not to work and removed from NICE guidelines, and she would have known this was the plan when writing her book.

Off to find Henry's latest!

The other Henry Marsh book is called Admissions and mostly covers his work overseas iirc.

We'll have to agree to differ on Suzanne O'Sullivan

Hello everyone, I haven't been on here for a while and just had a nice long catch up on the thread. Sorry to hear of your troubles Meg and Toomuch

Here's my list so far, with highlights in bold. I also have a few new reviews to post, but they will have to wait until later as dd has just returned home and is demanding food

1. Everything Under – Daisy Johnson
2. A God in Ruins – Kate Atkinson
3. Asymmetry – Lisa Halliday
4. Poverty Safari – Darren McGarvey
5. The Travelling Cat Chronicles – Hiro Arikawa
6. The Rotters’ Club – Jonathan Coe
7. Kindred – Octavia E. Butler
8. We Were the Mulvaneys – Joyce Carol Oates
9. Milkman – Anna Burns
10. The Amateur Marriage – Anne Tyler
11. Things Bright and Beautiful – Anbara Salam
12. A Woman in the Polar Night – Christiane Ritter
13. Barbara Hepworth – Penelope Curtis
14. Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman – Lindy West
15. The Western Wind – Samantha Harvey
16. Notes to Self – Emilie Pine
17. Transcription – Kate Atkinson
18. The Summer Without Men – Siri Hustvedt
19. Go Went Gone – Jenny Erpenbeck
20. Memories of the Future – Siri Hustvedt
21. Ordinary People – Diana Evans
22. The Tenderness of Wolves – Stef Penney
23. The Closed Circle – Jonathan Coe
24. From a Low and Quiet Sea – Donal Ryan
25. An American Marriage – Tayari Jones
26. West – Carys Davies
27. My Sister the Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite
28. The Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller
29. Gun Love – Jennifer Clement
30. The Cost of Living – Deborah Levy
31. The Cut Out Girl – Bart Van Es
32. The Silence of the Girls – Pat Barker
33. End of Days – Jenny Erpenbeck
34. The Doll Factory – Elizabeth Macneal
35. To Throw Away Unopened – Viv Albertine
36. Visitation – Jenny Erpenbeck
37. What Red Was – Rosie Price
38. Surrender – Joanna Pocock
39. Signs Preceding the End of the World – Yuri Herrera
40. All the Lives We Never Lived – Anuradha Roy

Busy at work / home, so not much 'proper' reading happening here right now - but fitting in a fair bit of audio book time around things, so:

63. Temeraire by Naomi Novik, listened to on Audible. This was a real hit for me - light fantasy with good characters & not too challenging a storyline was exactly what I needed right now. For those who don't know it, it's the Napoleonic wars with added dragons. I've read it as a paper book before many years back (when dd had a full on dragon phase ), but it worked beautifully on audio, really well read by Simon Vance who is always good value.

I'm tempted to go straight on to book 2, but IIRC the sequels don't quite live up to book 1, so I'll probably wait a bit & listen to something else in between.

What's the general consensus - does listening to one of the 'Great Courses' series of lectures on Audible count as a 'book' for the purposes of this forum? They are listed on Goodreads, if that helps. (I've just bought two in the 2-for-1 sale!)

24. Becoming, by Michelle Obama Much reviewed and lauded everywhere, and it's just as good as everyone says. I often struggle a bit with autobiographies, particularly the 'early years' parts, but I found her account of her early life just as compelling as the rest, if not more so. Recommended.

25. Late in the Day, by Tessa Hadley. I absolutely loved this but I think (and Goodreads reviews seem to confirm) that Tessa Hadley is a very marmite author. This is the story of two couples who have known each other for decades, and how their relationships are affected when one of the men dies in later life. It's very slow with a limited amount of plot but absolutely beautifully written. I thought it was brilliant but if you're not already a fan of hers then this is unlikely to change your mind.

26. The Scholar, by Dervla McTiernan. Police procedural set in Galway. I hadn't realised it was the second in a series but you don't need to have read the first one. Detective Cormac Reilly is drawn into a case when his girlfriend stumbles across the victim of a hit and run. Set on campus and in the world of bio research, I enjoyed this very much. I checked and saw the first was on kindle for 99p at the moment, so snapped that up as well.

83. The Ghost - Robert Harris
    A ghost writer is drafted in last minute to complete the memoir of a former Prime Minister after the original author has taken his own life. With only a month to complete the book, the politician is accused of war crimes and the writer finds some shocking discoveries in the original author's research. He is determined to reveal the truth while others are determined to conceal it. So so thriller with thinly veiled references to the Blairs.

84. Gingerbread - Helen Oyeyemi
    I can't even begin to tell you what this was about as I have no idea. Starts with a mother trying to get in with the PTA and wanders off with the daughter to a fantasy land with Gretel of 'Hansel and ...' fame. Calling it surreal would be a kindness it does not deserve. Largely incoherent storylines and lacking any discernible plot, which is a shame as there was was some gorgeous lyrical writing in places. I think it was trying to be a modern day Alice in Wonderland which it spectacularly failed to be. As with Alice I have either spectacularly missed something, or drugs were required.

85. The Adventures of Tom Saywer - Mark Twain
    Joyous tales of a naughty boy in the Deep South during the mid 1800s. Brilliant writing, bring on Huck Finn!

86. Everything Under - Daisy Johnson
    Reviewed a lot recently here, so I will just say that I really enjoyed this, the author pulled everything together so well.

Some recent updates:

23. Pride - From Stonewall to the Present - Matthew Todd. Non-fiction look at LGBT rights and . Pretty average writing but most of the photos are utterly captivating and (I think) rare.

24. Jar of Fools - Jason Lutes. I got this from the library as I wanted to get Berlin from the same author which someone else in the previous thread (sorry but I can't recall who) raved about. The library didn't have Berlin so I got this. Despite this being short and a graphic novel I didn't quite understand the plot - something about a magician in the states, who's haunted by the death of his brother Eddie. Couldn't really get into this.

25. Sweet Sorrow - David Nicholls. This a coming-of-age, rites-of-passage novel from the One Day writer, set in southern England in the 90s. I'd been looking forward to this for months but the book was one of my disappointing reads for years, with an unconvincing main character, and the weakest ending I've read in a book for some time. I think the author missed a trick here by focusing on the dull love story element and an unengaging am-dram subplot, instead of exploring the intriguing family dynamics of the protaganist.

does listening to one of the 'Great Courses' series of lectures on Audible count as a 'book' for the purposes of this forum? They are listed on Goodreads, if that helps. (I've just bought two in the 2-for-1 sale!)

They are fabulous, I adore the medical ones by Roy Benaroch; the Practicing Mindfulness title by Mark W. Muesse is pretty good too.

The other Henry Marsh book is called Admissions and mostly covers his work overseas iirc.

Grabbed :) I had an eye surgeon a decade ago who took pioneering eye surgery to South America. I found myself thinking after reading/listening to Do No Harm how compelling a book of his would be. Sadly, he's retired now and seemingly has no plans.

I'm re-listening to Marsh's first title now, then it shall be Admissions tomorrow :)

I love how Marsh focuses on the human nature of surgeons in the first couple of chapters, it's a very important point.

Amazing thread, wish I'd found it sooner!

I'm afraid Henry Marsh figures in my Writers who come across as arrogant tossers list.

Remus - What's the difference between a surgeon and God?
God doesn't think he's a surgeon.

I still found Henry Marsh's books interesting enough to be able to tolerate the ego, though.

Thanks for the new thread southeast - not that new now I suppose I’ve not been getting much reading done so I missed the first 5 or so pages, just been enjoying a good catch up. Sorry things are so tough splother and meg

I’m having another bash at finishing From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers Marina Warner. It’s been hanging around by the side of my bed for years and I should in theory love it because I’m interested in the subject and it’s well written and researched. For some reason though I just can’t seem to get through it, keep abandoning it and then trying again.

Bringing my list over:

1. Tied up in Tinsel - Ngaio Marsh
2. Nine Lessons - Nicola Upson
3. Bookworm - A memoir of childhood reading - Lucy Mangan
4. A History of Britain in 21 Women - Jenni Murray
5. The Mystery of Three Quarters (New Hercule Poirot Mysteries #3))

by Sophie Hannah

1. Cider with Rosie - Laurie Lee
2. Mythos - Stephen Fry
3. The Bear and The Nightingale - Katherine Arden
4. Heroes - Stephen Fry

10. Don’t you forget about me - Mhairi McFarlane 11. Amy and Isabelle - Elizabeth Strout 12. Lethal White - Robert Galbraith 13. Parsnips, Buttered: How to baffle, bamboozle and boycott your way through modern life. - Joe Lycett 14. Swing Time - Zadie Smith 15. Born a Crime - Trevor Noah 16. The Cater Street Hangman - Anne Perry 17. Callander Square - Anne Perry 18. The House Between Tides - Sarah Maine 19. The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry 20. Girl Meets Boy -Ali Smith 21. The Masqueraders - Georgette Heyer 22. My Name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout 23. Bonjour Tristesse & A Certain Smile - Françoise Sagan 24. Pure - Andrew Miller 25. Season of Light - Katherine McMahon 26. The Autograph Man - Zadie Smith 27. Becoming - Michelle Obama 28. Anything Is Possible - Elizabeth Strout 29. Classic Scrapes - James Acaster 30. Black Sheep - Georgette Heyer 31. Paragon Walk - Anne Perry 32. Women and Power - Mary Beard 33. This Thing of Darkness- Harry Thompson 34. The Years She Stole - Jonathan Harvey 35. Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout 36. The Hangman’s Daughter - Oliver Potzsch 37. All Among The Barley - Melissa Harrison

Just finished 38. Hotel World - Ali Smith Not my favourite Ali Smith, five characters whose lives are connected to the Global Hotel, the narrative switches between the five - I found it quite patchy and really enjoyed some parts whilst finding others just a bit tedious.

If anyone has an Amazon Echo in their homes and fancies a trip down memory lane Anne Of Green Gables is being read free of charge for the month of August, you just need to ask the device to read it to you. This was my favourite childhood book and it's beautifully read by Rachel McAddams I'm really enjoying this unashamedly sentimental wallow. (Keep tearing up, and that's before I get to the actual sad bit!) but a lot of humour that probably went over my head on first reading too. I'm really enjoying it

34. The Good People by Hannah Kent, listened to this via BorrowBox, choosen because it was the same author as Burial Rites. Set in the 1820's this deals with the superstitions and pagan beliefs practised at the time in rural Ireland. 'The Good People' of the title are actually Fairies. Not the delicate, amiable mythical creation of more modern times but malevolent sprites that need to be appeased and contained with traditions and rituals to keep them at bay and stop them bringing down misery and chaos on the community. Those who descend into madness, illness or simply disappear are said to be 'swept' by the Good People, who often leave a changeling in their place. This is based on true events and obviously has been well researched and beautifully written, just like Burial Rites, but sadly was not as captivating as her first novel imo and by the end I just wanted the story which had grown repetitive to reach its conclusion. The synopsis is: Nóra, bereft after the sudden death of her beloved husband, finds herself alone and caring for her young grandson Micheál. Micheál cannot speak and cannot walk and Nóra is desperate to know what is wrong with him. What happened to the healthy, happy grandson she met when her daughter was still alive? Mary arrives in the valley to help Nóra just as the whispers are spreading: the stories of unexplained misfortunes, of illnesses, and the rumours that Micheál is a changeling child who is bringing bad luck to the valley. Nance's knowledge keeps her apart. To the new priest, she is a threat, but to the valley people she is a wanderer, a healer. Nance knows how to use the plants and berries of the woodland; she understands the magic in the old ways. And she might be able to help Micheál. As these three women are drawn together in the hope of restoring Micheál, their world of folklore and belief, of ritual and stories, tightens around them. It will lead them down a dangerous path, and force them to question everything they have ever known.