50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Two

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the second 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.

The first thread of the year is here.

What are you reading?

No, I haven't, Sadik (but it's gone on the list, match). Just realised I haven't got a clue about their lives, despite devouring so many of their books when I was younger!

The Secret River Kate Grenville...i enjoyed this, generally like historical fiction and an overcoming the odds type story and I like books where I learn something new. I felt the ending was really rushed - it felt like a quick summary and didn't match the flow and detail of the earlier chapters. A solid 4/5.

I read The Secret River years ago, it was a good book.

I finished Little Fires Everywhere in the small hours. 4/5. I particularly liked the photography parts of it and didn't see the big drama coming.

Not sure what to read next, yesterday's dreadful day has morphed into even worse day today and I can't concentrate on choosing a book or anything else. That's another thread.

Going to have a permament name change after today. but no idea what to. Betty is due to retire.

1. A Room with a View - E.M.Forster
2. Eleanor Oliphont is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman
3. Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens
4. The Husband's Secret - Liane Moriarty
5. One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
6. An Unwanted Guest - Shari Lapena -
7. Fractured - Karin Slaughter
8. The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
9. The Girl who Lived Twice - David Lagercrantz

10. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck 11. The Green Mile - Stephen King - Having never read any Stephen King before, I thought I'd dip my toe in. My first foray into King was successful. It's not a pleasant book obviously, and as a homage to Dickens, he wrote this book in instalments (so my only problem with it is that he sometimes tries a bit too hard to emulate this - repetition etc). I did like the cliffhangers though! And it absolutely pulls at your heart strings 4/5

Thank you Sadik, I've just bought Cryptonomicon for DS2's birthday next week. Sounds just up his street.

Last night I finished The Island by Victoria Hislop. It has been sat on my shelf for years, so I'm glad I finally got round to reading it. I wasn't sure what to expect but I liked it, I found Spinalonga and leprosy so interesting.

I'm currently reading Everything I Never Told You by Celeste NG. I hope it gets better, I really enjoyed Little Fires Everywhere.

1. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers: Mary Roach
2. Circe: Madeline Miller
3. The Girl with all the Gifts: M. R. Carey
4. Odd Girl Out: Laura James
5. Their Skeletons Speak: Sally M Walker and Douglas W Owsley
6. The Royal Art of Poison: Eleanor Herman
7. The Boy on the Bridge: M R Carey
8. Rivers of London: Ben Aaronovitch
9. The Handmaid's Tale: Margaret Atwood

10. The Vagina Bible: Dr Jen Gunter

I have just finished 11. Hormonal: Eleanor Morgan. I'm actually not sure how I felt about this book. The first half felt like a hard slog and I considered abandoning the book on several occasions but actually the second half was really interesting. It was pretty well written and easy to follow so I'm not sure what the problem was with it. I dont think its one I'd read again but it had some interesting aspects about women's bodies and mental health and I think I did learn a bit.

25. The Confession - Jessie Burton Alternating story set in the 80s and present day. In the 80s, a young woman is in thrall with an older novelist and follows her to LA while one of her books is being filmed. Struggling to fit in, the young woman makes an impulsive decision that will wreck the lives of those around her. In the present, another young woman is looking for the reason why her mother abandoned her as a baby. The last person to see her mother was a now reclusive novelist, who she turns to for answers.

Explores the relationships between women at different phases of their lives. Reasonably well written with sound prose and good characterisation. More akin to The Muse than The Miniaturist. I thought it took a little while to get going and any 'twists' were fairly clearly signposted. It's more character than plot driven and the title is not a good indicator of the content. I wouldn't rave about it, but it's a decent enough read.

26. The Wall - John Lanchester We join the narrator as he is about to start his compulsory two year stint guarding the wall that has been built around the British coastline to keep outsiders away. The wall was built following an unexplained catastrophic climate event that the older generation were responsible for, but the young don't really understand and who are resentful at being left to live with the consequences. They don't really know who the outsiders are, or why they have to be kept out, only the need to guard the wall with their lives.

A metaphor for modern Britain. Short but tightly packed. It raises more questions than it answers and is very vague about the circumstances leaving the reader to do the work. About as subtle as a brick through the window. The night is dark and full of foreigners. I'm not entirely sure this was worthy of making last year's Booker longlist, but I did find it strangely compelling.

27. The Man Who Saw Everything - Deborah Levy Follows a self-obsessed young man who gets run over on the Abbey Road crossing shortly before travelling to East Berlin in 1988. He negotiates difficult relationships with his hosts in an unstable political environment. Thirty years later he wakes up from a coma, having been recently run over on the Abbey Road crossing and struggles to pick out fact from dreams and memory as his relationship to his visitors is not how he remembers or expects.

I didn't hate this, but it does have an certain pretentious 'stick up it's own butt' cleverness about it that I found very off-putting. I can't fault the writing and it is full of heady themes and stylistic prose. This definitely deserved its Booker nomination.

10. Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse - David Mitchell (Audible)

Collection of the comedian's Observer columns, this was amusing enough but suffered by comparison with the more recent Dishonesty is the Second Best Policy because it's quite a few years old. I couldn't stand much wiffling on about the credit crunch at the time, let alone 10+ years later.

11. Queenie - Candice Carty-Williams

An outstanding first novel about the likeable but troubled Queenie, a young magazine writer of Jamaican heritage whose life descends into a self-destructive spiral after her breakup from boyfriend Tom. Written in the tone of women's romantic fiction, this subverts expectations and is a very clever, realistic depiction of mental breakdown - as well as making me literally laugh out loud all the way through. Queenie's grandparents provided the best light relief. Like them, my Dad also tries to turn the 'internet box' off at night...

betty I am suitably impressed that you have visited over 50 Scottish islands (I know the thread has moved on about a million miles since then).

11. Silent Voices by Ann Cleeves (Vera #4) This opens with Vera going for a swim and finding a body. There are so many characters in this one, it is in danger of getting confusing, but Ann Cleeves does what she's really good at, weaving together how everyone is connected, what their secrets are and how they all really feel about each other. I always enjoy the journey, but when wrapping everything up I do sometimes feel, both in this series and Shetland, that she's got a big old random number generator to decide whodunnit and what their motivation was, leaving you going really? I manage my expectations accordingly now, and still very much enjoy these books.

12. Wonder by RJ Palacio Auggie is ten years old and has a facial deformity. He is about to go to school for the first time. This is powerful, beautifully done, moving and oozing with emotional intelligence. My son had this as a reading book in his final year of primary last year, and I meant to read it at the time. Glad I finally caught up with it.

I am suitably impressed that you have visited over 50 Scottish islands

I've got a bit of a thing about islands if you hadn't noticed....

Welcome, Mackerella.

You lot are making me want to read the Katy series again, but I seem to have given my copies to the charity shop. Oops. Might need to get on Kindle!

You can get the last two at least on Kindle for free Remus (didn't look for the earlier two because I've got hard copies, also I read them so many times as a child I think I know them by heart!)

Thanks. I think I might actually have 'Clover' on there already.

The Ballroom by Anna Hope who also wrote Wake) is better than its rather 'sell it in a supermarket , literary chick lit' cover suggests!

It's an interesting tale of people committed to an asylum in the early part of the 2oth century, none of whom is , by any definition, mad. The book asks the question, who is made? And , if the people who declare people mad, are mad themselves, where does this leave us? Some of it's a bit heavy handed but it does take a delicious swipe at Churchill and his love of eugenics.

I thought the homosexuality bit could have been more carefully done. And the evil doctor thing was a tad melodramatic. Like Hope had added melodrama in case the book was too dull. In fact, that made it a bit silly, and seems always to be the let down in a lot of books like this.

I believe the idea that inmates of asylums were played music and allowed to dance is based on fact. I know I have read another book with the same theme and would love it if anyone else could put my mind at rest and tell me what book that is!

Funnily enough I grew up within spitting distance of several Scottish islands and have never been to any, other than a day trip to Rothsay!

I'm envious PIggy

Bargain The complete set of Katy books are 49p for the kindle.

I got the Katy books for nothing via project gutenberg...

I have the Katy Books on Kindle already but I’ve never heard of In the High Valley and Curley Locks. Clover was as far as I got I think.

The only Katy book I hadn't already got on kindle is the 3rd, and it says the free version isn't currently available. So I've splurged on all of them for the princely sun of 49p.

I remember High Valley but not Curly Locks.

19 Clover by Susan Coolidge

The perfect contrast to Cryptonomicon, this is an absolutely charming little book. I have a feeling I read it as a child but didn't own it, & wasn't particularly bothered with it - probably because as PermanentTemporary says, it's as much a travelogue as a novel. There are wonderful descriptions of Clover's journey from Burnet in the East, and of the countryside in Colorado. The parts that aren't travelogue are largely romance - this was obviously aimed at Katy readers as they grew up. On to In High Valley next.

FinishedTombland, was a bit disappointed by it. There were far too many occasions where it was just the author showing off the research he'd done; lots of unnecessary words. I think I must have skipped at least 10 pages altogether. There is an essay included at the back, which has a lot of interesting information in, but is actually quite badly written (imo). I think I would have preferred to read the essay and skipped the book.

I'm about half way through Some Tame Gazelle. I'm sure I've read some Pym before. Very gentle and quiet but thoughtful with insight. The female characters remind me very much of my aunts in their somewhat precarious gentlewoman positions, so much so that I actually dreamt of one pair of uncle and aunt last night!

Ok, I’ve splashed out 49p too. Very bad as I am not supposed to buy anything (self imposed spending ban).