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

63. Three Days in June - Anne Tyler

My ‘undemanding reads' phase continues with this very short novel, Tyler's latest, and I have to say it fits the bill - I spotted it in the library yesterday afternoon when returning something else, borrowed it on a whim, and finished it this morning.

It's really a long short story: Baltimore divorcee Gail Baines walks out on her job as assistant head of a girls' school over a perceived slight. Her daughter Debbie is getting married the next day and she’s expecting ex-husband Max to be there, but he arrives unexpectedly on her doorstep with a fostered cat in tow. Soon Debbie also arrives, upset, having received a revelation about her fiancé's pre-marital fling. This sets in motion a rehashing of old memories for Gail, as she looks back to the disintegration of her own marriage and the awareness that her actions caused it. Can she, or should she, repair the damage of the past and reconnect with Max?

This was like a sketch of a full-scale Anne Tyler novel, complete with many of her favourite themes and tropes, but miniaturised. I don’t know whether she’s scaling back a bit now (she’s 83) or whether this was always just meant to be a novella, but I did finish it feeling a little bit 'is that it?'

123 100 Selected Poems- Robert Frost
Either I didn’t really get this or else all his poems are just describing nature with no further depth. The two we all know are still lovely. I gave it 2 out of 5 for those. This was a RWYO- I think I need someone to teach me poetry as I struggle to pick out themes etc on my own.

32) Trust by Hernan Diaz

A reread - i found it at the Lifeboat shop in Bury Port.

It won the Booker in 2022 so most of you will probably have read it too.

It is incredibly clever, four separate but interlocking stories which only make sense as you near the end.

There is a lot of high level financial information but also great descriptions of New Yorinland Swiss sanitariums in the 1930s.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I listen to a lot of Audible and used to run out of credits. I have started using Borrowbox through the library. It is a bit hit and miss what they have, and some stuff has a long wait, but for everything I can get through BBox is a credit saved. Randomly they have all of Robert Harris stuff in Ukrainian but not English.

42. After the Clearances by Alison Layland
    This author is local to me and I went to the book launch with my book club. It is set in the near future (2050s) and set on a small island in rural Wales. Climate change is making life more difficult, and there has been multiple civil conflicts and terrorist attacks, most of Wales has been ‘cleared’, compulsory relocations to urban England to help focus limited services, but a small community is living self-sufficiently off the coast and under the authorities’ radar. It is written from multiple points of view – a 12 year old girl who was the first to be born on the island once the community was established, and a woman who was trying to cross from the Welsh mainland to Ireland in a small boat, but got washed up on the island, and a woman living alone in the woods on the mainland.
    It’s not very long, about 300 pages, and there is a lot in it, so it had the feel of only scratching the surface, and it had the potential to be longer to go into back stories in more detail, or possibly a series.
    It was interesting – there is some Welsh language in it, but I am a Welsh speaker so got it. Anything important was obviously translated or in English, but understanding those bits did give it an extra depth.

43. A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey
    Cosy detective novel - A film star is drowned on holiday in Kent, multiple suspects and motives, mysterious brothers, wills, old fashioned clues with buttons missing off coats and people hiding in attics.

44. Body of Evidence by Patricia Cornwell
    Second in the Kay Scarpetta series - I quite liked the first one, and this was more of the same really. Kay is the Chief Medical examiner and there is a killer at large.
    Convoluted plot involving a missing manuscript, reclusive writers and a mounting body count. It's a bit Silent Witness - I doubt the medical examiner actually goes out investigating in place of the police detectives that much, but it makes for a good yarn.
    It was written in the 1990s, so DNA evidence was in it's infancy as was the use of computers and no mobile phones, so a bit dated now, but that's fine.

I need to have a break from detective/crime I think.

Thanks @WelshBookWitch I have Borrowbox but find it difficult to use as I use my Echo Dot for audiobooks.

@Arran2024 you are in my part of the world (well about 10 miles away). I walk my dogs on that beach most weeks. Hope you’re having a lovely time.

RWYO book for me next which I’m reading alongside the Booker books. I have DNFed William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich on audio. I need to stop reading Nazi books. I know the era too well- I’ve studied it and taught it many times - this was an oldie written not long after the end of the Second World War and while it was interesting in some respects (Shirer lived in Germany during that time) it was mostly repetitive of things I knew already and sometimes inaccurate because much had not yet been studied to the depth it would be later.
However, I finished
124 The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante
This book and indeed the whole Neopolitan Quartet is the boldest of bolds for me. I can’t say much without spoilers but it finishes the story of the friendship of Lila and Lenu, their families and the people of the stradone in a satisfactory and fitting way. Themes of friendship, class, state and intergenerational politics. Loved every book of it.

@WelshBookWitch Funnily enough, I’m reading that Tey right now, having just finished To Love and be Wise. I’m on holiday and haven’t had quite as much reading time as I thought, but I’m steadily munching my way through some fairly light weight crime, which I may or may not bother to review later.

107 . Immaculate Conception by Ling Ling Huang

Enka and Mathilde are students at a prestigious art school. Whilst Enka is talented, Mathilde is considered a once in a generation voice. Enka becomes something of a carer to Mathilde at the expense of her own ambitions. As their paths diverge they are pulled back into each others orbit with devastating consequences.

This was absolutely brilliant I can’t speak highly enough of it what a page turner. It’s really difficult to explain as there’s so many strands to it, art and the artist, science and technology at its most cutting edge and even a hint of dystopia alongside friendship, love and rivalry. To be honest it was the dystopian angle that didn’t work for me. It’s more like an alternate universe in which 9/11 still happened but at some time following this, communities were split into enclaves and fringes with those in the fringes being considered less than. Its only purpose is to make Enka more of an outsider. It’s really not well fleshed out or thought out and not really necessary.
The science side of it is so interesting and really thought provoking and at times horrifying - as a book it’s like an episode of Black Mirror

Ling Ling Huang’s other book Natural Beauty was also a bold for me. I really look forward to following this author.

137 Dark Fire (Shardlake 2) - CJ Sansom

Loved this, a bold. Even better than the first one.

It's three years on from book 1, in which Matthew Shardlake was investigating a murder at a shortly-to-be-closed monastery, for his boss Thomas Cromwell. Although Shardlake has moved away from Cromwell and gone back to day to day lawyering on property matters etc, Henry VIII is unhappy in his marriage to Anne of Cleves and Cromwell needs a win. So he intervenes in one of Shardlake's cases, giving a two week stay of execution to an accused murderess, on condition that Shardlake investigates Dark Fire, aka Greek Fire, a compound that Cromwell has seen destroy a boat in a moment and which Henry VIII wants for his army. The demonstration to Henry is in a fortnight, but both the substance and the alchemists are missing. With the help of one of Cromwell's retainers, Matthew is sent on dangerous missions throughout London to try and solve both cases, developing a powerful enemy in the form of Sir Richard Rich. Gripping.

I overcame my annoyance with the Grieg/Greig spelling and finished Sara Sheridan's The Secrets of Blythswood Square. She moves from her hometown of Edinburgh in this book to mine, Glasgow. It's set in the 1840s and covers a lot of her standard themes - independent women, patriarchal structures, moral hypocrisies, social class . But I do think she does it better in this book through the lens (pun intended!) of pioneer photographers and also a stashed pornographic art collection. She also covers the historical context of the Free Kirk (hence the moral hypocrisy) which will be of interest to Scottish and Glaswegian readers and Quakerism , covering the visit to Scotland of Frederick Douglass (I didn't know about this).

It's historical interesting to me and generally well handled. She does tend to make her protagonists all very idealised and perfect and woke (or awakened) and liberal, especially the wondrous male love interests (once more she admits in her note at the end that she fancies him!).

The afterword is really interesting on Glasgow, sectarian ideas, homosexuality in Victorian Britain and on photography and provides helpful historical context.

I'm not sure why she chose Blythswood Square for her middle class domicile. She gives no hint that she had a reason and she isn't from Glasgow. If she was, she'd associate that address with 20th century prostitution but she doesn't seem to!

We love it there. We used to always holiday in Cornwall but Carmarthenshire is just as nice and a fraction of the price. We stay near Kidwelly - it's our 2nd visit this year.

And the lifeboat shop always has great second hand books.

But we have moved on now - to Cardigan Bay. Haven't been over this way before. Everywhere looks absolutely rammed!

@Arran2024 It is absolutely rammed! I’m the other side of Llanelli on the edge of Gower - we tend to go down to Burry Port rather than the Gower beaches because it’s so much quieter. I can’t get to DM’s a mile away or to Tesco without mad traffic jams at the moment. Enjoy the good weather!

We like Pembrey too, but one of our dogs has a degenerative condition and can't walk far. We have a buggy for him, but we can't use it on the sand. So we mostly went to Pembrey this week.

Don't know Cardigan Bay at all. At first glance driving through i cant believe how many caravan sites there are.

By the way, the Sara Sheridan is only £3 on Amazon presently.

30 Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers and Other Sole Survivors from the Sonfs of Steely Dan by Alex Pappademas and Joan Le May

One for the fans. Not just that, one for the fans who each know more about this band than the band members themselves. I didn’t really make the cut, despite loving Steely Dan for 30 years; I like the stories they put in my head and really shouldn’t have read anybody else’s version. But then it made me play Steely Dan all day, and that’s only a good thing (maybe not for those I live with).

Interesting about Ann Tyler @Terpsichore as I felt the same about her previous book Redhead by the Side of the road.

I've been trying different audio providers for the last few months and have tried Book Beat - which was good value but didn't have the best selection, and Everand which is more pricey but has everything I want on it. Need to try Borrow box.

I don't think Trust won the Booker @Arran2024 as 2022 was the Seven Moons which I loved but it was definitely on the longlist - interesting book and not what I was expecting.

I've spent too much of this week with chatty friends (villa holiday) and not enough time reading! Have 3 books on the go - Endling in real book mode, Flashlight on audio and Albion on my Kindle - and am determined to try and finish at least one this weekend. Leaving the villa today for a week just with my fam so hoping to get a bit more reading done.

I like the sound of Immaculate Conception @EineReiseDurchDieZeit, it’s only 99p at the minute so just purchased.

6 th Booker read down- this one was a quickie.
125 One Boat by Jonathan Buckley
I don’t think any of the reviews of this have been positive so far but I was always probably going to like it more than most because I had bought it a couple of months prior to the list because I liked the sound of it. Teresa is in a small Greek village to spend time alone to grieve her father. 9 years previous she did the same to grieve her mother and her marriage. We also see a little into the lives of another tourist and some of the villagers. I liked this. It didn’t go very deep but it was nicely written, had some themes to explore and is a good one to read while away on holiday which I am right now. It probably shouldn’t be on the longlist, definitely shouldn’t be on the shortlist but I liked it. Travelling home today, going to try to finish a couple of RWYO on the journey.
Now almost half-way through the longlist- my yeses are The South, The Land in Winter and Flashlight. My nos are Audition, One Boat and Misinterpretation

Cambridge Literary Festival, Nov dates have some names I think some will be interested in.

Amazing. Everybody please buy it just so I can talk about it

There’s quite a lot of detail I left out of the review because I was really conscious of spoilers

You talked me into it 😀

I just broke RWYO for this! Better be good . Will wait until I’m done with the Booker though.

OH THE PRESSURE! No I’m serious it was 5 star for me with the caveat that shoehorning dystopia into it wasn’t necessary because there’s so much else of note going on

I've reserved I.C. from the library. I'm no. 3 in the queue.