50 Books Challenge 2025 Part One

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the first thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2025, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

If possible, please can you embolden your titles and maybe authors as well of books you've read or going to read? It makes it much easier to keep track, especially when the threads move quickly at this time of the year.

Who's in for this year?

5 Apples Never Fall - Liane Moriarty

Got this in the 99p deal then found out you all hated it 😀

I actually thought it was better than Nine Perfect Strangers. Though deeply farfetched, I didn’t dislike every character!

Joy and Stan Delaney have recently sold their tennis agency in Sydney and retired. Of their four adult children, none became a professional and Joy is very keen to have grandchildren. One evening in September, a young woman - Savannah - shows up who has been assaulted by her boyfriend and has knocked on a friendly door. She ends up staying for weeks, cooking for Joy and Stan and generally acting like a fifth child.

The story goes back and forth between her arrival and the present day, several months on, which Joy has disappeared and the police are increasingly suspicious of Stan, with the children also growing concerned. There’s a side plot about a tennis star who Stan coached but who left him for a bigger coach before reaching the Opens etc.

It was gripping enough holiday reading but the plot rather hinged on some very strange behaviour being accepted/excused from several parties.

Don't put the full stop in!

@bettbburg I type the number, then after it's bullet pointed, I undo (Ctrl-Z, but that's on a mac), then it puts itself back how it should be.

Thanks Eine.

1 test
2 test

Thanks Sadik

I didn't hate it but there were certainly some marmite characters

2. Despatches from the Diaspora by Gary Younge

I've had this on my bedside table for ages - I bought it when I was in Manchester for the summer meetup in fact. For anyone who doesn't know him, Younge was until recently a Guardian journalist, reporting from a number of countries, particularly the US. This is a collection of his articles relating to race, racism and black lives. It's a really good collection - I particularly liked the profiles of people including Angela Davis, Maya Angelou & Stormzy, but there's a whole range of interesting topics covered.

Oops - had to edit because I failed to sort out my number

3 Mr Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo

I've been meaning to read this for years and was sent it as a substitute Shelterbox book because I'd already bought the book picked. I thought it was great. Barrington (Barry) Walker is 74 and leads a double life: he's been married to Carmel for a lifetime, but has also spent a lifetime in love (and sleeping) with his best friend, Morris. The book's events unfold as Barrington finally begins to decide that he no longer wants to live a lie. Barry, Carmel and Morris's stories are told in flashbacks to their youth in Antigua and present-day narrative - from both Barry and Carmel, but also through interactions with their two very different daughters, Donna and Maxine. I liked the complexity of all the characters; this could easily have been a story where Barry was uncomplicatedly painted as the "hero", but it's not that straightforward; he is old-fashioned, quite sexist, set in his ways, drinks too much and annoyingly convinced of his own uniqueness. But he's also clever, funny, big-hearted and endearing. And Carmel could have been one-dimensional, but we get her own frustrations and back-story and (briefly-described, but still enjoyable) renaissance. I loved the use of language in this book; the mix of patois and overblown erudition and, at times, gobbledygook. A riot with a happy ending; just the thing to read at the beginning of the year.

2. Remember Me Tomorrow by Farah Heron

YA time slip book. Aleeza moves into a new dorm room and is able to communicate with Jay, the previous occupant of her room. However Jay is five months in the past, and has been missing, presumed dead, for months. Aleeza decides to do a podcast looking into his disappearance, using past Jay as one of her sources. This was ok, it was an easy read, which is what I needed as I’m still suffering with this virus that’s going round.

I fell off the thread last year due to life updates and this year is likely to be an uncertain one - ah well.

1st book of 2025 is marking time by Elizabeth Jane Howard, the second book in the Cazalet series which follows the Cazalet family during WW2.

This was a complete delight and great to start the new year

You've reminded me that I want to read Mr Loverman @Welshwabbit - it sounds even more appealing from your review

I'm still on books 1 and 2 for myself, but we finished our first couple of read alouds for 2025 this weekend. One was a short story and another an epic poem, but since they both included quite sophisticated language for my girls (and me 😅) to understand and were read when I usually would read aloud a book to them, I'm going to count them.

1. J K Rowling - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets My DDs absolutely loved this. Were trying to guess the type of monster and who opened the chamber of secrets the whole way through, and have been pretending to be at Hogwarts since we finished it.
2. Washington Irving - Rip Van Winkle We really enjoyed this. It had a lot of words that my DDs and I found a bit tricky to understand, but we had a good giggle at quite a few parts of the story.
3. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Paul Revere's Ride

Current Reads:
Book: Jane Eyre
Audiobook: Untangled
Read Aloud: Kidnapped

@Sadik I 100% endorse @Welshwabbit’s review. Mr Loverman was a joy to read and I still smile about certain things in it. Everyone is so real. I didn’t love Girl, Woman, Other so Mr Loverman was a lovely surprise. I also really enjoyed the very recent adaptation.

Why you should Read Children’s Books, Even Though you are so Old and Wise by Katherine Rundell
This was in the Kindle deals and I bought having really enjoyed some of her children’s books last year. I hadn’t realised it’s essentially little more than an essay. Swet enough, but very slight and nothing I hadn’t read before elsewhere. She can turn a lovely phrase, but this was pretty disappointing ultimately.

Can I join?

(1) The Nurse by Valerie Keogh!

Do No Harm…
Bullied, overlooked and under-appreciated, Lissa McColl learns at an early age to do very bad things.
As a nurse, she is respected and valued for the first time in her life. But Lissa hates her job and the selfish, rude and inconsiderate people she has to deal with.
But being underestimated in this job had its advantages. Lissa can get close to people, find out their secrets… sometimes with deadly results...

I found it an easy read - would recommend it!

6 All The Broken Places. John Boyne

I have mixed emotions about this book. I hate The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas with a passion. Despite the fact it is a fiction, it's so implausible as to be almost offensive. So deciding to read the sequel seems like an odd choice. I didn't hate it half as much as the first book, actually I didn't hate it at all. But it's left me with a whole raft of emotions, and I'll be honest and admit that I cried in places. I'm hoping you're all familiar with TBITSP, or at least that you know the bare bones of the story.

This is the story of what happened to Gretel after the war, and the guilt she carried for who her father was, and what happened to Bruno. After the war, Gretels Father is hanged for his part in the Holocaust and Gretel and her Mother take on a fake identity and move to France. Gretel later moves to Australia and then London. The book is written as a multi timeline but it was easy to know where we were in history at all times.

I thought the way Auschwitz was only ever referred to as "the other place" was a really clever was of showing how Gretel was, in some way, traumatised by what had happened. I could really feel her internal battle with complex emotions the she couldn't discuss with anyone else without revealing who she really was. I think this book actually shows what an exceptional writer John Boyne is. The complexity of Gretel's character, making me swing from hatred to empathy was astounding. And there were times when I really hated Gretel. She was more concerned with protecting herself than saving others, I like to think I wouldn't do the same. Thankfully I'm unlikely to ever have to make that decision. And there was obviously still a part of her that loved/admired Hitler.

There's a rather brutal scene in which Gretel and her mother are abused by a group of people who have worked out their true identity. I was torn between thinking "well tough. It's nothing compared to what your husband/Father did to the Jews" and "they are innocent. No one is responsible for their husband/fathers crimes. Especially Gretel. She was only a child during the war, and children can't be guilty of hate if that's what they've been taught. And there were times when I really hated Gretel. She was more concerned with protecting herself than saving others, I like to think I wouldn't do the same. Thankfully I'm unlikely to ever have to make that decision.

1 The Glutton - AK Blakemore

Tarare is born to a teenage mother in rural France twenty years prior to the revolution. After being badly beaten and left for dead by his step-father at the age of 14 he develops an insatiable hunger and joins an itinerant band of showmen, thieves and prostitutes, earning a living as a sideshow piece demonstrating his ability to eat vast amounts of offal, rats, snakes, corks, puppies, or whatever is on offer. When his friends are killed in a bungled highway robbery he strikes out for Paris alone, eventually joining the revolutionary army and becoming a medical curiosity in the military hospital.

First bold of the year for me. Tarare was a real person although nothing is known about his early life or the cause of his abnormal appetite. Blakemore extrapolates some modern-day theories and paints a compelling picture of a pitiful character with human desires and flaws, completely at the mercy of his disabling condition.

2. The Templar Secret by Scott Mariani

An ex-SAS soldier and his friends /colleagues are mistaken as a threat to a secret held by the Church and a secret order dating back to the Knights Templar. While looking at a property to purchase in France, Ben Hope, Jeff, and Tuesday, stumble across an unknown man in a hidden vault.

Unbeknownst to them the man had come across an inscription carved into a wall in that vault leading to a dramatic fight for survival. Ben Hope carries the weight of responsibility heavily for all those who are or could be harmed during their frantic search for a long-hidden truth.

This was a great book despite it being the last one of 30 😮I now have another 29 to look forward to.😁 Good story and great characters.

My fascination for books about searches of historical artefacts stemmed from Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

First book of the year was an audiobook
1: Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith
Hapless and houseproud Charles Pooter writes a diary of his everyday life as a social climber office clerk. Hard to believe it was written in 1892 really as it’s still a brilliant comic caricature. Self absorbed Pooter grapples with untidy stair carpets, irritating work colleagues, a wayward son and his awkward social circle with continual blunders.
I needed something lighthearted to begin the year and this fitted the bill nicely.

Book 4 is Human Acts by Han Kang

I'll be starting tomorrow!

2 The House That Horror Built by Christina Henry

Harry is a single mother who has a full time job cleaning the house of a horror film director and recluse, Javier Castillo. She quite enjoys it, because she’s always been a horror buff and this contributed to her being kicked out by her religious parents when she was 16. Then things start to get a little spooky, with film props seeming to move and voices in the walls…..
This should be an excellent book but it isn’t, it’s a laughable mess. Henry seems to have something against pronouns (not in a genderist way, in a repetitive, irritating way), so Harry, does a thing, Gabe does a thing, then Harry does another thing because Harry doesn’t run for the hills as Harry should, taking Gabe with her. A stalky reporter side plot comes to nothing much, people Google the best way to deal with ghosts while being haunted by them in real time. The only interesting feature of the whole novel is the startling similarities to Guillermo Del Toro and Doug Jones / the British monster actor who is currently writing a book. I looked for an Afterword saying she’d met Del Toro and he’s a lovely man who didn’t mind at all being portrayed as a reclusive, murderous creep, but there wasn’t one.
I’ve fallen for Henry’s sub par drivel before, but decided to give her another chance for 99p. Won’t be doing that again!

2 The King’s Jewel - Elizabeth Chadwick

Set in 11th century Wales this is the story of Nesta ferch Rhys whose Father was killed in battle when she was only 13 years old. The Normans then take her childhood home and Nesta is taken away from everything she ever knew and loved. She catches the eye of the Kings brother and becomes his unwilling concubine then married off to one of his favourites when he becomes bored of her.

Although now back living in her beloved Wales Nesta cannot resign herself to her new Norman husband and when the charismatic Owain, son of the Welsh prince, arrives Nesta must choose between duty and desire.

This was ok, a little romantic for my taste. I enjoyed reading about the period in history but Nesta was quite unlikeable despite her previous traumas and her husband was cloying and almost sycophantic. Moving on!

3 Right Ho Jeeves by PG Wodehouse
Book club read. Bertie manages to mess up two engagements. I listened to this on audio read by Stephen Fry. A bit too farcical for me but there were some funny bits.

One of my most favourite books ever.