The list haters will really hate that one @TimeforaGandT !

Just realised I posted on the old thread so here’s my reply to Elspeth again.

Thank you. I must admit, with all those layers of clothing and all the beards, I don’t think I’d be thinking of sex much.

In a hut in the long polar night
sex wasn’t much on my mind
all the blubber and smoke
put me right off my stroke
And my libido nose dived

That’s quite an in-your-face list @TimeforaGandT

Sorry, I was a bit slow to realise there was a new thread and have been in pre-Christmas rush of shopping, cleaning and wrapping (but sadly not reading).

Apologies to list haters - here's mine:

1. Small Bomb at Dimperley - Lissa Evans

2. James - Percival Everett

3. Five Little Pigs - Agatha Christie

4. Spook Street - Mick Herron

5. Shy Creatures - Clare Chambers

6. Hangman Island - Kate Rhodes

7. Blaming - Elizabeth Taylor

8. Strange Sally Diamond - Liz Nugent

9. The Thirteen Problems - Agatha Christie

10. The Wizard of the Kremlin - Giuliano da Empoli

11. The House on the Strand - Daphne du Maurier

12. The Photograph - Penelope Lively

13. Ballet Shoes - Noel Streatfeild

14. Witness 8 - Steve Cavanagh

15. The Eighth Hour - Linda Segtnan

16. Kitchen - Banana

17. Towards Zero - Agatha Christie

18. Three Act Tragedy - Agatha Christie

19. Paper Cup - Karen Campbell

20. The Ink Black Heart - Robert Galbraith

21. The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie

22. The Good, the Bad and the History - Jodi Taylor

The Very First Damned Thing - Jodi Taylor (novella)

23. Just One Damned Thing After Another - Jodi Taylor

24. A Symphony of Echoes - Jodi Taylor

When a Child is Born - Jodi Taylor (novella)

25. My Father's House - Joseph O'Connor

26. A Second Chance - Jodi Taylor

Roman Holiday - Jodi Taylor (novella)

27. Cards on the Table - Agatha Christie

28. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

29. North Woods - Daniel Mason

30. A Trail Through Time - Jodi Taylor

Christmas Present - Jodi Taylor (novella)

31. No Time Like the Past - Jodi Taylor

32. What Could Possibly Go Wrong - Jodi Taylor

Shops and Stings and Wedding Rings (novella) - Jodi Taylor

33. Lies, Damned Lies and History - Jodi Taylor

The Great St Mary's Day Out (novella)- Jodi Taylor
My Name is Markham (novella) - Jodi Taylor

34. And the Rest is History - Jodi Taylor

A Perfect Storm (novella) - Jodi Taylor
Christmas Past (novella) - Jodi Taylor

35. An Argumentation of Historians - Jodi Taylor

The Battersea Barricades (novella) - Jodi Taylor - Jodi Taylor
The Steam Pump Jump (novella) - Jodi Taylor
And Now for Something Completely Different (novella) - Jodi Taylor

36. Hope for the Best - Jodi Taylor

When did you last see your father (novella) - Jodi Taylor
Why is nothing ever simple (novella) - Jodi Taylor

37. Plan for the Worst - Jodi Taylor

The Ordeal of the Haunted Room (novella) - Jodi Taylor

38. Another Time Another Place - Jodi Taylor

The Toast of Time (novella) - Jodi Taylor

39. A Catalogue of Catastrophe - Jodi Taylor

40. The Good, the Bad and the History of- Jodi Taylor

41. The Crooked House - Agatha Christie

42. Of all Faiths and None - Andrew Tweeddale

43. A Remembrance of Death - Andrew Tweeddale

Lights! Camera! Mayhem! (novella) - Jodi Taylor
Christmas Pie (novella) - Jodi Taylor

44. Some Tame Gazelle - Barbara Pym

45. Learning to Swim - Clare Chambers

46. Death in the Clouds - Agatha Christie

47. Island in the Sun - Katie Fforde

48. Small Great Things - Jodi Picoult

49. The Corinthian - Georgette Heyer

50. The Scarlet Papers - Matthew Richardson

51. Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively

52. The Cypress Maze - Fiona Valpy

53. The Cut - Chris Brookmyre

54. An Officer and a Spy - Robert Harris

55. One, Two, Buckle my Shoe - Agatha Christie

56. Glorious Exploits - Ferdia Lennon

57. Caledonian Road - Andrew O'Hagan

58. Kiss Myself Goodbye - Ferdinand Mount

59. The Talisman Ring - Georgette Heyer

60. Platform Seven - Louise Doughty

61. The Foundling - Stacey Halls

62. Mrs England - Stacey Halls

63. The Man who made Husbands Jealous - Jilly Cooper

64. Syndicate - Felix Francis

65. The Secret Place - Tana French

66. Kristin Lavransdatter : The Wreath - Sigrid Undset

67. Lady of Quality - Georgette Heyer

68. My Family - David Baddiel

69. The House of Doors - Tan Twan Eng

70. The Sittaford Mystery - Agatha Christie

71. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

72. Miss Marple's Final Cases - Agatha Christie

73. Appassionata - Jilly Cooper

74. Kristin Lavransdatter : The Wife - Sigrid Undset

75. Nesting - Roisin O'Donnell

76. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë

77. London Rules - Mick Herron

78. Soldier, Sailor - Claire Kilroy

79. Patricia Brent, Spinster - Herbert George Jenkins

80. Missing Person : Alice - Simon Mason

81. Kristin Lavransdatter : The Cross - Sigrid Undset

82. The Forsyte Saga (Book 1 - A Man of Property) - John Galsworthy

83. The Forsyte Saga (Book 2 - In Chancery) - John Galsworthy

84. Snowdrift and Other Stories - Georgette Heyer

I am currently on Book 3 of The Forsyte Saga which I need to finish before I see the second RSC play in 10 days time. Not anticipating much reading time until guests leave on 28 December.....

My yearly number of books has been 88 for a few years (I think) so I am lagging unless I squeeze some quick reads in at the end of the year!

Thank you @elkiedee.

Let's have another go
54.Flashlight by Susan Choi. 10 year old Louisa has recently returned to the USA, her mother Ann’s country, from Japan, where the family had been living during her father’s sabbatical there. Her father Serk had been born in Japan shortly after the war to ethnically Korean parents. Louisa has been referred to a psychiatrist following her father’s sudden death. Louisa herself was found unconscious following a trip to a Japanese beach. Serk, a non swimmer, is missing, presumed drowned, but Louisa maintains a bizarrely stubborn insistence that he was kidnapped.

What follows is a multigenerational saga that moves back and forth in time to look at Serk and Ann’s childhoods through to Louisa’s adulthood. The main theme appears to be of alienation - from one’s culture, through exile, through family separation, through disability and chronic illness. The three main characters are complex and not immediately easy to like, which makes them very believable. There’s a lot going on plot-wise, and I think at times it became a little bit tangential, with for example a lot of time spent on Louisa’s travels as a young adult that didn’t bring much interest or insight. It was excellent nonetheless, although I was glad I’d read Barbara Demick’s Nothing to Envy earlier this year as I think I got more from Flashlight for having a tiny bit of background on life under the regime in North Korea. A bold.

234 Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively

Finally finished this on the third attempt (I started afresh each time, it’s not very long). I think in another season this would have been a bold for me, it’s a book that deserves a bit of time set aside and I didn’t quite do it justice on that front.

Anyway. Claudia is a 70-something popular historian and former journalist who was in Cairo during WWII. She is on her death bed looking back over her life, on her own perceptions and those of others, particularly her brother Gordon and daughter Lisa. The viewpoint moves from first to third person as well. Claudia describes this memoir as a kaleidoscopic view of history and that’s a very good description of the swirling text. Won the Booker, shortlisted for the Golden Booker, worth reading.

235 Just One Thing - Dr Michael Mosley

Quick read, based (I think) on the late Dr M’s podcast of the same title. Suggestions of good habits to get into throughout the day (reading 30 mins a day being one of them 😀) for health and wellbeing. Perfectly fine suggestions, will incorporate a few.

Just putting a link to the round up thread in here:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/5456766-50-books-challenge-2025-round-up

Aiming to do mine after Christmas - or on New Year's Day! And perhaps a couple more reviews. I have to go and do some more Christmas shopping tomorrow, hoping not to end up in an even bigger panic tomorrow.

Thank you 🌟

Natural Beauty is up there with it @FuzzyCaoraDhubh

Immaculate Conception is brilliant.
I must read another of hers next year @EineReiseDurchDieZeit

I don’t think I can overstate that the Ling Ling Huang books are the best I’ve read this year.

I actually forgot to do Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley among my bolds but the best one sentence for that is “defies description”

Lol 😁
I also enjoyed your mini reviews, Eine.

😂It wasn’t me!

@cassandre Oh thanks ! I really hope you enjoy Immaculate Conception

@Stowickthevast I would go for Forbidden Notebook; it's the first book by her I read and I think it's my favourite. There's No Turning Back is also very good.

@StrangewaysHereWeCome it's weird that your post was hidden; that has only happened to me when I try to link to a blog or something (I think the 'hidden post' function is triggered automatically in this case, not because someone has reported it). In my experience the post is never 'unhidden' 😥Maybe you should try posting again! I want to read your review of Flashlight (that book was a bold for me).

I agree with others that @EineReiseDurchDieZeit 's bold list is great! The one-sentence summaries are masterful. My Friends and Seascraper were bolds for me too. I want to read Purple Hibiscus as I'm a big Chimamanda N. A. fan. I also have Immaculate Conception out of the library on your recommendation, but haven't started it yet.

@StowickthevastHave you done a list of bolds on either thread ? We do have overlapping taste. I would be keen to look at yours

70 The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

Annual re-read. My perfect Christmas book. Even though I know it so well I can practically recite parts of it, I always find something new in it.

How odd. None of your books has the c-word in them , did they? The one that ends with currency. For some reason that word is a red flag. Alarms go off in HQ!

I just finished my fourth- and best- Christmas murder mystery - Murder at Mistletoe Manor by FL Everett. I need to stop reading murder mysteries as I always guess the perpetrator straight away, although this one does have a slight twist. This is much better written than at least two of the others and entertaining. A little long and not short on a few cliches but nicely old fashioned , owing to snowdrifts, no phone signal and no wi fi. Shoehorning in mobile phones never works with the locked room concept. I'd read another by this writer.

Not sure why my post has ended up in purgatory? It was a list, followed by a review of Flashlight, so nothing controversial. Unless of course the list-haters have really had enough this time ?

@cassandre which Alba de Cespedes novel would you recommend to start? Ideally one in print!

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit great review summary of bolds. A Covenant Of Water and My Friends were both bold last year for me and Seascraper will be one this year. Several others on your list I've enjoyed but not quite bold. I need to finish considering mine.

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller to see us through.

I'm adding my list since the last thread - it's been a good couple of months for me reading wise.

121. Joe Country - Mick Herron
122. What We Can Know - Ian McEwan
123. Theft - Abdulrazak Gurnah
124. Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
125. Havoc - Rebecca Wait
126. The Driver's Seat - Muriel Spark
127. The Glorious Heresies - Lisa McInerney
128. Stoneyard Devotional - Charlotte Wood
129. Paper Cup - Karen Campbell
130. Memento Mori - Muriel Spark
131. Native Speaker - Chang Rae Lee
132. La Belle Sauvage - Philip Pullman
133. The Secret Commonwealth - Philip Pullman
134. The Rose Field - Philip Pullman
135. Sister Of My Heart - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
136. We Do Not Part - Han Kang, translated by E.Yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris
137. Katabasis - R.F. Kuang
138. The Wedding People - Alison Espach
139. The Gathering - Anne Enright
140. Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata trans by Edward G Seidensticker
141. Buckeye - Patrick Ryan
142. Mothers and Sons - Adam Haslett
143. So long, See You Tomorrow - William Maxwell
144. The Girls Who Grew Big - Leila Motley
145. Patricia Brent, Spinster - Herbert George Jenkins.

The last 10 books I've read particularly all have things to recommend them.

I'm wondering if I can get to 150 by year end - may be choosing my remaing books by length!

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller and merry Christmas to you!

I'm still trying to catch up on reviews (!). I also have several books on the go that I'm hoping to finish by the end of the year, so I'll save my final list for the round-up thread.

As part of my ongoing obsession with the Cuban-Italian writer Alba de Céspedes, I read two of her books which are out of print:

71. Sans autre lieu que la nuit [There Is No Place But the Night], Alba de Céspedes 4/5
    This is her final novel and she wrote it in French instead of Italian; she spent the last years of her life in Paris. I don’t think this novel has been translated into English. It’s an ambitious work: the story follows an array of different characters from many different walks of life, and unfolds over a single night in Paris. The novel shifts frequently from the perspective of one character to the next; sometimes these shifts are signalled by ellipses, but not always, so it’s quite a disorienting read as you try to work out where you are and who is speaking to whom (I don’t think I was always successful in this by the way!). The novel begins and ends with a taxi driver, and the book itself feels like a slightly mad ride through Paris, as you encounter a doctor in a psychiatric hospital and his woman patient, an activist trying to free a man on death row, a priest, an addict, wealthy businesspeople – there are too many characters to list. Not the easiest of reads, but a very interesting one.

72. Between Then and Now, Alba de Céspedes, trans. Isabel Quigly 5/5
    I actually sat and read this novel in the university library because it’s out of print (and the library volume was non-circulating). A beautiful short novel, more like a novella. The heroine is a journalist whose maid suddenly quits. Feminism, politics, money, love, friendship, freedom, inequality: all of de Céspedes’ favourite themes are here, dealt with elegantly and lucidly. The narrative is in the first-person and feels very autobiographical. I loved this and hope an English translation will be re-issued!

73. The Eights, Joanna Miller 3/5
    Book group read. This historical novel is a fictionalised account of four students at St Hugh’s College who are part of the first cohort of women ever to be awarded Oxford University degrees. An enjoyable, well-researched novel, but the students speak and behave much more like students of today than students of 1920.

74. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame 5/5
    Book group read. I’ve read this once before, but this time I appreciated it far more. The characters are great (so many different models of masculinity!) and the writing is sublime.

75. A Quiet Place, Seicho Matsumoto, trans. Louise Heal Kawai 4/5
    Yet another book group read. A crime novel by an author marketed as ‘the Japanese Agatha Christie’. A businessman’s wife dies suddenly, and her bereaved husband gradually discovers that she was leading a secret life. A slow-burning story that gradually builds to a climax. The Japanese cultural context was very interesting; I’d like to read more of this author.

Ooh I’ve never seen these threads but my aim was 25 books as I’ve not read really for years. I will include my list and look forward to following along in the new year ❤️

Books read in 2025

1. Acosf by Sarah j Maas
2. Fairydale by Veronica Lacet
3. Outcast by Lexi Ray
4. Onyx storm by Rebecca Yarros
5. Too busy for love by Phoebe McLeod
6. Fourth wing reread
7. Lights out by navessa Allen
8. The teacher by Freida McFadden
9. The inheritance games by Jennifer Lynn barnes (AB)
10. The Hawthorne legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (AB)
11. The final gambit by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (AB)
12. The reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson
13. Twisted love by Ana Huang
14. Acotar reread
15. Say you’ll remember me by Abby Jimenez (AB)
16. Till summer do us part by meghan Quinn
17. The 6 night truce by Hannah shield
18. By a thread by Lucy score
19. Fallen too far by Abby glines
20. Off to the races by Elsie silver
21. A photo finish by Elsie silver
22. Front runner by Elsie silver
23. A false start by Elsie Silver
24. Flawless by Elsie silver
25. Heartless by Elsie silver
26. Powerless by Elsie silver
27. Reckless by Elsie silver
28. Hopeless by Elsie silver
29. The housemaid by freida McFadden
30. Morally black betrothal by Nicole French
31. Mr fixer upper by Lucy score
32. The Christmas fix by Lucy score
33. The Christmas tree farm by Laurie Gilmore
34. A deal with the bossy devil by Kyra Parsi