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.

Lovely outdoor swimming there in the river if it's warm enough and it's your thing!

28 . The Tatooist of Auschwitz - Heather Morris

This is a human story of the tragedy of the concentration camp. It was deeply moving and well written. It doesn't really feel right to say I enjoyed this read but I did.

@StowicktheVast
I read Sunset Over Chocolate Mountains probably fairly soon after it was published (2000) and my memory is that I liked it very much, though I could tell you nothing else about it. It makes me feel really old to realise I must have read something 25 years ago.

How come your bookclub chose a book that appears to be out of print? (it is available secondhand). Was everyone able to access a copy?

On the Women's Prize longlists:

Fiction
I've now finished two novels which didn't make it to the shortlist - Dream Count (good but not great) and Nesting (which I thought was excellent. Unusually, my local library system seem to have more copies of some of the shortlisted titles than some other boroughs - Islington still has 37 reservations for one copy of Fundamentally. I've also placed reservations for The Persians and The Dream Hotel but I don't expect to read any before the winner is announced. I have All Fours from the shortlist on Kindle. And from the longlist, have just bought Birding for 99p - one of today's Kindle Daily Deals.

Non-Fiction
I'm finding Private Revolutions really intriguing, and wish my mum was here to talk about it with, as women's work in China was the subject of her PhD thesis which was published as a book in the 1970s. She lived there for two years as a very young woman in the 1960s. I found Agent Zo on my local library's new book shelf a couple of weeks ago, and am surprised to have been able to renew it - a little early because I'm going to start reading it this week - my local library is part of a consortium and open reservations block renewals even if there are lots of copies available and/or reservations have come through and are awaiting collection! A lot of the listed non fiction titles seem to be more available in library ebook form than the fiction ones.

'21. All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque, trans. Brian Murdoch
A classic of German literature, this follows the young narrator Paul Baumer and his classmates who sign up for duty in the trenches of the First World War. One by one they become disillusioned and end up as casualties of the Great War. It was a fascinating glimpse into the War from the German point of view – though little is said of “the enemy” and few details are given of where Paul and his comrades are stationed or what battles they are involved in. The novel highlights well the futility of war with some shocking set pieces and visions, and you can’t help but feel pity for these youngsters, no matter which “side” they are on.

'22. Broadcasting Britain – Robert Seatter
A coffee table type history of the first 100 years of the BBC, taking the Corporation a year at a time. The book traces the BBC’s technological advances as well as the landmark programmes produced and events it has covered (and doesn’t shy away from some of the controversies of recent years), with lavish illustrations throughout. It concentrates more on television as time passes, which is slightly annoying, and another bugbear of mine, the text is in dire need of a proof reader for the latter sections (e.g. the Doctor Who actor Christopher Ecclestoner, anyone?). A good book for dipping into but it could have been better.

'23. Sussex Murder Casebook – Rupert Taylor
Short histories of famous and not so well-known Sussex murder cases from the 1920s to 1990s. I don’t know why I ended up owning this, so it’s now going to charity - interesting if you’re into that sort of thing.

@MamaNewtNewtI like the sound of Saturation Point and have added it to my kindle list. Whilst I was there I noticed that another of his books, The Doors of Eden was 99p, so I’ve bought that one.

I’m currently reading and enjoying Glorious Exploits

Here’s my dog having a paddle in the river at Hay-on-Wye.

64 The Searcher - Tana French
Re-read as a prelude to the new one. Definitely worth refreshing my memory on Cal, Lena, Trey and Mart

65 The Hunter - Tana French
I thought this was excellent. It absolutely thrummed with the beauty and menace of the place (a farming village in West Ireland) and its inhabitants.

It’s two years on from The Searcher, Trey Reddy is now 15 and still coming to terms with the disappearance of brother Brendan (the subject of the first book). Trey and Cal Hooper - a retired cop from Chicago - have established a carpentry business and Cal is involved with local woman Lena, sister of Noreen (Local Knowledge; runs the village shop and tries to run the village). Everyone is trying to walk a careful line between what they know and what’s good for them… until Trey’s dad Jonny blows back into town from London after years away, bringing an Englishman and a plan to pan - or is that scam? - for gold in the local river. This disrupts Cal and Lena’s careful handling and semi-fostering of Trey and it sets the villagers against the outsiders. It’s a book filled with threat and dread and well meant but dangerous misunderstandings. Very, very good.

) The Trials of Marjorie Crowe by CS Robertson
2) Bad Fruit by Ella King
3) Unruly by David Mitchell
4) Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent
5) Butter by Asako Yuzuki
6) North Woods by Daniel Mason
7) Nothing Left to Fear From Hell by Alan Warner
8) How to Solve your own Murder by Kristen Perrin
9) The Palace by Gareth Russell
10) Strange Pictures by Uketsu
11) Night Swimmers by Roisin Maguire
12) The List of Suspicious Things by Jenny Godfrey
13) The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell
14) One of the Good Guys by Amarinta Hall
15) Cloistered by Catherine Coldstream

I am just copying my running list over from thread 3. With my dad dying, the funeral, sorting out the house etc I haven't done much reading. But I have just finished Cloistered, which is a memoir from a woman who spent 12 years living as a Carmelite nun. I was drawn to the spiritual nature of it I guess, which seemed relevant for this time in my life.

Anyway, I am not Catholic (neither was Catherine Coldstream - she converted) and some of it would probably resonate more if you were. I was actually terrified of nuns as a child (!) So I was keen to find out more about them.

Catherine is incredibly keen, which is off putting to some of the other nuns, especially the Mother, who believes that to be a good nun you simply have to obey. Trying hard is unnecessary and actually a form of pride.

The nuns live in an old house in the country in Northumbria. Catherine is too southern, too posh, too musical, too bohemian, not Catholic enough. She is too interested in spiritual matters, too earnest.

Everything starts to unwind.

We know she leaves in the end, right from the beginning. So there isn't the surprise element when she does leave.

I enjoyed it - some of it is enlightening and it does make you think about power, belonging, trauma, what constitutes a good life.

I've had a birthday, and received a little stack of books from H and lovely SIL.

I've started with: 17.The Trees by Percival Everett.
Wheat Bryant, a man from a poor and dysfunctional white family, is murdered in a rural Mississippi community that was heavily involved in the lynching of black people. Alongside his body is the mutilated corpse of an unknown black man. Somehow the latter body disappeared during the initial investigation. A second murder takes place in the Bryant family, and again there is also the body of an unknown black man at the scene. The black detectives sent to assist the local sheriff struggle to make progress in the case in an often racist community.

This was extraordinary. It somehow manages to be a thriller, a ghost story, a satire, and an examination of racial violence all at once. At times it was laugh-out-loud funny, at others deeply moving, not least the chapter consisting solely of a role call of lynching victims. Recommended.

I received The Trees at the London meet up last year and book club have picked one of his other books Erasure for this month.

Erasure is on my wish list - I absolutely loved American Fiction.

Sorry to hear about your dad @Arran2024. I hope you're ok.

22 Falling Animals by Sheila Armstrong
I was in a bit of a fiction rut and this has been on my Kindle for a while. It was just the fiction I needed and I don’t know why I passed over it so often and transferred it from Season Collection to Season Collection!
It is loosely centred around the discovery of a body in the dunes of a coastal Irish town, but swoops gloriously away from that into the lives of people only tangentially connected to the mystery man. Each chapter concentrates on a snapshot of the life of one of those people and could stand alone as a short story. Put together, they capture the essence of humanity being connected, even when individuals seem to reject that connection. Sad people pop up in later stories, slightly less sad; kind people pop up later as slightly less kind.
A definite bold. It’s not constructed in a way that’s new, but it seems very fresh and very affecting.

@AlmanbyRoadtrip I loved Falling Animals. It was in my top 5 for last year. I have a set of short stories by the same author ready to read soon (How to Gut a Fish)

@Arran2024sorry to hear about your father - sending love.

@Arran2024 Sorry for your loss.

@Arran2024 sorry to hear about your dad.

Sorry for your loss @Arran2024 hope you're OK x

@StrangewaysHereWeComei have read Erasure and James and have The Trees on TBR. I haven’t watched American Fiction but Erasure was good.

@Arran2024 I'm so sorry to hear about your Dad 💐

Glad you found some comfort in the thread favourite nun fiction @Arran2024

@StrangewaysHereWeCome I also loved The Trees when I read it last month. American Fiction is great too.

Have added Falling Animals to my wish list.

45. Here One Moment - Liane Moriarty. I got this on audible after seeing the reviews on here, and it was well suited for a long haul plane trip. It's about a lady, Cherry, who predicts passengers' times and place of death on a plane and the fallout, interspersed with flashbacks to Cherry's life. This was a good story but I didn't love the audio, particularly Cherry's voice which I found a bit annoying. I think it probably wasn't helped by the fact that the previous audio I listened to, Hagstone, had a lovely Irish narrator. I'm afraid Aussie just doesn't come close! ( I've just started listening to Evenings and Weekends which I was also hoping was Irish but has a young English narrator that I'm also finding quite annoying so I think this is definitely a me problem).

So sorry for your loss @Arran2024 . I hope reading can provide some moments of comfort.

22 The Fatal Shore - Robert Hughes
A reread - originally read 25 years ago when I visited Australia. An excellent, detailed but accessible history of transportation. And a nice tie in with the Pacific / Cook / Bligh theme I’ve been following in recent reading.

I’m very sorry for your loss @Arran2024

41 The Survivors Club by Lisa Gardner

The survivors of a rapist are preparing to face their attacker in court but when he is shot upon arrival at court they come under suspicion. This was pretty good and kept me guessing most of the way through, it’s a bit dated though as it came out in 2006. Free on Kindle Unlimited.