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?

Interesting fact : of the last 15 books I have read, 10 have begun with the word The. The exceptions were nearly all written before 1900!

The latest the book, is The Body, Bill Bryson's latest foray.

This is enjoyable : fascinating and intriguing, and meticulously researched (I assume, although all that seems less certain these days with the Naomi Wolf debacle...). It has his usual humane voice and arresting stories. I particularly like his focus on the many unsung heroes of scientific and medical research, many of whom had the credit just directly taken from them. The story of the man who was eventually recognised many many years later by being given a prize named after the man who stole his research is particularly maddening.

I found this a quicker read than 1927 and more universal in its appeal.

List so far. Think I gave up highlighting my favourites.

The Secret Barrister
The Rumour - Lesley Kara
The President is Missing - Bill Clinton and James Patterson
Juror No.3 - James Patterson and Nancy Allen
Part-time Working Mummy: A Patchwork Life - Rachaele Hambleton
The Tattooist of Auschwitz - Heather Morris
An Anonymous Girl - Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen
The Flower Girls - Alice Clark-Patts
Nine Perfect Strangers - Liane Moriarty
The Secretary - Renee Knight
Dirty Like Me - Jaine Diamond
Dirty Like Brody - Jaine Diamond
Close to Home - Cara Hunter
The Perfect Child - Lucinda Berry
Saving Noah - Lucinda Berry
The Silent Patient - Alex Michaelides
When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi
Stalker - Lars Kepler
Becoming - Michelle Obama
Truth and Lies - Caroline Mitchell
The Secret Child - Caroline Mitchell
One Day in December - Josie Silver
Twisted - Steve Cavanagh
I Found You - Lisa Jewell
Everything I Know About Love - Dolly Alderton
Our House - Louise Candlish
Not My Daughter - Kate Hewitt
In The Dark - Cara Hunter
No Way Out - Cara Hunter
On a Beautiful Day - Lucy Diamond
Not That I Could Tell - Jessica Strawser
After the end - Clare MacKintosh
Rachel’s Holiday - Marian Keyes
The Wives - Lauren Weisberger
Surprise Me - Sophie Kinsella
Pieces of Her - Karin Slaughter
The Prison Doctor - Amanda Brown
The Family Upstairs - Lisa Jewell
Stop At Nothing - Tammy Cohen
The Holiday - T M Logan
The Vanishing Season - Dot Hutchison
The Child - Fiona Barton
Educated - Tara Westover
Lies Lies Lies - Adele Parks
No Further Questions - Gillian McAllister
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman
Clear My Name - Paula Daly

Currently reading
48. My Name is Leon - Kit De Waal which I picked up due to The Clare Mackintosh book club

Omelette Arnold Bennett Not that I've ever eaten it; I can't stand eggs!

I devoured Riceyman Steps (unlike the omelette) years ago but it was one of those books that absolutely grabbed me for the first half and then totally lost me for the second half. Odd.

The Stranger in the Woods - really enjoyed this non-fiction exploration of a man in Maine who disappears into the woods aged 20 and only returns almost 30 years later, having hardly seen another person in all that time. I thought the writer handled the story well, with empathy and tenderness, and I'd definitely recommend it.

I've read The Card more than once (though years ago), but never any others of Arnold Bennet's (maybe Anna of the Five Towns?), not sure why. Sounds like he's a good author to return to.

I've been reading Invisible Women on the strength of a recent 'best non-fiction' MN thread, but so far at 30% in I'm a bit 'so this is meant to be news??'. It's much like the Owen Jones 'The Establishment' where I felt anyone who was surprised by the contents must have been living on a different planet for the last 30 years. Perhaps I'm just old and cynical....

I need to catch up on the end of the last thread, but just saying hello! Because Internet sounds fascinating!

54. Recursion by Blake Crouch. Originally recommended by Cote I think, and then seconded by someone else, I really enjoyed this "timey wimey" novel- i would say tre last quarter to me seemed weaker than the first three, but overall an excellent new take on an old puzzle.

Brat Farrar is far and away my favourite Tey- does anyone else remember the BBC adaptation with a rather beautiful Brat?

96. A Lovely Way to Burn by Louise Welsh

A bit like a murder mystery set against the backdrop of a global pandemic.

Stevie’s convinced that her boyfriend Simon didn’t die of natural causes, but she can’t get the police to listen - they’re all a bit preoccupied by the consequences the pandemic is having on society - so she sets out to search for the killers herself.

This was ok - the main problem I had with this was that Stevie’s behaviour didn’t make much sense to me. Society is breaking down around her as more and more people get sick. She’s caught the disease early and survived, so she doesn’t have to worry about the pandemic killing her.
But instead of doing anything to help her survival prospects, she’s obsessing about her boyfriend’s death and putting herself in danger, which felt a bit surreal.

203. The Understudy by B A Paris, Holly Brown, Clare Mackintosh and Sophie Hannah

I was drawn to this as I’ve read and enjoyed books by three of the authors (never heard of Holly Brown though). Sadly this didn’t really work for me. It’s told from the POV of four mums whose daughters are best friends at a London stage school. Each writer writes as one of the mums. I didn’t notice any difference in writing style between the different sections but that made it hard to keep track of which mum was speaking. I also struggled to remember which daughter went with which mum (the characters of the daughters weren’t well developed). The plot is that a new girl has joined the school, who is a bit odd, and strange and dangerous things have started happening. Unfortunately none of the characters were likeable so it was hard to care about the outcome.

124. A Knife to the Heart, Barbara Nadel
This is, I think, book 21 in the Istanbul-set crime fiction series. Cote has pointed out some inaccuracies in the author's depiction of Turkey and she certainly knows the country better than I do. I'm still fond of the series, and I find that the author's affection for the place shines through. It's interesting to see the political developments of the last few years through the eyes of her characters - as a police officer, and therefore an agent of the state, what do you do when you don't agree with what the state is doing?

That said, this wasn't a particularly compelling installment in the series. It's now quite hard to keep track of all the characters and it wasn't much of a page-turner.

I'm hoping to get to 100 books, I'm currently in the process of reading a few so I'm hovering around the mid80 mark. J picked a book from the library yesterday based on its (short) length

Jack of Spades by Joyce Carol Oates. So far, so good!

I read one of hers previously years ago about a poor white girl who was basically taken advantage of by a criminal and became pregnant. It was quite pathetic (in the original sense of pathos-?-) . This one is quite 'Barbara Vine'y. A popular "nice novel" author writes hardcore horrible fiction under a pseudonym. Things begin to fall apart. I'm only a third of the way through but I predict the alter ego is about to head off on a murderous rampage

32. Red Snow by Will Dean
Second in a series about local news reporter Tuva Moodyson and there's been a very public suicide and a murder at the liquorice factory in Garvik, rural Sweden. I enjoyed this, love the wintry setting (lots of mention of just how far below zero the temperature has dropped), Tuva is an interesting lead character and, apart from a slightly rushed last couple of chapters, the pace was spot on for me. I was excited to see the next book in the series is due for release next year.

67. Gotta Get Theroux This - Louis Theroux

Autobiography exploring both Louis' personal history and the backgrounds to his many documentaries about weird, wonderful and seriously misguided people. A bit heavy on the Jimmy Saville stuff, but Louis seems to have a lot of residual guilt about his 'friendship' with the disgraced DJ. Otherwise fascinating, insightful and given extra charm by being read by Louis himself on Audible.

*68. Himself - Jess Kidd
*
Brilliant debut, a literary page turner mixing whodunnit, black comedy and magical realism. Mahony leaves Dublin, where he has grown up in an orphanage, and heads west to shake up the Mayo town of Mulderrig. He enlists the help of the ancient, cranky and foul-mouthed actress Mrs Cauley to find out what really happened to his mother, whose wild and unconventional behaviour had turned the hypocritical townsfolk against her.

Kidd's detached and spare prose conjures up a compelling sense of the mystical; Mahony, like his mother before him, can see Mulderrig's dead, although they aren't always very helpful to his detective project.

This isn't perfect - there are a few too many loose ends even for me (and I can take a good dose of ambiguity), and the identity of the killer is a sudden reveal, not convincingly built up over the course of the novel - but it's definitely going to be one of my standouts of the year. The strong atmosphere of Irish fairy lore and superstition is right up my alley. (I've got quite a few alleys, obviously. This is a different alley from the ones where the historical doctors, forensics experts and dinosaurs live, obviously.)

Irish fairy lore and superstition is right up my alley. (I've got quite a few alleys, obviously. This is a different alley from the ones where the historical doctors, forensics experts and dinosaurs live, obviously.)

I don't know if they all need different alleys. I could totally see that lot co-mingling rather happily.

Just bought Because Internet for £1.99 on Kindle - sounds fascinating.

(Ironically my teenage dd would also like to read it, but doesn't do e-books, only paper ones, so will have to wait for the library... )

55. The Islands of Chaldea by Diana Wynne Jones and Ursula Jones. As an enormous DWJ fan I have no idea how I missed that her sister had finished this novel after DWJ death. I was a tad trepidatious about reading it, but I absolutely enjoyed it, almost totally felt like a proper DWJ and was a real treat!

69. My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh

In June 2000, New York, an unnamed (but beautiful, rich, young and skinny) narrator decides that a year of pharmacologically-induced sleep is the way to resolve her disillusionment with life. She's icy, sarcastic and foul to her one friend, and has a privileged life funded by her inheritance. What I liked about this novel was the way it gradually showed how her troubled character had been formed, her parents dying when she was 20 but emotionally absent throughout her life. She learned the trick of suppressing emotion with sleep young, when her mother crushed Valium into her bottles. Added to this is the emotionally abusive on/off boyfriend, who has the added downside of being called Trevor, so you began to feel some understanding for her (if not actual sympathy, which she certainly wouldn't have wanted).

This is compellingly readable with precise, visual language, although given the novel's concept not an awful lot actually happens. Under the influence of 'infermiterol' she leaves her apartment and has bikini waxes and goes shopping and clubbing, but we don't see this as she is unconscious at the time (a metaphor for how we might as well be asleep when we go through the motions of what's expected of us?). I'm not sure what are meant to conclude from the ending, if anything; perhaps the question of whether the narrator's project succeeded or was just another act of pseudo-meaningful imposture was deliberately left hanging. I think it's one of those novels that hangs around in your head for a while after you've read it, before you can decide what you really think of it.

126. Medicus - Ruth Downie
     Roman times murder mystery set in Chester. Typical for this sort of genre, but instantly likeable characters so I can see the rest of the series on the cards.

127. We Should All Be Feminists - Chimamanda Ngozi Achebe
     Short essay on how she became a feminist and gives a perspective on life for women in Nigeria. I enjoyed this, it's well written, but nothing groundbreaking in terms of content.

128. The Nickel Boys - Colson Whitehead
     A black boy is sent to reform school in Florida, set against the backdrop of the civil rights era. He tries to expose the corruption and abuse from the management with consequences for the others around him.

This is based on a real reform school and exposes the mistreatment and abuse that was prevalent in these institutions. The writing is excellent and interspersed with MLK quotes. I think it captures the era really well. This is my second of Whitehead's books and I found again that I had no emotional response to it, despite it being quite an emotive subject. Sleepers broke me, but this is a very different kettle of fish. I don't know if he is intentionally detached in his writing or if it's me.

129. Belgravia - Julian Fellowes
     Upper Class scandal and intrigue in the early 1800s. Entertaining fluff.

130. Rather Be the Devil - Ian Rankin
     20-something in the Rebus series. I really enjoyed the earlier books in the series when I started reading them in the late 90s, but think they've seriously gone off the boil with the end of career/ retirement of Rebus. I like that they are filled with relevant social/ political events in the background, but probably time for Rankin to move on. I have read this in preparation for the most recent one that someone has gone to great lengths and effort to lend to me, which I will now have to read to be polite. While I like the author, I probably wouldn't have bothered otherwise.

131. Girl, Woman, Other - Bernadine Evaristo
     Interconnected stories of 12 black/ mixed race women in Britain.

I thought this was outstanding. Almost a little too neat in terms of plot, but beautifully written and very astute. It captures the relationships between different generations very well. I don't want to say too much as I know others are currently reading it. I look forward to being able to discuss it further.

132. I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith 1930s coming of age. Cassandra keeps a diary detailing the life of her impoverished and eccentric family living in a run down castle.

This was charming and funny. An absolute gem of a book.

Sadik, I'm looking forward to hearing your review of Because Internet - I really enjoyed it.

Fortuna, I Capture The Castle is one of my favourite books, it often reappears when I need a comfort read. Might have to make it a re-read before the end of the year!

Thanks for the new thread south! I fell off the last one and off reading in general the last few weeks with wedding preparations as we’ve only about 7 weeks to go now, and also job hunting.

I did manage to finish The Binding by Bridget Collins which is a bit witchy/magic realism-y which I do like for Autumn. This was ok, the pacing was off for me - long drawn out chapters of nothing much going on and everyone knowing a secret that they can’t or won’t tell the protagonist, a really compelling love story in there but far too much waffling overall. Drives me mad when characters are in the thick of the action or in imminent danger or even just in the middle of a conversation and it’s clearly time for them to act/speak and quickly, but you get half a page of ‘my mind wandered to that morning by the ruins, I could sense the greyness descend waffle waffle waffle’. Just bloody get on with it!

I’m currently reading The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman - a prequel to Practical Magic which I confess I only know as a film. I’m liking but not loving it so far.

Copying my list over ....

1. Tied up in Tinsel - Ngaio Marsh
2. Nine Lessons - Nicola Upson
3. Bookworm - A memoir of childhood reading - Lucy Mangan
4. A History of Britain in 21 Women - Jenni Murray
5. The Mystery of Three Quarters (New Hercule Poirot Mysteries #3))

by Sophie Hannah

1. Cider with Rosie - Laurie Lee
2. Mythos - Stephen Fry
3. The Bear and The Nightingale - Katherine Arden
4. Heroes - Stephen Fry

10. Don’t you forget about me - Mhairi McFarlane 11. Amy and Isabelle - Elizabeth Strout 12. Lethal White - Robert Galbraith 13. Parsnips, Buttered: How to baffle, bamboozle and boycott your way through modern life. - Joe Lycett 14. Swing Time - Zadie Smith 15. Born a Crime - Trevor Noah 16. The Cater Street Hangman - Anne Perry 17. Callander Square - Anne Perry 18. The House Between Tides - Sarah Maine 19. The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry 20. Girl Meets Boy -Ali Smith 21. The Masqueraders - Georgette Heyer 22. My Name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout 23. Bonjour Tristesse & A Certain Smile - Françoise Sagan 24. Pure - Andrew Miller 25. Season of Light - Katherine McMahon 26. The Autograph Man - Zadie Smith 27. Becoming - Michelle Obama 28. Anything Is Possible - Elizabeth Strout 29. Classic Scrapes - James Acaster 30. Black Sheep - Georgette Heyer 31. Paragon Walk - Anne Perry 32. Women and Power - Mary Beard 33. This Thing of Darkness- Harry Thompson 34. The Years She Stole - Jonathan Harvey 35. Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout 36. The Hangman’s Daughter - Oliver Potzsch 37.All Among The Barley - Melissa Harrison 38. Hotel World - Ali Smith 39. From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers -Marina Warner 40. Longbourn - Jo Baker 41. Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married - Marian Keyes 42. The Queen of Bloody Everything- Joanna Nadin 43. Beloved Poison - E.S. Thomson 44. The House on Vesper Sands - Paraic O’Donnell 45. In Her Wake - Amanda Jennings 46. Pistols for Two - Georgette Heyer 47. Big Sky - Kate Atkinson 48. The House of the Spirits - Isabelle Allende 49. Fingersmith - Sarah Waters 50. Educated: A Memoir - Tara Westover 51. Home Fire - Kamila Shamsie 52. Recovery:Freedom from our addictions - Russell Brand 53. The Binding - Bridget Collins

Ooh there's a prequel. I'm currently reading Practical Magic for bookclub. I'm also working my way through Ducks, Newburyport and Everybody died do I got a dog.

66. Identity Crisis by Ben Elton Ben Elton standard. Cop who does understand the modern world battles to solve a very modern murder. This covered everything from Cambridge Analytica, Love Island, Brexit, trans rights, #metoo. It has the usual pop culture Elton style (think the big brother one and the one where reading is banned) but none of the nuance some of his early work like Popcorn. It was so knowing and obvious it just became grating - I get it he finds self id bonkers. There were no twists in the investigation and I didn’t laugh once. I used to love his books but this felt too same-y. I also forgot how little self awareness any of his characters have and it’s just silly.

The Grauniad have got a review of a ghost story called The Wayward Girls which is currently 99p in Kindle. I've bought it in the hope that it will prove suitably Halloweeny on this very wet weekend (and half term, finally!).

70: Middle England - Jonathan Coe

A bit of a departure for me, given that I rarely read very contemporary novels - this one is so up-to-the-minute that the final section takes place in September 2018. It's essentially a novel about Brexit, told through the eyes and experiences of Benjamin Trotter (from Coe's previous novel The Rotter's Club ), his sister Lois, their father Colin, and a large cast of friends and peripheral but connected characters.

I really enjoyed this - it's very funny, but also acutely perceptive, doesn't pull punches and is bang-on about the causes behind this country's present state of insanity.

Yes. I really liked Middle England too. I went on to read the earlier books, so read the trilogy backwards.