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?

Totally. That was my justification anyway. 😊

It doesn’t count in terms of building up a to- read pile, but I bought and read it at the weekend and was underwhelmed.

Just remembered the gorgeous Trustee from the Tool Room but think it might have death. Can anybody remember?

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

Isn't the point of Trustee is that his sister dies at the start and that's why he's a trustee?

@Stowickthevast

I don't know your friends taste but I'm volunteering Guernsey Pie (short for the longer title) and Eleanor and Park

Thanks Remus & Eine ❤️

@Stowickthevast
Personally when going through hard times I found really plotty books the best- fast moving and distracting so I couldn’t think too much about what was happening. My go to for that type of distraction is crime but that may be inappropriate here. Perhaps consider something out of left field- Terry Pratchett, fast paced fantasy or romance including the much reviewed Jilly Cooper’s upthread.

Song of Susannah by Stephen King

We started this book with Susannah on the verge of giving birth, and after a short and pacy (by Kings standards) book we close with her on the verge of giving birth!

I'm not sure about King including himself as a character but I am so caught up in the story I am going straight into the final book right now.

@ÚlldemoShúl @Stowickthevast

The Rutshire Nonsense is a very good shout actually. Popcorn Lit.

I am a weird person who read Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands when DF was dying. It was strangely comforting by comparison that DF was dying of natural causes, in his own home, surrounded by his family, especially as he was Jewish.
I have generally enjoyed the Maggie O’Farrell books I’ve read, without rushing to read more, but the plot twist in The Hand That First Held Mine made me cross, because I just don’t think it was plausible.
I think I mentioned it before, but I could never read any of Lucy Worsley’s books because I went to school with her (not the same year). She has had the same haircut since she was about 8.
Anyway, on to:
2. Signs for Lost Children - Sarah Moss
This is the sequel to Bodies of Light. Victorian newlyweds Tom and Ally are separated as Tom goes to Japan to design lighthouses, while Ally, a pioneering female doctor, stays in Cornwall and works at the local asylum. As you can imagine, a lot of interesting writing about encountering 19th century Japan and Victorian ideas about women, madness and mad women. Not flashy historical fiction, but extremely well done. Did feel it ended a bit abruptly: would have liked to read more about the couple getting to know each other again when reunited.

Probably! I can't remember - but I do remember thinking it was a lovely, comforting sort of read.

Eleanor and Park is another Very Lovely Book.

For Bronte sister admirers I would recommend a trip to Haworth in Yorkshire to visit the parsonage and see the pub where Bramwell drank etc. You can also pop to nearby Heptonstall and visit Sylvia Plath's Grave. We had a holiday based in Hebden Bridge specifically to go to the Bronte parsonage.

I've never managed to make it to Haworth despite living in Yorkshire for a few years, I don't drive but it's still on my list

Haworth is lovely. It's fascinating to see the tiny books the siblings wrote, as well as to consider the cemetery right outside and, of course, the moors looming all around.

I went to Heptonstall last year to see Sylvia - an easy train to Hebden Bridge from Manchester, followed by a very steep walk up to the village.

There's a bus to Haworth from outside Hebden Bridge train station, I think, although I haven't travelled on it. It's actually a trip I'd really like to do, as our visit to Haworth was about 25 years ago!

@Stowickthevast - I always turn to Georgette Heyer at difficult times but can see they might not suit a teen.

So, I have been racking my feelgood brains and came up with Bridget Jones?

Sorry, I thought I'd also said thank you @ÚlldemoShúl but it seems to have been missed off.

So sorry to hear about your friend’s news Stowickthevast. Can’t think of a book to suggest, perhaps a beautiful edition of a favourite?

I’ve got a couple to review:

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by PD James Hoped for a page-turner and this was ok, I’d expected a bit more from PD James. Wondered if I’d read it as a teenager but don’t think so, didn’t remember the detective Cordelia Gray, whose background is contrived to give her an unstable childhood but a privileged but curtailed education. Some inelegant shenanigans but ties up neatly if not believably with a cameo from Dalgliesh at the end, which lifted it.

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende A reread for book group. I was really taken by this and House of the Spirits when I read them possibly 20 years ago. I enjoyed the exuberant sensuality of this and the grand scale, as it moves from Chile to gold-rush California, but it was a particularly depressing time to be reading about tribal violence and environmental plunder in 19th century California.

It's a great location for a holiday. We have been three times now. Halifax just up the road too - the Piece Hall is lovely. Nowadays tv is the big draw of course. Happy Valley, Gentleman Jim, Last Tango in Halifax....

I've got very behind on the thread. I've had flu and haven't been reading or keeping up with the chat, so am starting afresh from today's posts. @Stowickthevast I'm sorry to hear of your friend's troubles. Would Excellent Women work? Or The Pedant in the Kitchen?, which is more daft and irreverent that comforting, but might distract nicely.

@Castlerigg Tenant was one of my best reads last year - you won't spend a better 32p, I'm sure.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I lol-ed at your review of Polo. It's available to me on BorrowBox at the moment, but I switched to something different as the first 30 minutes was so relentless polo-y, and then felt like an idiot for reserving a book called Polo and complaining about all the polo. I might go back to it, or it might end up disappearing from my available books before it tempts me...

@StrangewaysHereWeCome

The Polo fatigue is real.

I’d really like to see the Piece Hall, but a few people have told me it’s the only thing worth seeing in Halifax!

@Stowickthevast You've had lots of great recommendations for lovely, comforting reads - I’ve no idea whether this is the type of book your friend might like but for this sort of thing I really love the gentle 1950s novels by Elizabeth Fair which are set in small villages or by the seaside and are a bit reminiscent of Cranford, but updated to the mid-20thc and usually with a low-key love story involved. They’re old-fashioned but great fun (John Betjeman was a fan) and just very consoling to escape into. There are also 6 of them, so plenty to read! All on kindle.