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?

Fell off the thread. Not much to report. Read a Georgette Heyer which half way through I realised I'd already read and hadn't liked much then.

Reading and liking The Library of Ice but it's not 'calling' to me, so is taking a while. I find it much harder to read during my journey to work in winter, because I'm too busy trying to work out where I am in the dark, through the steamed up bus windows.

Have just finished My Sister, the Serial Killer which I know others have read, It didn't take long. An easy read and I did find it jaunty. I think it felt it had deep things to say but I wasn't too sure about this (I did like it reversing the women as murder victims trope) or that it is your usual Booker fare.

It ahs been optioned by Working Title which doesn't surprise me at all. For the first twenty pages or so, I could even imagine the editing techniques they will use!

55: The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson

I do enjoy Bill Bryson as a bit of a comfort read and this was certainly as expected.
A road trip around small town America, in search of his ideal, with interesting and amusing anecdotes along the way, some from observations on the current road trip and some reminiscences from childhood roadtrips.

I enjoy Bryson's writing, it makes for happy reading.

Welcome Sunset, sorry I can't comment on Grandmothers as I haven't read it (you're not selling it to me though ) it scores 3.89 on Goodreads but only 71 reviews, a lot of them seem to be advance copy reviews so must be quite a new book.

Yes it has just been published.

HI Sunset, haven't read Grandmothers either. I did read her book The Librarian and I think twee is a fair description.

Piggy, I have also just finished 70. My Sister the Serial Killer and also enjoyed it. I thought it was very crisply written (am a sucker for short, economically written books), and I liked the deft way she drew the sisters' relationship and the moments of tension when there were different paths to choose from. An original book. Certainly not the usual Booker fare, but I felt none the worse for it, and in fact if my husband's whinges about this year's shortlisted books are justified (although he liked the winner), it may well have been better than some of those that made it.

Aaargh! Can't count this year. Just checked back and that should have been 71!

I'm also reading The Library of Ice and it's not calling to me either so is also taking a while.

Bookwitch I am envious that you have just been able to enjoy The Lost Continent, I've read all the Bryson travel books and his later ones don't appeal so I can't have that pleasure of discovering one for the first time. Actually I wonder if it's not the books but happier times that I'm wistful for but that's a whole other matter.

Ha, there’s a good programme on R4 right now about bibliomania......it might speak to quite a few of us on this thread; it certainly does to me!

I did a double-take just there, Terp! It's not about me personally, to forestall anyone's disappointment....

Ironically enough, I'm okay at getting rid of books if I don't think I'll re-read them. I have a capsule library of books I actively want and am happy borrowing most of what I read from the library.

Yes, sorry biblio - should have made that clear

I am happy to get rid of books as well - but having done it thinking 'well I'll never reread that one' I sometimes find myself wondering about rereading a book only to remember that I no longer own it. DH has been convinced he got rid of a book, bought it again, only to discover he now has two copies. (Do we have too many books in our house?).

I also have a sliding scale - want to own in hardback, want to own in paperback, happy to borrow from the library. Sometimes I'll see a book in the library and hesitate to borrow it because I thought it would be one I'd like to own. Which makes no sense

I try to be a strict net exporter of books, but random ones keep drifting back in. Not even ones that are particularly significant to me, or that I'm likely to re-read. I'm about as far from having a capsule library as I am from having a capsule wardrobe.

57. A Month in the Country by JL Carr This short novel is exquisite. When gathering my thoughts to write this review, my recall of the book was as though I'd heard it read to me, and seen it cinematically. I guess to some extent with all fiction we 'hear' or visualise what is happening, but I've never experienced this so powerfully as with this book. I feel like I actually spent the summer of 1920 in Oxgodby, smelling Moon's pipe smoke, and feeling the warm stone of the churchyard slabs, and now have severe nostalgia for it. There is something pure gold about many English pastoral novels set between the world wars, that sets off a kind of nostalgia for something most readers never actually experienced. This may become my new favourite comfort re-read.

Isn't it lovely, Museum? As you say, a comfort re-read and one to include in my capsule!

Oi you lot. I rather like Robert Macfarlane
However, I've said it before on 50 book threads, I do wonder what his wife and children do when he's off questing about underground and whatnot. "Hi, is Rob there please? No, he's underground in a nuclear bunker in the arctic circle for three weeks. Can you call back in July?" etc.

However, to counter this, I read book 115. Sightlines by Kathleen Jamie, a Scottish poet and nature writer/essayist, who writes beautifully and does a fair bit of her own questing. There's a lovely chapter on St. Kilda amongst others. This was chosen by Amy Liptrot on A Good Read on Radio 4 recently.

Prior to that I read Kindred by Octavia Butler, which really did bring home the unrelenting grimness of the antebellum South, in which the heroine is forced to travel, being called back in time by a distant relative. Attempted rape, beatings and all kinds of other terrible indignities are cleverly juxtaposed with 20th century American life.

I've got a martial arts grading coming up so am reading the grading syllabus for that, but I'm not going to count it!

67. The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai This is a beautifully written book. Set in the part of India sandwiched between Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet during the 1980s when there is growing unrest and rebellion against the Indian government, demands for greater rights and freedom. This is contrasted with the experience of a young Indian living illegally in the US. So well written, she created a number of different voices and bought them to life very effectively. There is humour and tragedy deftly created.

68 More Letters of Note by Shaun Usher
This is a book to dip into. Letters from many different people - famous and not so famous collected together. From an ancient letter complaining about shop service, to odd memos from a manager of a Texan oil firm, to a letter written by Wordsworth the day after his son died to one written by Jane Austen with a hangover. Fascinating.

Whippet -

82: Life in the Garden - Penelope Lively

Part-memoir, part-literary exploration of gardens and gardening, from a writer who has spent a lifetime in enjoyable pursuit of all things horticultural. This is a modest little book which draws on an impressively wide range of gardens in literature - it inspired me to be more active in my own garden (which, goodness knows, could do with attention).

This would, incidentally, make a good Christmas present for a gardener who reads. Or vice versa.

Hi everyone. Just a quick update so that this thread stays in my Threads I'm On list: I am 60% into The Terror by Dan Simmons and really enjoying it. (Sorry Remus )

This would, incidentally, make a good Christmas present for a gardener who reads. Or vice versa.

That's my mother's xmas present sorted then, thank you.

I'm not a gardener at all, but Rhapsody in Green by Charlotte Mendelson is a another lovely reader-gardener book.

I'm not a gardener at all either but that does look lovely, it's on my wish list.

158. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong Written in the form of a letter from the son of a Vietnamese immigrant in the US to his mother who cannot read or speak English. It discusses the difficulty of being an immigrant, the hatred and racism directed to them and the responsibility of being the only English speaker in the family as a small child. Then comes the confession of being gay and early forays into a relationship and the hurt of losing friends to prescription drug abuse.

This is the first novel of a poet and that shows in the writing, sound in parts, but largely overwritten. Although the author denies it, it's thought to be a thinly-veiled memoir. It gets rave reviews on Goodreads but it did nothing for me.

159. Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi Spans 300 years following the lines of two half sisters from Ghana. Starting in the 18th century, one marries an Englishman and lives in luxury compared to her tribe while the other is sold into slavery and transported to the US. It looks at tribal warfare, colonialism and the difficulty of being mixed race in Africa and the awfulness of being a slave in the US and the problems faced post-abolition.

Well written, but the structure takes a little getting used to as it alternates chapters set in Ghana and the US and jumps around the generations. I found this quite interesting because so many books on this topic centre on the slave experience in the US and don't give the perspective from what was happening across African nations at the same time.

160. Wakenhyrst - Michelle Paver Reviewed upthread. I was a little sceptical at first, but soon found it quite gripping. I agree with the general consensus that while the plot is not up to much, the telling is atmospheric and it whips along at a great pace. An enjoyable but forgettable read.