50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Eight

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the eighth 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, the fifth one here, the sixth one here and the seventh one here.

What are you reading?

Desdemona - I haven't read The Glass Palace yet. In theory the "by the bed" shelf is for things I haven't read yet but look appealing. I'm struggling a bit to find books I can be bothered with at the moment though.

Satsuki I dare not post the sitting room bookshelves (nor those in the hall and other bedrooms.....)!

30. The Dry by Jane Harper
31. Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge (Audible)

I nodded along with a recent review from Keith which used the phrase "absorbing but undemanding"...summed up my current reading requirements perfectly. I found that The Dry fitted the bill so went straight on to Jane Harper's next book Force of Nature.
Having enjoyed the previous Cormoran Strike books on Audible, I pre-ordered the new one which I think is released tomorrow. Looking forward to it, but think it's about 25 hours long so it might take me a while!

A couple of shelfies

Okay, being brave.

Part of my favourite bookcase:

Remus

Oh Remus..

I fear we will shortly be falling out...

Eine - what have you done?

The audiobook I wouldn't name. A couple more days til my hatchet job lands..

Ooooh - looking forward to it! If it's a King, you can tear it apart and remain friends with me, unless it is It or The Stand or one of the Dark Tower books, in which case you will be doomed to wander the world without Remus by your side.

👀

Sharpens claws...

remus I love that. Now going to google Jane Austen funkos...

Hang on while I fetch my tin colander hat and put some popcorn on.

Love the shelfies and how organised some of you are (plus what beautiful books you have! ) :) Here's a couple of mine - in theory books by one author are shelved together, and beyond that they're in rough categories (so a shelf for trashy fantasy, then another for slightly classier SFF). It's mainly by reading mood - which does mean that my Georgette Heyer are shelved with Tom Wolfe and Laurence Durrell's island books (things to read when feeling grey) - not sure what Stitches acquaintance (not a friend, surely, if disparaging Heyer) would make of that.

Hang fire I have about 8 hours left still

Loving all your real bookshelf photos and feeling a bit sad about mine but I can only read in a kindle in bed which is where I do all my reading. FWIW here are my virtual bookshelves for my kindle that I've had for ten years.

I do have bookshelves btw but they are all children's books.

Most of my bookshelves are children’s books too betts. I have recently changed bedroom so I’m still in progress of building my shelf up but this is my favourite part so far yes I am using a millennium falcon as a bookend

There isn't a Jane Austen Funko, sadly, or I'd have snapped one up.

87. Qualityland by Marc-Uwe Kling, translated by Jamie Lee Searle

Qualityland (slogan: "Visit Tomorrow, Today") is nation 2.0, where everything is run hyper-efficiently by algorithm based rules. In the name of modernity, traditional surnames have been declared outdated (too many Millers & Smiths) & men must use their father's occupation as their surname, women their mother's. Of course, Aisha Refugee and Melissa Sex-Worker may find life a little harder than Tony Party-Leader or Martyn Chairman, but it's a small price to pay. Efficiency and modernity means that everyone's needs are met immediately - TheShop even has a new service, OneKiss, which sends you every product that you want, whether you knew you wanted it or not (taking account of your level in society and means, of course).

This is really very, very funny. It's not subtle (an AI novelist is sent to scrap herself after producing a novel called "George Orwell Goes Shopping") but it's the first book for ages that has had me laughing enough to get dd to come & find out what's going on.

For dystopian satire, it's also quite gentle, and the cast - including a radical left IPad - rather endearing. The main character, Peter Jobless, is very much an Arthur Dent figure, but with an (unwanted) pink dolphin shaped vibrator rather than a towel & book. Definitely recommended.

Loving all the shelfies - real and virtual!

Sadik I've just bought Qualityland.

Qualityland sounds fun. Added it to the list.
A shot of the non fiction book shelves. Perhaps we should post pictures of the teetering piles by our beds as well!
Right, am off to attempt to run into work. 7km - never run that far before. Gulp.

I will spend the time contemplating what Eine may be about to say about Stephen King. Though I am largely with Remus - he’s great, but everything apart from The Stand and Misery are fair game for justified criticism as far as I’m concerned. The only time I’ve ever actually thrown a book across the room was after reading the last ten pages of Under The Dome. How can you write all of that, and then...that? I’ve read better story endings from seven year olds.