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

Sounds amazing and a bit scary spending the night at Jamaica Inn @lifeturnsonadime

When I was about 10 and had just started boarding school, we used to have a recording of Jamaica Inn played to us over speakers after lights out. It was terrifying. Suffice to say not much sleep was had!

Do you know what, even with the A30 traffic in the background and the eerie memories of the terror of the book, and being told all about the ghosts and the paranormal activity that is apparently still there I slept like a baby!

I can't believe that they played that to 10 year olds who were trying to sleep, what on earth were they thinking! ?

No, but I've now downloaded as my next audible listen for while I'm driving.

I'm looking forward to it! Thanks for the recommendation. I've read others by Alison Weir and enjoyed them.

That is a really odd choice of book to try and send 10 year olds to sleep! Maybe it was the only thing they had (I’m assuming this was pre-audible days!)

Loved Judi Dench on Shakespeare. Has anyone read Harriet Walter’s book on Shakespeare’s women yet?

@SheilaFentiman actually I was just going to download it and can't find the title. Sheila did you mean Philipa Langley rather than Alison Weir?

That's decided it for me, *The Ministry of Time is a DNF! Freedom! It's funny how I feel guilty about not finishing a book in a way I'd never feel guilty about, eg, switching off a film or TV programme I wasn't enjoying. Maybe a hangover from school/uni when it didn't matter if you liked the books or not, you still had to read them.

20 Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad – Daniel Finkelstein (Book) I bought this because of the reviews it had on here and it did not disappoint. It perhaps wasn’t the best idea to read this at the same time as listening to Empire of the Summer Moon, but there we go. As expected, this was a hard read, the terror, the fact that the reader knows what’s going to happen, the menace is just there. Its heart breaking to see the photograph of his mother, posing in the same way as Anne Frank in her school photograph.

I learned a lot about Stalin, Ukraine, Poland etc. I think if my family had been treated the way that DF’s had been, I’d be very, very bitter and angry. Especially with the Ukraine/Russia war.

https://amzn.eu/d/cunYLhX

This one - but I read it on Kindle, maybe it's not on Audible.

Philippa Langley and Alan Grant are on the same side of the Ricardian debate :)

That's what I thought (about Langley and Grant being on the same side!). It's a shame it's not on audible. I'll read it 'properly' instead!

Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
This was a delight/pleasure to read, despite it falling under crime or thriller. Drily funny, as is Irish humour, and so perceptive I could easily believe and imagine the characters.

I liked Wild Houses too @evtheria . The young female character was great.

23 The Keeper of Stories - Sally Page

This was from the “front log” and I enjoyed it. It has some of the same gentle rhythms as “Meet Me at the Museum”.

In her late 40s, Janice is a cleaner, and a collector of stories. From her clients, from things she overhears on the Cambridge buses. Trapped in a frustrating marriage and estranged from her son, she doesn’t feel worthy of her own story, but over the course of the book, she blossoms - with the help of one elderly client and an (almost) talking dog. All the characters in this book, as seen through her eyes, rang true and it’s impossible not to will her on to a happy ending.

#16 - The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

This was a re-read - I listened to The Testaments earlier this week, and it was great. So I had to revisit The Handmaid's Tale!

It follows Offred, a Handmaid, who lives in Gilead, which used to be knows as the USA. It was first published in 1985, and I think is meant to take place some time in the early 21st century. A new regime has taken control of the USA. They are called the Sons of Jacob and they base the regime on extreme, conservative Christian values. Birth rates of healthy babies have plummeted due to pollution, birth control, women choosing not to have children and viruses which either killed people of child bearing age or damaged fertility. Women with a proven track record of producing healthy babies are in high demand.

There are some similarities between this and 1984, which I listened to earlier this month and loved. Both regimes use public execution, torture, surveillance and censorship as a means of controlling the general public. In both regimes there is a small elite who have much greater freedom than the general public, while simultaneously cracking down on the freedoms available to the general population. Both regimes are often at war, which means some foods are scarce. I'm sure I could go on, and I'm sure someone else has already made the same comparisons at some point and done a better job than me!

Anyway, I love this book, although it isnt exactly jolly. Going to start watching the tv show again this weekend 😁

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh I feel hugely honoured by that comparison. I only wish I could send you all parcels of cakes, Spam and egg replacements too.

Case Histories - Kate Atkinson
After finishing the latest Jackson Brodie and enjoying it immensely I went back to read the first - still good although confusing in places. I had to read one passage six times and still wasn’t sure I understood it.

Hold the Spam @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie, cake welcome though.

@Pickandmixusername Margaret Atwood has said that everything she put in The Handmaid's Tale had pretty much already happened somewhere in the world.

Yes, of course that's true, and 1984 was also based on real events (inspired by Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia).

I love both books and it is interesting to make comparisons and identify common themes 🤓

@ChessieFL this was in the 80s so very much pre-Audible. They just had a selection of classics they used to rotate. I also remember War of the Worlds and King Solomon's Mines. Presumably the pastoral care has improved since then!

I quite liked The Ministry of Time! It definitely had its flaws but overall I had a fun time reading it.

Still struggling with Project Hail Mary but haven’t abandoned it yet.

4 - Royal Assassin, by Robin Hobb
This is the second book in the Farseer trilogy, which is a character driven fantasy series about a royal bastard, Fitz, who has been trained as the King’s assassin. Given it’s book two I won’t go into the detail, but I will say that Hobb is really good at getting you to fall in love (and hate in some cases!) with her cast of characters, even many of the minor ones. I’ve not read a great deal of fantasy but I am really enjoying these, I don’t even mind the slow pacing.

I’m wanting something short for my next read so I’m eyeing up Annie Bot after seeing the positive reviews here.

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

Thanks for the recs on here, I gave this 4.5 stars.

Annie is basically a sex robot but robots are now so realistic they look human and she exists only to please her partner. Annie's development is believably written, and although I enjoyed reading about her, I didn't feel much affinity for the characters, which is why it's not a 5 star bold.

(I am trying write more articulate reviews, and therefore will not be using the words really, nice or good going forwards).

4. Gomorra by Roberto Saviano
I spent a holiday in Campania and wanted to read more about the Camorra, organised crime in the area. Well, this is definitely a bold for me, but I wouldn't recommend it for anyone else unless you are definitely into the topic. Relentlessly dark and demoralising as it details the total control of the local economy, both legitimate and illegitimate, by what Saviano refers to as the System or the clans, a huge group of clusters of families. By linking up with similar criminal setups elsewhere in Europe and in China - including the UK - the clans make themselves so central and deeply embedded to the shiny surface of the global economy it is hard to see how they could ever be removed. Saviano writes with passion and sometimes lyrically, though think hip hop lyrics rather than love songs - one chapter repeats 'I know it. And I can prove it' like a chorus.

Individual clan bosses are constantly being killed and replaced, so nothing is ever considered long term in their world. Children are murdered, craftsmen ruined, agricultural land poisoned. Saviano has apparently lived under police protection since it was published. I felt culpable too by the end.

6. Space Boy Vol. 19 - Stephen McCranie
Another excellent instalment in this series of graphic novels (YA sci-fi about First Contact). I’m a bit nervous about recommending it to anyone, however, as he’s been writing it for years now, and there’s no sign of the end.

7. Eustacia Goes to the Chalet School - Elinor Brent-Dyer
Also a very long-running series. Not one of my favourites, as I do feel that Eustacia, difficult as her behaviour can be, deserves some TLC as a 14 year old orphan. Contrast the cosseting of insufferable ‘angel-child’ the Robin. Can you really prevent TB by drinking a lot of milk and always wearing slippers (and instant obedience of course)?