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.

Read The Thirty Nine Steps, it's a fab page turner. I loved it despite it not at all being my kind of book.

Warning: there is one completely unnecessary and random piece of anti-semitism early on in the book which is shocking for its throw-away nature (it's not relevant to the plot at all) as well as what is said. Very much of its time 😕.

Yeah, I really enjoyed that as well. Although it gets less interesting once Nancy dies, the letters between her and Decca are the liveliest and most interesting.

Oh do get going on it @BestIsWest

yes it is a bit dull when there’s only Debo and Diana left, @JaninaDuszejko but how lucky for Nancy and for Diana’s feelings that she never knew what Nancy did! What a bitch she was!

66 . The Story Of A Heart by Rachel Clarke

So, I both strongly recommend this book about organ donation and I hesitate to recommend it at all!

I wept throughout and was sobbing before page 10 so I have spent the whole evening in tears

A strong contender for the WPFNF, not that I’ve read any others competing

I seem to remember enjoying The 39 Steps a lot.

The Gazebo
A Miss Silver book by Patricia Wentworth. I really enjoyed it- she knits a lot, but only coughs a few times.

I definitely have some books from more than a decade ago languishing on my kindle and bookshelves. I did a bit of a cull of my kindle books recently, getting rid of quite a few of the 99p psychological thrillers, but I still have over 1,000 TBR. I’ve made my peace with the fact that I’ll never get through all of the books I own, especially at the rate I buy them. Case in point, I’m currently reading Book 5 in the Maeve Kerrigan series, @EineReiseDurchDieZeitcalled it, I’m obsessed 😊

I think I’m unusual on the thread in that I tend to buy books and read them, and rarely have more than 4 or 5 on my tbr pile. The only exceptions to this are a couple of heavy ish non-fiction titles: I’ll get around to them but probably not until the summer holidays or a long train ride or two.

@MamaNewtNewt They are crack in book form, feeling jealous as Chessie said!

But, but, but, what will you do for entertainment in the event of a zombie apocalyse? TBH I rarely go in holiday with less than 4 or 5 books even though I never read that many. In fact the last time I did go with less I ended up having to read a book I hated because I exhausted my kids books while we were away and didn't have access to a bookshop that sold titles in English.

That’s why Kindles are so good - books whenever we need them! Or will zombies eat the WiFi?

Have just decided to DNF kevin Pietersen's autobiography. He clearly has some appealing characteristics and is a wonderful batsman but My God he sounds like hard work.

He's a very arrogant man.

He changed the face of the game for a period but, boy, does he know it.

There's a reason why lots of other cricketers and some crowds never really warmed to him.

I’m on a roll this weekend, hoping to fit more in today and tomorrow:

67 . Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

A gifted pianist is recruited seemingly by chance to work for Holistik, a high end beauty empire where things are not quite what they seem

This teeters on a bold for me but whilst the slow sinister build worked well the ending was a bit unsatisfactory. Shares a lot of DNA with the film The Substance for those who’ve seen that.

Read it this morning in one gulp so it’s definitely a page turner. It’s currently 99p and I consider it well spent.

I like @bibliomania 's idea of reading the oldest unread book you own, but like @Terpsichore I've realised that I have no bloody idea which book that would be. I bought a lot of books in my teens when I was an aspiring classicist, so some of my oldest unread books are in ancient Greek 😂. Young me blithely assumed that I would read Greek and Latin fluently one day. In the case of 50-something me, my Greek is so rusty that even if I could make it through one of the Greek books, it would probably take me a year or two at least, with an English translation and a dictionary. Never mind.

One day I'm going to have to have a really serious book cull!

It's all Greek to me! @cassandre 😄😄

😂Fuzzy! One of my classics tutors when I was an undergrad said once that he learned Greek three times before it really stuck. He had started learning it at boarding school at the age of 7 😯So that makes me feel a bit better about how much I've forgotten!

Very belated thanks to @Southeastdweller for setting up the thread. Here's my list so far, and a few new reviews:

1. Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
2. Period Piece, Gwen Raverat
3. The Cracked Mirror, Christ Brookmyre
4. Abelard: A Medieval Life, Michael T. Clanchy
5. Shy Creatures, Clare Chambers
6. The Crossing Places, Elly Griffiths
7. Vernon Subutex 1, Virginie Despentes
8. Cold Earth, Sarah Moss
9. These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson, Martha Ackmann

10. Butter, Asako Yuzuki, trans. Polly Barton

11. The Trees, Percival Everett

12. Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit [I Remain in Darkness], Annie Ernaux

13. Annie Bot, Sierra Greer

14. All Fours, Miranda July

15. Dream Count, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

16. The Forbidden Notebook, Alba de Céspedes, trans. Ann Goldstein

17. Nesting, Roisin O’Donnell

18. Fundamentally, Nussaibah Younis

19. The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley

20. The Artist, Lucy Steeds

21. Dream Hotel, Laila Lalami

22. The Persians, Sanam Mahloudji

23. Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens

24. A Wreath of Roses, Elizabeth Taylor 4/5
    A very good novel by Taylor. The reviews I’ve seen call it dark, but I find all of Taylor’s novels rather dark, actually, and that’s part of why I like them. This one does touch on the theme of suicide. However, the heart of it is about three women and the longtime friendship between them. The characterisation is great, as always with Taylor, and there’s an underlying theme of what might make a woman happy in life: marriage, motherhood, art? Nothing quite works out the way it’s meant to.

25. Un monstre est là, derrière la porte [There’s a Monster Behind the Door], Gaëlle Bélem 4/5
    International Booker Prize longlist. The rich, vibrant narrative of a young girl growing up on La Réunion in the 1980s. She tells her own story, but it’s also the story of the troubled clan she has been born into, the Dessaintes, whose members are prone to criminality and violence: much of this is owing to the unhappy legacy of colonialism. Parts of the book are very funny and parts very bleak (the abuse suffered by the protagonist at the hands of her parents is awful). I liked the conclusion a lot. The language is also very colourful and idiomatic, packed with Creole terms, and although I only read it in French, I would like to read the English translation, as it would certainly have been a challenging book to translate. One strange resonance of the book for me is that La Réunion was previously named the Île Bourbon by the French, and one 19th c. novel I know well (Indiana by George Sand) represents the Île Bourbon as a kind of idyllic, natural paradise for white French people to flee to. Bélem’s depiction of La Réunion offers a dramatically different perspective!

26. Good Girl, Aria Aber 5/5
    Women’s Prize shortlist. The book is narrated by a young woman, the daughter of Afghan immigrants, who lives in Berlin. She tries to negotiate relationships with her wealthier former boarding school friends (who are unaware that she’s Afghan), her traditional family, and an arty older boyfriend who patronises her a lot but also introduces her to a new world she’s keen to discover. The novel reminded me a bit of Elif Batuman’s The Idiot, which I also thought was great. Some of the sex scenes are painful to read, but overall I found the book very impressive. It’s beautifully written; Aber is also a published poet, and it shows. There are parallels with Sally Rooney, but with added political resonance.

😂OBVIOUSLY! Zombies can't operate power plants so there'll be no wifi. IT's a good excuse to buy books about edible plants and survival techniques as well.

@cassandre I've not ever read Elizabeth Taylor (been meaning to for a while) but that review has pushed her up my to buy list.

I love Elizabeth Taylor but I haven’t yet read A Wreath of Roses @cassandre - it’s somewhere on the shelves. I now desperately want to read it and I’m away from home! She’s such a stunningly good writer.

I will go to Waterstones immediately. Silly me.

Gosh, these threads never cease to amaze me, I post a review of what I think is a really obscure novel by Elizabeth Taylor and not one but TWO people know about Taylor and say they want to read it!

Anyway @JaninaDuszejko and @Terpsichore I hope you enjoy it when you do get round to reading it; it takes a spooky turn toward the end. Taylor really is great and I have a couple more of her novels checked out of the library at the moment as well.

Now this makes me feel better about my absolutely enormous TBR on my kindle. I will be fine with the zombie apocalypse comes, because I also have a solar charger. Of course the minute I run out of contacts or lose my glasses I'll be toast, but in the meantime I will have lots to read.

All this talk about the apocalypse and reading afterwards reminds me of that Twilight Zone episode with Burgess Meredith - Time Enough At Last. It’s my worst nightmare!

Ooh, which Taylors have you got on the go, @cassandre? The last one I read was A Game of Hide and Seek, earlier this year. I went through a big Taylor phase many years ago when a work friend and I got hooked on them and read loads of the Virago reprints.

Following on from recent discussions about Cider with Rosie, this might be of interest to 50 Bookers in London:

https://wiltons.org.uk/whats-on/red-sky-at-sunrise-laurie-lee-in-words-and-music-2/

Just to add if you don't know it, Wilton's is a wonderful venue and well worth a visit. They're also putting on similar event exploring Thomas Hardy.

My list so far...
(1) The Nurse by Valerie Keogh
(2) The Wrong Child by Julia Crouch and M. J. Arlidge
(3) The Perfect Parents By J.A. Baker
(4) Darkest Fear, written by Harlen Coben
(5) Old Filth by Jane Gardam
(6) The Man in the Wooden Hat by Jane Gardam
(7) Last Friends by Jane Gardam
(8) American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins -
(9) The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden
(10) The Coworker by Frieda McFadden
(11) Maid by Stephanie Land (Audio Book)
(12) The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
(13) The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
(14) Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education
Book by Stephanie Land
(15) Verity by Colleen Hoover
(16) Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
(17) Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

Latest Book....

(18) Home Front by Kristin Hannah

Summary, taken from Amazon: A heart-wrenching portrayal of a mother and wife returning from war to face family life that's forever changed. Kristin Hannah's Home Front is a provocative and timely portrait of hope, honour, loss, forgiveness – and the elusive nature of love.

From a distance, Michael and Jolene Zarkades seem to have it all: a solid dependable marriage, exciting careers and children they adore. But after twelve blissful years together, the couple has lost their way. They are unhappy and edging towards divorce. Then an unexpected deployment tears their already fragile family apart, sending one of them deep into harm's way and leaving the other at home, caring for the children and waiting for news. When the worst happens, each must face their darkest fear and fight for the future of their family.

Another brilliant book by Kristin Hannah - beautifully written and I also learnt so much about the war in Iraq and soldiers experiences of PTSD - could not put it down!
Making my way through the two bundles of Kristin Hannah books that I bought - loving them all!

The best New Years Resolution to date :)

Happy reading everyone :)