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?

Oooh can I join? Long time lurker! My first read of the year will be Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans; making my way through her backlist after loving Small Bomb at Dimperley which I read about in last year’s thread.

@thesecondmrsdewinter20

Watch out! Crooked Heart is part of a trilogy and Old Baggage comes first!

I know! I’ve read Old Baggage already. Loved it. Mattie is my hero

@thesecondmrsdewinter20 I'm so excited for you starting this for the first time, the books in this trilogy are among the best ever written in my opinion! (And I'm impatiently waiting in the library queue for Small Bomb)

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit is right that chronologically Old Baggage comes first but I think it makes more sense to read Crooked Heart first (and that was the first one Lissa Evans wrote).

@ClaraTheImpossibleGirl I have much older friends who still refer to "lady vicars" in much the same way. Although I've got a feeling my mum (born 1960) occasionally comments on a Dr being female. My Grandad (b.1934) commented recently on the excellent care he'd received from a male nurse. "I don't know why he isn't a doctor, but he is very good..."

As a small child in the 80s I thought that doctors and nurses were the same job role, but that doctors were men and nurses were women.

I have just read book 2

Exploited by Maggie Hartley

It's a book written by a foster carer, about a young girl (Hannah) who goes into foster care, after coming home drunk multiple times, but after a hospital admission, Hannah finally admits what has been happening, and why she is getting drunk.

I didn't mean to read the whole book in one sitting. But I genuinely couldn't put it down- I needed to know what happened.

1. The Great Alone - Kristin Hannah

A bold to start the year off 🙂 I did try and make it my last book of 2024 but I had to admit defeat around 0030 because I didn’t want to be too tired to savour it.

It is 1974 and Leni is 13. Her parents have been wanderers since her dad came back - troubled - from being a POW in Vietnam. Their latest adventure is to go to Alaska in a VW van to claim a plot of land left to her father by another soldier. We are with Leni at 13, at 17 and in her 20s.

The sense of place, loneliness, adventure, community and belonging as Leni and Alaska grow into each other is wonderful. As is the palpable fear conveyed when the darkness and winter triggers her father’s abusive and controlling nature in this remote spot. Leni falls in love naturally and believably, people are lost to the ice and the grief is well written. I loved this.

I’d like to join please. I’m trying to get back to reading after about 6 years since having my eldest - the mental overload has been real and I haven’t been able to focus on a book properly since having kids (now got 3!). Really want to make an effort this year, aiming for 25 books. Started with Wintering last week but haven’t finished yet so will count is as my first book of 2025!

This was one of my first reads last year and one of my favourites all year.

HNY everyone and welcome all joiners - I was you last year! 😁

Doing well on my NYR to read less, with 0 books bought or begun today. Also Went Out For A Walk.

Continuing with things from last year instead, all of which I'm enjoying:
Sara Lodge - The Mysterious Case ofthe Victorian Female Detective
Joe Abercrombie - The Trouble with Peace (audio)
Eleanor Farjeon - Miss Granby's Secret
and taking part in the Martin Chuzzlewit readalong

@BlueFairyBugsBooks Have you read Josephine Elder? Pen name of a real 'lady doctor' born in the late 19th C, in practice from the 1920s. She wrote books for both children (girl's school stories) and adult (mysteries and romances) often featuring female scientists/doctors, and based on her own experiences. Girls Gone By and Greyladies presses reissued them.

@Castlerigg Wasn't Red Seas fun? I thought the next was much weaker, sadly, and it doesn't look like he'll ever finish the series.

I don't think I'll manage 50 books, but starting with All Fours by Miranda July - really enjoying it so far! I'd describe it as horny book!

Hny 50 bookers and welcome to all newbies. I'm going to aim for 100 books this year. Managed 90 last year so it feels somewhat doable

I’d also like to join, not sure I’ll get to 50 but we’ll see. My first book for the year was one I finished earlier today called kleptopia all about dirty money and corruption something I come across a bit with work, but well researched and interesting if a little slow in parts and I kept forgetting who was who. Now I am on the hundred year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared a recommendation of a book club. We’ll see.

I'm going to join in this year as I'm an avid reader and I'm trying to get involved in more discussions about books!

Starting off strong with Intermezzo by Sally Rooney - I'm about* *150 pages in and enjoying it so far. I'd heard mixed things going into it, but I've been appreciating the two distinct writing styles for the main characters.

@inaptonym I haven't read any of hers, but thanks for the recommendation. It'll be interesting to see how true too life the Cottage Hospital books are!

She's not the most elegant stylist or anything, and does like to recycle her own set of tropes, but I really enjoy her unusual POV. Also strongly suspect both she and her protagonists would be diagnosed ASD if born in our age.

If you look at my final list from last year you'll see that I've read a lot of books that fit that description

Oh I've just googled Josephine Elder. They look like the sort of books my Grandma read. I'll have to see if she had any of them. (Mum and I have most of her books still)

I meant to ask, is anyone exlusively/mainly choosing non-fiction? I wondered whether this might be easier for me as I find them easier to focus on and to dip in and out of rather than fiction where I can lose my flow and then end up not finishing books (soooo many recently)

I'll be so envious if you find some, especially if they're some OOP ones! (I keep a watchlist, but they're quite ££)
ETA: honestly I haven't heard of most of the books you review but coming off a pretty poor reading year full of hypebeasts I'm definitely not making assumptions! ❤

I never bother with New Year’s resolutions but i’m going to have a book related one and aim to read the books that have been on my ‘to read’ pile the longest. These have been on my Goodreads list for 10 years and I’ve owned the physical books much longer than that. I’ve had them so long that I’ve even bought a second copy on kindle for many of them. Catch 22 has got to be the book I’ve started and abandoned the most so it’s getting one last try and if I give up again, it’s getting binned.

Catch-22 is only DNF book I still have sat on my shelf so happy to have some motivation to read it this year

@TattiePants 🤔so what you're saying is... @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie has 9 more limericks to write (already aced Tess)

😂I’m sure @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie could write one about Catch 22 to psych me and @IKnowAPlace up!