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50 Books Challenge 2025 Part One

1000 replies

Southeastdweller · 01/01/2025 08:42

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?

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17
ÚlldemoShúl · 06/01/2025 19:15

I’m another without children and with a longish commute by public transport so lots of reading time. DH works shifts too so I only tend to watch tv when he’s around- I read in the evenings otherwise.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 06/01/2025 19:15

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 06/01/2025 19:08

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

Someone announced they were reading ROTD and you said "not the bloody boring Butler again" and they took it as a personal slight that they were being boring. There was also that poster that turned on Cote and told her she wasn't entitled to an opinion because she reads Dick Francis !

Oh gosh. I’d totally forgotten about that. Whoever it was clearly didn’t belong here if they were that bloody stupid!!!!!

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 06/01/2025 19:17

lol to Dick Francis and Cote too. 😂

Newbies - welcome one and all. We’re lovely, but if you’re going to get upset at someone slagging off a book you love, do buy a hard hat in advance! 😜

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 06/01/2025 19:30

Just did a search to remind myself of Bloody Boring Butler Gate.

It prompted the wonderful @noodlezoodle to coin the phrase Schrodinger's butler. 😂 Genius!

AlmanbyRoadtrip · 06/01/2025 19:34

I was a casual observer to the “bloody boring butler” fracas. It didn’t put me off, but I didn’t join in the threads for a while after, because being organised and sharing my thoughts on books wasn’t really my thing at the time (probably why my Netgalley lists languished and publishers stopped selecting me! ) I have never read ROTD but I will be sure to post a thorough review when / if I do Grin

As long as you steer clear of “Everyone who reads Xxxx is an idiot” then pretty much anything goes. In true MN style “Xxxx is targeted at the more idiotic end of the literature market” is probably ok Wink
And if you diss Cuddy I’ll get a proper monk on ( Eye thank yew, Eye’m here all week…)

noodlezoodle · 06/01/2025 19:47

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 06/01/2025 19:30

Just did a search to remind myself of Bloody Boring Butler Gate.

It prompted the wonderful @noodlezoodle to coin the phrase Schrodinger's butler. 😂 Genius!

Hahahaha I'd totally forgotten about that. Quite proud of myself!

countrygirl99 · 06/01/2025 19:50

I must admit I follow this thread for info about good reads and what to avoid. I know the sort of things that annoy/bore me so if a book is described like that I know I can give it a swerve. I've picked up some really interesting non fiction reads I probably would never have noticed otherwise.

inaptonym · 06/01/2025 19:55

Like others, reading is my default mode but one of the best things about this thread is the diversity. I also don't have kids and spent most of last year too under the weather (physically or mentally) to do other things, including concentrate on films/shows/games. Much of what I read is fluff that I'm sure some here (politely and privately) would turn their noses up at (note deleterious effect on grammar) 😅
And everyone also has their own counting system, so it doesn't feel at all competitive. It does motivate me to get better at writing reviews though Blush

1 Eleanor Farjeon - Miss Granby’s Secret: or, The Bastard of Pinsk
Originally published in 1940, this is the latest reissue from Furrowed Middlebrow (itself revived, yay), and it was a lot of fun; that rare type of book written to amuse without being too fluffy/twee. I’d only previously encountered EF as a traditional, sentimental Victorian children’s writer and poet (e.g. of the hymn ‘Morning Has Broken’) so was surprised to find this adult novel so mischievous, experimental and - as a deliberate period piece - not even particularly dated-feeling.

The frame narrative is itself set in the past, opening in 1912 when thoroughly modern Millie Pamela inherits a box of papers on the death of her Aunt Addie aka Miss Addelaide Granby, a prolific writer of Victorian romances that were once wildly popular but in recent decades dismissed as ‘Rather Dated’ - including by her ‘advanced’ Young Fabian niece, whose offers to explain the facts of life to her maiden aunt were never taken up. Miss Granby’s secret must be pieced together from various documents, including her will; assorted letters, poems and diaries; and a draft of The Bastard of Pinsk, her first (unpublished) novel, written in 1849 as a very sheltered 16 y.o. This is included in full along with the author’s notes and queries and it soon becomes evident that she’s working with her own idiosyncratic definition of ‘bastard’, for a start. Half the book is taken up by this pastiche, and I can see it irritating some, but having a high tolerance for 19th C gothic nonsense, I LAPPED IT UP 10/10 would read more Miss G.

I won’t spoil TBoP* or the frame narrative, which ends around 1932, so will just say that it was more complex and ambiguous than expected - even slightly convoluted, so not quite a bold. Although definitely a comedy overall, and often lol funny, everyone was fair game so the humour never felt mean-spirited. (Also nothing of the dark bite of Elizabeth Taylor -* Angel if anyone else noticed the similarity.) The Blitz context in which it was written also gave the depiction of intergenerational difference and cultural change added poignancy.

CoubousAndTourmalet · 06/01/2025 20:03

I'm feeling embarrassingly unliterary here, I must admit. I'll continue lurking but I do read a lot of fantasy and I'm never sure if that's frowned upon... I'm the least competitive person on the planet, I never set goals, but my hope is that joining this thread will at least keep me off AIBU and trending threads. Those have been my downfall in recent weeks 😬

SomethingBlues · 06/01/2025 20:04

2 Hercule Poirot’s Christmas all finished up. It might be a re read for me; but I do love it. My favourite of Christie’s tales.

Somewhat trepidatiously, I am moving on to the much hyped A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. On paper, the fantasy element of this should be something I enjoy however, I’m slightly put off the booktok-instabook raving about it all. But we’ll see - wish me luck!

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 06/01/2025 20:05

@inaptonym I love your reviews and the one you've just written is another banger.

@noodlezoodle And so you should be! Did you ever read the book, dare I ask?

@AlmanbyRoadtrip I still haven't dared try anything by Myers, so Cuddy is safe for now.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 06/01/2025 20:06

Definitely not frowned upon @CoubousAndTourmalet I'm reading a Brandon Sanderson as I type. It was, admittedly a gift and not something I would have sought out.

Terpsichore · 06/01/2025 20:06

@inaptonym - that Eleanor Farjeon would be a shoo-in for the Rather Dated Book Club! And I've come across it quite recently but I can’t remember how. I’m off to investigate.

ETA: just checked, and I already own it 😂

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 06/01/2025 20:06

CoubousAndTourmalet · 06/01/2025 20:03

I'm feeling embarrassingly unliterary here, I must admit. I'll continue lurking but I do read a lot of fantasy and I'm never sure if that's frowned upon... I'm the least competitive person on the planet, I never set goals, but my hope is that joining this thread will at least keep me off AIBU and trending threads. Those have been my downfall in recent weeks 😬

Nothing is frowned upon. I have been known to read nothing but Enid Blyton for weeks at times. There may well be scathing banter, but there is never sneering.

IKnowAPlace · 06/01/2025 20:10

I'm known by my friends as a total book snob! But, when they tell me what they're reading, I'm just thrilled that they've found something they enjoy.

I think it's great that there's so much variety out there.

TimeforaGandT · 06/01/2025 20:10

And I have spent the last few years re-reading the works of Dick Francis (apparently maligned historically on this thread)!

noodlezoodle · 06/01/2025 20:17

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I'm yet to tackle the butler, so he remains in an uncertain state.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 06/01/2025 20:21

noodlezoodle · 06/01/2025 20:17

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I'm yet to tackle the butler, so he remains in an uncertain state.

Grin
OneBadKitty · 06/01/2025 20:41

Great that I don't need to read 50 to chat. I'm a really slow reader- it's usually late by the time I get to read and do so in bed- rarely manage more than a few pages before I'm dropping the book and nodding off!

Seen Ben Myers mentioned- have to say I'm a bit of a fan and have read a few of his- I loved The Gallows Pole and Cuddy and not so much The Offin, but it was Ok. I've got The Perfect Golden Circle and Rare Singles on the 'to be read' pile. I just love the way he writes and the description he uses.

BestIsWest · 06/01/2025 20:42

All books are welcome here!

minsmum · 06/01/2025 20:42

I announced very grandly at the start of the thread that my first book read would be The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis, I am about halfway through but my first book was an audio of Slightly married by Mary Balogh.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 06/01/2025 20:47

How odd @minsmum my first book was The Zone Of Interest!

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 06/01/2025 20:56

4 Here In The Dark by Alexis Soloski

Vivian is a theatre critic fuelled by booze and pills. She is asked by a man named David Adler for an interview but David then disappears leaving Vivian the last person to see him, becoming obsessed by this mystery, Vivian's life threatens to spiral out of control.

This had a really excellent premise but overly relies on the unreliable narrator trope. For all the buildup involved, I found the denouement silly, but I also thought it was original as psychological thrillers go.

Not perfect and not a bold but if you have a taste for unhinged women making poor choices this would fit the bill.

AlmanbyRoadtrip · 06/01/2025 21:06

Interested to know what you think of Rare Singles when you get to it @OneBadKitty . I’ll just say it was not one of my favourites of his, but then I like Beastings and that is horrific in its subject matter. Perfect Golden Circle is sublime. The Offing is the one that persuaded me to read more of his after I abandoned The Gallows Pole

ChessieFL · 06/01/2025 21:09

Rare Singles is the only Myers I have read so far and I really enjoyed it. I will be reading more of his when I get chance.

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