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’ll be really interested to hear what you think about A Game of Hide and Seek @cassandre - it was the most recent Taylor I read, and it left me with a few more questions than some of her other books. I’ve also just discovered that the only one of her books I don’t have is At Mrs Lippincote's, her first novel. Panic buying ensued and it’s now on its way to me….phew!

@ÚlldemoShúl also up for trying a RWYO and I like the Booker exception.

I do have to buy 2 book club reads so better get on with that!

Ha @Terpsichore ! At Mrs Lippincote's was the first Taylor I read and I really enjoyed it. I remember liking the relationship between the mother and her young son, plus the mother's head being full of literary quotes from the books she had read.

About RWYO, I try to alternate between one book I own followed by one library book, but then every time I read a book I own, I find a good reason to buy another, so my system isn't really helping me make much headway.

Congratulations to Piggy & Son!

Also need to be RWYO here for a while. I am trying to read 9 books I own and then buy one new book. This is helping dent my kindle book deal backlog a little but not as much as it should be.

Agreed @cassandre that it's an excellent book, one of my books of the year. I think you are probably right in thinking that the encounter was an imaginary one and all in her head. It was very cleverly done. I think there were indications of stress and irrationality in her mindset towards the end which makes me think that it may have turned out a certain way.

I have started reading my first Alba de Cespedes, 'Dalla parte di lei' ('Her Side of the Story'). It's very good. I'm reading the Italian version which is not too onerous a task at all. I'm really enjoying the story. I'm at the part where her mother has performed the concert at Villa Pierce and it's all going to go badly for her because it will put her husband's nose out of joint and there will no doubt be consequences.

I’ve set up the RWYO challenge thread for anyone who wants to join
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/5364306-read-what-you-own-challenge?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh and @cassandre I also read Small Boat this year. It was such a difficult read because of the subject matter but also why it’s such an important booo. I agree on both the imaginary person and the ending.

Agreed @ÚlldemoShúl A difficult and often harrowing read, but a very worthwhile book.

Congratulations, son of Piggy!

Good idea for a thread, Ull. I don't think I can give up checking the daily deals as it gives me a little serotonin boost to start the day, cheaper than drugs, but i usually don't buy them so I get a second glow of virtue, so it's win win.

It does work for me to read at least two books I own per month. I might experiment by upping the target to three.

Good luck to all with Read What You Own. I'm not going to pretend I will stop buying books but will probably follow the thread just to see what you're reading. I could do with doing Read What You've Borrowed and not making new reservations, but that's probably not going to happen either! Though I think I'm going to finish at least a couple of books within the next day or two - one is a newish book borrowed from the library and the other is a paperback I bought in 2014.

97 Theory and Practice by Michelle de Kretser
This is my first book by this author. I enjoyed the POV of the unlikeable narrator and the prose. I also like how their actions fitted with the theme of the book though I had a very basic understanding of this from Professor Google as I didn’t study literature beyond school. I also liked how it made you question what was real and what was fiction. I didn’t love it but did enjoy it.

98 Blood Over Bright Haven by ML Wang
Overhyped fantasy standalone where a female magician is the first to make it to high mage level in history. The author batters us over the head with the themes and overall it was far too YA for me personally. Meh.

Currently reading War and Peace until the end of the year and Vol 4 of In Search of Lost Time which I’ll hopefully finish this month. And listening to the next Marion Todd police procedural on audio. Apart from that I’m onto my RWYO- first up - on kindle Still Born and paperback Summerwater

Ah Ull envious of you reading War and Peace.

@AgualusasLover I’m really enjoying it- one chapter a day for the year. I already know it’ll be a reread some time!

For those that loved Project Hail Mary and I know there’s a few - the trailer for the film, starring Ryan Gosling is now out!

I have now finished Alwyn Turner's Little Englanders. It's a departure from his usual time period so he had to forsake Doctor Who commentary! Nonetheless, he remains largely focused on popular culture. It's a bit repetitive in places but he's an entertaining and approachable historian.

I am on holiday on a sun lounger so making good progress on my reading

#60. Lights! Camera! Mayhem! (novella) - Jodi Taylor
#61. Christmas Pie (novella) - Jodi Taylor

Final updates on Chronicles of St Mary's - Last short stories and entertaining as usual.

#62. Some Tame Gazelle - Barbara Pym

Spinster sisters, Belinda and Harriet, live together in a village. Belinda has an unrequited romantic history with the (now married) Archdeacon and Harriet is popular with bachelors. Great commentary on country lift and the clergy. Both Belinda and Harriet are fabulous. Very entertaining

No One Would Do What The Lamberts Have Done by Sophie Hannah

Hannah is renowned for coming up with some rather bonkers plots, but this is utterly ludicrous. I’m not sure I can even describe it. It’s about a woman whose dog is accused of biting a neighbour, so she takes action to protect her dog. Now, I am not a dog lover so maybe those who are dog lovers will understand some of the behaviour in this book better than I did. And then beyond that there’s just so many things that don’t make sense. There’s a billionaire who doesn’t seem to have a job. There’s a book within a book. There may or may not be a murder. Plus the main ‘twist’ which I can’t say because of spoilers but which is just batshit.

All that probably sounds like I hated it but I didn’t really. I was certainly intrigued enough so keep reading to see where it was going, but I can’t help feeling that there’s meant to be some sort of point to it that I’m just not getting.

I am going to an event with Sophie talking about this book tomorrow night so it will be interesting to see if I’m any clearer after that!

@ChessieFL there came a point where I had to step away from the Sophie Hannahs for my own sanity. I just couldn’t take the extremities to which she tortures her plots any more.

Have bought
The Ministry of Time
The Women
How Soon Is Now?

in the deals

I've bought Maeve Kerrigan book 3. Tempted by Barbara Pym and Jeeves and Wooster.

Buy the Barbara Pym! /enabler.

I bought two more obscure ones, both more expensive than 99p, The Kitchen Shrink and one about lesser-known ancient civilizations and what we know about them through archaeology.

I haven't made it all the way through the deals, but if anyone hasn't already read them, I thoroughly recommend

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan (first in a detective series set in post-partition India).

This! I used to like her books but it just got to be too much

@ piggywaspushed well done to your DS

Highly recommend Michael Finley The Art Thief and I bought his other one on there A Stranger in the Woods