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

Hello, hoping to join this thread but have one question, in the original post it says this:

'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'

I am not quite understanding the purpose of the bolding and dont want to confuse the thread by doing something wrong! Are the lists only of books that you have already finished or can you put books you hope to read in here too?
Sorry for all the questions

The bolding when you write a review just distinguishes the title from the review text. For example:

2 Murder Must Advertise - Dorothy L Sayers
Lord Peter goes to work in an advertising agency under a highly ridiculous pseudonym. Implausibly, no one recognises him, the murder victim is a right fetid toenail and everyone would rather keep the murderer around, frankly. Ultimately solved by a game of cricket, natch. Nonetheless, light, adorable, bowls (ha!) along wonderfully and is one of my favourite DLS books.

However, in a list of titles read this year, I would bold only ones I really liked.

1. OK Book by Mr Average
2. Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L Sayers

ETA we tend to post our numbered lists at the start of a new thread

@Tallblacktrees

So bolding titles on reviews is just presentation

A bold in your list

Your list is what you've completed a bold in the list is what you recommend. Lisfs occur at the start of new threads

No need to post TBR but just "do you" other than that

Hooray to thread 2

list thus far

2025 book list

1. Odyssey- Stephen Fry
2. The Hogfather - Terry Pratchett
3. Walk The Blue Fields - Clare Keegan
4. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - JK Rowling
5. Journey to the Centre of the Earth - Jules Verne

Book 6 is The House of Fortune by Jessie Burton. I really enjoyed The Miniaturist so I hope that this will be good also. So much for trying to push myself into the future, or even the current day! I have Silo lined up and did eeny meeny between the two. I think The House of Fortune will be good for this period of time, however. Not too challenging but an engaging story.

thank you for the pointer towards the Slow Horses kindle deal. I watched the TV series and really enjoyed them all. I think these will be up my alley.

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller

It moves so fast in January.

My list so far :

1. Private Rites - Julia Armfield
2. Intermezzo - Sally Rooney
3. Rodham - Curtis Sittenfeld
4. Human Acts - Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith
5. Exiles - Jane Harper

Currently reading Heat and Dust which won the 1975 Booker but feels a bit bland so far, and Blue Sisters which is an easier read.

Can I please ask if Intermezzo is good? I have seen it mentioned a few times

This really get on my last nerve. I work for a global company and all German names that require umlauts have them when you read about them on the intranet but it’s apparently not possible for emails so they become Juergen.whatever - how can we not deal with umlauts!!!

Rant over. I’m going to try to read without falling asleep.

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller. I’m off to a slow start this year. Still ploughing through number four. Anyway, here’s my list so far

1 A baby’s cry - Cathy Glass
2 Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart
3 The Outcast - Sadie Jones

Joining in as I've actually dared use one of my empty notebooks to begin tracking what I read in a year. Not as elaborate as some journals I've seen on SM, mine's just a simple list, but now I can actually remember everything

The Shipping Forecast - Annie Proulx
Anatomy: A Love Story - Dana Schwartz
The Stranding - Kate Sawyer
Topographica Hibernica - Blindboy Boatclub*
Entangled Life - Melvin Sheldrake
Baumgartner - Paul Aster
Yellowface - R. F. Kuang
Three Hours - Rosamund Lupton

I don't think doing 50 will be hard for me, I prefer to read in the evenings than watch tv, but I'm determined to make 10 of that non-fiction (which I generally avoid). So far... 1 down, lol.

*I got halfway through the book before realizing Blindboy was the name of the author, not part of a very long title!

I wouldn't waste your time with it.

I enjoyed it, but I went in with no expectations. I think it was overhyped, for sure. It's definitely not a lifetime favourite or anything like that.

I have a book club for it soon, so expecting a range of views at that!

Spent ages trying to post on the last thread until I realised you were all here.

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh, I am so glad you thought Hangover Square was a book worth reading (I hesitate to say enjoy because it is not full of LOLs). Of all the books I've read in my life it's the one that haunts me the most. Poor George, as you say - he deserved better and so nearly got it.

My list so far
1 Polo by Jilly Cooper - hard agree with whoever said there was too much polo in this
2 Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer - fascinating history of the German Democratic Republic which managed to balance social and political history well
3 I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue - not quite a romcom, and not the "hilarious office comedy" reviews suggest as it is rather bleak. Jolene, the protagonist, makes some spectacularly bad choices, mostly but not all in relation to her use of IT systems at her job in head office for a supermarket chain. Her efforts to untangle herself and gain the upper hand on her colleagues lead to all sorts of problems. Some resolved, some not.
4 You Are Here by David Nicholls - half way through this I got worried it was going to be like One Day and I'd deeply regret my life choices as I don't have emotional trauma in me right now. Happily this was more straightforward, and was an entertaining enough light but engaging romance. Not going to win the Nobel Prize for Literature but restored some of my faith in human nature.

3 Hill Of Secrets by Galina Vromen
An interesting read, a story based around the families living at Los Alamos.

4 There's Something About Mira by Sonali Dev
Nice romcom which made me think about the feeling of belonging. Not my usual fare but a fun read.

Polo by Jilly Cooper - hard agree with whoever said there was too much polo in this

Moi

Thanks @Southeastdweller and @IKnowAPlace re Intermezzo. It was pretty cheap on Kindle about 2 hours ago so, obviously, I bought it. But I won’t prioritise it.

I have only ever read one Jilly Cooper and that was Polo. I was 16 and swapped
books with a relative. The book I gave her was Schindlers List. It was quite a mood shift. I seem to recall some fairly fruity language on page 1

I quite enjoyed Intermezzo, but I also liked/loved most of Sally Rooney's previous work, apart from her first novel Conversations with Friends.

Oh I'm annoyed - thanks for the Slow Horses kindle deal, went on the app and it was there at 99p. Wouldn't let be buy on the app, by the time I'd logged in on the browser it was 00:02 and they are now £14.99. Gutted

4 The American No by Rupert Everett
Love Rupert, love his writing. This is a collection of short(ish) stories, some that were pitches to producers, hence the title. He writes like a dream and you are immediately transported to whatever realm of sadness he has created. He has a fascinating family history and some of it comes to vivid fictionalised life in these pages. Made the mistake of finishing Ten Pound Pom last night and then lay in bed blinking back tears for a while.
There’s a playscript at the end and I just skimmed that, because if there’s something I hate more than an audiobook it’s a playscript. He’s more than welcome to come round and act it out for me, however.

@Terpsichore I read Jill when I was at university (many, many years ago) and although I enjoyed it, I remember finding it quite a painful read (the incident with the tea service sticks in my mind). Does it get easier with age? I still have it on my bookshelf and enjoyed rereading A Girl in Winter last (?) year, which I found quite different emotionally from how I had remembered it.

Checking in with my little list.
1# Watermelon Marian Keyes
2# Guide Me Home Attica Locke

My list so far

1 Scrublands - Chris Hammer

2 The King’s Jewel - Elizabeth Chadwick

3 Keep them Close - Sophie Flynn

4 The Library at Mount Char - Scott Hawkins

5 Yellowface - R.F Kuang

6 A Mothers Reckoning - Sue Klebold

No bolds so far but it’s early days.

@Passmethecrisps I also thought Intermezzo was quite good. It's not perfect, the ending annoyed me, but she still writes beautifully. For me it was better than Beautiful World & Conversations with Friends, and probably on a par with Normal People. A solid 4.

It’s very painful, he puts his protagonist through torture, but I’m enjoying the experience of reading it….if that makes sense. Yes, completely and interestingly different to A Girl in Winter.

Thanks Terpsichore, perhaps I should brace myself for a reread.