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?

126. The Kennedy Curse by James Patterson and Cynthia Fagan

Earlier this year I read Paula Byrne's biography of Kathleen Kick Kennedy and decided I intended to read more about all the Kennedy's

This really wasn't a great start. It's not well written and it's very "surface level" It's James Patterson though so I shouldn't have expected much

It was 99p in one of the Daily Deals, so as such fine, but nothing to rave about. I think betts has also read it and felt broadly the same.

192. *The Visitor’s Book And Other Ghost Stories’ by Sophie Hannah

Four very short supernatural stories. Not spooky at all but a quick read!

193. Diary Of An Adorable Fat Girl by Bernice Bloom

Very predictable chicklit - exactly what you would expect from the title. Picked up from kindle unlimited as I try to make the most of it before I cancel at the end of this month. Wouldn’t normally bother with something,like this but I needed something quick and mindless and this fitted the bill.

194. Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married by Marian Keyes

Her second book. Hadn’t read this for years and it was funny seeing all the things that had dated it - remember when pubs used to close for a few hours in the afternoon and you could get a round of 4 drinks for less than a fiver? Still an enjoyable reread though although not one of her best books.

195. Back From The Future by Brad Gilmore

Book celebrating the films. As a big fan of these films there wasn’t a lot I didn’t already know but I still really enjoyed reading it.

Does anyone ever notice peculiar coincidences in their reading?
Prior to this year I had never heard of the popular Cafe de Paris in London which was bombed in the war with casualties. It's featured in 5 different books so far...

Strange. Or a convenient cliche? Famous bombing as touchstone.

Is that the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, Eine? Hear it once, see it everywhere...

MamaNewt, try Leonard and Hungry Paul. As Aworldofmyown says it is a comforting hug of a book. I loved it and I am not a big fan normally of comfort reads.

eine An author - known but not a name on everybody’s lips and not recent - was mentioned in my audio book the other day. I phoned my dad after and he, unprompted, brought up the same author connected with something else. It feels odd when it happens.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit

126. The Kennedy Curse by James Patterson and Cynthia Fagan

Earlier this year I read Paula Byrne's biography of Kathleen Kick Kennedy and decided I intended to read more about all the Kennedy's

This really wasn't a great start. It's not well written and it's very "surface level" It's James Patterson though so I shouldn't have expected much

It was 99p in one of the Daily Deals, so as such fine, but nothing to rave about. I think betts has also read it and felt broadly the same.

I can't remember having read it but a quick check shows that I have, point proven I think

Eine and betts I read Kennedy Curse a few months ago after reading up a bit on JFK (inspired by my read of 11.22.63). I didnt know a great deal about the Kennedy family tbh and I'd say the main take-home message for me was that money really can buy you anything, even a presidency. I loved the descriptions of their neck of Cape Cod though, have now put coastal New England on my bucket list!

71. Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World by Laura Spinney Felt like it was finally the 'right' time in our own pandemic to tackle this book. I am giving it extra points for doing what it says in the title, as the 'how it changed the world' aspect is the part of this that comes off the best. Recently reviewed by BadSpella who commented that it doesn't read in a linear way and jumps around. It really does; I think the author was aiming for a thematic structure, but the themes were pretty weak and incoherent, so the book just read like a person with tremendous knowledge about a subject spouting off anecdote after anecdote, some not very relevant, without the chronological or geographical coherence which is kind of important for understanding a pandemic. This took for ever to read, as I fell asleep over it frequently. Shame as it contained lots of interesting information, and parallels to what is happening today.

My current read is Infinite Jest. At about 3% in my view was that it was certainly a very intriguing book, and I could see why it was considered a must read work of genius for twenty-something, white, middle class American males, but for me, I'd probably finish it, but intersperse it with other shorter reads, not wanting to invest a straight 30+ hours of reading in it. Now I'm at 6%, and yes it's flawed and annoying, but I'm totally immersed and prepared to go wherever the hell it is going, so I'm going for the marathon. I may be a while.

@SatsukiKusakabe, yes, it was you that recommended Articles of Interest! Thank you. @InMyOwnParticularIdiom, I think I also read Shogun in the mid 80s, although I am definitely not your mother! I don't remember much about it, so perhaps should reread. Fancy that colour book though!

199. Transcendent Kingdom - Yaa Gyasi A neuroscience phd student is studying behaviours in mice to find answers to problems with depression and addiction. Her research is spurred on by her own experiences. She lost her brother to a heroin overdose after a sports injury left him addicted to drugs. Her mother, a Ghanain immigrant, moves in with her and takes to her bed as she struggles to deal with depression and suicidal thoughts over the loss of her son. The student is determined to find a solution to the suffering she sees around her. As well as turning to science, she also grapples with religion.

This is beautifully written and very moving as you follow the narrator's struggle with grief and a desperate search for answers. The themes are sensitively handled, but at the same time quite emotionally raw. This is a brilliant piece of writing.

200. What Are You Going Through - Sigrid Nunez A middle aged woman recounts a series of encounters with the people she meets as she muses on life, love, death and the changing of relationships over time. Her life is upended when a friend from her past makes a difficult request for help.

This is very insightful into modern life and the way we deal with others. The themes in this are quite dark and deal with terminal illness. This is a bit of a strange one. It jumped around a lot and there wasn't much of a plot to it, but the observations are very astute and the prose is very elegant.

fortunamajor I have read Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi which was very good. Will put that on my list

Aworldofmyown I thought this was better than Homegoing. She's growing as a writer.

Just added Transcendent Kingdom to the TBR list, thanks Fortuna.

Looking forward to your review of Infinite Jest, Museum. I started out similarly unconvinced, and ended up rating it among my top reads of 2019.

@InTheCludgie @bettsbattenburg

I think my takeaway has been this quote from Batman :

You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

It's his death that deified him, really. He would've become undone by events like Vietnam.

40. The travelling cat chronicles - Hiro Arikawa I think there has been a lot of love for this on the thread. I found it to be a light, quick read but I certainly didn't love it. Maybe it's because I'm more of a dog person...

66. Flow - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

In this classic work on how to achieve happiness, psychology professor Csikszentmihalyi introduces the concept of the 'flow' state, in which attention is utterly absorbed in a task which matches our skills and helps fulfil our personal goals. This is quite heavy-going and definitely not the average quick-fix self-help book. The basic ideas are sound:

• Optimal experience is achieved via the flow state.
• Happy people are those who see setbacks as challenges to overcome.
• A meaningful life is one in which as many of your activities as possible are directed towards your personal overarching goal in life.

But the reading experience definitely does not put you in a state of flow. It's more like being bashed over the head repeatedly with a brick. Csikszentmihalyi has very strict ideas on what you should not be doing with your time, and this includes such frivolous non-goal-directed activities as watching TV, idle chit-chat and having 'recreational sex'(!). Even reading gets quite a bad name. Basically you should at all times be doing something which challenges you, stretches your skill set and puts you in a flow state . He is very morally conservative, early on blames HIV/AIDS on society 'shedding the shackles of "hypocritical" morality', and recommends such people as the Spartans, Republican Romans, Pilgrim Fathers and upper class Victorians as having a firmly regulated (aka repressed??) emotional life. Ok, the book was published in 1992 so societal attitudes have changed a bit - but sometimes you could be forgiven for thinking you'd slipped back into 1892 here.

Although groundbreaking in its day, I think a lot of this stuff is now better covered for modern audiences in mindfulness literature (at least the more serious end of that genre). It's good for your attention to be absorbed in the task at hand for at least part of the time - but I find a Buddhist-inspired compassionate response to a wandering mind more helpful than the firm telling off Csikszentmihalyi would give you.

Another one adding Transcendent Kingdom to my TBR - great review, Fortuna. Also Eine, that's a great quote and very apt.

Oh, that one made me weep proper tears on a plane now

DS liked it too.

127. Transcription by Kate Atkinson

Orphaned teenager Juliet Armstrong is recruited into MI5 at the start of the war. She is later plucked from the body of typists for a special assignment transcribing for an agent investigating known Nazi sympathisers.

The narrative switches between the war and afterwards, when working a fairly boring job at the BBC the past begins to catch up with her.

I don't know to be honest. I adored Life After Life and I am on a bit of a mission to read all Atkinson's stuff
(I also loved the Jackson Brodie's though have yet to read Big Sky)

In Transcription - the characters are uniformly boring, unpleasant or reeking of cliche.

End twist is very unbelievable and poorly executed.

It commits the following writing crime :

"We are not approaching the end of a novel Miss Armstrong"

Stated about 10 pages before the end.

Not her best. Still love her though

Do you know what vexes me?

At this pace I will reach 150 by New Years Eve, but definitely not 200 and will land at some random odd number in between, and even though its the most I have ever read in one year, I'm peeved at the thought

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit

Do you know what vexes me?

At this pace I will reach 150 by New Years Eve, but definitely not 200 and will land at some random odd number in between, and even though its the most I have ever read in one year, I'm peeved at the thought

Snap. I am in good company

It's when you start racing at the end and deliberately seeking shortish books that you know you've got a problem. A bit akin to knitters knowing they are going to run out of yarn and knitting faster. I think I could have a competition with myself in an empty room.

I got a copy of Ducks, Newburyport towards the end of last year and not a chance I was cracking that thing open! I still haven't read it. Infinite Jest can do one as well this late in the year. I ultimately wasn't that bothered by the number but when I was so close to a nice tidy number I couldn't resist it.

I know I won't have opportunity for such high volume years again soon and so I've wanted to make the most if it. In a normal year I'm bloody chuffed, and rightly so, to get to the 50. I used to sit back in awe at the Olympic readers like Fran and Chessie and anyone making around 100 as I could never imagine it, but saw it as inspiration that it was possible. It's fun while it's lasting but I really need to reframe my need for a tidy number as any amount is a bonus.

These lists are so helpful when looking for a good book to read, especially those with highlights on the best. And the quick reviews are great. I seem to be starting and not finishing books regularly these days (many audiobooks) and the lists point me to ones I will finish!

Ah I'm the opposite! I tend to start the year with short books because I want to get off to a good start, then as soon as I hit 50 (will be very soon) I stop worrying about my total and take the opportunity to read some doorstops still not W&P though

I am aiming for 75 this year. I am not obsessed or anything, but it keeps me motivated.
I was well ahead during lockdown in April/May, but I fell seriously behind in July and August when I read virtually nothing during my mum's swift (and terminal) illness.
I am back into it and have not had a bad september, and almost back on track again.
I think reading Challenges like on Goodreads should count pages rather than books. Surely the 900+ page Troubled Blood is "worth" more to us counters than a 200 page fluffy something?