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

@ReginaChase I thought Shrines Of Gaiety was very underbaked

Ooh @ReginaChase you've just moved Bad Actors up my TBR. Especially now I know the new one is imminent.

Just finished 106 Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
I read (and enjoyed) Spiderweb earlier this year so thought I’d pluck this Booker winner from my kindle. It tells the story of Claudia from her death bed, her life as a historian, her family and lovers and career. Beautifully written. Claudia is not likeable but she is very interesting and Lively makes you care about her. Lots of themes of family and war and history. Loved it. Bold for me.

I share your view of the boarding school book.

I have a half-baked theory about Kate Atkinson's books - that you either love the Jackson Brodie books, or her other books.

This is based on nothing other than my having never read any of the Jackson Brodies, but having loved both Transcription and Shrines of Gaiety, which I think are not generally well-liked on the thread.

I'd love to know if there are 50 bookers who've loved both types of her books!

I like both types of Kate Atkinson book @noodlezoodle! ‘Underbaked’ perfectly describes Shrines Of Gaiety for me, though and I wasn’t keen on Big Sky, so that’s one of each type . I thought I disliked Transcription ‘s ending when I read it, but when I gave it some thought, I realised well, why wouldn’t that happen - it happens every day, somewhere.

I’m another one who’s enjoyed (almost) everything by Kate Atkinson! The only one I didn’t get on with was Emotionally Weird and I keep meaning to try it again sometime to see if I still feel the same.

I would also say I like all Kate Atkinson's books, although I think she definitely had a golden period - Transcription, Shrines and the later Jackson Brodies are just not as good. Case Histories and Life After Life are both up there as life changing books for me.

It was my birthday on Friday and I'm now the proud owner of £110 in book tokens!! Looking forward to getting shopping...

I like a lot of Kate Atkinson's books but have been frustrated by what has real potential ending up 'underbaked'. Almost all of the JB series is excellent and most of her body of work is also really good. I think we have to expect that a writer who has produced so much is going to have the occasional dip in consistency.

@GrannieMainland Msny Happy Returns!

@noodlezoodle I like both!! I’ve gone right off Jackson Brodie though because I didn’t like the last few. The only one I haven’t liked of the others is Human Croquet which I DNFd although I know I’ve read Emotionally Weird and can’t remember anything about it.

Actually records show that it was Emotionally Weird I DNFD and Human Croquet I read and didn’t like.

Happy birthday @GrannieMainland!

.34. Over Her Dead Body - Maz Evans

Thanks to those who previously reviewed this. It was an enjoyable modern whodunnit which rattled along nicely. Surprisingly I worked out who the murderer was but actually that didn’t matter.

Dr Miriam Price ends up in limbo after dying from an overdose. She knows she was murdered but just can’t remember how. All she has to do to avoid remaining in limbo for decades is to solve her own murder from beyond the grave, with the help of Winnie, her hated elderly neighbour. Will she manage before time runs out, for both Miriam and Winnie?

@noodlezoodle I like both types of Kate Atkinson but don’t love either kind.
Happy birthday @GrannieMainland 🎉

I've only read two Kate Atkinsons - Behind the Scenes at the Museum and Life After Life - and I didn't love either of them, so I gave up. I don't know why, as so many people love her, but for some reason she just doesn't do it for me.

Edited to wish a happy birthday to @GrannieMainland!

I think that fairly conclusively moves my theory from half-baked to absolute nonsense

I also like both types of Kate Atkinson. I like the Jackson Brodies but I don't love them (I'm a big detective novel fan and they are not my favourites). I loved Life after Life and A God in Ruins and also enjoyed Transcription much more than most on this thread. Shrines of Gaiety and Death at the Sign of the Rook are on my wishlist; I'm not buying them till they're 99p.

I need to catch up with some reviews. I'm just hopping on to say that I finished 'Dalla parte di lei/Her Side of the Story' by Alba de Cespedes.

It was excellent @cassandre and @Arran2024 tagging you both. The ending was brilliant. It blew me away!
I have 'The Forbidden Notebook' on Kindle which I will look forward to reading.

Happy birthday @GrannieMainland

I gave up on Kate A years ago. I can’t remember which JB was the clincher for me, but it wasn’t good.

And Human Croquet was dreadful.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I read my review of Human Croquet this morning and nothing rang a bell other than being frustrated. Forgettable.

I actually just read Human Croquet. I thought there were lots of good things in there but it just ended up really disconnected - bits of it would have made good short stories, like Eliza's history or the multiple ways to kill an abusive husband. Ultimately it didn't hold together as a novel though.

@GrannieMainlandmy review highlights the problem of multiple versions of the same thing and what did or didn’t happen

Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin

Jacinta’s brother, Ferdia, was training to be a priest in Rome when he died horribly young. Thirteen years on, Jacinta lives in London, prefers to be called Jay and considers herself more or less at peace with extricating herself from her devoutly Catholic family. Then her parents tell her that Ferdia is being considered for canonisation.
I found this a superbly moving book. Although it is Jay’s pov that leads the reader through it, weight and consideration are given to opposing views on faith and remembrance. Supporting characters such as Jay’s girlfriend, various Aunts etc add subtle layers to the narrative. A lesser writer might have produced an angry polemic against the Catholic Church, but Ni Mhaoileoin puts it all together with a light touch, so all opinions are heard.

It’s the book I needed right now, so thank you 50 Bookers who influenced me to add it to my Kindle when it came out.

27 Motherload by Ingrid Wassenaar
It’s a long time since I read a book about parenting, having flicked through all the ones I’d bought when pregnant or when ds was tiny when we’d achieved preschool and noticing that almost none of them had been even slightly useful, and at worst actively harmful. Nonetheless I enjoyed this account of Wassenaars interviews with mothers contrasted with her own struggles and delights in parenthood and the drawn-out death of her own mother. I can’t help noticing though that the piece her mother wrote about her parenting was a bit of a contrast to Wassenaars own experience as a child. I wondered a lot about the voices of the children in this, and (as the book does acknowledge) the voices of more mothers in poverty.

I'm going to see if I can do a few reviews. I'll try and keep them short!

40. The Trees: Percival Everett.

A pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations (MBI) go to the small town of Money, Mississippi to investigate a spate of brutal murders. What is particularly strange is that at every crime scene there is a second body of a man who bears a strong resemblance to Emmett Till, the victim of a lynch mob in the town many years ago. Very soon there is an escalation in numbers and this is no longer small-town news.

This is very cleverly written in a darkly humorous style that reminded me very much of John Connolly's 'Charlie Parker' series. It even has a hint of the supernatural. It's a book that manages to be both funny and powerful at the same time. Recommended.

41. La grammaire est une chanson douce: Erik Orsenna.

'Grammar is a sweet song'. A random pick from the library, I was intrigued by the title. I didn't know that it's a book for children or young adults (although the illustrations should have been a clue!) However, I enjoyed it. Erik Orsenna is a member of L'Académie Française.

Jeanne is a lively, imaginative child who enjoys school. There is upheaval at home when her parents separate. She and her brother go on a long journey by boat but there is a storm and they get ship-wrecked on an island in the middle of nowhere. They are so shocked that they lose the power of speech. Luckily, Henri and his nephew look after them. Henri brings her to a place where parts of speech exist happily with each other in grammatical synchronicity (if that's a word). And there is a sort of lexical hospital for over-used words. It's a bit batty, but it's a nice, whimsical, gentle story where a sympathetic adult helps a young child overcome trauma in her life.

42. Une page d'histoire et autres nouvelles: Romain Gary.

Last year I read the memoir by the same author of his own life and thought I would try one of his books. This is a collection of short stories by this man who was a war hero turned diplomat and who won the Prix Goncourt twice (although that's not allowed) because he also wrote under another name in his later years and it was found out sometime after he died.

I thought that the first story was quite good and maybe the second (with reservations) but then it went on a downward slope with stories that I liked less and less and the last one ending with implied violence towards a vulnerable girl which left a distasteful impression in my mind. The writing was good, but I didn't like some of the content. I'll see if I'll try a novel by him sometime.

41 Dracula - Bram Stoker
Had never read this. The story is told through a series of letters, diary entries and newspaper articles. Lawyer Jonathan Harker's travels to Transylvania to meet Count Dracula to help him buy a house in London but discovers he is a vampire and narrowly escapes with his life. However Dracula follows to England. Cue devilish deeds and fair maidens in peril. A group try to save the ladies and chase Dracula back to Transylvania and finish him off. I enjoyed the first bit where Harker visits Transylvania as it was very creepy and I was on holiday there at the time but the rest of the book was less gripping. I do like an epistolary novel, and I was pleased to understand the connection to Whitby, but Dracula himself doesn't really appear again until the end, so it dragged a bit for me.