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?

If you write it on the toilet wall, just remember not to sign it.

I’m imagining Robert MacFarlane in this scenario as a 6th Former vying for the attentions of Pandora, who has access to his parents’ car at the weekends.

Do you weep Remus? Do you weep?

As it happens I came cross The Prostate Years this afternoon in a box of books to go to the charity shop. I don’t remember reading it so it’s gone back on the shelf.

Don't get me started on Robert. He's even worse than Barry Kent. Barry only steals my money, but Robert has designs on my true love. I don't know what Pandora sees in him. It's only a bloody Audi.

Pandora, Pandora, put on your angora
sweater.
Robert's Audi might be dry
but a wet walk with Adrian
is better.
Unfetter your heart and we'll make a new start,
Pandora. Put on your fedora. I'll warm yer.

I weep like a sad willow, on my Marks and Spencers pillow.

Well done Fortuna, excellent job news Losing the commute makes a massive difference to quality of life 👍

Great steak puns, well done all

Do you go to bed with MacFarlane on your brain?
Do you worry that you’ll never read again?
Has he sent you crazy-paving
With his tunnels and his caving?
Do you think his next book will be Steep? (An exploration of hills and their place in the human psyche)

Congrats fortuna

Satsuki :) :)

Quite frankly, I'm sick of caves (and Capri). I'm longing for Wolverhampton.

Great news, Fortuna.

That's good news, Fortuna!

103. What Blest Genius: The Jubilee That Made Shakespeare, by Andrew McConnell Stott
I wanted to enjoy this more than I did, especially as I used up a precious book then on it. It's an account of the festival held in Stratford in the eighteenth century, instigated by the leading actor Garrick, and attended by large numbers of people, including Boswell. It was a bit of a disaster, what with the rain and the expense and various disaster, as well as those good old Georgian slanging matches. It should have been an enjoyable read, but unfortunately was a bit turgid.

75: Lock No. 1 - Georges Simenon

When wealthy barge owner/entrepreneur M. Ducrau is found stabbed and flung into the canal, Maigret has to investigate...and makes the victim - a lucky survivor - his first port of call.

I'm still not making much headway with reading but after enjoying John Lanchester's paean of praise to the new Penguin Maigret edition in the LRB recently, I remembered that Borrowbox has what seems like all of them on offer, so nabbed this one more or less at random. Very short and enjoyably brisk and bracing.

By a weird quirk of synchronicity I then succumbed to the omnibus of several of the new Penguin Maigrets that popped up as the kindle deal today. So I'm pretty sorted for the foreseeable now.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

Satsuki :) :)

Quite frankly, I'm sick of caves (and Capri). I'm longing for Wolverhampton.

Great news, Fortuna.

Raise your aspirations, how about Dudley ?

Well done Fortuna

Between the puns and the bard of Leicestershire, I don't know quite where to put myself, I'm absolutely howling. This thread is THE BEST.

And congratulations Fortuna, what excellent news.

Thanks everyone. I'm very pleased.

For Marilynne Robinson fans, she's just released a 4th in the Gilead series called Jack.

Congratulations Fortuna!

67. Our Bodies, Their Battlefield - Christina Lamb (Audible)

Important and devastating account of the impact of rape when used as a weapon of war, focusing largely on war zones where Lamb has worked as a reporter, but also stretching back to earlier 20th century conflicts. This is not an easy read (nor should it be) and should be avoided by anyone likely to be triggered by the content. It is necessarily graphic at times, but does not feel gratuitous or exploitative. It really brings home that rape is not an incidental by-product of war, in which the really important event is the slaughter, but is an equally life-destroying force deliberately used to break the spirit of populations. Lamb also charts the limited scope and success of international attempts to prosecute perpetrators for war crimes. I hope that this book succeeds in its aim of bringing the issue to greater prominence, and forms part of the solution in ending this age-old assault on women's bodily integrity.

129. Dune by Frank Herbert (Audible/Kindle)

The Duke Leto Atreides accompanied by his consort Lady Jessica and his heir Paul, travels to the desert planet Arrakis to begin ruling there, but signs indicate his new posting is doomed from the beginning.

So, had this on TBR for about a decade, tried it and couldn't get very far. Tried again because the film is coming out.

It's one of those books that "throws you in" without any real world building explanation of the political or social setup and just expects you to "catch on" - similar to the ASOIAF Books if anyone is familiar.

The problem is, the longer I spent with it, the more the universe it was set in felt like so much pseudointellectual babbly bollocks with no pay off.

They include excerpts from "future historical texts" by The Princess Irulan at the start of every chapter, and, whilst I liked this part the beginning is ridiculously dragged out with such excess foreshadowing you begin to wish a character they told you would die would just die and they would just get on with it.

The second half is the antithesis of this, ridiculously rushed and several years of time simply skipped over so that it doesn't make much sense.

Characters quite 2D. All Paul's counsellors are pretty interchangeable and the main antagonist is pure panto.

Lacks depth in the sense of

Paul is THE SPECIAL ONE, OK?

Why though?

Oh, just the right breeding and training makes him unique in all the universe

A tired trope, though I recognise the book is old.

Near the end Character A kills Character B highly implausibly

Why?

BECAUSE THEY ARE SO SPECIAL OK?

That's about the level. I was bored and wasn't feeling it so I searched the plots of the many sequels and calling their "preposterous incomprehensible garbage" is to understate the case.

Glad I read it. The Audible was good but it was Scott Brick and Simon Vance, so naturally.

Not for me though

Congratulations Fortuna!

83. The Sweet Poison Quit Plan by David Gillespie

Basically all about the evils of sugar and advice to help people cut it out of their diets.

84. Fell side by M R Carey

This is about a woman called Jess - a fire is deliberately set in her flat while Jess is high on drugs, which nearly kills Jess and does kill a boy living in the flat above Jess’s. Jess is subsequently convicted of murdering the boy and sent to a privately run prison, Fellside. Things then start diverging into the supernatural, with ghosts and hauntings as Jess tries to move towards some sort of redemption.
This was a good absorbing read with a satisfying conclusion.

85. Roman Quests: Return to Rome by Caroline Lawrence

This is the final book in the Roman Quests series. The siblings who fled Rome in the first book are now returning, as the death of the emperor Domitian is foretold.
It’s aimed at children (between 9 - 12 I think) so a quick easy read for an adult.

86. Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo

Another children’s one, this time about a boy on a round the world yachting trip who falls overboard and ends up marooned on a remote Pacific island. A nice little story with a happy ending.

Fellside should be all one word, I’ve just spotted that autocorrect has split it into two words in my post above 🙄

Eine great review of Dune.
I read it many many years ago when I was seriously into fantasy and sci-fi. I think I enjoyed it but I was about 14, never felt the need to re-read though.
Didn't know there was a new film coming out. I remember the film with Sting in though.

I like Kensuke's Kingdom as well Stitches. I used to teach ESL to Y7/8 and it was one of my go to books, decent story but simple English. Love Morpurgo for that.

I also work in a school and dread Kensuke's Kingdom being the class read along as I always end up in tears when the 'bad men' come and at the end!

Great review, Eine. Dune is just one of the many books that Cote and I have argued about!
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/what_were_reading/1822330-Calling-Cote-and-anybody-else-interested-I-finished-Dune-btw?pg=3

@BookWitch

I like Kensuke's Kingdom as well Stitches. I used to teach ESL to Y7/8 and it was one of my go to books, decent story but simple English. Love Morpurgo for that.

I would love to read Kensuke's Kingdom at work. After 20 years of Biff, Chip and Kipper and knowing the 'plot' of every single one of them just from the title and where the hidden glasses are I feel that I should be allowed to move onto free readers now.

51. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I don't usually bother counting the books I read to my DC, but I thought I would include this one because it's a book that I might have chosen to read myself anyway. Nobody Owens (Bod for short) lives in a graveyard, after his family were brutally murdered when he was a toddler and the occupants of the graveyard took him in and protected him. Original, unpredictable and rather charming, DS2 (age 10) and I both loved this.

52. The Secrets We Left Behind by Susan Elliot Wright. This is a double timeline book, with the narrator aged 16 in one storyline and 50 in the other. She is now happily settled with a nice husband, daughter and baby grandson, when a secret from her past threatens to emerge and ruin it all. This is okay, nothing special but it passed a few hours agreeably.

Now off to start Ducks. I may be some time.