50 Books Challenge 2025 Part Nine

I’m on 197 which is very unsatisfactory. I might make it to 198 if I finish The Heart’s Invisible Furies which I’ve taken back up and am enjoying it more this time. No chance I’ll make it to 200 (which would be such a lovely number) because I’m reading Project Hail Mary 2 chapters a day with book group (otherwise I’d fly through it) and two heavy hitters with Tracy Borman’s biography of Thomas Cromwell which someone on here recommended alongside my first ever read of Wolf Hall which I’m loving so far and want to savour until at least January 1st if not beyond.

About numbers, it looks like I might be finishing the year on 86! Which is not a satisfying number, ha. Last year I read 90, which was better.

@MamaNewtNewt I have read 3 Han Kang novels this year including The Vegetarian and thought they were all excellent. I chose Human Acts for my books of the year as it was so moving but also a very difficult read. She's a really original author.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I think I'm. going to reach 150 by reading 3 or 4 short books in the last week to push my numbers up!

ETA of my last 10 in fact, 4 are around 150-200 pages. One of those was Snow Country though which I had to hate read to finish...

More end-of-year catch-up reviews:

76. One Boat, Jonathan Buckley 4/5
    Booker Prize longlist. A British woman goes on a kind of retreat of her own to a small town in Greece, following the death of her father. A sort of meandering, self-reflexive novel where not much happens. However, there is a strong sense of place, and the characters (including the heroine-narrator) are pleasantly quirky.

77. Rapture, Emily Maguire 3/5
    I had high hopes for this book; it’s about a medieval woman who dresses as a man and successfully infiltrates the priesthood. (The novel was given to me by a dear friend who is an Australian nun; a bookseller in Sydney recommended it to her.) However, the concept of the novel was better than the realisation. We’re repeatedly told that the heroine is an extraordinary scholar, scribe and illuminator, but I didn’t find the portrayal very convincing. Steamy sex scenes were interspersed throughout the narrative, but I didn’t find them very convincing either. Still, it was an enjoyable read.

78. Frank and Red, Matt Coyne 4/5
    Book group read. A feel-good novel about how a young boy melts the heart of a curmudgeonly old man (yes, I know!) who is recently widowed and estranged from his own adult son. Told from the alternating perspectives of young boy and old man. I liked this much more than I expected to; the perspective of the child in particular is well done, and there are lots of amusing moments.

79. Kristin Lavransdatter, II: The Wife, Sigrid Undset, translated by Tiina Nunnally 4/5
    
    I enjoyed this volume of the saga more than the first one. Kristin and her lover, the dashing Erlend, are now married, but instead of living happily ever after, they deal with the all-too-realistic complications of parenting (including step-parenting) and running a household. The depictions of pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding are very detailed: a reminder that the saga is authored by a woman. The triangular relationship of Kristin, Erlend and Simon (her former fiancé, who is still in love with her) evolves in interesting ways.

80. Kristin Lavransdatter, III: The Cross, Sigrid Undset, translated by Tiina Nunnally 5/5
    The last volume of this saga was the one I found most gripping – perhaps partly because I had been with the characters for such a long time, and had become deeply invested in their fates. There is perhaps also less emphasis on sin (and specifically sexual sin) than in the earlier volumes. We are in a very human world: Kristin and Erlend have a troubled and turbulent marriage, but are both sympathetic characters. Their sons, now young adults, follow their own disparate paths. The theme of Christianity versus pagan ritual remains: Kristin herself is prepared to use dark magic, but also rescues a child from a barbaric ritual in the final pages of the book. The plague or Black Death gives the novel a tragic ending, but also anchors it firmly in European history.

@RazorstormUnicorn- good review of You Are Here (which I still have to read). I agree about the 15 miles & it’s the type of thing that would annoy me in a book too. That said, a lot of books that I really like, are my favourites because the characters are what I class as “people I would like to hang out with” so I’m hoping to like it.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit- I now have a problem due to your post about numbers. I do not find 61 a satisfactory number to finish on so I’m currently weighing up if I can reach the much more satisfactory 64 (being both a square number and in my favourite times table).

60 Sleeping Tiger by Rosamunde Pilcher - in which an Englishman living on a Spanish island has his life turned upside down when a young woman arrives believing that he is her father. This was a Kindle deal that I bought after enjoying the Shellseekers, but it’s a book that is showing its age in several ways including a large age difference in the love story and one scene where a man hits a woman. It’s best feature is the evocative description of Spain although I was amused by the use of a cat to
show moral worth (cuddle the cat and you will be rewarded with true love: kick the cat and you will be dumped).

61 Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy - another collection of interlinked tales this time centred on a proposal to build a new road, which will destroy holy well and a shrine to a saint. Each tale is told from two perspectives. I thought this was a great subject for a novel, and overall I enjoyed this - the dual perspective worked rather well. That said, I would have preferred a narrower focus on fewer characters (sometimes the story of the road got lost) and more details about local government.

Movie Shoes by Noel Streatfeild**
Not sure how I haven't read this one before. Not her best, but it kept me quiet on a train journey today.

49 Killer Content - Kiley Roache

I listened to this on BorrowBox to finish my alphabet reading challenge.

This was ridiculous, and it wasn’t trying to be anything else. Mildly entertaining young-adult nonsense.

A group of obscenely wealthy teenage influencers live the high life in a Malibu beach mansion. When one is murdered the police investigate but the kids solve the murder via livestream to TikTok.

I thought she was quite interesting on that although it did take up a fair amount of the book. But I come from the starting point of knowing nothing!

It appears I already own Dead Of Winter. Must have reviewed it last year, obviously didn’t make much of an impression. Too enamored of Mari Lwyd, maybe?

Having been disappointed by a couple of non fic folklore / ghost books in the past year or so, I’ve resisted the urge to buy Dead Of Winter but for 99p I might give it a whirl.
The Mari Lwyd is this year’s “oh gosh, we have found such a quaint old tradition, so much more meaningful than boring Father Christmas!” on much of social media. If it didn’t knock on your door in the 1970s then stop making such a fuss now. See also: Krampus.

I like the sound of The Dead Of Winter. We’ve been saying that the Welsh version of the horse-skully creature, the Mari Lwyd, seems so have become really popular this year, no village-turning-tree-lights-ceremony on seems to be without a visit from one. Definitely not something I remember from childhood. Have bought as it’s 99p on Kindle.

Yes, it was indeed me!

70 The Dead of Winter - Sarah Clegg
Exploration of the darker folkloric traditions surrounding Christmas, generally involving dressing up as some horned or horse-skully monster and causing mayhem until people give you food and booze to make you go away. Very clear-sighted on the fact that most of these traditions have medieval or later origins, and are not remnants of pagan midwinter king sacrifice. Thanks to whoever read this upthread - I think Piggy?

71 Rhyme and Reason - Mark Forsyth
Loved this! The history of English poetry from Chaucer to Eliot and Auden, in the same idiosyncratic and very funny style as his other books such as The Etymologicon. Focuses on the social history of poetry - who was the audience and what sort of thing did they want for their entertainment? Also explains a lot about metre in a light-touch and easily absorbed way. It’s inspired me to seek out some more Wordsworth and Tennyson, for starters.

@Cherrypi that's very cool that you got a signed copy of the Roy memoir!

@RazorstormUnicorn I'm also a big fan of early Barbara Kingsolver. I want to reread The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven.

@Benvenuto great review of Jane Eyre!

@MamaNewtNewt I agree with everything you say about The Vegetarian.

I love Sarah Moss. Her books aren't always bolds for me, but they're always interesting. I've read all her novels now apart from Night Waking. My favourites are Signs for Lost Children (a sequel to Bodies of Light but it can be read alone) and Ripeness. I also thought her memoir was great; although the constant privilege-checking became exhausting, it was also a kind of visible symptom of her childhood trauma. Since I read her memoir, all of her novels now seem to me to have autobiographical elements (I suppose that's true of most novelists though, to varying degrees). She writes a lot about deprivation and isolation, both physical and emotional, but warmth and humanity and hope are always present as well. Her depiction of patriarchal men in Ghost Wall really resonated with me, and The Fell is one of the best Covid novels I've read to date.

You Are Here by David Nichols

I'm a bit late to the party on this one but it was an enjoyable a read as everyone else suggested.

A group head off for a walking weekend and two of them seem to hit it off but can they make it to a relationship?

I had some problems with the walk Michael are ages for the group. 15 miles on day one with people where you don't know their fitness or hill walking experience is ridiculous. And I didn't keep notes, but I think they walked it in a quicker time than I have ever managed a big day in hills despite everyone being in new boots. I don't think so.

However this does not detract from the two main characters who I loved and want to be friends with. They were so relatable, funny and whimsical, lonely but not sure what to do about it. I shamelessly rooted for them to get together through the whole book. Not a bold for me, but a good love story and 4.75 stars.

I wish I could fit 10 in @TimeforaGandT

I haven't read any Sarah Moss (unsurprising as I am often late to read what everyone else has read). But I am not feeling I have missed out at the moment given the mixed reviews.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit - surely you should be pushing onto 140!

Forgive me 50 Bookers for I have sinned. I read 130 books this year and like having a round number so I’m holding the books I’ve read since Christmas over to the 2026 thread and counting them as such because god forbid I end on an odd number!

I don't even know if I have read a Sarah Moss.

Glad you enjoyed The Thirteen Clocks @CornishLizard - it was recommended to me by a friend so I have passed on to her that the love is spreading!

123 Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

This is the account of Griet, a fictional maid who is the subject of the famous Vermeer painting. I listened to this on audible and the narrator did a fantastic job - I absolutely loved it.

My favourite Sarah Moss books were the first two I read: Night Waking and Names for the Sea. I haven't enjoyed her recent ones so much.

I loved seeing Sylvia. Stunning location.

@MamaNewtNewt The Vegetarian is unhinged, I loved it!