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

Curious....why no rereads? The only other of his I have read is Red Dog

Definitely #TeamCorelli though

Another Captain Corelli fan but also loved his south American ones which I read first and may not have stood the test of time.

I also really liked Still Life though!

I adore Corelli. I generally never reread books but have happily reread it. I have also taught it for A level and a boy I taught told me off because it made him cry on the train. Carlo is one of my most favourite ever characters. It's still unusual to have prominent gay characters.

The end is shit.

I have read Crawdads and Oliphant and DNF the sample of Lessons and agree with the consensus but haven’t read Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. Must rectify. Is it going to be another Bloody Boring Butler and divide the thread?

I haven't read The Mandolin but now feel I should.

Read the Crawdads and thought it was poor. Terrible dialogue especially.

Read Lessons in Chemistry and thought it was okay. Too much hype.

Read Oliphant and also thought it was okay if a bit twee.
Agree with Eine's thoughts on A Still Life.

I adored Captain Corelli but I love historical stuff and didn't know the back story. I loved Bird Without Wings even more.

I'm with @MamaNewtNewt - Captain Corelli was a good book utterly spoiled by the ending.

Interesting about the Laura Coffey connection, @AgualusasLover She's a good writer and the book deserves to be read.

I thought Elinor Oliphant was OK if not great.

Have avoided Crawdads as I suspect I won't like it.

Didn't think Corelli was as good as everyone said, and having met Louis de Bernieres and found him very rude about other authors it's put me off trying more of his books.

I did like Still Life. I love Florence (much more than Venice when we visited both, which wasn't what I'd expected) so I enjoyed the setting. I seem to remember an odd parrot - not the best thing about the book admittedly - but I could forgive that for the descriptions of Italian life.

I agree with Janina; I've thought before that there's a category of "books for people who don't read" and I'd include Harold Fry and The Hundred Year Old Man in that too. And possibly The Island; an interesting premise but not well written imo.

LDB is definitely grumpy old man and nothing like I expected, but meeting him and discovering his connection with one of my favourite musicians in Turkey just makes it better.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I don’t reread many things to be honest - Austen and To Kill a Mockingbird are the exceptions. But, I have a clear idea of when and where I read each of his books (Senor Vivo and Birds Without Wings are my favourites). I have an attachment to them and to him through that I guess and I don’t want to not believe in his genius and lose that first time feeling.

I think for me, he was also writing about Turkish history and other things - Balkans in A Partisan’s Daughter - when history departments and shelves in the UK didn’t really touch these subjects all that much.

I actually tried to read Corelli (my first) 3-4 times and put it back as inaccessible, but one day it just clicked.

I will say though @JaninaDuszejko that whilst Mr Loverman is a slightly left of field choice, it is a wonderful story with really bright, engaging characters. I think about it often and personally I think it’s better than Girl, Woman, Other, but I suppose I prefer a more straightforward narrative.

Oliphant was infuriating to me. An attempt to tackle a serious subject, with seemingly minimal research or real empathy. It struck me as a bit lightweight and thoughtless. I liked the start and that's why I ploughed on.

But it was a huge seller and Reese Witherspoon raved about it, so my opinion on it seems a but unusual. Also, I did finish it so can't gave been unreadable <glares at Lessons in Chemistry>.

DNF Still Life but it's still on my shelf as haven't completely given up on it completely. I didn't hate it, just lost interest in it.i tried Captain Correlli when I was quite young, so may give it another go seeing as it is well loved on here.

But as pps have said, maybe Oliphant and Lessons are just in the "big bestsellers for people who don't read" category and I should just avoid rather than reading and getting irritated 😂

Anyway, moving on. I'll stop ranting.

I thought EO was jus OK. readable but not hugely my thing. I liked Lessons because I enjoyed the wit but it dragged a bit. Corelli is out of their league. I am still angry about the travesty of the film.

But I did like Harold Fry and The 100 Year Old Man. Sometimes I like a chuckle and a bit of whimsy. But there are too many pale imitations of Fry now.

I didn’t love Lessons in Chemistry, found it quite surface level and it annoyed me that she had to be so beautiful as well as so clever. But I absolutely loved Captain Correlli. I read it a long time ago in my 20s but it has stayed with me. Went on holiday to Kefalonia twice as a result as well, loved it so so much too. I think it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. Dying to go back but kids a bit too young!

I went there for a special wedding anniversary . It is lovely.

Kefalonia is lovely- but Santorini is even more beautiful imo.

I liked Captain C, was bored by the Mussolini stuff, really hated the ending. It didn’t make me want to read any more of his books.

I feel I need to read it for the ending!
I've a load of books to read at the moment though.
I have never been to such far-flung places, Kafalonia or Santorini.

I've thought before that there's a category of "books for people who don't read”

So true - and many a charity shop would have their stock wiped out at a stroke if those books didn’t exist. I’ve never read CCM or Crawdads or Lessons in Chemistry but Eleanor Oliphant gave me the rage, I have to say.

@AgualusasLover So sorry my wine fuel rant upset you. I'd read a lot of Gabriel García Márquez before I read Corelli and I agree with De Bernières assessment of himself as a "Márquez parasite". And yes, that bloody ending.

Reading this with interest. I catch myself being a bit snotty sometimes if a book has a sticker “Richard and Judy book club favourite” or something along those lines. But ultimately, reading is so personal and the experience so unique that one man’s meat is another man’s poison, so to speak.

I read AO and thought it was fine. I think it was with a book club actually. Same book club that we read The Tattooist of Auschwitz and it made me swear never to join another book club so heinous was it. I own a copy of Lessons in chemistry - it was gifted to me by a friend who reads fairly extensively and with a level of critique so I am very interested in the comments here. I suspect these books gain such momentum that there is an element of self-fulfilling prophecy about them.

Seeing any blurb on the front by Marian Keyes or Caitlin ‘Did you know I was brought up in a council house in Wolverhampton’ Moran instantly puts me off a book.

After Midnight by Irmgard Keun. Translated by Anthea Bell.

A novella that takes place over the course of an evening in Frankfurt in the early 1930s. The Führer is visiting the city and it's disrupting 19yo Sanna's evening. By the end of the night everything will have changed for her. Written in 1937 after Keun had left Germany this fever dream of a book still feels urgent and relevant. Brilliant, read it.

I've thought before that there's a category of "books for people who don't read”

I do agree with this statement just not that CCM is in that category!!