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

I just realised that he wrote The Granite Kingdom: A Cornish Journey
Which is on my tbr pile

@Stowickthevast I started The Book of Jacob last year, as I also loved Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead and some of it I really enjoyed, but the bits that didn't just proved too much of a drag given the size of the book so it was a DNF.

I read The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk last year and really wasn't a fan - I'd enjoyed Drive Your Plow. I was so disappointed!

Has anyone read The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride by Daniel James Brown?

I bought it on audiobook when I was using up the 14 credits that I had. It was a bit of a panic buy that I’m starting to regret as I think it may be a little too graphic and disturbing for me, judging by the reviews. I’m tempted to return it though I don’t really like to do that to the author or is it worth listening to it?

Hope you like it if you do go for it, @bettbburg .

It's on my Wishlist for when it's not as expensive. Thanks.

Yes @bibliomania, I think I agree with you re Room With a View. The background characters in the first half of the book are the most enjoyable. The love story bit I was less keen on

8 The Miniaturist - Jessie Burton I soldiered on with the dodgy BorrowBox formatting (no apostrophes, colons, semi-colons or dashes - nor speech marks, although that may not have been a formatting issue) and started to get into the book as I got to know the characters better. Overall, I liked it and will read the sequel.

It’s set in 1600s Amsterdam (with a really good evocation of the time and place), with a young bride, Nella, as the main character. She has been married to a stranger - a wealthy merchant twice her age - and has to integrate into his household, dealing with his pious and overbearing sister, a cheeky maid, and her indifferent husband. She is given an incredibly expensive, intricately detailed, miniature version of the house and engages the services of a mysterious “miniaturist” whose details she finds in the equivalent of the yellow pages, to populate it with additional items. But the miniaturist seems to know far too much about Nella and her new family, and gradually all kinds of secrets come to light, with major consequences for the whole household…

Hi everyone, I'm new to this thread

I'm on my third book of the year (well, really the second as I finished White Teeth this year but didn't start it).

Last year I read one book 😭

I finished Carrie Soto is Back the other day.

And now I'm reading Jack Kerouac - On The Road x

@mumofoneAlonebutokay

Welcome! We are friendly bunch!

I really enjoyed On The Road and was surprised at its unpopularity among the thread regulars

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit - my latest Audible is Strong Female Character by Fern Brady. I'd recommend.

@Pickandmixusername – ooh, I can imagine anything that Anne Dowd reads would be fabulous!

@SheilaFentiman – frontlog! Love it! I guess I’m attacking the frontlog now 😊

@mumofoneAlonebutokay - welcome!

19 Empire of the Summer Moon – SG Gwynne (Audible). I cant remember why I got this. Did someone recommend it? It is the story of Quanah Parker, the last of the Comanche warriors. His mother, Cynthia Ann Parker, was abducted as a child by the Comanches. It appears that she was happy and had three children with her husband. She was relocated by Texas Rangers at the age of 33, against her will, separated from her sons. So I thought that was the story that I was going to get, but it covers a period of around 40 years and a lot of ground.
It’s a fascinating story, but needs content warnings for murder, rape and the most distressing death of a baby that I have even read. Because it was so upsetting, I don’t think I could recommend it. Maybe I’m a sap.

Thank you 🙂

I think its alright so far, i did start it last year but gave up as it reminded me of my wasted youth 😭 but I want to finish it

Afternoon 50Bookers

10. The Sun Sister by Lucinda Riley So I have knocked off another of the Seven Sisters series, easy Audio listening. It is a good series, and I do want to know what happens, but they are very formulaic and with this one being number 6, I knew exactly what I was getting. This is the story of the youngest sister Electra, a famous supermodel who is struggling with addiction. She has a bit of a fairytale success in detox and therapy and comes out ready to find her past and her birth family. Very similar to her other sisters. The historical timeline is based in Kenya, with an American socialite who marries a British farmer in the 1930s, loses a baby and then unofficially adopts an abandoned child from the local Masai tribe. All a bit far fetched to be honest. But readable and I feel a necessary chapter in the bigger story. I will be having a bit of a break before I read the next one.

I’ve read it. Let me see if I can find my review.

Can’t find a review, but I don’t remember it being particularly nightmare-inducing.

@mumofoneAlonebutokay welcome. I loved Carrie Soto is back. Probably my favourite of her books so far.

I feel like the reading year has got off to a slow start. I think it's probably because I have a lot of half read books lying around, so I am keen to finish some of them and decide whether to abandon some of the others. And life is just life-ing, so there seems to have been less reading time than normal.

7 Palestine by Joe Sacco
A graphic novel about Palestine and the Palestinians, based on Sacco’s time in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the early 1990s. This was originally nine separate comics brought together. I found this fascinating. I don’t really know how to read a graphic novel and found myself skimming the less text heavy sections but when I remembered to look at the pictures I found what was already a really moving and humane story become much richer and more engaging.

6 Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
An Oxford historian is sent back in time to what everyone thinks is a relatively safe period of the middle ages but which turns out – due to some shoddy maths – very much not safe. As the Black Death destroys the village she has ended up in, a novel virus also rages through modern Oxford.

Some of you told me this wasn’t all that great. It didn’t live up to my (admittedly high) pre-50 bookers expectations having been told elsewhere it was one of the great plague novels. And I can see why it would infuriate anyone who wants their sci-fi to have some sci in it because there were a lot of completely unexplained technologies that never really made sense except as a plot device. It dragged a bit in places and the Oxford virus never really carried much sense of peril but the descriptions later in the book of the Black Death were gripping and I did care a lot about the eventual resolution.

5 Five Senses by Gretchen Rubin
I imagine Gretchen, who writes and podcasts about happiness and self-improvement, is disgustingly perky – fully optimised and living her very best life full of self-improvement. But I loved The Happiness Project and this was also really inspiring. It’s coming from a place of immense privilege as she more or less acknowledges – her decision to go to the Met every day she was in New York (where she lives) and ability to spend $$$ on perfume courses and tasting menus is not something many or even most people can do but there’s an important life learning here about appreciating the inputs from our senses and how we can make more of them. It’s encouraged me to light the expensive scented candles I’ve been given and appreciate them, and to explore new music more thoughtfully. I’m also much more aware of textures and why some make me feel a bit weird – I’m donating a bunch of clothes that always made me sad when I wore them because I now realise I don’t like how they feel against my skin.

25. A Voyage Around The Queen by Craig Brown

Combining biography, essays, cultural history, dream diaries, travelogue and satire, the bestselling and award-winning author of Ma'am Darling and One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time presents a kaleidoscopic portrait of this most public yet private of sovereigns

I've read 4 Craig Brown books and have really enjoyed them all. I wouldn't class myself as either Monarchist or Republican but I do find them and the microcosm they live in fascinating. They are like Zoo animals as Hilary Mantel said (mentioned in this book) and I think it's a miracle that none of them have had a very public breakdown. I think too much is asked of them in exchange for a dubious privilege. I feel particularly sorry for the predetermined ways in which they are forced to live their lives

I thought this was a brilliant book. Not always about HMQ but often how she is viewed. I could definitely have done with less or rather none of the dream sequences but these are only about 5% of the book. It's really comprehensive and goes from birth to death.

At 600+ pages it's a whopper but it flew by, even the stuff I already knew was so well written it didn't matter, I absolutely devoured it and it will be a bold from me.

Thanks @Tarragon123 I have that on my Kindle

I read the one he did on Princess Margaret and loved it. Is this one similar?

Yes @Arran2024 it's the same sort of style

5.Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen Pragmatic Elinor Dashwood and her more passionate sister Marianne are forced out of the family home by inheritance laws and a knobhead sister in law. They're going to need some husbands to get them out of their predicament.

This was fine, but I didn't love it. Obviously no complaints about the writing and Austen's wit is ever present. My main, and very shallow issue is that not one of the gentlemen was swoonworthy. I was quite ready for one of the Dashwood sisters to "settle", and I'm sure most Regency women did, but I craved a more traditionally romantic outcome.

Two more to add to the list
15 A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller
A sci-fi classic read with my online classics reading group. This book is made up of three novellas/ short stories centred around the monks of the abbey of St Leibowitz. Set far into the future each story jumps centuries ahead but all concern the monks of St Leibowitz (a saint who saved scientific memorabilia from our era pre ‘fallout’). The first is after a nuclear war where man has mostly become quite primitive again. The others chart the technological growth of mankind and our religious/ moral values. Some of this was surprisingly funny- the author has a darkly comic tone, but it went on for too long and the third instalment became too preachy and let the whole thing down.

16 Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
A novella split into two sections- the first during the settlement of Palestinian lands post world war 2, the second in the present day where a Palestinian woman investigates what happened in the past. This is extraordinarily brutal and affecting. The two contrasting prose styles work really well to illustrate the themes of trauma/ occupation. This was bold for me but I wouldn’t recommend to everyone or if you’re not in a good place in your own life. It’s very dark.

In other book news I was at a book launch this evening for a The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr, a book set in Donegal in the 70s where a family take in a baby. It is written from the PoV of the whole community and sounds wonderful. The event was introduced by Louise Kennedy who wrote Trespasses so that’s a great recommendation. Kind of annoyed I’m going away this weekend so won’t have time to start it! I’m off next week though so looking forward to reading it then.

On another topic, I’m currently listening to Pachinko, about a third of the way through and it’s not really doing it for me- it may be the ‘once upon a time’ narration. Worth sticking with or trying on paper instead of audio? Would love to hear your advice.

@DesdamonasHandkerchief do you still have The Secret Hours to go? It's in 99p deals atm~

@Stowickthevast you may like Primeval - it was my first Tokarczuk and still a favourite, also forms a neat witchy trio with Emp and DYP (all AL-J translations). I haven't cracked TBoJ yet, but wasn't wild about Flights which was also translated by Jennifer Croft - not sure if it's her style or just that she takes on the more abstract capital-L Litfic ones I probably wouldn't enjoy even if I spoke Polish 😅
I'm definitely a fan of Antonia Lloyd-Jones though - have read her translations of mysteries, nonfic, SF, children's books by various authors and enjoyed them all.

ITA on Minor Detail @ÚlldemoShúl I think having read that made me a bit more meh on Enter Ghost than others here. TY for reviewing Confessions earlier - it sounds like the type of competent but not amazing litfic I'm trying to minimise this year, so will wait to see if one of my libraries gets it. Pachinko is great on paper but it's a very oldschool family saga - are you in the mood for that? Can imagine it getting a bit waily whiny on audio if the reader is a Trembly Emoter.

I've already got holds on Annie Bot and To All the Living, thanks to this thread. And cancelled one for Whale Fall following @Sadik 's review - not that I would've registered Welsh errors but that's such a red flag in a book about language and interpretation.

I need to pay you all back in reviews but having just finished Han Kang - We Do Not Part am now 10 behind, which seems to be my personal 'throw hands up in despair' point XD Though TBF that book would make anyone despair, as it's intended to - definitely avoid if feeling mentally fragile or tired. Or physically nauseous or cold - unexpected levels of vomiting and snowy peril. I'm retreating to a reread of Some Tame Gazelle now (also in 99p deals).