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.

Hi @elkiedee interesting post! Thank you.

It's the Penguin edition from 1985, a library book. No introduction, just a biographical note about Irmgard Keun at the start. I'm reading it again tonight. For such a short book, a novella, it's very detailed. There's loads in it. Keun's critical voice as she views the world through Sanna's eyes is fascinating. There's a comment on nearly every page. I think it's brilliant.

Thanks to Janina for the recommendation. I also find this period fascinating. I studied 'The Tin Drum' as part of my degree in German and reading an author like Grass or Keun is very satisfying as you experience their first-hand account of those times. There's nothing like it.

I have a 2020 Penguin copy of After Midnight and similarly, no introduction just a short biographical note.

Thanks Fuzzy and BoiledEgg - sounds like I should just read the copy of After Midnight I have.

Glad you enjoyed it @FuzzyCaoraDhubh , I can't even remember if I read it because of a recommendation on here or in my trawling of the internet looking for older translated novels by women (it's surprisingly hard to find any pre-1960s, never mind pre-1900s). Definitely the highlight of my reading year so far, I was very tempted to reread it straight away as well, like you said there's so much in it for such a short novel.

The secret rooms - a true Gothic mystery, Catherine Bailey

A non-fiction account of how Bailey gets access to the archive at Belvoir castle, home to the Dukes of Rutland, to research à book on the impact of WW1 on the surrounding villages. However when she begins her research she discovers that John, the 9th Duke, has created huge gaps in the archive corresponding to three periods of his life in the weeks leading up to his death in 1940. The story of her research into these gaps and why he was so secretive about these periods becomes the book. John, his mother Violet and uncle Charlie were great letter writers and this forms the bulk of the documents used in the book.

I liked the book for showing how historical research was done to piece together à puzzle like this and it really evoked what life was like pre-ww1 for the aristocracy which was well done. I didn’t find the revealing of the reasons for the gaps that mysterious or shocking so the ending fell rather flat for me.

39 The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake - Aimee Bender

Magical realism from the front log. This was a popular one a decade or so ago. At the age of nine, Rose starts to taste people’s feelings in her food (in this case, her mother’s sadness in the home made lemon birthday cake )

The novel follows her, her brother Joseph and his friend George into adulthood, with Rose coping with her skill and the occasional person believing her. Meanwhile, Joseph’s life is progressing rather oddly,

It was ok. A sort of drifty plot that didn’t really resolve, but Rose was a nice character.

@Jecstar, I had the same feeling about The Secret Rooms.. She does a good job at building up a Gothic atmosphere at the start, so the big reveal feels a bit banal at the end, just because real life usually is. Worth the read though.

44 . Him by JD Kirk

This was free to me as an Audible Original starring David Tennant and Louise Brealey. Overall it was a good listening experience but I knew nothing about it going in.

Turns out it’s a direct rip off of the Black Mirror episode Be Right Back in which Domnhall Gleason dies and is brought back as an AI to his bereaved wife so she can still talk to him.

This is the EXACT premise here, bereaved Sarah is introduced to EternaTech which can replicate her dead husband Nick. But the AI has ideas of its own.

The added twist here is that we find out Nick was murdered, but really, it’s just too derivative of something that was done and done better years ago.

The ending and the epilogue are unbelievable particularly the idea that Sarah’s story would just be believed by everyone after what had happened. But as I say it was an enjoyable listening experience if a rather lukewarm story.

I read and reviewed The Secret Rooms years ago. I think there's another book by Catherine Bailey in this month's 99p deals - Fey's War aka The Lost Boys - I bought a copy and then realised it was the same book that I'd already bought in 2019 under a previous title - returned it for a refund. It's a Second World War story, looks to be about a European aristocratic family.

My review of The Secret Rooms from 2013:

The Secret Rooms, billed as A True Gothic Mystery, is a kind of biography of the 9th Duke of Rutland. I found it an interesting enough read, but I felt it didn't quite live up to the title and the really intriguing cover.

The book opens with the death of the Duke in 1940, then the author describes how she came across his story some years later - she had set out to research something slightly different. While looking at his papers, she discovered that someone, probably the Duke, had been keen to conceal various papers and that it appeared he had something to hide - what was it?

I enjoyed the look at the life of an aristocratic family in the early 20th century, before and after WWI, but felt a bit like saying, is that all there is to it? at the revelations. I think part of the problem was that the author kept writing about the sensational secrets she was uncovering, and they weren't that sensational.

The print book comes with some black and white photos (not that well reproduced) of the Duke and his family, and various maps and plans of his estate, his home, Belvoir Castle, and other significant places in the story, and lots of endnotes detailing the author's references.

This is clearly meticulously researched and an interesting read but the mystery is not as exciting as the title leads one to expect.

Ditto, I was underwhelmed by the reveal, but I have to say that she kept me absolutely spellbound with setting the scene. Although tbh anything involving archives, papers, research and solving any kind of conundrum etc is like catnip to me so it was right up my alley.

11.Rizzio by Denise Minna. A retelling of the murder of David Rizzio, private secretary to Mary Queen of Scots, and its immediate aftermath. Covering a time period of just three days, this was instantly gripping, gruesome and powerful. No one can trust anyone, creating a sense of peril and menace. My only complaint was that I would have loved a longer book, and I hope she attempts something else in this period in future.

1. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton.

Dreadful, just awful. And it's a tome so it's slowed down my book reading rate too.

Great review @Philandbill. I've not read it, but I think your feelings are similar to mine about the time I won't get back reading The Bee Sting

@WelshBookWitch I know that it's a rubbish review but I couldn't be doing with spending any more time on it! Not sure that I can even bring myself to put it in the pile for the charity shop..

I began Seven Deaths….. thinking Oh, this is quite clever! @Philandbill but rapidly swung towards your opinion. Didn’t even play by its own rules, absolute bilge.

40 A Most Desirable Marriage - Hilary Boyd

From the front log. This was not good, I thought about DNFing but kept going.

Lawrence has just retired, at 60 something. And his nearly 60 author-wife Jo is looking forward to travel with him, now their DS and DD are grown up. It all goes a bit Pete Tong when Lawrence announced after the retirement party that he’s been having an affair with a male colleague and is leaving Jo.

We follow Jo as she takes this on board, dabbles with a much younger man, handles her kids and the sale of the FMH and tries to steer a new path with Lawrence. It was… meh. Not very believeable.

@Philandbilli love reviews that tell it like it is, I wasn't being sarky

<whispers> I really liked The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle <runs away>

@RomanMum I liked it too, but I preferred his other book The Devil and the Dark Water

There was a review of this in the Guardian today and it made me think "I bet @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie would like that"

https://guardianbookshop.com/the-north-pole-9780241645833/

Thanks @noodlezoodle I’ve added it to my wish list. I’m on a self imposed non-fiction buying ban at the moment though, until I’ve read some of the pile at the side of the bed.

@RomanMum and @InTheCludgie I thought* that The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle *was ok.

16 The Muse - Jessie Burton Completely different setting from The Miniaturist and its sequel, but some similarities in the focus on people’s (especially women’s) inner lives. There is a dual storyline, one set in 1930s Spain where a rich family (English mum, Austrian at dealer dad, 19-year-old daughter who wants to be an artist) rent a house in the countryside; the other in 1960s London, where the main character is Odelle, a young aspiring writer from Trinidad & Tobago who gets a job at an art gallery and starts dating a young man who has a painting he wants to sell (that sounds twee but there’s more to it than that!). It’s quite wide-ranging given the two settings and Odelle’s cultural background, but the story is cohesive and the characters are complex and interesting. This is a bold for me - great story and beautifully written.

My list so far...
(1) The Nurse by Valerie Keogh
(2) The Wrong Child by Julia Crouch and M. J. Arlidge
(3) The Perfect Parents By J.A. Baker
(4) Darkest Fear, written by Harlen Coben
(5) Old Filth by Jane Gardam
(6) The Man in the Wooden Hat by Jane Gardam
(7) Last Friends by Jane Gardam
(8) American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins -
(9) The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden (Description taken from Amazon)
Latest book...
(10) The Coworker by Frieda McFadden
(11) Maid by Stephanie Land (Audio Book)

Latest book

(12) The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

For a family in crisis, the ultimate test of survival. Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam War a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: He will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America's last true frontier.

This review sums it up brilliantly

The Great Alone is a daring, beautiful, stay-up-all-night story about love and loss, the fight for survival, and the wildness that lives in both man and nature.

I LOVED this book - I would definitely recommend it - cannot wait to read more books by this author.

Reading for enjoyment is so enriching - it helps takes the loneliness I feel daily away ❤️

Happy reading everyone xo