50 Books Challenge 2025 Part Three

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the third 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 here and the second thread here.

Another fan of RoRoReads! I reread Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel over the last few years- still loved both. Read Jamaica Inn for the first time and found it a bit meh. Must catch up on some of the other DDM’s that have been discussed.

I reread Rebecca every few years. It is probably my favourite book. I’m not sure I could read My cousin Rachel again. I don’t think I’ve ever been so tense reading a book.

I feel a bit the way I do about LDB for DDM. I’m not sure I can reread because I don’t want to lose the ‘first’ nature of reading it, plus I went in blind so o had no idea of the ambiguity and what to expect. I would and often think about rereading Frenchman’s Creek, but that’s not twisty and there is just some fabulous dialogue.

Joe Country by Mick Herron
I didn’t like this one so much. I thought it was a bit slow and boring. It didn’t really pick up until near the end, and the number of bodies annoyed me. I think he’s a bit too brutal in killing off people that it would have been good to see more of.

When Will There Be Good News - Kate Atkinson

Jackson Brodie no 3 in which our hero is mostly out of action following a train crash but which introduces Reggie the Orphan as a key character. The plot is a bit hazy but revolves around the disappearance of of a GP and her baby. I like the way KA makes a virtue out of the many, many coincidences. It’s all very improbable and there’s something Dickensian about the cast of hundreds - I loved it.

Thus was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell - Thanks Sadik for your recent review of this - I’d almost managed to resist but when I happened to stumble across a copy in a bookshop it was clearly meant to be. Barrister Julia, academically able but utterly incapable at day to day life, goes on a tour to Venice and finds herself accused of murder. Can her colleagues in Chambers prove her innocence? It’s great playful fun, though I’ll leave it a while before seeking out others in the series lest the knowing tone starts to grate.

Sending sympathy and warm wishes your way, @PepeLePew and @TattiePants !

It amazes and intrigues me that so many people on this thread have mentioned ADHD. I don't have an official diagnosis yet (the waiting list is long) but I'm increasingly convinced that I have it. I have long felt as though my life runs along rather Jekyll and Hyde lines. On the Jekyll side, I'm trying to perform the roles of respectable mum/person who holds down a responsible job/good citizen/good partner/good friend/good neighbour. On the Hyde side, my head feels like pure chaos, and I am late/anxious/depressed/overwhelmed/exhausted/whatever. Naturally I have impostor syndrome and feel like the Hyde side is the real one and the more functional side is the fake one. Realising I probably have ADHD has already helped me be kinder to myself, as someone else said. I'm trying to change my mental narrative from 'why am I so fucked up compared to all the functioning people around me?' to 'wow, well done me for managing to get by when my brain is constantly trying to sabotage me' 😂

I really should read more about ADHD and strategies to manage it. Somewhat ironically, I first realised I probably had it because I'm a uni lecturer and I started getting more and more student support plans designed to help me support my students with ADHD. When I read the support plans, it was like a light dawning 😂

I have also wrestled with drinking too much, and have close family members who are in active addiction (to use the AA/NA lingo). Apparently people with ADHD are more vulnerable to substance addiction, so that is interesting too. I'm a long term member of AA and NA and have met so many extraordinary and inspiring people there. I think there is still a big taboo around substance abuse and that is a shame, because it really does affect people from all walks of life, and there is a lot of help out there once you're brave enough to reach out for it.

Anyway it has helped me to see that so many of the intelligent and bookish people on this thread have links to ADHD as well, whether in their own right or via family members.

Back to books: I have a small claim to fame in that I know Emily Wilson, who translated the Iliad and the Odyssey. We were in grad school together. She is an amazing person, an extraordinary scholar and a phenomenal translator. @ÚlldemoShúl I can't believe you prefer the Iliad to the Odyssey though! How is that possible? Ha. The Odyssey to my mind is the ancestor of the modern novel. I've read Emily's translation of the Odyssey and it's brilliant, as is her introduction. I have her Iliad translation but haven't got round to reading it yet (argh). Incidentally, it's definitely a verse translation rather than a prose one.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie – this was my review for Joe Country, about 4 weeks ago

“15 Joe Country – Mick Herron (Slow Horses 6). I felt quite sad after finishing this book. Neither Jackson Lamb nor Catherine Standish are in a good place. Jackson is a physical mess and Catherine is on the verge of a breakdown. The repulsive Peter Judd (Boris Johnston) is back. I don’t want to be too spoilery, but there were too many deaths in this book for me. I’m going to take a break from Slough House at the moment”’

I’ve only just moved onto Slow Horses 7 this week. I’m still not over it.
I’m very sad about the death of Denzil Meyrick, one of my favourite Tartan Noir authors. He was only 59. He had suffered ill health for the past couple of years. He wrote the DCI Jim Daley novels, plus some stand alones. I visited Campbeltown and the Mull of Kintyre area because of his books. RIP Denzil.

Scottish crime writer Denzil Meyrick dies aged 59 - BBC News

Funnily enough my DH just found out his ADHD assessment is next month.

1. The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens

Still making my way through the Booker winners and find that as I now have less than 10 books to go the remaining ones I know nothing about so go into them blind meaning I’m often either going to get something that’s almost unreadable and I really have to work at it or I get something that turns out to be very easy to read and not what I expected. This was the later, its about a Jewish family in London where the oldest son is admitted to a psychiatric hospital due to issues stemming from a drug problem. The father and sister then also go on their own journeys as they deal with the changes and tragic past events. That makes it sound quite sad (and it is) but it is also quite funny throughout and was a easy quick read.

1. Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

Finished for the readalong – not my favourite.

1. Dead Girls by Selva Almada

A tiny (170 pages) non-fiction book looking at three cases of unsolved femicide in Argentina which affected the author growing up in the 1980s. According to the synopsis the author also attempts to look at the wider issue of femicide today but unfortunately I did not see how that was achieved. I’m not someone who reads true crime so did not want a detailed look at the horrific crimes but was interested in the wider issues and thought the cases would be a good jumping off point. However I think the book was far too small to achieve this. Sadly the cases and the other examples of violence towards women given in the book while much more frequent in Argentina, also had a depressingly familiar pattern to them.

1. Penance by Eliza Clarke

So after my thoughts on true crime books in general, I read this. A fictional non-fiction story detailing the murder of a female teenager by three other females teenagers. I think the author was attempting to say something about the general obsession with true crime but I didn’t really get the point and instead thought the book just read like a true crime (although a fictional one) There are multiple perspectives and different types of media throughout (podcast extracts and newspaper articles etc) and the author did not really give different voices to these and they all read the same. However the actual reading experience was great and I read this very quickly and was quite hooked throughout (maybe I am a true crime reader after all!)

I really enjoyed reading the sex scenes in The New Life, but his style is too dry and academic to work for fiction.

The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change your Life and Achieve Real Happiness. Non-fiction written as a dialogue between a Philosopher’ and a ‘Youth’. The two discuss Adlerian philosophy in comparison to Freudian notions of psychology and philosophy which could have made for a good book except the tone and content was patronising, and I can't imagine how anyone would find this shite helpful.

@BadSpellaSpellaSpella I liked Penance because it wasn’t True. It copied the genre extremely well but my escape route was always “this didn’t actually happen “. I’ve only read Gita Sereny’s book about Mary Bell and Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five because I’m a bit of a wimp about real life crime. Plus, to risk digging up the previous discussion upthread I find a lot of True Crime to be sensationalised, so it has to be an author I trust not to just be in it for the money. A lot of media reporting on recent cases I find distasteful. An author such as Clarke putting the details into fiction I am strangely ok with!

@cassandre I know I’m unusual in preferring The Iliad. I think it’s because Odysseus is such a dick- if I was the cyclops I would have tried to kill him and his friends too! That said I will give the Wilson translation a go at some stage.

8 Please Sir! - Jack Sheffield
Jack is a headteacher of a local village school in 1981. This is the fifth book in the series which covers an academic year in each one. I have read another of his and found it rather dull but this one was on my bookcase so decided to give it a go. It was a very easy read and I enjoyed this one more than the previous one. However, this one ended on a massive cliffhanger. I have no desire to seek out the next book so now I’m just annoyed that I won’t know what happened. And yes I have googled but can’t find the answer.

So as not to be left out, I can add that my brother received an ADHD diagnosis in his forties. It was a great sense of vindication for him. My teen dd has diagnosed me with all sorts, but who knows?

After recommendations on here, my most recent read has been The Cracked Mirror, by Chris Brookmyre. It kicks off with a gleeful mash-up of cosy crime fiction and hardboiled LA noir, when two very different detectives join forces to unravel what has happened. I'm happy for someone to be playful with a genre, but I thought this was a bit too pleased with its own cleverness. There are so many characters that it all gets a bit diluted and it's hard to care very much.

@Tarragon123 Yes. I think he’s playing a bit too loose with our emotions!

In other news: look where I finally got to visit today!

Here:

Oooooo

I could only buy one book because of carrying it home, so I went for Red Love as it’s the first time I’ve seen a physical copy of it.

Also, I absolutely LOVED Mary Shelley’s house of Frankenstein- and even learned two things that I didn’t know already!

Ooh! What’s it like? At the other side of the country, I’m visiting family in Northumberland so wondering if I can fit in a visit to that other 50 Bookers fave, Barter Books…

Oh this is lovely, I’m going to Bath in August for a solo trip for my birthday so Mr B’s was on my list, but will look up the Frankenstein house too.

I love Barter Books. I’m in Alnwick for the Easter and that is my first stop every time we are there

@BestIsWest When Will There Be Good News is my absolute favourite of the Jackson Brodie series. I love both the main female characters.

@Tarragon123 It's always sad when a favourite author dies. I'm surprised that I've never heard of Denzil Meyrick, so thank you for the link. Re Tartan Noir, I've recently really enjoyed Squeaky Clean by Callum McSorley and am now reading A Killing in November, the first in the DI Ryan Wilkins series which I'm finding very entertaining. He's a very original creation and I'm looking forward to the others in the series.

Definitely try to get to Barter Books @MegBusset! It's great.

And for anyone going to Bath, Skoobs Books in Guildhall Market is the best secondhand book stall I've ever seen. Good quality and extremely well organised by genre; the guy really knows his stuff. On the more expensive side, Persephone Books is also a lovely shop. And somehow much friendlier than the old branch in Lambs Conduit Street used to be.

Oh gosh, I’m going to need more than an overnight aren’t I?