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?

I'm another one that's read The Confession as above. I found it rattled along well enough and was reasonably engaging but ultimately I just didn't find the characters believable enough and ended up feeling rather meh about it all.

Prior to this I finished Flying to Nowhere by John Fuller, a creepy novella set on a Welsh island, in which pilgrims disappear in mysterious circumstances. No date is given but it seems to be set in medieval times, possibly a little later. It sounds like a great premise for a book but it didn't quite work for me - the writing is spare but somehow confusing. Twas shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1983.

I've read 49 books. I'm struggling to find the 50th. I've got Milkman abandoned; I'm completely at sea halfway through His Illegal Self by Peter Carey; I'm stalled on my phone-book, Jesse Kidd's Himself; I started to re-read A Dance to the Music of Time and couldn't believe I'd got it up and running as a teenager - so slow and Jenkins so unbelievable as a young man obsessively ruminating on all these small niceties. (Of course teenage me might have been more convinced.)

I'm trying a novelisation of the story of Noe's Ark. It's easy enough, but I'm beginning to think I'm the problem.

After a slow reading year, for various reasons, I'm now going for a sprint finish. I had a personal target of 76-77, but to do that I'd need to finish a book every 1.5 days. I know some of you read 1.5 books before breakfast, but that's not likely to happen here. With DS now hopefully settled at school, I've got more reading time until the end of term, so I'm still hoping for a respectable high 60s.

59. Fingers in the Sparkle Jar by Chris Packham I usually lower my expectations for celeb memoirs, and expect chronological plain prose that tells not shows. That couldn't be further from the truth here. This was far more literary than expected, in fact overwritten in places. The timeline jumps back and forward, and his autism/aspergers isn't set out as a stall for discussion as such, rather the whole book is a poem to a childhood as an intense, odd, wildlife obsessed boy. He writes some sections from the point of view of others, which takes a huge degree of self awareness for someone with autism. My heart broke for him again and again as he kept getting it wrong in the strange world of other people, only finding comfort in his animals.

Can I join please? I've been lurking all year. I set myself the 50 book challenge after having almost stopped reading since having my son a couple of years ago. It's really got my reading mojo back! And I'm astounded that I've actually managed to make it to 50! This is my list:

1 The Power, Naomi Alderman
2 The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton
3 Transit, Rachel Cusk
4 The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
5 The Story of a New Name, Elena Ferrante
6 Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell
7 Slade House, David Mitchell
8 The Secret Agent, Joseph Conrad
9 Becoming, Michele Obama
10 Paris Echo, Sebastian Faulks
11 Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, Robert Pirsig
12 Precious and Grace, Alexander McCall Smith
13 The Bookshop, Penelope Fitzgerald
14 Circe, Madeline Miller
15 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
16 A Horse Walks into a Bar, David Grossman
17 A Sting in the Tail, Dave Goulson
18 Home Fire, Kamila Shamsie
19 Falling Awake, Alice Oswald
20 A History of Britain in 21 Women, Jenni Murray
21 A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
22 A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
23 If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Jon McGregor
24 Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, Elena Ferrante
25 A Month in the Country, J. L. Carr
26 The Long Earth, Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
27 Solar, Ian McEwan
28 parkrun much more than just a run in the park, Debra Bourne
29 Artemis, Andy Weir
30 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
31 Goodbye to All That, Robert Graves
32 This is Going to Hurt, Adam Kay
33 Butterflies in November, Audur Ava Olafsdottir
34 Educated, Tara Westover
35 Grief is the Things with Feathers, Max Porter
36 Memories of my Melancholy Whores, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
37 Swing Time, Zadie Smith
38 The Story of the Lost Child, Elena Ferrante
39 The Salt Path, Raynor Winn
40 Normal People, Sally Rooney
41 The End of the Affair, Graham Greene
42 Birth Skills, Juju Sundin
43 I Contain Multitudes, Ed Yong
44 The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas
45 The Body Snatchers, Jack Finney
46 Give Peas a Chance, Kate Samela
47 Mythos, Stephen Fry
48 When Breath Become Air, Paul Kalanithi
49 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, F. Scott Fitzgerald
50 Milkman, Anna Burns
51 The Happy Prince and Other Tales, Oscar Wilde
52 I Am, I Am, I Am, Maggie O'Farrell
53 Reservoir 13, Jon McGregor
54 Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic
55 An American Marriage, Tayari Jones
56 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer
57 Conversations with friends, Sally Rooney
58 Everything Good Will Come, Sefi Atta

Welcome, koalaby. Your list made me smile, as it has so many books on it I’ve really liked over the last couple of years. I bought copies of I Contain Multitudes for several people over the last twelve months and everyone has enjoyed it very much.

Hi Kolaby, some great reads there, I really enjoyed Circe, Educated, Salt Path, I Am, I Am, I Am & A Month In The Country from your list.

31. Womans Work by Harriet Harman I'd wanted to read this when it came out but had forgotten and found it in the library. It's... quite good. It made me think less of HH who I'd always admired but her very honest but constant self assessment as a bit useless made me consider her less competent. Bit of a lesson there for me and perhaps all women; I read quite a few politician's memoirs and never read one like it. I'd forgotten just how dismissed she was in the papers. Ultimately it's the story of a very determined, perhaps a bit limited and either genuinely unemotional or very private person who according to this book only cares about her family and politics in a party hack way. She suddenly mentions a US politician who was a good friend- how did they meet? What's she like as a person? Answer came there none.

169. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Mary Wollstonecraft
     1792 treatise putting forth the arguments for educating women and the benefits it would bring society. Scholarly and sensible, this was quite wordy but not impenetrable and lays out a common sense approach. The audio version was beautifully read and it was almost hypnotic. It does get quite repetitive in places, but doesn't detract from the overall message.

170. Wilding - Isabella Tree
     A farming couple with a large estate struggling to run it as a viable business using traditional farming methods take the controversial decision to re-wild the land.

I was a little sceptical when I first started this as it seemed to leap right in with little preamble and while interesting, seemed a little dry. However, I stayed up very late to finish it and was completely sold by the end. Fascinating and well written.

171. Rain: Four Walks in English Weather - Melissa Harrison A writer shares her experience of four wet walks around the the country at different times of the year.

A very short but joyous book extolling the virtues of exploring the countryside in less than perfect weather. Beautifully written and interspersed with poetry and literature quotes. The antidote to Robert Macfarlane.

Thanks for the welcomes! I found it very hard to pick which books were highlights. I ended up being very selective because otherwise I would have highlighted over 50% of them!

Read Sincerity, Carol Ann Duffy's new selection.

I recommend this book on its cover alone. Oh boy, it is a thing of almost festive beauty.

I felt a lot of the poems had the usual Duffy signature imagery and voice and quite a lot went over my head!

I do like her poems about family, the ones which are wryer and dryer, and the more political ones (Gorilla and Swearing In are great)

I enjoyed coming across my own very unusual maiden surname once again in a book! Thanks Carol Ann!

This is a little sample : the very short In Which I Laugh At My Father's Confirmation Name :

The back of his hand
then a week doing dishes
So: Aloysius

Don't know why, but that one tickled me.

And there's a good one that seems to suggest a load of poets populating a séance, although why it is named particularly after Auden confounded me.

Not her greatest , but plenty to mull.

74. Twas The Nightshift Before Christmas by Adam Kay. Yeah fine. Not worth buying it but I’d have stayed tuned if it was on the radio or something.

75. Ill be Gone in the DarK Michelle McNamara. This is an account of the investigation by McNamara into the Golden State Serial killer who raped and murdered many people during the 70s and 80s. This was slightly odd and disjointed for me as the fact that the book was pieced together from her work in progress after her death was obvious throughout. Also frustratingly noticed some date issues with the book. Finally, there are some developments in the case after the books release that I would have been interested to see follow up on from the perspective of those that McNamara interviewed (that version of the book might exist!). None the less I did find it gripping but sad we can never know what McNamara’s version would have looked like.

76. Five Women: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold. Is it ok to think a book is fantastic but just not really for me? I think people will love this book and it’s so important to address the misconceptions around these events. However, I’m not much of a non fiction history reader and I found all the ‘probably’ and ‘maybes’ very distancing. I’m also aware that the author had valid reasons for barely mentioning the murders or the investigation to silence the killer and police as they and the public had silenced the victims but I knew nothing abut what happened and wanted the full picture. Anyway pretty glad to live in 2019.

I am getting into Girl, Women, Other by Bernardino Evaristo which I’m loving. Just seen that a bbc journalist described the Booker as being won by Margaret Atwood and ‘another author’ which is pretty outrageous.

32. End of Term by Antonia Forest
Every time I read this (and it must be dozens of times now) I think how many adult novels it beats hollow. It is psychologically and morally complex, written with incredible simplicity but precision. It's very dated in lots of ways but for me that's part of it's interest - things that are done differently now. Unfortunately it is this sort of book that shows Harry Potter up for the under-edited amoral trash it is.

I love Antonia Forest. So precise on feelings, and manages to make each character individual and real.

61. Bounce by Matthew Syed A friend recommended a different book by him, but this was the one the library had. It's about becoming a champion, but I didn't get very much from it, and I felt the last chapter, on race, was rather rushed, and not fully researched.

62. The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth I loved this guide to rhetorical figures, few of which I knew. Will be reading more about isocolon, hyperbaton, and the others (none of which I can spell!).

61

Rushing out the door but the well reviewed The Knife’s Edge: The Heart and Mind of a Cardiac Surgeon is 99p today.

137. Time Song: Searching for Doggerland, Julia Blackburn
After losing her husband, the author takes on another search for what is lost by looking for evidence of Doggerland, the drowned body of water between eastern England and the European landmass, where mesolithic people used to live.

I felt that there was a thinner, better version of this book struggling to get out - a ruthless editor would have chopped out the prose poems between chapters, amongst other things. I'm assuming they're intended to be poems given the chopped up sentences, but frankly they have very little poetic effect. But I loved her account of a Mesolithic burial that she visited in Denmark, in which a newborn baby was nestled in the wing of a swan. A mixed bag.

60. Binary by Stephanie Saulter Book 2 of the (R)evolution trilogy. An enjoyable future sci-fi, set a few years after the events of Gemsigns. The gems (commercially produced genetically modified humans) are now fully integrated citizens with human rights, but there's still a long way to go, and there are some murky goings on in the world of gene tech to be uncovered. The plot is driven forward through dialogue, between the cast of mostly likeable and diverse characters, which makes this zip along and feel like a cosy read, where you feel invested in the outcomes for individuals.

69 Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield
Found this a real page turner. Lovely descriptions of the river and I like the theme of stories and the retelling of things that have happened. I think I agree with the PP who said that she didn't need to tie up all the endings. Although the plot is very different I found it reminiscent of The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey which is also set by a river and water runs through the story.

It also reminded me of Harvey's book.

I di also once read a book with lots of watercress in it and am struggling to recall.. anyone?

Don't know the watercress book Piggy but in the book I've just finished one character was frequently described as a little gem (unhelpful).

👋🏼 Koalaby, what a great list of books you’ve read this year. I also loved the Elena Ferrante quartet.

Piggy, I laughed at that poem too.

My latest read:
59. 10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak.

Booker nominee this year. Set in Turkey, this tells the story of Leila in a series of flash-backs as she is dying. Nice writing and I liked the female-centred story but perhaps a bit too neat and I wanted to feel more for the characters. There was a Guardian review of all the Booker Prize short-list and the reviewer recommended the books she considered as Elif Shafak’s best novels so I’ll definitely read them (and Forty Rules of Love).

I’m listening to and reading Bleak House at the moment and loving it. Also re-reading some urban fantasy adventure nonsense. This time of year is not conducive to reading - too much on! 🎄🥂🤧

I've just started a separate thread on this, but if any of you have any top tips for Audible books I might like, I'd be very grateful for suggestions. I'm not feeling inspired by anything in my wishlist, and all the books I fancy from my general TBR list either aren't available in audio or are things I'd rather read in print.

Sadik, I am listening to How To Survive A Plague at the moment which is the story of the AIDS epidemic told by a writer who lived through it. It’s science and personal history and is gripping. I’m completely hooked, and it’s satisfying long. Other Audible highlights are Tina Brown’s Vanity Fair Diaries and Milkman - I’d never have made it through that if I’d been reading it but read aloud it was gripping.

Hi Sadik, I find that non-fiction books often work best with Audible - I think this is because they are well suited to progressing at an even pace, whereas with fiction I’m more likely to want to speed up / slow down depending on what is going on, and it’s a bit frustrating when I can’t. This year I have particularly enjoyed:
With the End in Mind - Kathryn Mannix
What We Cannot Know - Marcus du Sautoy
The Heartland - Nathan Filer
Also Infinite Jest which was very well read by Sean Pratt.

I forgot to mention that two of the above (the Du Sautoy and Filer ones) are read by the author, which I think really adds something to the listening experience.

I've just started a separate thread on this, but if any of you have any top tips for Audible books I might like

@Sadik Salt on your tongue: women and the sea is a lovely audio book. I'm not normally a fan of them but I listened to it on a long flight, Jessica Hardwick (who?) reads it and she has the ideal voice IMO