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?

God we did a Bob Book at Book Club once

Shite.

Ah no, I love Bob!

Admittedly , I am not sure the target readers should be well read adults. It was great for my then 13 year old DS and the film is lovely , and bob looks like my beloved Clyde.

What is a Bob book?

I'm imagining a cheap book written by boy scouts so somebody enlighten me please as if it is that then I don't want to be caught fondling it in Tescos.

Streetcat Named Bob betty!

I think we had Christmas Bob inflicted on us to be festive

Betty You're thinking of this, in which case any public fondling would be indecent and could well lead to arrest.

I feel you should avoid Tesco just to be on the safe side.

Dead

😂😂

Fortuna
It'd mean the certain loss of my job so yes, I'll steer well clear. We have Waitrose here anyway.

Anyone read the MaddAddam trilogy? I've just finished it and I really dont know what I made of it. I struggled with the first half of both books 1 and 2, didnt like the preachy sermons and hymns in book 2 and could have done without quite so many flashbacks. I loved the scenes set after the Waterless Flood and would have liked a lot more of those scenes and a bit less of the flashbacks. Of course some back story is necessary but I felt it wasnt all essential and i really wanted to know what life was like for the survivors. I think they are a solid 3/5. I'll probably read them again and maybe I'll enjoy them more on a second reading but they are a bit of a disappointment after reading The Handmaids Tale earlier this year.

Someone in a graphics department long ago was either incredibly innocent or seriously pushing their luck. That would never get published these days.

I read Oryx and Crake so many years ago, I doubt I'd be able to follow the sequel.

I vaguely recall he ended up in a tree

My worst book ever I think was Shantaram his ego was longer than the book

I didn't like Oryx and Crake but quite liked the one after it, called something to do with a flood I think. Then I vowed never to read another of hers, so I didn't read the last one.

I've read Beyond Black. Really, really hated it. Don't know why I bothered finishing it.

I've bought the Dean Koontz virus book, to see what all the fuss is about.

Now @Palegreenstars

I half agree

I loved Shantaram but when Mountain Shadow came out I bought it, and just couldn't face it

Eventually gave it away

Indigo, how funny you should mention Tove Ditlevsen - I hadn't heard of her until yesterday when I saw Vol 2 of her trilogy in an Oxfam bookshop and liked the look of it....now up it pops again! It's on my neverending tbr list now.

(Not necessarily the worst book I've read but Perfume is well up there as one of the most boring, badly-written and unconvincing)

I really enjoyed Perfume!

Oh God Perfume

Shite of the highest order.

Ooh I loved perfume you could smell everything. The ending was awesome.

Did not know there was a sequel to Shantaram tempted to hate read

I've read perfume and really can't remember the ending!

Book 18 for me Meadowland, John Lewis-Stempel

This has ended up being my third Lewis-Stempel book this year! It all started with a recommendation on this thread for his Running Hare book. I enjoyed this, it's an observational book based around one meadow. As with his other books the prose is poetic and full of interesting asides.
At one point, his mower is broken and he gets out his scythe, he then waxes lyrical for a few pages about this...this struck me as I also read Anna Karenina this year which also featured a few pages about the joys of hand mowing a field. I feel like maybe I am missing out on something in life. Maybe one for the bucket list?

Can't remember the ending, although I have very vague recollections of a fire. That might be an entirely different book though.

I read Perfume years ago - IIRC I enjoyed it but I didn't keep the book, so obviously didn't think it would warrant a re-read.

I've just bought 99%: Mass Impoverishment and How We Can End It by Mark Thomas (the economist from PA Consulting, not the comedian) on Kindle deal for £2.49. It was an FT 'best books of 2019' recommendation (same list as Extreme Economies which was excellent) and from the first 15% it looks to be an interesting read.

Also just finished
30. A Thief in the Nude by Olivia Waite
Hecuba Jones has broken into the Earl of Underwood's study, in an effort to recover four of her mother's paintings, sold off by her uncle. She's caught by the Earl's younger brother, who has a passion for art that is ridiculed by his family. Not as well developed as The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics by the same author, but enjoyable hist-rom that isn't entirely predictable.

@Squiz81 The ending was by far the shittest part your memory has done you a great service

The ending is a bit and I can see why people would hate it but I thought it was a great culmination to an odd smelly book

Just looked up the ending. Definitely an appropriately odd one, for an odd book!