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

FWIW I can't wait for the next Strike book and have no conflict because JKR is an amazing human being who stands up for women's rights.

Anyway back to the books.

15 . The Singing Sands - Josephine Tey - I really enjoyed the final of the Inspector Alan Grant books, a body is found in a carriage of the sleeper train from Euston to Edinburgh, it seems like an accident but Inspector Grant who was on the train has his doubts. This is a charming book and the twist is good.

Yes I found Ink Black Heart a difficult listen.

To much text / gaming speak.

DH hadn't read the books and found the TV really hard to follow.

The Running Grave was amazing.

@lifeturnsonadime

Listening to it in bed of a night and a voice going MUKLUK WAAAAA absolutely did me in.

Have you read The Daughter of Time? It was my introduction into Richard III being the rightful king.

Myrtle yes, and I loved it. I've now bought the Alison Weir Princes in the Tower book on the suggestion of Sheila Fentiman on here as a counter version of the the Daughter of Time, it's arrived today.

I ended up listening to the complete series of Inspector Alan Grant a bit by accident, I only wanted to buy The Daughter of Time but the complete works was in the sale so cost less than the credit to buy the individual book. I've got through all of them this year!

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
(4) Darkest Fear, written by Harlen Coben

Latest book......

(5) Old Filth by Jane Gardam,

Long ago, Old Filth was a Raj orphan - one of the many young children sent 'Home' from the East to be fostered and educated in England. Jane Gardam's novel tells his story, from his birth in what was then Malaya to the extremities of his old age. In so doing, she not only encapsulates a whole period from the glory days of British Empire, through the Second World War, to the present and beyond, but also illuminates the complexities of the character known variously as Eddie, the Judge, Fevvers, Filth, Master of the Inner Temple, Teddy and Sir Edward Feathers

Have to be honest I read this book due to a recommendation from this thread - I didn't really get this book....

Onto the next in the Trilogy!

Thanks so much @Terpsichore for recommending the Spalding biography of Gwen Raverat; I've added it to my TBR list. I'm sad to learn that her adult life had so much sorrow in it.

@Sadik I'm a big fan of the Sarah Caudwell mysteries. I've read them all but am long overdue for a reread! I like the clever way one never finds out the gender of the protagonist Hilary (nor does it seem to matter).

I do love the 50 Booker threads. There are people who have been on them many more years than I have, but I think we should be proud of the fact that we often disagree with one another about which books and which authors we do or don't like (so these threads are anything but bland), but we manage to keep it classy. Mostly anyway. Which is no small achievement given how fraught with bitterness and conflict so much of the world is right now, both online and off.

Witness the 2024 50 Bookers Roundup Thread by @RomanMum , where she coined the category of the BBB prize (the Bloody Boring Butler prize, which is an allusion to the fact that some of us adore Remains of the Day and some of us loathe it). The BBB category was a list of books which had inspired the most diverse opinions over the course of the year. Though how anyone could fail to appreciate The Bee Sting for the masterpiece that it is is beyond me. 😂

So yeah, call it a special place, call it a breathing space or a refuge or what you like, because as far as I'm concerned, that's what it is.

Bravo @cassandre
I’ve been on these threads since the very beginning and they’re the best thing on the internet, except maybe photographs of young Jarvis Cocker.

Arabia: A Journey through the Heart of the Middle East by Levison Wood
Very readable and interesting, although I still can’t even pretend to understand the history of conflict in places like the West Bank, Syria, Yemen and more, and all of the various factions involved.

Well said @cassandre

I've never read the JKR Strike books as found Harry Potter so painful to read aloud to my kids - she may tell a good story when she eventually gets round to it but, my God, she needs a better editor!

Couple more to add here
12. Annie Bot - Sierra Greer. Much reviewed on here, enjoyable read about a sex bot "Cuddle Bunny" gaining consciousness. The awful men were straight out of the MN relationships pages.

13. The Lost Love Songs of Boysie Singh - Ingrid Persaud. I listened to this tale based on a true story about a Trinidad gangster and his various women. Each chapter is told by one of his women - his childhood sweetheart Mana Lala, Po Po a prostitute, Doris a Christian maid and Rosie, a shop owner. This was a bit confusing at first on the audio and to be honest I don't listen to books that much, and it's pretty long, but after the first part I got really into it. I loved hearing the Patois spoken and feeling submerged in 1930s- 50s Trinidad. I think this may be a bold. Will be interesting to see if it makes the Woman's Prize list as her previous book did a couple of years ago.

@lifeturnsonadime if you want some more pseudo-Tey, Nicola Upson has written a series in which JT (as herself) is the lead character and has a Detective Inspector friend with strong echoes of Grant. Murders happen around her and she has a hand in solving them.

61! She’s younger than me and I’m not 62 yet. It counts!

/11. Kramer vs Kramer by Avery Corman

Brilliant book about a couple where she deserts the marriage and her four year old son because of the frustrations of being a traditional housewife and mother. Ted Kramer is left to pick up the pieces and look after his son. It was adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep.

What's great about it is how much things have changed since then. How much more fathers participate and how much more mothers are supported and Joanna Kramer's frustrations are understood. But also it's fascinating how much hasn't changed and how much more expensive everything is. The 1970s culture of spending the summer in a shared house on Fire Usland is completely unaffordable now. The book is written from the man's perspective and I was expecting more praise for Ted bringing up his kid alone from other characters but that was completely absent. And of course he can afford a housekeeper to look after his son.

It's of its time and an excellent read.

Another one not wanting that debate here please. It's a haven of sanity in these threads.

Anyway..I've just bought Island Wife: living on the edge of the wild and Turning to Stone for a much reduced price in the deals. The first one is about a woman whom,Ives on a remote Scottish island running various businesses including a whale watching one. It's about her life and how she deals with it all up to and including when her children leave home.

The second is about a geologist and her studies of mountains in remote parts of the world. It's, like the first book mentioned, about her life as well as the rocks.

Both have been on my wishlist for sometime after being recommended.

One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson
Continuing my read through of Jackson Brodie with no 2 in the series. Jackson gets mixed up with Russians, crime writers, assassins and housewives at the Edinburgh Festival all the while ruminating on the nature of love and women and his lost family.

Glad you enjoyed P&P(sort of) Remus - that’s reminded me to book tickets as it’s on near me in a few weeks. Very excited!

applauds @cassandre . That's how I feel about these threads too.
@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie thanks for the review of Pride and Prejudice (sort of). It's playing near to me next month so I'll see about getting tickets.

I also really enjoyed The Keeper of Stories. I got The Secrets of Flowers by the same author, probably as a 99p Kindle special

@Tarragon123 I went to look this up and found that 'The Book of Beginnings' by Sally Page is currently available to borrow on Prime, so I have borrowed it! And put the other on my wishlist.

9 Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris

I suspect most of the rest of you read this when it was on the Women's Prize shortlist. I came to it as the latest Shelterbox pick. Zora is a Serbian artist living in Sarajevo with her husband Franjo. Her world is shattered when the war begins in 1992. I was utterly absorbed by this account of the siege of Sarajevo, which Morris based on the experiences of her own family. It is an amazingly vivid portrait not only of the awful events of 1992, but also of the essence of Sarajevo both before and during the siege and of the small group of people with whom Zora lives after her husband takes her mother to stay with their daughter in the UK. Morris is a poetic writer and she brings both Zora's art and the city to life.

My response to this book is perhaps quite personal, as I went to Sarajevo during an interrailing trip around eastern Europe in 2005. The war had only ended 9 years previously and we were told we shouldn't go up into the hills etc. as there were still mines. I only spent a day and a night there but it is extraordinarily vivid in my memory. We came into the city on an overnight train at about 5:30 a.m. and the sun was just rising over the surrounding hills. Two of the hills are covered in graves for those killed in the conflict, with small simple white markers (different for Muslims and Christians). They turned rosy as the sun came up; they were so beautiful but so terrible in the early morning light. Despite the destruction, the city was still beautiful too. The other thing that has stayed with me is the warmth of the people, and the fact that, even after a devastating war, it felt like a place where people put aside their differences and celebrated their shared joys and loves. That is also something that comes through in Morris's writing. I have never been back and although I would love to see Sarajevo now, I am a bit worried that returning would ruin that day I have in my memory.

Thanks for the tip off about the reduced price for Island Wife @bettbburg. Just bought it.

@Welshwabbit
I read Black butterflies about 18 months ago and thought it was excellent. It has really stayed with me.

Hope you can get tickets. Please report back if you see it. It’s a blast!

@StrangewaysHereWeCome Your name suggests that we share similar tastes in music. There’s one particular song in P&P that I think you will approve of - not The Smiths, but something else almost as good!

Have any Du Maurier fans (or non fans tbh) read The Mischief Makers? I am struggling to decide whether it is actually shit or just a bit oddly written.

I hadn’t heard of The Mischief Makers but it sounds very intriguing! I’m intrigued to know your final verdict Piggy.