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 popping in to say Happy Christmas one and all and share the glad tidings that DS did not get me The Testaments after all but instead got me Elton John’s biography which I’m much happier about.

Happy Christmas everyone 🎄🍷

44. How to Grow Old: A Middle-aged man moaning - John Bishop. Guide to modern life from the comedian, quite similar in tone and format to Jo Brand's recent book, Born Lippy. Quite funny and poignant in places but the sport sections were really dull.

45. Through the Wall - Caroline Corcoran. Contemporary novel marketed as a domestic noir but this is a bit misleading. It's about two women of similar ages and backgrounds live next door to each other in an apartment block and although they've never met, they covet each others seemingly perfect lives.I thought she captured the loneliness of what living in London can be like but the story is too slow-moving with too much emphasis on the fertility theme and not enough tension between the two protagonists.

NZ Santa bought me Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas, which I'm chuffed about because it's not out in the UK till March.

On a lighter note I also got Reluctant Adult by Kate Kirby of Hurrah for Gin.

Happy Christmas, Everyone! 🤶🏻🎄

I received three books from DH this year: Hour of the Star - Clarice Lispector, Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon - Jorge Amado and Love in a Fallen City - Eileen Chang. He knows I get lots of recommendations from this thread so loves to find books he thinks I’ll like but have never heard of. Can’t wait to start reading! 😊

I got several books for Christmas including a beautiful Folio Society copy of My Family And Other Animals which is one of my favourite books. Also got two Christmassy books - Twas The Nightshift Before Christmas and a PG Wodehouse collection of short stories, so I’ll have to read those while the Christmas spirit still abounds!

Just The Body for me, bookwise. Hope everyone has had a good day. We've hit the 'nobody wants to speak for a while' stage of the evening.

Evening all. I was pleased to receive Ring the Hill by Tom Cox and The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin. Just trying to power up for a final push on cleaning the kitchen, before curling up on the sofa with my current Agatha Christie - perfect drunk reading IMO.

Glad you hear you don't have to read The Testaments BestIsWest - Elton John sounds far more fun.

Christmas presents here basically involved everyone swapping books - I've got All Systems Red by Martha Wells, Hello World by Hannah Fry & a couple of others. DD has already read her way through Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell (which I'll snaffle in a bit) & has at least 3 more books in her pile. Dad's headed home, dd is tucked up with her computer messaging friends, & DP isn't back from family duties till Friday, so now I just have to decide what to read first :)

I did wonder about The Testaments , Best

I finally got my copy of Bookworm , as well as the latest Michael Connolly, and Stephen King's 11.22.63 - very happy with my Xmas haul.

I got a very satisfactory haul of half a dozen books - some I had asked for, some not, but all things I will be happy to read. Not that I needed any additions to my teetering TBR piles, of course, but Christmas would not be Christmas without a few new books.

The Elton John book is enormous fun! No books here (for me, at least, I gave several). But I do have enough book tokens for a big splurge and when everyone has gone tomorrow, I plan to dive into The Golden Thread and Ducks, Newburyport. I can’t wait.

I got The Nickel Boys, Ham on Rye Clockwork Orange and Slaughterhouse 5 and a £50 Waterstones voucher - which I’m thrilled with.

@Terpsichore 11.22.63 looks awesome I can’t wait to get to that.

Happy Christmas everyone! I got a couple of interesting non-fiction books - Guest House for Young Widows and Mutual Admiration Society. I am currently a short way into Six Minutes in May but it isn't terribly festive so I'm thinking of breaking my read in order of purchase rule to dig into something more appetizing!

No book presents here (not surprised no one knows what I do or don't have). However I ordered three books for myself that arrived on Christmas eve

Merry Christmas all!

As instructed , DH actually managed to get me an Amazon voucher this year. He doesn't have an Amazon account so it's better than tat! Last time , I got a Next voucher because it was 'the same thing'!

DF's wife sorts presents for me and DH and managed to get him the Ben Stokes' book I bought him(why don't people ask!?) and she got me the book I bought her last year!! It was the rather lovely Jeanette Winterson book but last year we even had a lengthy discussion about it.

Now I have two books and no idea what to do with them!

Humbug.

Did anyone watch Millionaire last night and see Clare Balding (Cambridge English degree) unable to identify 'Christmas won't be Christmas without presents'

12 Days of Kindle has started 😊😊😊

The Dutch House is reduced (not to 99p sadly) as is Three Women. The Familiars IS 99p. Also looking at Night Boat to Tangier

Some other good ones which I've already read : Homegoing, Akala's Natives

I'm only a couple of pages in so far.... Would love to hear what anyone else has spotted

Lara Maiklem's Mudlarking is good in the non-fiction section....as is Maggie O'Farrell's I Am, I Am, I Am . And I'd highly recommend Travellers in the Third Reich .

Sadly I've either read, or already got, all of the above. And I'm not all that grabbed by the fiction, unfortunately. But then I don't need more books!

@KeithLeMonde you’ve reminded me of my 2 am splurge when I couldn’t sleep. A decent selection for a change.

I’m nearly finished The Dutch House, it’s a slow burner but really beautifully written.

I enjoyed How Not to be a Boy and bought Homegoing and Simon Mayo’s historical fiction Mad Blood Stiring as well as Rebecca

I’ve decided on a book buying ban in 2020 which is making me splurge now.

Piggy - when I read your comment, I didn't know the quote either so had to look that up. I somehow doubt that Little Women is on the Cambridge syllabus... I read it as a child 40+ years ago, far too long ago to remember specific lines.

Yes ex but she chose Middlemarch as the answer!! She didn't even spend time trying to reason things out until her Phone A friend said Middlemarch.

That is a famous first line!

MIddlemarch?! That doesn't sound remotely like anything you would expect in Middlemarch!

I won't say anything else for fear of upsetting all the very devoted Little Women fans I know are out there.

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas.

Vouchers split between books and knitting here so the best of both worlds.

194. One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson Jackson Brodie #2
     Murder investigation set around the Edinburgh Festival. Much enjoyed.

195. The Turn of the Key - Ruth Ware
     A letter from a live in nanny to a solicitor begging for help after she is imprisoned for the death of one of her charges in a remote location in Scotland.
     Fairly decent thriller with a ghost story thrown in for good measure. Miles better than The Woman in Cabin 10

196. The Lost Girls of Paris - Pam Jenoff
     Just after the war a young woman finds the details of a group of SOE operatives missing in action and tries to find out what happened to them.
     Similar sort of thing to Charlotte Grey and The Girl Who Fell From the Sky. Enjoyable but forgettable.

197. Girl - Edna O'Brien
     Imagines the experience of one of the school girls kidnapped by Boko Haram.
     Harrowing and heartbreaking, but also very interesting. I was a girl once, but not anymore. Well written.

198. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World - Elif Shafak
     The dying thoughts of a prostitute, murdered and dumped on waste ground in Istanbul.
     Absolutely bonkers. Looks at the seedy underbelly of Istanbul and the people who populate it. Enjoyable.

Well, quite!

I am not a LW uber fan but I would think Clare would have read it as a child/ watched it on telly etc. enough to know it is Christmassy.

Middlemarch and Christmas.... ermmmm... not so much!!

Just realised I actually have three duplicate books, having accidentally bought two copies of the James Milner book. Gah.