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

@ÚlldemoShúl

I loved Pachinko but I read it in physical form. Who is the reader of your audio? because I read there's a new version done by the actress Sandra Oh and I really like her from Grey's Anatomy and Killing Eve and I'd be very disappointed if it was her and she was rubbish.

I've read it too, it was a bold for me.

@ShelfObsessed my review was:
"Another take on the Donner Party, but this doesn't aim to be a straight history, instead telling the story through the lens of one of the party members, Sarah Graves. It's beautifully written and very humane. A definite bold although I'm having to retreat into some comfort reading after all this trauma!"

However the reason I mention trauma is that I read it directly after reading The Best Land Under Heaven, by Michael Wallis, which is a very factual telling of the Donner Party. Two accounts in a row was a bit much! The Indifferent Stars Above was the far superior book.

Thanks @inaptonym I'm just not 100% sure Pachinko is a book for me. Also, I see where you’re coming from about Minor Detail/ Enter Ghost- I bolded the latter but the former is so much more of a punch in the face without trying half as hard.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit mine is read by Allison Hiroto- it’s very telling a story in a sweet voice- I’d say it would be different read by Sandra Oh who I love as an actress too. I’m tempted to abandon on audio for now and maybe go back to some day in print. I’m sure my library has it.

@ÚlldemoShúl

Can you return it and get the credit back if it's Audible?

I have A Voyage Around The Queen unfinished on Audible but frustratingly it’s the kind of thing that works best in Kindle book format for me and I spent ages trying to figure out how to switch between the two before discovering I had to buy it again. Which I haven’t yet.

@BestIsWest

I hate that about audio, some books are perfect for it and others really aren't and it also really depends on the reader, it's a finicky medium, got some purchases I regret.

I’ve had it forever a I’d say it’s too late- it’s also very possible that I got it in a 2 for 1. Should have listened to the sample so it’s my own fault.

6 Strong Foundations - Clare Bourne
Pelvic health through the female life cycle, written by a physiotherapist - keep doing those squeezes, ladies!

7 Alexa, What is There to Know About Love? - Brian Bilston
Gently amusing poetry, mostly based around the theme of love. This was my favourite, due to being an oversized child:

Abelard and Héloïse
caused a scandal in the diocese.
Later, she devoted herself to religious festivals.
He made do without his testicles.

8 The Voyage Home - Pat Barker
A real page turner ending to the Trojan Women trilogy, covering the return from Troy of nasty-piece-of-work King Agamemnon and his doomed concubine Cassandra, told largely from the POV of enslaved healer Ritsa who has been assigned as Cassandra’s maidservant. Although at times I thought it was stretching the source material a little thin to make up a 300 page novel, as always in this trilogy Barker excels at making the physical and emotional suffering of women in wartime real and visceral. Highly recommend.

9 The Lamb by Lucy Rose
Without a doubt, one of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read and I don’t disturb easily.
Margot lives with her Mama, Ruth, in a little cottage in the middle of nowhere (by geographical clues such as the Helm Wind, I’d guess in the North Pennine region). From the first page it is made clear that they are cannibals, luring ‘Strays’ in from the road and off the hills. Lots of detail about the process of killing them, dressing the carcass, cooking and eating them, counterbalanced with detail about the hills and woods surrounding the cottage.
Margot goes to school but is warned not to draw attention to herself in any way. Naturally, she is very isolated, but has a tentative friendship with Abbie, whose father goes to Margot’s cottage to have sex with Mama occasionally. She is relentlessly bullied by the boys in the area, but the driver of the school bus protects her on her journeys.
One day, a non-Stray turns up. Eden inveigles herself into the household and things begin to change.
It’s not a gross-out cannibal horror by any means. The depictions of insatiable hunger and longing are exquisitely drawn. Margot fitting in the normal world at school where her peers and adults have no idea of her home life are heartbreakingly realistic if you take away the eating people aspect. It’s as much a novel about poverty and isolation as anything else. The ending just about broke my heart.
Minor quibbles - where does Mama find money for the electricity and the small amount of non-Stray food they have? Why does no one notice just how many people go missing in the area - yes, Strays are chosen carefully so a fair proportion will just drop off the radar, but some are just hikers.
It will stick in my head for a fair while and a book that out-bleaks the bleakest of Benjamin Myers is unusual. I can’t wait to see what Rose produces next and I’m going to look up her short folk horror films.

Judi Dench’s Shakespeare book is 99p in the daily deals today. I think lots on here have enjoyed it - I haven’t read it yet so have bought it.

Ooh thanks Chessie

Thanks @ChessieFL I just grabbed that one.

@StrangewaysHereWeCome I refuse to accept that Colonel Brandon is anything other than a heart throb, full of simmering passion, who will give Marianne poetry and penis aplenty.

@AlmanbyRoadtrip I read the review of The Lamb in the Grauniad at the weekend. Your review has made it sound even more interesting (I daren’t say appealing).

Thanks for the Primeval recommendation @ÚlldemoShúl I haven't heard of that one. I think she's at her best when she's at her darkest!

Love Brian Bilston @LadybirdDaphne

Lol at your Colonel Brandon description @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

11. Parade - Rachel Cusk. More navel gazing musings here from Cusk. If you don't like her work, this is not going to change your opinion It doesn't really have a plot but it looks at different artists, all called "G", and considers their lives and work. There's also a background story told by a 1st person plural narrator that is loosely connected. The strongest part for me was the ending when it deals with the death of a parent - it felt most genuine.

I cannot recommend this book enough!

I have a real thing for Rachel Cusk books, even though I find them slightly irritating. I finished Transit just before Christmas so might wait to read another one.

Currently considering abandoning The Ministry of Time- has anyone read it? I genuinely don't know if it's the book that's annoying me or if I'm just in a bad mood this week!

The Ministry of Time got very mixed reviews on here, @Thistlebegood I personally liked it a lot, but if it's annoying you early on, it's probably best abandoned - it won't get less annoying!

I'm currently sitting in my campervan with my dogs having spent the night at Jamaica Inn so I thought I'd update on here. If you're a fan of Du Maurier it's definitely worth a visit to see the Du Maurier collection alone. You have to suspend belief though a bit with the A 30 running so close and the Inn itself has themed itself on a tourist attraction but having read Jamaica Inn and, being in the area, I thought I'd pop along. a

As for the recent reads:

11 . The Cracked Mirror - Chris Brookmyre - I downloaded this because of the good reviews on here but this wasn't my favourite, I nearly didn't get past the first couple of chapters but persevered, the middle bit was quite entertaining but I found the end a step too much with the mindbending. The characters were fairly enjoyable. Was OK.

12 . To Love and Be Wise - Josephine Tey - Continuing to plough through the complete works, this is my favourite so far, Inspector Grant meets a charming young American at a party who subsequently disappears feared drowned. Entertaining novel with a touch of tranvestism thrown in for good measure...

13 . Lancaster and York - The War of the Roses - Alison Weir - Very enjoyable non fiction history of the period of wars between the two rival factions. Very detailed history.

14 . Daughter of Time - Josephine Tey - yay I finally got there! This one is a bold for me. Inspector Grant is in convalescence and is bored and embarks on trying to solve the murder of the princess in the tower which has long been attributed to Richard III. I loved it, I loved the relationship between Grant and the American Brent Carradine who works in the British Museum. I love the use of the Tonypandy riot as a theme of fabricated history. This novel actually makes you think about themes and media manipulation. Excellent read especially for any lovers of this period of history.

I've reserved the Judi Dench book from the library and also Minor Detail. I'm looking forward to both! The queues seem to be non-existant although I have been fooled before and been kept waiting at the top of the list.

Speaking of which (being kept waiting), my library copy of 84 Charing Cross Road finally arrived and I can now agree with everyone and say what a lovely, heart-warming story this is. When I started reading Helene's letters, the writing style reminded me of our own @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie in their warmth, wit and cheeky good humour which of course only added to the enjoyment of the book. I thought it was wonderful how she sent food parcels over to the staff at no. 84. I'm reading the part now (a second book?) where Helene has come to London a few years later and is being shown around by Frank's widow and daughter. This is enjoyable too. Helene is a likeable woman and this is an easy read.

I read Intermezzo before No. 84. * *(Thought I would need an easy read afterwards!) This started out as a library book but it was a large, unwieldy hardback and it was easier to return it to the library and read it on Kindle. I liked this. Out of all of Sally Rooney's books, it's the one that I liked the most so far. I thought that Ivan was a very sympathetic character. I also liked Margaret, the woman he forms an attachment with and I was hoping it would work out for them.

The story centers on the relationship between two brothers and how they deal with their grief following the death of their father. Their relationship, which was already under strain is tested, especially when Ivan meets and falls in love with an older woman. I liked the different perspectives and writing styles which Rooney used to differentiate between the brothers. I went into reading this one with an open mind and I enjoyed it. It's quite a long book and while there is much examination of feelings, it held my interest.

That's fun about Jamaica Inn, @lifeturnsonadime Re Daughter of Time, I regularly walk past a pub sign based on the Richard III portrait mentioned in the book, so I end up thinking about the book a surprising amount.

84 CCR is lovely, @FuzzyCaoraDhubh It would warm the cockles of any book-lover's heart.

Awww yay, @lifeturnsonadime - The Daughter of Time is one of my desert island books. Have you read Alison Weir’s The Princes in the Tower (non fiction) as a counterpoint?

I remember going to Jamaica Inn as a child. At that point I had no interest in Daphne du Maurier (had probably never even heard of her) but at that time the Inn hosted a ‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not’ museum with things like stuffed two-headed lambs and other ‘wonders’. My brother and I thought this was great but it’s really not in keeping with the idea of the Inn as dark and remote! I’ve been back more recently although we only stopped outside and didn’t go in (too early and not open) and agree it’s very touristy now. I would like to go back and see the DDM museum sometime though.

@Thistlebegood I DNF The Ministry of Time so I would recommend you give up if you’re not enjoying it!

Read it, hated it, it was such a good idea but it went downhill very quickly

I'm doing the Shakespeare book as audio right now and can't thank you enough @MegBusset for the recommendation