50 Books Challenge 2025 Part Six

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the sixth thread of the 50 Books 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, the fourth thread here and the fifth thread here

I've not read the sewing machine but picked up 25 Library Terrace based on how good everyone said it was.

57. Domestic Pleasures - Beth Gutcheon

Plucked off the shelf where it’s been languishing for a long time, so an inadvertent RWYO. Gutcheon is an American novelist whose book Still Missing (republished by Persephone here) actually prompted the US campaign to put photos of missing children on milk cartons, I discovered. But this is a completely different kind of book - a big, warm, generous romance, not my usual sort of thing…I was charmed by it nonetheless.

Lawyer Charlie Leveque has to tell Martha Gaver that her ex-husband, Raymond, has died in a plane-crash. Trouble is, Charlie handled their divorce and Martha hates his guts. Now she has to ask him every time she needs money for her son, 16-year-old Jack, Raymond's sole heir. Little by little, Charlie and Martha fall in love. But there are complications - his ex-girlfriend Sophie and ex-wife Patsy; his daughter Phoebe, who's out of control, and Martha's ex, Gillis, father of her two-year-old. Will Charlie and Martha have their happy ending or is there just too much baggage?

This is a very New York 90s novel and there’s more than a hint of a When Harry Met Sally/Nora Ephron vibe about the writing at times. It was perhaps just a tad too long but on the whole a lovely old-fashioned wallow. And it could definitely be a film!

It’s very hard to keep reading what you own with all these good reviews! I’ve added lots to my wishlist from the above for when I’m allowed to shop again!
In the meantime, I’ve finished RWYO 5 and book 104 How to Gut a Fish by Sheila Armstrong I read Armstrong’s first book Falling Animals about 18 months ago and loved it- it was one of my top 10 of 2023. I had immediately bought this previously published book of short stories afterwards but never got around to reading it and it’s a bit of a disappointment. There are two really excellent stories in this (Red Market and Lemon) and then a lot of meh. The ideas are good- some quite horrific, but in most cases they don’t really take off.

The Marmalade Diaries by Ben Aitken

I'm either reading this because someone here recommended it or because I read his interview in Positive News magazine which I subscribe to and he mentions doing ok the diaries!!

Based on real life, a younger Ben (I assume in his 30s?) goes to live with Winnie who is in her 80s to keep her company and help out a little. Ben moves in in October 2021, which means that not a lot happens as they are faced with a series of lockdowns. Winnie uses Ben as an unpaid slave, and apparently doesn't say thank you for the first three quarters of the book. He seems to be endlessly patient.

There is a lot to like here. Either Ben writes quite amusingly or Winnie provides good anecdotes to write well about I'm not sure. It touches on grief and the Corona virus is in the background not the main event.

I enjoyed spending time with these characters and rushed through the book.

I've often wondered myself about getting a student to live with me when I am old to ferry me to doctor appointments and cook occasionally and this hasn't put me off at all.

I think I was a bit underwhelmed by Evenings and Weekends too though I usually love a polyphonic London heatwave novel!

I'm very behind on reviews:

The Coast Road by Alan Murrin. About a woman separated from her husband, in the run up to the divorce referendum in Ireland, and how she is treated by her small village community. I thought this was very sad and felt quite hopeless about the choices available to women who were unhappy in marriage, which may well have been true to the time and place.

Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson. Maybe the last of hers I haven't read, and gosh this was a bit strange! It's sort of the story of a family, jumping around between generations, shaped around the disappearance of one woman who has married in, and her children seeking to find her. Except it's very playful with some time travel and dual narratives showing different ways things might have played out (a bit Life After Life or God in Ruins I guess). It felt like one of her short stories but longer. Enjoyable but definitely didn't quite hang together.

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry. Her newest. Journalist Alice is invited to pitch to write an authorised biography of a reclusive ex-socialite Margaret Ives - the catch being she is competing with another male journo who she might just fall in love with. A lovely book and a bit broader than the others as the story of Margaret's family unfolds alongside the romance.

The End of Summer by Charlotte Philby. Judy is disturbed in her idyllic French chateau by a call from the police - they are arresting her in connection to the murder of her husband many years ago. The book trails back through her life to show how she came to be married to him and how he died, and what her involvement really was. The writing isn't going to set the world alight but this was a very decent thriller, really twisty and with well timed reveals.

Fair Play by Louise Hegarty. A group of friends gather in an Airbnb for a New Year's Eve murder mystery party. In the morning, one of their party is dead, apparently by suicide. It then morphs into a golden age detective novel as a famous private investigator turns up to solve the mystery. Or... does he? I'm not convinced we need another genre bending country house murder mystery, but this was well done.

I am sorry it has taken me so long to copy my books over. Here is my list so far

1) The Trials of Marjorie Crowe by CS Robertson
2) Bad Fruit by Ella King
3) Unruly by David Mitchell
4) Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent
5) Butter by Asako Yuzuki
6) North Woods by Daniel Mason
7) Nothing Left to Fear From Hell by Alan Warner
8) How to Solve your own Murder by Kristen Perrin
9) The Palace by Gareth Russell
10) Strange Pictures by Uketsu
11) Night Swimmers by Roisin Maguire
12) The List of Suspicious Things by Jenny Godfrey
13) The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell
14) One of the Good Guys by Amarinta Hall
15) Cloistered by Catherine Coldstream
16) Precipice by Robert Harris
17) The Picnic by Matthew Longo
18) Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell
19) Four Shots in the Night by Henry Hemming
20) Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson
21) Getting Over Your Parents by the School of Life
22) Sandwich by Catherine Newman
23) Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito
24) Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
25) The Detective's Daughter by Lesley Thomas
26) Her Side of the Story by Alba de Cespedes
27) Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
28) Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

I hadn't reviewed Tom Lake on the last thread. I found it a bit patchy but overall decided to award it a bold because of the glorious descriptions of the Michegan cherry farm and well developed characters. The story itself is so full of holes but an enjoyable read nevertheless.

42 Blue Lightning - Ann Cleeves Fourth in the Shetland series. A good story, set on DI Perez’s home island of Fair Isle, cut off in an Autumn storm, with a murderer on the loose…I particularly liked the portrayal of the bird observatory and the twitchers staying there, and it turns out Cleeves has direct experience of the place, having worked as assistant cook at the observatory in the 70s! But I really didn’t like what happened towards the end, to one of the series’ main characters (hopefully that’s not too spoilerish, and anyone who’s read it will know what I’m talking about!) - absolutely gutted about the direction the overarching storyline has taken 😔

111 The Zig Zag Girl - Elly Griffiths

The first in the Brighton mysteries series, and made a lot more sense than randomly reading number 6, like I did last year 😀

DI Edgar Stephens and Max Mephisto used to be key players in the Magic Men, a wartime unit using illusions to fool the Germans about tank presence etc. But then a woman cut into three, in the manner of one of Max’s tricks, turns up in Brighton and Max and Edgar try to hunt down the killer, who seems to have a connection to their war life. A good read.

80. The Secret Room - Jane Casey. Thanks for everyone that encouraged me to buy the final volume - I needed that. "There are more rainy Thursdays in life than moonlit nights".

When's the next one out??

I think it’ll be a couple of years @Stowickthevast at least Strike will be out in September!!

I've never done Strike Eine, JKR's long windedness is a personal bugbear after having to read HP to the DC, and the town planning book.

But maybe I'll try - it was fun bingeing a crime series.

67. The Corinthian - Georgette Heyer

Richard, the Corinthian, ends up aiding and abetting Penelope as she adopts desperate measures to avoid marriage with her cousin. Heyer is always reliably entertaining. This one was full of madcap storylines and episodes: highwaymen, stolen diamonds, double-crossing, escapes through windows, disguises and deception, elopement, pursuit by a Bow Street Runner. Great fun.

@Stowickthevast I hesitate to recommend. I read The Cuckoos Calling and thought it was silly and a bit rubbish! But I was looking for something on Audible and remembered enough of TCC to give the sequel a go. Didn’t look back and did them all back to back!

*75. Kitchen Shrink, Andrea Oskis
A psychologist writes about the patients she treats, and traces the links between how we form attachments and how we eat. She also draws on her Cypriot heritage and family and provides recipes. Intellectually, I'm not sure this quite worked as a format, but emotionally I liked it - I found it warm and hopeful. She refers frequently to Heartburn by Nora Ephron, and has taken this as something of a model for her own book.

76. No One Home, Tim Weaver
Missing person investigator looks into the disappearance of nine people in a Yorkshire village. This kind of thing needs to be a page-turner to work, but I found it quite slow, until the very end which was quick and under-written. Not the best of the series.

77. Hitler's Valkyrie, David R L Litchfield
This was a bad book, which didn't necessarily stop me enjoying parts of it. It focuses on Unity Mitford, and is refreshingly lacking in the usual indulgence accorded to the Mitford clan, because they are all just so charming and funny. He heavily emphasises the Fascist leanings of all involved, except Jessica. The author does seem to conflate sexual hedonism with general morality - there are highly salacious of Unity's orgies with stormtroopers and others. These may be true, but it's hard to tell as the sources are unclear (I don't know if I'm the only person who read the orgy scenes muttering "Footnotes! Give me footnotes!"). These aren't what made her a lousy person, her unabashed and vocal antisemitism is what did it.

65 Vianne – Joanne Harris Reminded by @ChessieFL, this was on my radar, but I thought it was an Autumn release. Which, to me, would have been more suitable. The book is based mostly in Autumn/Winter 1993 and it felt weird reading it in a heatwave. I’m probably just being grumpy because of the heat. I enjoyed this, probably not as much as the previous Vianne books, but there we go. It’s the story of Vianne, our heroine from Chocolat etc and we go back in time to Marseille in 1993. I’ll be interested to see if JH does a follow up.

66 Say You’ll Remember Me – Abby Jimenez – Recommended by the Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club Summer Reading Guide. Abby Jimenez is a new author to me and I don’t recall anyone else mentioning her. Similar to Jenny Colgan, romance, relationships taking a meander and gut punching family issues like dealing with dementia, grief etc. I loved this. Samantha and Xavier meet just before Samantha packs up her life in Minnesota and moves back home to California to help care for her mother who has early onset dementia. I sobbed through parts of this. Excellent. Looking forward to reading more of AJ.

@Tarragon123 interesting. I have 3 Abby Jimenez on TBR from them being mentioned on YouTube. As far as I understand the 3 I have are a series but can also be read standalone. They’ve been raved about. I started Part Of Your World but didn’t stick. I intend to go back. The others are Yours Truly and Just For The Summer. I just wasn’t in the correct headspace.

I got a free Abby Jimenez short story as part of the Amazon First Reads freebies a couple of months ago and really enjoyed it so have had in the back of my mind to look out more of her books at some point. Might get a couple for when I go on holiday later this summer.

After reading The Glass Palace by Anita Ghosh years ago, I kept buying his books knowing I want to read them all, but also knowing I needed space to be totally engrossed in them. This year, I put in on my grid (a silly thing I have in my book journal with 20 authors or genres etc I want to read).

The Sea of Poppies Amitav Ghosh
Set in 19th century India, this tells the story of opium with Britain on the cusp of war with China. It brings together a vast array of characters who end up on a ship en route to Mauritius for various reasons. The history here is rich and detailed without wearing the research heavily; the language is beautiful and lyrical but takes some time to get used to as he has really gone all in with British/Indian naval dialect and the story is dramatic, emotional, harrowing, heartening and everything in between.

I don’t go in for series/serials but Ghosh writes a bit like Louis de Bernieres I feel so I will read the other two in the trilogy. I have the third in hardcopy and it’s a beast, but I might have a short break before revisiting the Ibis and her passengers.

Chuckling here at the thought of @bibliomania reading about orgies and muttering about footnotes 😂

Hi (waves shamefacedly at everyone). Worst year on record for reading - my very late arrival on this thread says it all. I cant even find my teeny tiny list to post at the moment. Anyhow going away next saturday so will be reading back the reviews to get some ideas of what to take. I have an amazon voucher & will get some kindle buys.
I went through most of the currenly available books on borrowbox last night. There were two books by or about Liz Truss, fiction by Nadine Dorries, a lot of 'the wartime girls make do' etc., odd parts of thriller series (never the first one), and a lot in russian/ukranian. Slim pickings to say the least. Lots of good stuff to reserve, but not much good for the short term. Will have to make some purchases.

92 . Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell (Audible)

Read by Joanne Frogatt, Richard Armitage and others

I normally avoid anything with a HE’S BEHIND YOU type title but I read None Of This Is True last year and loved it so I thought I’d give her new one a go.

A confidence trickster moves from woman to woman, alias to alias financially exploiting them.

In the age of social media it’s very difficult to believe he’d get away with all these extensive deceptions.

Towards the end there is a real life mention of something similar that happened as if to say “See?! this is credible”

I was really worried that the end wouldn’t work either way and I was sort of right. There is a weird subplot involving a character having BPD that is meant to suggest their investigation won’t be believed, but goes nowhere.

The big reveal is not believable either, but I enjoyed the ride. Richard Armitage does sinister very well.

I did enjoy it but you have to suspend belief. Good not great.

I found the belated list

1# Watermelon Marian Keyes
2# Guide Me Home Attica Locke
3# Girl Woman Other Bernadine Evaristo
4# Nothing More to Tell Karen McManus
5# The House of My Mother Shari Franke
6# The Clocks in This House all Tell Different Times Xan Brooks

Two new ones, both rubbish.

7# Terms & Conditions: Life in Girls Boarding Schools 1939-1979 Ysenda Maxtone Graham
Really couldn't get on with this, found it lurking on my kindle so must have bought it at sometime. I normally like an insight into worlds I know nothing about, but the style really grated with me. I struggled to get to the end.

8# Five Sumners Una LaMarc
Young women look back at the summers they spent together at summer camp. I assume this is YA and thought it would be light hearted distraction. I normally like YA stuff, but this was just vapid rubbish with dislikeable, unbelievable characters. No idea why i persisted to the end (or started it to be honest).

That made me smile too! Great review @bibliomania . Sex orgies = fine. Nazism = not fine. Unfootnoted, unverified accounts of sex orgies = also not fine.

@Owlbookend good to see you. As you know, the number of books you've read over a given period doesn't matter! Each to their own.

In my own case, I've noticed I actually tend to read more when my mental health is poor. Obviously if one is extremely mentally unwell, there's no headspace at all for books, but if I'm in 'functional but struggling' mode, I'm much more inclined to isolate myself and escape into reading. I've done this since childhood. (And the reading can indeed have a therapeutic effect.) Whereas if I'm happy and calm, I'm out and about more doing things, and reading less. During the Covid lockdowns for example, my reading was at an all-time high and my mental health quite low.

Holidays are my best time though! Mental serenity plus lots of reading!

First two RWYO!

32 Rural Hours: the Country Lives of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann by Harriet Baker

The idea behind this book is to look at the influence the three featured authors' years of country living had on their writing. In that, it doesn't really succeed. Lehmann, in particular, doesn't seem to have been influenced by her rural years at all, and whilst I found Woolf and Townsend Warner's ways of living in the country interesting, it wasn't easy to find a thread back to their writing. I still enjoyed this, though. The Woolf section focuses on her time in Asheham rather than Rodmell, about which I knew little. Sylvia Towsend Warner was new to me and the details of her life with the (female) poet Valentine Ackland were fascinating. Rosamond Lehmann I knew virtually nothing about and she also came across as a very interesting character. So worth a read but the countryside part seemed rather incidental.

33 Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

I'm trying to link my RWYO books, although I won't be able to do that with the next one, which is a book club pick. This was written before STW's countryside days. A sharp, beautifully written account of the life of a middle-aged woman who, until her late forties, has always been at the beck and call of family. On a whim, she decides to move out to Buckinghamshire on her own, where she [not really a spoiler as in all reviews, but look away now if you want to read un-spoiled] makes a pact with the Devil (who turns up looking entirely normal) and becomes a witch. It's much less dramatic than it sounds, because really this is a novel about female emancipation and being free to live your life as you wish. It is an odd, gem-like little book and I enjoyed it for what it was. Having just read Baker's book, though, I did start to make comparisons with Woolf, which is unfair as STW wasn't, I don't think, trying to do the same thing. STW necessarily comes up short in the comparison, because Woolf at her best catches your heart off-guard and blows it open*, in a way this clever novel doesn't.

*shamelessly nicked from my favourite Seamus Heaney poem

44 Bad Actors - Mick Herron
Strong bold from me for the last in the series so far. Quality as always but the two or three lines of dialogue almost at the end had me sat bolt upright!! Roll on the release of "Clown Town"

45 Shrines of Gaiety - Kate Atkinson
Sorry but I just found this so unenjoyable but kept reading in the hope it might turn a corner. Maybe I just stuck with it as I am a girl from The Groves!