50 Book Challenge 2020 Part One

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the first thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2020, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

Who's in for this year?

LOL @ the Frankenstein note

My next is 5: The Gathering - Anne Enright

I've been meaning to get round to this for an age after very much enjoying AE's The Green Road a couple of years ago. To some extent it treads similar territory: relationships within a large Irish family. But here the plot hinges on the death by suicide of Liam, one of the 12 Hegarty children, whose sister, Veronica, is the narrator who must take charge of the arrangements for bringing the clan back together for the funeral.

Alongside these practical considerations we gradually learn of Veronica's dissolving marriage, the tensions of her relationship with her mother, and her complex love for her dead brother, interwoven with memories of their grandmother and a shocking event of their childhood.

I wasn't too sure I was on board with this at the start but found myself drawn in as I read on, and ended up genuinely involved and full of admiration for the richness and multilayered skill of Enright's writing.

Wow this thread has moved quick haha.

Just finishes book 1, The Night Circus.

I really enjoyed it. It created the most beautiful world and though I would describe the plot as subtle and slow burn I enjoyed it although can see why others take issue with it. I do wish that the magic system had been a little more defined.

My next read is Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy!

My next read is Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy!

I'm envious!

I'm not a fan of Pratchett

Steady on sunshine!

Drumroll please...I've finished The Hunting Party I was wrong about it being Colonel Mustard.

I'm now reading the lighthearted Christmas at the Pudding Pantry or some such silly name, after seeing the news last night I wanted a trivial comfort read - most unlike me.

😂 Desdemona, I enjoyed that link!

2. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn.

I’m joining the literary bandwagon to spend a day in a Gulag in Stalin’s Russia with Ivan “Shukhov” Denisovich; in a cold and hungry treacherous work-camp with unwritten but powerful rules that keep men in their place, unable and unwilling to rebel. The psychology of it all is familiar from other books I have read about similar camps; grim and bleak but I’m always amazed by the survival instinct and hope capable of man. DH says he prefers Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales (waiting for me on the Kindle) but I thought this slim book was excellent.

@ShakeItOff2000 excellent review - adding you DH’s recommendation to my wish list

8 - A keeper, Graham Norton

This was one of those books I didn’t quite know what to think of in some ways I loved it as it followed the story of a woman trying to find where she came from but it just seemed too daft in places

Happy NewYear everyone; I'm rather late to the party but determined to do better this year having dropped in and out of the thread in the past.

Just back from holiday and working my way through the previous 23 pages .. will catch up eventually!

So far this year I have read:

1. Broken Ground - Val McDermid

The latest Karen Pirie detective novel, set in Edinburgh and the Highlands. Really enjoyable easy reading and I like how KP's personal life develops alongside each crime mystery.

1. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves - Karen Joy Fowler

It's difficult to discuss this book in depth without giving too much away. So, quoting from the blurb, Rosemary had a sister who disappeared from her life when she was visiting her grandparents at the age of five. Now at college, she realises that she can't go forward with her life without resolving what happened in the past.

Having read this years ago I had no intention of revisiting it, however it was chosen by my book group and I actually enjoyed rereading it much more than expected. Found it intelligent and thought-provoking this time round.

I agree @highlandcoo I love Completely Beside Ourselves but basically impossible to discuss without ruining it.

Hello there are over 500 messages for me to catch up on but I wuld be interested to join - I am 2 books in - does nonfiction count?
I put my goodreads target as 24 - 2 a month, though we have a sunny holiday planned (not booked) for the summer, and when I went 2 years ago I read 22 books in two weeks.
I can finish off non fiction fairly quickly but struggle with fiction as I am busy and then all I want to do is read my book - I was given that Ducks Newbury for Christmas and I am on the second page
Also downladed David Copperfield as want to watch the Armando Iannuci film with an informed mind - so that really needs to be next

Palegreen HOW HOW HOW can you have forgotten about Ralph from Forever? It is BURNISHED forever (pun intended) in my brain! One thing that I did carry with me from that book was that the girl's mom tells her "once you have sex, you can't go back to holding hands" and so true.

Also on Sweet Valley High I found this article about the author super interesting
(I have added Bookworm to my to read list)

greenfields, absolutely non fiction counts! We are very easy going here - I don't think there are any hard and fast rules. Different people count different things but there's no single definition of what we mean by "a book you have read". Re-reads, graphic novels, audiobooks all fair game in my opinion...

And yes, Ralph was an important part of my sex education. In fact I think that Forever remains an excellent introduction to relationships for teenagers, particularly these days in the face of much less healthy role models.

@greenfieldsaroundhere I know! I must have read that book so many times back then

It was interesting to read that Bloom wrote it as her daughter commented that there was no YA where a couple have sex without something horrendous happening to the women (or just pregnancy). Not sure how much YA has improved in this area since then.

Just finished my second book: Rewild Yourself: 23 Spellbinding Ways to Make Nature More Visible by Simon Barnes

I really enjoyed reading this. Barnes is an engaging and amusing writer. I used to enjoy his articles in the RSPB magazine so I thought I'd like it. A lot of the things he suggests doing are fairly simple and probably obvious but I wouldn't have thought of them.

It's a book I'll go back and dip into and I'll certainly try doing some, if not all, the things he advises.

@greenfieldsaroundhere are you going to join the David Copperfield read-along? I think quite a few of us are doing that because we plan on seeing the film

1. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (Gail Honeyman)

1. Good Samaritans (Will Carver)

This was a dark and twisty thriller and was different from your usual thrillers. Short chapters, a unique writing style (that I’m still not too sure about) and chopping and changing from 1st person to 3rd person with different characters. None of the characters are particularly likeable but that’s ok because they’re all doing pretty unlikeable things. A couple of twists at the end, one of which I had already worked out. Overall, not bad. I’d probably give it 3.5 stars.

Palegreenstars I think teens generally manage plenty of consequence-free sex in YA fic these days. Admittedly in some cases there are increasingly ridiculous strings of events getting in the way of them actually DTD (Cassandra Clare, I'm looking at you and your Mortal Instruments series).

I finished book 2 last night:

1. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

5/5 I am currently re-reading the Harry Potter series, it has been a long time since I last read them and I had forgotten how much I love them. I don't know book 6 and 7 as well as the earlier books as I have not read them as many times. I enjoyed this book more than when I have previously read it but The Goblet of Fire is still my favourite. Will read the Deadly Hallows in February.

Now on to City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. I started this book towards the end of last year but lost interest pretty quickly . Going to give it another chance.
Also reading David Copperfield for the read along.

@DesdamonasHandkerchief, Holes is a near-perfect book, IMHO! Planning to read with DC1 this year.

1. A sisters Courage Molly Green

@JoeGargery - I agree about Holes. Beautifully satisfying book.

@highlandcoo We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is one of my favourite novels ever. So glad you enjoyed it second time round. It's quite a marmite book.

Book 2 this year is The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy. Beautiful young man Saul Adler is hit by a car on the Abbery Road pedestrian crossing and then travels to East Germany to continue his studies. There's no overt 'plot' and several indications that Saul may not even be alive. The whole thing has a slippery impressionistic quality as though he's in and out of a coma but so far (half way through) I can't tell. I love Levy's prose style so reading it for that alone is satisfying, but if you love a good page turner, this isn't exactly a coherent narrative.

@Sadik Good! No more Twilight style celibacy I hope.

I absolutely loved we are all completely beside ourselves. But yes totally impossible to discuss without giving the whole plot away

1. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. I'm claiming this even though I missed a chunk of it. It's an excellent rather harrowing novel and I found I couldn't read a large chunk of the second half because of the torture bits even though it's all quiet stylized. I'm a wuss these days and cant live with some stuff in my head (totally regret reading Soft by Rupert Thomson about 7 years ago, it still gives me the horrors). But the chapter about leaving Saigon is magisterial. Strange rather blank female characters though. Felt like a lit of Roth homage but I love Roth so that's ok to me.

@PermanentTemporary - I know what you mean about things living in your head. I am so vulnerable to things like that these days. I don't want bad things to happen to any of the characters and it stops me reading, or slows me down because I don't want to pick up the book. I did read The Sympathizer a couple of years ago and it was very good. I managed the torture scenes and don't really remember them now. However, this is one of the reasons I haven't read A Little Life yet, despite quite wanting to. I am such a massive wuss now, particularly with child peril. I think perhaps one reason is that there seems to be so much 'bad stuff' happening in the world, I don't want to compound it by reading bad stuff too. Probably overly simplistic but there we go.