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.

Red Love by Maxim Leo tr Shaun Whiteside Read this after remus mentioned it recently. A fascinating and non judgmental German family history of 3 generations from 1930s Third Reich via the French Resistance through Cold War East Berlin. Really interesting on the accommodations involved in living under the East German regime and why it was initially idealistically embraced by the older generation. It was fascinating to read about the author, whose self image was of coming from a French Resistance family, coming to terms with having other relatives who embraced first the nazi party and then the GDR. Highly recommended though I didn’t race through it - as with other translations I could have done with a bit more help e.g. with place names where I don’t have the knowledge to locate cities in my mind as I would if a book mentioned Cardiff/Edinburgh/London.

I’m glad you liked it @CornishLizard . It’s still on my pile. I’m really struggling with insomnia and feeling increasingly as if my ability to think/read/operate as something vaguely human is reducing by the day. For that reason, I haven’t read anything in the last fortnight, but if anything that’s worse as I read the news instead. I’m going to buy some crap fiction and then hopefully tackle at least one of the non-fiction pile over Easter.

Sending love, Remus, and hope you find some suitable crap fiction!

Sorry to hear that Remus. I hope you’re out of the insomnia soon and feel better again.

27 The Night We First Met by Clare Swatman

Ted is suicidal, Marianne stops him from jumping off a bridge. She then jumps into a taxi without them swapping details, or even their names. What follows is a totally unbelievable series of near misses, over two decades, where they almost meet again, but don’t. I would have found the coincidences hard to believe if this had been set in a small town, but it was set in London, a city of 7 million people. At one point they are even on the same holiday. Just utterly ridiculous. Free on kindle unlimited if you have it and this review has sold it to you.

45 The Glassblower of Murano - Marina Fiorato

From the front log.

Leonora Manin is a glass artist in England and recently divorced. Her father (RIP) was a gondolier and she moves to Venice to find her heritage. The viewpoint shifts between her in the present day and centuries earlier to her ancestor Corradino Manin, living in a time when glassblowers were more or less confined to the island of Murano to keep the secrets of glass blowing from the rest of the world.

Through his illegitimate daughter (also Leonora) a glass heart he made has been passed down the generations and is now worn by our heroine. She finds work, falls in love and slowly discovers Corradino’s story.

This was interesting, because I like the topic, but rather twee. See how she falls in love with a man she sees on the first day who turns out to be a helpful detective. See how she features in an ad campaign when she has been at her new job for five minutes. See how blonde and beautiful and Botticelli she is. Etc 😀

13 Dark Wives by Ann Cleeves

The latest Vera. I enjoyed this one. Introduces a new member of the team (trying to avoid spoilers for those who are not up-to-date!) which shakes things up a bit. Vera investigates the murder of a young care worker at a home for teenagers. One of the residents has also gone missing. Is she the killer, or is she in danger? A pleasantly knotty problem set against the usual backdrop of secrets and lies. I liked the depiction of the village where most of the action took place, and the climax, which happens during a local "witch hunt", where children are sent out to find the witch amongst the haunting "Dark Wives" of the title - three standing stones on the moor.

I didn't realise there was a new Vera out @Welshwabbit. Have just ordered it! Thank you.

Just finished The Island Swimmer by Lorraine Kelly. I fancied an easy read and thought I'd give it a try having good memories of having visited Orkney ages ago. (I also love swimming in the sea). It's clearly somewhere LK feels very drawn to; apparently she goes there every year and her love for the place does shine through in the book.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I wouldn't describe it as a great work of literature. (I'm sure she wouldn't claim that it is). She does tell a good story, and the plot was fine, however the book would have benefitted from better editing; there are clunky details like repeating the same adjective in a sentence, and some of the dialogue felt rather stilted.
What she did portray well was the resentment and hurt felt by a child who knows and feels she's not the favourite, and the injustice of being wrongly judged and the damage that can cause.
The coercive control experienced by the main character in a long relationship, and why she accepts the way she's treated, plays a large part in the book. It's an important subject, not portrayed in a very nuanced way however.
There's some real sadness, and some really unpleasant scenes between the two sisters, so it's not all the cosy read you might expect. There are also misunderstandings which need to be resolved, there's the warmth of female friendship, several attractive men happily available for random women who arrive in Orkney .. and the sort of ending people generally look for in this sort of book.
Not my usual genre of choice to be fair. I'll be passing it on to someone who will love it though.

I've been reading a couple of backlist titles -

46. The Round House by Louise Erdrich
    I enjoyed this - it's told from the perspective of a young boy in the aftermath of an attack on his mother. I've become an Erdrich fan in the last six months.

47. Juno Loves Legs by Karl Geary
    A story about two young people with difficult childhoods who become best friends in their late teens. Set in Dublin. This is very bleak and it didn't quite meet my expectations. The pacing was maybe a bit off for me. I'm not sure!

I'm about to start Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval. I've heard this one is very disgusting. I should have checked the warnings before I bought it!!

Another tough week means I haven’t caught up with the thread, but in the meantime:

’16. One Woman Show - Christine Coulson

An exercise in how much can be portrayed in a few words. Barely even a novella, this book charts the life of Kitty Whitaker, an early twentieth century New York socialite, mainly through a series of labels as if she were a piece of artwork, with the corresponding language of museums or art galleries. The author brought her 25 years of experience to bear in writing labels for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The book manages to convey a great deal with just a short paragraph, leaving the reader to fill in the blanks and get to know the main characters because of this. Some humour, some pathos surprisingly for such sparse language. A quirky, immersive format for a book that will stay with me, possibly even a bold. Coulson’s other book, Metropolitan Stories, is already on my wish list thanks to Cluelessmama last year.

As an aside I wonder if any lovely 50 Bookers can help me out? I’m sure I heard of a similar premise for a book a few years ago, tracing a relationship (?) through exhibits in a museum? Very vague I know but at the risk of adding to my already voluminous wish list, does this ring any literary bells?

Could it be Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson @RomanMum ? Not quite as you describe; it's a series of letters between the main character and a museum curator.

Thanks @highlandcoobut it’s not that, though Meet me at the Museum is one of my favourite books and one I’d highly recommend 😊

@RomanMum is it Notes On An Exhibition by Patrick Gale? I LOVED that

35 The Ministry of Time- Kaliane Bradley
Much reviewed so I won’t do a synopsis. The plot doesn’t entirely work and the themes of climate change, colonialism etc are very light touch but this was fun- light and entertaining. If you like the St Mary’s books, I think you’ll enjoy it. That said, I have no idea why it’s on so many prize long lists.
On to The Persians next. (Trying not to judge it too much yet on a terrible chapter 1)

9 Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

I thought this was great. It’s about Cyrus: he’s an addict, a poet and is haunted by his mother’s tragic death and his family’s past. Obsessed with the idea of Martyrdom and a meaningful death, he travels to New York to meet with a terminally ill artist whose final work is an installation called ‘Deathspeak’, where they will speak to members of the public about anything they like.

I don’t often enjoy novels written by poets, but I really enjoyed Akbar’s style and exploration of ideas. There is a big reveal towards the end of the book which I thought would have been more successful with a more subtle treatment but that would be my only criticism.

Suitably intrigued by the mixed reviews I’ve started All Fours. I’ve read some of July’s previous work and seen her films, so I know roughly what to expect! Also still plodding along with Bring up the Bodies on audio.

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller. Bit late but bringing my list across.

1 Small Bomb at Dimperley, Lissa Evans
2 Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad, Daniel Finkelstein
3 The Secret Hours, Mick Herron
4 All Fours, Miranda July
5 The House on the Strand, Daphne du Maurier
6 The Burning, Jane Casey
7 The Great Alone, Kristin Hannah
8 The Reckoning, Jane Casey
9 The Last Girl, Jane Casey
10 Vaxxers: A Pioneering Moment in Scientific History, Sarah Gilbert
11 The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai
12 Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays The Rent, Judi Dench
13 Annie Bot, Sierra Greer
14 The Hour I First Believed, Wally Lamb
15 In Memoriam, Alice Winn
16 - 21 Maeve Kerrigan books 4 - 8.5, Jane Casey

I caved in and bought all the Maeve Kerrigan books so I'm making my way through them ready for the 12th book coming out next month. I've started, and put down, so many books over the last couple of months so these are keeping me hooked.

It's interesting reading people's thoughts on All Fours as it really didn't work for me and I ended up skimming through the last few chapters just to get it finished.

@TattiePants Welcome to the Kerrigan Club there’s a fan thread somewhere in Chat. Search for it. Don’t forget the Outsider as a standalone about Rob and the short stories

Just finished 31. The Artist by Lucy Steeds. Another Wp offering and one I really enjoyed like @ÚlldemoShúl .
It's about a young Englishman Joseph who goes to interview a French reclusive artist Tartuffe living in Provence with his niece Etty just after the first world war. The descriptions of the art, food - I need a juicy French peach! - and Provence are beautiful but I also really enjoyed the way the main characters develop and how it starts off as Joseph's story but ends as Etty's. I would shortlist this one.

75. Shaken. Jill Amber Chafin
    Not a particularly easy read, with mentions of child neglect/abuse, but i really enjoyed this. A young mum, driven half mad by lack of sleep, accidentally shakes her baby. She then goes off to work, leaving him with a babysitter who of course gets the blame. It was an interesting look at how postnatal mental health can decline so easily, and how easily someone can be blamed for someone else's mistake. The mother was thoroughly unlikeable, I feel like I should have felt sorry for her but didn't.

76. Where The Crawdads Sing. Delia Owens
    I'm probably the last person on earth to read this so shall assume everyone knows the story. It was a bold for me.

77. Who Served Well. Lawrie Johnston
    Another bold. This book tells the story of 3 Scottish friends and their experiences in World War 1, 2 soldiers and a nurse.
    Andrew is a teacher who moves to Canada and later signs up with a Canadian regiment. Tam is invalided out in Gallipoli fairly early on, but later volunteers to go back. Kathleen volunteers as a nurse. They all end up in almost the same place at the same time, but with tragic outcomes.

78. Sunrise On The Reaping. Suzanne Collins
    The latest in the Hunger Games series, which tells the story of the 50th Hunger Games, when Haymitch is tribute. I don't know if any 50 bookers are Hunger Games fans so don't want to spoil this for anyone. But it was another bold. I understand Haymitch so much more now.

Not sure how I ended up with 3 bolds in a row, but there we are!

A couple of interesting books in today's Kindle Daily Deals:

Lea Ypi, Free: Coming of Age at the End of History is a memoir of growing up in Albania before and after the end of Enver Hoxha's Communist regime there. I thought this was a really good read - funny and interesting and very readable. I even managed to get round to writing a review last year but I probably didn't share that here.

Elsa Morante, Lies and Sorcery (Penguin Modern Classics)
This only came out in January and I'd just downloaded a Netgalley review copy, but snapped it up for 99p. It's an Italian novel published in 1948 but new in English translation. Apparently it's a hefty 700+ pages - and I have no idea what it's like but think there are others here with an interest in translated classics and it's less obvious than most of what comes up on offer.

My review of Free: Coming of Age at the End of History

"I never asked myself about the meaning of freedom until the day I hugged Stalin".

Lea Ypi was 11 in December 1990 when she came across a protest on her way home from school, ran to safety to a bust of Stalin in the park, hugged him and then discovered his head was missing. So opens a story of growing up in a strange period when everything she ever learned is changing by the day, of trying to understand the conflicted responses of her teacher, her parents and grandmother, of learning about the real history of her family and the country where she was born. This includes the discovery that her family is indeed related to Xhafer Ypi, an Albanian politician between the wars, after independence from the Ottoman empire and before Communism, who

This memoir is beautifully written with warmth and wit. Ypi now lives in London and wrote this in English - she has also produced an Albanian language version but apparently it is rather different as writing about her memories in her native tongue, the language that conversations really happened in, was much more emotional and challenging, so readers in English are reading the story with a certain distance of perspective.

Unlike many memoirs of Communism published in the West, this is not a story of escaping the evils of communism - perhaps it is more about trying to make some sense of the experiences of the author, her family and friends. The collapse of Communism and the restoration of political and economic liberalism and capitalism in Albania and across Europe, following the death of Enver Hoxha in 1985, bring new challenges. Lea Ypi's parents are active in the new politics, and her father becomes an MP, but some people who have come to Albania to offer political and financial advice on transition turn out to be crooks selling pyramid schemes in which Albanians lose their savings. A state of emergency, a declaration of military rule and a civil war will follow. Ypi's mum goes to Italy with her brother. Tragedy strikes for several school friends.

Lea Ypi left Albania in 1997 to study in Italy, and is now Professor of Political Theory at the London School of Economics - her subjects include Marxism and socialism, still perhaps trying to explore the possibilities of what could have been.

Thank you to Netgalley for granting me a review egalley of the book, though I actually borrowed and read a hardback copy from the library. There are no illustrations in the book - perhaps as the author left Albania in a small boat like her mother before her, she doesn't actually have any photographs that could have been used. An abridged version was also broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and it was hearing this that made me want to read the whole book.

I went to my nearest Islington Library branch today as I had a few things to sort out there, and hoped to combine it with a couple of charity shops. I made it to the two charity shops closest to the library but missed the charity bookshop,* *House of Hodge, a bit further down, as it closed at the same time as the library and the other shops (5 pm). I did find a bookshop/cafe-bar with all the Women's Prize listed books on sale and various other very nicely presented temptations, and thought the Bookbar might be a possibility for anyone who fancies a mini meet up in London some time, together with a browse through House of Hodge a couple of doors away..

Euston Road/elsewhere Central London is still probably better for a larger London meetup, with people are travelling in from other places, but this is about 10-15 minutes walk from Finsbury Park tube - I think Arsenal station on the Piccadilly Line might be a little closer but I didn't try to find out.

@elkiedee that sounds like a lovely idea/place. I would definitely be up for that.

Also, I have just bought both of those books. Thanks for brining them to my attention. The Ypi has been on my radar a while, as I’m really interested (but not at all anywhere near as clued up) in Albanian history. Lloyd Jones who wrote the magnificent ‘Mister Pip’ also wrote a book about Enver Hoxha and his double, the name has escaped me.

I’m definitely one of the classics in translation fans ao
lookinh forward to that too.

On another note, I am sure many of you have read, reviewed and told me - but I started Trust by Hernan Diaz and just finished the first part and I had to sit in silence for 10 mins and just absorb it. More to come when I’ve finished.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I actually read The Outsider first thinking it was a stand alone book. Bit of a spoiler re Maeve and Rob's relationship!

@TattiePantsoh no !! Yeah read in publishing order is important