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?

@SatsukiKusakabe

It's definitely flawed in that regard, there were moments I just didn't buy/like I don't want to spoilery but they amount to frustrations around the portrayal of her attractiveness to men or lack thereof. I felt it lacked imagination there.

I know what you mean about Sittenfeld though

American Wife is brilliant
Prep was a chore, boring with unlikeable characters
and
Man Of My Dreams is so bad, I didn't finish, and tossed it

I quite enjoyed Prep as I quite liked the fact she went for passive, unlikable narrator but I know a lot of people didn’t get on with it. And it did get dull in places. DNF her others. Tried Eligible but thought it was awful and only got couple of chapters in. Liked some of her short stories though.

I will read Rodham though will wait for price to come down.

Siitenfeld did the only readable Austen update - muted praise as it was a pointless initiative, but kudos for having Mary endlessly do online Masters degrees. I felt a qualm of fellow feeling.

Gerald Durrell's Corfu trilogy on Kindle daily deal, btw...

biblio I am too attached to the original to have really given it a chance. I did think some of the ideas were funny I just couldn’t bring myself to read them.

Reflecting on Sittenfeld, I can’t think of another writer whose books are so varied in tone/style/approach and quality. Eligible was funny but pointless froth. American Wife I thought was outstanding, and I recommend it to lots of people. I remember nothing of Prep apart from being surprised it was nothing like AW. Was there one about twins or sisters or something? I could be misremembering that.

The only reasonable Austen rewrite is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies imo. 😁

I understand the feeling, Satsuki.. I found it was better if I thought of it as "inspired by" rather than a rewrite. Didn't help with the other Austen rewrites, none of which I finished.

Yes I find her interesting because she’s not really comparable to any other writers. She said this Clinton thing was kind of accidental as she hadn’t intended another First Lady book. No one wants insights into the Trump marriage so imagine she’ll stop there.

I think I read the first sexual reference and, like a good Janeite, retired to my room above stairs with my smelling salts as if I’d received dreadful news from Meryton.

Admirable decorum, Satsuki.

39: Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer

50-Bookers' favourite JK tells the melancholy tale of Chris McCandless, a 24-year-old from Washington, who grew up as a bright and self-willed youngster with a loathing of authority. Although seemingly able to succeed at just about anything he turned his hand to, McCandless cherished a dream of dropping off the grid and surviving by his own efforts on the road. After leaving college, he did just that, failing to contact his family (though, to be fair, I believe his sister later claimed that in childhood they'd been abused by their parents - if true, that certainly explains some things). A couple of years later, his emaciated corpse was discovered in the Alaskan bush, where he'd been attempting to live in the wild, shooting game and gathering berries and plants to eat.

This was absorbing to read but left me very much in two minds - I felt that Krakauer was a bit too keen to portray McCandless as a tragic victim of fate, with noble aspirations to achieve harmony with creation and so forth....given that a film adaptation followed, this view of him as a wise-beyond-his-years Thoreau-like child of nature clearly has its appeal.

I'm afraid my own pedestrian instincts are to feel that anyone who ventures into very risky terrain without even a map, wearing ridiculously inadequate clothing and carrying minimal food supplies is rather foolhardy, to put it mildly. This also seems to be the view of most of the local Alaskans who actually live in the area - but maybe I'm just an unromantic dullard with no sense of adventure. Anyway, still an enjoyable, if frustrating, read.

Satsuki 😁😁😁😁

Terpsi - have you read the one about the hermit, which I've currently forgotten the name of but can check later?! I think overall I preferred it to Into the Wild although I liked that too. The hermit guy comes across quite well, not stupid or noble, just a guy trying to get by in the world in the way that seems right for him.

The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel

terpsichore I only watched the film but had the same opinion as you really, still it was sad for a young man to do what he did, it was harrowing to watch play out. I think there was a desire to find meaning and beauty in something which was really such an unnecessary waste of life.

Stranger in the Woods is 99p on Kindle 👀. He is also called Christopher.

Ah interesting - I haven't read Stranger in the Woods. I'll check it out, thanks all. Yes, it was deeply sad that Chris McCandless died so needlessly, and I found it hard to square his (undoubted) intelligence and resourcefulness with his seeming inability to accept the need to plan and take advice. It was frustrating reading the accounts of people who met him, offered help, and had it smilingly rejected - or worse, accepted, and then it was later discovered that he'd thrown away or destroyed whatever it was they'd given him. He seemed to be a fatal mixture of maturity, utter naivety and arrogance.

There's another Jon Krakauer on my wish list - Under the Banner of Heaven, about a pair of (truly gruesome) murders by two Mormon brothers who claimed to have been acting on a 'revelation from God'. But I think it might be too enraging to read...

@PepeLePew

It was Sisterland which I've not read. I've also steered completely clear of the Austen rewrites.

Just in case anyone hasn't seen on the main WWR page, Hay Festival is online this year and free but you need to reserve your space for sessions.

www.hayfestival.com/home

Lots of authors we like are there and one or two we love to hate...

The full birthday book haul is in

(Mostly requested, but the History of Crete is the obligatory wildcard thrown in by my
mum)

Lovely book swag. Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday what’s the Persephone title?

Ooooh, you got Hamnet ! Enjoy!