26ish books 2025

27 A Registry of my passage on the earth - Daniel Mason. This is a collection of short stories. He writes so well anything he writes is good. I only found one or two of the stories had much impact on me and they didn't have a thread which joined them together which I like.

28 The Autumn of the Ace - Louis de Bernieres. This is the last in the Daniel Pitt Trilogy. The second book is interesting and profoundly moving but I found some of the bits about women difficult. It was so moving I took a beak of a few years to get to this one. This is about the run down to the end the characters lives and was unusual. It was well done and I think Louis de Bernieres writes just about anything well and with fluidity. It was a bit depressing at times and I am not entirely sure what I think about it. He can cover some very complex things and a massive historical sweep in a couple of pages which is remarkable. The pages about the empire and war are very well done. Great historical detail and a bit of a social history. It is not his best but worth a read.

8. Verity by Colleen Hoover.

This wasn't a bad read actually. Much better than some of the other books by this author. A nice twist at the end.

9 - James. By Percival Everett. Really liked this one, despite being sceptical in the beginning. I feel like I knew where it was going but it took an interesting turn. Recommend it!

Started the girl with the louding voice.

22 My sister, the serial killer by Oyinkin Braithwaite

Absolutely loved this and couldn't put it down! A solid 4 stars out of 5

27. White Tears / Brown Scars. How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color (sic) by Ruby Hamad. Going to take me a while to digest I think. Well written and argued, a lot I either hadn't put two and two together about or just hadn't thought of that way. My historical knowledge is very poor too which doesn't help me have a well rounded view. I am White, I take what she says on board. A Black woman I know has said more than once that she has never felt she has experienced sexism or misogyny, it's always been about the colour of her skin. I was really thrown because I couldn't tally that with my perception and understanding of the world, but reading this it fell into place and I understand better now. Although it also makes sad. I'm not going to explain it other than clumsily so I'll stop there.

I got this at Filia this year and they have an online bookshop if anyone wants a browse.

28. Surving the White Gaze. A Memoir by Rebecca Carroll. Rebecca is a mixed race woman who was adopted by a White family in America. I read this partly for work but also for interest and would recommend it. She has an unusual level of insight/ oversight because she studied Race, Black History and Literature and similar at Uni and writes in the field too. I appreciate most people who have had trans racial adoptions will not have had those opportunities and avenues in which to explore and connect with their identity, history and culture.

Written beautifully in very short chapters, it's not a heavy going misery memoir at all.

I saw that but I can't cope with books being made into films or TV. Don't know why but I just can't get past it if they aren't what I imagined. Exceptions being Jeeves and Wooster and Brideshead. I was so dissapointed when I saw the trailer for Where The Crawdads Sing.
I try not to look at author photos too in case they alters my feelings about a book, which is really shallow - I know I ABU! Other than Beryl Bainbridge they just never look like I think they should.

27: The Fires by Sigridur Hagalin Bjornsdottir
This had been on my wishlist for ages and then I saw it in Keflavik airport, so had to buy it. The last quarter of the book made up for the first three quarters being a definite slow burn (no pun intended).

21 Clear by Carys Davies

Set on a remote Scottish island in 1843, during the times of the clearances (which I knew nothing about). It's less than 150 pages long but certainly packs a punch. I like the author's writing style and really wanted to know what happened so raced through it... but the ending was a little disappointing. 3 out of 5.

Loved this book.. they have made it into a tv drama now

22 The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell not my favourite book of hers but I still enjoyed it, probably 3.5/5

23 Educated by Tara Westover. I became very absorbed by this book. Very disturbing in many parts but what an amazing woman to have achieved so much after being given very little opportunity and with the odds stacked against her!

24 Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. I loved this. It could have been written as a trilogy with 3 generations and that may have given it more depth as it did cover a wide period from 1930-1989. A real eye opener into Japanese and Korean history and relations. I was quite gobsmacked how badly the Koreans were treated for so long even those born and bought up in Japan. But then this is a region I know very little about so possibly less of a surprise to more informed others.

26 Tresspasses by Louise Kennedy God this put me through the ringer. Set in Belfast in 1970s so bad things are happening on the character's periphery all the time and day to day live has many trials. Then she starts seeing a married man and I just kept willing her to dump him, because all the tension on top of that back drop was filling me with dread of when / what for the next bad thing to pop up. I found it really tense. Some might find it thrilling. It's credit to the author that I was nervy of getting back into it each time because of how stressful I was finding it. It could have slipped into melodrama but she restrained it well.

The end and start dovetail well but to be honest I nearly always forget what's in a prologue until the epilogue seeks to tie in with it. Or that there even is one. That's not the author's fault, it's mine. I liked how she tied it all up but not sure it was necessary.

26. The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason - I decided to read most of his books after North Woods because it was so good and so well written. I think this was his first book and is now quite old but it was a best seller. It is beautifully written, interesting and accomplished but not as good as his later novels which are amazing. Worth a read.

1. I haven't been entirely honest with you, Miranda Hart
2. The Cracked Mirror, Chris Brookmyre
3. Fairy Tale, Stephen King
4. Storm Child, Michael Robotham
5. All the other mothers hate me, Sarah Harman
6. There are rivers in the sky, Elif Shafik
7. A Killer's Wife, Victor Methos
8. Guilty, Martina Cole and Jacqui Rose
9. Apt Pupil, Stephen King
10. The Silent Guest, Sally Rigby

35 Fundamentally - Nussaibah Younis. A serious subject but one that made me laugh at times. I was reading another book and it was blocking my reading as I didn't enjoy it so I let it go and started this and was hooked.

8 - The familiar (Leigh Bardugo) . I enjoyed it! perhaps were a bit slow in places, but overall I thought it was a well constructed story with a satisfying end. There are some interesting themes about religion, power and women's place in society. I like her sense of humour

Started James by Percival Everett.

A single thread is also excellent @icedpuddles

@Decafflatteplease @DesdamonasHandkerchief it sounds like you should try the Glass Maker and I should try another Tracy Chevalier but as she has written so many it is hard to decide which one, so thank you for the recommendation @Decafflatteplease

@DesdamonasHandkerchief I am not going to get to 50 so thought it would be best to post here! I like literary fiction so I am looking for quality books and it is useful to hear recommendations from others.
I may try Great Expectations soon, it depends what catches my attention next...

@MonkeyTennis34 yes, elegiac is the word. It is so well written and I found it really interesting. I think parts of it stay with you

@icedpuddles I love Tracy Chevalier. I haven't read the glass maker in hoping to read it next week. My favourite book of hers is remarkable creatures.

I’ve read other Tracy Chavlier novels and enjoyed them icedpuddles so I think I’d be in the ‘loved it’ category.
Great Expectations is my favourite Dickens so I’d definitely recommend that when you’re less ‘Dickensed’ out.
I must admit I thought I was on The 50 Book Thread (for anyone wondering where I get off welcoming you to a thread I never appear on!) I normally watch & lurk on this thread, it’s great for recommendations.

I’m reading North Woods right now…it is beautiful…unusual, elegiac, loving it!

Thank you for the welcome. I thought I would only manage about 4 books this year so I didn't post earlier. Now it is near the end of the year and I recognise it is a lot to post the year's worth of reading.

I had never read any Dickens before but thought I would give it a go and enjoyed him so much I read all those books. I may read Great Expectations but I am not that interested in reading any of his others at the moment. Having read so many so close together you notice the similarity of some themes and I think his writing got better as he went on. Saying that, he is a great writer, I like the large range of characters,the sub plots, the clever interwhining of the story threads, I genuinely find the books funny at parts.

The comparison of older entirely non edited novels with modern heavily edited novels is interesting. I thought the Glass Maker could have been two or three times longer as there was a lot else that could have been written. In the acknowledgements Tracy Chavlier thanks her editor for the tight edit. The editing does stop the bagginess of the older novels but I am not sure it is always the best thing and may more be influenced by publishers thinking long novels are a harder sell.

The Glass Maker was popular with my book club though not universally loved as 1 member DNF. However, those of us who liked it really liked it and liked so many different bits of it. Add it to your list (I found the first bit a bit slow).

I recommended A Gentleman in Moscow to two friends and one liked but did not love it, the other loved it. I would read it again and I almost never read books again. I really enjoyed it, I thought it was gently moving. It is not factual but I like autobiographies and it basically follows someone's life. I did not like the end.

Oops just realised I got the title wrong! It is North Woods by Daniel Mason, not Darks Woods. Very much recommended, beautiful, lyrical, clever, historical, personal. Wonderful writing

Welcome to the thread @icedpuddles
You’ve certainly hit Dickens hard this year!
I’m reading Dombey & Son as part of a Mumnet read along led by Piggywaspushed
I think that it started strongly but has got a bit meandering of late, but I think that’s a danger of books that were serially published, there’s a lot of filler to get the word count up.
You’ve made me want to move A Gentleman in Moscow up my TBR list, and add The Glass Maker to it.