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

5. Slow Trains to Istanbul, Tom Chesshyre
The author goes interrailing, roughly following the original Orient Express route to Istanbul and a different route back. No particular stylistic elegance or local insight, but I've done some middle-aged interrailing and found his travels very recognisable. Read as a substitute for actually going somewhere.

6. Sweetpea, C J Skuse
Our narrator is a young woman who just wants to be her real self; unfortunately her real self is a murderous psychopath. Cue violence, sex and other hilarity. As it's recounted in diary form, it's as if Bridget Jones has taken to watching porn and cutting people up. Not my normal reading, but it's done with panache. Good unwholesome fun.

7. The Bookseller's Tale, Ann Swinfen
Crime fiction set in fourteenth century Oxford, recommended on a previous thread (sorry, can't remember the poster). A pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon. The narrator muses about how the recent bout of plague has changed society, which added a bit of depth to the characters.

8. Sandwich, by Catherine Newman
Another recommendation from here. A woman in her fifties spends a week at the beach with her family. She looks back at her children's early childhood and her experience of "reproductive mayhem". I really warmed to this - without being sentimental, it's brimming over with family love in all its forms. Reminded me a bit of the narrator of Solder Sailor, two decades on.

Ah OK. I vaguely remember some errors but clearly have forgotten them by now.

17 Wild Lilacs. Jessica Butler.
Sequel to Sweet Pear, and as previously mentioned it also has some language issues. But if you want some easy read fiction and can ignore them then it's a sweet little story.

In the previous book Elle ended up in an alternate timeline where she was inexplicably married to her ex, not her husband. In this one the timeline has corrected itself and Elle and Ryan are once again married. Elle feels so guilty about kissing her ex (which seems to be what caused the timeslip) that she tells Ryan. Understandably he ends things. Basically the 2 of them spend some time apart and Elle learns a lot about herself and what she wants and so on. Some of the emotions were incredibly real.

It's actually a real shame that there are so many errors. Although I read an ARC copy so maybe they'll be corrected!

18 The Ballroom Girls. Jenny Holmes
Exactly what you'd expect for 'historical romance'. This one is set in Blackpool in the 1940s. Lots of lovely descriptions of Ballroom dancing and dresses. Some romance. Some family fallings out. Some (time appropriate) homophobia.

Tarte Tatin: More of la Belle Vie on Rue TatiN - Susan Herrmann Loomis

Follow up to On Rue Tatin, American foodie writer opens cookery school in Normandy town. Luscious food descriptions and recipes and good writing on what it is to be an American in a foreign country especially around the time of the September 11th attacks. I did feel that she was struggling a bit to fill some of the chapters and it felt more like a series of articles. However, still very entertaining and an enviable lifestyle.

I’ve just started the Slow Horses books. I adored the TV series so I have a head start in knowing who the characters are. But why use one word when 27 will do?

The Brightest Star In The Sky by Marian Keyes

This was one that I read when it was first published in 2009 and hadn’t reread since. I’m a big fan of Marian’s books and really enjoyed revisiting this one. It focuses on a large Dublin house that has been divided into flats, following all the various inhabitants as they fall in and out of love etc. It’s narrated by some sort of omniscient being and you find out their role at the end. This one has the usual Marian blend of serious issues (dementia here) and a bit of sadness along with the happiness and romance. Wish I hadn’t left it so long before rereading it.

The Sweetpea books are my not so guilty pleasure @bibliomania, although they get progressively more far fetched as the series goes on. The early ones with the mundanity of her life set against the murderous thoughts and actions I find absolutely hilarious. If a little worrying in that many of the things on her Lists are things I also hate - promise I never act on them the way she does

I think I will have to go for book 2 at least, @AlmanbyRoadtrip That was a bit of a cliffhanger to end on!

My buys this morning. I am giving Billingham and Macbride another chance in the hope that whatever made them write like amateurs (Covid?) has passed. Another clanger like describing the cliffs of Blackpool though..... (shudder)....

Tempted by Sweetpea now! I thought the show was just ok but the books sound much more fun.

@bibliomania I rec'd Oxford Medieval mysteries so glad you liked them too. Read #5 over Twixtmas for max cosiness (though that one did get a bit too research-dumpy even for my tastes) and will be sad to come to the end. Ann Swinfen seemed to have been a fascinating woman on biog as well as biblio/publishing terms. I now have her nonfic In Defence of Fantasy TBR.

@highlandcoo Andrew Greig fan here, despite no links to Scotland beyond the odd holiday and some great (and also odd) friends, only one of whom even still lives there! Though I'm likely not representative as that other thread made me realise just how much Scottish histfic I read - primed by early exposure to Dorothy Dunnett maybe 😅

@cassandre 🙌for holding the line 😆 That is a great Kushner interview I hadn't seen before and really astute on the reception to CL, in my bubble anyway. Esp struck by how consistently* *she refers to Sadie as a cop in it, rather than 'spy' or 'agent' as in some others, which ties CL and TMR together for me in a slightly different configuration - the dirty cop POV was one I really hated in the latter.
BTW I enjoyed and agreed with your moderate review of Orbital, which my SF bookgroup read recently. After the controversy here I was expecting fireworks but everyone just... quite liked it (from a bit to a lot). Entire meeting spent cooing over pretty pictures from the ISS lol I did end up admiring the craft in the book, enough to give her others a read at some point.

I read the first Sweetpea book at the end of last year and enjoyed it. I’m just waiting for the others to get a bit cheaper on kindle! I watched a couple of episodes of the TV series but didn’t really like it - they’d made the main character more passive than she is in the book. The book was much better.

There was a poem by Andrew Grieg read out at an event I was at and I loved it but I've never read his prose

Forgot to say I asked for Ghosts Of The British Museum in Waterstones today but they didn’t have it in, so I’ll order it online if I can find something else to add to it so I get free postage. I’ve got several preorders on there too, plus two from Black Shuck Publishing that are taking an age to arrive!

Good to know @ChessieFL I get that they were trying to make Rhiannon more conventionally sympathetic but overshot. My library has them on audio so I've joined the queue.

@Tarragon123 - interesting to see how similar our reading choices have been although you have read far more than me!

To chime in on the Slow Horses debate, I found the first one quite hard work but persevered (as they were recommended to me IRL) and enjoyed the second one and subsequent books much more. I am now doing a re-read alongside watching the series and enjoyed the first book much more the second time. It takes a while to get to grips with all the characters but I enjoy the humour/cynicism - but humour is very personal.

Now reading Shy Creatures - Clare Chambers

Gosh these threads are going so fast! I keep thinking of responses to posts then missing the boat!

I haven't read any Andrew Greig but my (Scottish, sadly no longer with us) mum adored him so his name always makes me smile.

My recent books, not attempting numbering:

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout. I loved this SO much. Her final novel in this 'universe' bringing together Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge and Bob Burgess. Plus a murder mystery which really sped things up a bit compared with the last couple of books. There's a real and very moving theme of telling stories about ordinary people with remarkable lives. Just beautiful and sad, maybe my favourite thing she has written to date.

Tall Bones by Anna Bailey. Small town, missing girl crime novel. Well written but pretty similar to other books in this genre. The small town didn't ring very true to me either - of course you expect insularity and conservatism, but I found it hard to believe that in the 2010s you would have a pastor leading a mob to set fire to the home of a gay man, or the police turning a blind eye to extreme physical child abuse. Maybe I'm naive!

This Love by Lotte Jeffs. Follows a group of young queer people over a decade or so as they attempt to form an unconventional family structure. I enjoyed it on the whole but a few annoyances - most of the characters were very rich so could find multiple IVF cycles or adoption court cases without a second thought, and it was needlessly melodramatic. Light and diverting though.

And I now have just 50 pages left of A Place of Greater Safety so I might actually finish it tonight!

5 Private Rites by Julia Armfield
I was absolutely gripped by this tale of three sisters living out the End Of The Days when the world around them is washed away by floods. The rain is so relentless that shops and businesses close briefly when the sun comes out so people can marvel at it. Buildings sliding into the sea is a daily occurrence. The story is told in turn by Isla, Irene and Agnes, with a few interludes where ‘The City’ is featured and the partners of Irene and Agnes get a fleeting pov. I would have liked more of the latter tbh, because Jude and Stephanie are much more sympathetic characters than the sisters!
I have two sisters and the dynamics between the women is pitch perfect imo (not that we have anything like the upbringing or animosity of I, I and A!). The dystopian flooding isn’t overegged at all, it’s just there, something to be endured and there are flashes of dark humour such as wondering what the actual point of recycling is any more, or Isla’s very untherapeutic thoughts on her therapy clients. There are some blistering sisterly rows and a slow unravelling of a less than idyllic upbringing by their casually cruel and disinterested architect father.

It was going to be a bold BUT THE ENDING!!!!! Wtaf? I’m still pondering what the point of it was. I’d happily read the whole thing again and leave the ending this time. It’s overall more cohesive than Our Wives Under The Sea and has more humanity, most likely due to the addition of the partners to throw into relief how bitter and consumed by the past the sisters are. BUT THAT ENDING. Just No.

@AlmanbyRoadtrip

A couple of posters have really hated on Private Rites - I got it in the deals and now I'm curious!

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I waited until the Deals to get it, because I didn’t love her first one that much (prefer my Body Horror a tad more overt) but PR blew me away, with its power play between the sisters and the unreliability of memory within families. BUT THE ENDI…….well, you know the rest

I really liked her first one, Our Wives Under the Sea so was really looking forward to the new one, but the beginning was So...Freaking...Boring...and the sisters seemed entirely interchangeable.

Starling House by Alix E Harrow

Lonely and abandoned, Starling House in the failing Kentucky town of Eden, is the former residence of author E Starling. Famous for their book, Underland, a strange other world of dreams and nightmares.
Enter Opal, a streetwise young woman who sees her opportunity for a job, and a mystery to unravel.
This had all the right ingredients for a good gothic tale. Big House, creepy back story. Twisty family histories and some good characters. A plot with potential. But somehow for me it just didn’t get going after the set up. I plodded to the end determined not to DNF. Disappointing.

The setting and descriptions were so strong in Private Rites but the plot was a bit meandering until the wtf ending. I do keep thinking about how realistic her description of climate change seems though, everyone just sleepwalking into it until it's too late.

6. The Medusa Frequency by Russell Hoben

I was looking for short reads to spice things up a little, as I have generally avoided them. This caught my eye as being completely out of my comfort zone and I wanted to see if I could tolerate the sheer opposite writing style.

Russell has got writer's block and takes drastic action by getting connected to an EEG machine to free him and enable him to carry on working. The aftermath of the EEG leads the reader and Russell into the abyss. The tale follows his mind's dialogue throughout the book. It is humorous and nonsensical but it flows quite well considering. I find the writing is quite clever although I will need to read more to definitively say whether I am a convert to this style or not.

The Medusa Frequency was just what I needed to escape my norm although I'm not sure whether it will be a bold - nearly but quite.

sorry that's supposed to be *nearly but not quite

7 Strange Sally Diamond - Liz Nugent

Bit late to the party with this one but really enjoyed it. First bold of the year for me.

It opens as Sally’s Father passes away and she does as he has always told her and ‘puts him out with the bins’. Media attention ensues and Sally takes tentative steps out into the world, making friends, getting a job and unravelling the great mystery of her childhood. But why is her neighbour obsessed with her? And who is it that is monitoring her from the other side of the world?

Sally was a great protagonist and I couldn’t out this down. Onto the Silo series now as everyone keeps telling me the tvshow is great

11. To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

A four person crew visits different planets, not for the purposes of colonisation, or exploitation, but for the expansion of knowledge. The book raised some interesting ethical questions about interactions with other life forms, that could just as easily apply to our own planet and our relationships with other species here. It’s not quite a bold, but I really did enjoy this.

15. There There by Tommy Orange (Audible)

There's a character in this called Dean Oxendene who is seeking to document the stories and experiences of Native Americans living in Oakland, California and that's basically the whole premise of the book, lots of different characters talking about their lives

A young man with FAS, an addicted grandmother whose sister is raising her grandsons, and a number of people exploring their heritage and so forth. And then there's a Pow-wow where all paths converge.

And it's good, very well written, good enough that I've moved straight on to the sequel Wandering Stars and I'll decide how I feel when I've done both.