50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Six

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the sixth 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, the fourth one here and the fifth one here.

So, we're now almost half way through the year - how's the first half of the year gone for you, reading-wise?

Not quite a member of the 44 club yet:

40. Dark Age by James Wilde Second in the series telling the story of the rise of the legend of Arthur, it follows the story of Lucanus who has been crowned the Pendragon, who will lead the people to safety after the withdrawal of Rome and invasion by Barbarians. The druid Myrddin has prophesied that the bloodline of Lucanus' wife Catia's family will produce the 'Bear King', also known as the King Who Will Not Die. Catia is pregnant, but so is her estranged mother. It's quite fast paced, lots of battle descriptions, and I did spend some time not entirely sure what was going on, but decent enough read. I will probably read the next one in the series, but not straight away.

Now reading The Alice Network on Kindle, The Thirteenth Tale on Audible, Rise up Women by Diane Atkinson about the lifes of the Suffragettes as my paperback, and almost at the finish line of David Copperfield for the Read-a-thon.
I am at max books on the go at the moment

46. Findings by Kathleen Jamie Lovely, thoughtful but not very substantial short nature book, musing on her wanderings around Scotland. Not sure if I'd enjoy these books so much if I wasn't familiar with the territory. I did learn something from this almost in real time, as it helped me identify two seals I'd just seen on rocks as common seals, as they were curled up at both ends like bananas. I'd assumed they'd be grey seals, which are much commoner than common seals round here. Shortly after seeing them I got rained off my walk and sat in a bus shelter reading a chapter of this on my phone, where she just happens to encounter seals and makes this observation. Maybe I should write some wafty contemplations about spending half an hour siting in the rain with wet feet in a bus shelter just outside the next town along reading a chapter of a Kathleen Jamie book.

@MuseumOfHam

46. Findings by Kathleen Jamie Lovely, thoughtful but not very substantial short nature book, musing on her wanderings around Scotland. Not sure if I'd enjoy these books so much if I wasn't familiar with the territory. I did learn something from this almost in real time, as it helped me identify two seals I'd just seen on rocks as common seals, as they were curled up at both ends like bananas. I'd assumed they'd be grey seals, which are much commoner than common seals round here. Shortly after seeing them I got rained off my walk and sat in a bus shelter reading a chapter of this on my phone, where she just happens to encounter seals and makes this observation. Maybe I should write some wafty contemplations about spending half an hour siting in the rain with wet feet in a bus shelter just outside the next town along reading a chapter of a Kathleen Jamie book.

@MuseumofHam shall we just call you Robert?

Not Robert's biggest fan blackpoe, I was more thinking to emulate KJ herself. [Grin]

I'm not a big Robert McF fan either, I love the idea of his books but the reality doesn't work for me.

I"m fascinated by the people with four/five books on the go. I usually have two: One physical or kindle and one audiobook. I don't think I could do five I don't think.

But I can follow five tv series so maybe I'm missing a trick?

Yikes! Too many 'I don't thinks'

But my question remains the same - does it not 'dilute' the all absorbing nature of a good book, if you are juggling five at a time? How do you pick which one to read? I think I'd try to do five but then if found I had a favourite, it would be very difficult to put that down in favour of any of the others....

@SlightyJaded

I am usually a one book/one audiobook person, but this has changed over the weeks.

I'm currently reading a Sciencey type book and I'm doing that at a rate of about 50 pages a go. Very tiny writing, lot to think about.

My audiobook is historical, very dense too. So I'm adding in lots of shorter things to give myself a break.

My absolute limit is one fiction, one non-fiction on the go at once. They generally seem to occupy different bits of my headspace. But on the whole it's just one at a time for me.

SlightlyJaded I usually have two books on the go at the same time, usually one of them is fiction and the other one not. This seems to work for me.

Here's my list which I'm bringing over from the last thread rather belatedly. On the topic of which books I pick as my standouts, I go with my gut and pick the ones that have given me the best overall reading experience. Not very scientific, but I know when I know.

1. Anatomy of a Scandal – Sarah Vaughan
2. Childhood: The Copenhagen Trilogy 1 – Tove Ditlevsen
3. Persepolis – Marjane Satrapi
4. Animal Farm – George Orwell
5. Hazards of Time Travel – Joyce Carol Oates
6. Ghost Wall – Sarah Moss
7. Florida – Lauren Groff
8. This is Pleasure –Mary Gaitskill
9. Only Killers and Thieves – Paul Howarth
10. Milkman – Anna Burns
11. Ladder of Years – Anne Tyler
12. Youth: The Copenhagen Trilogy 2 – Tove Ditlevsen
13. Motherwell – Deborah Orr
14. The Nickel Boys – Colson Whitehead
15. The Five – Haillie Rubenhold
16. Slack-Tide – Elanor Dymot
17. Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel
18. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
19. A Thousand Moons – Sebastian Barry
20. The Garden of Evening Mists – Tan Twan Eng
21. Down and Out in Paris and London – George Orwell
22. Trust Exercise – Susan Choi
23. Amnesty – Aravind Adiga
24. Hurricane Season – Fernanda Melchor
25. The Gathering – Anne Enright
26. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
27. Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys – Viv Albertine
28. Lost Children Archive – Valeria Luiselli
29. Slouching Towards Bethlehem – Joan Didion
30. Dependency: The Copenhagen Trilogy 3 – Tove Ditlevsen
31. On Chapel Sands – Laura Cumming

32. Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami

The first book Murakami book I have read. I probably wouldn’t have picked this to read myself, but it was selected for my reading group.

Although this was a quick and easy to read, I found the storyline and characters uninspiring. The book focuses on a series of relationships experienced by the first person narrator Toru, a nineteen year old student in Tokyo, principally with Naoko the girlfriend of his childhood best friend and with Midori, a fellow University Student.

I had the same problem with this book as I have with the novels of Sally Rooney. As a middle aged woman, I know I am not the target audience for a book focused on the challenges of burgeoning adulthood and young love. This means I'm probably a bit impatient with the characters, and tend to find them introspective to the point of being self-obsessed.

I found the female characterisation in this book problematic. Naoko is incredibly beautiful but emotionally fragile, Midori is an incredibly beautiful, outgoing, unpredictable wild child and Hatsumi, the girlfriend of another male friend, is incredibly beautiful, wise, intelligent, but emotionally fragile…you get the idea.

Those familiar with this book may say, what about Reiko? Fair enough, she’s middle aged and not incredibly beautiful. Sadly, like all the other female characters in the book, she functions only as a cypher for Toru; it becomes clear that her purpose in the book is to help him to mature and work out his complicated feelings about the other women in his life. Unfortunately, I found this a rather two dimensional read.

@Indigosalt

I LOVED Norwegian Wood but I read it when I was 18 or 19, now pushing 40 I wonder whether I would feel the same.

A friend of mine pointed out a trend in books in general recently for "mysterious beguiling girls" to all have red hair. Since he said it, I notice it all the time. So I know what you mean about the "beautiful girls" trope

Our book club has just selected Norwegian Wood so I am about to start. I did wonder if I would find the 'youth' of it irritating, but I'm going in with an open mind. Will report back.

Murakami is obsessed with emotionally fragile beautiful female characters. I really enjoyed his books when I was younger but find them to annoying now.

Eine yes, I imagine younger me would have liked this more.

SlightlyJaded please do report back on your thoughts!

Palegreen based on Norwegian Wood I doubt I'll try any others. Not a bad book, just not for me.

I love Norwegian Wood and Murakami was a favourite writer, but read it in my early 20s.

I was less enamoured with Sputnik Sweetheart recently as got a little tired of the standard Murakami themes there, he writes women terribly in the sense they are always ethereal and dream-like and sexually completely switched off.

Having said that, he creates such a mysterious atmosphere in his novels and writes so beautifully about music and food and strangeness that I always go back for more.

"I far prefer Shardlake to Mantel, largely because I think Sansom is just trying to tell a good story without pissing around."

I'm with you, Remus.

Also, Samson can and does express himself in English, with correct grammar and punctuation

He does but his archaic use of for annoys me.

As in I was annoyed with my DH for he was late. It grates and I don't really know why.

55. East of Hounslow by Khurrum Rahman.

This is the story of Jay Qasim, spoilt mummy's boy and low level drug dealer who coasts through life on a certain amount of charm. Things change for Jay when he gets into a spot of trouble and is drafted into MI5 for an undercover role.

This isn't my kind of book at all but I actually did enjoy it. There was some insight into the reasons that some people are radicalised but I felt it was a bit light on that side of things. This is the first in a series and I would read the next one (3/5)

Cote - precisely.

Piggy - never really noticed that.

I struggle with the idea of comparing Mantel and Sansom just because they have a similar setting; to me they are doing such different things. One is illuminating a period via a 2000 page character study and the other is writing Columbo in a doublet satisfying detective stories.

I really enjoy both In fact this has made me want to proceed with part 2 of Mirror and the Light perhaps with a Shardlake chaser.

I love that usage of 'for', David Attenborough uses it all the time in his writing eg 'the male waves his fancy tail feathers about, for it is his task to attract the female' etc

(That might not an actual quote.)

Forgot to say, I also enjoyed your review of Girl, Woman, Other keith, it gave a really good sense of it.

I think, to be pedantic, that is a different (and correct) usage of for and I can so hear Sir D's voice!

Sansom uses it in a more clunky way.

He had a sandwich , for he was hungry

I need to check if he is Aberdonian, although I v much doubt it!

I like the idea of a Shardlake chaser!

Ah! He was born in Edinburgh! That may well be it, for they speak in a rather archaic way thereaboots.