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?

@Terpsichore Your post has just reminded me of Susan Scarlett too - usually rags to riches love stories, rather repetitive but very endearing. A pen name of Noel Streatfeild. Somebody on here told me about them and I’ve read about half of them so far. Officially Very Lovely.

How strange, I’ve just been with a friend who booked a holiday in Hebden Bridge this afternoon so we’ve been talking all about it.
It’s a shame about the Polo fatigue and the racist names etc. @EineReiseDurchDieZeit and I wish I could say it gets better but it doesn’t really. That said, there is a lot to be recommended in some of the follow ups and I’ve enjoyed them immensely up until Wicked which I’ve just DNF’d.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie yes, the Susan Scarletts are great fun too!

@BestIsWest

If I get really stuck for an audiobook I might try TMWMHJ but to be fair I found the murky waters of consent around Perdita's main sexual relationship really off putting also.

@Stowickthevast my top comfort reads are either my childhood favourites, Ballet Shoes, The Secret Garden and things like that. Or Harry Potter.

Hmm, @EineReiseDurchDieZeit theres a very inappropriate relationship central to TMWMHJ too although that character does get his comeuppance eventually albeit in a later book.

4. Spook Street - Mick Herron

The fourth book in the Slow Horses series which is another re-read ahead of watching the television adaptation. A new First Desk and a new Slow Horse and the usual enjoyable chaos as everyone tries to work out what’s going on and how to cover their arses.

Echoes from Auschwitz: Dr. Mengele's Twins: The story of Eva and Miriam Mozes Eva Mozes Kor and Mary Wright

Prior to my trip to Poland last year, I spent a lot of time researching Auschwitz and the atrocities committed there before I saw it for myself. I came across a YouTube documentary of the most remarkable woman, Eva Mozes Kor, speaking about her experience of the Holocaust and in particular being one of the twins experimented on by the Nazis. Her story and her recounting her experiences had a profound affect on me.

I chose to read her book as I was hoping to hear more details of her time in Auschwitz; there are so many Holocaust deniers that I wanted to hear from someone who was there. Although as it turns out there is little more to be gained from the book than from the YouTube videos.

The style of writing is very much as if Eva is speaking directly to her readers; in fact I read it hearing her voice from the documentaries which I enjoyed. Eva spent much of her life speaking publically about her experiences, raising awareness and fighting for justice. There is a rehearsed feel to the way her story is written, almost as though it is the same 'presentation' she gives each time she is asked to speak.

Throughout this book I was struck by the amount of Magical Thinking Eva described. This is a normal part of childhood development between 2-7 years of age where children strongly believe that their personal thoughts have a direct effect on the rest of the world. Eva often stated that she kept her and her twin alive through sheer force of will, that she personally spoiled a particular Nazi experiment or caused them problems. I found myself wondering whether she became stuck in that stage of her development due to the horrors she lived through, and this was a psychological defence she developed as a result.

The book itself is published independently and it shows; there are printing errors and the footnote numbers and references are out of sync, but this does not detract from the reading experience. The inclusion of photos and images of the experimentation notes and records was a valuable, albeit chilling, addition.

After all she lived through, Eva does not owe anyone anything, and so for her to share her experiences is a gift. She was such an incredible force of nature and I hope she found peace before she died.

@Stowickthevast what about one of the Japanese or Korean translated books which are extremely popular atm like Everything You Need is in the Library.

@Zireael Eva Moses Kor was an astonishingly woman. One of my heroines. I've read a couple of her books but there's not anything different in them.
Still. A real powerhouse.

Did you know that the publicly forgave the Nazis for what they did? And hugged a former Nazi as part of the process. Incredible.

On Rue Tatin - Susan Loomis
Food writer and sculptor husband move to a small town in Normandy, buy a picturesque wreck and raise a family.
Really interesting on the differences in the French and American education and maternity services. Luscious foodie descriptions and recipes. Her husband takes time out to restore the house which is ancient and is described beautifully. I was so taken by this I looked it up and found that it was recently sold and the estate agents photos are still on line. It’s the stuff of fantasies.

@BestIsWest I did a bit of snooping too. Apparently a divorce was involved…..😯

Yes @Terpsichore I saw that! I’ve just bought book 2. I wonder what went wrong.

2 Red sauce brown sauce - A Breakfast Odyssey by Felicity Cloake
After cycling around France testing croissants (best job ever!!) Cloake sets off around the British Isles to sample local breakfast delicacies.
I loved this. Made me feel quite homesick, particularly the chapter about marmite.

FINALLY finished a book, doubt I'll hit my target of 100 at this rate!

1. Polo by Jilly Cooper

I forgot what a doorstop this book is at over 700 pages. It's probably my favourite of the Rutshire series and I always enjoy a re-read. I do agree with @EineReiseDurchDieZeit the name of the horse, in particular, really shocked me. I'd forgotten it from previous reads. For those who haven't read it, I won't write the word but it begins with N. I really clearly remember the first time I ever heard the word as a child and it was in 1994, so only 3 years after this book was published. Someone said the word to me, I asked my dad what it meant, he explained it's a word you NEVER use. So I don't for one second believe that just 3 years earlier it would have been an acceptable word in this context

Apart from that, I do love this book. The characters are so complex, perdita is a simply awful human being and Luke is a total saint but you can't help rooting for them to be together despite the fact Luke could do so much better. Perdita's choices throughout the book make me want to shake her but she is very young which explains a lot of her poor decision making. I wish red got a comeuppance, he's such an awful person and treats everyone around him, particularly Perdita, abysmally. But he just swans off with no consequences

This is my current nonfiction! Though I’m not enjoying it as much as you :-)

My current read is a standalone by Mick Herron. I'm only a few chapters in, but I feel like I'm going to enjoy his books.

Whilst in Waterstones I saw the Slow Horses series but book No.1 wasn't available so I bought Secret Hours instead. The series will just have to be put on my wishlist. 😃

7 The Sky Beneath Us - Fiona Valpy

This is the first Fiona Valpy I have read, and a quick advanced search shows that the structure is fairly common for this author - an alteration between a present day woman (Daisy, March 2020 onwards) and Violet, Daisy’s great great aunt. (1927 onwards)

(I found out in the Afterword that Daisy’s mother was a key character in another Valpy book, The Skylark’s Secret, but this book is fine as a standalone)

Daisy (divorced, in her 40s, mother of late-teenage twins) and her mother Lexie have planned for a while to travel to Nepal and onward from Kathmandu to the village of Phortse. However, Daisy’s mother is unable to fly as she catches an early case of Covid, so Daisy decides to go on alone. They have been inspired to go by the journals and letters of ancestor Violet, and the book intersperses these with Daisy’s story. Violet was a bit of a trailblazer, having talked her parents into letting her study at the Edinburgh School of Gardening for Women and then finding work with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh as a sketcher of plants being sent back from Asia. Here she meets and falls in love with Callum. Both their families disapprove (class differences) but Violet ends up following Callum out on an expedition to Nepal and ultimately ends up in the village of Phortse, for Daisy to find stories of her and their mutual Sherpa family many decades later.

This was a lovely gentle book about finding new leases of life, and I may well read more by the author at some point. A few places that credibility was stretched (the reason for everyone having such excellent English wasn’t vastly convincing!) and a bit too much “oh, the pandemic was tough but uplifting”. However, the sense of place was lovely and Daisy’s journey to self acceptance was also.

@LuckyMauveReader - I read Secret Hours last year and it’s good background for the Slow Horses series as well as working as a standalone book. Given my lamentable memory, I may need to re-read it soon…

6 A Christmas Present. By Katharine E Smith

This is book 11 in the Coming Back to Cornwall series. It is stand alone but better if you’ve read the previous books. It is loosely based on A Christmas Carol.
Whilst I enjoyed it, cosy Christmas reading; it wasn’t as good as the previous books. Possibly because I could see the original story within.

7. Falling Out of Stride. Katherine E Smith

Ruth, wife and mother of 3 grown up children, is dead. She narrates this story as she watches over her family in the space of about a year.
I really enjoyed this book and am sure more books with Ruth and her family will follow.
Tonight, I will read a book by a different author as my last 6 have been by this one.

@Sadik I've just remembered that before Christmas, I promised to send you my DNF copy of Scoff if you want it. Happy to pop it in the post for you!

Kindle suggested this to me as I have read several of FV’s books. At least 5, I think. Anyway, I am being strong in my resolve to not buy anymore. I’ll see if I can get this from my library on due course.

I do like it when FV brings back a character from a previous book. I’m pretty sure I’ve read The Skylarks Secret, but am dreadful at remembering. Need to check my database/spreadsheet 🤣🤣🤣

5 A Spy among Friends - Ben Macintyre I got this in Waterstones on a recent trip back to the UK (the joy of being able to browse English-language books in a bookshop!) in place of the Macintyre I really wanted, which they didn’t have in stock. As expected this is another excellent true spy story, just like the others I have read by him. It covers the life of Kim Philby, one of the Cambridge Five, with a focus on his friendships (in particular, his long and extremely close friendship with Nicholas Elliot, a fellow long-serving MI6 officer) - all of which he betrayed due to his lifelong service as a Soviet agent. Really fascinating, and incredible that he got away with it for so long and had such an easy ride after being definitively found out (anyone caught betraying the Soviets would have been dealt with so much more harshly!). Highly recommended.

Coincidentally, my next book is The Secret Hours (Mick Herron - I haven’t read anything by him before), so I’ll be staying in the world of espionage for a while longer! Looking forward to comparing notes with @LuckyMauveReader and everyone else on here who likes the Herron books!

@DuPainDuVinDuFromage if you get the chance, the itvX dramatisation is very good.