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?

Ha! I forgot to mention Ordinary People, that's good too!

Also recommend the Olia Herkules cookbooks, and there's a Diana Henry one too. Thankfully I bought these in previous deals. They're the sort of cookery books you can just curl up with and read, even if you never cook anything from them.

Oh and I very strongly personally recommend Annie Bell's Baking Bible to anyone with an interest in baking. It's an absolute snip at 99p and worth it for the coffee-walnut loaf recipe alone

Because my Kindle is an early version, it's not great for cookery books - hard to navigate.

Put my Kindle down and can't find it.

I picked up Magpie Lane, just crime/thriller but well-reviewed, plus Lost Japan, a travel book I've eyed up previously.

Also Wild Remedy.

I've already been in this morning and bought parts two and three of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy. Going to go back for a more leisurely browse later.

47. The Infatuations by Javier Marías Finished this a couple of days ago, and still thinking and sorting out how I feel about it. Maria takes her breakfast in the same café in Madrid every morning, and always sees, but never speaks to, a couple she considers to be perfect, until one day the man is stabbed to death in the street (this isn't a spoiler, we know this from the start). I thought this was going to be a psychological thriller, and it kind of is, as there are moments of suspense, but tends more towards the literary novel. For all that this is a very, very, very wordy book, you could fit the plot on the back of an envelope, a small one. The rest is all feelings. So feelings haters beware. What happens after the man's stabbing is related entirely from Maria's point of view, though she also spends a lot of time speculating about how others may be feeling, to try to get to the truth of the matter. Maria's inner voice takes us on a journey through her thoughts about love, death, friendship and what people are prepared to do for others, or for self-interest. What she doesn't think about much is morality, and that sometimes made this very uncomfortable reading. I'm pretty sure this is a marmite book, so I would hesitate to recommend it to everyone, but I surprised myself by enjoying it.

I've bought The Women in Black which looks like nonsense, but hopefully nice nonsense.

I’m trying not to buy any more Kindle books just presently but have downloaded samples of:

Dominicana
King Leopold’s Ghost
Cloudstreet
Leonard and Hungry Paul
The Inugami Curse

All of which I’ve had recommended to me somewhere.

I would also heartily recommend The Revenant for anyone who likes adventure/survival/revenge stories. I loved it and think a few others did here too.

Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook is there too.

Oh I’ve just seen the mentions Meadowland Lanny and Square Haunting. More samples then.

eliotbliss I learned a lot about the American civil rights movement from Dylan. I don’t think anyone chronicled the age like him. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol was another powerful one, with a hauntingly beautiful melody on the chorus.

Trying really hard to not buy books so you are all horrors for flagging up the delights of the monthly Kindle deals.

Can't get on with cookbooks on my kindle at all. Such a shame!

Re: Dylan I mean in music!

I really enjoyed Dominicana.

I bought The Secret Life of Trees which I thought might complement Overstory nicely. Also Written in History, Letters that Changed the World and Nightingale Point. A good set this month I thought.

Oh and as above Any Human Heart is wonderful

I bought Ordinary People, Jenny Colgan's book about a bookshop and The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Tan Eng

I'm hesitating about several others but my current reading speed doesn't really warrant a splurge!! Has anyone read Kent Haruf's Our Souls at Night, Cloudstreet by Tim Winton, or The Dust that falls from Dreams by Louis de Bernières?

I didn’t enjoy Dust That Falls and I was quite a big fan of deBernieres generally. I read about half of it. It really felt like one of those where the writer has done a heap of research and wants you to read it all, and it was a little at the expense of realism. There were a few things that didn’t fit for me - a vicar in the early 20th century describing gory injuries in detail to a young lady of a different family over tea etc and other things. I don’t often abandon a book but I can be terribly picky if something doesn’t feel right.

I seem to remember someone giving Our Souls a nice review on here.

Our Souls is quite lovely. An older person relationship which is too rare. Possibly a little twee for some but I enjoyed it.

I bought King Leopold's Ghost, Botanical Folktales of Britain and Ireland, and A Pocketful of Crows by Joanne Harris. It was definitely a much better selection this month!

nowanearlyNicemum I enjoyed Cloudstreetand would recommend it. When my son was going to Australia for a couple of years I gave him a bunch of Australian novels, and bought the same ones for myself, The idea was we would read them and chat about them online. Cloudstreet was one of the best. It reminded me of Philip Hensher's writing, in particular his books The Friendly Ones and Northern Clemency. Big absorbing family sagas but very well written at the same time.

I've gone right off Louis de Bernieres since meeting him at the Edinburgh book festival, where he was very unnecessarily rude about other writers. I'd queued for half an hour to get a book signed for a friend and if I hadn't already paid for it I would have turned and walked away. Not a nice person.

So I still seem to find the interface for the deals quite difficult to navigate eg I think you have to trawl through a lot of Little Cafe and She Dies Tonight shite to try and find any "proper" books (I know I sound snobby)

Got :

Their Eyes Were Watching God
First Lady (was me and Fortuna, Terps)
Written In History
Conjure Women
Caging Skies
I Know This Much Is True
Cloudstreet

Thanks satsuki, palegreen and highlandmoo for helping to shape my wishlist.
Love this thread

Agreed @EineReiseDurchDieZeit it’s often such a trawl but I sort of think of it like going through the shelves at a naff second hand book shop in hope of treasures. With it came up in one list on my phone though as it takes ages to get through the pages but I hate the thought of missing a gem.

I quite enjoy trawling through to be honest. It's a treat for my first non-work day of the month - cup of tea and a trawl through the Kindle deals!

Nicemum - I've read Cloudstreet and had mixed feelings about it. Lots of great writing, but ultimately I liked, rather than loved it, if I remember correctly. Will try to find my review.

I do - however by the end it becomes a bit thankless but you just never know there might be a gem lurking beyond “Crazy Rich Cajuns”

My Cloudstreet review - lukewarm!
Cloudstreet – Tim Winton

This comes up a lot on lists of great Australian novels. Unfortunately, I didn’t find it a great Australian novel. It had lots to recommend it – some interesting characters and some sections of lovely, lyrical writing – but for much it, I thought it was really missing much evocation of place, which is my main reason for wanting to read great Australian novels! It also got rather clumsy at times, in terms of hinting what was going to happen at the end, and it could have been quite a lot shorter without losing much if anything. So, overall verdict is ambivalent.