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.

24 In Siberia - Colin Thubron

Took a punt on this as an Audible recommendation, and was rewarded with a fascinating account of the travel writer’s journey across Siberia in 1999, during the brief period between the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Putin when such a thing was possible for a Westerner. He’s an excellent writer with a great turn of phrase that captures the many people he meets along the way. And it’s unflinching on the horrors of the gulags.

I am up for that @bibliomania although looking back a lot of my oldest unread books are either classics which I decided were too worthy boring to read or Sci Fi books which I sort of went off reading. I think the oldest two that I have are Pure Gold Baby by Margaret Drabble and The beautiful and The damned which I'm positive I have read before.

Weirdly, I've just finished a Penelope Lively book too - Family Album - which is about a facility with a traditional stay at home mother who has 6 children, a father who stays in his study mainly and a Swedish au pair who has lived with them. The story guess back and forth through the children's lives, gradually exposing more background. I wouldn't say this was one of her stronger ones - I too loved Moon Tiger - but she does do characters very well.

Oldest unread Kindle book is Labyrinth by Kate Mosse, purchased in 2013. I'm in no hurry to get round to it if reviews here are anything to go by!

I'm debating trying a Murukami book at some point, which would he good to start with?

Some of my kindle books are from 2011 and 2012 that I’ve been knocking off the TBR pile. Probably own older paper books though

Personally @InTheCludgie Norwegian Wood made a great impression on me but I was young, a teenager still I think and I don’t know that I’d feel the same now

The oldest books on my TBR shelf are from the 90s. That's quite scary.

A Little Luck by Claudia Piñeiro. Translated by Frances Riddle

Mary Lohan returns to her old neighbourhood 20 years after a dreadful incident happened that drove her away. But will she be able to face up to her past? As usual with Piñeiro this manages to be both a page turner and a thoughtful examination of the expectations on women.

73 The Book of Beginnings - Sally Page

Her book The Keeper of Secrets was well read on here and a bold for me. This was of a similar ilk - woman has a life change, makes new friends, finds a new path. In this case it is Jo, aged 39, who moves to London after a break up to run her uncle’s stationery shop when he has a stroke. An enjoyable read.

I have no idea which would be the oldest book on my physical TBR - I can’t remember when I got most of them, just know they’ve been around for a while!

On my kindle I have a few unread books going back to 2012 - including the Oz books which I have actually been reading lately! I also read The Heart’s Invisible Furies recently which I bought back in 2014.

On my kindle I have just had a cull of unread titles , kept a few as I'd still like to read them , will have to have a count up .

Wow 305 titles ! I'm putting myself on a kindle ban . Crazy .

My kindle unreads are also in the hundreds, I hear you!

When I did this exercise recently, I also found a fair few unreads that were finished, but not marked read, because I hadn’t read the preview for the next book or the acknowledgments page or something.

21. The cottage by the shore by Rachael Lucas A middle aged vet relocates to Applemore a coastal Scottish village when her daughter leaves home and gradually becomes friends with the artist next door.

I love this series. It's comforting but not cheesy.

My oldest unread kindle book is A visit from the goon squad from November 2011. I'm trying a technique from Kate on The bookclub review podcast of reading the first chapter of every new book purchased so I can categorise them in my mind for future reading.

That definitely wouldn’t work for me, if I liked it, I would want to keep going after chapter 1!

I'm a lightweight when it comes to Unread on Kindle - a mere 86 out of a total 428 titles. In my defence I share a Kindle account with DD so she might have read some of them and not marked them as read.
I have a few unlistened to on Audible too. I bought Middlemarch in an Audible sale a few months ago and it has been glaring at me since then. I am a bit daunted by it.

My oldest books that I haven't read are a few paperbacks that I bought in France on holidays during the early 2000s. I have been thinking of tackling one of these this year!

I’m reading my oldest unread TBR at the moment - or at least part of it. My aunt gave me a book of the complete works of Jane Austen, I think before A Levels, so last century 😊. It’s survived 3 house moves unread but the time has come to read and say goodbye. The print is tiny and the book is huge! So I’m only reading one novel. I read P&P at GCSE so am battling through it again, tried Sense and Sensibility as I loved the film but couldn’t get into it.

In case anyone is waiting for the third book in the trilogy, Pat Barker’s The Voyage Home is 99p today. I’m wondering whether I need to go back and read the previous two books again.

I wouldn’t know where to start with my oldest unread book - I’ve got things probably going back to my teens, as where I grew up used to have village booksales on trestle tables in fine weather every Saturday and I got a bit crazed trigger-happy when it came to buying vast amounts of interesting-looking books for 10p each 🤪

Thank you, I am!

Off ro have a look at the physical shelves, I think oldest is probably some Catherine Cookson.

The Thirty Nine Steps is my oldest unread Kindle book, 2012. Presumably, when I was downloading all the free classics.

Great idea for a challenge but I have no idea which of my unread books are the oldest. In the last couple of years I’ve started a spreadsheet to list them, and I’ve started putting the year against the ones bought in 2024/5. It randomly selects one from the list which was supposed to make me choose that as next read, or donate it to a charity shop - but I ignore it! It tells me I have about 90 (£400 cost) of unread books. I still acquire much more quickly than I read purchased books, as they always get bumped by library loans.

‘… which I ignore.’

I think we can all identify with this @CornishLizard

I had a look at my shelves and the 'oldest' book that I definitely bought new is from 2005. I also have a lot of second hand books bought when I was at uni going back to the early 90s and the more worrying thing with those is that I can't really remember which I have read and which I haven't. Have recently been enjoying books written nearly 200 years ago though so definitely don't agree that a book can be too long on the TBR pile

65 . Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito

A governess takes up a new position but is not all she seems.

I found this silly in all honesty, it was mercifully short.

The oldest on my Kindle is
The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters from December 2012 which I know is beloved by @EineReiseDurchDieZeit. I did start it again recently but got side tracked so will give it another go.