50 Books Challenge 2025 Part Five

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fifth 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 or / and maybe authors as well of books you've read or going to read? It makes it much easier to keep track. Some of us like to bring over lists to the next thread- again, this is up to you.

The first thread of the year is here, the second thread here , the third thread here and the fourth thread here.

Our library reservation fees have just gone up to £1.30! I am jealous of those who get free reservations.

That's unfortunate about the library reservation fees, @ClaraTheImpossibleGirl I'm grateful that mine don't charge (and have abolished overdue fees too).

@ClaraTheImpossibleGirl
DGM used to read some of the Victorian nursery rhymes to me and my siblings, we loved them as they were so gruesome

That doesn't surprise me. I bought quite a lot of "fairy tale" retellings for the kids, and dp (who is a horror fiction fan, as was his mum) used to ask them which version they'd like, and DS2 would always choose the "horror version" (generally versions in which the main characters get eaten by the dodgy predators around) - see The Three Little Pigs or Chicken Licken.

All The Colours of The Dark is 99p on Kindle. Thanks for the rec Remus.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie if you haven’t already read it and I’d also recommend We Begin at the End by the same author.

67 A Month in the Country- JL Carr
My online book club has three novellas instead of a novel this month and this is the first. Tom Birkin, a veteran of World War I, suffering from shellshock and a broken marriage takes a job restoring a mural in a country church in rural Oxgodby where he meets a range of people who help to restore his soul. This was a lovely gentle and beautifully written novella. Recommend

Also a DNF- my enjoyment of What the Wild Seas Can Be made me think I might like more nature writing. Seems like my nature writing is specific to sea-life because I DNFed Raising Hare on audio 20% in because nothing happened apart from her finding the leveret. Not for me.

To those readers starting the Jane Casey books, do take into account that The Burning is the worst one.

I've read that one. I liked this one better, which surprised me because I normally have no patience for overlong books. I think I got into a sort of insomniac dream state for this and that worked very well with the idea of the long years of obsession being narrated.

70 . Unruly by David Mitchell

Potted history of monarchs. I got off to a good start with this but in the end found it something of a trudge. It suits a ‘Chapter At A Time’ sort of reader not one like me who is very much ‘Plough On Through’ and the result was that it got a bit samey and the jokes got a bit tedious. It also chooses to end on Elizabeth I which considering how many monarchs there’s been since I found odd and his explanation lacking

71 . All The Lovers In The Night by Mieko Kawakami (Audible)

An alcoholic proofreader struggles with her trauma and is unable to connect. More depictions of the feminist challenges for women in Japan as previously noted in Butter

i’m finishing this tonight but Dear God, it was so depressing, meandering and deathly dull. I’ve heard this author positively raved about but I can’t wait for it to end!

This was free to me on Audible. (And it would want to be) My membership renews tomorrow so new credits! So excited.

I started it and it’s really crap. Can I skip it?

I felt like that about Unruly @EineReiseDurchDieZeit . It was very repetitive and lightweight in a silly way. I don’t think it works as an ‘entry level’ introduction to early British history either.

It’s too long ago since I read it for me to know for sure- I’d imagine so but maybe best to check with some of the other readers too before you give it up

I also didn’t love Unruly @AlmanbyRoadtrip and @EineReiseDurchDieZeit I think Mitchell’s humour works best with someone to bounce off so it became irritating after a while.

I haven’t read Unruly but I feel about it the way I do about Stephen Fry’s Greek myth books…. fairly lazily cashing in on erudite sleb comic status without doing the hard yards of research/thinking.

(Fry’s novels - The Liar and Making History - I like, because he pursued an idea and characters in each)

26 Precipice by Robert Harris

Recently reviewed quite a lot on here. I enjoyed this. I liked the disclaimer at the start that the letters from Asquith were all authentic- some of them were utterly outrageous!

27 Birding by Rose Ruane

A woman who used to be in a girl band goes to stay in a desolate seaside town with her former bandmate and questions lots of things that have happened to her in the past. I sort of enjoyed this. The storytelling was more interestingly structured and more nuanced that Nesting but I enjoyed the actual story of Nesting more. It just sort of felt a bit artifical somehow... like she had set out to write a novel about some ISSUES (the subtlety of the #Metoo message and where the power and responsibility lies for the past and for apologies). Too much telling, not enough showing. (I know someone said this about another book recently but can’t remember what... if it was this then we are on the same wavelength!)

28 Goose by Dawn O’Porter

Readable book about the difficulties of growing up in a small community in the late 90s. Follow on to Paper Aeroplanes. Nothing particularly special but good enough.

29 The Herd by Emily Edwards

Slightly forced ‘issues’ novel about a family who sue their friends over their child’s vaccination status. It was ok.

30 The Death of Grass by John Christopher

Dystopian novel written in 1956 about a world where all grass is dying from a virus. John and his family form together with another couple of families to escape London and make it to his brother’s idyllic fortress-like valley in the North where they will be able to survive on potatoes while millions starve. I enjoyed this. It was like The Day of the Triffids or War of the Worlds but more frightening and probably more realistic in just how quickly social order fell apart.

I’ve been on a Maeve Kerrigan binge, which I love, and have hit my 50 books. I’m going to try to read something else before I read the rest of the series.

44 The Reckoning by Jane Casey
45 The Last Girl by Jane Casey
46 The Stranger You Know by Jane Casey
47 The Kill by Jane Casey
48 After The Fire by Jane Casey
49 Let The Dead Speak by Jane Casey
50 Cruel Acts by Jane Casey

Have been very lax on reviews recently but have had my last few have been on the Woman’s Prize for fiction list and much reviewed on here.

Fundamentally - liked this as I thought it was a usual voice and approach and on a subject I haven’t seen much of in fiction. Liked the fact the author is clearly very knowledgeable about the topic in the real world. Can see this winning.

The Persians - load of rubbish, how did this get on the short list???

The Dream Hotel - my favourite of the three and very disappointed it didn’t make it on the short list. Liked Sara as a character and thought the world building was great (I don’t normally read sci-if/dystopian genre so it was very different from what I read). Wouldn’t have picked this up without the reviews on here so thank you!

I definitely thought The Burning was a bit by the numbers, but I would say perseverance pays off overall but then I’m a stickler for reading in order.

18. Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell
    I wish I hadn't read this. It was pretty disturbing, involving a lot of bad female stereotypes.

19. Four Shots in the Night by Henry Hemming
    This is about the IRA activist and British double agent known as Stakeknife. I recently read the book about the Brighton Bombing, which I much preferred over this one. I think you would have to be pretty interested in the minutae of the Troubles and detective work to track down who did what to enjoy this one.

31. Glorious Exploits: Ferdia Lennon

Set during in Italy during the Pelopponesian war, two unemployed potters put on two plays using the remaining Athenian prisoners of war as a cast. I thought this was a brilliant book. A harrowing, but immersive story. Very funny and very moving. In one word; glorious.

32. Mémoire d'une fille: Annie Ernaux

This is the account of the summer that Ernaux spent working as a holiday instructor at a holiday camp in Normandy, the summer of 1958. It focuses on Ernaux trying to fit in with her peers and in particular the night she spends with an older boy, when she had sex and submitted to his will, becoming obsessed with her 'master' who is using her for his own needs.

Consequently, Ernaux has difficulties with coming to terms with this relationship and develops an eating disorder and it takes a while for her to establish who she is and who she wants to be. She discovers an interest in writing and this propels her forward. Only recently she can look back at this girl and integrate her into her psyche.

I thought this was a difficult and uncomfortable read. I'm in the process of clearing out my own stuff from years ago and reading my own diaries from when I was at a similar age along with reading Ernaux's has been a bit much. Too much teenage angst for one week!

You probably could skip The Burning without missing much back story for later in the series.

15. Round About a Pound a Week by Maud Pember Reeves
Picked up an incredibly tattered ex-library copy of this 1912? classic which came out of the Fabian Women's Group set up by the female great and good of the early Labour Party. Essentially a report on a family pilot project providing food for children under 1 in certain working poor families in Lambeth. As part of the project, the visiting researchers spent time talking to the mothers, getting them to discuss and to write down their budgets and their daily lives. An early form of ethnographic research I guess. It's patronising and raises all the (unchanged) arguments about why poor people seem so unattractive poor, only to give clear evidence against them.

Put it this way...at the end of this my decision on what delicious, nutritious food to buy for our dinner at which supermarket seemed less than important. No harm in reminding ourselves what life actually looked like for half the population in the 'glorious Edwardian era' and why the welfare state exists at all. The relentless rate of child death and the consequent essential expenditure on burial insurance by all but the most desperate hit particularly hard. A bold, though I don't exactly recommend it.

I'm continuing my reading but have fallen a little short with reviews.

I am currently making my way through book 42) Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and surprisingly enjoying it more than I thought I would. I'll get to them soon, I promise. Reading the books is far nicer than writing about them by a mile.

Most of the stories relay the histories of Greek mythology. I would like to learn more, but where would I start? As with old texts, it takes me a while to adjust to the different writing styles, so I would appreciate something introductory, possibly in the form of fiction. While The Canterbury Tales is great, it'd be nice to have a lighter read next.

This week I avoided this thread for only 3 days and had a whole load of posts to get through, although 50 bookers, you continue to spur me on!

It’s such an extensive subject!

Pandora’s Jar by Natalie Haynes gives an overview of ten women from the myths, and Divine Might an overview of all the goddesses.

Were there any myths in particular of interest?

@SheilaFentiman not particularly. It's just a topic that I've had a vague interest in, and while Greek mythology is front and centre, I thought now would be a good time to read more about it.

Thank you for the suggestions. I'll look for Pandora's Jar and take it from there.