My fifty books...hopefully!

Hermy

I'm gonna give the 50 Book Challenge a go.
My first book of 2009 is The Butcher Boy by Pat McCabe.

Hermy

One down - forty nine to go.

Just finished The Butcher Boy - a strange tale - funny, disturbing, tragic, told as only McCabe knows how. Along with The Dead School I'd recommend it to anyone who hasn't read McCabe yet.

Now I will be mostly reading The Butt by Will Self. I did try reading something by Self before but I got nowhere with it. This book is a bit more readable so far although the plot is rather convoluted and he uses too many words for my liking.

Hermy

Well I've just finished The Butt and while it was a great tale well told it was a bit of a let down in the end.
In the meantime I've just got started on The Book of Evidence by John Banville. Even though it's not quite the same I can't help but imagine one of Becketts characters - Molloy or Malone - narrating the story.

Hermy

Finally finished The Book of Evidence. Banville is a very fine writer indeed!
Next up is The Dark by John McGahern.

Seres

what did you think of The book of Evidence?
i thought it was brillant , tried to read banvilles booker winner 'the sea' , painful , great book if you are suffering from insomnia !

Hermy

Seres wrote: »

what did you think of The book of Evidence?

Hi Seres,
I really liked it - Banville is a superb writer.

Hermy

Just finished The Dark by John McGahern.
Only four books read and its February already.:eek:
Next up is When Giants Walked The Earth by Mick Wall.
This is a biography of Led Zepplin so it should be fun.

Hermy

Maybe this should be My Fifteen Books...finally finished When Giants Walked The Earth...definitely essential reading for any Zeppelin fan.
So now I'm reading The Steep Approach To Garbadale by Iain Banks. So far, so good - reminds me a lot of The Crow Road.

Hermy

Finished The Steep Approach To Garbadale. Really enjoyed it. Banks storytelling is great.
Next up is The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien.

Hermy

The Third Policeman is on hold - strange book.:rolleyes:
Currently reading Winterwood by Pat McCabe - a very dark tale indeed!

Hermy

Winterwood was excellent - couldn't really put it down to be sure. I'm used to McCabes humour but without it in the case of this book it made for a very haunting read.
So now it's back to the whacky world of Flann O'Brien.

Hermy

Finally finished The Third Policeman and in hindsight I'd have to say it was a very good book indeed. Although at the halfway point I did wonder if there was any point to it at all.
Now I'm reading Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor. I'm only a few chapters into it and already I'm hooked. Despite the grim setting the langauge paints a vivid scene.

Hermy

All these weeks later I've finally finished Star of the Sea. A very fine book and very well written but it might have been even better if it weren't for the multiple narrators.
Up next is Birchwood by John Banville.

Hermy

Finished Birchwood.
Now it's The Barracks.
Ten books in six months - that's not what I had intended.:o

Hermy

Finished The Barracks today. Hard to believe it was McGahern's first book - poweful stuff, very moving. His prose is like a favourite armchair - the scenes he paints seem so vivid and familiar.
Next up is God Knows by Joseph Heller and god knows what to expect from this one.

Hermy

Not quite going to plan - still haven't finished God Knows and probably never will.
In the meantime I did read About A Boy which was pretty good and now I'm reading The Secret Scripture which came highly recommended.

dr gonzo

Some of Hellers lesser known books can be quite tough going so i completely get where youre coming from.

Hermy

Finished The Secret Scripture - a very good book.
Now I'm rereading On The Road.

Hermy

I've quit On The Road - thanks Cliff.;)
Now I'm reading The Gingerman by J.P. Donleavy.
Great book so far.

Hermy

Well I finished The Gingerman a while ago. It was brilliant, quite different to anything I had read before.
After that I read Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder by TwentyMajor. It was very poorly written but mildly amusing.
Just started Fatherland by Robert Harris. I've enjoyed three of his other books so I'm expecting another good read.

Hermy

Fatherland was good but not great. Still, it was a good page turner.
Next up is The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty by Sebastian Barry.

zelemon

I read the first few pages of Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder & thought it was poor, I have tried selling my copy on Ebay for a cent for the past two months & cannot get rid of the crap!

SeantheDruid

Hermy wrote: »

Finally finished The Third Policeman and in hindsight I'd have to say it was a very good book indeed. Although at the halfway point I did wonder if there was any point to it at all.
Now I'm reading Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor. I'm only a few chapters into it and already I'm hooked. Despite the grim setting the langauge paints a vivid scene.

Hi Hermy. If you enjoyed Flann's Third Policeman and its metafictional brilliance, I'd recommend At Swim Two Birds. It's one of the greatest modernist novels (some would say one of the greatest novels in general!) ever written. It's fascinating when read alongside Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist. There's an interesting comparison between the two when examined as part of the Kunstlerroman genre.

Hermy

Finally finished The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty. It was an effort to read at times but worth it in the end.
In between I also read The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (very, very good), Bad Blood by Jeremy Whittle (interesting but not much that I hadn''t already heard about from other sources) and The Ghost by Robert Harris (terrible, well below his usually excellent standards).

So that's my attempt at the fifty book challenge. I only managed twenty books but it was an interesting excercise all the same.

Hermy

Been a while since I posted here but I thought I'd keep this thread as my reading log.

So here's what I've been reading since:

My Father's Tears and other stories - John Updike
The stories weren't great but the writing was good.

The Scarlatti Inheritance - Robert Ludlum
Ludlum's first book, a bit implausible.

The Taking - Dean Koontz
Terrible. It's been some time since I've read Koontz but I always thought he was better than this.

Transition - Iain Banks
At times entertaining but even Banks fine storytelling can't save this far-fetched yarn.

The Learners - Chip Kidd
Brilliant. I had hoped that Kidd's first book, The Cheese Monkeys, wasn't just a flash in the pan and thankfully this book would suggest it wasn't. Both the narrative and the dialogue are as sharp as ever.

A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
A strange tale, not quite what I thought it would be, but very, very good nonetheless.

Eclipse - John Banville
I will read this book again, aloud if possible. My mind was elsewhere at the time I read it and Banville's craft was wasted on me.

The Osterman Weekend - Robert Ludlum
Like the first book quite implausible but veering towards the more familiar territory of Ludlum's later works.

EDIT: Currently reading Breakfast on Pluto by Pat McCabe.

Hermy

Breakfast On Pluto was great, typical humourous and haunting Pat McCabe.

I tried Cat O'Nine Tales by Jeffrey Archer. Don't bother with it, it's tripe.

Similarly Devil's Labyrinth by John Saul. I managed to finish it but it was absolutely awful. It wasn't just poorly written with a meandering plot, it seemed to be borrowing badly from the style of The DaVinci Code. Years ago I read Hellfire by the same author which was a great horror novel, really chilling as I recall, but either Saul has gotten lazy or I have become much more discerning about what I read. Maybe it's time to give up on pulp fiction.

Currently reading Spook Country by William Gibson. As with other books by Gibson I always find the first few chapters a bit vague but once you get familiar with your surroundings a great read ensues.

Hermy

Rrecently finished Spook Country. It was good but the veil of mystery surrounding the plot remained until the end leaving me a bit nonplussed about the whole thing.

And now I've just read Kepler by John Banville. Like Copernicus before it it gave a fascinating insight not only into the works and thoughts of the books title character but also into the times in which he lived.