The Book Vipers discussion

A slightly late thread to tell us what you have just finished reading in 2019. Did you like it or not? Would you recommend it or have you finally discovered another all-time favourite book.

I'll start us off...

I recently read This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor after hearing lots of really enthusiastic reviews of it.

I thought it was a very engaging, quick, easy, enjoyable read. Quite a bit of it was laugh out loud funny but it also covers some very sad stories and makes a very serious point about NHS resourcing and the effects it has on both doctors and patients.

The rating for me dropped from I loved it to I really liked it during the second half when I felt that the author was coming across as bitter and the point about his working hours was repeated too often. It’s a very important point and needed to be made, but it had been, I understood the sacrifices he (and his colleagues) had to make. I was angry and frustrated on his behalf. He didn’t need to tell me quite so many times. Although, that had an effect on my enjoyment of the book, it didn’t reduce my respect and sympathy for him and all doctors in that position.

Keep meaning to read this. Thank you for reminding me. I’ll comment when I’ve read it ( another one on tbr pile, expect a reply in 2021)

Becky, I loved that book. I laughed, cried, crossed my legs A LOT. I see where you are coming from, but I think that it is just that sheer level of frustration - it's a key message and one that didn't bother me.

Henry Marsh, likewise, in Do No Harm (and I've subsequently listened to him give a lecture) shares the anger and frustration of how he perceives the NHS as an organisation (not its individual practitioners) is losing its main striving purpose.

Recommend it as a read to anyone.

I did really enjoy it and would definitely recommend it.

I think we are extremely lucky to have the NHS but it does have it's problems. Adam Kay did a very good job of shining a light on one of them. An issue that I think most people are probably aware of but don't necessarily take much time to stop and think about.

I think I was enjoying him being the incredibly hard working funny guy so much that it made me notice the tone of bitterness from him in the second half.

The very serious tone of the message at the end of the book was well done I thought. It ended on a note that was very moving and thought provoking.

I picked up a copy of it just before Christmas. Not sure when I will get to it though

Paul - you’ll read it in a couple of hours, I flew through it.

On the reading front I have NOT finished, (ie I have given up on) Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. It was my second attempt - just could not get to grips with it and though I do not like to stop part way through, life is too short and my shelf is groaning with books I really want to read!

That won the Costa I think

Yes Paul it did, but sadly not for me.

Evelyn Hardcastle is definitely a love/hate book

Strangely, I just finished This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor, too! My mother gave it to me, as she didn't like it, and I knew it would be a quick read.

I, too, thought it was very effective on the many problems of the NHS, and the horrific shifts NHS doctors face, and why they choose to do it. Some of the stories were very amusing, too. Aside from the incredibly sad and emotional last diary entry, I felt it was missing a little something, though, maybe it was too straightforward, or sometimes just took the easiest route to a good gag. I don't really feel like it revealed that much about Adam or his fellow doctors as people. However, it was very readable and (at times), fun.

I read Evelyn Hardcastle last year, I was going to say I read it recently but Goodreads tells me it was June... how time flies!

I really enjoyed it. I guess it is a marmite book.

You make a good point about This Is Going to Hurt Lisa. Adam Kay became a comedian, didn't he, so I guess that's why he went for the gags route. At the time I was reading it I was just enjoying the gags but you've made me realise, there really wasn't anything about the doctors as people.

Just finished Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie. It was very, very good, a self-assured and topical read based on Sophocles' Antigone. A very powerful novel.

I read The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder last week. It's in a similar vein to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, with a main character who is on the autistic spectrum but also synaesthetic, which gives a twist to the idea of the unreliable narrator. The characters are rounded and their motivations are complex. I enjoyed it very much.

I've just finished Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman which was a book group read I knew I'd never finish on time. A good read but heavy on detail about stockbroking and the state of Australian healthcare policy.

I've just finished the awesome A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan. Now Goodbye to Berlin.

I've just finished Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood. I loved it!

I've just finished We by Yevgeny Zamyatin and I'm really glad I finally got around to it!

I've just finished We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. Chilling, moving and humorous all at the same time

Just finished The Nocturnal Brain: Nightmares, Neuroscience, and the Secret World of Sleep. It is a really good book of the way our brains still work in the land of nod.

I've just finished Wise Children by Angela Carter. I actually loved it!

The other evening I read Ghost Wall. I don't normally read short fiction but I really enjoyed it. It was an atmospheric and engaging story that packed a lot into it's few pages. I also really liked the experience of spending an evening reading the whole thing. I think it will lead me to read both more by Sarah Moss and more novellas.

I liked her book on Iceland, Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland. The Tidal Zone is not a bad read either

I've just finished The Second Coming by John Niven. It was a quick, entertaining read!

I've just finished Girl Meets Boy and thought it was wonderful. In some ways it reminded me of The Heart's Invisible Furies , not in structure or style (Girl Meets Boy is very short and lyrical) but in its atmosphere of optimism that has left me beaming.

I've just finished Passing Strange by Ellen Klages. A hidden gem about lesbian subculture in 1940s San Francisco with an undertone of magical realism.

I've just finished My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinke Braithwaite. It was a fun read!

Finished South of the Border, West of the Sun this morning. Really liked it, and had the standard Haruki Murakami tropes that you'd expect...

Just finished another Ali Smith How to be both and it's left me beaming.