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

Thank you southeast. Must be the quickest we have filled a thread, surely?

My list so far - a good start to the year or I am being too generous with my bolds (also possible….):

1. Small Bomb at Dimperley - Lissa Evans
2. James - Percival Everett
3. Five Little Pigs - Agatha Christie
4. Spook Street - Mick Herron

Hello all, and thanks @Southeastdweller for the new thread.
1.Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad by Daniel Finklestein
2.Hotel Du Lac by Anita Brookner

I've just finished 3.The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis. This is the story of a romance between Golo Thomsen, a young Nazi officer working in Kat Zet death camp, and Hanna Doll, the camp Kommandant's wife.

I thought this was well done. The banality of the middle management Nazis' everyday lives, with its workplace rivalries and boozy dinners sits in the foreground, but the dark shadows cast by the camp are inescapable. The chapters from the perspectives of Thomsen and Herr Doll are interspersed with testimony from Szmul, a prisoner forced to work as part of the Sonderkommando carrying out the mechanics of genocide so that the officers don't need to trouble themselves with the hard work of it all. These passages are the most bleak.

The worst of the atrocities happen off-stage, but are obviously horrifying when they are featured, and the sounds and smells from the camp permeate life over the wall. The writing is mostly spare and lean, a return to form after the Lionel Asbo years, but some of that blokishness does creep in and brings nothing of merit.

Love Booky McBookface @JaninaDuszejko 😂 What a great service.

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller

Here's my list:

• An Island Wedding – Jenny Colgan
• Red Sauce, Brown Sauce – Felicity Cloake
• The Christmas Bookhunt – Jenny Colgan

Currently (still) reading A little life, and also listening to When the Dust Settles so my kindle choice is much more light-hearted - Fredrik Backman's The Answer is No.

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller

Here's my list carried forward

1. A New Doctor At Orchard Cottage Hospital. Lizzie Lane.
2. Intense Desire. Kris Kassidy
3. Stumbling Stones. Bonnie Suchman
4. Courage For The Clark's Factory Girls. May Ellis
5. Letters from the Ginza Shihodo Stationery Shop. Kenji Ueda. Trans. Emily Balistrieri
6. All The Broken Places. John Boyne
7. Dark Times For The Clark's Factory Girls. May Ellis
8. Alpha Beta Gamma. Malabika Ray
9. Fracture. Elyse Hoffman.

10. The Vengeance of Samuel Val. Elyse Hoffman 11. Black Fox One. Elyse Hoffman 12. Until We Meet. E.V Radwinter 13. I'll Never Cry Again. Roberta Kagan 14. Sweet Pear. Jessica Butler.

No bolds yet for me.

My newest read and review.

15. Adiel and The Fuhrer. Elyse Hoffman Book 4 in the Project 613 series, and possibly the strangest book I've ever read.

Pretty much the first thing anyone says they will do if they could go back in time and change one thing is "kill Adolf Hitler". Well that's exactly what Natan and Becca, who survived Auschwitz in the original timeline, are given the chance to do. But it seems it's not so easy to kill a baby. Or a child. It certainly wasn't something Natan or Becca were able to go through with. So instead they decide to raise Hitler to be someone else. Someone better. Yes, seriously.

Bit some things have to happen.It really does make the reader think. If WW2 didn't happen at all, how different would the world be? Did we need Hitler to stop Stalin, would he have been worse? I can't really say more without spoilers.

In a slightly bonkers historical fiction, mixed with elements of sci-fi and Jewish Folklore and mysticism, Adiel and The Fuhrer is possibly the strangest book I've read for a while. I'll admit, I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. I usually hate Holocaust fiction that's either full of inaccuracies, or where the fictional element is too implausible (like The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas). But this was so ludicrously implausible that I actually wore enjoyed it. I suppose the fact that it's about time travel means no one is ever going to read it and think it really happened. And a lot of the history in it was sound, with a note at the end explaining which bits were real. There were some really annoying bits though, like Natan referring to his Auschwitz number being sewn onto his arm. Odd use of language there.

Ah I think I've worked it out, are the bolds books you particularly liked?

Yes. For me they are ones I've given 5 stars on Goodreads/Storygraph/Amazon.

Bold in the list means you would recommend it to others

Italics means it was shite

Thank you @Southeastdweller

I am tempted by the first 3 Slough House books. I read the first one and it didn’t really grab me, but I suspect they grow on you. But then again, are they like the Harry Potter books and just a basis for a decent screen adaptation…..?

Finished book 2

Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie
This month's read christie challenge book. A woman asks Poirot to investigate the murder of her father 16 years previously for which her mother was found guilty. She believes her mother to be innocent and wants Poirot to prove it. This is one of my favourite episodes from the Poirot series with David Suchet so I was excited to read it. I loved it. I really appreciate how true to the original story the show stayed and I just love the different characters in this story. Obviously I already knew who was guilty so there was no suspense for me but I still really enjoyed this. Definitely a bold for me. The one big difference between the books and the episodes I'm finding is that the titles make a lot more sense when you read the books

3. So This is Ever After - FT Lukens
Light-hearted YA romantasy. A group of teenagers have fulfilled the prophecy by killing their kingdom’s evil usurper, but what do they do now? There’s an urgent vacancy to fill, and then a king needs a consort. Quite entertaining, but I’m glad it was a library book, not something I’d bought.

Meanwhile, I’m reading The Voices of Morebath by Eamon Duffy, the Reformation through the eyes of a long-serving Devon priest, who kept unusually detailed records.

@StrangewaysHereWeCome I've just booked tickets for the Mansfield Park opera next month, thanks for the recommendation!

Just place marking, will post list with catch up reviews later.

@JaninaDuszejko I loved that Deena Mohamed graphic novel too, though have it under Shubeik Lubeik (US/older edition maybe?) Amazing how her bold lines managed to be so nuanced and expressive, especially for the grumpy old taciturn (and, er, asinine) characters. Nour's story was one of the most realistic literary depictions of depression I've come across.

@Terpsichore onoes, Jill not great then?

After a strong start to the year I've hit a rough patch
Returned the audio of The Cracked Mirror to the library (disliked both narrators for different reasons) and rejoined queue for the ebook.

DNF Monika Kim - The Eyes Are the Best Part for painfully clumsy writing which tbf did make me want to gouge my eyes out. Another dire choice from one particular bookgroup, richly justifying my NYR to quit.

One of my favourite indies Handheld Press are closing down 😭 So I broke another NYR to shop the sale.

Jill not great then?

@inaptonym ah no, I think I expressed myself clumsily - I just meant it was short compared to my very long other read - I’m loving it, actually! I wish it was longer but that would probably spoil its structure (Larkin says in the intro that it’s really a long short story). Hoping to finish it tomorrow and if I’d had time I’d have gobbled it up in a day, probably.

Just checking in. In a bit of a mire of slow reading.

13 . Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

Someone recommended this to me and its not letting me tag the person I thought it was but thank you!

Annie Bot a timely novel about AI and consent

Annie is the perfect girlfriend. She has dinner ready for Doug every night, wears the outfits he buys for her, and caters to his every sexual whim. Maybe her cleaning isn’t always good enough, but she’s trying really hard.
She was designed that way, after all.
Doug, it has to be said, is an absolute fucking shit stain. This was so readable it was done in one sitting but to say anything further would be to spoil it for anyone that fancies it. I will be bolding this in my next list, really enjoyed it, page turner.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit It was me 😊Glad you enjoyed it- it doesn’t seem to have had a lot of publicity but it’s a great wee read.

Thanks for the new thread southeast!

Here’s my mini list:

1 Notes for Neuro Navigators - Jolene Stockman
2 Years That Changed History: 1215 - Dorsey Armstrong
3 The Darcy Myth - Rachel Feder

4 To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Well, I’m sure this needs no introduction - amazingly, I had managed to get to early middle age without reading it. Powerful exploration of racism in Depression-era Alabama. The courtroom scene, and especially the cruelty of the prosecution’s attack on the falsely-accused Tom Robinson, had the unbearable-but-compelling feel of truly great writing. The ‘white saviour’ trope embodied by Atticus Finch has become problematic since publication in 1960 (and this is a book that’s crying out for a reverse-perspective version from the POV of the Black characters), but still going to be an outstanding bold of the year.

@ÚlldemoShúl

I KNEW it was you, it's the U in your username I couldn't work it out!

Yes it's a great little read, I'd false started on it a couple of times before giving it a proper go.

Yes I think the @ system on mumsnet has a problem with any accents on letters! At any rate, I’m one of those who doesn’t need to be tagged as I’d see it anyway because my reading addiction extends to the 50-Bookers threads

Thanks @Southeastdweller

A Study in Scarlett, Arthur Conan Doyle
Kurt Seyt & Shura, Nermin Bezmen

Have:

• The Count of Monte Christo ongoing
• Mansfield Park, hopefully done this weekend
• book about Tamerlane
• Started The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto by Mario Vargas Llosa - not sure I knew what I was letting myself in for, more when I finish

The best way to tag @ÚlldemoShúl is to type @ lld (without the space) and select her from the list 😀

Huh! Did that bold you, US? It bolded in my preview and I am sure it worked before!!!

My 2025 read so far:

'Breakfast at Tiffany's' by Truman Capote

'Still Born' by Guadalupe Nettel with Rosalind Harvey (Translator)

'The Wedding People' by Alison Espach

I've been slowly making my way through 'Warrior Queens and Quiet Revolutionaries' by Kate Mosse, just a chapter per night before bed as it's not the type of thing to read cover to cover or for long periods of time, your head would spin with all the names mentioned.
It's more 'dip in', become interested about a certain woman and go off in my own Internet deep dive about them at my own pace.

Feel I'm off to a great start and have enjoyed everything so far!

@SheilaFentiman nope! I could change my name into English (Apple of my eye) but maybe keeping it in Irish will (along with many others) bully mnet into sorting out their IT!