50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Four

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fourth 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, the second one here and the third one here.

What are you reading?

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. (3/5) 22. The Other Us by Fiona Harper. (2/5) 23. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. (3/5) 24. The Crow Trap by Anne Cleeves. (3/5) 25. The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King. (3/5) 26. Guilt by Jussi Adler-Olsen. (3/5) 27. This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay. (4/5) 28. Just One Damn Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor. (4/5).

29. The Very First Damn Thing by Jodi Taylor. A prequel to the St Mary's series, a bit light as it's a short story but I'd have liked a bit more on the civil war and the politics of the time but a nice easy read. (3/5).

Piggy I think I saw on twitter that Adam Kay has volunteered his services to the NHS and is waiting to hear back

Ah, OK. I'll let him off, then.

I'd like him to write and excoriating book afterwards about severe shortage of PPE and underfunding, if poss.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit

It was very readable - I did finish it after all I wondered if the music was good it might have lifted it in a tv version - so much of the book was “then he played the greatest song in the world” . It reminded me of the Tenacious D song Tribute.

InMyOwnParticularIdiom if you want to be inspired and enthused by the domestication of plants, try The Living Fields by Jack Harlan (very expensive new, but generally available for a few quid on ebay / abebooks). (He was an academic plant breeder, but also an old-style enthusiast and collector, and it really comes through in his writing IMO.)

@SatsukiKusakabe

Cracking review

I read it about ten years ago when I was in my early twenties and loved every nonsensical page of it. Afterwards, I responded to many of life's problems by bemoaning my lack of a lute as a general fix-all.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie Have you read The Old Man's Birthday by Richmal Crompton? That might suit you if you're after something old fashioned, gentle and well written.

Betty

Feel free to peruse my list at www.goodreads.com/jinx_the_cat

It doesn't offer light and shade does it Satsuki

He is THE MOST INTELLIGENT CHILD EVAAHH

He is THE BEST LUTE PLAYER

He can BEST ANY TEACHER

If a teacher doesn't like him they are OBVIOUSLY WRONG and WILL BE WON OVER or STAY WRONG

He is loved by the MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL WHO EVER EXISTED

Oh I'm looking forward to the sequel now - to hyperbole hunt!

Sadik oh yes, I also loved How Green Was My Valley as a teenager as well as Alexander Cordell’s Rape of The Fair Country and Jack Jones Off To Philadelphia In The Morning.
I wonder how they bear up now.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit

Yes its big problem is the gap between the talents of the main character and the talents of the writer - it was very much “and then he did something intelligent to demonstrate his intelligence but we won’t dwell on it. He’s got to get his lute back!!”

@Nocti
If I’d have read it when I was a teenager I may very well have attempted to learn the lute and demanded to be called Kvothe

12. Standard Deviation - Katherine Heiny This has been languishing on my kindle since a 99p deal made me snap it up based on reviews from some of you - sorry I can't remember who. I seem to recall it was quite a marmite book on previous threads. I'm definitely in the 'liked it very much' camp. It made me laugh out loud on several occasions which right now, is just what I'm looking for!!

Heading back into the Cazelet Chronicles now to see what the family is up to now that WWII is on the horizon.

nowanearlyNicemum I reviewed it toward the end of last year and I was in the loved it camp. Really hope she has another one coming sometime, one of my favourites from last year.

16. Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans

Tells the story of 10 year old wartime evacuee Noel, thrown together with Vera Sedge in St Albans in the early part of WW2. They are a mismatched pair, who nonetheless discover a money making racket that leads them both into danger.

I had read Old Baggage last year and loved it - this didn't disappoint, although in many ways it's a more melancholy work. I was pleased it featured 2 characters from Old Baggage. Like that book, Lissa Evans' strength is her creation of very memorable, idiosyncratic characters. You fundamentally believe in them, and the dialogue is spot on - the kind of dialogue where you don't need any speech attribution, as you can tell exactly who is speaking. But she also creates a very memorable world: the drabness and poverty of that time, mingling with the horror of the Blitz. I would love her to write more about young Noel - I like to think of him going on to Oxford or Cambridge and finding fulfilment in an academic career, but I suspect he will always be an outsider.

satsuki have you read either of her other books - Single, Carefree, Mellow or 561 ?

Mog You've got an interesting goodreads list - a few are ones I've read.
I've just added the Hensher handwriting book to my TBR list - which as you might see is very long; I don't own all the books on it - something which I intend to resolve very soon.

I've followed you so you should be able to see me??

TheReply, Lissa Evans does have a new book about Noel - she tweeted artwork for the cover recently so think it must be imminent-ish

I'd love to add you all on Goodreads but I am paranoid about linking my (uninteresting) MN life with my (uninteresting) real life

@keith, oh great news! Wonder when it's set.

Actually, what I really fancy is a zombie book! Any such thing as a good one? Have read The Passage trilogy (2 good ones, third dreadful), Warm Bodies and World War Z and there was a series I couldn't get into - was it called Wool or something like that?

Girl With All The Gifts Remus?

23. Old Baggage by Lissa Evans

This thread is clearly on a Lissa Evans kick at the moment! Little to add to previous reviews on this - thoroughly enjoyable, with two beautifully detailed central characters in Mattie Simpkin and The Flea. Lovely writing. Satisfying conclusion. Didn't want it to end. I look forward to reading the next book about Noel.

Thanks, Eine. Read it but didn't think much of it.

I've bought Zone One by Colson Whitehead - I'm going in!

I've enjoyed reading through the thread and taking notes as to future reads. I've not read so much recently as lacked concentration and found myself getting too addicted to nonsence on my phone. I've taken that in hand over the last few days and am back reading again.

My list so far:

1. Missing by Karin Altvegen
2. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
3. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
4. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Attwood
5. To the Land of Long Lost Friends by Alexander McCall Smith
6. The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne
7. Circe by Madeline Miller
8. Girl Woman Other by Bernadine Evaristo
9. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

10. Those People by Louise Candlish 11. The Stationery Shop of Tehran by Marjan Kamali 12. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Duerr

Just finished today Tidelands by Philippa Gregory. I enjoyed this, essentially a story about how women's lives are shaped and dictated by men. Set at the end of the English Civil War it tells the story of Alinor, a poor woman who acts as midwife and herbalist to a small fishing community and is suspected of having 'the sight' as her mother did before her. One night she meets James, a Royalist spy lost in the Tidelands, and helps him to safety. There begins a relationship which alters the course of Alinor's life. I liked that there wasn't a contrived happy ending as it would have been unbelievable and that all the characters were flawed.

Next I'm going to read To Kill a Mockingbird which one of the dds had for Eng Lit and I've shockingly never read.

44. Summerland by Hannu Rajaiemi Alt-history spy novel, set in a 1938 in which the afterlife is very real, in day to day contact with the living worlds (through ecto-phones and other technology) and thoroughly colonised by the great powers of the day. SIS agent Rachel White follows a lead on a potential Soviet mole, only to find her investigation shut down, and her career sidelined.
    This was OK, but it didn't really come off for me - it's a bit of a funny mix of pastiche spy novel (featuring all the Cambridge spies) and diesel-punk alt-tech. The characters were a bit thin, and the world building wasn't really enough to carry it. Having said that, there was enough plot & interest that I read it reasonably quickly, and looking at reviews of his other books I might give them a try some time.

I finished The Sealwoman's gift last night. What can I say - 5 stars.

I have been to the places in Iceland where it was set so really identified with that part of the story and enjoyed the parts set in Algiers, particularly the women on the roof tops. It was a part of history I knew nothing about, I'd be reading the translation of the book about it if it wasn't £20 for the kindle!

And now for something completely different - Jane MacDonald's Riding the Waves. I watch her tv programmes and find her to be quite ditzy and irritating, I want to know if it's an act or if she's really like that so I'm reading her book.