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

Yes, @nowanearlyNicemum I raved about that and everyone hated it 🤣

@Piggywaspushed I’ve sent you a Pm by the way!

27.Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst. I spent 10 hours driving yesterday dropping DC2 at A Thing. However I had this gem to keep to me company on audio. Dave Win is a scholarship boy at a minor public school. His outsider status is further cemented by the fact that he is half Burmese and has never known his father. the novel follows him from his school days through to retirement age, although as a jobbing actor he never properly retires, and reflects societal changes during this period.

A bit like Nick in The Line of Beauty Dave is often a slightly passive observer of others' actions towards him, rather than a bold protagonist. Same sex intimate relationships were legalised as Dave was leaving school, but homophobia persistently features, as does racism. The sections of Dave's upbringing and especially his mother's story were fascinating, and Dave's reflections on later life were tender and moving. I did however feel that the mid-life sections lacked the same level of richness in terms of how the supporting characters were drawn. I also felt that the coda was a bit heavy handed. But these are very minor complaints, and the writing is so well crafted it was always a joy to sit back and listen.

36 Heart Of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

I was inspired to reread this after enjoying a screening of Apocalypse Now (one of my favourite films) - think I first read it 25+ years ago. It’s lost none of its tightly contained rage and power- helped by a cracking Audible narration by Kenneth Branagh. I’ve not read any other Conrad so open to any particular recommendations!

56. Uncommon Arrangements: 7 Marriages in Literary London 1910 -1939 - Katie Roiphe

I've chipped away slightly at the Kindle backlog with this one, which has been hanging around for some years. Unintentionally, it worked well with my recent non-fic about the summer of 1911, as many of the same personalities flit in and out of its pages, but the focus is on 7 couples and their often unconventional (sometimes intended, sometimes not) relationships: HG Wells and his wife Jane (and the interloping Rebecca West); Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murray; Elizabeth von Arnim (Mansfield's cousin - a fact I hadn’t known) and her second husband, John Russell; Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant; Ottoline and Philip Morrell; Radclyffe Hall and Una Troubridge, and Vera Brittain and George Catlin.

Most of these people knew each other: they were all, or very nearly all, connected by a thread in the person of Virginia Woolf, whose cool and sardonic comments on these marriages or liaisons are highly enjoyable. I really liked this, although some online reviews thought it was a bit gossipy - maybe that’s what appealed to me!

The Lido - Libby Page
I read the sequel to this the other day - it’s the story of two women, one young, one very old who campaign to save a lido in Brixton from closure. It was ok.

@StrangewaysHereWeCome I read Our Evenings last year, it is beautifully written and I loved the parts with his mother. I did keep expecting something more to happen with the Giles storyline though. It'll be interesting to see if it makes the Booker longlist.

78. The City Changes Its Face - Eimear McBride. I listened to the audio of this narrated by the author, which was excellent and really brings alive the poetry in the prose. This follows the couple from The Lesser Bohemians, Eily the 19 year old drama student and Stephen the 40 year old actor over the next year of their lives in mid 90s Camden. The book is structured between one evening "Now" where Stephen has come home from his play and Eily is waiting for him, both stepping on eggshells (or more literally Picalilli), and Then which goes through the last year from last summer onwards. There's also a very long interlude in the middle where Stephen's daughter Grace and Eily watch the first cut of the film of his life. This was slightly less successful for me, but still impressive. The things she does with writing are just amazing. The past addresses Stephen in the second person, the present he is in the third person and the film is told like a director. A bold for me but recommend reading The Lesser Bohemians first. Also only for those who are okn with experimental prose!

I liked On the Road. It does what it does very well and it's not like the mythology around its creation doesn't warn you you're in for an explosion of mid century drug fueled masculinity.

88 . Pretend I’m Dead by Jen Beagin

I read Big Swiss last year and it was a bold so I thought I would try this.

Mona volunteers at a needle exchange and ill advisedly has a relationship with a client, before moving to New Mexico to start again.

And that’s it, that’s everything! The whole book just meanders about and there’s no ongoing plot and barely any characterisation. It’s tedious in the extreme and I would not recommend. My eyes glazed for the last 60 pages. Nonsense. Meh nonsense.

@JaninaDuszejko Glad someone else liked it!

100 Our Man in Havana- Graham Greene
The OG Slow Horse! Wormold is stuck in a rut- selling vacuum cleaners rather unsuccessfully in Havana and trying to keep up with his 17 year old daughter’s antics when he is recruited for the Secret Service- at least he thinks he has been. This was good fun- very different from my previous reads by Greene (Brighton Rock and The End of the Affair) Versatile writer!

And 101 What They Knew by Marion Todd
Next investigation for DS Claire Mackay. Two murders seem to be connected by both members being on the same dating site, but is that the only connection? Another decent mystery that won’t set the world on fire- these are great audio reads.

I also DNFed Barbara Erskine’s Sleeper’s Castle on audio- loved these time travelling historical drama/ romances years ago (probably the idea for Outllander) especially Lady of Hay but my reading taste has changed and I couldn’t get into this- kept falling asleep when listening so I DNFed.

A couple more from me:

64. Death in the Clouds - Agatha Christie

My choice (from the suggestions) for this month for the Agatha Christie challenge. A passenger is murdered on an aeroplane but, unluckily for the murderer, Hercule Poirot is a passenger. Loved the glamour of the historic air travel and the fact they flew in and out of the Croydon aerodrome (not so glam). I last read this in the 1980s but could surprisingly remember the murderer. Good fun.

65. Island in the Sun - Katie Fforde

Cass has travelled to Dominica to help out a friend of her father. Her travelling companion is a (younger) friend of her father's, Ranulph. They arrive in the aftermath of a hurricane. Not as engaging as some of the others by Fforde. Couldn't really believe in Ranulph. Best bits were about Dominica - Fforde has relatives there and visits so presumably realistic. Read as part of RWYO.

I used to love Lady of Hay and Kingdom of Shadows @ÚlldemoShúl

I’ve devoured three Georgette Heyer books in a row (Bath Tangle, Cotillion and Frederica) and very nice it was too.

Ooh. I haven’t read Death in the Clouds. I can’t imagine HP on a plane. Adding to my wish list immediately.

I remember liking 'Death in the Clouds'.
It's a good one! I still remember some of it.

Glad to have been of service in flagging Death in the Clouds.

Remus that's a great run of Georgette Heyer books. I do love her books and they are one of my ultimate comfort reads.

I have finished On Starlit Seas , Regency set novel by Sara Sheridan about real life bluestocking Maria Graham, Brazil, colonialism, chocolate and all sorts of other stuff. This novel has an interesting publication history. It was Sheridan's first novel, not hugely successful. Then she wrote The Fair Botanists which was well received and sold well so this was republished. It's enjoyable and engaging, a bit far fetched in places as with many historical novels. Her books are really cheap on Amazon at the mo, so I picked the other two up.

108 Bess of Hardwick: First Lady of Chatsworth - Mary S Lovell

Bought after a recommendation on here last year, this was excellent. Tracing Bess’s history and economic shrewdness through four husbands, several properties (largely Hardwick Hall and Chatsworth), countless children, stepchildren and grandchildren. Fascinating.

Did anyone see this AIBU thread?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5368194-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film

I haven't read the Salt Path but this is shocking

Ha yes, just posted. I'm enthralled by the news.

I’m on Venetia now. A couple more Heyer rereads should take me to the end of term and then hopefully I’ll have more headspace for something else!

I said from the beginning that while I enjoyed her writing style, I thought she came across terribly as a person.

I'm not surprised, there was always something a bit too wishy washy about it all.

Me too and I didn’t read it either 😆 It holds no appeal for me, but I was always quite intrigued by the people who said something felt a bit 'off'.

Plus, the names 'Raynor' and 'Moth' irrationally annoy me. Sorry not sorry

I didn’t enjoy the book, but I’m fascinated by the exposè. Imagine faking a degenerative condition for 18 years and thinking you’d never get caught

Another one who always thought things didn’t ring true in The Salt Path. She’s got a new book due out later this year so wonder what will happen with that now?!

Love this book. I read it before we went to Hardwick Hall and Chatsworth and bored my family stupid talking about her.

The Salt Path revelations are fascinating, I've spent the morning reading about it and I've never had any desire to read the book. Just read in one article that they live in a house that a fan offered to them. Grifters gotta grift clearly.