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

Thanks for the suggestion @AgualusasLover . That does look interesting.

@InTheCludgie @PowerTulle
I struggled with finishing Starling House. It had such a promising start but then just didn't go anywhere.

I have been a slow reader so far but have now finished Sarah Polley's memoir Run Towards The Danger. I love her documentary Stories We Tell. For those of you who also like that, she doesn't actaully write about it at all but does reflect on her family, particularly her father, who comes across very differently (she acknowledges this at the very end, very movingly).

She ahs had so much trauma in ehr life (TWs are required) which she writes about honestly and evocatively.

It's actually a somewhat hard slog at first, because everyone seems so awful and manipulative, but becomes increasingly involving.

I really recommend this if you are OK with traumatic teenage experiences (she had scoliosis but also a complete breakdown), forms of abuse and neglect, sexual coercion and traumatic birth experiences , and a brain injury. Quite some life.

5 New Europe - Michael Palin

Enjoyable audiobook account of Palin’s travels through the former Eastern Bloc countries, taken in the 2000s. He’s as engaging a host as ever, and there’s added poignancy in his hopes for a more united Europe, while travelling through Ukraine which has since suffered so much from Russian aggression.

@highlandcoo – thank you for the Rose Nicholson recommendation. That’s just gone on a list.

@noodlezoodle – I need to get better with BlueSky and follow the libraries there.

@AlmanbyRoadtrip – I enjoyed Squeaky Clean. I’ve given up on Stuart McBride. Cant remember why he annoyed me so much. Far better writers out there for me.

@GrannieMainland – I assumed you were Scottish! Your name is from the Katie Morag books, isnt it?

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie and others - thought you might be interested in this. He explains the Boris Johnston stuff

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/15/mick-herron-i-look-at-jackson-lamb-and-think-my-god-did-i-write-that-my-mother-reads-this-stuff

12 London Rules – Mick Herron (Slow Horses 5). London Rules (according to Lady Di) means covering one’s arse at all times. Especially when the shit hits the fan. And oh goodness, there are lots heading towards the fan. Mostly involving Roddy Ho. This was good fun as ever. Maybe a bit more black humour than usual. However, Lady Di does something utterly awful at the end which will have repercussions over the next few books. I will not forgive her for this. I am mad!!

13 Five Little Pigs – Agatha Christie. Having seen a few reviews, I decided to borrow this from the library. Classic Christie, very enjoyable. I worked out the why, just not the who!

Thanks @Tarragon123 That was an interesting article and made me really warm to the writer. It’s made me definitely want to try book 2. It would be so great if this becomes a series that I can get properly into, and I think the moment when I bonded with Lamb and River made such a difference to how I was feeling about the writing, if that makes sense? Now I feel like I’ve bonded with the writer a bit as well!

I have two adopted children who were removed from their birth family due to neglect and abuse and I just can't read anything about child abuse, especially foster carer stories. I had to leave my book club because everyone else was fascinated by it and I couldn't handle it at all. I recently read Strange Sally Diamond, which I enjoyed on one level, but on another I found it really disturbing.

I’m a big fan of the Slow Horses books Remus, they get better and better imo and the satire is the greatest strength as the series goes on. I heard him speak at a bookshop event and he was very interesting and unassuming and talked about Kate Atkinson being a genius so I really liked him.

Glad you enjoyed TMATL Meg - I enjoyed the first 2 but this less so and must admit I found it a bit of a slog.

I’m beginning to get into the first Slow Horses. So far it’s incredibly like the TV series - I realise that should be the other way around. Just shows what a brilliant job they did with the casting.

The brain injury chapter was my favourite @Piggywaspushed. Genuinely inspirational.

Yes, really interesting too.

@Piggywaspushed
@Tarahumara

I was most interested by her weird, abusive life as a child actor, and how her parents never stepped in and she was basically living an adult life at like 12

Yes, really odd. Have you seen her documentary?

Yes ages ago now though but I thought it was really interesting that talking about their Mum and her behaviour led to multiple siblings getting divorced

Oh blimey thread two already and am only just joining in!

Here my list so far

1. The Lives of Christopher chant - Diane Wynn Jones
2. The Magicians of Caprona - Diane Wynn Jones
3. Conrad’s Fate - Diane Wynn Jones
4. The Neighbours Secret - Sharon Bolton
5. Dead Scared - Sharon Bolton

Had a bit of a mad Christmas so stated the year with some easy reading really.

Yes! Except Mark, who is adorable.

I'm just over halfway through #12 Mr Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo - it's quite straightforward so far, and quite different to Girl, Woman, Other.

I've made a very slow start to the year, so I almost hopped off the thread, but I do need the incentive I counted my TBR pile yesterday and it's currently at 71 so that's my new target (provided I can stop buying books).

1. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J.K.Rowling
2. Januaries - Olivie Blake
3. The Tethered Mage - Melissa Caruso.

I'm taking a break from the Harry Potter series now, to read a few other things. I know it's probably sacrilege to say this, but I don't love Harry, and when you aren't rooting for the main character it starts to become a bit of a drag...

The Olivie Blake short stories left me a little underwhelmed. I do find her writing exhausting. She's very literary and wordy, undoubtedly a hugely talented writer, but somehow her storylines never satisfy me, and I get weary of the endless conversations. Her reviews are always very mixed, so I suspect she's a love or hate author.

The Tethered Mage has been an unexpected delight. It's an easy read, an interesting concept (of a falconer in control of a mage), with a slight steampunk element to it. This is the first in a trilogy and I'm about to start the second.

Not sure if we have to state or not but all mine are physical books, not e-books or audio (I'm a bit of a luddite).

(provided I can stop buying books).

@CoubousAndTourmalet we all relate to this 😀😀

No rules on what you have to say about paper/kindle/audio - I am keeping a note for my own interest because I want to reduce paper books in the house for the space, but any format is fine!

5 Matrescence - Lucy Jones
Exploration of the biological and social process of becoming a mother, interwoven with fragments of nature writing. Incredibly strong on the unbearable pressure mothers are placed under (get this wrong and your child will be psychologically broken forever) and the oxymoronic combination of this with the profound under-valuing of the work of motherhood (it’s low-skilled and comes naturally and isn’t like a real job that makes money). Also fascinating on the profound changes motherhood makes to the structure of the brain itself - a fine-tuning as dramatic as adolescence, preparing the mother for empathy and attunement with her infant.

I really struggled with early motherhood (my probably-autistic brain wanted to know what the rules were and all I could find were contradictory books and midwives saying 100 different things…) and this has helped me gain perspective and reflect on why it is so hard - humans aren’t meant to mother in isolation and yet this is how late capitalist society has set us up (to fail). It probably would have been too close to the bone when I was right in the thick of it though - DD is 8 now.

Not sure if we have to state

I choose to state if the book I've read is audio because it's a very different experience and sometimes an audio really works or it doesn't so that's part of the review. It's not a rule of the thread it's just something I choose to do.

I keep stalling on Matrescence, Ladybird.

9. You are Here, David Nicholls
Two decent, lonely people meet on the coast-to-coast walk and fall for each other. This book has sparky dialogue and a warm heart, even if I'm not really in the market for love stories. Like the reviewer of Lady Chatterley's lover who said that details of the gamekeeper's duties would be of interest to outdoor-minded readers, though you had to wade through extraneous material to get there, I wanted to know more about the walk than the romance.

That’s so funny re Mellors’ main point of interest being his facility for raising pheasants and partridges @bibliomania

@Tarragon123 I’m not sure just how strongly I’m recommending Rose Nicholson tbh. The first half of the book was a bit of a struggle, mainly because of my lack of knowledge about the nuances of the political and religious state of Scotland at the time. Although I feel I’ve learned quite a bit so that’s been good. I’m also woefully ignorant about the sort of studies being undertaken at St Andrews University back in the day. I did skip over some of the detailed theological discussions to get back to the more exciting plot .. those were violent times if half of the attacks Will undergoes represent the reality.
Now I’m towards the end of the book, I’m enjoying it much more. It’s a very original novel and one that will stay with me I’m sure. I loved the reiving scenes and the realistic, complex relationships between three of the main characters. So I guess I am recommending it, with some reservations. Definitely worth a go.
I’ll be interested to hear what you think of it when you’ve read it.

I googled the quote and apparently it was a tongue-in-cheek review at the time, @highlandcoo - link here.

4 When the dust settles - Lucy Easthope
Well this was outstanding. I got it with an audible credit last May on your recommendations and have only just got round to listening to it. She is an incredible woman. Some of the material is shocking, some heartbreaking, often both, but there is nothing mawkish about the book that Easthope has written. She reads it herself in the audiobook and her voice is very calming, despite the subject matter. Quite matter-of-fact.
"Look for the helpers" is a quote we often hear and I for one feel a little safer knowing that Lucy Easthope and people like her are out there, dealing with disasters on our behalf.