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?

@milliefiori The spy who came in from the cold is on my new re-read list, I want to re-read some books that I read as a teenager to see what I think of them now. Animal Farm is also on the list.

@Nuffaluff I've looked at when breath becomes air a few times and thought about reading it but a combination of mild health anxiety and a phobia about death puts me off.

@MuseumOfHam Jonathan Livingston Seagull was one I re-read last year as I remember really enjoying it as a teenager, however I was also underwhelmed by it. I wish I'd not bothered as I really valued it as a young teenager but probably because I didn't pick up on the subtle nuances that I thought were obvious this time. One of the hazards of reading a book when you are too young for it and take everything at face value.

@bibliomania I've got The Body by Bryson on my kindle, for some reason it's never leapt out at me as the book I fancy reading but I do intend to tackle it one day.

Here's my list:

1. The Guilty Mother, Diane Jeffrey -
2. The little book of hygge, Meik Wiking
3. It’s too late now, A.A. Milne
4. The world I fell out of, Melanie Reid
5. The Hunting Party, Lucy Foley
6. Christmas at Rachel’s pudding pantry, Caroline Roberts
7. The Patron saint of lost souls, Menna van Praag
8. The octopus nest, Sophie Hannah
9. The 50 list, Nigel Holland
10. The power trip, Jackie Collins
11. The lost child, Patricia Gibney
12. Heads you win, Jeffrey Archer
13. Titanic survivor: Life boat number 6, Pierre Beaumont
14. All balls and glitter, Craig Revel Horwood (currently reading)

I don't watch the dancing program that Horwood is on but I saw him on Who do you think you are and found it interesting, then I saw his book for 99p. So far, so good.

Will let you know how I get on with it, betty. I saw you mentioned The Ten Thousand Doors of January yesterday too - I too was seduced by the description and thought it was worth a shot at 99p.

Thanks eine, stitches and jux for your station 11 advice.
You see I do like to join in with the convos.
betty Probably best not read Paul Kalanithi’s book if you have a phobia of death and health anxiety. It’s quite hard hitting. Sort of uplifting too.
I’m currently reading Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi - I’ve read a few of hers and admire her writing while at the same time finding it leaves me a bit cold. Intellectually satisfying though.
Currently also listening to The Glass Woman by Caroline Lea. It’s annoying me so far with its overwritten, consciously literary style, but I suspect I’m being a little unfair.

bettybattenburg what did you think of Melanie Reid's book?

I've been reading Spinal Column regularly and find her very honest and thought-provoking. Her column is a constant reminder to appreciate your good health and mobility .. if you're lucky enough to have it.

@Nuffaluff that's what I thought so I'll give it a miss, thanks.

@bibliomania I'll be interested to know what you think of the ten thousand doors - I'm not sure when I'll get to it as I have to read about Karl Marx for my MA which started this week.

@highlandcoo I read her Spinal Column for many years until I stopped getting the paper, the book is very good and doesn't duplicate from the column which was what concerned me before I read it. I only recognised one story from the column and it was something worth mentioning again. I thought the hospital part was a bit longer than it perhaps could have been, maybe a chapter or so shorter and more about after the hospital. It's well worth reading.

14. The Remains Of The Day by Everyone's Fave, Kazuo Ishiguro

Obsequious butler Stevens travels through the West Country to visit Miss Kenton his former colleague in the hope of luring her back to Darlington Hall, the great house in which they were both once employed.

Only it's now the 50s, and the great house culture is dying, Stevens reflects on what has gone before but is steeped in a deep sense of denial that the life which has defined him is disappearing.

A buttoned up fastidious man, his snobbery and fussiness make him blind to wider issues and make him incapable of throwing off a deeply ingrained sense of status in search of wider experience.

Some amusing moments, and interesting too as a large part is focussed on the plight of Germany post WW1 defeat. I found myself reading it in the voice of Carson from Downton.

Despite this, at the end I did sort of feel, well that's quite sad, but the point was? It does waffle on, a lot.
3/5

Oh gawd. Not the fucking boring butler again. I bloody hated that book.

You do make me laugh remus

I LOVE The Remains of the Day and you are all dead inside

I’m another who was completely unmoved by Remains of the Day. Remus’s description is accurate!

I do wonder if I should give it another go though, to see if I get more out of it now I’m a bit older. I’ve just had a similar experience with On Chesil Beach - first read it not long after it came out and couldn’t see what all the fuss was about, but have just reread it and got much more out of it this time.

Yes, the good bits were totally throttled by boring on about what it means to be a Great Butler, which he very clearly thought he was despite the denials.

The fact that it won The Booker does make me want to google what the fuck lost to it.

@TheTurnOfTheScrew

I wanted to and couldn't he's too annoying

Realistically she is madly in love with him, but he treats her like absolute shit, and he has suppressed so much of his personality to his role that he has become dehumanised by his servility

Oh, I know Stevens is a bit of an arse, but he's so very, very damaged
and the bit where he realises he was wrong to put service and dignity first, and understands what he's missed out on with Miss Thingy - I think I actually cried

The Remains of the Day is a truly great novel.
That is all.

Screw. I cried too. Buckets.
Good cry = excellent novel.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit

thebookerprizes.com/booker-prize/1989

There you go, the Booker Prize shortlist for the year The Remains of the Day won.

The only other book on the shortlist I’ve heard of is Catseye by Margaret Atwood, but I’ve not read that.

I adored The Remains of the Day, both the book and the film. Such a haunting (and funny) tale of a wasted life and Ishiguro captured Stevens voice brilliantly.

There was a discussion about the book a couple of years ago on A Good Read - www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09v3fdw

book 4 for me was A Million Dreams by Dani Atkins Quite liked this, it posed some interesting question about motherhood, but a bit to neat in the ending

read it after book 3 The Party by Lisa Hall. dreadful, started off with an interesting premise and mediocre writing, but went down hill.

now reading number 5 Sharp Objects by the writer of Gone Girl (whose name I have forgotten ) like it so far, but it's in my reading comfort zone...

I enjoyed Remains of the Day

However, after everyone in the world had recommended it as the best novel ever, I invested a very large amount of time reading A Suitable Boy which I'll never get back. I kept going much longer than I normally would because it was apparently soooo good. Marginally readable at best. Could have been a good 1000 pages shorter.
There, I've said it!

I love The Remains of the Day. Cried my eyes out at the end. As it happens, Cat's Eye is my favourite Atwood.

Thanks Stitches

What's surprising is just how short the shortlist is compared to now.

Cat's Eye is one of the few Atwoods I haven't read, I think there's about 4 I haven't.

I just looked and I'm quite wrong there are about 7.

The thing is in order to finish the Maddadam Trilogy - I would have to reread Oryx and Crake as it's been a decade, only, as good as it is, it was so relentlessly bleak, I can't face it.

Remains of the Day is one of my all time favourite books. So surprised by the number of people who aren't feeling it. Ishiguro really seems to divide people on the thread!

Cat’s eye I enjoyed.
Restoration by Rose Tremain is also on there. I love that.

I have Cat's Eye on my paperback TBR pile - probably will read it next