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?

The Passage is on Kindle Daily Deal - up there as my No 2 Post Apocalyptic (after The Stand).

Apologies if this has already been posted but I thought it was fun and might be enjoyed here. And it's from Penguin so must be good!

www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2020/mar/what-the-amount-of-books-you-read-a-month-says-about-you

I, like many of us I expect, am the unstoppable reading machine.

Me too betty. As you say I think many on here will be in that category.

1. Pet Semetary by Stephen King (2/5)
2. The Outsider by Albert Camus (5/5)
3. Somebody's Mother, Somebody's Daughter by Carol Ann Lee (3/5)
4. Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor. (4/5)
5. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. (5/5)
6. 4321 by Paul Auster. (4/5)
7. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann. (3/5)
8. The Devil's Teardrop by Jeffrey Deaver. (1/5)
9. A Symphony of Echoes by Jodi Taylor. (3/5)

10. What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge. (4/5) 11. A Second Chance by Jodi Taylor. (4/5) 12. A Trail Through Time by Jodi Taylor. (4/5) 13. Elevator Pitch by Linwood Barclay. (1/5) 14. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. (3/5) 15. The Talisman by Stephen King & Peter Straub. (2/5) 16. Ayoade on Top by Richard Ayoade. (3/5) 17. Black Ice by Michael Connelly. (2/5) 18. In the Woods by Tana French. (3/5) 19. The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. (3/5) 20. Red Ribbons by Louise Phillips. (1/5)

21. The Girl He Used to Know by Tracy Garvis Graves. I don't read much 'chick-lit' but with everything that's going on at the moment I just wanted to read something nice and not too challenging or anything depressing. This fit the bill perfectly, the main character reminded me a little of Eleanor Oliphant in the way she journeys from a solitary life to a life filled with love and friendship. There was the obligatory issue to overcome with the romance but all in all it was just what I needed. (3/5)

Loving all the Jodi Taylors in that list.

I feel like I am going slowly but have now finished *All The Lives We Never Lived8 by the very underrated Anuradha Roy. There doesn't seem to be much profile for her in the UK.

It's a really well written book about India in the 20s - 40s and part based on a few real lives.

I really liked the first 2/3 which have a child's eye point of view and misunderstandings of an adult world. The book lost momentum when Roy changes voice and includes letters from Myshkin's vanished mother and then picked up again. It's a wistful book. It lacks the humour and vivacity of A Suitable Boy and the beauty and melodrama of that other Roy, Arundhati. But a good, quality read. Interesting perspectives on women and the lives they are forced to lead, hence, in part, the title..

Didn't Arundhati Roy win The Booker Prize?

I've read that one, and now can't remember a single thing bar the title The God Of Small Things

Sorry total misread of your post

Completely different writer

This is the sort of error I absolutely shrivel inside about for days

Museum the Solnit sounds really interesting; I've put it on my wish list. I enjoyed a small book work entitled something like Men Explain Things To Me, especially the eponymous essay; highly amusing and reminded me of quite a few of dh's friends and his step-father.

I’m hitting a reading wall. So many books and I can’t focus on any of them. I’m enjoying Wolf Hall but it isn’t pulling me back to it, so I’m spending far too much time refreshing Twitter and fretting.
Any recommendations for something frothy and escapist? I’m thinking along the lines of Big Little Lies or Crazy Rich Asians. Something totally absorbing with not a single reference to pandemics...

If you are willing to go YA Pepe, I got quite obsessed with Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell when I read it

Willing to go anywhere that helps me forget the current situation! And I appear to own a copy on my kindle, so that is a win. Thank you!

I'm not reading TMATL either, but like you Pepe I feel quite distracted by what's going on in real life and have spent far too much time watching or listening to the news over the last few days. I'm hoping to escape back into Wolf Hall this weekend.

Any suggestions for what I should use my Audible credit on this month?

Must be an engaging voice.

Eine I'm currently listening to Bel Canto and I think it is very well read.

Oh I LOVED Bel Canto read it though - excellent shout

It's an even worse crime eine because God of Small Things is one of my favourite books!

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit

I don’t know if it’s your thing at all but I’m currently listening to Wild and Crazy Guys about all the SNL/improv alumni who went on to dominate comedy and movies in the 80s - Ackroyd, Murray, Martin, Murphy, Belushi, Chase, Candy etcetera. I’m finding it pure sex (not so much) drugs (quite a bit) and rock roll (well, comedy) escapism and just the ticket for the present awful restless moment. It’s read by Curtis Armstrong the actor so has plenty of authentic zing.

In my defence the moons that have past since I read it are many.

I work with youngsters and feel like I'm turning into Grizabella.

One had never heard of Annie Lennox, another Mary J Blige 😱

None of them have read anything

Satsuki

Whilst not something I'd generally go for, your description has piqued my interest

That's what's great about this thread, really expands your horizons outside your usual comfort zone

I do famous people's birthdays every day : they did not recognise George Michael!! these are 14 year olds...

12. The Lost Properties of Love by Sophie Ratcliffe I'm very slowly ploughing through a different big book, and this was a short step out into something easier. It's very good. But I'm left a little bit 'so what' by it. And that's not fair because it has really unsettled me. Sophie Ratcliffe writes about her father's death when she was 13 and the rest of her subsequent loves, interleaved with reflections on Anna Karenina. I don't know the author at all but I believe we have a mutual friend, and I found the shocking intimacy of this book really put me on edge. I feel like I know too much about things that nobody should know. I've written lots myself since my own bereavement, and the nature of that bereavement means that some friends have suggested I should try and submit my stuff to an agent. I was pretty uncertain about that and reading this has made me absolutely certain I was right to be cautious. Writers are brave. They expose themselves in public and Sophie Ratcliffe has certainly done that.

I'm reading a gentle read - If Clouds Were Sheep: A tale of sheep farming in the Cotswolds it's good but annoyingly one chapter can't be read as it crashes my kindle. Luckily it was a free kindle unlimited book so I've not wasted the money.

This week I finished listening to
8. March by Geraldine Brooks
and I thought it was awfully good.
Brooks imagines the life of Mr March running parallel to the events of Little Women as he writes home to Marmee and the girls while serving as an army chaplain. The novel opens with a battle scene but this isn't typical of the book as a whole which is more about slavery and it's abolition. There are flashbacks as March remembers key events from when he was a young man, how he met Marmee and their family life together.
March is a very principled man but also very naive about the complexities of life for blacks (whether slaves, servants, free men, children), and seeing the world through his eyes is brilliant for innocent readers like me who are also ignorant of what life was like at the time and learning as we go along. I felt that the complexities of March's emotions were well conveyed as he understands more, experiences tragedy and has to figure out how to keep going while feeling shame, embarassment, grief and, in my interpretation, suffering from PTSD.
I listened to this straight after completing the Little Women series and the connections to the original book are cleverly done...I more than once gasped aloud with an "ah, so that's why...." or "oh, we've reached the bit where..." as events intersected, and I loved that. I enjoyed reading about the characters in this book, but for a fan Little Women it's tricky to think about March and Marmee as the same people Alcott introduced us to. Brooks has created them entirely consistently with things we knew (Marmee has a temper, just as she revealed to Jo, for example) and it feels well done, but with Alcott we view them as steady, reliable parents where Brooks shows us that they are rounded, flawed individuals with a relationship based on love but also with it's misunderstandings and disappointments. And having seen them as parent figures, I found the description of their first 'union' a bit icky!
This is a novel that gave me lots to think about, but not a difficult read. I enjoy learning about history through fiction. Brooks based aspects of the book on the real life and letters of Louisa May Alcott's father which adds another element to it.
As a fan of Little Women, I wonder if this has removed a bit of it's innocence and tainted it for me. Hopefully not, in time I'd like to enjoy it as a comfort read again, but I'll be thinking about March for a while.