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?

13. His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnett

Bought at the time of the Booker shortlist but not read, His Bloody Project presents the account of Roderick Macrae, a crofters son and the terrible triple murder he committed; but why did he do it and was he insane?

The book is stylised as an account of a historical murder but is in fact fictionalised.

It is broken down into several parts :

An introduction
Roderick's own account
The assessment of a specialist criminologist type
The Trial

I found myself becoming a bit indifferent to it towards the end, as The Trial section is massively repetitive of what has gone before. The period style also felt a little overdone at times. And so after getting off to a good start it sort of ended in quite a plodding way, leaving me unsure if I liked it or not.

It is a very atmospheric book, and I can see the elements of it that would've attracted the Booker panel, it just left me a bit cold.

Biblio - "On the bright side, when the apocalypse hits, I look forward to quietly assessing whose version of our dystopian future was closest to reality."

Jux - Absolutely no issue of any real importance is addressed in NLMG. Having said that, I'd rather you read it so you can fight alongside me in next year's NLMG wars

Re Station 11 - I'd say don't bother because frankly it's unbearable, especially if you read a lot of good SF like me.

... but maybe best if you read it anyway, to be recruited into my Hate S11 team

Eine - "I've always understood this thread as a friendly/fluffy one, with no neeerrrsneeer antagonism intended - just lots of people who are passionate about the books they love and equally passionate about those they hate. "

Exactly! If I also didn't think of 50 Book threads as friendly, "Calm down Cote" could have elicited a different sort of response

Palegreen - That was an interesting article. I wholeheartedly agree with this part:

"So when readers who are biased against SF read the word ‘airlock’, their negative assumptions kick in – ‘Oh, it’s that kind of story’ – and they begin reading poorly. So, no, SF doesn’t really make you stupid. It’s more that if you’re stupid enough to be biased against SF you will read SF stupidly.”

If anyone wants to enjoy the irony. I hate Science Fiction but teach it with great intellectual fervour at work.

To be fair, though, that involves watching ET and Invasion of The Bodysnatchers (1956 original, natch), followed by Attack The Block so it's hardly a chore (and also not hard core SF, I'm sure!!)

@CoteDAzur .

1. Persuasion - Jane Austen

Lovely.

I read a decent amount of science fiction and enjoyed both Station Eleven and Never Let Me Go. Neither of them are in my top books but they are enjoyable reads. It's funny but I wouldn't personally have described Never Let Me Go as science fiction. For those deciding whether to read those books I'd say give them a go as opinion is pretty divided** and it's not like you have to finish them if you aren't enjoying them.

I find it so funny how some books really divide opinion. Still as I've said before it would be really dull if we all liked the same books.

@BestIsWest I read Persuasion for the first time last year and though it was lovely too.

Cote - have you been dissing Roland again? I won't have a word said against him.

I like the idea of the 50 Book people as warm and fluffy although some of us have claws too. And I'm currently sharpening mine to use on Cote, if she insults Roland again. Laugh at the lobstrosoties all you want, but leave my lovely, snake-hipped killer out of it.

Piggy - Attack the Block is such a good film. Big alien gorilla wolf mother fuckers! must be one of the best lines in a film, ever.

Wow, just caught up with the thread and am surprised that Never Let Me Go is such a hot topic. For the record, I liked it. I rarely read scifi and probably wouldn't describe it as such. For me the most interesting part of the book was why they didn't put up any resistance. Was it because they were so well conditioned, so isolated from the world at the weird boarding school?

I haven't read Station Eleven but Attack the Block on the other hand...pure genius

I actually hate Attack the Block. The kids like it, though...

ET on the other hand I adore.

PaleGreen, interesting article. When I was a child there was Fiction, Non Fiction, Reference and Children's sections in our local bookshops. I hate all this genre division. Just read!

I think Attack the Block is funny and clever. I expected to hate it but really enjoyed and have seen several times.

Bestiswest. Love your review.
As far as NLMG goes, I enjoyed it. You might say that’s because I’d forgive Ishiguro anything because of the wonderful The Remains of the Day, but then I’ve also read The Buried Giant and that really is a pile of shite. (Having said that the main characters, the old couple, really moved me and I often think of them).
7.Wilding by Isabella Tree.
I enjoyed this book about the rewilding project on the author’s farm. As well as covering the problems they faced, it contains lots of fascinating information about oak trees, turtle doves, worms, etc. Who’d have thought that worms could be so interesting? I was convinced. Rewilding is the way forward for our planet.

Nuffaluff - Wilding is gorgeously written and persuasive. I do think it would be very, very interesting to take an equivalent estate to Knepp and divide it up into say 50-100 organically / regeneratively farmed smallholdings (on the Wales One Planet lines) complete with hedges, proper rotations, potentially some agroforestry / silvopasture etc and compare the wildlife across the two. My suspicion is that you'd get a high proportion of the wildlife & environmental gain, alongside employment, social & community benefits, plus a great deal more food produced.
(That plus I was really irritated that she wanted government to cough up for the fencing when they already get a fuckload of single farm payment, were clearly really crap farmers, and could have sold less than 10 out of their 3500 inherited acres to pay for it.)

The Buried Giant is on my TBR 😒🙁

Does @southeastdweller Captain every thread? Needed if so!

Will do in ten minutes

Eine no read it, do. You might like it. You might love it.
I just found it a bit dull.

Sadik see, that’s the thing, I know nothing about farming and I just believe anything people say If it’s written well enough.

I know, and she writes so well Nuffaluff. But I reckon with 3500 acres and £300k a year subsidy from government (what they got in 2017 from a quick look at DEFRA), lots of us could do very nice things for the environment!