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?

I have a big box downstairs : I think one is the brand new Sally Magnusson so am pleased.

Did some light reading today. A chapter of Invisible Women and a bit of Mantel. I am enjoying the Mantel. She does creeping sinister so well.

I went to school in Scotland so Tudors aren't really what we studied (well not in an unbiased way anyway re Mary QOS!) . So , I got vvvv annoyed about the spoilers from TMATL, including from mantel herself who presumes us all erudite I guess. Oh well... I'll spot the foreshadowing.

To be honest though I knew all about Henry's wives I knew nothing of Thomas Cromwell prior to the raunchy historically inaccurate hilarious "drama" The Tudors
featuring Henry bellowing OK!!!!! in an unmistakably Irish accent

Then, besides the Mantel, there is the best one hour comedy special the BBC has EVER produced in the form of Danny Dyer's Who Do You Think Are? episode. From start to finish he is priceless.

Ah yes, The Tudors and Dyer. TV Gold.

Sadik, I know I keep banging on about it, but Bad Blood by John Carreyrou was fantastic - the story of how Elizabeth Holmes got people to invest billions of dollars in her blood testing company that couldn't actually do what she said it could. It's absolutely jaw dropping. I read it, but I bet it would be great on Audible as well.

I'm a fair way through How to ChangeYour Mind by Michael Pollan, which is about psychedelic drugs and is absolutely fascinating. Might also be a good Audible option.

I've been off the thread for a while, and just caught up. I am a manager in a GP surgery, so you can just imagine what things are like for me day to day.

Reading remains a wonderful escape.

1. Marie Antoinette: An Intimate History – Melanie Clegg
2. The Hunting Party – Lucy Foley
3. Louis VI: A Life from Beginning to End - Hourly History
4. Marie Antoinette: A Life from Beginning to End - Hourly History
5. Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford
6. Seven Signs of Life: Stories From An Intensive Care Doctor – Aoife Abbey
7. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. The Princes in the Tower – Alison Weir
9. Broken Homes – Ben Aaronovitch
10. Dark Fire – CJ Sansom

11. A Little Hatred – Joe Abercrombie

Thirty years have passed since the cataclysmic finale of Abercombie’s First Law Trilogy. Past battles between neighbouring empires have ravaged the land and economy which is being rebuilt as an industrial revolution unfolds.

A new generation of characters have taken centre stage and are shaping this pseudo-medieval world which is evolving in a way that we don’t often see in fantasy genre. I particularly enjoyed how times have moved on from the original trilogy; scientific and engineering progress have given the familiar landscape and its occupants a fresh flavour.

Abercrombie excels at writing morally ambiguous characters; not a single one comes out of it smelling of roses, but neither are they wholly repulsive. The end sets up the next instalment brilliantly and weaves old characters and the threads of the first story into this new age.

58. Mad Girl by Bryony Gordon

Gordon is a journalist and this is her memoir of growing up with OCD and depression. It’s written in a light hearted way but it’s clear how much it affected her life. I did feel some bits were skipped over but I haven’t read her first book so I suspect they were covered in there. It’s not a book for giving you tips on coping, just her account of living with it. As a journalist she’s a good writer and it’s an insightful read.

59. The Reading Cure by Laura Freeman

I loved this. It’s Freeman’s story of how she recovered from anorexia using books and particularly books mentioning food. Some of the books she talks about are cookbooks and others are novels. She writes beautifully and my favourite parts were those talking about Dickens and children’s books. Recommended if you like books about books and books about food!

60. Jolly Foul Play by Robin Stevens

The fourth in the Murder Most Unladylike series that my daughter is making me read. These are set in the 1930s about a pair of teenage detectives at a boarding school. They’re actually pretty good and DD loves them. I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the previous ones in the series but it was still a good mystery.

Behind on reading as I have been trying to work and sort out my work's response to coronavirus at the same time. But wanted to hop on and say that one of my favourite books, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers is 99p on the daily deal today.

Can I join, please? I've been on MN a while but have name-changed for this thread. I'm another one who is sticking to this thread as CV has taken over everywhere else.

My list so far:

1. Wakenhyrst - Michelle Paver
2. Faces: Profiles of Dogs - Vita Sackville-West - a really lovely collection of photos of dogs with pen-portraits by VS-W.

1. Country Life - Paul O'Grady - read in a slightly drunken state over Christmas.

4. French Exit - Patrick DeWitt

1. I've Got Your Number - Sophie Kinsella
2. Hard Pushed - Leah Hazard
3. Trigger Mortis - Anthony Horowitz

8. The Man Who Died - Antti Tuomainen

1. How To Break Up With Your Phone - Catherine Price

10. Burmese Days - George Orwell 11. The Ravenmaster - Christopher Skaife 12. Old Baggage - Lissa Evans 13. Around The World In 80 Trains - Monisha Rajesh 14. The Moomins and The Great Flood - Tove Jansson 15. Size Zero - Victoire Dauxerre

It's been a stressful start to the year and I have gravitated to easier reads. I know I get more out of more challenging books but I'm a great believer in reading whatever you need to read in the moment.

Bad Blood is definitely a good call noodle but read it last year - other suggestions along those lines welcome though

@Welshwabbit

Ooo thats been on my "Want To" List for years, thanks

I'd also recommend The North Water from today's Kindle daily deal.

So my delivery yesterday was indeed the new Sally Magnusson The Ninth Child. It has a joyously beautiful cover.

Read another chilling chapter of Invisible Women. Those of you who have it might want to check the end of the first paragraph of page 201 (this is the paperback).

Welcome harlan (Are you from Pine Nut? )

I also quite enjoyed The North Water. A good read but quite...lurid.

Welsh thanks for the tip off about The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Bought.

Hi Harlan. Having read The North Water, and kind of enjoyed it, I'd say don't go there to anyone who is looking for some fluffy light relief from the current situation. If we were restricted to three word reviews mine would be: grim, with poo.

Hi Satsuki! Yes, lurid is the word for it, but it's great fun (in the style of Peaky Blinders). I think it might have been the Booker judges' nod to entertainment for that year, and it didn't make the shortlist. I kept imagining Tom Hardy as one of the characters. It also has some very evocative descriptions of Victorian Hull.

Thanks for the reminder Museum, I'd forgotten the poo!

I've downloaded The Heart is a Lonely Hunter as well, thanks Welsh. The sample was lovely.

Not much reading going on here really, unless you count trivial pursuits cards with DC2 tonight. I'm struggling with pain from a recently extracted tooth and infected abscess so my vocabulary is more anglo saxon than usual too!

I'm reading you'll never see me again by Lesley Pearse which are very undemanding.

35. The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (Audible)

Two factors here

I used my Audible credit on this because of the cast.

Ann Dowd reprises her Aunt Lydia role from the series and well known actresses Bryce Dallas Howard and Mae Whitman portray two young girls caught up in Gilead.

It's a really good AUDIOBOOK

As a novel, I am less sure. It lacks all the qualities of the predecessor in terms of the novelty of the world building, the mystery, and the constant sense of dread.
The three monologue strands when they stand alone are really absorbing - it is when they combine that it loses credulity, in the same way the series has begun to struggle with it.
It's the Voldemort problem really, eg if Voldemort was so terrifying and powerful how was he regularly outwitted by children?
So if Gilead was so rigid, terrifying and mortally punitive then how were so many people seemingly finding it easy to break rules of all sizes?

I found the final ruse unbelievable and the sudden sense of optimism ill at ease with the Gilead concept

Historical bit very annoying but it was in the first book too. Pointless droning.

3/5

Just in case a few of you haven't seen it, Audible is now streaming hundreds of Audiobooks for free (no account needed). Intended to help with home education, their selection includes plenty of literary classics and other books which may interest adults.

Thanks for the heads up FranKatzenjammer

Well done to Audible, I'll get DS on the case as he's trying to do GCSE work at home.

@Piggywaspushed - I have invisible women in hard back. Can you tell me which chapter?

Chapter 10 The Drugs Don't Work. About halfway through. Para begins because of their routine exclusion.

Hello everyone. I've fallen off the thread again as I'm really struggling to carve out reading time. I am in the middle of Half of A Yellow Sun, which is absolutely gripping.

I wish everyone well during these strange times, and I am following the recommendations avidly, as I finally have some time off in April (if it doesnt get cancelled).