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.

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh what are the chances?! lol. I liked it more at the start but it sounds like you got more out of it!

Oh that's very funny 😁

I think the book required patience @ÚlldemoShúl
One cannot rush Cave Dwellers although 'Sadie' took her own sweet time too being a spy. The book was slooow.

Not saying that you don't have patience by the way, Úll. Just that it was a bit of a slog at times.

It was definitely a slog- I don’t think I would have made it until the end of if I hadn’t done it on audio tbh.

The Neanderthal meanderings were actually my favourite part but that probably says more about my current frame of mind than the book…

Adding the books that I’ve read recently. Apologies but I’m terrible at reviews.

23. The Bone Woman:Forensic Anthropologist's Search for Truth in the Mass Graves of Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo by Clea Koff This was a very difficult read, incredibly poignant and painful but very worthwhile. I could almost see some of the people she described as they walked out of their door, to their death, often carrying objects to prepare for a future that didn’t exist for them. My one bugbear was that sometimes she complained too much about her colleagues and bosses. I wasn’t really interested in hearing her complaints but it’s still a likely bold for me.

24)Berlin Games: How Hitler Stole The Olympic Dream by Guy Walters
Interesting and upsetting to see how so many fell for Hitler’s propaganda or just didn’t care about the human cost of the Olympics. I learned a lot. Not a bold but worth reading.

25)Geneva by Richard Armitage
I generally avoid books written by celebrities but this was free on Audible and I liked it much more than I expected to. I did think that some aspects weren’t explained sufficiently(Or perhaps it’s my attention span) and part of the ending was a little cliched but it held my attention throughout and I really enjoyed it.

26. No Milk Today: The Vanishing World of The Milk Man by Andrew Ward Another read for Foodie February. A quick easy read about the history of and daily life of milkmen. It really showed what an important part of the community they were and what a dangerous and physical job it could be.

27 ) The Leopard by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa
I wish that I could say that I understood this on some deeper level but that wouldn’t be true. I did like it. It was funnier and darker at points than I expected. I enjoyed the family scenes and reading about a dying way of life. I loved the dog, Benedict, and wished that we’d seen more of him. I may return to this after reading more about the unification of Italy so that I can understand it in greater depth.

@ShelfObsessed I’ve read that one about the Berlin Olympics. It’s really terrifying how easily Hitler managed to hoodwink everyone. Well, either that or they just wanted to be hoodwinked.

You’re right about it being terrifying, @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie, and I think that wanted to be hoodwinked was true of many.

There’s another book on my wish list on the same subject, Berlin 1936: Sixteen Days in August by Oliver Hilmes I’d like to read that soon and compare with Berlin Games.

Happy Friday!

finished the third of the Silo trilogy, Dust yesterday.

the best of the trilogy was definitely the first but that was an enjoyable read. I really enjoyed how details in the first two books get fleshed out and by the end you get a full and fairly horrific understanding of what is actually happening.

Very glad I read all three - good fun indeed. No idea what to go for next. I shall go back over the thread and get some inspiration.

I enjoyed the Silo trilogy as well @Passmethecrisps but like you thought it good not great. Are you looking for something quite different this time?

Interesting and upsetting to see how so many fell for Hitler’s propaganda or just didn’t care

@ShelfObsessed I read Coffee with Hitler a couple of years ago, which was about the efforts of UK politicians and grandees trying to foster friendly relations with the Nazis in the (vain) hope of heading off a bad outcome - and we all know how well THAT went - and that was similarly jaw-dropping re the number of supposedly intelligent people saying 'well, maybe that chap Hitler isn't all that bad…' Especially after it became abundantly clear that he was basically a raving maniac even before the war even started, and they were still finding excuses for him.

I am very unsure @EineReiseDurchDieZeit. at the moment my reading seems to be historical drama or future dystopian. I absolutely love Kate Atkinson and wondering if I just go for the Jackson Brodie.

I have the Glass Maker on my wish list. I think someone kn here read it. Seems a bit miniaturist maybe?

@Tarragon123 yes of course you're right, and the Ryan Wilkins series is set in Oxford. I should have given him a paragraph to himself. Still recommended though, and similar to my favourite TN authors in its dark humour and sharp dialogue.

Have you read any Christopher Brookmyre (dark and funny) , or Karen Campbell (more straightforward police procedural)? I like them both.

I also enjoyed Ann Cleeves' Shetland novels, and Peter James's Black House trilogy.

I would love to get to Bloody Scotland one day.

22 1066: The Year of Three Battles by Frank McLynn

I was really looking forward to this as it covers my absolute favourite period of history, the run up to the Norman Conquest. Unfortunately this book was a little disappointing. I think the main problem is the balance was just off. We had pages and pages of information on the history and politics of Byzantium, because Harald Hardrada had spent a few years there. Then we get to the first of the three battles of the title, Fulford, and it’s covered in a page or two, with the bare minimum of detail. I’d also have liked a bit more on the aftermath of the battles. Also the author really annoyed me with his constant use of unnecessarily long and poncey words. I like to think I have a pretty good vocabulary but there were a LOT of words I’d never heard of and it just smacked of the author showing off. We get it, you have a thesaurus. A bit less time flicking through that and a bit more time researching the Battle of Fulford and it would have been a much better book.

No milk today sounds good, I'll look it up.

I just bought A Bookshop of One’s Own: How a group of women set out to change the world as it's 99p today and has been on my wishlist

I also came across No Milk Today by Liz Gwinnell, that looks like a good read.

12 Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
This was very well written but it left me cold. Abusive Man Is Abusive, but only to a robot - I just couldn’t see Annie as anything approaching human, so she became a mechanical victim of a very unpleasant male. I found the sex exploitative and the undercurrent of “if Annie was human she’d be childlike” revolting. It was an interesting exploration of how a porn addled society will seek to exploit technological advances. All those advances in AI and men use it to animate sex toys, cloaked in skin grown from human embryos ‘unclaimed’ - yep, that rang true.
Also, what was that ending all about??? It was as if Greer suddenly got bored and wanted to wrap it all up in 3 pages.
I can’t say I enjoyed it, but it had some interesting, if deeply depressing, concepts.

What Time Is Love? by Holly Williams

Violet and Albert are born at the same moment and then meet aged 20 - in three different time periods. First it’s 1947 when they meet, then 1967, then 1987. This started well and I liked the 1947 story, but I liked the later stories less and I expected the book to tie together the three stories somehow and it didn’t.

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Liked but didn’t love this. It’s set in Nigeria and tells the story of Kambili who lives with a very religious and abusive father. It’s only when she and her brother go to stay with an aunt that she realises how unusual her life is.

The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins

This was OK. An artist lives a reclusive life on an island, although she does have a friend, Grace, who now lives there following the artist’s death. When a human bone is discovered in one of the artist’s works, attention falls on Grace and the island, and particularly the disappearance of the artist’s husband 15 years ago. I felt this story moved a bit too slowly and I didn’t really like or feel engaged with any of the characters.

8. The last remains by Elly Griffiths

This is the last (for now) book in the Ruth Galloway series. A skeleton is found behind a wall at a café.

I really enjoyed it and felt it was a satisfying end to the series. I saw Elly/Domenica speak last night in Kibworth and she was fascinating to listen to. Her new book, Frozen people with time travel sounds fun. Might listen to Ruth from the beginning on borrowbox.

I’ve added the other No Milk Today to my list. Thank you for drawing my attention to it.

NMT was just a series of themed anecdotes about various milkman but I enjoyed most of them and it was a nice easy read. I love books about food and also about unusual or overlooked jobs so it was a nice combination of the two for me.

Book 5 - The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. I enjoyed it. I thought it was interesting that there were no female main characters, and the few females in the story were spoken of quite negatively. I also found it to be an interesting exploration of personal character and attitudes to cultural differences. There were many parallels with modern day social and cultural issues. 6/10!

Now reading Roar by Cecelia Ahern, which is actually 30 short stories about women written in an abstract style, such as the trophy wife who lives on a shelf in the living room and the woman who is literally being eaten up by guilt due to the pressure she feels to be everything and do everything. Love the bite size stories and the quirkiness of the book’s concept. It seems a real departure from the author’s usual style.

12. When the Dust Settles - Lucy Easthope

The 50 Bookers top non-fiction from last year and I can see why. Little to add to previous reviews. It gave a fascinating glimpse into all the behind the scenes work that goes into disaster planning both before and after the events. I wasn't expecting so much of Lucy's life to be included, her personal experiences, tragedies and the powerful love for her husband coming through. A resounding bold.

After the drama and disasters of this book I'm now searching through my RWYO for something completely different, life is pretty tough at the moment so I need something undemanding. Thinking of The Road (Christopher Hadley, not Cormac McCarthy, I think the latter would be a really bad choice right now!).

I borrowed A Bookshop of One's Own from the library and read it a while ago. I used to visit Silver Moon Bookshop on Charing Cross Road in my teens, and then when I moved to London in my mid 20s, and was very sad when it closed down.

Yesterday I went to Kentish Town Library with a lot of books to renew, and had a few minutes to check out some of the charity shops. I bought a copy of A Bookshop even though it was on the pricy side - lots of charity shops still charge more for hardbacks. I needn't have bothered if it hadn't come up as a deal.