50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Five

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fifth 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, it's not too late to join, 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, the third one here and the fourth one here.

How're you getting on so far?

Paul Rudd is worth catching in some of the lower key indie movies he’s done, he’s a really fine actor with good material and a story with some heart rather than as part of an ensemble in the broader stuff. He was great in that Netflix series Living With Yourself where he played two parts. I also loved him as Ant-Man but I know not everyone cares for Marvel. And if I was Juliet I’d have ducked out of the whole suicide pact thing with DiCaprio if the “consolation prize” was Paul Rudd’s Paris. I’ve possibly said enough about him now

31 Our Dark Secret Jenny Quintana Although this is marketed as a psychological thriller I feel a coming of age story is a better description as I didn't find it at all thrilling. Set in the 1970s and told in the first person , the protagonist is an awkward, bullied teenage girl struggling with a family breakup. She develops a crush on a girl who moves into the area and gets caught up in tragic circumstances. I found this dull and plodding and the reveal not very exciting.

Agree CluelessMama, Holes was the second book I read this year, on a whim because it was in the classroom, it blew me away. I love the way the ending makes perfect sense of all that's gone before.

11. Broken Angels (Takeshi Kovacs #2) by Richard Morgan

This is the sequel to Altered Carbon which I had read about 15 years ago and completely forgotten. It was funny to see that I remembered literally nothing about it, so this was more like a first-time read than a reread.

Takeshi is now 'resleeved' and deployed to another world with ongoing war, where he is hired to help find an alien artefact that was discovered some time ago. Of course, he is not the only one trying to do this and things get messy.

I like Richard Morgan's writing style and I like the world he has created where death of the body ("sleeve") doesn't mean 'real death' and consciousness is downloaded to any available body that you can afford. This is not the best SF story I have ever come across, but I enjoyed it and will recommend it on the strength of that premise and the author's excellent world building ability.

Ooh yes - Spaceman Paul in the R&J film is one of the best things in it. That smile!

Ooh my kids both loved Holes and i've never considered reading it myself. Sounds well worth a read.

I did Mansfield Park for A Level too and also hated it but might try re-reading. Be interesting to see how much I have changed as a reader since I was 17.

Prediction : You will still hate Mansfield Park

Keith
Holes is great. The film is really good too.

33. Darkmans by Nicola Barker A motley (deliberate choice of word, as jesters are involved) cast of characters in modern day Kent interact with each other in a wryly amusing kind of way, as a series of bizarre and unsettling events either happen to them, or manifest in their behaviour. These events all hint at something going on which connects them to the past and their cultural roots. Enjoyable use of language, and quite a few genuinely funny and / or uncomfortable moments. However, a series of events told over 800ish pages is not a plot. I thought the book was moving some kind of tying together at the end, but just pages from the end, after many hours of reading, one of the less likeable characters popped up to tell me that it doesn't work like that. Oh well, it could have done, other books manage it you know. I did quite enjoy the journey, but am so disappointed by the lack of resolution.

Reading something more conventional and shorter now.

Bringing my list over:

1. On the up by Alice O'Keeffe*
2. Dark Matter by Michelle Paver
3. To throw away unopened by Viv Albertine*
4. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
5. Unrest by Michelle Harrison
6. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgernstern
7. Under the Skin by Michel Faber
8. Reading Allowed by Chris Paling
9. Another Planet by Tracey Thorn*

10. Rosie by Rose Tremain* 11. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi 12. Bearmouth by Liz Hyder* 13. Big Sky by Kate Atkinson* 14. The Years by Annie Ernoux 15. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo.* 16. Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert 17. Trust Exercise by Susan Choi 18. White Nights by Ann Cleaves 19. The Lie by Helen Dunmore

In the middle of The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, but I am not sure if I will finish it. I loved Once upon a river, but this one is just too Gothic for me so far. Just not really caring about anyone in it at all.

Yes I loved Holes, it’s a great story and very clever too.

Fortuna and Terpsichore thanks for letting me know about A Girl.... I’ll have a look. I’m ok with graphic but I do have some topics I avoid so good to know this.

Book 30
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Much reviewed on here already. I’ve just devoured it in 24 hours and it has left my mind whirling.

A really powerful and quite brilliant book about the imagined limbo state (bardo) of Abraham Lincoln’s recently deceased son, Willie.

The story is told in turns by the souls accompanying Willie in the bardo, as he and his father experience loss and separation. Emotional but not harrowing and actually I found it strangely uplifting somehow. Would definitely recommend.

I read it in hours as well Ella loved it

My teens loved Holes when they read it. I should get it off the shelf.

I’m an Austen agnostic. I have no love for P&P but enjoyed the others. Not enough to go back to them although I re-read Mansfield Park by accident thinking I’d never read it.

And Ella, I keep meaning to say I went to primary school for two years very close to where I guess you must be from/live. I have such happy memories of those two years.

Meanwhile, several additions to my list. Reading is slowly getting easier though I have made my peace with the fact I’m not going to finish Ulysses in lockdown. As my books 41-43 show I have massively lowered my expectations .

40 The Journal of a Disappointed Man by WNP Barbellion
I planned to read this before the recent Backlisted episode but didn’t manage it. These are the journals of an Edwardian naturalist who contracts MS. They start when he is 13 and have a certain Adrian Mole character to them before developing into something beautiful and nuanced. The writing is perfect and precise and the natural world and the frustration of chronic illness are described wonderfully. This is sad and funny and well worth it.

41 Excitements at the Chalet School by Elinor M Brent-Dyer
42 The Chalet School and Barbara by Elinor M Brent-Dyer
43 The Coming of Age of the Chalet School by Elinor M Brent-Dyer
All indistinguishable from any other Chalet School books. The Middles get up to pranks, everyone troughs coffee and cream cake, Mary Lou creates innumerable sensations, Joey is unbearable in all ways and no one notices apart from the horrified reader
, they all look trim in their weird uniforms, eat cake with feather beds of whipped cream, and there is some godawful entertainment described in excruciating detail. And close brushes with Alpine death and lots of completely unnecessary adverbs (“told her austerely” when it is nothing of the sort). Loved them all.

Oooh intriguing Pepe I’m wondering which school that would be!

Am now starting Ottessa Moshfegh’s book of short stories. Pot luck library choice.

St Andrews.
My grandmother lived in Anlaby and I lived with her when I was seven for a couple of years as my mum was ill.

Just catching up on the thread. @HarlanWillYouStopNamingNuts have you read Hugh Kingsmill’s parody of A E Housman?

“What - still alive at twenty-two,
A clean, upstanding chap like you?
Sure, if your throat is hard to slit,
Slit your girl's, and swing for it.

Like enough you won't be glad,
When they come to hang you, lad:
But bacon's not the only thing
That's cured by hanging from a string.

So, when the spilt ink of the night
Spreads o'er the blotting-pad of light,
Lads whose job is still to do
Shall whet their knives, and think of you.”

I’m currently reading ‘Housman Country: Into the Heart of England’ by Peter Parker about his life, poetry and impact on English culture. Very interesting so far!

Aha! A fellow inhabitant of white telephone box country!

68. Emily Suvada - This Mortal Coil

Interesting concept about a world where a virus can infect the tech that's now located inside people's DNA. It's a YA book so I am a lot little older than the target audience, some of the tech speak passed me by a bit, but thankfully I didn't need to fully understand it to grasp the premise. It's part 1 of 3 but my library app annoyingly only has books 1 and 3 (I didn't realise this beforehand!), they do have a hard copy of book 2 but obviously I can't get to it yet

33. Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott

The town of Rotherweird has been essentially an independent part of England since Elizabethan times, and all are prohibited from studying the town or it’s history. Most outsiders are also banned from staying in the town overnight.
The book starts with a new history teacher (only history after 1800, mind) and a man with immense wealth moving into the town. And, unsurprisingly, hidden secrets start to emerge.

This was an enjoyable and interesting read, if a bit odd in places. There’s a sequel which I’ll get at some point, but I think this works well as a self contained story.

34. The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

3 decomposing corpses and a suicide note are found in the kitchen of a massive worth a fortune house in Chelsea. Upstairs is a baby in a cot, well fed and cared for. Who’s been looking after the baby, and where did they go?

This was one of those thriller / suspense books that ends up being not all that thrillery and more of a let’s see if I can guess the twist sort of book. It’s ok.

35. First Term at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton

A cosy comfort re-read.

36. Night Film by Marisha Pessl

The body of Ashley Cordova, daughter of notorious film-maker Stanislas Cordova, is found in a Manhattan Warehouse. It’s ruled a suicide, but investigative journalist Scott McGrath isn’t so sure. He just about destroyed his career the last time he looked into the Cordova dynasty, but that’s not putting him off.
It’s an engrossing read. Creepy in places.

37. Second Form at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton

38. Third Year at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton

More enjoyable boarding school re-reads.

Museum - I've had Darkmans on my Kindle Wish List for years and its price has indeed been low for a long time but I haven't bought it because it looks like a book that will really annoy me. Your review has now affirmed that perception and I deleted it. Thank you.

Never Let Me Go is today's Kindle Deal. I'm not recommending it ~~because it was crap~~ but no doubt some here will want to read it. I hope so anyway, because I'm looking forward to the 105th installment of the never-ending, epic NLMG battle that will rage here after their reviews are posted

Yay, NLMG argument time!

If you haven't read it, I think it is well worth your £1.19

It's such fun! NLMG and Station 11 bunfights never fail to disappoint.