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?

boiledegg I am most familiar with her Trilogy - The Walls Do Not Fall, Tribute to the Angels and The Flowering of the Rod. They are three long poems that explore some of the same themes. The first is about her experience of the blitz and is interesting as War poetry from the home point of view rather than as a soldier, the second is about her relationship to history from a wider perspective, and particularly as a woman writer, and the third is a creation myth and discusses Jesus and Mary Magdalene. They are quite prosy and can be read in small sections to get the feel.

Many thanks Satsuki.

Boiledegg thanks, I’d probably go with H.D.’s autobiographical novel, set during WW1, Bid Me to Live, it’s very much a lyrical, modernist piece, so if you like Woolf then you might find it worth reading. Also found her memoir Tribute to Freud fascinating but obviously less immediately accessible. I checked online and the current edition of the novel’s a bit expensive but I picked up a second-hand Virago copy and you might find one of those that’s more reasonably priced via Abe or somewhere similar.

Satsuki nice to have a fellow H.D. fan, and yes Ice Cold in Alex surprisingly gripping and pictured a cold mug of beer as soon as you mentioned it. Didn’t realise it was based on a novel. But have a soft spot for vintage war movies, so many excellent ones In Which We Serve, This Happy Breed, Millions Like Us.

Not sure if you have ncd young but , if you are someone well known under a different name you are beloved on teacher threads atm .

Thank you YounghillKang. I wondered about Bid Me to Live, it sounded quite interesting in Square Haunting.

Ps I also like a good vintage war film; I've just been watching Carve Her Name with Pride on Talking Pictures.

Carve Her Name with Pride is a great movie, did you see they have a similar film Odette on iplayer? Added it to my list. Sorry for segueing in films but seems it is based on book!

Didn't know that Piggy just got frustrated by how badly teachers are being bullied at the moment. Think they all have more than enough on their plates without endless harassment. Can't think of any other profession that gets treated like this.

Yes like all those old war films young. I read the -Guns of Navarone last year too. Quite enjoy seeking out the novels some of the classics are based on as they seem to fade a bit in the wake of the movies. Ice Cold stuck pretty closely to the book, the author also wrote the screenplay, and it was made within the year if it’s being written.

As for teachers, my children’s have been wonderful and have helped them feel very connected and settled

Books 53 and 54 are instalments in the YA alien-fighting series that I'm allegedly reading for DD, but secretly I'm keen to know what happens next. The Rise of Mine and The Fall of Five by Pittacus Lore. Our plucky teenagers assemble and practice their super-powers.

Book 55 is the sequel to The Last Policeman, Countdown City by Ben H Winters.. It's essentially crime fiction set in a time when the earth is about to be destroyed by an asteroid. The portrait of a society in end times is intriguing.

Thank you, appreciated both. Nearly left MN over it but wouldn't be able to chew the fat over David Copperfield!

Stay in this corner where it's safe, Piggy.

O/T

I have found the teacher bashing horrendous Piggy - there is an odd resentment to the profession on MN and I think in the last 10 years there's been a real shift from

Been In Trouble At School?

Why? What did you do?

To :

Been in trouble at school?

HOW DARE YOU TELL MY CHILD THEY AREN'T EVER SHINING AND BLAMELESS AND PERFECT

It's not good for society

I loved The Guns of Navarone so will check out Ice Cold.

I've been trying to ignore/not see the teacher bashing. It's disgusting. No wonder some kids have so little respect for teachers in school. :( I will never understand why people trying very hard to support children and help them pass exams can be such figures of hatred. Bugger em.

Piggy this is really the only sane corner of the internet. Every single time I'm inclined to click on another thread I hesitate - and every single time I do click I regret it. Crazy crazy crazy.

Thanks all

Let's not get in Active though or we will get invaded by people demanding to know why Remus and I have so much time to read so many books !

56. Odds Against by Dick Francis
    I think one DF re-read was fun nostalgia, but perhaps that was enough. I did finish this, but a bit meh about the whole thing.

57. To be Taught, if Fortunate by Becky Chambers
    Sci-fi novella set in the late 21stC, on one of a number of crowd-funded space exploration missions sent out to learn more about potentially habitable worlds. The four crew members are 'soma-formed' for each world while in induced sleep on the journey, enabling their bodies to withstand increased radiation, deal with higher gravity or cope in low temperatures. Part way through their mission, messages from earth slow then stop. I enjoyed this, it was pretty straightforward slightly old fashioned feeling sci-fi, no battles or drama, just a bunch of scientists trying to make sense of new worlds. (It's also currently 99p on kindle)

Piggy
I'm actually, weirdly, reading much less at the moment than I normally would. Wasting too much time reading the news instead.

Sadik - I found Odds Against the least engaging/gripping of my *Dick Francis re-reads to date.

30. Dishonesty is the Second Best Policy - David Mitchell - this is a collection of his Observer newspaper columns. I don’t read the Observer so they were new to me. I think I should have dipped in and out of this rather than reading straight through them (barring a Dick Francis diversion for a few hours) as I would have probably appreciated them more as they can become a bit much back to back. There were a few genuine laugh out loud moments and it’s interesting to have read them with the benefit of hindsight as some of them focus on current affairs such as the Tory leadership battle.

Onto A Farewell to Arms - yet another classic I have never read - and a lot thinner than Middlemarch (which is still looking intimidatingly at me from the bookcase).

Thank you teachers everywhere. Not a task I’d take on willingly but you do a great job.

12. Foundation (Foundation #1) by Isaac Asimov

I read and very much enjoyed this book as a teenager. Coming back to it about 30 years later, I find it a simple even shallow YA book. It's not bad but perhaps proof that SF came a long way in the last couple of decades and moved away from such 'space operas'' into a far more realistic style.

Massive admiration for teachers and love to all of you who do the job on this thread.

The teachers at Dd's London comprehensive have been amazing. She has had just the right amount of work, with lots of encouraging feedback to keep her going. A huge thank you to all the teachers on this thread

Thanks for the teacher love.

If it Bleeds by Stephen King
4 long stories/short novellas, all very typical. Nothing particularly standout and some of it felt like a rehashing of old ground. I enjoyed it but didn't love it. Unless you're a King Number One Fan, I probably wouldn't bother.

61. Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld

Well this is an odd beast

Alternate Reality History

Hillary broke it off with Bill. They never married What happened next?

For A LOT of this book it all felt a bit No Prizes For Guessing.Pedestrian.

Then, in the final third it takes some really interesting twists and does some really interesting things, only to settle for the easy ending over what could have been a mindblowingly dark one if she'd had the guts.

That said I think if you liked her thinly veiled fictionalised version of the life of Laura Bush American Wife you will also like this.

Its new out and I read it in 2 days

4/5

Oh I didn’t think someone would have read it so soon - thanks eine. I have an uneasy relationship with Sittenfeld but I did feel intrigued when I saw this was coming. I wonder why she chose to go so full on with it actually being Hillary after not being explicit with American Wife (which I did unexpectedly enjoy); seems to have opened her up to a lot of flak that she didn’t seem to get with the former.

I think you’d probably quite like Ice Cold remus