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?

I’m a fan of Pratchett and agree with those who say not to start with The Colour of Magic. My favourite of his books overall is Small Gods and as this is not part of any of the ‘series’ books it could be a good place to start. The best ‘series within a series’ for me is the Night Watch (which contains the boots theory @WelshBookWitch mentions above) starting with Guards, Guards.

I started reading these threads a year or two before I started contributing in 2023, and there were three 50 Booker loves that I just couldn’t get my head around. One was the Mitfords, a second Nigel Slater and the third mountain peril. I put this down to cultural differences as most MNetters are English and I’m Irish and thought no more about it. Now that I am going back to my earliest kindle purchases, I’m going to have to eat my words/ thoughts. My next book is one I had bought for my husband which has been languishing on my kindle since 2014.

4 Into Thin Air by John Krakauer
For those not into the mountain peril genre, this is an account into a disastrous May climbing season on Everest in 1996. Krakauer was a climber with one of the commercial teams and is also a journalist. This is his account of the different teams on the mountain at that time, and the confluence of events which turned to disaster. I read it with my heart in my mouth, shouted ‘holy shit’ aloud more than once while reading and had tears in my eyes throughout the last few chapters. I found it very hard to put down. I feel for those who lost their lives, and also for those who survived. I think it’s safe to say that this is my first bold of the year, and that I am a convert to mountain peril. I may have to consider the Mitfords next ( but I’m not going near Nigel!!)

Into Thin Air is one of the most universally liked books on these threads, I think.

One was the Mitfords

Has the thread converted you?

(Say yes!)

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie Incan see why!

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I’m going to have to put them on my tbr now mountain peril has gone down so well. That said, it’ll probably be quite some time before I get to them.

@ÚlldemoShúl

Go with Hons And Rebels as a taster though Letters Between Six Sisters is the best one IMO

I love Pratchett and used to look forward to his latest hardback every Christmas growing up. Ranking: The Watch/City > Witches > Death >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Rincewind with standalones scattered throughout - particularly fond of Small Gods, The Truth, The Amazing Maurice... Already preordered the PMC annotated edition of Night Watch due this April 🎉 Actively hate the first 2 books, agree @weareallcats they're very dated male gazey.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit thanks for reviewing the Monica Kim, it's my next bookgroup read. I also found Hamnet overrated - the feminine herbwife hedgewitch mystique was more Philippa Gregoryish than I like in histfic.
I think it's quite common to forget details of meh books though, or even good ones read in a rush / distracted. I reread a lot and am sometimes shocked at how differently I feel about a book even a few years later - not that that stops me from strongly opining😁

@ÚlldemoShúl The Pursuit of Love / Love in a Cold Climate (N) and Hons and Rebels (J) are peak! I also enjoy J's other muckraking NF (esp The American Way of Death); but am not as big on Mitford bios/lives as most fans seem to be. Last year a Japanese bookseller memoir I read included Into Thin Air as a rec - it's very popular there, but so is mountaineering, so good to get a review from a fellow sceptic.

@FortunaMajor sorry I was so negative about it! It does sound like a good choice for a book club, there’s definitely lots to discuss.

I love the Discworld books and agree with previous posters that the Night Watch sub-series and the Witches sub-series are the best. Guards, Guards probably the best starting point, as the Witches ones take a bit more time to get really good (but you need the early ones to know the characters). I’m thinking of rereading some of them this year - will pick a few of the best rather than a full re-read I think.

@ÚlldemoShúl The Pursuit of Love is the one to start with IMO. I do like Letters Between Six Sisters but it's more for existing fans I think.

@Tarahumara

Have to disagree as Pursuit Of Love is part of the fiction side and they are much better in real life terms IMO

I agree. And it's one of my favourite books. I must have read it four or five times. It's a particular favourite if I'm in bed and it's stormy outside. It's the closest I'm ever going to come to climbing Everest, that's for sure.

Thanks all for the Mitford recommendations. I’ve added Hons and Rebels and Pursuit of Love to my tbr for when I’m past my Read what you Own challenge (now 4 books in)

I’m still plodding through The Women’s Room- it’s a worthwhile story but she tries to weave too many stories in which slows the whole thing down. I might aim to get to the end of this section, then put it on hold for a while. I’ll certainly need to mix it with something else for a while.

I started the Mitford with Mary Lovell’s biography of the sisters, then onto Nancy’s The Pursuit of Love where you recognise all the craziness of the Mitford childhood and coming of age. I’ve also read Love in a Cold Climate and am slowly working through. I have Hons and Rebels and quite enjoyed A Christmas Pudding. I find them comforting.

The thread/more broad MN recommendation I take exception to is: The Cazalet Chronicles, by Elizabeth Jane Howard. On paper, my thing, reality after the first one - boring, not the comfort read I expected (needed a trigger warning given how it was sold to me) and I have to sit on my hands every time it is suggested on other threads.

Other things like the love for Pritchett, or mountain peril are not for me generally, but I can appreciate and see why they are loved.

DuPain if you'd read some of the dross that's been chosen for my book club, you'd agree this was great. You made some valid points.

I never take offence if someone doesn't like a book that I did. We all have different tastes and read stuff from different places and in different moods. This thread would be crap if we all agreed all the time.

It's not a book I'd don my tin hat for.

I don't think my book club have ever forgiven me for We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves which was a rec from here.

I really liked We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves - I appreciate it'd be divisive though, reading it predates my time on this thread. I also enjoyed Booth by the same author

I signed up to review a book a few weeks ago, and then realised it was a sequel. Never mind i thought, I actually had the previous book on my TBR. So I settled in to read the first one.

Page one of that book says "although this can be read as a standalone, it follows on from AnOtherBook. We recommend you read that first". So I checked Amazon to see how many 'AnOtherBooks' there were, and it lists a series of 3 books, one of which isn't out yet and was the one I applied for originally. Cool. So i download AnOtherBook, thankfully it's on KU.
An that book also says that it follows on from SomeOtherBook. FFS. So I downloaded that too.

Turns out these books are all really really short so I've read 2 of them overnight.

1. Fracture. Elyse Hoffman.

Frans and Amos grow up on neighbouring farms in Germany. Frans lives with his neglectful/abusive father, Amos has a happier childhood with his parents and sister. Frans eventually runs away from home and joins the Nazi party. Years later he's hunting Jews, and finds his old friend Amos, hiding in a barn. He never knew Amos was Jewish, and of course questions everything he's been told about the Jewish people. He decides to keep Amos hidden and they eventually admit that they are in love. He does this with the help of the Black Fox network, who are undercover agents working against the Nazis. Ultimately he has to decide if he loves Amos, or Hitler more. The ending was a bit strange, with one of the characters seemingly having died and gone to the afterlife to await judgement.

10. The Vengeance of Samuel Val. Elyse Hoffman. Samuel was a young Jewish man who miraculously survived the massacre of his entire village at the hands of the Nazis. He joins the Black Fox network, and swears to hunt down one man in particular who killed his family. He ends up in the company of Amos along the way. Like in the first book, a big decision has to be made about if he takes revenge or not. At one point the Nazi officer is internally blaming the Jews for the fact he has to work away from home and miss time with his family. In his opinion if they weren't so awful that he had to kill them then he would be able to be at home more. Really interesting (and twisted) take on how his mind works.

I'm not sure what to make of these books so far. They are so short that they are worth a read anyway I think. There's some interesting moral dilemmas coming up, but I'm not sure if them being so short is a positive or a negative. I think I'll reserve full judgement until I've read the last 2.

3 The Outcast - Sadie Jones

Thos starts with 19 year old Lewis being released from prison back to his small village life. We travel back to the end of the war when Lewis is 7 and greeting his father home from war and learn about his relationship with his mother. The book follows Lewis’s life and what leads to his incarceration as well as the immediate aftermath of his release.
I enjoyed this. All about the real lives people keep hidden behind closed doors and how people’s perceptions and subsequent actions can alter the course of someone’s life. None of the characters are particularly likeable and there is some frustration that Lewis won’t just stand up for himself against his hideous neighbours and father but generally an enjoyable read.

The only Maggie O’Farrell I’ve read is Hamnet and I thought it was OK. I’ve never read any Pratchett or any mountain peril (neither appeal!). I do love the Mitfords though.

I went to a book sale earlier which was 3 books for £2. I got a large bag of books for £6! I spotted a Chris Brookmyre there so picked that up to try, along with a couple of Sarah Waters and a Jonathan Coe.

Super Cooper by Jilly Cooper

Still working my way through her old journalism books and really enjoying them. In this one Jilly talks about when she was on This Is Your Life. Mad to think that would have been in the late 1970s and they presumably thought that her life was already interesting enough by then. And she’s still going now!

And Away… by Bob Mortimer

I read this when it first came out but have listened to it on Audible, if only to hear him in his own voice tell the story of ‘I do beg your pardon, but we are in your garden’!

1. Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter - I do enjoy her books, but I think once you've read more than a few they can become pretty samey. It was decent read and you always know what you're getting 3*

1. Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent - this was not what I expected. I thought it was going to be like Eleanor Oliphant to be honest, but it really wasn't in the end. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it at the moment, I enjoyed the beginning and sped through it but am perhaps a little disappointed? I just don't think there was enough oomph and if anyone else has read it, maybe you'll understand? Who knows!?

Anyway, to add to the recent chat, I'm a huge Shardlake fan but agree the final book was a bit too much.

I also really enjoyed After you'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell but have since picked up a few of her others and couldn't get into them at all.

Hamnet - OK, good, not great. Marriage Portrait - I enjoyed
Mountain Peril - read it but it was no TTOD or Erebus or The Wager , so I obviously prefer Sea Peril.
Read neither Pratchett nor Mitfords.

The Mitfords hold no appeal to me. I read Love in a Cold Climate and thought it was crap.

Mountain peril, polar peril, sea peril - I love it all.

Don’t like the Mitfords apart from Debo.

Loved Pratchett as a teenager, leaves me fairly cold now, apart from Good Omens which I still love.

I read Strange Sally Diamond and found it enthralling and different. It wasn't nicely packaged up in the end as a happy ever after story and I thought that was realistic. I adopted two children who suffered neglect and abuse in their birth family and Sally's ongoing difficulties really resonated with me. It was darker than the books I normally read and I'm not sure I could recommend it to people as I think it could be quite triggering if you don't know their back story. Lots of interesting issues raised in it and I would like to read more of Liz Nugent's work.

I'm a couple of chapters into book 6. A Room of One's Own & Three Guineas by Virginia Woolf

Book 5. Wild Houses by Colin Barrett was excellent.

Yes, I would agree, I don't like her writing. I love the non fiction stuff. It's really illuminating and a portrait of a time. Nancy was a stone cold bitch to absolutely everyone. Some really fascinating stories all in one sibling group.

Just picking up on your review of Doreen, @BadSpellaSpellaSpella. I rate this novel and have recommended it often on here. Yes, it’s a bit novelettish in places but I think the approach is unusual for its time and it’s very perceptive in mapping the growing, close relationship between Doreen and her foster-father (who doesn’t like/want children). It doesn’t go for easy answers either.

I'd like to read more evacuee novels too but on thinking about it, I’m not sure there are many of the period, so that’s an interesting challenge. Plenty of later children's books and non-fiction but how many novels? Hmm….