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.

20. The Fugitive - Marcel Proust

The penultimate volume of À la recherche du temps perdu ticked off and it’s on to the final furlong. Narrator Marcel has been dealt a devastating blow when Albertine, whom he’s kept virtually imprisoned in his apartment and stalked with the zeal of a first-class coercive controller, makes good her escape. This volume sees Marcel struggle to come to terms with her disappearance and, by the end, more shocks have assailed him. I won’t say more (parce que spoilers) but I’m mighty glad to have finished the two most difficult and problematic volumes (this seems to be a generally-shared view, from reading round). Onwards and - hopefully - upwards to the end.

Incidentally, for the others who are Prousting at the moment, I keep meaning to add a very strong recommendation for the excellent Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time: A Reader's Guide to Remembrance of Things Past by Patrick Alexander. It’s a really invaluable and extremely interesting compendium of characters, the history behind the writing of the books, Proust's life, plot lines, even the geography of Proust's Paris. It’s a lifesaver when you can’t remember who the Marquise de Cambremer is, or how the Princesse de Guermantes and the Duchesse de Guermantes are related. It's complicated….but Alexander is there to ease your path.

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

Set in the 1950s and 1960s, a love triangle leads to a murder and a court case. I really liked the writing here, and the descriptions of the farm setting, but it didn’t really ring true why the main character was so wonderful that two men were so in love with her that they would do the things they do here. I would definitely read more by this author though.

@Terpsichore thanks for the Proust companion recommendation. I’ll definitely get that as I do mix up exactly the examples you gave! I’m heading into volume 4 later this year and my translation only has 6 so I’m not sure where it compresses them, The Fugitive may be 5 for me. Anyway, it doesn’t sound like our narrator is improving his character at all 🤣* *

My second Women’s Prize read. I listened to this one on audio.

30 Crooked Seed by Karen Jennings
The opening of this is not for the faint-hearted- the writing is graphic and anyone who finds it hard to read about bodily functions might want to give it a swerve. Set in a near future South Africa where constant fire and drought are a problem, this book tells the story of Deidre, an amputee living in difficult circumstances and her memories of the past once the police find a number of bodies in the garden of her old home. There are brief interludes from her mother Trudy’s POV. Deidre is bitter, angry, selfish, filthy and repugnant. We come to understand why she is like that to a degree. The mystery is never fully solved. I think this may have been allegorical about South Africa itself. I didn’t enjoy this book very much but I can see it has some merit and understand why it was included.

For the first time in ages I don’t feel overly inspired by the Woman’s fiction prize. I’ve read The Safekeep (and enjoyed very much) and will ask for Dream Count as a birthday present. Fundamentally is the only other one that appeals. The non-fiction prize had loads that caught my eye but my library only has one in stock. May have to buy some or hope that the shortlist means they may decide to order some in.

Damascus Station - David McCloskey
Apart from the inevitable romance between handler and agent which is a trope I hate in spy fiction this was an excellent debut.

Sam Joseph is a CIA agent who is tasked with going to Paris to recruit Miriam, an insider of the Assad regime, after the capture and murder of a fellow CIA officer in Syria. The author is ex-CIA which gave the tradecraft in the book an authenticity I liked and the plot moves swiftly with the twists and turns you’d expect in a spy thriller. Damascus was evoked really well and I got a really sense of the chaos and fear caused by the Syrian civil war to its inhabitants on all sides of the conflict.

I would definitely read the other two books McCloskey has written since this one was published. He also presents The Rest is Classifed podcast which is also great listening if podcasts are your thing.

Yes, The Prisoner and The Fugitive are often bundled up into one volume, which sort of makes sense as it’s essentially the whole story of Marcel's crazed obsession love-affair with Albertine, but that also makes it a very hard slog as these are the toughest parts, without question! And actually, they are in the same volume in the latest Penguin edition I’m reading, but as they definitely are two books, I decided to count them separately.

11 The Sibyl in her Grave by Sarah Caudwell

The fourth and last in Sarah Caudwell's quartet about genderless sleuthing law professor Hilary Tamar and their coterie of young barristers, as Caudwell sadly died prior to publication. This one is much harder to find than the first three, which I read on Kindle a few years ago. Perhaps that's because it has less sparkle; it's primarily an epistolary novel and pretty ponderous in places. The story is also quite involved - insider trading which results in deaths. For both reasons it took me a while to get absorbed, but I did enjoy it in the end. Caudwell has a very deft way with character and she was also ahead of her time in the way she dealt with same sex attraction and relationships, which are thrown in casually with no fanfare. The thing I liked most about this was the depiction of Julia's aunt's social circle; an unconventional grouping in very conventional Sussex, all looking out for each other like family. I think - and hope - Caudwell must have had some good friends, to be able to write that so convincingly.

I have eventually got round to reading the much loved Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak. I knew some details of Cyprus' traumatic past but not a huge amount and found this aspect absorbing. I liked but didn't love the book. I thought some of the descriptions of people were a bit clichéd . But I read it rapidly enough.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I LOVED The Handmaid's Tale - the TV series actually helped my enjoyment, which wasn't what I expected.

I'm now more than halfway through 41. James by Percival Everett - I'm enjoying this so far and can see why it's so popular. I'm waiting for something 'big' to happen, though.

The Daughter by T M Logan

Lauren goes to collect her daughter from university but finds she dropped out several weeks ago and hasn’t been seen since. Standard thriller, quick read, was fine.

Has anyone listened to Glorious Exploits? How is Gelon pronounced? Books annoy me when I don't know how to say character names!

I HAVE listened to it and can't remember so I went back to check it's Gel - on with gel rhyming with well. It's read in an Irish accent by the author also.

Ah, right. I was alternating so much in my head I was irritating myself!

Soft g?

Yes guh not juh

As in girl?

Yes

Gell on

I need to catch up on reading the thread from mid week onwards, but in the meantime:

15. What You are Looking for is in the Library - Michiko Aoyama trans. Alison Watts

A book of five chapters, each focusing on a different person in a neighbourhood of Tokyo. Ms Komachi, the librarian of the small community library, is able to sense exactly what book her visitor needs, whether it’s related to their initial enquiry or not, and from her recommendation the various characters find what they need to achieve their dreams.

I liked that the stories intertwined in very subtle ways. A comforting read and a bit of escapism: not demanding, just a lovely literary hug.

Gs are always hard in Ancient Greek e.g.the Gorgon Medusa not the Jorjon Medusa.

Useful to know!

Saltblood by Francesca de Tores From the author’s note - ‘Mary Read and Anne Bonny are real historical figures - but I am not a historian’ I’d hoped to enjoy this novel more than I did. The first half follows the life of Mary Read from her infancy, raised as a boy, through a period in domestic service, then in the navy and army, and the second half when she becomes a pirate alongside Anne. I hadn’t known anything about the ‘golden age of piracy’ so learned a lot. But I found it over long, and felt it aimed for both lyricism and insightful exploration of gender and fell short. As a tale of swashbuckling it suffered for being read alongside Count of Monte Cristo. It was ok, but if it hadn’t been for book group I probably wouldn’t have persevered.

Interesting review of Saltblood @CornishLizard . I bought this the other day when it was suggested alongside something else I wanted.

Look forward to your review - I hope I’m not being unfairly grumpy about a dutiful book group read!

I'm on fire today. Starting 42. Clear by Carys Davies - it's a little one.

James by Percival Everett was absolutely brilliant. So clever yet not a slog to read.

Interestingly, another novel published in the same month as Saltblood, April 2024, is about the life of Anne Bonny - Seabourne by Nuala O'Connor. I've not read it but I've heard some of it because it was serialised very recently on Radio 4. I've borrowed it as a library ebook.