2018 50 Book Challenge

[Steve B.]

112. Riders of the Dawn 1986 Louis L'Amour

Another range war over water and silver. The hero once again is helped by other befriended gunmen, but only some of the bad guys are killed. The rest agree to a peace treaty. Our hero is very forward with the girl, but wins her heart just the same.

Once again, cheesy but good.

 

[Ingenuity92]

What's the point of your statement?

GF: thanks, as always, for the recommendations.

you could use that time to make a hilarious facebook page like me https://www.facebook.com/james.tenney.547?fref=nf

 

[California Dreamer]

54. Everything I Never Told You

​

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Everything I Never Told You is a very assured debut novel from Celeste Ng. So assured, it won Amazon’s best book of 2014. The book opens with a matter of fact statement that Lydia Lee is dead. This is something that her family cannot initially accept, although they are soon made aware of the truth. The novel looks at the impact that Lydia’s death has on this family of outsiders and at the family history that led up to her death. The Lee family are Chinese-Americans in a small Ohio town where this guarantees that they will be discriminated against. As with many such families, the Lees vest their hopes in their children, particularly Lydia. Marilyn Lee, a white woman who abandoned her professional ambitions to marry and raise a family, is the very embodiment of a Tiger Mother who is determined that her daughter will achieve all of those things that she never got to. Such is her devotion to Lydia, son Nathan and younger daughter Hannah are sidelined. Ng writes tellingly about the casual racism and sexism that has blighted the lives of James and Marilyn Lee, and shows that their children’s expectations cannot be much better. The story of the Lees is a domestic Greek tragedy about which they seem only vaguely aware and incapable of averting.
View all my reviews

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

CD

Getting back to Leif GW Persson its a trilogy the order of the books are

Between Summers Longing and Winters End

Another Time Another Life

Falling Freely, As If In a Dream

Wish I knew this earlier as I read book two then three and now book one merde!

77 Between Summers Longing and Winters End by Leif G.W.Persson

 

[California Dreamer]



CD

Getting back to Leif GW Persson its a trilogy the order of the books are

Between Summers Longing and Winters End

Another Time Another Life

Falling Freely, As If In a Dream

Wish I knew this earlier as I read book two then three and now book one merde!

77 Between Summers Longing and Winters End by Leif G.W.Persson

Books 2 and 3 are on my Christmas wish list.

I have another one of his called “Linda as in the Linda Murder”. I haven’t read it yet, but it is supposed to be good.

 

[Steve B.]

113. The Lost Continent 1916 Edgar Rice Burroughs

Science Fiction/Fantasy set in the 22nd century. Jefferson Turck is an officer in the Pan American navy, Pan America being the united countries of the Western Hemisphere, victors of the First World War. Travel beyond Pan America is considered treason punishable by death. However, Turck's ship malfunctions in a storm, and stumbles on the Lost Continent of Europe. There are no cities, only a few scattered ruins related to loss of the Great War and The Death (influenza?). The humans left are barbarians, the most prominent of which are the Grabritains found in once what was England. It is a matriarchal society (fancy that!) whose current queen is named Victory.

Africa has claimed parts of Europe, where whites are enslaved (more irony). Asia wages war with Africa, defeats it, and establishes peace in the Eastern Hemisphere. Through the efforts of Turck, the travel restrictions are lifted, resulting in a peaceful prosperous East- West Alliance.

And our hero of course claims Victory.


I liked the book, and found Burroughs' perspective on war, racism, and feminism quite forward-thinking for 1916.

 

[Steve B.]

114. The Rider Edgar Rice Burroughs 1918

A love story including feigned and assumed identities of a prince and princess of two fictitious European nations. All's well that ends well.

Kind of a stinker, but better than the last book I read from the Mars series.

 

[LonerMatt]

1. All Tomorrow's Parties
2. Undivided: Part 3
3. High Fidelity
4. Hard Boiled Wonderland at the End of the World
5. Polysyllabic Spree
6. Armageddon in Retrospect
7. South of the Border, West of the Sun
8. What we talk about when we talk about love
9. Norweigan Wood

10. The Master and Margherita

11. The Fault in Our Stars

12. Of Mice and Men

13.Fade to Black

14. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

15. Watchmen

16. Captains Courageous

17. A Brief History of Time

18. The Trial

19. Wind up Bird Chronicle

20. A Visit from the Goon Squad

21. Neuromancer

22. Count Zero

23. Shadowboxing

24. Hell's Angels

25. Anansi Boys

26. Steelheart

27. A Hero of Our Time

28. Mona Lisa Overdrive

29. The Complete Collection of Flannery O'Connor

30. The Last Blues Dance

31. Gularabulu

32. The Glass Canoe

33. The Lies of Locke Lamora

34. Handmaid's Tale

35. Girt

36. Museum of Innocence

37. Neverwhere

38. The Ghost's Child

39. Picnic at Hanging Rock

40. Submarine

41. Name of the Wind

42. Wise Man's Fear

43. A Million Little Pieces

44. The Promise

45. Father's Day

46. Swan Book

47. Red Seas under Red Skies

48. Republic of Thieves

49. Labyrinths

50. Carpentaria

51. Snow

52. Straw Dogs

53. Wrong about Japan

54. Wish

55. Monkey's Grip

56. The Plains

57. Wild Abandon
58. The colourless Tsukuru Tazaki
59. Homage to Catalonia
60. Oliver Twist
61. Trilobites and other stories
62. The Narrow Road to the Deep North
63. Paddle your own Canoe
64. When Gravity Fails
65. Glow
66. Holy Fire
67. The Outsider
68. Taipei
69. Dispatches
70. The good man Jesus and the scoundrel Christ
71. Leaving the Sea

71. Leaving the Sea

This collection of short stories can be surmised as 'middle aged white dude complains'.

Boring.

 

[California Dreamer]



Spoiler: List

1. All Tomorrow's Parties

2. Undivided: Part 3

3. High Fidelity

4. Hard Boiled Wonderland at the End of the World

5. Polysyllabic Spree

6. Armageddon in Retrospect

7. South of the Border, West of the Sun

8. What we talk about when we talk about love

9. Norweigan Wood


10. The Master and Margherita


11. The Fault in Our Stars


12. Of Mice and Men


13.Fade to Black


14. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay


15. Watchmen


16. Captains Courageous


17. A Brief History of Time


18. The Trial


19. Wind up Bird Chronicle


20. A Visit from the Goon Squad


21. Neuromancer


22. Count Zero


23. Shadowboxing


24. Hell's Angels


25. Anansi Boys


26. Steelheart


27. A Hero of Our Time


28. Mona Lisa Overdrive


29. The Complete Collection of Flannery O'Connor


30. The Last Blues Dance


31. Gularabulu


32. The Glass Canoe


33. The Lies of Locke Lamora


34. Handmaid's Tale


35. Girt


36. Museum of Innocence


37. Neverwhere


38. The Ghost's Child


39. Picnic at Hanging Rock


40. Submarine


41. Name of the Wind


42. Wise Man's Fear


43. A Million Little Pieces


44. The Promise


45. Father's Day


46. Swan Book


47. Red Seas under Red Skies


48. Republic of Thieves


49. Labyrinths


50. Carpentaria


51. Snow


52. Straw Dogs


53. Wrong about Japan


54. Wish


55. Monkey's Grip


56. The Plains


57. Wild Abandon

58. The colourless Tsukuru Tazaki

59. Homage to Catalonia

60. Oliver Twist

61. Trilobites and other stories

62. The Narrow Road to the Deep North

63. Paddle your own Canoe

64. When Gravity Fails

65. Glow

66. Holy Fire

67. The Outsider

68. Taipei

69. Dispatches

70. The good man Jesus and the scoundrel Christ

71. Leaving the Sea

71. Leaving the Sea

This collection of short stories can be surmised as 'middle aged white dude complains'.

Sounds like my kind of book.

 

[clockwise]

Clockwise counting 111/50: Patrick Modiano - The Search Warrant (1997)

This is the 3rd book I read from the Nobel Prize winner of 2014. It has also been published in English under its original French title Dora Bruder. The protagonist comes across a missing person notice in an old French newspaper from 1941. The disappeared person is a 15-year old French Jewish girl called Dora Bruder. The book is about an obsessive investigation into what happened with Dora and what her presumably short life was like.

This is about Jewish people in Nazi occupied France but also about the search for an identity and looking into the meaning of a life. I found this book less impressive than the other Modiano novels I have read but all his books seem to have an identical theme with a protagonist jumping between the past and his current condition in some search for answers.

 

[clockwise]

Clockwise counting 112/50: Hammond Innes - The Lonely Skier (1947)

Classic adventure story about a Nazi treasure hunt in the Italian alps with lots of offpist skiing and unsavoury characters. For some reason I have never read Innes before and I was pleasantly surprised, it reminded me quite a bit of books I read in my youth, similar to writers such as Alistair MacLean and Desmond Bagley. Nice escapism.

 

[Steve B.]

115. The Rainbow Trail Zane Grey 1915

Sequel to Riders of the Purple Sage, and nowhere near as good.

A neighbor of one of the original characters in RPS returns to the Utah/Arizona border to look for and rescue the friends who walled themselves up in a valley so that his neighbor could escape. On the way he befriends a noble Navajo Indian to aid him in his quest.

The young girl has been kidnapped by Mormons and hidden away in a polygamists' village. He rescues her, reunites her with her adoptive parents, and escapes with the help of his Indian friend back to the first group of friends in Illinois. He marries the girl and everyone lives happily ever after.

According to Google Grey wasn't very fond of Mormons.

 

[clockwise]

Clockwise counting 113/50: C.J. Sansom - Winter in Madrid (2006)

This is a brilliant historical novel about love, espionage and misery in Madrid 1940. Dunkirk veteran Harry Brett is called in by the Foreign Office to engage in a bit of skulduggery and he is posted at the English embassy in Madrid. While in Spain, he gets entangled with two old friends from his time at a British public school, one is a passionate believer in communism, the other a ruthless businessman.

This novel is over 500 pages but exciting, intelligent and historically informative throughout. I really enjoyed this one!

 

[clockwise]

Clockwise counting 114/50: Haruki Murakami - The Strange Library (2006)

To compensate for the long C.J. Sansom novel, I picked up the latest Murakami published in English just this month. It's a novella with illustrations and somewhat juvenile. Murakami wrote this in 1982 but didn't publish it as a book in Japanese until 24 years later. In this story, many of Murakami's old themes are represented, e.g. mysterious maze-like underground tunnels and rooms, a sheep man and dreams merging with reality. I found the story under-developed and quite far off Murakami's potential. Not recommended for any other than hardcore fans.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

...

Spoiler: List

1. All Tomorrow's Parties

2. Undivided: Part 3

3. High Fidelity

4. Hard Boiled Wonderland at the End of the World

5. Polysyllabic Spree

6. Armageddon in Retrospect

7. South of the Border, West of the Sun

8. What we talk about when we talk about love

9. Norweigan Wood


10. The Master and Margherita


11. The Fault in Our Stars


12. Of Mice and Men


13.Fade to Black


14. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay


15. Watchmen


16. Captains Courageous


17. A Brief History of Time


18. The Trial


19. Wind up Bird Chronicle


20. A Visit from the Goon Squad


21. Neuromancer


22. Count Zero


23. Shadowboxing


24. Hell's Angels


25. Anansi Boys


26. Steelheart


27. A Hero of Our Time


28. Mona Lisa Overdrive


29. The Complete Collection of Flannery O'Connor


30. The Last Blues Dance


31. Gularabulu


32. The Glass Canoe


33. The Lies of Locke Lamora


34. Handmaid's Tale


35. Girt


36. Museum of Innocence


37. Neverwhere


38. The Ghost's Child


39. Picnic at Hanging Rock


40. Submarine


41. Name of the Wind


42. Wise Man's Fear


43. A Million Little Pieces


44. The Promise


45. Father's Day


46. Swan Book


47. Red Seas under Red Skies


48. Republic of Thieves


49. Labyrinths


50. Carpentaria


51. Snow


52. Straw Dogs


53. Wrong about Japan


54. Wish


55. Monkey's Grip


56. The Plains


57. Wild Abandon

58. The colourless Tsukuru Tazaki

59. Homage to Catalonia

60. Oliver Twist

61. Trilobites and other stories

62. The Narrow Road to the Deep North

63. Paddle your own Canoe

64. When Gravity Fails

65. Glow

66. Holy Fire

67. The Outsider

68. Taipei

69. Dispatches

70. The good man Jesus and the scoundrel Christ

71. Leaving the Sea

71. Leaving the Sea

This collection of short stories can be surmised as 'middle aged white dude complains'.

Boring.
[/quote

When you get there LM you will understand that the 'middle aged white dudes' have a lot to complain about. Life like anything is relative.