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

Ah!

You may like The Adversary by Michael Crummy Remus dark historical fiction in Nova Scotia in the 17th century. It's standalone but there's also another book by him set in the same period. It's got some great insults and lots of awful characters.

If you want something experimental, We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is the one written in Doncasterian. Worth trying a sample as you'll either hate it or won't. I'm on the fan side but I think @AlmanbyRoadtrip gave up on it.

Thanks @Stowickthevast Absolutely no to the second, but I'll get the sample of the first!

Lol

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie how about Louise Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache? Set in picturesque Three Pines, Quebec?

I only really like historical crime, @Tarragon123

I'm a pain. Ignore me, everyone. Well, please don't - but do accept my apologies for being too bloody awkward.

Ah well, in that case, I have suggestions!

How about Sara Sheridan's Mirabelle Bevan's series? Vaseem Khan's Malabar House series and Abir Mukherjee's Wyndham and Bannerjee series. Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther.
SG Maclean - The Seeker series, also The Bookseller of Inverness
Kate Foster - The King's Witches
Maggie O'Farrell - The Marriage Portrait or Hamnet
Val McDermid - Queen Macbeth

I have a horrible feeling that you have probably read all of these!

40 How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won The FA Cup - JL Carr

I don’t know if this would be any good for you, @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie - it’s very short for a start, so won’t go very far if it’s a long holiday! But it is an utterly wonderful little book, funny and warm and unexpectedly poignant. I picked it up at Foyles at our meet-up on the strength of loving A Month In The Country and very glad I did so.

Thank you.

I LOATHED Hamnet. Sorry! I will never read anything else by her. My experience of Val M's fiction has not been at all positive either.

Read all the Bernie Gunther ones - I like his character a lot, although some of the books are better than others.

I'll get some samples of the others.

99 . Just For The Summer by Abby Jimenez

Emma and Justin meet on Reddit. Having established that in every relationship the person they are dating meets The One AFTER them, they decide to be each others Good Luck Charm and date “Just For The Summer”. The book features appearances from characters from the two prior books.

Hmmm…..this was the book I’d heard raved about by multiple Booktubers and I thought it the weakest of the three by miles. Emma and Justin both have a lot of baggage and if you wrote about getting with either one of them on Relationships you’d be told to Run. Fast. More Red Flags than the Chinese Olympic delegation.

I feel really let down by this. I only read the previous two because I’m a stickler for reading in order and I just never felt invested in either character or their relationship. Another rushed ending as well.

Yours truly is the best of the 3 IMHO

114 The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes
In depth history of transportation to Australia. This was a fascinating history which taught me a lot about transportation, the settlement and colonisation of Australia and the operation of the penal colonies there. I previously visited Sarah and Maria Islands and Port Arthur all in Tasmania while I lived there and this gave even more insight with many primary sources from well known people like Dickens and John Mitchel as well as the many unknown convicts. Lots of fascinating side stories and characters including horrendous punishments, reformers and even cannibals. This history does not delve into the experience of indigenous Australians but in this case I don’t see that as a major criticism as the main focus is on the penal colony rather than colonisation, even though one led to the other. It does get a little repetitive in the middle which led me to knock off 0.25 so it’s not 100% bold, though I suspect it may become so over time. A mammoth read but will worth it. I’d like to follow it up with a history that focuses more on the indigenous Australian experience- I have Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe on my wishlist for when I’m finished RWYO and am open to adding any more suggestions to that wishlist.

Cell by Stephen King

I knew nothing about this one before I picked it up but absolutely bloody loved it.

Unusually for King it's quite pacey. The big event has happened 3 pages in! And he doesn't bother filling in anyone's back story! What a pleasure to just be on the edge of my seat the whole time, with no chapter long diversions into a side characters kindergarden teachers impact on their life.

The premise is that the world turns on a moment. Everyone who was on their phone at a point in time changes, and not in a good way.

It was creepy horror page turning stuff. The ending is fine. I get the feeling King where he wanted to go with this one. Often the run up to the end is so long he loses his way in the final moments and you realise he never quite knew how to round it off. Not this time.

I suspect I'll now find out the other fans on the thread hate this one, but I ploughed through in 48 hours and am looking forward to my next one of his, which I think is Lisey.

I loved The Fatal Shore many years ago. I’ve never managed to find anything as readable about Australian history tbh.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie A couple of older suggestions: I suspect you’ve read the Brother Cadfael mysteries? Or not historical crime, but Edward Rutherfurd’s sweeping family sagas of place - The Forest, Sarum, London etc?

Tried and failed previously with both of those writers, having seen them recommended on here. Sorry!

I mostly aim to avoid monks too, wanking or otherwise.

30) A Case of Mice and Murder by Sally Smith

Charming "cosy" sleuthing tale, set in Edwardian London - in the Inner Temple, where the police have no jurisdiction and one of the KCs investigates instead.

Sally Smith was a KC herself and knows this world and does a pretty good job of bringing it to life.

It has been described as "Rumpole meets Agatha Christie". An easy but intelligent read.

127 The Survival of the Princes in the Tower- Matthew Lewis (NF)

Lewis examines evidence for the survival of the Princes after the usurpation of Richard III, and fails to convince me that they lived.

Some of his arguments are reasonable but he does rather pile stretched point upon stretched point eg maybe one of the boys was hidden near the coast with one of RIII’s bezzie mates - OK, maybe… and then maybe when Katherine of Aragon detoured from her pilgrimage to that town, it was cos she was visiting said Prince… errr, or one of 20 other more likely options, no?

Worth a read if you are interested in the period.

@LadybirdDaphne great reviews!

What you say about Hadley Freeman and privilege rings true, based on some articles I've read by her, even though I haven't read Good Girls. At the extreme other end of the spectrum, one could place Sarah Moss' memoir about anorexia, My Good Bright Wolf, where the narrator arguably goes almost too far in terms of how she constantly, apologetically reminds herself of her middle-class privilege.

And it's been ages since I've read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I remember it as a gripping but imperfect book. 😂at 'sexism and homophobia also provided'.

And you're right, Cote would abhor Annie Bot.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I don't think I have a good idea of what kind of book you like (😂at your aversion to wanking monks) but what about Percival Everett's The Trees? A comic novel about lynching (!). It's very creative, and the dark comedy was more to my taste than the grim earnestness of James.

@ÚlldemoShúl The Fatal Shore is a book that has sat on our shelves for decades and that I haven't read. A good candidate for RWYO in my case...

On second thought maybe a book about lynching isn't a great holiday read... I'm planning to take Glorious Exploits on holiday as it's received rave reviews from some 50-Bookers, like Fuzzy.

At the moment I'm trying to finish vol. 1 of Proust, and it's taking me SO LONG. I only have about 100 pages to go, and normally I would read 100 pages in a day no problem, even in French, but after 10 pages of Proust I'm mopping my brow with exertion. It feels worth persevering though. It just makes me remember how much I actually enjoy the forward momentum of PLOT.

@cassandre I've got The Trees on my 'To read' pile in book form, but I agree that it's probably not a holiday read!

@cassandre The Fatal Shore is surprisingly readable. Once you get started, it’s hard to put down. Enjoy Glorious Exploits - I was another fan- great choice for a holiday read 😊

Another fan of Glorious Exploits here, very enjoyable.

The Booker longlist is announced today so looking forward to seeing what's on it and hoping to have read a few. I seem to have read 6 or 7 of the ones that are getting buzz on Insta/you tube, but do think there tends to be a bit of group think around the predictions.

88. Daughters of Sparta - Claire Heywood. Bought in 2022 and read as part of RWYO. This was a retelling of the Trojan war from the pov of sisters Klytemnestra and Helen, starting from their childhood in Sparta and finishing after the war. The author attempts to make them sympathetic and it's an interesting idea but the prose felt pretty flat. I haven't read Pat Barker's third book which covers Agamemnon's home coming but imagine that would be a better attempt.

Any Man’s Death - Hazel Holt
Sheila Malory is roped in by the village busybody to write the history of a small village not long before the busybody dies having consumed the wrong type of mushrooms. Lots of interesting characters, vicars, MPs, visits to The Buttery with best friend Rosemary and best of all a brief appearance from Rosemary’s irascible mother who is my favourite character in this series.
Only two more to go in this series which I’ve enjoyed immensely.