50 Books Challenge 2025 Part Four

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fourth 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, the second thread here and the third thread here.

I’m almost tempted to break my No Audiobooks rule for Siobhan McSweeney reading Murder At Gull’s Nest !

This is a wonderful limerick 🩷

Part of the attraction is Piggy's excellent* *discussion group!

I agree that Piggy could make many things attractive, and feel guilty that I'm not able to participate*.

*This bit is true
**This bit is not

Gah. Messed up because the asterisks turned into bold.

The non-bold bit is true.
The bold bit is a lie.

@DesdamonasHandkerchief

i reviewed Still Life recently but I’m not the guilty party as I didn’t give a good review!

I'll take it, either way!

Loving the MC review fuzzy!

51 How I Caused the Credit Crunch - Tetsuya Ishikawa (NF)

From the front log - bought in 2011. I went through a phase of books like this eg Liar’s Poker, Too Big Too Fail. For some reason I never read this one.

It’s a fair read, the Lehman Brothers one I read last year was better though. The author had not long left Oxford when he joined banking and he gives pseudonyms to himself, his colleagues, clients and even the banks involved. Though Wiki tells me he was at ABN AMRO then Goldman sachs.

And he shags a lot of strippers, despite being engaged to a specific stripper he met in the early days of his career.

It rattles along well, but there are better books out there on the subject.

@inaptonym, the magazine book that started me down that path as a teenager is Judith Krantz's I'll Take Manhattan. A very 80s bonkbuster but I still love it.

Favourite non-fictions are Inside Vogue, by Alexandra Shulman and The Vanity Fair Diaries, by Tina Brown.

I'm on the waitlist for Graydon Carter's new memoir and really looking forward to it.

Other favourite niches include books about books (which I think most of the thread shares!) and books set in or about restaurants.

@DesdamonasHandkerchief Still Life was a DNF for me, I just found it unbearably dull.

@noodlezoodle I thought of Judith Krantz when department stores got a mention up thread. I loved Scruples as a youngster. IIRC the heroine in I’ll Take Manhattan lives in Trump Tower and DT is described as young and handsome.

Edited to say I still have both books and read them again about 5 years ago.

@DesdamonasHandkerchief I looked at both Mangan books but agree, a tenner was just too much. Sorry, if @inaptonym is right and you are a 50 booker, I want to and will read, just not now.

I went to a history thing this evening and had a spat with Michael Gove so am feeling all accomplished and ready to settle down to some reading - mostly finishing the Count chapters.

Thank you to southeast for the new thread!

My list so far:

1. Sofi Laporte - Lucy and the Duke of Secrets
2. Emma Orchard - What the Lady Wants
3. Darcy McGuire - The Secret Life of a Lady
4. Darcy McGuire - A Lady's Lesson in Scandal
5. Lynn Morrison & Anne Radcliffe - The Missing Diamond
6. Lynn Morrison & Anne Radcliffe - The Ruby Dagger
7. Lynn Morrison & Anne Radcliffe - The Sapphire Intrigue
8. Lynn Morrison & Anne Radcliffe - The Emerald Threads
9. Darcy Burke - A Whisper of Death

10. Darcy Burke - A Whisper at Midnight 11. Emma Orchard - For the Viscount's Eyes Only 12. Jodi Taylor - Lights! Camera! Mayhem! 13. Agatha Christie - Five Little Pigs (audiobook) 14. Andreina Cordani - Murder at the Christmas Emporium 15. Rhys Bowen - We Three Queens 16. Lesley Cookman - Murder in the Green 17. Lesley Cookman - Murder to Music 18. Enid Blyton - Five Go Down to the Sea 19. Agatha Christie - Three Act Tragedy (audiobook) 20. Jess Armstrong - The Curse of Penryth Hall 21. Jess Armstrong - The Secret of the Three Fates 22. Mel Mcgrath - The Guilty Party 23. Neal Shusterman - All Better Now 24. Sarah Dunnakey - The Twelve Murders of Christmas 25. Wendy Cross - Then There Was One 26. Julia Golding - The Persephone Code 27. Jodi Taylor - The Ballad of Smallhope and Pennyroyal 28. Michelle Kenney - The Mismatch of the Season 29. Jo Jakeman - One Bad Apple 30. Katy Watson - Seven Lively Suspects 31. Ann Russell - How to Save Money 32. Enid Blyton - Five go to Mystery Moor 33. Danielle Valentine - Two Sides to Every Murder 34. Nick Louth - The Two Deaths of Ruth Lyle 35. Nick Louth - The Last Ride 36. AK Benedict - Little Red Death 37. Melinda Salisbury - The Foundation 38. RO Thorp - Death on Ice 39. Anthony Horowitz - Close to Death 40. Ben Carpenter - Fat Loss Habits 41. Rory Cellan-Jones - Sophie from Romania 42. Jonathan Stroud - The Legendary Scarlett & Browne 43. JM Hall - A Brush with Death 44. Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London 45. Sophie Irwin - A Lady's Guide to Scandal 46. Laura Woods - The Agency for Scandal 47. Laura Woods - A Season for Scandal 48. Laura Woods - A Game of Scandal 49. Karen M McManus - Such Charming Liars 50. Agatha Christie - Dead Man's Folly (audiobook) 51. Agatha Christie - The Thirteen Problems (audiobook) 52. Agatha Christie - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (audiobook) 53. Agatha Christie - The Labours of Hercules (audiobook) 54. Julia Golding - The Elgin Conspiracy

Most of the bold reads are easy reading TBH, as my mind is too full of stuff I need to do to take anything too strenuous

Special shout outs to All Better Now and Then There Was One - both YA books which were a little bit short to qualify as bolds for me, but clever concepts. All Better Now is about a virus which leaves people full of contentment and unable to do anything unpleasant to others - how would the world cope? What will happen to the people who've had the virus when confronted by those who haven't, and are still capable of nastiness/ cruelty/ thoughtlessness? Is a lack of empathy necessary in some cases to keep economies going? - these sort of questions were mooted but not really dealt with. And Then There Was One is a futuristic retelling of And Then There Were None with a bit of Hunger Games thrown in - again an interesting concept but not quite long enough to go into things in depth.

The Legendary Scarlett & Browne is the last in a trilogy by the author of the Lockwood & Co books (which I love!), I raced through this so will re-read it and enjoy it more at my leisure - Scarlett McCain and Albert Browne are outlaws in a dystopian future Britain, now searching for Scarlett's long lost brother. I really enjoyed this and am sorry there won't be any more

DNF - Richard Osman - We Solve Murders - thought it was immensely dull (annoyingly, as I'd waited for ages for it on the library app!) and *Amy Tintera - Listen for the Lie) - just didn't get it, TBH.

@ChessieFL I currently have The Sirens on the go but am finding it tricky to get into! I quite enjoyed Little Red Death but reading the reviews, I feel there were layers of cleverness which I completely failed to perceive

@Tarragon123 you've just reminded me that I still have Square of Sevens on the go, I think I got to around 300 pages and lost interest - must try to finish it!

@WelshBookWitch I used to love those Kate Mosse books, picked one up recently and couldn't get into it at all probably because I have a lot less time to read since having DC, things need to grab me straight away.

@AgualusasLover I started listening to Agatha Christie audiobooks as part of the Christie readalongs, enjoyed them far more than I thought and have carried on! Completely agree about it being dependent on the narrator - strangely I prefer Hugh Fraser (Hastings) to David Suchet reading them, I think I can't get my head round David Suchet not actually being French...

@SheilaFentiman I think The Report is about the same accident as Millie Bobby Brown - Nineteen Steps? I hadn't heard of it before but thought the MBB book did a good job of describing what it was like for the local people (I believe her DGM grew up around there) - I'll definitely have a look for The Report too.

Oh my god I'm going to have to re-read I'll Take Manhattan to find that bit and cross it out of my copy!

I have Scruples ready and waiting for an emergency read - living in the US with DT at the helm, I might have to break it open at any moment.

@AgualusasLover Hope you made that nasty, white-nosed little weasel crawl. Odious little prick.

The Siege - Ben Macintyre

This tells the fascinating events of the six day siege of the Iranian embassy in London in May 1980 which came to a dramatic conclusion when the SAS were sent into conduct a rescue operation which was broadcast live, in a world first.

Am a big fan of the author and again he’s done a great job at weaving together an account from the people who were directly involved - hostages, police, SAS and journalists, into a fascinating and thoroughly engaging book drawing insights into Middle Eastern politics of the 1970s/80s, use of terrorism as a means of political protest, the history and role of the SAS and of course the snooker championships to make this book a great read. Would thoroughly recommend.

11 Defending the Guilty: Truth and Lies in the Criminal Courtroom by Alex McBride. This was OK. Insight into the life of a junior barrister, a few example cases, and some more general musing about trials by jury as an institution. Fairly interesting, but not the best career memoir I've read.

12 Should We Stay or Should We Go by Lionel Shriver. Kay and Cyril have been happily married for many years. After going through an awful time with Kay's dad suffering from dementia, they decide they don't want to risk the same happening to them, and enter into a suicide pact in 30 years' time when they will be 80/81. Will they go through with it? It's an interesting premise, but this is one of the most boring books I've ever read. Hard to believe that the author of the page-turner We Need to Talk about Kevin could write something so dull.

@SheilaFentimanWhat was the Lehman brothers book please? I’d like to read that.

I know a few people enjoyed Clemency Burton Hill's Year of Wonder and thought this programme, which I watched last night, might be of interest.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0029cpt

I thought it was very good.

A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Incredible Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers - Larry McDonald and Patrick Robinson

On last year’s bold list :-)

@Tarahumara i read a few Lionel Shrivers after WNTTAKevin and none held a candle to it.

I started watching that last night @Boiledeggandtoast. I was going to mention it. I thoroughly enjoyed the readalong some of us did.

I am having a slow reading year due to work and family and keep dropping off the thread.

I read Trust last year (or maybe the year before) - clever premise but didn't love it.

I do like a department store book too and Judith Krantz takes me right back to the 1980s. I assume you have all read Au Bonheur des Dames....

I have joined the meet up thread - we had some lovely chats at last year's.

@highlandcoo - I have sent you a PM re next week.

My latest reads are:

16. Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto

Translated from the Japanese. It's actually two separate stories/novellas in one book which I hadn't realised so I kept looking for links between the two or a big reveal. Both explore themes of bereavement and friendship and the first has a big emphasis on food too. I enjoyed but I gather it's been quite hyped in the press and I am not sure it's that good.

17. Towards Zero - Agatha Christie

Read this having watched the TV adaptation. My favourite Christie fare - large house and dysfunctional family. Not a Poirot or Marple. Not her best but still enjoyable. The TV adaptation deviated from the plot of the book which irritates me - just why?

8. We Wish To Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevich
An account of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, by an American journalist who spent 9 months in Rwanda interviewing many people, as well as following some who had escaped to other countries. This intimate, extraordinary horror story told in the words of survivors, perpetrators and other ordinary people, leaves a deep mark. It doesn't shy away from ascribing blame and finding people who are much less to blame or even did well, though the later history of all those people tells that life isn't simple. This I think was the first telling of the experience of Paul Rusesabagina of the Hotel des Mille Collines, which later became the film Hotel Rwanda. After reading it I felt very strongly that genocide could happen anywhere. The slaughter of a million neighbours with machete cuts, and the disabling of many more, in a matter of weeks, is clearly something that any human society is capable of in the wrong circumstances. The only hope perhaps is that it doesn't happen all the time, that there are individuals and circumstances that make it less likely. Another of my 'bolds I don't recommend' - it's a great book but not enjoyable.

9. Jill and the Lost Ponies by Jane Badger
Well, I needed something gentle after that, so... a continuation of the Jill pony books that were still very popular for my generation. A lot of fun, well written.

Are you coming to any meetups *Perm? @PermanentTemporary