50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Three

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the third 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 and the second one here.

What are you reading?

Into Thin Air is terrific. As is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. But there was little there that I hadn’t read that I was interested in, though I picked up another Jack Reacher and Octavia by Jilly Cooper which will be my guilty pleasures when we all get locked down from coronavirus.

Love that autocorrect Satsuki, I will wonder off and get that one, I remember reading it at school and enjoying it, I think Peter O’Toole played the main character in the film but could be wrong.

I am derfiniteky slow reading but in target for 50 so Goodreads tells me.

7 The ABC Murders Agatha Christie I haven’t read this before and dint watch the TV production. I didn’t think it was one of Poirots best but it trundled along nicely with a little twist at the end.

8 Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indridason
Written nearly 20 years ago, a grave has been discovered while digging foundations for a new housing estate. We start weaving present day and the past weaving together various grands to discover the whys and where gores, a satisfying read which does lead you guessing to the end whose bones they were. Good description of how Iceland was during the war and at the beginning of this millennium before I eland became a very popular tourist hotspot. Will be hunting down some more to read

I got The Pied Piper by Neville Shite as keep meaning to give another of his a go as enjoyed Town Like Alice

Shite!

I can thoroughly recommend Trustee from the Toolroom as an excellent one of his books, it's a close second to ATLA for me.

I really enjoy Nevil Shute too. I read a Town called Alice in my teens and recently read So Disdained which was good.

just logging on to recommends book 8 of the year - She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the two NY Times journalists who broke the Harvey Weinstein abuse story. it's a really detailed, fascinating account of how they did it, with lots of stuff about the #metoo movement

a good read
but after a couple of political books (book 7 was West Winging It, a mediocre memoir from a comms staffer on the Obama administration) so I'm on to a bit of chic lit

I enjoyed Pied Piper. ATLA is one of my favourite books.

I'm still sniggering about Neville Shite (which my phone wanted to correct to White - it obviously has a more refined vocabulary than yours, Satsuki)

Thanks for the heads up about the monthly deals. I wasn't terribly inspired but still managed to buy 5 books :

Everywoman
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Dear Fatty
Walking the Nile
A History of Ireland in 250 episodes

Slightly miffed that I'd already bought The Honjin Murders for £4.74 after seeing it recommended here, but am trying to console myself that the extra cash will go to the publisher rather than Amazon...

Have finished another few books but can't work up the energy to review them. Will do it tomorrow when I'm more refreshed!

I need to have my bank card confiscated. I've just spent a hideous amount - more than you would think is possible in a discount store - with The Book People, who seem to be having some sort of clearance sale. Are they closing for good? I know they went into administration at the end of last year, but hadn't heard much beyond that.

14. The Testaments - Margaret Atwood

First time I have been disappointed by Margaret Atwood

Started well and had page-turner qualities, the insights into how Aunt Lydia became who she was were fascinating, but the last third (trying not to give spoilers) lacked complexity and nuance in both plot and characterisation. Just wasn't very literary - very surprised it jointly won the Booker.

Dear @mackerella

I both love and hate you for news of Book People deals.

Sincerely

Eine

11. In The Woods by Tana French. Discussed much up thread. I found this book frustrating and poorly written. As a police procedural it was particularly annoying as the police were (i think) unintentionally written as very bad at their jobs. This is the writers first novel and I think it shows.
12. when the wind Blows by Raymond Briggs. Graphic novel by the author of The Snowman about a couple facing the challenges of nuclear warfare. Brutal. A bit old fashioned but worth a read.
13. Girl, women, other by Bernadine Evaristo. I wouldn’t normally reread something so soon but as a book club pick I thought I’d remind myself of the audio. I mentioned in my review last year that my only real criticism was around my personal preference for novels over short stories. I’d say I enjoyed it more second time round as knowing the characters storylines already gave them more depth.
14. Glass Town by Isabel Greenberg. This is a graphic novel (picking up a few of these as my husband is reading a lot of them at the moment - although steering clear of the Anthony Bourdain horror one!) written about the Bronte Sisters (and their brother Branwell) focusing on their Juvenilia or the stories they created together in their childhood. Charlotte and Branwell building Glass Town and Emily and Anne Gondal. Initially I wasn’t enamoured by the charcoal, slightly scatchy drawings. However, the colour pallet is excellent and the story (including the real lives of the siblings) is both charming and tragic. Charlotte’s chief character Charles is really excellent.

Having had a squizz, they do appear to be going out of business, very sad, I've bought there for years. There doesn't appear to be much left in Adult Fiction sadly.

mackerella I know it’s a bit revealing

closedaura I’ve just read Catch and Kill by Ronald Farrow on the same subject and it was very good, reads like a spy thriller. He mentions the Twohey work - Interested in what different ground they cover.

*Ronan. Ye Gods.

1. Grown Ups by Marian Keyes.

I absolutely love Marian and her writing, and this book did not disappoint. She writes so brilliantly about tough subjects but manages to be witty and makes you laugh out loud too.

Anyone reading / read The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power.

It's very very good. Her career is obviously amazing but I'm fascinated by her accounts of her wartime reporting from Bosnia & former Yugoslavia.

I'd unfairly judged her on her Hilary Clinton comments; I'm only a third way through the book but her intelligence and writing style really impressed me

We have the book people at work and have been told they are no longer coming due to administration

Oh no, that's really sad news about The Book People. I wonder what went wrong for them? (And where people are going to buy packs of decent books for party bags now?!)

Sorry not sorry, Eine Did you get anything good? I bought some big packs of books for DD, and CDs for DS (who is visually impaired so likes audiobooks). And lots random books for DH and me as they were only a couple of quid each - including John Sutherland's Literary Landscapes, the Higgidy cookbook (justifiable as it will save me from spending £££ on their quiches ) and a book about Retro Tech so DH can reminisce about his ZX Spectrum and Walkman. God knows where we're going to fit them all in - we're definitely at over maximum book capacity...

God knows where we're going to fit them all in - we're definitely at over maximum book capacity...

Don't be so ridiculous, you are clearly at insufficient bookshelf capacity.....

Why did I check out the Book People clearance??? Now I want to buy ALL the cookbooks

22. The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
Picked this up because I enjoyed Once Upon A River by the same author. This is an earlier book, and she hadn't learned to rein in her over-the-top gothic tendencies. Why yes, we have red-haired green-eyed twins who run wild in a crumbling Big House that you know will go up in a fiery conflagration as figures tussle, silhouetted by flames. There are secrets, lies, foundlings, disappearances, mysterious deaths, a meddling governess and rumours of a ghost. It reads as if Virginia Andrews had moved to England and adopted literary pretensions. I kept turning the pages, but felt vaguely sullied by the whole thing.

Jim Henson by Brian Jay Jones

This was just a lovely lovely appreciation of Jim Henson’s life and work, from his beginnings in puppetry through to the production of Sesame Street, world domination with the Muppet Show and all his wonderful film work. It is a history of television itself in some ways, one sees the early potential of the new medium being explored and also Henson’s career intersected with those of many other diverse stars of the era through Kermit et al, so there are lots of behind the scenes anecdotes of show-business and insights into film production. If you spent any of your childhood in love with any of his characters then there is an exquisite delight seeing how they came to be developed, and how much of their creators went into them, but the real triumph of this book is it documents what it means, and what it takes, to live a truly one-of-a-kind creative life, and the impact just one person can have on the lives of many others, by being true to their own individuality and vision. By the end of it, I felt like I knew Jim, the imperfect, yet extraordinary human, and shed tears for his loss again. Emotional, life-affirming, and inspiring from beginning to end.

Catch and Kill by Roman Farrow

I was surprised by just how skilfully written this was and also how expansive the remit. I expected this to expand on the original New Yorker article about the accusations against Weinstein (some of which have now resulted in convictions as of last week) but it goes quite a way beyond these, exposing a complex web of cover-ups, counter-cover-ups and corruption that stretches wider than one man and his crimes, involving politicians, the tv and print news media, and other organisations I had no idea existed. Hardly any one, of any political persuasion is unsullied. It reads like spy novel, in short, punchy, well written chapters. It is a page turner and a real eye-opener, that makes you thankful for the old fashioned investigative journalism that still exists, and is incredibly necessary. It does cover themes of sexual assault, but sensitively, and only to bring home the importance of the story being written, up against a tide of opposition.

Thanks bettybattenburg I will look out for Trustee if I get on with Piper

Bit late but gorgeous puppy Splother and lovely name.