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?

Thanks for the moral support Yes, I'm extremely pleased with myself , third year on the thread and first time I've managed it. Then I notice all the people on book No.200 and odd and tell myself to get a grip!
I will persevere with DTTMOT Pepe, I imagine it is a slow burner. You must be feeling a bit sad to be coming to the end of the saga and having to say goodbye to all those characters after following them for 12 books and 50 years.

Agree with you about Traces, Remus

The Jack Reacher enthusiasts on here inspired my first Lee Child, The Midnight Line. As promised, Reacher says very little, but roams around the countryside by bus and by thumbing lifts, toothbrush in pocket, putting things right. The return of the knight errant - I've missed you these last few centuries. I'm pretty sure I'll pick up a few more.

Made the mistake of starting Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress, by Christopher Ryan, in which he laments that we ever stopped being hunter-gatherers but notes semi-cheerfully that at least we're in the final stages of our current version of civilization. It has combined with Monday morning blues to give me a terrible case of Weltschmertz. I'm hoping to get one more Christmas break in before the collapse of society as we know it.

My criticism of this next book would be that I don't really know what it's for, but actually it could be used as an antidote to Weltschmertz.

61. 21st Century Yokel by Tom Cox At the beginning of this book it was helpfully explained that it was published using a kind of crowdfunding concept, where authors pitch their ideas and prospective readers can chip in to make that book a reality. I spent quite a lot of this book wondering what he had actually pitched. It's kind of about nature, and cats, and scarecrows, and family, and swimming. It's very funny but there's no overall concept or point to it. I kept thinking I should know who Tom Cox is, because it feels like the sort of book someone would write when they're already famous for something else, but I don't. But it's funny. For clarity I actually did like it. Co-incidentally (or maybe not, I'm on a bit of an outdoors theme at the moment) it namechecked my next book Waterlog by Roger Deakin which I'm enjoying so far.

85: The Sorcerer's Apprentice: A Memoir of Picasso, Provence and Douglas Cooper - John Richardson

I knew of John Richardson as the biographer of Picasso (three of the planned 4 volumes were published before he died earlier this year, aged 95) but this is a look back at his own earlier life, including the years when he became part of Picasso's circle of courtiers (I use the word advisedly) in France.

Richardson was young, good-looking but not very well-off when he became the lover of the older art connoisseur and collector Douglas Cooper - the relationship gave him the entrée into rarefied artistic circles and aided his own growing standing as an authority on the arts, but it was an-often stormy liaison and Richardson is clearly settling major scores in this book (though Cooper does sound pretty nightmarish). Lots of this is very enjoyable in a waspish, gossipy way, and some of the anecdotes about Picasso could be fascinating, yet I got fairly tired of being told about the great artist's appalling treatment of women, and the way his retinue scuttled round currying favour.

Actually, mention of Ma'am Darling upthread means I've also just looked up the spoof of John Richardson chronicling the marriage between Picasso and the Princess. Actually a lot of this memoir is like that

125 Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Series of essays that were only intermittently as funny as they are said to be. I laughed aloud a couple of times but the rest left me fairly unmoved. I think it was me, not Sedaris...just not in the mood for laughing, I don’t think.

126 Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Spiders versus humans! I was Team Spider all the way with this. Humans are looking for a new home in the universe, but the arachnids aren’t sure they want to share it. Really entertaining sci-fi with ample world building and plenty of spider-facts.

Pepe thank you for informing me of a book that I must avoid

I've just bought a few 99p deals, the one I'm enjoying reading right now is The Beekeeper of Aleppo about a couple who have to leave due to the fighting. I can't do it justice so I'll share this quote with you from somebody far better qualified than me to review books:

'A beautiful novel, intelligent, thoughtful; and relevant. I'm recommending this book to everyone I care about. So I'm recommending this book to you' Benjamin Zephaniah

I've just finished Ma'am Darling and totally agree with the review and comments above. Before that was In Stitches by an NHS doctor, a real eye opener about the NHS. It's not a recent book but still worth reading.

space, I’m not a spider lover but it is probably best avoided if you have a genuine phobia. Though they do start to win you over quite quickly.

Hell will become the largest glacier on earth before they win me over

MuseumOfHam - "I kept thinking I should know who Tom Cox is, because it feels like the sort of book someone would write when they're already famous for something else" - you are pretty much correct, I think: Tom Cox is a sort-of famous Twitter celeb due to the account he started out with, which was mainly pictures of his cats: twitter.com/MYSADCAT (about a quarter of a million followers)
That led to a few cat-related books, but he has moved on to more general fiction and non-fiction around his own personality and interests. He is quite funny/interesting on Twitter under his own account (twitter.com/cox_tom).

Notes from this year:

This year I made a terrible mistake.
I tried to budget on my books. That means, cheap daily deals and 99p, specials plus free book stands. Most of the books I want to read right now are still quite pricey so I am waiting until they come down in price.
So, as a result, I have read a lot of really BAD books this year. Life is too short.

Also, I have cured myself of a certain genre, having read so many bad examples this year.

I have not added work themed books, which tip me into the 50's :

1. Smoke gets in your eyes – Caitlin Doughty (interesting but fell off towards the end)
2. The Toymakers – Robert Dinsdale
3. The Secret Santa – Trish Hartentiaux
4. The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman
5. The Test – Sylvain Neuvel
6. This is how you lose the time war – Amal El-Mohtar
7. Kafka on the shore - Murakami
8. The silent patient – Alex Michaelides
9. Recursion – Blake Crouch
10. Boy Swallows Universe – Trent Dalton (wow)
11. Blackberry and Wild Rose – Sonia Velton
12. The Man who didn’t call – Rosie Walsh
13. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – RL Stevenson
14. The Doll Factory – Elizabeth McNeal
15. The Heart’s invisible furies – John Boyle
16. The Road– Cormac McCarthy
17. Tenth of December – George Saunders (actually DNF)
18. The Girl in between – Laekan Zea Kemp
19. The spare room – Dreda say Mitchell
20. Vox – Christina Dalcher
21. The sisters of the winter wood – Rena Rossner
22. The woman at number 19 – J A Baker
23. We have always lived in this castle – Shirley Jackson
24. In the blink of an eye – Mia Austin
25. The Night Tiger – Yangsxe Choo
26. The woman in black – Susan Hill
27. Wool – Hugh Howey
28. Gretel – Christopher Coleman
29. The Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller
30. The twisted tree – Rachel Burge
31. Circe – Madeline Miller
32. A curse so dark and Lonely – Brigid Kemmerer
33. The memory shop – Ella Griffin
34. The Hazel wood – Melissa Albert
35. Uprooted - Naomi Novik
36. Grimm’s Fairy Tales
37. The lustre of lost things – Sophie Chen Keller
38. The book of lost things- John Connolly
39. The silent companions – Laura Purcell
40. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society- Mary Ann Shaffer
41. The couple next door – Shari Lapena

Best so far (I still have a few on the go) this year:

Boy Swallows Universe
Circe

I have been hopeless at keeping up with the thread recently, but here are my last few books:

60. Us - David Nicholls
Story of an attempt to save an unlikely marriage via a trip round Europe with an unwilling teenager. Undemanding read, OK until you start thinking at all critically about the characters and plot.

61. The Salt Path - Raynor Winn
I think most of you have read this one - couple set off to walk the south-west coastal path after they lose their home and he gets diagnosed with a terminal illness. More cheerful than you would think.

62. Three Houses - Angela Thirkell
Childhood memoir of novelist (popular in the early-mid 20th century). Interesting in her own right, but she was also the grand-daughter of leading pre-Raphaelite figure Edward Burne-Jones, who features heavily, and cousin of Rudyard Kipling. A child's eye snapshot of life in arty/literary circles around the turn of the 19th/20th centuries.

63. Rules of Civility - Amor Towles
First novel by the author of A Gentleman in Moscow. This is set in New York, mainly in the 1930s. It's a decent read, but not as good as his second - you can see the direction he was developing in.

64. The Long Take - Robin Robertson
Booker-shortlisted novel in poetic form by a writer mainly known as a poet. WW2 veteran struggling to keep afloat in New York and Los Angeles and deal with traumatic wartime experiences. Very much influenced by (and frequently referencing) 'noir' style film-making of the era. An unusual format, and it takes a while to get into, but the lyrical descriptive parts are haunting, particularly in contrast with the grittier parts.

65. The Rose of Tibet - Lionel Davidson
Re-issued classic adventure story first published in the 1960s, but harking back in style and material to real classics like The Lost Horizon. It subverts some of the boys-own-heroic conventions just enough to make it less of a straightforward adventure and more interesting in terms of the characters.

66. Heligoland - Shena MacKay
Middle-aged misfit finds a community in a crumbling modernist movement artists' colony.

67. The Consolation of Maps - Thomas Bourke
Slight oddity featuring a lot of information about antique maps, the city of Florence, a possibly-not-neurotypical Japanese narrator, and a mysterious grieving woman.

68. Deep Country - Neil Ansell
A man spends five years living in almost total isolation off-grid in mid-Wales. He expects to find himself, but instead finds that he almost loses his sense of self as his attention turns outwards to the land and the wildlife. Some beautiful descriptions of the birds and the changing seasons, as well as the challenges of living mostly without human interaction and modern conveniences.

Sounds like a useful lesson to learn, savethecat! I find myself scrolling through Kindle deals marvelling about how many books are out there that I don't want to read. There's something to be said for fewer and better books.

I quite fancy the Thirkell book, exexpat. I'm quite fond of her fiction, although it's best consumed in small doses.

Funnily enough, biblio, I have never read any of Angela Thirkell's fiction, even though our house was full of it when I was growing up (my mother is/was a big fan). I read the memoir more out of interest in it as social history than in her as a writer, but I do now feel I should give at least one or two of her books a go.

My favourite is High Rising.

@savethecat I made a similar, but worse, mistake when I was new to my kindle. I subscribed to a daily email of free kindle books in my enthusiasm and now have tens and tens of books that I will most likely never read and have been slowly deleting.

I limit myself to 99p books but only ones on my wish list - I put recommendations from here on my list and check occassionally daily if they have gone down in price and buy them if they have.

Thanks, biblio - I'll have a rummage next time I am round at my parents' house and see if I can find that one. Though my mother's copies may all be rare and/or very battered early editions so I might end up buying it myself.

Exexpat I'm a huge fan of Robin Robertson and loved The Long Take. I'd also recommend any of his poetry collections but particularly The Wrecking Light.

I'm still plodding on with The Library of Ice but it's annoyingly slow. A pity as some bits of it are really interesting, but I'm having to churn through a lot of really dull stuff (a history of curling, anyone?!!!) to get to bits I'm interested in. It would have been so very much better as a 'slim volume'.

Have also started the one about thread/fabric, which is interesting so far.

172. The Book of Essie - Meghan MacLean Weir The youngest child of a mormon family who stars in a popular reality tv show finds out she is pregnant. Her mother contacts the show producers to decide how to deal with the situation, however Essie has ideas of her own

I quite enjoyed this, reasonably well written and well paced with a few twists along the way.

173. The Unwomanly Face of War - Svetlana Alexievich A nobel prize winning author brings together the oral histories of hundreds of soviet women and their experiences during WW2, dealing with women on the front line, at home and those in occupied territories, plus how they dealt with the aftermath of war. Some as young as 14 were sent to the front. It took the author 26 years to collect the stories and put it together.

This is a phenomenal and heartbreaking read that brings the reality of war into very sharp focus told by some very humble and brave women and some who are very rightly angry. I am in awe of their fortitude. The author has also written another volume Last Witnesses: Unchildlike Stories that I don't know whether I can bring myself to read. This will stay with me for a very long time.

174. Holy Island - LJ Ross (DCI Ryan #1)
     Police murder case. Not brilliantly written, but entertaining enough as an easy distraction.

175. The Pure in Heart - Susan Hill (Simon Serailler #2)
     Police missing child case. I didn't think this was as good as the first in the series.

176. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - AJ Hartley
     The author takes the story of Hamlet and fleshes it out to novel length dealing with the motivations of the characters in more depth and spends time setting the scene. It is largely faithful to the play but adds Yorick as a character.

I though this was really well done and adds another dimension to the play. I don't like reading plays in general and always think Shakespeare needs to be seen rather than read, but this is a happy medium and it is fundamentally a very sound plot so it would be hard to go wrong with it.

177. Three Blind Mice (aka The Mousetrap) - Agatha Christie
     A young couple open a guest house and get snowed in with their first set of patrons. Murder mystery with one hell of a twist. It's only a short story and is sickeningly twee in the opening part, but the drama soon takes over. Absolutely brilliant.

178. Beneath A Scarlet Sky - Mark Sullivan
     An Italian teenager gets caught up in the events of the war. He is initially sent to a religious retreat in the mountains to keep him out of the city and ends up helping Jews escape to Switzerland. When he returns to Milan his parents force him to enlist before he can be conscripted as they can get him a preferential posting that will keep him out of combat, but circumstances change and he becomes the personal driver of the main Nazi officer in Italy and acts as a spy for the resistance.

In the same vein as The Tattooist of Auschwitz this is written by a journalist turned mediocre novelist who has dramatised someone else's memoir. It is fundamentally a very interesting story, but was put into the wrong hands. Awful dialogue and poor pacing.

179. Wilder Girls - Rory Power This starts 18 months into a quarantine that has been placed on a remote school for girls after the have been hit by "The Tox." The teachers have been dying off and the girls are left to fend for themselves. When one goes missing her best friend will stop at nothing to find her.

YA. This is billed as a female Lord of the Flies but was mediocre and doesn't even come close in terms of plot, let alone the writing. Children alone on an island is as close as it gets. It might be ok as a cheap thriller for teens but did nothing for me.

180. Warlight - Michael Ondaatje I have absolutely no idea what the plot or point of this was. A very confused narrative that has left me none the wiser by finishing it.

63 and 64) A Flight of Magpies and Jackdaw by KJ Charles. Some much needed light Victorian magic murder slash; if you enjoy that sort of thing (which I do!), this is great.

92 Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently by Steve Silberman

I'm well behind the crowd on this one - I've looked at it a few times but wasn't convinced it was for me, but then it came up on the library app so I figured I'd give it a go. The majority of the book traces the history of autism diagnosis - I found this pretty heavy going and not necessarily that useful to me. The book only came alive for me in the last few chapters where the author tries to think about at what a world that reflected the needs of a neurodiverse population could look like (in the same way that we now consider - though then it must be said generally fail to deal with - access/mobility).

Sadik I agree with that review. I thought the book dwelt too much on the history of autism and now disproved theories (such as the refrigerator mother). I would have preferred a more forwards looking focus.

72 The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

My only re-read of the year - just too much work to concentrate on anything new, and this is, of course, the time of year to read this one.

Oh, how I loved Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising series as a child, and indeed how I still love it. This one is the most famous in the series, and I love it for its Christmas connotations, although I think the most disturbing and effective instalment is probably The Grey King.

For those of you who haven't read the series, it's a traditional sort of quest arc, with children seeking the symbols of power of the Light over five novels. Set all over the British Isles, but with a lot of emphasis on Wales (which obviously appealed to me), it mixes in a lot of old Welsh and British legends and is absolutely beautifully written. Someone else mentioned upthread that Antonia Forest's novels (which I have yet to read) show the Harry Potter books up by contrast, and I feel the same about the Dark is Rising sequence. I've just finished reading The Prisoner of Azkaban (my favourite by far of the HP series) with my seven year old - he loves it, but for me the whole series lacks the moral ambiguity, deeper connections with Christian tropes and British traditions and legends, and sheer bloody terrifyingness (at times) of Cooper's work.

Ho hum. I am part-way through The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (Arundhati Roy) and was really enjoying the first bit but it now seems to have veered off into a completely different novel, which is confusing and annoying. Does it get better? I'm about 40% through.

26. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

I thought this was going to be very dark, as it deals with serious themes of loss, abandonment, neglect, marginalisation etc but actually it was a lovely read. The writing was gorgeous, and beautifully evocative. Maybe a little superficial in its treatment of the afore-mentioned themes, but actually it was kind of refreshing to read something that wasn't completely washed in bleakness and trauam.

I am sorry but I have not posted for the last three months as my mother was very ill and then died so I fell off thread 6 and am now belatedly bringing across my list and updating on my recent reads:

1. The Hunting Party - Lucy Foley
2. Men without Women - Huraki Murakami

3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Schaffer

1. How Hard Can It Be? - Allison Pearson
2. Christmas Pudding - Nancy Mitford
3. Hangover Square - Patrick Hamilton
4. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson

8. Any Human Heart - William Boyd 9. A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles 10. Testament of Youth - Vera Brittain 11. The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie 12. Harriet - Jilly Cooper 13. A Buyer’s Market - Anthony Powell 14. Charity Girl - Georgette Heyer 15. New Boy - Tracy Chevalier 16. The Acceptance World - Anthony Powell 17. Our Man in Havana - Graham Greene 18. Here Be Dragons - Sharon Penman 19. Venetia - Georgette Heyer 20. The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper - Hallie Rubenhold 21. At Lady Molly's - Anthony Powell 22 The Suspect - Fiona Barton 23. Bath Tangle - Georgette Heyer 24. My name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout 25. 4.50 from Paddington - Agatha Christie 26. The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton 27. We have always lived in the castle - Shirley Jackson 28. Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant - Anthony Powell 29. I am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes 30. Last Bus to Woodstock - Colin Dexter 31. The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes 32. The Quiet American - Graham Greene 33.Black Sheep - Georgette Heyer 34.The Kindly Ones - Anthony Powell 35. Case Histories (Jackson Brodie) - Kate Atkinson 36. Warlight - Michael Ondaatje 37. The Covent Garden Ladies - Hallie Rubenhold 38. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Turton 39. The House at Riverton - Kate Morton 40. The Valley of Bones - Anthony Powell 41. A Column of Fire - Ken Follett 42. Bitter Orange - Claire Fuller 43. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon 44. Dominion - CJ Samson 45. Cat Among the Pigeons - Agatha Christie 46. Paradise Fields - Katie Fforde 47. Second Life - SJ Watson 48. Shatter - Michael Rowbotham 49. The Bat - Jo Nesbo 50. Frederica - Georgette Heyer 51. Perfidious Albion - Sam Byers 52. Soldier’s Art - Anthony Powell 53. Earthly Joys - Philippa Gregory 54. Conclave - Robert Harris 55. Ladder to the Sky - John Boyne

Quite a few updates so I will be brief:

56. The Military Philosophers - Anthony Powell

Book 9 of A Dance to the Music of Time. It's quite a long time since I read this so struggling to recall but this is the third of the books covering Nick's war years and sees him based in London and the return of some familiar characters. Not his best but not his worst either. Widmerpool continues to be a joy and makes an interesting choice of fiance - it won't end well!

57. The Foundling - Georgette Heyer

Another strong entry from Georgette Heyer and an enjoyable read.

58. A Town like Alice - Nevil Shute

I read this at school (which was a long time ago) but had barely any recollection of the story which is set in Malaysia during the war and then in Australia post-war. Absolutely loved this - one of my books of the year.

59. A Murder is Announced - Agatha Christie

A Miss Marple mystery with lots of twists and red herrings. Very readable.

60. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

This is a book I had been meaning to read for ages as it always seems to appear on lists of books one should have read so I had high hopes. Sadly this was not for me. Whilst I really enjoyed some parts - mainly those featuring Dr Urbino - I really disliked Florentino and found him quite creepy and repulsive, could not engage with Fermina and was ultimately glad to finish the book. A huge disappointment.

61. Books do Furnish a Room - Anthony Powell

Book 10 of A Dance to the Music of Time and we are into the post war era and Nick is writing. the focus is on the literary and publishing world. I really enjoyed this book which saw the return of some of the characters from earlier times (who had generally disappeared during the war books). Pamela Widmerpool is the definition of toxicity - how could Widmerpool have married her?

62. A Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

I must be one of the few people on this thread who had not read this book or seen the television series. I thought it was excellent and thought-provoking.

63. The Testaments - Margaret Atwood

I found this quite disjointed and initially was expecting it to be a direct sequel so was disappointed not to pick up Offred's story. Got better as I progressed but not in same class as The Handmaid's Tale.

64. Temporary Kings - Anthony Powell

Book 11 of A Dance to the Music of Time. Nick is still moving in his literary circles and the focus on the Widmerpools continues. Pamela really is horrific. What a car crash!

65. Crisis - Felix Francis

I have always been a big fan of the Francis books but was quite disappointed by the previous one: Pulse. For me, this was a great improvement although I had an idea where the story was heading and wish it had been otherwise (trying to avoid spoilers).

66. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion

I picked this up as a 99p Kindle offer as I needed some light relief and did not have high expectations but enjoyed this more than I expected and had some laugh out loud moments. Disappointed to see upthread that the sequel is not as good.

67. Friday's Child - Georgette Heyer

Still on light relief. Not the best Heyer I have read and I did not find it that engaging until well through the book (when it re-located to Bath). I think this may be because the lead male character was not very likeable.

Book 68 will be the final book in A Dance to the Music of Time meaning I have kept on track with reading one a month and will have read the entire series this year. Might try The Forsyte Saga next year - fewer books too!

Hoping to make it to 70 books by the end of the year but that may a challenge.