50 Books Challenge 2025 Part Three

A Little Princess was also my favourite @inaptonym - I haven't heard of the detectives you mention so I will look them up, thanks!

My favourite as a child was A Little Princess though I find it too saccharine as an adult - The Secret Garden aged better. Were you reading it as another example of an utopia @elspethmcgillicudddy or is it for a different course?

@Stowickthevast Good luck getting the The Book of Disappearance chosen! I hope you read and review it in any case - the premise is so interesting, though if ever there were a situation in which a book originally written in 2019 could end up feeling dated...

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit Have you done Cara Hunter (Adam Fawley) or Jo Spain (Tom Reynolds)? Both decent police procedurals - CH is psych thriller adjacent and likes to incorporate texts and social media posts etc. JS is more issues-y.

37. The Night Hawks
38. The Locked Room
39. The Last Remains by Elly Griffiths

Finally finished the Ruth Galloway series and was happy with how it ended.

I have no "easy reading" left now though unless you count the Jodi Taylor series which I abandoned because they were getting increasingly silly

Would like another crime series, preferably British / Irish - didn't click with Rebus or Tana French - any suggestions?

It’s only when I reread The Secret Garden as an adult that I realised what a huge trauma she suffered at the beginning and the writing describes her reactions extremely well.

Nothing since then @Boiledeggandtoast but if I do, I'll keep you posted! That one was a random pick from the library one day last summer :)

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh And thank you! I did enjoy it, have you read anything else by Sandor Marai and would you recommend?

Thank you @Boiledeggandtoast re 'Esther's Inheritance'. That was me. I'm glad you liked it! I agree that it was atmospheric.

I seem to have fallen off the thread(s) for no particular reason but I have been reading and enjoying all reviews, for which, as always, many thanks.

Anyway, here's what I've been reading:

Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad by Daniel Finkelstein As good as everyone says and an interesting counterpart to Hadley Freeman's House of Glass. It was a sobering reminder of the atrocities committed by the Soviets as well as the Nazis in WW2.

Esther's Inheritance by Sandor Marai I'm sorry I can't remember who recommended this a while ago but I thought it was very atmospheric. Esther's lover, Lajos, a fantasist and liar, returns after 20 years and the novella recounts events of the day of his return alongside rememberances of the past. Originally published in 1939 and translated from the Hungarian by George Sziertes.

The Thinking Heart by David Grossman Very short collection of essays from 2017-2024 by the Israeli novelist and peace campaigner. Succinct and powerful. As he remarks, "...the real battle today is not between Arabs and Jews, but between people on both sides who aspire to live in a peaceful, fair partnership, and people - on both sides - who feed on hatred and violence."

The Elements of Marie Curie by Dava Sobel A fascinating biography of Marie Curie celebrating the science, her life and family, and the pioneering work of the scientists in her laboratories.

I knew Marie Curie was a remarkable woman, but this account of her life quite blew me away. She is surely one of the greatest scientists ever (and still the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields) and was working at a time of extreme disadvantage and prejudice against women, particularly in science, making her achievements even more impressive. Her husband, Pierre, was very supportive, but after his untimely death in 1906, she was left to bring up two small daughters alone as well as continuing with her ground-breaking work. She obviously had a very close relationship with her daughters, one of whom, Irene, went on to be an eminent scientist and Nobel Prize winner in her own right. What I hadn't realised was how many other brilliant young women - and men - she trained and supported in her laboratory and this book gives credit to their work too.

There was initially great hope for the medical benefits of radioactive elements and Marie Curie even drove a van that she oufitted with X-ray equipment to the front lines of WW1. However, inevitably, working with them also took its toll on the health of those involved, and the book charts the dawning realisation of its catastrophic effects on the human body, including of course Marie Curie herself.

As well as her personal life, the book covers the many exciting scientific discoveries - of radioactivity, new elements, the structure of the atom - being made at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. I thought the author explained the science very clearly, although I wish she had used the word explain rather than explicate, and did find a number of other Americanisms creeping in. But that is a very petty and minor niggle in what is otherwise a brilliant read. Recommended

I loved The Secret Garden too but have obviously blocked out any trauma as I have no idea what you are all referring to in the opening chapters.

I also loved The Secret Garden as a child. But I had completely forgotten about the opening chapters when I tried to read it to my children - that was as far as we got - and I am not sure they have ever forgiven me!

Oh, good idea, think I've still got my old copy of The Painted Garden.

The Secret Garden was another of my childhood favourites. Might have to re- read it soon. Followed by The Painted Garden.

Me too @JaninaDuszejko, although I always had to skip the first two chapters which gave me nightmares the first time I read it!

The Secret Garden was one of my favourite books as a child. I loved the descriptions of the garden coming alive.

'ello 'ello 'ello...

🚔

@elspethmcgillicudddy I read The Secret Garden last year sometime, I'm sure I must have read it as a child, but couldn't remember a thing about it. I really enjoyed it.

I've just finished Annie Bot and really enjoyed it. It jumped straight to the front of the queue when I bought it, smashing my RWYO intentions into pieces. Ah well. Good job there's no book police.

@RomanMum I've read both of those before - my memory of When We Were Orphans isn't great, though! March's read is Remains of the Day.

Just finished book eight of the year - "The Witching Tide" by Margaret Meyer.

Has anyone read it?

It's about the 1645-47 witch trails in SE England. It should've been enthralling and harrowing. Instead I found it very "meh" - very unengaging, really poorly developed characters, strange dialogue, and really under-baked side story about a poppet doll which may/not have magical powers.

I found it had no real depth or substance but also wasn't a gripping page-turner either. Just boring to be honest.

@IKnowAPlace sounds an interesting challenge! I loved When We Were Orphans. Be interesting to know your thoughts on The Remains of the Day #teambutler

11) Night Swimmers by Roisin Maguire

A gorgeous read. Set in Northern Ireland during the pandemic, it features a man and his son who leave the city to live by the sea. There they meet Grace, an older women who lives alone, described in the reviews as "having a touch of Olive Kitteridge in her" and her niece. They all have issues around loneliness and despair and having to reconnectwithvthe world. The descriptions of the sea are beautiful. I loved this book.

6 The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Read for a course. I read this as a child and don’t remember enjoying it at all. I thought the characters were daft and didn’t like the moralising aspect of it. I enjoyed coming back to this as an adult. The magic of the garden and the magic of the children’s discovery of comfort and safety came through much more clearly as an adult. I don’t think it will ever be a favourite but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this.

7 Utopia by Thomas More

Also read for a course. An ideal society 16th century style. Not rivetting but vaguely interesting for what it was. Can’t say I would recommend reading this recreationally...

8 Frank and Red by Matt Coyne

Really rather sweet. A bereaved man befriends a lonely child who lives next door. The characters were likeable and funny. Not a bold but enjoyable.

Started Early, Took My Dog - Kate Atkinson
Fourth in the Jackson Brodie series. Jackson is seeking the birth parents of a woman in New Zealand and seems to get in the way of several rogue coppers in the process. He never seems to do much actual detecting and the resolution of the story rarely has much to do with him although as usual he is central to many coincidences that bring the characters and story together. Enjoyable though not as good as the last one.

@Tarragon123 I did read the first wee Shona book actually; I can see it was back in 2023 when I check my reading record. Then she slipped off my radar, but I remember enjoying it, especially the setting, so thanks for the reminder.

I seem to be reading a lot of crime books that are the first of a series, so stacking up a lot of future reads!

Joining the Mick Herron bandwagon.

20. Dead Lions - Mick Herron. The second of the Slow Horses books. I enjoyed this more than the first, I do like his writing and humour. But I had already seen the series on Apple which I think did spoil it a bit for me even though they change a few bits. I'm currently in season 4 so am thinking I may skip books 3 & 4 and go to 5. If anyone else has also watched and read it, let me know if there's anything important in the books I'll miss by doing this.

21. The Vegetarian - Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith. I'm very late to the party on the as it won The International Booker in 2016 and was first published in 2007. It's very short and very disturbing. The protagonist is Yeong-hye who decides to become a vegetarian after having a disturbing dream about eating meat. We never get her viewpoint though, so she remains an enigmatic central character. The first part is narrated by her (awful) husband and deals more with the vegetarian part of the story; the second part by her brother in law deals with sexual appetites and the final part by her sister deals more with mental health. That's quite a simplistic view though. It's not quite a bold for me but is certainly quite different and will stick with me.

@Tarragon123 That ending is still haunting me. I’m about a third into Bad Actors and enjoying it but a certain storyline remains very enigmatic.