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.

Can I join you? I very much doubt I can make it to 50 books this year, especially with such a late start but I can give it a go.

@Terpsichore I think I can join you in the oldest unread books corner as I also frequented jumble sales in my youth and picked up books at 10p. That would have been in the 1970s. I have a huge stack of unread books and swore I wouldn't buy any new books until I'd read them all but now I'm thinking that actually life is short and I should just enjoy buying books that look interesting again.

Anyway, on to what I've read so far this year. There may be a couple of others but I'm away from home at the moment so can't check my shelves. I'm also not quite sure what the 'code' is. Is bold for this is great and italics for don't bother?

The Lilac Bus - Maeve Binchy (dull)
The Old Man and Me - Elaine Dundy (quirky)
The Funnies - J. Robert Lennon (quirky, poignant)
The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje (complex, poignant)
The Way we Live Now - Anthony Trollope (currently reading)

Welcome @oviraptor21 and yes, let’s set up camp in the unread old books corner! I mean, I have a gigantic hardback copy of the Larousse Gastronomique bought for 10p in about 1976 and I’d rather not have to sit down and read that cover to cover, useful though it is for dipping into 😂

@PermanentTemporary your mention of Round About a Pound a Week takes me right back to my Modern History degree days. Along with Booth's poverty maps and the terrifyingly unstoppable Sidney and Beatrice Webb.

PS generally it’s bold for the titles just to make them more noticeable when reviewing as you go along. When it’s time to post lists of books read, at the start of a new thread or at the grand summing-up at the end of the year, a bold indicates a particularly good read. Well, that’s what I do, anyway.

@oviraptor21Hi! Welcome! Code is basically post a list at the start of a new thread, bold what you loved, italic what you didn’t. Not everyone does numbers or lists. No real rules.

Bold titles when doing reviews, quick summary of what it’s about and then opinions

Hello @oviraptor21 and welcome to the nicest corner of MN!

I only went in Waterstones for a Look today. Ended up buying two paperbacks - Night Swimming and Saltblood. Then found that The Boy From The Sea that I noted down in hardback was only £1.99 on Kindle, so I bought that when I got home.
I’d do the face but we’d all know I didn’t really mean it……..

I am massively behind on reviews so a quick(ish) round-up below:

19. Paper Cup - Karen Campbell

Much reviewed on here. A heart-warming story of an engagement ring being reunited with its owner by a homeless lady. It doesn't sugarcoat the harshness of Kelly's life on the streets but manages to be uplifting. Original and enjoyable.

20. The Ink Black Heart - Robert Galbraith

Read this after watching TV adaptation. Murder tied up with online gaming. It was long, had too many characters and too much online chat. But it kept me turning the pages and I am still here for Strike and Robin.

21. The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie

Challenge book for April. No Poirot or Marple. Bundle and her upper-crust friends are on the case. Didn't guess the murderer, should have hated it but Bundle was irrepressibly endearing.

22. The Good, the Bad and the History of Jodi Taylor

The most recent book (I think) of the time-travelling historians. However, it's such a long time since I last read one that I couldn't remember previous plot lines which means I am starting a re-read.

23. The Very First Damned Thing - Jodi Taylor (novella)
24. Just One Damned Thing After Another - Jodi Taylor
25. A Symphony of Echoes - Jodi Taylor
26. When a Child is Born - Jodi Taylor

My re-read of the Chronicles of St Mary's (time-travelling irreverent and disaster-prone historians). Ironically, I remember the earlier storylines reasonably well.

27. My Father's House - Joseph O'Connor

Second World War fiction (based on real life events and people) set in Rome and the Vatican focused on civilians running an escape line. I have not previously read WW2 fiction set in Italy so it was an interesting insight into the impact of the war and the dynamic with the neutral Vatican. Built tension nicely and enjoyed it.

28. A Second Chance - Jodi Taylor
29. Roman Holiday - Jodi Taylor (novella)

More re-reading. I need to find an explanation for A Second Chance where we seem to have entered a parallel universe that I don't understand.

30. Cards on the Table - Agatha Christie

This month's challenge book. A plethora of detectives (Poirot, Ariadne Oliver, Superintendent Battle and Colonel Race) are invited to dinner by a host who has promised Poirot dinner with (four) murderers who got away with it. The host is murdered by one of the four guests. Solving the murder is a joint effort. Again, didn't guess it. Quite clever and the annoying Mrs Oliver was diluted by the others.

I loved Night Swimming. Hope you like it too

Birthday book haul - my family knows me well! A few of these I have read before and wanted in paperback but most I haven’t read (or not read for ages).

You may need to wait for the photo to load!

Happy birthday @ChessieFL great haul

Happy birthday @ChessieFL
I really loved Travels iirc.

Happy Birthday @ChessieFL

Happy birthday & happy reading @ChessieFL !

Happy Birthday Chessie 🎈
That's* *a lovely haul. Happy reading!

Happy Birthday 🎂!

Happy birthday @ChessieFL Great haul!

Many happy returns @ChessieFL!

Happy birthday @ChessieFL - enjoy reading in the sunshine!

Happy birthday Chessie! Enjoy your birthday books 😊

38. The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club - Christopher de Hamel

I adored de Hamel's Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts so this went straight on my wishlist and I had to buy it after the library lost the copy I had on reserve 🤬 After all that I hate to say that I found this a bit of a struggle - de Hamel devotes 12 chapters to notable collectors or curators of manuscripts, and while fascinating, it's possibly just too packed with detail: my head started to swim with keeping track of innumerable dates and names, and the print is tiny in my 500+ page Penguin paperback (the hefty notes section is in even tinier print). However, there are lots of riveting stories in here about eccentric collectors, wondrous ancient manuscripts and some of the memorable characters who haunted the world of rare book-dealing. It’s definitely not a quick read and arguably more a book to dip into for one leisurely chapter at a time. The colour plates are gorgeous as well.

39. Precipice - Robert Harris

Another slight disappointment. The (true) story here is bizarre: British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith's infatuation with the beautiful and much younger Lady Venetia Stanley, expressed via hundreds and hundreds of adoring letters in between their meetings (it appears to have become stalking in today's parlance, even if she tolerated it initially). Not only was he married but also WW1 was imminent. Harris takes the facts and adds in an invented police sergeant who puts two and two together when Asquith's foolhardiness accidentally comes to light (he actually did tell Venetia Stanley every state secret that came his way, including sending her official communications; his letters survive and everything of his that Harris quotes is genuine).
I was drawn in by this but as the narrative progressed the detective soon proved to be a bit of a pointless insertion and he fades away at the end, so it felt a bit unsatisfying. I also remembered and found an LRB review of a biography of Venetia Stanley adding extra information that Harris couldn’t use - that Asquith dropped Venetia like a stone when she got married, but then started writing to her sister instead, in similar style and intensity. All mind-boggling stuff, but perhaps a case of truth actually being stranger than fiction.

Happy Birthday @ChessieFL. I’ll be interested to see what you make of The Names. I read a glowing review of it in the Times and may use an audible credit on it when I’ve finished my current book.

@ChessieFL many happy returns xx

Thanks for the birthday wishes all! I’ve just started The Names so will be back soon with a review of that.

I have now also finished Killing Thatcher which was a rattling and absorbing read as promised.

One minor thing that niggles me was that it was written for an American audience and publication. I'm not sure why there isn't a UK version with British spellings and removing over explanation of geographical details and telling us what A levels are. This jarred a little.

However, overall I found it an excellent complement to Say Nothing. I would not be at all surprised if there is a screen version of this too, with Martin Clunes and Jason Watkins playing dogged cops.

I’m literally 100 pages in @Piggywaspushed what I dont like about the Kindle version is footnotes as blue hyperlinks

I loved Killing Thatcher, raced through it, so thought I would read 4 Shots in the Night, which is about the spies and double agents operating in N Ireland during the Troubles, particularly the agent called Stakeknife. Where Killing Thatcher covers Gerry Adams in great detail, 4 Shots in the Night does similar with Martin McGuinness. I learned a lot but found a lot of the secret agent stuff a bit slow and dull.

Killing Thatcher was an excellent audiobook, really well read by Gary Trainor. I think I preferred it to Say Nothing.