50 Book Challenge 2019 Part Seven

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the seventh, and possibly final, 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, the fifth one here and the sixth one here.

How've you got on this year?

InMyOwn, ref Louis Theroux, I agree he definitely does feel some genuine guilt ref his friendship with JS, but as you say he's not above making money out of that guilt. (I'm sure he also kicks himself for missing out on the scoop of his life if he'd dug a bit harder!)

He does talk about Nancy frequently complaining that she felt like a single parent who was doing all the heavy lifting on the home and parenting front whilst he was away working, then goes on to say she got a new job, lost her baby weight 'an ineffable sparkle and lightness had returned to her'. Suddenly she doesn't mind him working away for weeks at a time, suggests if he wants to 'pursue an outside physical relationship' she'd 'be okay with that' and then finally tells him she's having 'thoughts about other men'. Maybe I'm putting two and two together and making five because he doesn't actually say she had an affair but he certainly details a lot of red flags that would make you wonder.

You're spot on with the person/persona comment. Having read the book I'm still not sure where the boundary is.

ShakeitOff if you want something a bit more current than Galbraith, Ha Joon Chang's books are good - both Economics: The User's Guide, and 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism. (Despite what the title of the latter might imply, he's actually quite pro-capitalism on the whole.)

Popping my head in to say hello.... Sorry I haven't been here much! Looking forward to catching up on the new thread (I know, it's hardly new)

I'm way behind on my reviews too so I have tried to keep them short-ish

80. The Vows of Silence, Susan Hill

Family stuff was more engaging here than the crime/police bits. The Serrailer family drama was improved by concentrating on characters who aren't Simon, as Simon is undoubtedly a bit of a tit. I thought I'd had enough of these but this one was quite hard to put down so doubtless I will succumb again to the next one when I get my hands on it!

81. After the Party, Cressida Connolly

Set in the 30s, this is the story of three English sisters who become involved with a "peace movement" run by a charismatic leader - I won't spoiler it although the nature of this movement is fairly clearly signposted from the start. This gave the impression of being well-researched, depicting views of the time, and the reasons why people got involved with organisations of this kind. The part of the story dealing with Phyllis's time in prison and in an internment camp were the most interesting; the story of the sisters and their family feuds rather less so.

82. The Pact We Made, Layla AlAmmar

Lively and fascinating first novel set in modern day Kuwait. Our protagonist, Dahlia, is determined not to marry but withstanding family and social pressure is taking its toll. Sits, appropriately, in an uncomfortable place between a gossipy story of a privileged lifestyle and a darker story of misogyny and lack of freedom.

83. Normal People, Sally Rooney

Liked this so much better than Conversations with Friends. The earliest section, with Marianne and Connell as teenagers, was so utterly true and convincing. Later, as they grew older, I wanted them to become wiser and more articulate, and I'm not sure they did - but it's probably very fair to say yes, this is what it's like in your 20s, and she's just very good at capturing that with all its frustrating missteps. Could appreciate the cleverness of the writing here too as I was less distracted by being annoyed with the characters.

84. Resurrection Bay, Emma Viskic

Listened to as an audiobook while completing my final long runs of marathon training. Australian thriller with a hero, a profoundly deaf insurance claim investigator, dragged against his will into a case involving a violent gang. Fairly original and did the job of keeping my mind distracted from the miles!

85. The Ashes of London, Andrew Taylor

Thought I would love this a lot more than I did. The historic setting was well done, I loved the depiction of the paranoid post-restoration factions, the wily operators who had cleverly switched from king to parliament and back, but the story failed to engage my interest and was over complicated.

DNF Unsheltered, Barbara Kingsolver

Really sad that I didn't love this - i was so ready to love it! Two parallel stories of families living in the same house at different times. The modern story (set during the early stages of the Trump presidential campaign) is engaging if reliant on technical details confusing to a non-US reader (Willa's family has, rather suddenly, hit a financial crisis, despite being educated and hard-working - understanding quite how and why this has happened involves understanding the way that health care, student loans and other financial instruments are working against them . The historic story lost me almost immediately, sadly - the protagonist meets a neighbour who is a scientist, and they embark on long, dense conversations about science which just weren't interesting. There's so much in the idea of this book that fascinates me and I'm truly gutted that I couldn't carry on with it... I was just so bored.....

YesILikeItToo, perhaps the London Review of Books wouldn’t approve of repeated “why I read this book” references but I really like the stories as well. I find that often leads me down interesting paths – someone on here recommended a book that they had heard about on Backlisted, and then I became hooked on Backlisted as a result.

I loved Conclave. Not the ending, particularly, which I guessed in advance – very unusually for me – but more because my sister and I have always had a thing about papal conclaves. She had an ongoing and very entertaining “Popewatch” WhatsApp thread running last time where she posted all sorts of great titbits of information about it, and about popes through the century. That’s the story of how I came to read Conclave .

Keith - I share your disappointment with Ashes of London. It could have been so good, but just wasn't.

Thanks for the Neal Stephenson recommendation YesILikeItToo, I’ve added that to my wish list. Looks good!

Now plodding through The Woman in the Window. To be fair, it pretty much reads itself, but I'm not sure how much more of 'agoraphobic alcoholic walks up the stairs, drinks some merlot, then walks down the stairs' I can take.

24. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Much read and reviewed on here already.

It took me a little while to get into the format of a novel told entirely through letters. Unfortunately, the tone, style and 'voice' of the letters do not vary much between their writers and so the characters do not contrast enough.

The ending was somewhat predictable and rather too neatly wrapped up. However, given this is set immediately after the atrocities of WWII, I concede that the survivors would be well overdue some hope and happy-ever-afters.

Pleasant enough easy read.

215. Christmas Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella

Formulaic, predictable, annoying heroine, and completely unbelievable scenarios. Still really like these books though! They’re funny and require no brain power at all, and sometimes I need that.

Should there ever be a need for another Conclave Pepe I’ll be badgering you for Popewatch titbits! .

InMyOwnParticularIdiom, The Woman In The Window was dire. There was a decent book trying to get out but I agree, the plodding about with wine was sooooo boring.

And yes, YesILikeItToo, we’ll conclave away together. Very happy to share my favourite fact now which is that you don’t have to be a priest to be a pope. Though it does of course help.

Behind on reviews after a week away at half term with lots of reading.

112 The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
So good - an account of the “Original Seven* astronauts assigned to the Mercury mission. It’s brilliantly done - each of the men has a distinct and well drawn personality and Wolfe does justice to their own frustrations, triumphs and stories. He’s in thrall to the macho culture of the early space exploration missions and on the side of the men who opted to risk everything at the

113 Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
I think this has had a mixed reception here. I loved the way it evoked the madness of the 70s music scene and the evolving relationships in the band, and thought the narrative structure was an interesting one. But ultimately I didn’t believe in Daisy as a character - she seemed flat and boring, and certainly not the captivating genius I kept being told she was, and so for me the book fell flat.

114 Time’s Convert by Deborah Harkness
I like a good vampire story but this was not a good vampire story. It was more of what I hated from the All Soul’s Trilogy - flabby and weird plots that don’t go anywhere or are resolved with no logic, and terrible clunky dialogue. There are flashes of good solid characterisation and the vampire lore and interaction with other creatures is done well but in the end this was really unsatisfying.

115 Ma’am Darling by Craig Brown
99 insights into Princess Margaret’s life. Not in any way a standard biography (some are entirely fictional) but funny and sad and clever. I have little to no interest in the Royal Family but this was captivating.

Pepe , I'm pleased you enjoyed The Right Stuff - I did too (and I also liked Ma'am Darling , although I know it got a bit of a mixed reception here).

I've completely failed to keep up to speed with this thread over the last couple of months or so. Things have been busy with one thing and another (stupid work).

Re the BBC list I have read 39 books but that doesn't include some of the series books where I've only read one or two (Lord of the Rings and the Narnia Chronicles for example). I have read all the Terry Pratchetts. A couple of people were saying they haven't ready Our Mutual Friend. This is a good tale and well worth a read.

Recent reads:
60 A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman
Picked this up on holiday and quite enjoyed it. It's a bit 'mystical' so if that is not your thing then don't bother. Good descriptions.

61 Landskipping by Anna Pavord
Readable book about the influence of the UK landscape on art and literature. Could have done with a few more pictures of the artwork that she was talking about though.

62 The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey
Set in the 1490s a body is spotted in a river in rural Somerset and the local priest is summoned to come and help. Who is the victim and how did he end up in the river? This is a tale told backwards about a struggling community and the priest who leads them who also has his struggles. It is very well written.

63 The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L Sayers
Old man dies in his sleep in a gentleman's club. Very straightforward. But his sister also dies the same day and, under the terms of her will, it is important to know who died first. Lord Peter Wimsey is asked to find out and is soon on the trail of clues which suggest something more sinister.

64 The Philosopher's Pupil by Iris Murdoch
The Philosopher is coming back to his home town. Everyone is fascinated with the news. George was the Philosopher's Pupil years ago and has blamed him for the failures in his career because they fell out. George is an awful man who somehow gets away with awful behaviour because people find him attractive. Many of the characters in this book are awful, they behave badly towards each other. The plot is Shakespearean in many ways. The book has a real depth to it, lots of good descriptions. It kept me reading but not sure I liked the outcome for some of the characters.

128. A Half-Baked Idea, by Olivia Potts
A memoir by a young woman about losing her mother and deciding to leave her nascent career as a criminal barrister to do a Cordon Bleu patisserie course. I thought this was great - it's an odd mixture of subjects (grief memoir, a couple of chapters that sound like The Secret Barrister, plus recipes and blow-by-blow accounts of cooking classes) but it gels together (appropriate culinary metaphor) as a surprisingly satisfying whole.

YesILike, I do like hearing about how people come to read certain books. I happened to be browsing a library bookshelf I don't normally look at and picked it up. It's worth looking at different sections from time to time, especially for those hard-to-classify books you might otherwise miss.

I've read 39 of the books on that BBC list, with another four where I have read some but not all of the series. I thought it was a better than usual mix - not too canonical and some that made me think "oh, I really should read that". I don't think Twilight is either a literary classic or an epoch-defining work but it's clearly influential in terms of how people see the world (for better or worse!). I also liked the fact it picked books by well known authors that aren't necessarily their best known works - Cannery Row, for example, being one of Steinbeck's best works in my view.

I must read The Outsiders. All of the dc have now studied it at school and we have the movie lined up for the next time we are all in the house together.

I was really pleased to see Slaves of Solitude on there. I am a huge Patrick Hamilton fan, and although Hangover Square is usually considered his best novel, I think Slaves of Solitude is actually a better book, in terms of execution and characterisation. And so very very sad. Would recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who doesn't mind having their heart repeatedly broken by a story of normal people trying to get on in life as best they can when faced with some truly monstrous adversaries and weak allies. (I realise that is quite niche. It's a really really good book!).

Love The Slaves of Solitude too. Completely agree, Pepe - always keen to recommend it to as many people as possible

Totally agree about Patrick Hamilton Pepe. I was surprised to see Slaves on the list, it is a great read. Poor Enid Roach. So many people I feel outraged by on her account.Hangover Square is my least favourite Hamilton. I think my heart gets broken more often by Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky especially Ella's story.

Yes, it was interesting to read a list which isn't just the same books that always appear. There's definitely more on there that I could read - always more books and not enough time

I also like Slaves of Solitude and, also Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky which I think is great portrayal of love in a seedy London. I think Hamilton was good at characters clinging onto their respectability because they don't have much else.

88. Normal People by Sally Rooney
I thought this was well worth the £1.19 I paid for it on Kindle Daily deal. I enjoyed it and thought it caught some of the problems and issues in dealing with mis communication, the strageness of life and not being to articulate feelings of young romance well. It was a bit of a strange scenario.I really liked Marianne. What a MN thread she could start. Rooney was born in 1991, gosh, I feel old. Great achievement for a young writer.

I agree Cedar. His characters want so little, often just some companionship or acknowledgement as they all seem lonely or just a little money to be more comfortable. Their dreams are small.

66. We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates

I don't really get on with Joyce Carol Oates. I keep thinking I should read her books and then getting a few chapters in and getting bored. But I finished this one and I liked it too. The slow, sometimes excruciating, story of a family falling - or being pulled - apart, it drew me in in a way none of her other novels (well, the ones I've started!) have. Great characterisation, and some really good descriptive passages, although it was in parts a bit over-written for me. Not an easy read, but overall a satisfying one.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it above, but Home Fire is on the Kindle daily deal today.

60. A ladder to the sky; John Boyne

This is the second John Boyne book I've read (the first being the heart's invisible furies) and I think he's going to become one of my favourite authors. He's so good at writing dislikable but fascinating characters! This book is interesting in that it's written in various parts and 'interludes' by different narrators and points of view, which sounds like it could make the book feel patchy but actually really adds to the overall story. I loved it - perhaps not quite as much as invisible furies, but enough to make me keen to read his other books.

Snap, t'other Fran ! I've also just finished A Ladder to the Sky and loved it. I'll write about it properly when I update in the next couple of days.