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.

So strange! I only use the mobile site and I don’t like this!

I’m still pink and OP is green (my chosen colours). Mobile site on an iPhone

I had to go back in and redo my settings and I’ve got pages back thankfully. For some reason it absolutely refuses dark mode though which irritates me and I have everything else on my phone (and kindle and any other device) set to dark mode.

27 Trieste And The Meaning Of Nowhere - Jan Morris

A lovely, poignant book (her last) about this odd city on the very edge of Italy and indeed Western Europe, once the great port city of the Habsburg Empire. Her writing is as beautiful as ever, evoking its past imperial splendours and complex history over the last century as a “city without a purpose”.

I have now also finished Precipice. I liked it more than remus but agreed with may of the criticisms. Deemer just seemed to vanish for part of the book. We never found out what happened to him. Yes, yes, I know he's a made up character but still...
Montagu in many ways seemed the most likeable character , Deemer aside. Venetia is rather inscrutable. I guess she was alive and intelligent and independent at a time when women had no actual political footholds and an affair with the PM offered some sort of entry to that world. I liked that Harris did not seem to judge.

It's astonishing really that a PM was sitting writing lengthy letters under the watchful gaze of cabinet minsters, family members, his wife.

@SheilaFentiman I’m not that far into Less just yet, but there does seem to be a hefty dose of the rose-tinted spectacles about it. And I’ve yet to see him address the fact that Primark etc are an absolute godsend when you’re flat broke and your kids won’t stop growing. However, it is still making me think about some of the things I own, or have bought in the past, which I think is a good thing.

@Piggywaspushed Agree re Montagu. I read up a bit on them all afterwards and she had a child that was almost certainly not his, then he died very young. I guess he knew what he was getting into when he married her, but it seemed sad.

This week, I found my old Kindle library from years ago. I didn't believe that it would've survived. Anyway, I have a short list of books on there, some of which I started and, for one reason or another, didn't finish, and others that were short introductory books on topics I wanted to know more about.

The read-what-you-own pile now goes back to 2012-ish. For those few books that I started when I purchased them but didn't finish, most probably due to chaotic shift patterns, how are they to be logged? Is everyone including them on their tallies?

I have also ventured into the realm of Audible with The Salt Path. Despite my long-standing refusal to avoid this medium at all costs, I'm loving it. Maybe it's the book and the topics which make it feel more personable, or I have found a newfound respect for the genre. Although I am more than likely to buy more of this kind of 'book', I am still a firm believer that the experience of holding a book and turning the pages is the biggest draw and part of the experience.

Thanks to the 50 Bookers, I have tried a new experience and been found to be wrong. 💐

@LuckyMauveReader I log a book when I finish it, even if I started it and left off a while ago!

26 Saltblood by Francesca De Tores

Swashbuckling tale of Mary Read, born a girl, dressed as a boy (her dead brother, Mark) to get a family inheritance. Finds male clothing advantageous in her chosen careers in the Navy and the Army. No one seems to notice and she remains unsullied by the male attention that one would expect. Becomes a pirate, recognised as female but again unfathomably protected by some weird gentlemanly code and a sheet of oilcloth separating her quarters on the ship.
It has some things to say about the place of women at the time and the historical details were interesting enough to keep me reading through the somewhat overblown prose.
A pleasant enough romp on the high seas but nothing particularly memorable.

82 At Home - Bill Bryson

Read for the “read your oldest book” challenge; I bought this in Autumn 2011.

I love Bryson’s memoirs like Notes from a Small Island but found this one more disjointed. It’s a random walk through the Poor Laws, the Theory of Evolution, the invention of the electric light and so on. The jump offs are from various rooms in Bryson’s Norfolk rectory (the garden, the attic etc).

I generally find non fiction harder to stick with than fiction, and read a couple of books alongside this. It was good, but it wasn’t gripping, for me.

I log when I finish, but don't mind what others do. The reason I originally came here was because I wasn't finishing any books, so it's a personal discipline. I don't log partial re-reads, partly because nobody needs to know just how often I reread my favourite chapters of some books. Only if I reread the whole thing in one go.

So with logging, I don’t log until I finish and I don’t log if I DNF really, maybe occasionally if I’m not going back to it and if I have something strong to say. I feel like DNFs don’t count (at least not for me)

I don't log DNFs either and re-reads depends on how long they take me out how often I read them. I did a binge of Chalet School books last year that I didn't log as it would have messed up my stats!

@ÚlldemoShúl I have dark mode but just use a browser window on my phone - Android though.

58. Our London Lives - Christine Dwyer-Hickey. Recommended by @elkiedee and I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It follows 2 characters, Milly, an Irish barmaid who moves to London aged 18 in the late 70s, and Pip, an ex boxing alcoholic in 2017. The chapters alternate between the two with Milly's gradually progressing through the years until we catch up with Pip, and Pip reminiscing so we see his past story too. It has some great cameo characters in it, particularly in the London pub, and I loved the descriptions of Clerkenwell too.

That's handy to know re logging. I, too, should get used to only logging books once I've finished them, rather than logging them as I pick them up to start them. I have found, though, that it keeps me focused. Once I have finished the two books I am currently reading I will see how I fare logging later. So far, there haven't been any DNF's or rereads.

I’m in quite the reading slump and I don’t like it!

16 The Count of Monte Cristo

I read this as part of the read-along. I overall
enjoyed it but it’s debatable whether I would have finished if it wasn’t for the thread, which I found motivating and educational. Will definitely join in on future reads.

17 Heartstone (Shardlake 5), CJ Sansom

This was so disappointing as I’ve loved all of the other Shardlake books. I should really have DNF’d it instead of slowly pressing on. I track start and end dates on good reads and StoryGraph and this took me nearly a month 😅. Too much traipsing around on horses for me.

I’m going to try either Glorious Exploits or James next.

@LuckyMauveReader I have a list in Notes on my phone and I put a / before the book(s) I am reading and don’t delete the / until the book is finished 🙂

Death in Practice and A Silent Killer - Hazel Holt

Numbers 14 and 15 in the Mrs Malory series. These are the ultimate in cosy crime. Mrs Malory lives in a thinly disguised Ilfracombe, bakes for the WI, makes marmalade, is on the Hospital friends committee and helps out with the Red Cross, shops at M&S, gossips with best friend Rosemary and her redoubtable mother and cracks all the crimes that happen in town. Oh and she does some literary criticism on the side.

They are great and nicely written and perfect reading when stuck inside a hotel on a rainy holiday. For some reason the first and last half dozen or so are on Kindle and the middle ones aren’t. @bibliomania was kind enough to send me no 11 a few years ago but I failed to track down no 12 and 13 and I hate reading a series out of order but have eventually given up and moved on.

I don’t log DNFs but do log rereads. I log on Storygraph when I start but only put on here when I finish and can review (I’ve been reading War and Peace a chapter a day since the start of the year and often have other long reads that go on for weeks or months) Basically I log anything that I’ve tracked on Storygraph because otherwise my numbering system wouldn’t match up. This does mean sometimes (like with one of the following reviews) I end up logging novellas that I would normally group (my book group did 3 this month) so my book count can be less numerous than it seems.

77 The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy
The novella referred to above! This was a beautifully written but very depressing short novel that points out all the ways we shouldn’t live our lives.

78 In Plain Sight by Marion Todd (audio)
I’m a bit slumpy at the moment- I’m reading too many long books along with quite a few depressing ones all at once and this was a great break from all that. Scottish police procedural with a likable female protagonist. Reminds me a little of Elly Griffiths series but more realistic. In this one a baby goes missing. Fast-paced investigation and shenanigans ensue. Planning to audio straight into the next one.

Work is relentless and I have a backlog of reviews to catch up on again. I'm reading probably more than I should be, given how behind I am with work stuff, but never mind, it's all about staying sane.

27. Bookish, Lucy Mangan 4/5
    An excellent read. If I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as Bookworm, I think it’s because Bookworm discussed more books that I had already read myself. But this book also gave me a lot of pleasure. Highlights for me included the bits about studying at Cambridge, about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (I think maybe Mangan is a medievalist manqué!), and about the enigmatic genius of Goodnight Moon. I also identified with her failure to get on with audiobooks.

28. Un chapeau leopard [A Leopard-Skin Hat], Anne Serre 4/5
    Shortlisted for the International Booker. I think @inaptonym mentioned at one point that books nominated for the International Booker are often published years earlier, and that’s true of this book, which first appeared in 2008! Anyway, this is a slim volume but gripping. The protagonist Fanny suffers from an unidentified mental illness (the word schizophrenic does appear at one point). A character called the Narrator (distinct from the author), who is Fanny’s male friend, observes her with subtlety and sympathy. Serre wrote this account after the suicide of her sister. The narrative feels very post-modern; it’s meditative and non-linear and evokes the idea that all of us, like Fanny, have other selves inside us. Probably not everyone’s cup of tea but I found it very thought-provoking.

29. There’s No Turning Back, Alba de Céspedes, trans. Ann Goldstein 5/5
    I thought Forbidden Notebook by de Céspedes was brilliant, and even though this novel is very different, it’s also wonderful. It’s the story of eight young women who are studying at university in Rome, and boarding together in a convent. They come from different walks of life and in contrasting ways, they seek to forge their futures (in the case of most of them, against considerable odds). All of the women characters feel convincing and de Céspedes portrays them with great insight and a refreshing lack of moral judgement. I would gladly reread this book at some point.

30. The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism, George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison 5/5
    Very short and readable, this book is mostly an account of how corporations and oligarchs have pressed governments into acting in their own interests, with devastating results for ordinary people. Monbiot and Hutchison issue a compelling call for grassroots action.

About logging stuff, my (unintentional) habit is to log each book along with a review about a month after I've read it, at which point I've generally completely forgotten what the book was about 😂(Follow me for other useful life tips!)

I'm inconsistent on whether or not I log rereads. If I decide to reread a book of my own volition, I usually log it, but if my book group reads a book I've already read, and I reread it for the book group (a must given how patchy my memory is), I generally don't bother to log it.

Frankly, I'm impressed you can log them after a month, @cassandre - if I don't do it immediately, there's no way I remember. I don't log DNFs or rereads. Occasionally I'm haunted by the possibility that something might be a reread that I've completely forgotten, which I'd probably end up logging.

I'm currently on my first ever Georgette Heyer, The Grand Sophy. It's warm and funny, with a hero who clearly needs to be saved from a designing woman. Good frothy fun.

37 Horse - Geraldine Brooks
I honestly wanted to like this more but ultimately it was a bit of a let down. I would have liked to have gone much more into Jarret's life and experiences, especially after becoming a free man and the bits with Theo and Jess felt too brief and then suddenly it's all over. In fact it may have been better without them at all as the imagined story of Jarret and Lexington was fascinating enough for a novel in itself.

.27. The Enchanted Castle - Enid Nesbit

This goes back to my childhood when I had a memory, or dream, of watching the television where a group of children get inside a large dinosaur model similar to the ones in Crystal Palace park (which I’ve never seen). After some Googling I found it was a scene from a children’s drama series based on the above book; reassuring to find it wasn’t a fever dream after all.

Written in 1907, the book tells the story of three siblings who, left with a stereotypical French governess for the holidays, find said enchanted castle and have adventures. An Edwardian fantasy, it was ok but nothing special, mainly a series of the usual happenings when children mess around with magic (they turn invisible, turn to statues etc) with the only truly disturbing consequence being the creation of the ugly-wuglies, creatures made of clothes and household items come to life. Those were creepy, even for me. Throw in a simple plot line, an improbable love interest, and they all lived happily ever after. I can see why it’s not better known.

Despite this being a modern reprint the editor still kept in two instances of a word that is now a racial slur and unacceptable in children’s literature today, and the book shows attitudes towards class and race that is of its time. I think for that reason I’ll be recycling the book rather than donating.

.28. Saltblood - Francesca De Tores

Lately reviewed by Almandby, this tells the story of Mary Read from cradle to grave, who from an early age was dressed as a boy by her mother to receive a family inheritance. As a boy she joined the navy and army before a stint as a wife and innkeeper, then back to sea as a female pirate.

It was good in parts, but ultimately promised more than it delivered. The seafaring aspect was atmospheric and fun, and the historical details were interesting, particularly the piratical dealings. Some minor characters had a rounded story arc, usually ending in a sticky death, others, particularly Belling, seemed to just fade from the story, which felt frustrating. Despite the eighteenth century language I found too much of a modern sensibility in places (and some grim sex). Also as mentioned upthread, Mary Read’s new stepfather is called Hepworth then literally in the next sentence his name is changed to Hepburn. Editor, proofreader and sensitivity reader, and no one spotted that howler.

I’m sure I read a better book many years ago on the same subject from Anne Bonny’s point of view, I just wish I could remember the details. This was a fun historical adventure but nothing special.

I was haunted by the ugly-wuglies as a child and also remember the TV series. I re-read it when I first got a kindle and devoured a load of free classics.