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?

Just seen a trailer for a BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Is Missing with Glenda Jackson : 8 December.

The Audible Black Friday sale (for members) seems pretty good, lots of books for £3 each.

I've bought:

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - about working in a crematorium
Other Minds - about octopus brains and the origins of consciousness
Bookworm by Lucy Mangan

Also tempted by Akala's Natives and Ian Richardson reading Machiavelli's The Prince.

89 Why Mummy Drinks by Gill Sims
Great literature it ain't, but this is the first book I've read for ages where I've been picking it up in odd moments rather than faffing on the internet.

Plenty of laugh out loud bits (despite the fact that I move in very different circles - my dd left primary school years ago, and I think it's reasonably safe to say that there were zero children with nannies or au pairs at her primary back in the day). Anyone read the sequel/s, & if so are they any good?

Cote - I quite liked The Terror I think. It was just too long and got a bit daft at times.

Idiom - I really enjoyed Smoke Gets in your Eyes.

Idiom just be aware that The Prince is only about 88 pages long and full of footnotes, so may not suit audio and wouldn't be worth spending a lot on as it's so short.

@InMyOwnParticularIdiom thanks for the audible recommendations. They’ve also got a deal to sign up for 4 months at half price so joining for the first time.

I got The Rabbit Girls, Bookworm, Natives & Great Expectations which is enough to keep me going for a while.

I've just finished the disappointing Little Sister by Isabel Ashdown. The ending was quite rushed and rather unrealistic.

Now starting Kestrel for a Knave as I read it at school and thought it was dire but think it deserves another chance.

Massive price drop alert - a book on my wish list The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History has dropped from £9.99 to 99p - not sure if this was a mistake but I've bought it for my kindle without delay.

* A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK *

'Fascinating . . . The history of the world through the eye of a needle . . . I recommend this book to anyone' THE SPECTATOR
'A charming, absorbing and history that takes us on a journey from the silk roads to sportswear, from ruffs to spacesuits . . . I devoured this quietly feminist book' SUNDAY TIMES
'Joyful and beautiful' NATURE
'Will make you rethink your relationship with fabric' ELLE DECORATION

All textiles begin with a twist. From colourful 30,000-year old threads found on the floor of a Georgian cave to what the linen wrappings of Tutankhamun's mummy actually meant; from the Silk Roads to the woollen sails that helped the Vikings reach America 700 years before Columbus; from the lace ruffs that infuriated the puritans to the Indian calicoes and chintzes that powered the Industrial Revolution, our continuing reinvention of cloth tells fascinating stories of human ingenuity.

Thanks space. It is still showing as 99p so I snapped it up - I have had it on my list for a couple of weeks but was not going to pay full price!

Thanks space - I now have it too! Excellent spot

Bought. Thanks Space. A friend was raving about this recently. She said I'd only be interested in bits of it, probably, but at 99p that doesn't matter.

228. Between The Stops: The View Of My Life From The Top Of The Number 12 Bus by Sandi Toksvig

I loved this! I listened to it on Audible read by Sandi herself. It’s a memoir but not a standard one - it’s a mixture of snippets from her life interspersed with history about bits of London seen from her normal bus route into the city, as well as observations of the people and events she witnesses on/from the bus. I loved that one minute you’re listening to her talking about her wife and the next it’s the woman next to her spilling crisps everywhere and the next it’s the history behind the name of the street they’ve just passed. It’s also funny but not in a laugh out loud way.

229. The Taking Of Annie Thorne by C J Tudor

Years ago, Joe’s sister vanished and then reappeared a couple of days later, but Joe knew she wasn’t the same. Now Joe has returned to the village where he grew up because he’s received an anonymous message that it’s happening again. The author has been described as the new Stephen King on the blurb - I wouldn’t go that far but I still enjoyed this.

230. The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

A group of university friends go on a trip away to the Scottish Highlands, where they get snowed in and one of them dies. I loved the setting for this, but didn’t like any of the characters and it’s hard to keep track of whose POV it is as the book alternates between about 5 of the characters and they all sound the same! I kept having to flip back to the start of the chapter to check who was speaking. Not bad but not worth the hype it seems to be getting.

Between the stops is now on my list, thanks.

Glad some of you managed to get the thread book. I can't see why they would choose to reduce it by £9

Also got the thread book.

It's being offered as part of the Cyber Monday sale.

not been on for ages, struggling to carve out reading time and going to fall short of the 50 this year.

41. Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield The residents of a Oxfordshire Village are shocked when the body of a girl drowned in the Thames is found. But it's not a body - the girl awakens, as if back from the dead. Her identity is unknown, and we are introduced to three families, all of whom are missing a young girl. Nicely gothic, with a lashings of bawds, mediums and blackguards, and lots of folklore. I think I would have preferred less drive to sew up all the plot strands, and more ambiguity, but this was nonetheless right up my street.

Apologies for not updating sooner: things are manic at work, but I’ve still been reading and listening. Here are the latest ones:

222. Dishonesty is the Second-Best Policy- David Mitchell I very much enjoyed this second collection of Mitchell’s Observer columns, which are well-observed and funny. My favourite quotation is ‘I’ve never been to an opera, because of my irrational fear of hours and hours of boredom’. I listened to the audiobook, which definitely enhanced the experience.

223. A Sweet Obscurity- Patrick Gale Another delightful novel from Gale: I particularly loved the references to madrigals, early music in general, and Cornwall.

224. Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse- David Mitchell This is Mitchell’s earlier collection of Observer columns. I lived abroad for part of the period the book covers, so I can’t relate to it quite as well as Dishonesty is the Second-Best Policy. I have read this before, but this time chose the audiobook which definitely improved it.

225. The House at Pooh Corner- AA Milne Another lovely reading by Bernard Cribbins.

226. Women from Another Planet?: Our Lives in the Universe of Autism- Jean Kearns Miller I had been really looking forward to reading this, but it was such a disappointment. There were a few good insights from women on the spectrum, but other sections were very poor. The first third of the book consists of a series of emails between the various female contributors, discussing how they would go about assembling the book (why include that?) and there is also some truly awful poetry.

227. Hormonal: A Conversation about Women’s Bodies, Mental Health and Why We Need to Be Heard- Eleanor Morgan I read this hoping for a miracle PMS cure, but of course there is none. Morgan is sometimes guilty of oversharing about her own issues (there is a lot of blood in the book, and even a mention of ‘poo chaos’!) but the book is interesting and informative.

228. Chapter and Verse- Bernard Sumner To be honest, I read this, the New Order frontman’s autobiography, partly to see how much he slags off Peter Hook, the band’s former bassist who gave him a good kicking in his own three memoirs. To his credit, Sumner does mention their difficulties (mainly in one chapter near the end) but he is extremely dignified in his handling of their estrangement. The autobiography also includes some interesting insights into the Joy Division years including, of course, the death of Ian Curtis.

229. Hidden- Cathy Glass Cathy Glass’s fostering memoirs (and also those of Casey Watson) are a guilty pleasure of mine: I find them fascinating but try not to read them too often as they aren’t great literature (and can be upsetting). I have recently discovered many of her ebooks on BorrowBox and this turned out to be one of the better ones. I also quite enjoy the way she chronicles the minutiae of family life on an almost minute-by-minute basis.

230. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone- JK Rowling This was beautifully read by Stephen Fry: there are a couple of strange pronunciations (MalFOY and VOLEdemort) but I got used to them pretty quickly.

231. The Backward Shadow- Lynne Reid Banks The sequel to The L-Shaped Room was a little disappointing and I probably won’t bother with the third in the trilogy, Two is Lonely.

232. The Testaments- Margaret Atwood I listened to the audiobook and really couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. I quite enjoyed The Handmaid’s Tale but wasn’t really sure what the point of this one was.

233. Billy Liar- Keith Waterhouse This short kitchen sink novel about a dreamer/bullshitter was a huge influence on Morrissey (in the days when we weren’t embarrassed to mention him in polite conversation). It has some comic moments but, in my view, the film is superior.

234. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe- CS Lewis I hadn’t read this for nearly 40 years and found it delightful.

In the Black Friday sale on Audible, I got Scrublands, The Boy at the Back of the Class and The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, all books I've already read but will enjoy listening to.

Fran I think The Testaments was purely a shake your money maker exercise which is why I'm still very cross it split the Booker Prize.

I'm assuming these are fairly well known so am being lazy in the reviews.

161. La Belle Sauvage (Book of Dust #1) - Philip Pullman
     I have very little memory of His Dark Materials but found this ok regardless. I'm concerned the next one will be problematic without the back story but I don't have the patience to read HDM again.

162. Codename Villanelle - Luke Jennings
     I thought this was ok, but not as good as the TV series. (One of the rare times I've seen the TV/film version first). It did start with the full origin of Villanelle rather than backfilling which was helpful. I listened to the audiobook and was incredibly irritated by the French pronunciations of the reader. I can understand for some of the harder ones, but words like gauche pronounced gouch, to rhyme with couch, were a step too far.

Fran I feel your pain re Harry Potter names.

163. A Month in the Country - JL Carr Set in 1920, a restorer is called to a northern church in the countryside to uncover a medieval mural. Suffering from shell shock from the war he finds solace in his surroundings and his interactions with the locals.

This was beautifully written and managed to say so much with very few words. A absolutely glorious read.

164. Brooklyn - Colm Tóibín 1950s Ireland, a young woman gets the opportunity to move to the US and reluctantly goes. Desperately homesick but starting to put down roots, she is called back by tragedy at home and has to make some difficult decisions about her future.

A disappointing read from an author who can do significantly better. It was very slow paced and ultimately not that interesting.

165. Crossing Places (Ruth Galloway #1) - Elly Griffiths An archaeologist gets called in to assist with a murder enquiry. Enjoyable enough.

I've been trying the first of several detective/ police procedural series recently and they have all been good. I think I'll jump around between different series rather than slavishly working through them in turn. I'm very late to the party on all of them.

Just bought all my Christmassy books! As ever, influenced more by cover design....

p.s. I have also got the Thread book.

I too have purchased the Thread book!

Fortuna detective novels (series) I have enjoyed on Kindle are the Hillary Greene books by Faith Hill. I don't enjoy her other detectives, though I have tried to! Also the L.J. Ross books, can't remember the name of the main character ... DCI Ryan? Dervla McTiernan's books are great but she's on her 3rd one now so only 2 to enjoy!
Sophie Hannah I really like but they're not really straightforward. You might know her already. And I love Kinsey Millhone by Sue Grafton. You have probably got these already but I thought I'd recommend just in case

83: Gloucester Crescent: Me, My Dad and Other Grown-Ups - William Miller

In the week that Jonathan Miller died, I was reminded that I had this book in my tbr pile - a memoir by his son William, one of the three Miller children, about growing up in the extraordinary north London enclave which was home to a remarkable number of literary, artistic and theatrical luminaries from the 1960's onwards.

Alan Bennett, George Melly, Claire Tomalin, Shirley Conran, V. S. Pritchett, Angus Wilson, Beryl Bainbridge and Kingsley Amis were just a few of the neighbours - it's also where Nina Stibbe came to work as nanny for Mary-Kay Wilmers of the London Review of Books, and wrote the letters that eventually formed the basis for Love, Nina.

This is a gently amusing book, told in the earlier chapters from the viewpoint of the young William, but I decided quite quickly that I wouldn't have been able to live with Jonathan Miller, for all his brilliance - there are just too many anecdotes about his thoughtless behaviour towards his young children (eg flatly telling them, when their mother went into hospital, that she probably had cancer and would most likely die). William's mother (who fortunately didn't die) was the bedrock of the family, held it all together, organised everything and everyone, cooked all the meals and worked full-time as a GP. Living with a depressive genius was hard on everyone, as William's testimony proves, and although his love for his parents is clear, it was obviously put to the test on many occasions during his earlier years. By the end of the book, though, he'd returned to Gloucester Crescent with his own family, to live just a few doors away from his parents.

Happy December!

I've just got Traces in the monthly deals - forensics, plus Margery Allingham Christmas crimes.