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?

50. The Flood by David Maine

Also published under the alternative name ‘The Preservationist’. Sad to say, that for my 50th book, I’m not quite sure what to make of this. It follows Noe and his family into the Ark, and out again as they begin repopulation of the world. It was quite vivid, but I’m not going to insist you seek it out and read it.

Many thanks for recommendations. I've either read/listened to & really liked What We Cannot Know, How To Survive a Plague & The Heartland.

Milkman and Infinite Jest are both on my wishlist, but I feel like I want something a bit easier/lighter right now. Vanity Fair Diaries might be just the ticket, and I'll check out the other suggestions too :)

In fact you probably recommended them to me

tara, I am awestruck by your focus if you managed Infinite Jest and What We Cannot Know on audiobook. They both took a lot of concentrating and I do find my attention wanders when I am listening, which it tends not to when I read.

Now I doubt I would have got through What We Cannot Know on paper, I find audio much better for that sort of book. I do quite often pause & repeat bits though (I remember Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed took me a lot of repeating )

Yes agree about repeating bits. Sometimes more than once

I enjoyed Cash Carraway’s Skint Estate which was pretty political. She was in a refuge unable to vote when the Tories were elected in 2010 and had a lot to say about the types of acceptable voices in politics. I read this but people in my book club raves about the audio.

Interested to hear people getting on with non fiction on audio - always thought I’d struggle with the concentration too much for this but might give it a shot.

I also find non fiction better on audible and I especially like books read by the author. Sadik I recently enjoyed listening to Sandi Toksvig’s memoir Between the Stops which you might like.

235. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying- Marie Kondo I’m a tidy person who could do with a bit of a clearout but, my goodness, Marie Kondo is even more hardcore than I’d been led to believe! I’m not going to follow her method, as it is too prescriptive, but if I was I would have to buy the book as I’ve already forgotten a lot of the steps from this audiobook. Some of her ideas probably also lost a bit in translation: saying ‘hello’ to your house when you get home, having a ‘dialogue with your clothes’ etc.

236. I Miss Mummy- Cathy Glass The story of a delightful four-year-old girl who is taken into foster care. It was very similar to the other books by Cathy Glass I have read, but I always enjoy them and learn a great deal about fostering and social work.

237. Invisible Women- Caroline Criado Perez This was excellent, but I can’t believe how naive I’d been. It turns out that almost everything- housing, public transport, cars, medication etc.- is designed to suit men, there is hardly any data about their suitability for women and the data there is usually gets ignored! I listened to the audiobook, read by the author, and her passion for her subject made it one of the best things I’ve listened to this year.

@PermanentTemporary

Loved your review of End of Term, right down to the critique of Harry Potter.

91. Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino

I picked this up on Kindle deal after seeing it in a 'books of the year' list somewhere. On the whole it was interesting, if rather over-written in places. The author is a 30-ish journalist & writer at the New Yorker, & writes about subjects including US politics in the age of Trump, feminism, the internet, sexual abuse on campus & others. I found the essays that dealt directly with her personal experiences the most readable. She comes from a religious conservative background & grew up in Texas, attending school (from kindergarten through high school) on the campus of an evangelical mega-church, so an upbringing very unfamiliar to most of us in the UK.

Marking place - nearly finished a forensic science one from the Kindle deal. I have read/learned more about lichen and fungi than I ever wanted to know.

Re: audiobooks - I find listening to non-fiction works best on Audible, as if I zone out a bit I don't miss a crucial plot point the way I might with fiction. (Auto)biographies and lighter non-fiction works best for me. I've struggled to listen to more complex/academic texts and gave up on The Female Eunuch, which I'll try on paper (sometime...)

I listen to a lot of medical autobiographies, David Nott's War Doctor is probably the best this year, but understandably very grim. Henry Marsh's two books of brain surgery memoirs are very good if you can cope with his ego. I really enjoyed David Mitchell's autobiography Back Story and am now chortling along to his collection of columns Dishonesty is the Second Best Policy - I agree it really helps when they are read by the author.

I’m also listening to Dishonesty Is The Second Best Policy and enjoying it!

In case anyone is interested, Jenny Erpenbeck is on World Book Club on the World Service tomorrow talking about Visitation.

76. Seven Days of Us - Francesca Hornak

I wasn't expecting to enjoy this festive book club read, as family melodrama is not my usual thing, but this was a classic case of 'don't judge a book by its cover.' Olivia Birch has just returned from treating 'Haag virus' (aka Ebola) in Liberia, and spends Christmas week quarantined in her family's Norfolk manor house, with her fusspot mother, jaded journalist father and hideously spoiled younger sister. This was much harder round the edges than I was expecting, and was a compelling portrait of family dynamics. The major flaw was the limited amount of narrative tension: as there were chapters from every main character's point of view, there were no secrets held back from the reader - you just had to watch to see when the other family members would find them out.

For my 100th book I began The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler. I was not gripped by it. I'm about 4 chapters in. I also downloaded Wuthering Heights on my Kindle but the formatting rendered it unreadable. Wordsrunning intoeach otherisvery irritating!
So my 100th book was an enjoyable Linwood Barclay detective novel Elevator Pitch. There is a potential terrorist at loose in New York who is causing elevators to malfunction/crash. The mayor is pushed to declare elevators to be put out of order until further notice but how can the vertical city function without elevators?! It was fine, I enjoy Linwood Barclay.

I'm now reading a non fiction book The Golden Thread about a history of fabric and fabric making. It's very interesting.

Thanks Boiledegg. That's my afternoon listening sorted while I batch cook some spag bol for the freezer

Evening all,

I'm looking for suggestions for a well researched, in depth biography of Marie Antoinette if anyone can help?

50. Just William at Christmas by Richmal Crompton the usual William fare, somewhat constrained by the Christmas theme but comfort reading at this time of year, and I did enjoy the final yarn about Ginger's spinster aunt and the stuffed cat!

    51. Ma’am Darling by Craig Brown the one detailing 99 mainly real, but some imaginary (imagining she had married Group Captain Townsend or Jeremy Thorpe for example) glimpses of Princess Margaret. Not one for the royalists, she comes out of this looking pretty unbearable. She had no hesitation in pulling rank even on her nearest and dearest, and liked all the rules of royal protocol to be followed to the letter, and the list of rules was extensive: Don’t initiate conversation Don’t touch/shake hands Don't call her by name, it's HRH or Ma'am Don’t sit before HRH Don’t start eating before HRH Don't continue eating once HRH has finished Don’t leave or go to bed before HRH
        And so on and so forth, all of which meant for example that tired guests were kept up till 4am on HRH's whim and ravenously hungry people prayed for her to either eat or leave! She became renowned for her unreasonable behaviour and waspish manner.

Brown suggests she would make outrageous demands of anyone brave enough to play host such as requesting a whisky and mineral water (had to be Malvern) be served in 'a cut-glass tumbler delivered to [her] in the swimming pool and then ordering [her] hostess to bring the tumbler into the pool, even though she [was] fully clothed.”

Being a regular guest at a dinner she attended didn't sound like a barrel of laughs either:
“Her hosts knew to serve her first. The more obsequious would withdraw any dishes she refused–potatoes, for instance–so that others could not have them either. Nor were her fellow guests permitted to carry on eating once she had finished. The Princess tended to wolf down what little food she ate, which meant that slowcoaches would have to down tools with half their food left uneaten.”

Wonderful gossipy book that is perfect for dipping in and out of with its short chapters. I was sorry when it ended.

52.	<strong>Dance To The Music Of Time: A Question Of Upbringing</strong> by Anthony Powell

Bought the full set of these for £6 in the Audible sale, I actually thought I was buying the first two books so at 50p a book that's a great bargain and nicely narrated too. Except ....this didn't really grab me, huge cast of characters and not much plot, although I can appreciate the quality of the writing.
My interest in DTTMOT was peaked by all the chat on here regarding Widmerpool so I am glad to have finally made his acquaintance, and as I've already moved onto the second book, A Buyers Market, maybe I'll warm to the series as it progresses.

Go me passed the fifty book mark not sure when I last did that, if ever, maybe in my uni days.

Oh great stuff Des, congrats on your half century!

Has anyone else read The Binding? I am finding it annoying and struggling to reach halfway point. I want to get on with reading my lovely Christmas books!!

Yep, I found The Binding annoying and a bit if a struggle too.

Mog, the Antonia Fraser biography is a good read. I’ve no idea if it’s considered great scholarship but it is very readable.

Desdemona, they take a while to get going. I’m half way through the final book now and it’s like meeting old friends. It’s a wonderful series and worth persisting I think.

Traces by Patricia Wiltshire

A Kindle cheapie. I thought this was a typical forensic science book, but it's actually by somebody who studied pollen, fungi etc. Bits of this were interesting and in places the writing was almost poetically lovely. When she was writing about actual cases it was quite interes ting, but far too much of it was essentially pages and pages of wittering about pollen. Even those were better than long and dull autobiography though. I found her increasingly prissy, arrogant and irritating. Not one I can recommend enthusiastically, I'm afraid.