50 Books Challenge 2025 Part Two

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the second 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.

The first thread of the year is

Signing in!

1. The Great Alone - Kristin Hannah
2. The Fifth Risk - Michael Lewis
3. Deadly Cross - James Patterson
4. The Silent Wife - Karin Slaughter
5. Apples Never Fall - Liane Moriarty
6. The Lost Notebook - Louise Douglas
7. The Sky Beneath Us - Fiona Valpy
8. The Sea House - Louise Douglas
9. Giraffe & Flamingo - Curtis Sittenfield (short story)

My list! Have slowed down a smidge since my return from holiday last week and doing well with my choices this year.

Hello, again! Hopefully I get this right:

#1 Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
#2 Time of the Flies by Claudia Piñeiro
#3 The Party by Tessa Hadley
#4 Human Acts by Han Kang
#5 Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
#6 Almond by Won-Pyung Sohn
#7 A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
#8 Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
#9 Before My Actual Heart Breaks by Tish Delaney (in progress)

Hello, I'd like to join in please! So far this year:

#1 A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas

#2 A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas

#3 The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

#4 A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J Maas

I'm working my way through the ACOTAR series but will intersperse with some other books to mix things up a bit. Not sure if I'll make it to 50.... I read 25 last year but DDs are getting a bit more independent so I've time to read more at home.

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller

My lost so far
1 A Song for Lya- George RR Martin
2 The Razor’s Edge- W Somerset Maugham
3 Right Ho Jeeves- PG Wodehouse
4 Into Thin Air- John Karakauer
5 Held- Anne Michaels
6 The Women’s Room- Marilyn French
7 The Anxious Generation- Jonathan Haidt

I haven’t reviewed the last one yet but am almost finished 2 current reads The House of Doors (pretty sure this will be a bold unless it jumps the shark in the last 25%) and The Warden so will probably review the three together in a post over the weekend.
I have slowed down a little from last year which I’m happy about. So far my reading has been great- average of 4.04 on Storygraph- would be amazing if my reading year stayed like this!

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller. Here's my current list, a good start to the year in terms of bolds.

1. Redemption by Jussi Adler-Olsen
2. Remember Me Tomorrow by Farah Heron
3. The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B Tyson
4. Exhalation by Ted Chiang
5. Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen
6. Guilty by Jussi Adler-Olsen
7. Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

Thanks for the thread @Southeastdweller 😊 And thanks to ChessieFL for flagging on the last thread that the first three Slough House books are 99p (for the three, not each!) on kindle!

My list so far:

1. The Girl of Ink and Stars - Kiran Millwood Hargrave
2. Once Upon a River - Diane Setterfield
3. My Perfect Friend - Sarah Clarke
4. One of the Good Guys - Araminta Hall
5. A Spy among Friends - Ben Macintyre

Thanks for the new thread, South. Into a second thread and it’s only just past mid-Jan! My list so far:

1. Hidden Figures - Margot Lee Shetterly
2. A Game of Hide and Seek - Elizabeth Taylor
3. The Peepshow - Kate Summerscale
4. Midnight and Blue - Ian Rankin
5. Perfect English Townhouse - Ros Byam Shaw
6. The Undoing of Violet Claybourne - Emily Critchley

No outright bolds so far but the Taylor was, as ever, excellent. I'm steaming through There and Back, the latest volume of Michael Palin's diaries, which is very long but weirdly compelling. Also almost finished with the latest Rather Dated read, Philip Larkin's Jill (which is very short, thankfully).

What a great thread x

Just two books completed so far after a busy start to the year at work. Both are bolds though so a great start for me.

Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith

Paper Cup by Karen Campbell

@Terpsichore That Michael Palin is my current audiobook. Though I basically fall asleep 5 mins in each time and haven’t learnt much yet about this bit of his life!

A new thread already! My list so far:

1 The Glutton - AK Blakemore
2 Autumn - Ali Smith* *

Checking in with my pathetic list of 1, a very disappointing start to the year

1. Polo; Jilly Cooper

My list so far:

1 The Ink Black Heart - Robert Galbraith
2 How To Fall - Jane Casey
3 Appassionata - Jilly Cooper
4 Vive le Chaos - Ian Moore
5 Knowing The Score - Judy Murray
6 The Favourites - Layne Fargo
7 Timpson’s Other England - John Timpson
8 Glamorous Notions - Megan Chance
9 The Mitford Trial - Jessica Fellowes
10 Timpson’s England - John Timpson
11 Close Your Eyes - Teresa Driscoll
12 Super Cooper - Jilly Cooper
13 And Away… - Bob Mortimer
14 None Of This Is True - Lisa Jewell
15 The Dwarves of Death - Jonathan Coe
16 Ultra Processed People - Chris van Tulleken
17 The Clicking of Cuthbert - P G Wodehouse
18 The Chateau - Catherine Cooper
19 The Golden Age of Children’s TV - Tim Worthington

I haven’t reviewed all of them because I’ve decided I’m only going to do reviews if I’ve got something particular to say, or if I think it’s a book others on the thread will like.

Just finished the TV one this morning so not sure what my next book will be.

I love seeing the lists of what everyone's read so far!

Thanks for the new thread Southeastdweller! My list so far;

1. Mansfield Park: Jane Austen
2. Hangover Square: Patrick Hamilton

I'm also enjoying the readalong for Le Comte de Monte-Cristo very much.

Thank you for the new thread @Southeastdweller Here is my list so far:

1. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
2. Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions Into Adulthood - Lisa Damour
3. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

Read Alouds with my DDs:

1. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - JK Rowling

2. Rip Van Winkle - Washington Irving

1. Paul Revere's Ride - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
2. Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson
3. The Incredible Journey - Sheila Burnford

I started a 14 months long slow read of Anna Karenina last week. After my year long slow read of War and Peace last year, I'm really looking forward to spending another year with one book

10 Red Sauce, Brown Sauce - Felicity Cloake

I bought this in physical copy in May 2023 and have been pootling through it, interspersed with more gripping books. The author is a food writer and she is cycling round the UK (hampered by covid and later by a hamstring injury), researching and eating breakfast foods by area (black pudding, smokies, bacon etc) and visiting relevant outlets where she can (jam factories, pork curers etc). It was lightly entertaining and the structure was akin to a Bill Bryson book, but not written to be funny. I would pick it up and read a few pages on a holiday cottage shelf, but wouldn’t re read.

This is my list so far - hope the numbers work. Thanks to southeastdweller for the thread

1.	The Zone Of Interest by Martin Amis
2.	Valley Of The Dolls by Jacqueline Susann 
3.	The List by Yomi Adegoke
4.	Here In The Dark by Alexis Soloski
5.	Mistborn : The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
6.	True Grit by Charles Portis
7.	The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
8.	The Eyes Are The Best Part by Monika Kim
9.	<strong>My Friends</strong> by Hisham Matar
10.	Polo by Jilly Cooper
11.	The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
12.	The Unfinished Harauld Hughes by Richard Ayoade

Struggling to find next book to read

Bloody hell, I didn't even manage to post on the first thread! Anyway, to add somewhat belated to the hot topics:

Fanny flannel. Well that started the year off interestingly.
Stolpersteins. I didn't know about them, but will definitely be watching out for them next time I'm somewhere there are some.
There was talk of interlibrary loans and the cost and someone was asking about more isolated places. The oldest public library in Scotland is in Orkney, it was established in 1683. You don't pay for reservations but you do pay for interlibrary loans (that are coming from the mainland of Scotland). There are libraries in the two towns but there's also a mobile library called Booky McBookface that serves some of the islands and if you live on too small an island for that the haulage companies have book boxes that the library use.

Asfar as my own reading goes, as well as enjoying TCOMC readalong I've finished two books:

Suggested in the Stars by Yoko Tawada. Translated by Margaret Mitsutani

Yoko Tawada's books are always a bit bonkers, this does not disappoint. This is the second in a trilogy. The gang from the first book are here and get a chapter each, along with a couple of new characters. The mute character they meet at the end of the last book turns out to be able to speak after all and I have no idea where the next book is going after a bizarre dream sequence ending. All good fun though and thought provoking in multiple directions.

Your Wish is my Command by Deena Mohamed

Cairo kiosk owner Shokry has three first class wishes for sale. This graphic novel (translated into English by the author and read right to left) is about the three people who buy the wishes and their reasons for using them. As a first novel it is jam packed full of ideas and politics but with lots of humour as well, from a talking donkey to third class wishes that have an evil sense of humour. Great fun, gorgeous and emotional, I loved it.

Hi all
I am doing quite well this year (New years resolution to read more and do less doomscrolling holding into third week of Jan - record!)

This week I have managed books 5&6 (no real standouts yet though)

1. The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas

2. Sycamore Gap by LJ Ross

3. Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

4. The Moon Sister by Lucinda Riley

5. The Trial by Rob Rinder
   I love a police procedural/courtroom drama, and I actually like Rob Rinder.
   This was OK. Very easy read with twists and turns. It's classic celebrity writer output, rather like the Thursday Murder Club books currently being churned out at a rate of knots by Richard Osman (which are also at best OK) I doubt any publisher would have looked twice at it if he wasn't Rob Rinder, or it would have been Kindle Unlimited fodder.
   But readable if you're in the right mood.

6. The Murders at Fleat House by Lucinda Riley
   I enjoyed this one - written by Lucinda Riley, who wrote the Seven Sisters series, which I am also enjoying as easy comfort reading but need a break between them as they are a bit samey.
   This is a standalone detective story, which I suspect would have become a series if the author hadn't passed away. The story is a newly divorced detective moves back to her home area from London and is put on the case of an apparent death by misadventure of a student in a local boarding school. Naturally not everything is as it seems, the bodies start to pile up and secrets from the past and revenge keep going until the end.
   Some decent characters and not the worst thing I have read by far.

Slow Reader checking in. Thanks for the new thread SouthEast. No list because I still haven't finished book 1!

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller

My list so far is

1) Atomic Habits - James Clear

2. The Templar Secret - Scott Mariani

3. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte

4. The Secret Hours - Mick Herron
   I just finished this book this afternoon. While it was slow going for the initial 100 pages, the story came into its own. Once you make it through the beginning, it becomes apparent where the story is. Maybe this is because I haven't read any of his previous books. I intend to start the Slow Horses series as I enjoyed the cloak-and-dagger happenings in the world of Spies. As the book progressed I became hooked.

I haven't decided on my next book yet, so I'll visit the library and see what interests me.

@JaninaDuszejko Your Wish is my Command has been added to my wish list.

Thanks for the new thread OP.

My reads so far:

1. Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Gamus
2. Standing by The Wall - Mick Herron
3. The Secret Hours - Mick Herron
4. A Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde
5. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie
6. Crusaders - Dan Jones