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.

9 The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabel Allende

Magical realism adjacent series of short stories told by a young woman to help heal her lover who has experienced the trauma of being a journalist present at the scenes of human tragedies. This had some features reminiscent of the Arabian Nights tales. The stories are based in a semi mythical Latin American place and are largely about women and subjects of love or revenge. I can’t say I loved this. Some of the language and imagery was beautiful but I didn’t find many of the characters particularly sympathetic. There were also some very questionable depictions of relationships involving coercion, young people or those with intellectual disabilities.

10 Shakespeare: The man who pays the rent by Judi Dench

I really enjoyed this. Might be a bold... time will tell! I didn’t know all of the plays but hugely enjoyed Dench’s take on her process and her analysis of the characters. She also comes across as arch at times, very witty and great fun.

11 All Fours by Miranda July

A woman is going to drive to New York from LA but decides to stay in a motel half an hour away from home and have a mid life crisis for two weeks. She then undergoes a conscious uncoupling (as someone upthread put it) from her husband.

Ugh.... I did actually enjoy the tone of the writing- I found the flakiness quite witty and I didn’t find this a drag to read. But boy, oh boy. What navel gazing drivel. Am I so hemmed in by the patriarchy that I can’t imagine leaving my responsibilities and my family to indulge in this sort of bullshit or do I just not have the time or the inclination for this type of crap? Grow the fuck up. And to the women who wrote in the Guardian about how this book was a beacon of enlightenment.... REALLY??? Raise your standards and your self-esteem. Just fucking get on with your life.

12 A History of Women in 101 Objects by Annabelle Hirsch

I listened to all of the History of the World in 100 Objects last year (available on BBC Sounds) and it was just excellent. This was similar but about women. Small short essays about objects from bicycles to pantaloons to washing implements and how these tell the history of women. Each chapter was read by a different woman with quite an impressive cast.

13 These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant

My second definite bold of the year. A man has lived with his young daughter hiding out in the woods in a cabin since her mother died when she was four months old. Various events mean that they have to confront the outside world. I greatly enjoyed this. I liked the telling of their world and their solo pioneer existence. I also loved the characters, flaws and all.

I'm now reading Butcher's Crossing which I hadn't heard of but was in the kindle 99p deals. About a man in the Wild West who goes chasing buffalo. Not usually my thing but I'm enjoying it so far

My list so far:

1) 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) The House of my Mother by Shari Franke

I adored Bad Fruit and Night Swimmers in particular and The Palace (about Hampton Court) was a real delight.

24 . The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn - Colin Dexter - The second of the Inspector Morse mysteries concerns the murder of a deaf member of an exam syndicate. I found this enjoyable but of it's time. Morse is more sexist than I remember but this seems common in books of the era. I didn't work out who did it, I'm not sure if I saw the TV programme, it's quite possible I did but it's so many years ago now I've forgotten.

🙌@FortunaMajor and glad to hear you're doing well. Hooting 😁at 'Sally Rooney on methamphetamine' - I was torn on Good Girl given its setting (love) and Kairos-ish relationship (hate) but that's decided me 😁

So far it looks like the 50Booker WP winner would be Nesting hands down, so I've broken my no-buy for a 99p ebook, though not sure when I'll feel emotionally up to it. Also will be curious to read everyone's thoughts on The Artist, which I preordered from the library before it made the longlist but found really uneven, with some brilliant 5 writing (on art and food) and some clichéd 2 writing (of thoughts and feelings, unfortunately). Such a richly rendered setting, in vivid sensuous detail, such fascinating things done with staging/framing, but then flat, basic characters roaring/spitting/hissing panto lines at each other - 'Filthy bitch whore!' 'You milksop! You shirker!' 'You monster! You...are...disgusting!' I also found all the plot developments quite predictable, except for one (which felt disconnected and tokenistic instead 🙃)

Another recent coincidental longlist read was Amma which I (like @Stowickthevast) found good but not great - classic earnest debut novel problem of trying to tackle too many issues and isms at once. I learned afterwards that de Silva previously worked as TV soap writer and podcaster, and could sense the influence of both storytelling modes in its structure - all short scenes of high drama, presented out of chronological order to juxtapose recurring relationship patterns and motifs (hair, food, mirrors, hands): it pulled me along but never really immersed me. The writing was very good, tight and grounded, the theme of the 'foreignness' of our nearest and dearest one that really appeals to me, but (maybe because of that) I've probably just read too many diasporic multigenerational sagas for this to feel fresh. It also lacked the evocative settings and interleaving of history/culture/politics that I look for in this type of book, and which are often the elements that stay with me, so I suspect this one will fade quite quickly.

in other prize news, both the Jhalak Prize longlist and Climate Fiction Prize shortlist were announced today, and the one book which features on both is... The Ministry of Time 😁 For which I have a real soft spot (#teamhotmess #teamfun) but at this point even I have to wonder if the autofictional elements extend beyond the postcolonial mixed race divided loyalties stuff into sinister govt agency territory... prize juries, are you ok? Blink SOS if Kaliane Bradley has a dossier on you!

Snapped up Nesting! Thanks for the heads up @nowanearlyNicemum

@elspethmcgillicudddy These Silent Woods sounds like my sort of theme.

I’m trying to remember another book I read about his father and daughter in the woods. It might have been YA. The title was something like Endless Days. I seem to remember really liking it. Will try to find it.

Our Endless Numbered Days

My review of it:
Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
A YA novel which I only bought because it was 99p on Kindle yesterday and I needed a book. So glad I did, because I really, really enjoyed it. A father, obsessed with surviving after a world disaster, takes his young daughter far into the woods, telling her it’s a bushcraft holiday. Then, after a storm, he tells her that the rest of the world has gone – it’s only the two of them left. We know from the start that this isn’t true, because the girl, now about 17, is back in London with her mother. What we don’t know for much of the book is what has happened to her father, and how she got back. Whilst I guessed the ‘twists’ well in advance, this didn’t spoil my enjoyment of this rather sweet little book, with its echoes of Little House on the Prairie and Room (but much better than the latter).

@elspethmcgillicudddy I loved your review of All Fours. I chuckled and nodded along 😆
@FortunaMajor I loved The Artist - shout out to anyone else thinking of buying it before the 99p deal runs out at midnight- I hope you love it as much.
@inaptonym your review has me wondering if I’m loving it in comparison to the rest of the (frankly uninspiring) list so far. I’m trying to keep the books I reckon will be on the shortlist until the end but fear that All Fours and A Little Trickerie will be on there. Still reading Ministry- over half way through and enjoying it as it’s fun. But just fun. Not sure how it ended up on all these longlists but maybe it will develop more in the second half.

on my tbr list now, thanks!

yes I really enjoyed The Silent Woods. I liked the realisation of the pioneer fantasy. Would be interested to see how someone else enjoyed it.

It took me a while 🤣.

I'd lost the will by the time I got to ones I read last year. Let it be a lesson in not falling behind!

I've been catching up on the thread and it's really interesting to see everyone's thoughts, especially on All Fours which seems to divide opinion the most. I think on the rest of them there's broad agreement.

@inaptonymthanks for posting the other prize announcements. You know I love a list. I'd completely missed Abi Daré's new book, so I'll be hoping to read that soon.

I feel like I'm the sole All Fours fan!

Lol at the Kaliane Bradley dossier @inaptonym . Her publisher is doing an amazing job as that book is everywhere. Surprised that Private Rites didn't make the Climate Change list as that's the one that has really stuck with me from a "oh shit it's all going to go really badly" perspective.

I'm listening to The Artist and really enjoying it so far although that characters are a little obvious. Has to Google whether Tartuffe was real.

I agree that the list is a little lacking this year. I can rember years where I've really struggled to narrow it down and this time I'm struggling to find 6.

I get invited (through my job) every year to apply to be on the panel to narrow down the books for another prize list. I've never applied for various reasons, but think for their safety and my sanity, I should continue to abstain.

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller . I’ll save my list for the next one. <waves> to @FortunaMajor .

How to Teach Classics to your Dog Philip Womack
I’m keen to read some Homer and Virgil and all the newer versions told from different points of view and have started seeing more tragedies, but I felt I needed a bit of a grounding. This, as the title suggests uses explaining the Classics to as a way to explain to the reader. I would have been fine without the dog, and dog puns, but I didn’t mind their walks etc as they are local to me. I learnt a few things, turns out I knew more than I thought and I probably should just crack on.

The Body in the Library Agatha Christie (audio read by Stephanie Cole)
Audio seems to be working well for old school crime
for me, but it does appear be clear that you have to pick narrators carefully (where there is a choice). Having been a lifelong Poirot devotee I am enjoy my foray into Marple.

A dancer’s body is found in the library of Colonel Bantry. How wife calls in Miss Marple to help work it all out. This had all the essential things that make Christie’s clue puzzles so compelling today. I was convinced it was a particular character but it wasn’t.

I think my next audio will either be The Mysterious Affair at Styles or back to Sherlock.

i didn’t replace my bedside book yet, A Month in the Country just wasn’t sticking after storms on Isle of Mozambique with Mr Agualusa, but now I only have The Count on the go.

@FortunaMajor posted: "I'd completely missed Abi Daré's new book, so I'll be hoping to read that soon."

And So I Roar came out last year, and is a sequel to The Girl With the Louding Voice.

Pretend We're Dead by Tanya Pearson

I follow Shirley Manson from the band Garbage on Instagram and she posted about this book which is partlybased on her statement 'after 9/11 alt-rock women couldn't get played on the radio'

I thought to myself wow that's quite a statement and then thought for a moment longer and remembered Garbage disappearing after their third album, and how in the early 2000s there were no bands like Lush, Elastica or Sleeper so I went and purchased the book.

The first half is a partial rock history of Garbage (who I love) Breeder, Belly and L7 among others (who I had never heard of but listened to as I read it - I think maybe they didn't quite get to the UK). The memoirs are always interesting and really capture how great the 90s was for alt-rock all female or female fronted bands.

Tanya intersperses the memoirs with analysis of what else was going, the corporations buying up college radio, napster and streaming and I spent much of the book thinking I had no idea all this was going on (or perhaps no idea of the significance) as I saved up to buy brit pop and rock albums from Our Price.

I don't agree with all her commentary, she seems to think Courtney Love was hard done by, whereas I think she made some very poor choices. I agree that men who made similar choices were not as badly punished in the media.

Absolutely fascinating read and I do recommend to those on here who like music from that time period which I think is a few of us from memory.

@RazorstormUnicorn that sounds right up my alley, off to add to my wish list right now.

Ooh, also adding to the wish list!

@RazorstormUnicorn did you get it via the library?

@SheilaFentiman no I actually purchased in hardback from Black Books I think it was. It's the first time in years I have done this, but I was sure it was something I was going to read and enjoy. Looking at my shelf, other hardbacks are gifts I have been given.

I think a lot about how I need to buy art (music, books, paintings etc) if I want art to continue to exist. But I do prefer 99p on kindle with the volume of books I buy!! I am quite discerning (tight?) about what I spend on.

45 . Slow Horses by Mick Herron

I DNFd the audiobook of this a few years ago but decided to give it a second chance when the omnibus of the first 3 was on deals. I found it occasionally hard to follow stylistically, but I got past that and have moved on to Dead Lions

46 . The War Of The Worlds by HG Wells

There’s a HG Wells collection free to me on Audible and so I gave this a try. Coincidentally it was read by David Tennant who also was a voice on my last audiobook.

It’s strange to say but this is both Far Ahead Of Its Time and Rather Dated, I imagine it was considered fantastical at a time when the aeroplane hadn’t been invented. The unnamed protagonist literally seeks a pony and trap to make an escape. That won’t get you far from the Martians says this reader! Inevitably the surfeit of alien invasion type films and such including more modern adaptations of the book colours it as a read, but it’s hard not to see this as a horror even for now as well as for then what with some of the images it conjures.

Good but not quite a bold.

@RazorstormUnicorn I was also a Britpop girl striving to afford the CDs and the pink feather Garbage one was one of the few I had! I’ll put this on my wish list

@RazorstormUnicorn it’s mad to think how expensive it was to buy all those CDs at that time and now you can get all the music you want for the price of one CD a month

'Raise your standards and your self-esteem. Just fucking get on with your life'

😂😂😂@elspethmcgillicudddy

Thank you @FortunaMajor . The only thing that is calling to me is The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami. I think that Nesting is just going to be too much for me. I don’t like feeling anxious* *all the way through a book and I feel that this book would make me feel that way.