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 have Prophet Song but haven't been able to face it yet. I'm planning to read it this year.
Buchi Emecheta's books sound really good.

@elspethmcgillicudddyLove that feeling. The best part of Good Material for me was the “no happy ending if you’re paying attention” twist

I have Butchers Crossing on TBR, it was definitely in the deals at some point

@elspethmcgillicudddy I think I bought The Figurine when it was 99p recently - oh dear, it sounds like a bit of a slog! Though to be fair I can enjoy reading about the minutiae of life, if it’s done well, and I’m looking forward to the Greek setting.

I also read the first few pages of Famous Last Words (it was at the end of another Gillian McAllister and it was quite intriguing, so I’ll look out for it!

38 The Day Tripper by James Goodhand

The day after a traumatic injury Alex Dean finds himself years in the future, and in the following days he finds himself jumping to random days. I thought this book was awful. Awkward, stilted dialogue with the word “mate” tagged on every time Alex speaks to someone. A man shows up hinting that he knows what is going on, all he brings to the party is a total inability to answer a question. Stop with the fucking arch, mysterious responses and answer the question or say you don’t know! Free on kindle unlimited.

@Terpsichore yes it is lovely. It feels like being on holiday even though I’m at home and in normal routine

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I enjoyed butcher’s crossing so would recommend it. It is quite linear in structure which I felt made it an easy read

@DuPainDuVinDuFromage I listened to The Figurine on borrow box. I’m not sure if I would have had the patience for it in text form tbh

I’m DNFing Say Nothing as I did Empire Of Pain. Excellent journalism, shit boring book length, with way too much repetition in Say Nothing in particular.

So I've not updated this for a while as I've been so busy.

25 . The Dark Tower 2 - The Drawing of the Three - Stephen King -
I much preferred this to the first book in the series. It really reminded me of the style of The Stand in some ways which was a book I really enjoyed. We carry on with the Gunslinger finding 'doors' into New York where we meet the addict Eddie Dean and the split personality Odetta Homes and finally Jack Morte, I'm quite looking forward to how this tale will continue.

26 . State of Emergency - Dominic Sandbrook -
I picked this long listen up in a audible £2.99 sale. I wasn't sure how I would feel about modern history which focuses on effectively my entire lifetime but I enjoy Dominic in The Rest is History podcasts and his ability to call political feeling was really astute in TRIP US election so I thought I'd give it a listen. It was really good.

27 . Rivals - Jilly Cooper -
So I thought I'd give it one final go having not thought much of Polo and this was better. But i'm not going to bother with any more.

Funny, I did find Empire of Pain tough going but I was absolutely engrossed by Say Nothing

16. The Cypress Maze by Fiona Valpy This was a free kindle unlimited read. In 2015 recently widowed Tess travels to Tuscany to be a companion/assistant to Beatrice, the aging custodian of Villa Della Colombe. Whilst there, the new owner of the villa arrives and tells them of his plans to demolish the beautiful gardens, including a maze made of cypress bushes to build a golf course. Tess notices Beatrice is terrified by this prospect so convinces Beatrice to share her story of her time at the villa during World war II and the truth about what's at the centre of the maze. We then alternate between Tess's story in 2015 and Beatrice's story from the 1940s

This was a good story. I feel like I've read dozens of these flashback war novels but never one based in Italy so it was interesting to read of life in a country that was in the thick of the fighting in a way England never was. The story is based on several real stories from wartime Italy, including a diary from the time. The author says at the end that she drew heavily on this day to day account of life during the war and this really comes through in the book. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys these type of novels and wants one with a slightly different spin

I have just finished The Kellerby Code which was OK. Its derivative nature is an issue as is the writer's overwrought style and silliness of plot. One of his characters says something very astute about posh people in country house novels and I suppose that becomes the point at the end but, actually, I can tell Sweet is himself a public schoolboy,just as you can tell Emerald Fennell comes from privilege. Their idea of 'ordinary' people is risible. The anti hero protagonist is hardly from the ghetto. And the portrayal of actual working class people is clichéd.
I guess the bit with the horse is meant to be ridiculous. It sure is.

56 Bad Day in Black Rock by Kevin Powers
Based on a true story, this tells the tale of three privileged young men from Dublin’s south side who beat another to death outside a nightclub. The novel explores privilege, misogyny and entitlement culture. A tough read but worthwhile. I can only imagine it must have been very hard for the family of the real murder victim to read though.

@PiggywaspushedI remember particularly some of the similes and metaphors being ludicrous in Kellerby Code it was pushing for literary and failed

64 The Shadow Wife - Diane Chamberlain

I suddenly realised I had read or started a lot of memoirs recently so I took a break to read this. DC is a “holiday cottage” author - you will probably find one or two of hers on your Airbnb shelf. Which is where I discovered her 4-5 years ago and subsequently had a bit of a binge on kindle before going off her. I thus have a couple of hers I hadn’t read.

In this one, twins Carlynn and Lisbeth grow up in the past, with their mother taking no interest in Lisbeth, the second born. In the present, Joelle (a hospital social worker) is coming to terms with the long term brain damage of her friend Mara and the impact on her colleague/Mars’s husband Liam and their son Sam.

We learn the stories of past and present in alternate chapters and they come together when Joelle tries to bring Carlynn (a trained doctor but also a mystical healer who brought Joelle back to life when she was born not-breathing) to help Mara recover some brain function.

A good read of the Fiona Valpy/Victoria Hislop ilk

The Lives and Deaths of the Princesses of Hesse: The curious destinies of Queen Victoria's granddaughters - Frances Welch

The four granddaughters of Queen Victoria born to Princess Alice made extraordinary dynastic marriages across Europe. From the Russian court during the revolution, through two world wars where they found themselves on opposing sides their lives were tumultuous and often tragic.

This book is based on letters between the four sisters and there is much about their early lives and Queen Victoria’s failure to stop them making alliances she disapproved of. I was riveted by the amount of travelling they did, St Petersburg one moment, Balmoral or Darmstadt the next but I suppose they were hardly travelling by bus.
I was a bit less interested by the last third of the book which dwelled upon the claim by Anna Anderson that she was Grand Duches Anastasia but on the whole, a good read.

21 Ghosts Of The British Museum by Noah Angell
Thanks, as ever, to the posters on these threads who recommended this book. I probably wouldn’t have picked it up otherwise. I often find True Ghost non fic underwhelming and to some extent the “and then my duvet was pulled off!” anecdotes here are not much different. I did roll my eyes at the ‘medium’ bits - whether suicides are publicised or not, a tenacious cold reader and charlatan will be able to unearth enough details to finesse their fraud.
I do believe in psychic resonance and the power of objects, however (just not the cynical monetisation of it) so there were plenty of woo thrills to be had.
Where this book stands out from others in the genre is the approach Angell takes with regards to the British Museum’s inveterate and rapacious acquisition of just about anything they fancied having. And a subsequent refusal to ever give anything back. Colonialist robbers, strongmen, conmen, men on their last £ stripping what they could from foreign civilizations….a breathtaking disregard for religious and cultural sensitivities pervades the corridors of the British Museum (and many others).
Then there’s the thefts, the uncatalogued collections stuffed into the basement, the rotting exhibits that will never see the light of day again.
I’m by no means a hater of museums, but as I’ve got older I’ve started to look past the blithe “Human Remains In This Exhibition Whatevs, Ya Pays Your Money Ya Takes Your Choice” signs and really question the sustainability of the museum model. Whether it’s Roman artefacts stripped from Vindolanda or an Ethiopian temple, I think it’s high time the majority of these items were given back to the communities where they most belong. Especially the bodies.

I liked your review, @AlmanbyRoadtrip . I was in the Pitt- Rivers museum recently and it felt like they have given thought to these issues, although returns are slow. One complicating factor is whether there is a recognisable community for them to go to - say Anglo-Saxon items, or roman remains taken from Hadrian's wall. Is it enough to be in the place when the local population aren't really related in a meaningful way?

I agree @bibliomania, it’s a complicated issue. I do know that Vindolanda want their stuff back and are ideally placed to look after it, as a small example.
My Grandad dug up quite a lot of Roman artefacts on land he owned and was developing. He gave the shoes, jewelry, beads, coins etc to whatever relic authorities required it in the 1960s. He was allowed to keep the pottery. We have been unable to track the other items down since, despite them being “offered to a museum”. Probably rotting away in some basement uncatalogued. The pottery has delighted and informed 4 generations of local schoolchildren and will continue to do so. My family have proved better custodians of that tiny little bit of history than whatever organisation stole the rest of it
As far as the larger items such as the Elgin Marbles, Benin Bronzes etc are concerned - no, they don’t belong to us, never have, we don’t have the right to keep them.

The Pitt- -Rivers had photos of the attack where the Benin bronzes were stolen - such blatant theft

Sounds interesting @AlmanbyRoadtrip . I have mixed feelings about the acquisitions in museums and feel the Elgin marbles should stay put. However as a huge fan of the BM over the years I was horrified by the bbc podcast Thief at the British Museum. Now I think twice about donating.

I heard that too Shackleton and my jaw was on the floor.

I’ve completely fallen off the wagon in keeping up to date due to laptop problems. I’ve got a new (to me) one now, so able to post again. I was in the Aberfeldy Watermill Bookshop last week, winner of the Independent Book Store of the Year 2009, the New Yorker book of 75 Greatest Bookstores in the World in 2016 and in 2022 the Bookshop and Cafe featured in National Geographic's top 7 UK bookshops and cafes. So I had to buy some more books and pile up the TBR!

I’ve never heard of Susan Hill…

@ÚlldemoShúl – re the KKK, I’ve seen loads of videos on TikTok this weekend from Spain, celebrating Easter. There are loads of men dressed up in KKK type outfits. Is that where they got the costumes from? Any ideas from the book you just finished?

@satelliteheart – I’ve read quite a few Fiona Valpy, but not that one. Will keep an eye out. I enjoyed a similar book from her set in North Africa, presumably Algeria, but I cant remember.

44 In Memoriam – Alice Winn – much loved on here and I see why. Just beautiful and heartbreaking.

@Tarragon123 Interestingly I was in Seville just over a month ago and saw many representations of those different coloured outfits that looked exactly like KKK and asked. They are Catholic brotherhoods of Seville- each colour represents a different brotherhood. The brotherhoods predate the KKK by a long time so they assume the KkK got their ‘uniform’ idea from them.
The book I read makes no reference to the Spanish brotherhoods and of course the KkK was famously anti-Catholic so I doubt would admit if that’s where they got their idea from. They claimed it was to make them look taller and ghostly in their original iteration at the end of the civil war.
I too really enjoyed In Memoriam

Great review, @AlmanbyRoadtrip. @bibliomania the curator of the Pitt Rivers is Dan Hicks, an archaeologist and anthropologist. Everything I've read by him fills me with admiration. He's been extremely vocal about museum ethics: returning stolen goods and so on. About five years ago the famous 'shrunken heads' were removed from display at the Pitt Rivers for ethical reasons. He's written a book on the scandal of the Benin Bronzes (which I confess I haven't read).

His views make those of the classicist Mary Beard look woefully conservative and old-school in comparison. On the topic of returning the Parthenon marbles, for example, Beard's main take seems to be 'It's complicated.' Which I find disappointing. It's not THAT complicated, just give them back!

Oops, sorry, @ShackletonSailingSouth , I saw your post only belatedly. We can agree to disagree about the Parthenon Marbles 😂

😂 no need to apologise, we're all friends here 💖