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

Ooh I may have to pick up the second, I really liked the first.

I think it is On The Calculation of Volume 1. I read it as an online book club read and one of the members pointed out that volume is calculated by multiplying the 3 spatial dimensions together. So the title is itself suggestive that there is more to it than that.

Also did Audition with the online book club and it was really interesting hearing people's different interpretations of how the two parts fit together. I'm still not sure what I think. Maybe we need a spoilers thread?!

I've also dived in to the Longlist and went for the cheapest two on Kindle - One Boat and Universality - and Flesh on Audible.

Read Universality today, it's very short. I think the first chapter was published as a short story. In it a man gets knocked out with a gold bar at an illegal rave during lockdown. The chapter is the article of the journalist investigating what happened. For me, the first part was the strongest and then the rest of the book explores other characters in the story including the journalist and the owner of the gold bar. And goes into "wokeness", white make fragility and class of course. The satire was a bit too obvious for me, and I didn't think it really hit the themes it was aiming for. It felt like it had all been done before. Not a great start.

I'm finding myself more intrigued by Flesh which I was expecting to hate.

I loved the first Calculation book too and already have the second.
Interested to hear your first reactions @Stowickthevast I’m about a third of the way through The South on audio. It’s fine so far but still waiting on it becoming amazing. I’m also reading Misinterpretations on kindle and enjoying that more.

128 The Fear Index - Robert Harris

This was published in 2011 and was a re-read for me. The theme is an AI driven hedge fund algorithm (so still relevant today!) that has been developed by Dr a Alexander Hoffman, formerly a CERN scientist, now the co founder of a hedge fund in Geneva. The book starts the night before a big presentation at the firm, when Hoffman is attacked at his one by an intruder and sustains a head injury.

As the latest version of the algorithm becomes more and more successful, eerie things start to happen to Hoffman - he orders books and sends emails that he can’t remember, and one such lapse leads to a fight with his wife… and the firm is making its biggest ever profit.

The whole book takes place within 24h and has an accompanying sense of pace. Harris has lightly stitched in some reality - as is his style - with the date being that of a “flash crash” in the US - but otherwise the work is entirely fictional - and a great story.

30. 28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand

Shame I didn't read this two books ago for the numerical satisfaction.
Set in Nantucket a man and woman spend a romantic weekend together once a year for 28 years.

This was a lovely summer read. Yes it was a bit implausible in places but I really enjoy it. Also at the beginning of each chapter was a summary of what was popular in American culture/news that year which was oddly satisfying to read, particularly the list of character names that would bring back memories of a TV show or song lyrics.

I'm starting my booker reading journey next as they become available through the library. The rest of our lives was available on BorrowBox and I'm enjoying that so far.

Big bunch of Barbara Kingsolver in daily deals, including the one about the striking Arizona women

Also The Stand if anyone is yet to read the best post-apocalyptic book ever written.

The Names is 99p today. Picked that up along with The Wilding (generic looking Horror, must have stood out to me at some point to put it on my list).
I started reading The Book Of Guilt last night. If you can describe a book that slyly pushes you off balance and gives you a creeping sense of unease as “fantastic” then it’s fantastic.

There are millions of books in the daily let alone monthly deals today! Some for the princely £1.99 admittedly.

I have bought:
Consider Yourself Kissed
There are Rivers in the Sky
James
Lonesome Dove
Among Friends
Various Silly Summer Romances

But have also seen, for anyone looking:
The Names
Butter
Tomorrow x3
Hello Beautiful
Shy Creatures
Alias Grace
Plainsong
Creation Lake
The Testaments
Everything I Never Told You
Queenie
The Little Stranger

And probably others I've forgotten...

Thanks for the reminder - I always forget.

I've picked up:
The Poisonwood Bible
The Names
The Fraud by Zadie Smith
Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller

Which were all on my wishlist.

I also stuck to my wishlist. I got
The new Malabar House book- City of Destruction
The Sea - John Banville
The Rapture
Alias Grace and
When the Crane Flies South

I have stuck to my wishlist and got

The Names
And So I Roar
Meditation for Mortals

I am really tempted to check for Barbara Kingsolver... I am trying to buy less than I read, and I have read 4 or 5 in the last month. But I always seem short of fiction that one can get really stuck into, and have too much non-fiction... Some Kingsolver would really help that balance!

As if purely to mock me and my RWYO efforts a whole ton of books from my Wish List came up.

Unsettled Ground
Bat Eater
The Gustav Sonata
The Names
Flight Behaviour
The Fraud
Kairos
So Long, See You Tomorrow
There Are Rivers In The Sky
Heart Be At Peace
Burnt Sugar

and Careless People which is the Facebook exposè book in NF

sigh well I purchased 3 or 4 Kingsolver

I also got The Colour of Magic for £1.99 which is the first one in the Discworld series. I have been buying these as they appear discounted, and now own 1 through 5 as well as about 50% of the others, so I shall commence a read through shortly.

I haven't finished my King read through yet, but never mind! I tend to like to read heavy or dark books and also non fiction which could have been a long form article. So Pratchett will be excellent to break up all that.

For me, today's Kindle Daily Deals are something of a record, including books I've borrowed from the library but really wanted my own copy of. I finished reading Careless People last night and The Names is on top of my reading pile, and I recently reviewed and returned Holding the Line (Kingsolver - obviously non fiction but very readable story). I'd missed collecting Consider Yourself Kissed, and I just returned There are Rivers in the Sky and placed another reservation - still aiming to write a review. So I've bought those and cancelled library reservations.

Monthly deals are also quite impressive. In addition to ones I've seen mentioned:

Brigitte Reimann, Siblings - more recent translation of a 1960s East German novel
Lauren Elkin, Scaffolding
Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

I've bought rather a lot of Kindle books!

Today's Daily deals which were on my wishlists also include Joanne Harris, Vianne - a prequel to Chocolat

None of my wishlist books were in the deals so I’ve escaped quite lightly, I feel!

Just finished 41. The South by Tash Aw and feel it was a good start to my Booker reading. Sixteen year old Jay is taken with his two sisters to a farm that his mum has just inherited. Its pretty much right up my street with themes of messed up family dynamics, first love and insight into social struggles outside your own sphere. I was a bit put off by the chapters switching between different narrative styles and some having an absence of quotation marks which was a bit grating at times.
Next up is Love Forms and this is one I'm really interested in, along with Audition and The Land in Winter from the Booker list.

@elspethmcgillicudddy I get you about All Fours, it was a DNF for me. I'm not a prude but some of the descriptions made me want to bleach my eyeballs 🤢

@Cherrypi – I have only just come across Elin Hilderbrand via the Modern Mrs Darcy podcast. I’ve got The Perfect Couple on Kindle.

@ÚlldemoShúl – I didn’t realise that I wasn’t up to date with the Malabar House series. Thank you for highlighting it. I’ve reserved from my library.

I bought The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper as I had previously bought the second book in the trilogy. Trying to remember who recommended it originally? Also bought I Who Have Never Known Men for 99p.

I don't think I've ever bought so many books in one go. I've bought:
The Stand
There are rivers in the sky
An ice-cream war
Night road
The names
Gilead
Lonesome dove
Unsettled ground
The fraud
The colour of magic
Small mercies
Carve her name with pride
Honeymoon in Tehran
Heart, be at peace

Hi @TattiePants how are things? Big day in the deals for me too!

I’ve only bought The Testaments which I had vowed not to read, but feel I probably should.

Envious of anyone reading The Stand or Lonesome Dove for the first time.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie it made for a very good audiobook but it was flawed and I’m a bit lost as to how it will translate to screen.

I bought Infinite Jest - last read 20+ years ago as a 1,000+ paperback - Kindle will be much easier!

Anyone got a link to the deals? Can’t find them.

41 Going Infinite - Michael Lewis

Highly enjoyable account of the rise and fall of crypto pioneer Sam Bankman Fried - more about him as a person than crypto per se, though as someone who finds the whole concept baffling I did find it a useful primer.