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

14 Confessions by Catherine Airey
This book tells the stories of three generations of women and explores themes of fatherlessness, unwanted pregnancies and complicated family (especially maternal and sister) relationships. The story starts with Cora who has just lost her father in 9-11. Her mother had died years before and she ends up moving to Ireland, where her parents were from, to live with an unknown aunt. The book moves back and forth across the generations with POVs from Cora, her parents, her aunt and her daughter. The writing is great and the story sucked me in from the start. In some ways it’s nearly too tightly plotted with everything being important, but this is a debut so that’s not surprising. I very much enjoyed it though it’s not quite a bold. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it on the Women’s Prize longlist this year.

Death in the Stocks by Georgette Heyer
One of her crime novels, which I hadn’t read before as far as I can remember. Very silly; very enjoyable, even though I guessed the murderer early on.

My list so far...
(1) The Nurse by Valerie Keogh
(2) The Wrong Child by Julia Crouch and M. J. Arlidge
(3) The Perfect Parents By J.A. Baker

The latest book.....

(4) Darkest Fear, written by Harlen Coben, details the search by Myron Bolitar for the missing bone marrow donor of his biological son, Jeremy Downing. Myron is drawn into the search for the mysterious donor when his first love, Emily Downing, arrives with the news that his son is dying and needs a bone marrow transplant.

I enjoy Harlen Coben books, have the rest in the series which I hope to read very soon.

Onto my next book..... 📚

21 Velocity - Dean Koontz

I won’t be reading another book by this author! Implausible plot and deeply clunky writing - why say a thing once when you can say it three times? The plot, such as it is, centres on Billy, a bartender and one time writer whose fiancé Barbara is in a coma in a care facility. Billy starts receiving threatening notes asking who the killer should kill, and he is struggling to figure out who in his life might be doing this.

Somehow Billy is both highly caring to Barbara and a loner, laid back but meticulous in covering his tracks, conveniently aware of secret hideaway locations etc. I was unconvinced by him and by the killer (when eventually solved)

11. The Rising Down - Alexandra Harris

This is a marvellous book and an emphatic bold for me, gloriously expansive, digressive and far-reaching. It’s a deeply-personal portrait of Harris's home county of Sussex, sparked off by the almost accidental acquisition of books relating to the county's history from her old teacher, Elizabeth, who was going into a home and whose house had to be cleared.

This sad circumstance becomes the springing-off point for a dazzling exploration of Sussex through many centuries, taking in topics as diverse as William Blake, a captured Canadian moose, an energetic 17thc water bailiff noting customs on the river Arun, the painters George Smith, Constable and Ivon Hitchens, the many uses of flints, mass 19thc emigration from Sussex to Canada, Polish women and girls finding refuge in Sussex in the wake of WW2, and a dozen other fascinating things besides. It’s not one for you if you like a neat, straightforward narrative - Harris loops back, repeats, returns, skips through the centuries - and it’s a dense, long read, but I found it completely engrossing despite having no connections to Sussex and knowing nothing beyond the bare minimum about the county. Writing about place at its very best.

8 In Too Deep by Lee Child and Andrew Child

Latest Jack Reacher novel as Lee Child passes the baton to his brother, Andrew. I've read all 29 books in the last year. This one is good and I enjoyed it, but it is formulaic.

This was book 9!

#5 The Lost Man of Bombay, Vaseem Khan (Malabar House series book 3)

Still really enjoying this series so it's a bold. It's doing wonders for improving my poor knowledge of Indian history and culture and I really like the way they are written and of course the hero, Inspector Persia Wadia.

Narrow Dog To Carcassonne by Terry Darlington

I have seen this in several bookshops and eventually I could resist no longer. I like narrow boats (I work in finance for canal related stuff), I like dogs and I like the board game Carcassonne and want to visit the city one day. I also like travel memoirs as a rule.

I nearly put this down immediately as it had no speech marks. Not only that, but he wouldn't even start a new paragraph when someone new was speaking. I was so confused. New characters would just appear with no introduction in quite startling ways and then disappear. I persevered. Maybe I would learn something about canals.

The crux of the story is that this couple are going to sail on the some English canals (most of which I recognised the names of!) and then across the channel to France. Well, you're not allowed to do that. I had a conversation very recently with a work colleague and you can go on the sea on a Dutch barge but not a narrow boat.

Anyway, they somehow get insurance for this dangerous mission and manage to get across without dying and they carry on across France. I kept reading to hear about Carcassonne, but the memoir bloody well stopped on their arrival so I read nothing about how beautiful the city might or might not be.

He also mentioned people's weight more often than was necessary.

Not recommended. Can't believe I read a whole book with Carcassonne in the title and it didn't even feature.

Going to read Anniebot next. I never manage to read anything at the same time as everyone else!

@SheilaFentiman I really like Dean Koontz 😀but I think that's because I started reading him as a teenager, I don't know what I would think if I started now. Velocity definitely not his best, but not worth trying the others as you weren't keen!

They are also really formulaic. The others usually include a plucky dog and precocious child. The main character is usually full of integrity and has overcome some issue...

@RazorstormUnicorn I am annoyed on your behalf after reading that review!

Btw, was the dog narrow or was that the name of the boat??

I responded to a question about this book a few weeks ago at some length - I've now turned this into a review.

2025 #3
John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman
Read 24.11.24 to 04.01.25, reviewed 04.02.25

I had a memory of reading and enjoying this novel many years ago, perhaps in my teens, but discovered that I remembered very little about it.

I was expecting a straightforward historical novel, a story set entirely in a very different time from when it was it was written. Actually this is a very 20th century novel, with a 1960s author-narrator telling a story set in 1867. He continually interrupts his story to comment on and discuss his characters, their actions, attitudes and values, and those of the Victorian society they live in.

Charles is an educated gentleman, preparing to meet social expectations of a man of his class, planning to marry Ernestina, daughter of a wealthy businessman. He becomes curious about Sarah, a servant and former governess with a mysterious but probably scandalous back story, nicknamed "the French lieutenant's woman", and a habit of walking along the cliffs in Lyme Regis, looking out to sea.

I am quite intrigued that Fowles claimed to be a feminist and that it was debated as a feminist novel. There is a lot for feminists to discuss here but all female characters (and nearly all characters) are seen through the eyes of the author-narrator whose story is in turn filtered through the view of his gentleman protagonist Charles.

The novel is packed with Victorian cultural and literary references, including Charles Darwin (whose theories of evolution were considered quite shocking in his time), Thomas Hardy, William Thackeray, Matthew Arnold and Gabriel Dante Rossetti.

This is not quite the Victorian love story that I expected, but something enjoyably odd and thought provoking, with many digressions and rabbit holes, including alternative storylines presented by the narrator.

A film was made of this novel in 1981, with a screenplay by Harold Pinter, and my Vintage Classics copy includes the writer's afterword on the difficulties of adaptation.

Thanks @Terpsichore who wrote about this one a few months ago. I suggested it for purchase by Camden Libraries (the author was briefly a London County Councillor, I think after WWII)

2025 #16
Monica Felton, To All the Living
Read 17.01.25 to 26.01.25, reviewed 31.01.25

This novel is about women and men working in a wartime munitions factory, Blimpton. It is set in 1941, a difficult and frightening time during WWWII, the year of the London Blitz, and a time when Germany has occupied much of Europe and is invading the Soviet Union. It was first published in 1945, at or just after the end of the war, and is one of a number of books from that time reissued in the Imperial War Museum's Wartime Classics series.

This is a story of friendships and feuds and of workplace politics, focussing on a few characters, some working on the factory floor, others in management and personnel type roles. There is a lot of dialogue - meetings, formal and informal discussions, chance encounters, social events, workplace problems, references to politicians. Managers and Labour Officers are struggling to recruit and retain enough workers to meet production targets crucial to the war effort, but suggestions on finding more people, on accommodation and transport and improving working and living conditions for the women workers, are frequently dismissed or blocked.

Monica Felton was a very politically engaged writer, a socialist and feminist with experience of working in the war effort and civil service and in Parliament during the war, and her political sympathies are reflected here, sometimes with humour, sometimes through frustration, sadness and even a workplace tragedy. Through the discussions, she often shows how management views and decisions are all too often informed by sexism and class prejudice, while some of the more sympathetic characters express concern about women's working and living conditions, suggest that improvements here would help the factory running and production.

To All the Living is quite slow paced but I really came to care about the more sympathetic characters, and I was really interested in the social history aspects of the novel.

Thank you for that review of FLW @elkiedee . I’m always interested in thoughts on it, as I’m still not sure. I can’t really address why I think it was perceived as a feminist novel without going into the plot and I think for this book that could be spoilery. What I will say is I think it’s a very hit you over your head view of feminism due to the things I want to say but can’t. I’m not saying it isn’t feminist, I do think it probably was in its time and place.

I studied the book, I can't remember now if it was at gcse or a level. Prompted by the posts here, I may give it another chance.

@MargotMoon the dog was a whippet, so he was narrow, as well as the boat being narrow. I felt really sorry for the dog as he didn't particularly enjoy being on the boat. One of them walked him along the bank while the other drove (piloted? Sailed?) the boat where possible.

My annoyance is receding now I am 25% of the way through Anniebot it's really engaging.

Excellent review of For All the Living, @elkiedee . It's a shame, considering the author’s history with them, that Camden didn’t have a copy of the book in the library system, but I suppose not totally surprising. But it is a historical document as much as anything else, so hopefully they’ll acquire it now.

Hello - Failed 50 booker here 😉 In the past when I've followed I've never kept up with the thread, book reviews, or even my list! So this year I'm keeping it very same and just trying to write down what I read.

I just wanted to pop on to say thank you for all the recommendations last year for When the Dust Settles by Lucy Easthope. Just finished it and it is as well-written, interesting, honest, thought provoking and powerful as those who read it have said. It does provide some hope that there are such brave and well intentioned humans working to help those affected by these tragedies, and helping rebuild communities afterwards. Also frustrating and heartbreaking at times. Loved it, thank you.

I also wanted to recommend Simon Mason as an author for those that like detective-y novels. He has been mentioned on here before, I remember from when I was on past threads, and I haven't read this thread so for all I know he could've just been reviewed! But I've just finished the 4th book in the DI Ryan Wilkins series (A Voice in the Night) and really enjoyed it. I read this one as a physical book (it's winter and I have more time) but have listened to previous on Audible and they are well read. I do remember finding the second a little disappointing but I feel its developing into a nice little series. Am enjoying seeing the relationships build and meeting the new Super in the latest. Different style to Maeve Kerrigan - there isn't the will they won't they - but as good, if not maybe better. The tension here is will he won't he be kicked out of the police force!

I'd also recommend Simon Mason's Garvie books for teenagers (I have enjoyed them as well a teenager I know) and I'm really looking forward to reading his Finder series, but am saving them up for when I need a good cheer/some real escapism.

Anyway - thank you for this thread, lovely bookers, I shall pop back here again if I can maintain a list for more than 2 months!!

Adding the books that I’ve read recently.

15. Death In The Air by Kate Winkler Dawson This is an account of the London smog of December,1952 that killed thousands and also of the serial killer, John Christie who was murdering women around the same time.

I enjoyed this though I’d probably have preferred the two main topics to be given a book each rather than combined in one. I can understand to an extent why she compared and contrasted them but it’s still a bit of a stretch.

It was interesting to learn more about life during the Post War years, particularly how difficult it was and how little regard was given to the health of the nation, in spite of the obvious harm caused by pollution.
I was very moved by the story of Rosemary Sargent who was given almost as much prominence as the Smog and Christie.

I’m going to seek out more of this author’s books.

16 )Nathaniel’s Nutmeg by Giles Milton*
This was fascinating but also so incredibly bloody and dark that I was almost glad to get it over with. There were so many descriptions of torture and executions that I struggled to get through some parts. I don’t think they were gratuitous as such. That was the reality of the war over spices but it didn’t make for easy reading. I’m glad that I read it though and now it seems so absurd that I can go to Tesco and pick up nutmeg and other spices so cheaply when I think of all the lives(and land) lost during the battle over the spice trade.

17. Potted, Pickled and Canned by Sue Shepard
    I liked this a lot. It’s a pretty straightforward account of the various means humans have used to preserve food over the millennia. It may be a little dry at times for some but it’s detailed and informative and I really enjoyed it.

18. The Dinner Table: Over 100 Writers on Food by Ella Risbridger and Kate Young.
    Like all anthologies this was a mixed bunch but I enjoyed it. I would have liked it to be almost a little “foodier” as food felt like a footnote in some of the excerpts but I still enjoyed it. I had read about a dozen of the sources previously and one cookbook featured three or four times which felt like a bit of a cheat but I liked it and it’s given me a list of several authors whom I want to read in the future. I have another similar book that I want to read soon as I’m doing Foodie February so it’ll be interesting to compare the two.

I’m currently reading The Taste of Sweet by Joanne Chen and also Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

I should really read When The Dust Settles again as so many people loved it. I did read it a few years ago and know that I enjoyed it, and I have a fascination with disaster management and prevention but I have no memory whatsoever of anything beyond that. That’s no reflection on the author but only on my rather poor memory.

Nobody's Fool Harlan Coben

Sami Kierce, a young college grad backpacking in Spain with friends, wakes up one morning, covered in blood. There’s a knife in his hand. Beside him, the body of his girlfriend. Anna. Dead. He begins to scream and then he runs.

Twenty two years later, Kierce, now a private investigator, is a new father who’s working off his debts by teaching wannabe sleuths at a night school in New York City. One evening, he recognizes a familiar face at the back of the classroom. Anna. It’s unmistakably her. But as soon as he makes eye contact with her, she bolts.
For Kierce there is no choice. He knows he must find this woman and solve the impossible mystery that has haunted his every waking moment since that terrible day.
His investigation will bring him face-to-face with his past. Soon he discovers that some secrets should stay buried

The narrative alternates between two timelines: Sami Kierce's traumatic experience in Spain in 2000 and his present-day life as a disgraced detective teaching criminology classes in New York. When a woman he believed dead for over two decades suddenly appears in his classroom, Kierce is drawn into an investigation that forces him to confront both his past demons and present challenges.

What begins as a personal quest to understand a long-buried mystery evolves into a complex exploration of identity, family loyalty, and the devastating consequences of split-second decisions. The story's connection to the high-profile Victoria Belmond kidnapping case adds layers of intrigue and social commentary about wealth, privilege, and the lengths people will go to protect their loved ones.

Overall, this is a fascinating thriller. While some parts are predictable, the final two twists hit hard enough to drop your jaw. My only criticism is the somewhat abrupt revelation of the perpetrator The revelation comes suddenly, followed by another shocking twist that leaves you asking, "What? Really?"

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK Cornerstone for an advance copy in return for a fair and honest review

Unfortunately I didn't enjoy Your Beautiful Lies by Louise Douglas. There was a fantastic sense of time and place around the miners' strike and rural Yorkshire but I just found the main character, Annie utterly annoying and had no investment in the storyline. The ending was extremely abrupt too. I don't mind the author leaving the reader to imagine what happened next but it felt very rushed after the slow pace of the rest of the story.

#9 was Oxford Poetry the Complete Collection by Dorothy L Sayers. Some of the poems about war and the death of young men were extremely moving, as you would expect.

#10 is The Cruel Prince by Holly Black which is a free book via Prime Reading on my Kindle.

Have any of you nautical peril fans read The Wide Wide Sea (about Captain Cook’s last voyage)? It’s come up as an Audible recommendation so wondered if worth a listen…

#14 The Testaments - Margaret Atwood

The sequel to A Handmaid's Tale, this is written from the perspectives of a young girl in Gilead, a teenager in Canada and an Aunt (Aunt Lydia).

I love Handmaid's Tale but have never read this sequel. It was a brilliant listen (I listened on audible) and tied up some loose ends from the first book, so it was a very rewarding read.

I didn't watch very much of the tv show, but I did see some. I don't know if I'm being unfair because I didn't watch it all, but it struck me that the older female 'bad guy' characters (aunts and wives) are more nuanced in the book than I found them to be in the tv show.

@MonOncle – definitely persevere with Hail Mary Project. I listened to it on Audible and was like you. However, it gets much better and has one of the best endings of a book.

@SheilaFentiman – The Postscript Murders, DS Kaur 2 was one of my favourite books by Elly Griffiths. Excellent! Thats why I started on Dr Ruth Galloway.

@Pickandmixusername – I read The Testaments as soon as I could get it from the library and couldn’t put it down. I saw an interview with Anne O’Dowd who plays Aunt Lydia in the show. She had an interesting take on how her character was drawn into the Gilead project, so to speak. Also, AFAIR, Serena Joy was much older in the original book.

17 The Night Hawks – Elly Griffiths – Dr Ruth Galloway 13. Not a fan of this one. Plot wise, I think we’ve all felt that there are only so many times that Ruth can get involved with a police investigation. But again, none of us are reading it for the plot. Its about the characters, not just Ruth and Nelson.

18 The Locked Room - Elly Griffiths – Dr Ruth Galloway 14. A paperback that I had bought last year when I started the series. I’m pleased that I can take it down to the charity shop tomorrow along with a couple others. This was better. Set in January to June 2020, it’s a good reflection on what those early days of lockdown were like. Words like furlough and zoom so quickly were added to our lexicon. I did have a laugh to myself that Judy and Cathbad use the same toilet paper subscription as us (Who Gives A Crap). I’m looking forward to borrowing the final book in the series so I can say goodbye to them all. That said, Elly Griffiths has a new book coming out, The Frozen People, soon which sounds interesting. She's doing a promotion tour soon and I may go to see her.

Edited as I couldnt spell Frozen!