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 Stand? God, Remus, you’re brave. Lovely to see you back.

Pepe Good point! I've just reached my very favourite bit - Larry in the Lincoln Tunnel.

Good to old friends on here, in these strange times. Waves!

I’m debating whether to splash out £12 for the latest Ruth Galloway. I need a treat but £12 for a Kindle book?

PS - If a couple of you can sort the meeting schedule out, I'll send a memo to the evil dudes to ask them to get the restaurants up and running again and the pubs open.

My reading goal for tonight is to finish the last few pages of a Jack Reacher I’ve been wading through. Then when the madness of the week subsides I’m going to spend Saturday morning sitting in the sun with my phone turned off and reading properly. I say this as a way of ensuring some accountability, as my head is all over the place right now.

Larry in the tunnel is an amazing piece of writing. Just...not now .
Yes, getting the bars and restaurants up and running would be no bad thing. As long as we don’t have to endure...all the other stuff!

terpsichore so interesting. I didn’t enjoy City of Girls but love Dodie and didn’t realise she others to explore.

Hello all - haven't deliberately fallen off the thread but my goodness it's taken me along time to read this, I'mon Twitter far too much. Also there have been Other Preoccupations. Feel very lucky to still be able to go to work but frontline healthcare is tense at the moment, I get very tired.

13. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Attwood
I both loved this and would hesitate to recommend it to others. I would say the first 400 pages were a bit of an investment, but it paid off in spades, though the emotional payback is greater than the dramatic payback. I think the hardest thing is the pacing - it goes from contemporary to 30s/40s flashback rapidly, but will then spend a full chapter on a single moment or a 20 minute episode. Slightly vertigo-inducing. It's the story of two sisters brought up in Canada over the 20th century and packs a huge punch of brutality and terrible loneliness into smooth, socially acceptable scenes. As ever there is just the Attwood style, a huge Rolls Royce of fluent characterisation and elegance. Something I'll remember for a long time.

Invisible Women next, hope I can cope with it...

PermanentTemporary, we clapped hard for you and all your colleagues tonight. And will continue to lobby hard for you to get the equipment and support you need.

permanenttemporary us too. Grateful for your hard work.

Good to see you again, Remus, and thank you for your hard work, Permanently.

Finding it hard to read at the moment, what with homeschooling and certain preoccupations.

26. The Falls by Ian Rankin
Re-read of a Rebus novel, and it’s a good one; ensemble of police officers particularly well-written; one absolutely enormous coincidence to make the plot work.

27. Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay
Memoir by well-known poet, focusing on her quest for identity, as a black Scottish woman; her relationship with her lovely adoptive parents; her search for her birth parents. Style is, surprisingly, at times a little too simple, almost pedestrian; but cumulatively moving.

Much clapping on our street, and many thanks to everyone in the NHS.

I have tried and failed at least half a dozen times with The Blind Assassin.

36. The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (Audible)

So I have a "nice" copy of Huck Finn on TBR and I felt like I had to read Tom Sawyer beforehand because I am anal that way.

The Audiobook narrator was Nick Offerman from Parks & Rec who I love, so SOLD

It's problematic, considering its very high level, admittedly accurate to the era, racism. Made me very uncomfortable on occasion

Ultimately, I'd summarise as :

A Male Green Gables with Some Witty Description but ultimately a bit dry.

I am still going to read Huck Finn but I am maybe less enthused than I was...

Satsuki I think The Town in Bloom worth a try - it's on Kindle now, I discover. It's definitely an oddity...it starts out like a lovely, cuddly escapist fluffy read about larks with theatre girls in the 1920s and then gets much more racy, then much more melancholy.

20. The Butchering Art - Lindsey Fitzharris

Biography of Joseph Lister, focusing on the transformation of Victorian surgery from grisly, unhygienic agony to a systematic process based on antiseptic principles. This is a very clearly written, flowing account that reads as smoothly as a novel, although (probably as a result) it was a little light on the science of microbes if that's what you're looking for.

What most impressed me was Lister's strength of character and belief in the efficacy of his antiseptic system, which led him on an almost evangelical mission as far as the USA to spread the word. Without this sense of purpose, his findings could have fallen by the wayside just like those of previous medics like Alexander Gordon or Ignaz Semmelweis who had already gone part way down the route of increased hygiene, but had been shouted down decisively by their colleagues. Strongly recommended if you like medical history.

19. Bring Me Back by B.A. Paris. A thriller in the style of Gone Girl, this didn't do a lot for me. And I guessed the twist, so it must have been pretty easy to spot as I'm rubbish at that!

Here's a for PermanentTemporary

I liked The Butchering Art a lot. The Knife Man has similar vibes.

13. A Mother’s Reckoning – Living in the Aftermath of the Columbine Tragedy – Sue Klebold

On April 20th 1999, senior year students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High school and killed 12 students and a teacher, wounded 24 others, and then took their own lives.

Dylan’s mother writes about her grief at losing her child, her anger and bewilderment at what he did and endlessly puzzles over why. She desperately wants readers to see her son as a human being and not write him off as a monster, but neither does she minimise his actions. The description of the massacre is very factual and has no gory details; it reads like a police report.

Throughout the book she goes to great lengths to describe her good parenting and all the rules her sons were expected to follow, how they were a decent, middle class family. Writing sixteen years after the massacre it is clear Klebold is still processing her grief and has unrealistic ideas about what she could have done differently to prevent her son’s behaviour (like regularly searching his room and reading his journals).

The book is about her experiences; it can seem a bit self-centred at times and I felt as though she wrote it mostly for her own healing. However, these are not necessarily criticisms; it was very honest.

This was a moving read that I did not want to put down, and could not stop thinking about.

I thought Sue Klebold came across as a genuinely nice woman, Mog. She has been through every mother's worst nightmare

Thanks terpsichore have got it

It’s amazing the knowledge we take for granted that were new discoveries, but hygiene is always the most mind-boggling to me.

The blind assassin was one of my favourite reads this year, it's a puzzle of a book that all comes together at the end.

Dear 50 Book Gang,

Is there a non fiction book I can read that addresses the following scenario?

A while ago, in former times, I worked with a man who I found it difficult, even oppressive, to be in the same room as. On the surface he seemed quite ordinary, he made remarks I found inappropriate at times, but nothing sinister. Eventually, I mentioned his remarks to another male colleague and we ended up having a longer conversation about this man, and how we both felt, based on very little, that he wasn't "right" The colleague had previously been in a profession were instinct plays a huge part, and his OH still was, and he had asked his OH and she had said the same based on his description.

I have now met a woman recently that I feel the same way about. She doesn't DO anything specific to make me uncomfortable, but her mere presence in my vicinity sets me on edge. And I don't know why.

I realise its some kind of instinctive thing, that may not have a name, but I just wondered how there must be a book about this phenomenon

Thoughts? 🤔

Thanks Remus, I think I bought The Butchering Art on your recommendation in the first place. Will look out for The Knife Man.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit there was a popular psychology book a few years ago called The Gift of Fear and that I think went into the way human instinct functions to protect us, and had a few different scenarios with situations that could be ordinary except they didn’t feel right. Maybe have a look I’m not sure if it’s quite what you want.

I had a situation once with a man I used to pass in the park often on my commute. One time it was quieter than usual and he suddenly lunged towards me as he was passing and verbally harassed me. It was fine and I managed to get away but I always trust my instincts now instead of shaking them off. It’s an odd thing though.

Satsuki

Yes! The Gift Of Fear was the book I was thinking of and couldn't remember the name.

Thank you x