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.

Another review - I need to to get back to better habits of writing more reviews soon after reading the book - I read this one a few months ago. I've been hanging on to library books, when possible, meaning to write about them, and then reservations come through and I have to make space to collect them, or get DP to collect them to so. He isn't a library worker, but very usefully for me, his office is in a library building, so I make him return and collect my books quite a lot.

2025 #20
Lyndall Gordon, Divided Lives: Dreams of a Mother and Daughter
Read 25.01.25 to 25.02.25, reviewed 06.06.25
Rating: 4.3

Lyndall Gordon is the author of literary biographies of English and American writers, including T S Eliot, Emily Dickinson, Charlotte Brontë and Mary Wollstonecraft. Divided Lives: Dreams of a Mother and Daughter is a thoughtful and reflective memoir of her mother, Rhoda, and their changing relationship.

Lyndall Hopkinson's mother Rhoda, born in South Africa in 1917 into a Lithuanian Jewish family, was a passionate reader and writer who dreamed of travelling and studying abroad, and passed on many of her interests and ambitions to her daughter. Lyndall Hopkinson is named after the heroine of a South African feminist novel, Olive Schreiner's The Story of An African Farm.

However, Rhoda's life is constrained by a mysterious health condition that she has learned that she must keep a secret, and by a conservative, traditional values and expectations of women to settle for marriage and motherhood. She married and had children in her 20s. Rhoda did travel to Europe, including Finland and England in the 1950s, leaving behind her husband and children in South Africa, but she is not able to enrol on a university course in London as she had hopes and she faces increasing pressure to return home to her husband and family commitments.

This is a fascinating exploration of the lives and the relationship between a mother and daughter, with many complexities and contradictions, as Lyndall grows up and tries out some of her mother's plans and dreams for her before finding her own way forward.

Much of this story is set in the apartheid era when a series of laws mandated racial segregation and discrimination to maintain existing social and economic inequalities (from the 1950s onwards). Rhoda was not a supporter of apartheid, and this was a major reason why South Africans like Lyndall Hopkinson and her husband wanted to emigrate and settle somewhere else. But there is not much about the politics of apartheid or resistance to it - the struggles portrayed are personal ones within white society.

The book is illustrated with many black and white photographs, dispersed throughout the text on ordinary paper, from 19th century family portraits of Rhoda's own mother to Rhoda in old age in the 1990s. While the reproduction may not be high quality, I am impressed by the number of photographs and the length of time they document.

This is a moving, thought provoking memoir, and writing a review made me want to reread the book already.

94 The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ - Philip Pullman

One of the oldest books on my kindle - read for biblio’s challenge. The premise is: what if Mary had twins, Jesus and Christ? Jesus is the preacher and Christ the chronicler, encouraged by a mysterious stranger, who may be an Angel and who may be Satan. This follows them both through the key events of the New Testament, and the betrayal in Gethesmane. It was ok, not a patch on Lyra and Will though.

@welshwabbit
Thanks for the review of the book about phones. I have a review copy of a different book, Smartphone Nation, tbr, but I also have mixed feelings about phones. I'd like dp and my sons to use their phones a bit differently. Interestingly, it was actually my dad (then in his late 70s) who said he would get them their phones when they started secondary school or when they turned 12, I can't remember which. But I don't know how DS1 would have survived lockdown without being able to online game over our wifi and talk to his friends - he was in year 8 and nearly 13, and had had his phone for a year or so, I think.

Although school has an official ban on phones, in practice the policy is - we know you have them, and so long as we don't see them unless we give you permission to use them.... on a Monday at the start of year 9 school rang me to say DS1 and his friends had run into some trouble - not caused by them - and that I should phone DS1 and get him to come home and talk to me about it. I followed that advice and DS! and I was very impressed with this quite sensitive, shrewd and practical handling of the situation. Whereas political debates on kids and phones on the radio just make me anxious.

I couldn't get on with this at all.

That sounds very sensible of the school. My son's secondary says they can't be seen or heard, but he still has it and can let us know when he's arrived etc.

The Death of Shame by Ambrose Parry
This was a real disappointment overall. There was so much backstory and so much repetition that the relatively decent plot within it was all swaddled in flabby tedium. I was bored for lots of it, although I still really like Will and Sarah.

I’m less conflicted over these than I am over the Robin and Strike books, but they are similar in that the quality of the writing isn’t as strong as the quality of the characters. I’m aware that sounds silly, but I can’t think of a better way of putting it.

30 The Death Of Shame by Ambrose Parry
Pipped to the post by @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie
Can’t really add much to that review as I agree, particularly about Will and Sarah . Far too much explanation and recap overall, but still the plot zipped along at a good pace. The Baddies are beginning to blend into one Scottish Bill Sikes.
Amusing to read this while (nor simultaneously) watching Dept Q on Netflix - Edinburgh immersive The Sanderson/Stead, Dorothy/Josephine Butler arc was well executed, but the real life efforts of those people will always be more interesting than a fictional one.
Would I read any more in the series? Definitely. Would I pay full price for it? No.

Trying to catch up (as always!), this week has been manic with GCSE and work stress. The disruption means my reading time has gone ☹️

Congratulations Agualusa, what a fantastic gift!

.29. Guardian Angels Round my Bed - Sally Jane Danter

Another of DM’s collection, this memoir relates the life so far of the author who was born with a health condition necessitating some 24 operations and was confined to a wheelchair. Despite this and other personal tragedies she managed to forge a career as a medium and advocate for the disabled community.

.30. A Comedy of Terrors - Lindsey Davis

Next in the series of Flavia Albia novels set in Ancient Rome. This time we’re based around Saturnalia and a problem of gang warfare connected to loan sharks and a brewing Nut War, a staple food for the people of Rome. Some old friends from way back (Falco era) and new faces disrupt what should be a time of celebration and misrule.

A warm hug of a book, with familiar characters and setting. It took a while for the action proper to get going but I didn’t mind as I was absorbed in the life, sounds and, famously, smells of Ancient Rome. Great to see old characters returning, and the stresses of holiday celebration planning were familiar to modern readers. I think I’m only four books behind in this series now…

Agree entirely re the cartoon-esque villains.

What a lovely gift @AgualusasLover. Hope you'll share your eventual choices.

20. Dreams of the Good Life: The Life of Flora Thompson and the creation of Lark Rise to Candleford
This is really good - a bold for me. I think I didn't do Lark Rise at school, though perhaps I did as I remember reading some of it. However, our drama dept at school did put on the National Theatre in the round production. This was a true epic on their part, particularly as they chose to put it on for two nights with two completely separate casts. I think they were a little mad, in a good way, and it was unfortunate that my mother remembered it as the most boring evening of her life. But it meant that a lot of us caught a whiff of the Lark Rise magic, something of the strangeness and episodic vigour of it. I can still sing 'Rise up my fair one' at the drop of a hat and may indeed do so if you are unlucky. Richard Mabey writes very well of Thompson's life and her importance as a working-class woman who grew up a genuine rural voice as well as an accomplisged writer, rather than say an urban voice who came to the country as an adult. He discusses the nature of the 'folk movement' of the early 20th century, and notes the difference between what people who grew up in rural areas say and those who see the country as a kind of spiritual repository rather than a place where real people lived and died. He points out the coincidence, or not, of the publication of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books around the same time. I'm struck by the Thompson description of the communal shared services of the village (like the box of baby requirements shared round the women with each confinement) compared with the neurotic insistence of Wilder that this kind of social service was never a feature of the pioneer society.

Lulu Deans Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller

Someone on here recommended this and it recently dropped to 99p so I gave it a go.

It's set in a town in southern USA with a big fight of conservative Vs liberal going on. It's all rather obvious. The conservatives are all nasty and the liberal are all sweet and clever. I suspect real life isn't quite like that, and more nuance exists. Anyway I was pretty engrossed and it was a page turner as I wanted to see what happened. I also found myself thinking about while I wasnt reading it. A slightly above average 3.75 stars. Thanks for the recommendation whoever you were!

Jumping on the bandwagon with 23.Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon. Set in Syracuse in 412 BC, following a failed Athenian invasion. The surviving Athenias have been rounded up and abandoned in a disused quarry. Unemployed potters Lampo and Gelon take advantage of the Athenians' knowledge of the plays of their hero Euripides, and press gang them into putting on a double bill of Medea and The Trojan Women.

This was great. Our narrator Lampo speaks in a modern Irish vernacular which makes the story feel fresh and real. Although the tone is largely playful the subject matter is frequently dark and moving, and Lampo's laddish bluster seems to be an attempt at self preservation in the face of the brutality of war. I listened to this on BorrowBox and the author's narration was wonderful.

Another one based on ancient history : Babylonia by Costanza Casati. I enjoyed Clytemnestra, her first book but I found this one plodding and repetitive, probably because it is based on rather thin sources about Semiramis, Queen of Babylonia.

She can write nicely but it just goes on rather a lot.

95 The Four Winds - Kristin Hannah (P)

Why yes, I AM burying myself in reading whilst DS1 goes through mega A level stress, thanks for asking!

Similar to The Great Alone, which was my first bold of the year, the mother-daughter bond is crucial to this one. It follows the fortunes of the Martinelli family in Texas - Raffaello (Rafe) gets Elsa pregnant when he is 18 and she is 25. It’s 1921 so they are made to marry. Elsa’s family disowns her for disgracing herself with a migrant, so she moves into the farmstead, giving birth to Loreda and later to Antonio (Ant). We skip forward to the 1930s and the year upon year of drought and dust storms. Elsa has made a home with her in-laws, but Rafe has itchy feet and wants to leave for California to find work.

A great book about a woman who grows into her own resilience after years of feeling timid, rejected and unloved.

Good luck to all the DC doing GCSEs and A levels🤞 I have a year off this year, after the double whammy last year and again next year!

Thank you for your lovely review @PermanentTemporary. I have fond (if slightly vague) memories of Lark Rise to Candleford, so I will put that on my list.

Good luck to all the DC going through exams and to all the parents too. Mine are long past exams though my DS is stressing me out for other reasons at the moment. He’s a lovely lad but aargh.
Between him and and DM I’m having a few sleepless nights so carrying on with comfort reading Mrs Malory.

Hazel Holt - Mrs Malory and the Delay of Execution.
Mrs Malory agrees to help out a friend and spend a term teaching at a girls school in Birmingham after an enigmatic teacher suddenly dies leaving the A level English ‘crème de la crème’ without their guiding star. All very Miss Jean Brodie as she acknowledges herself. Mrs Malory is a reknowned literary critic and biographer on the quiet alongside the baking, gossiping and good works so is well qualified to teach the girls of course. Some nice bits about Brum and several visits to the Art gallery tea rooms.

We did Lark Rise at school, my English teacher was obsessed with it. I had just turned vegetarian and couldn’t get past the enthusiasm about the pig’s killing! But maybe worth a revisit (I’m still vegetarian 35 years later but a little less bothered by descriptions of slaughter…)

32 Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier - Mark Frost

The last piece in the TP puzzle as I’ve just completed a rewatch/ reread of the whole series, in the wake of David Lynch’s passing. A satisfying conclusion which ties up some loose ends from the final series.

Too late to edit my spelling mistakes.

Finally, I have (I think) made progress out of this slump.

Fair Rosaline, Natasha Solomons

As the title might suggest to those familiar with Romeo and Juliet, this is the story retold, by Rosaline, Romeo’s true love from the opening of the play before he forgets about her once he meets Juliet.

I started this when I had no time and couldn’t really be bothered, so it picked up so much this weekend when I just read it entirely. That is a me problem.

It was an interesting concept, it was pretty well executed and clearly a lot of effort had been put into ensuring that the language, whilst not Shakespearean, spoke to the period and place, indeed Verona is a character in some ways.

The author notes that as a teen reading R&J was presented and received by her and many teenagers as the ultimate romance. I guess this is her truth, but I find it a bit weird. I am the ultimate romantic, I grew up with Middle East and Bollywood romance and I still maintain an idealised version of romance in my imagination, but I’ve always accepted these are stories and whilst I may have spent many hours creating romantic scenarios in my head I just don’t think I ever believed they were real or needed to be an adult to realise that.

I also think Romeo and Juliet is about hate rather than love.

83 The Weimar Years- Frank McDonough
I’ve always found the Weimar Years more interesting that the Nazi years and this was a well-written and interesting history. Audio read well by Paul McGann, though I would have preferred if it had been McDonough himself as I could listen to a Scouse accent all day.

Odessa Stories, Isaac Babel trans by Boris Dralyuk

Babel is considered one of the finest Russian writers of the revolutionary period, he fell victim to Stalin’s purges so we only have a small body of work.

Odessa Stories is a large number of loosely connected stories about Odessa, specifically the Odessan Jewish community, Babel’s own community. The translation was interesting as Dralyuk in the intro talks at length about how to capture the Odessan way of of speaking for an English audience and seems to have gone down a sort of Italian/American gangster route - which makes some sense for the chapters all about Benya Kirk and his gangster capers, which were witty but very real. The latter stories are more autobiographical, but the whole thing sits uneasily together and really the collection exists to highlight the real star - Odessa.

I enjoyed this and would recommend to those who really enjoy a sense of place in their reading. The characters are all a bit eccentric but Odessa keeps shining.

Annoyingly, my number list got messed up because I didn’t notice it had decided to skip the first entry all by itself - so I was counting one too many. Back one place, therefore, for my next read:

46. Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon - Michael Lewis

Adding my review to a couple of others on here. Lewis got interested in the prodigious young crypto wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried - the world's richest person under thirty, amassing billions with seemingly effortless ease - and by coincidence his research for the book happened to give him a ringside seat just as SBF crashed and burned, ending up in a US jail with a sentence of 25 years for fraud. Much of this is truly jaw-dropping, the numbers crazily incomprehensible (millions, if not billions pouring in to SBF's companies, FTX and Alameda Research, and just as lavishly spent), but just as incredible is the modern-day Camelot of Bankman-Fried's courtiers and hangers-on, a rag-tag group of young maths nerds and former traders, espousers of 'effective altruism' largely unable to function as adults or cope with real-life relationships. None more so than SBF himself, whose logical but emotionless thought-processes I found alien and genuinely quite scary at times.

47. Westwood - Stella Gibbons

Rather Dated Book Club latest. This has divided opinions a bit. It’s a big, sprawling saga set in wartime Hampstead & Highgate, its heroine the ardently-yearning young teacher Margaret Steggles, who falls under the spell of the extended family of upper-crust, moneyed playwright Gerard Challis (the title is the name of his beautiful, historic house). Margaret reveres Challis, but he’s actually a pompous windbag with feet of clay - a lesson she must learn, painfully, by the novel's end. There are lots of sub-plots, plenty of humour, and no shortage of elements fully living up to the 'rather dated' requirement - but also a realistic portrayal of other things, such as the unhappy marriage of Margaret's parents. I like Gibbons's writing so this was a win for me.

Just realised that I typed a forbidden word! 😆 My first hidden post on the 50 Books thread 🥳

You rebel 😄

Ooh @Terpsichore I’m interested in both of those - I love what I’ve read by Stella Gibbons, and currently really enjoying Lewis’ The Big Short.

Now wondering what your banned word was!!