50 Books Challenge 2025 Part Seven

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the seventh 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 , the fifth thread here and the sixth thread

Some holiday reads for me:

34 Spare Brides by Adele Parks. This is set a few years after WWI, and the social scene for young ladies is characterised by a shortage of young men. Lydia is married and struggling to conceive, but her three best friends are all unmarried - Sarah is a young widow, Beatrice is single and searching, and Ava single by choice. I thought the historical setting lifted this otherwise fairly ordinary chick lit into something more interesting.

35 Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen. Recommended by others on the thread. Equal parts fascinating and terrifying!

36 Nesting by Roisin O'Donnell. Another one that has been popular upthread. I liked this, and thought the abusive relationship was realistically portrayed.

37 Extreme Economies: Survival, Failure, Future - Lessons From the World's Limits by Richard Davies. The author visits nine locations around the globe, each of them representing some extreme situation, such as the town worst hit by the 2004 tsunami and town with the world's oldest average population, and discusses what factors have affected the success or failure of the economy in each place. The author mentions some economic theories, but on the whole this is fairly light on the economics and often reads more like a study in sociology or human behaviour in unusual situations. That's not a criticism by the way - I think the author is deliberately trying to make the book accessible for non experts, and it works. I found it interesting and readable.

38 Still Me by Jojo Moyes. I read Me Before You years ago (and I like the film too), and this has been sitting on my kindle since 2021. Louise is working for a multi-millionaire in New York but missing boyfriend Sam who stayed back home. Very enjoyable - chick lit to perfection!

39 My Family David Baddiel. Memoir by the comedian. This was less about being Jewish and his mother's escape from Nazi Germany than I expected, and instead was mainly about his truly odd parents and their quirks and idiosyncrasies. I like Baddiel's style of humour and this was laugh-out-loud funny - the funniest book I've read for ages.

Good luck @EineReiseDurchDieZeit with the procedure - I hope it goes smoothly.

Yes good luck @EineReiseDurchDieZeit

Hope you're OK eine.

Wishing you well @EineReiseDurchDieZeit and looking forward to your Strike review. I’ll almost certainly read it at some point, despite all my many reservations.

Hope your medical thing goes smoothly Eine.

Hope everything goes smoothly @EineReiseDurchDieZeit

Hope it goes well Eine - at least Strike is a good chunky one for recovery/waiting.

Great review of Flesh @ÚlldemoShúl - apparently the word "Okay" is used over 300 times! I've just started listening to Love Forms - I think someone said this was more like a Woman's Prize book and I agree so far.

I wasn't wowed by God of The Woods when I read it either @ChessieFL. I think it had been so hyped (this was last year when Obama & Oprah were raving about it) that I was expecting something a bit more than a standard ish mystery. But it would probably have been fine if I hadn't been expecting something special.

105. Perfection - Vincent Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes. This was from the international Booker list, and it feels like the east London summer meme book that has been all over Insta. It's about a couple Anna & Tom who are digital nomads - a term they dislike - living in Berlin in what my teens would call an "aesthetic" lifestyle but which they ultimately question the emptiness of. It's based on 1960s book by George Perec, and I'd be interested to read the original. It feels very zeitgeisty... But I am an easy London dweller!

Also wishing you well @EineReiseDurchDieZeit 🌸

I finished Immaculate Conception tonight. I thought it was brilliant. A bold from me too. I was hooked and needed to keep reading on.

Good luck, Eine, hope all goes well

149 The Trespasser - Tana French
A re-read after recommending it upthread. This is the sixth/last in the Dublin Murders series. Antoinette continues to experience sexism in the Murder squad as she and her partner Steve try to solve the death of Aislinn, who was just starting a promising new relationship. Excellent atmosphere building, as ever with this author.

150 Firebrand - Elizabeth Fremantle
Also a bold, this is historical fiction about Katharine Parr, from the death of her second husband Lord Latimer, through her marriage to Henry VIII and the threats she was under as a woman wanting the new religion to triumph over any slide back to Catholicism. KP and her family/friends are realised really well.

Good Luck @EineReiseDurchDieZeit

The Twenty Four Hour Cafe - Libby Page
A day in the life of an all night cafe centering on two of the waitresses and their friendship. Nice and light with some poignant moments.

An Unwanted Inheritance - Imogen Clark
Family find suitcase containing a quarter of a million in cash under deceased father’s bed leading to a moral dilemma and sibling fall out.

Both fine for 3am undemanding reading.

Good luck with your procedure @EineReiseDurchDieZeit hope all goes well. I’m listening to the Strike book too, not got to the bit with the accent but agree with others that it is very irritating that working class accent seems so often to be synonymous with stupid. Also just bought the new Ottolenghi in the deals. I don’t cook that much by him as his recipes are often a faff, but the few I do cook are absolutely amazing.

68. Ways of Life: Jim Ede and the Kettle’s Yard Artists - Laura Freeman

This has been a fixture on my kindle wishlist for an age, but finally appeared in hard copy after a (very long) wait on the library reservation list - and I’m glad to have read it 'for real' because despite its hefty size it does need to be experienced physically, not least for the beautiful photos of artworks that head each chapter.

Anyone who’s been to Cambridge and visited Kettle's Yard knows what a magical place it is, an Aladdin's cave of art and lovely objects gathered by Jim Ede, who worked for the Tate in the 20s and 30s and knew just about every contemporary artist of the time. Freeman has produced a sensitive, vivid portrait of Ede and his times which left me feeling I almost knew him - and wishing I had known him, unpredictable and infuriating though I’m sure he often was, as his devoted wife Helen could testify (they were perpetually short of money and yet he constantly gave away what they had to support his poverty-stricken artist friends, leaving her to scrimp to provide for their two daughters). But he had a gift for friendship and a deep love of all things beautiful and this radiates from the book; the only problem for me is that there should have been many more photos. Definitely a bold, and it’s left me itching to go back to Kettle's Yard asap.

Yay, I’m so glad it went bold for you too. That ending! I actually finished it on my phone in bed because I couldn’t stop.

I want to say thanks to everyone for all your good wishes it means a lot to me

Good luck @EineReiseDurchDieZeit, hope all goes well. It's horrible when you lose your reading mojo isn't it - at least Strike should keep you busy for a bit!

I’m trying to read a short one @noodlezoodlebut it’s not grabbing me

151 Pattern - Emma Bridgewater

A dud, AFAIC. I nearly DNFed a few times but it’s sat on my bookshelf for 5 years or so; thus, I persisted. I was expecting much more about the process of design and the EB business (I like her china very much) but it was much more self indulgent than that. Laments about why some people don’t like Agas and the like. She and the guy who wrote “Less” would get on well.

I’m 200 pages into Endling and I really don’t like it- is there any point in finishing it Booker readers?

not read it but heard good things, just ditch it if you hate it that much there seems to be a lot of real Marmite on the LL

111 . So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell

This was recommended on Between The Covers. It’s a small one at 153 pages. An elderly man reflects on a scandalous event which rocked his small town when he was a child. I struggled through this like treacle, found it dour and dull. I also felt the POV wasn’t right and often “off”. Oh Well, I’ve Read Something!

I think you’re right. It’s too autofiction and chaotic and meta for me. I can see people who enjoy those elements enjoying it but it’s not for me. DNF (only one of the longlist). If it wins I’ll try again. Maybe.

Sending good wishes @EineReiseDurchDieZeit - I hope things get better
36.Eurotrash by Christian Kracht*. A wealthy but physically and mentally frail mother and her nihilistic son take a road trip from Zurich through Switzerland, with the aim of ridding themselves of their murkily acquired wealth. In doing so they reflect on the darker side of the family's past, including Nazi ancestors.

This was very bleakly comic. The road trip was at times farcical, featuring dodgy hotels, a failed robbery, and a cable car malfunction. Kracht doesn't hold back on his criticism of Swiss culture and identity. This might have felt a bit glib but the tenderness that develops in the dysfunctional relationship between mother and son saves it.

I hope you get the treatment you need soon @EineReiseDurchDieZeit and you can look forward to recovery soon.

48 The Trees by Percival Everett
At times a grueling read, but with a wry humour nonetheless. Reminded me of Carl Hiassen in parts. I didn’t love it, but it was a thought provoking read.

Hope all goes well, @EineReiseDurchDieZeit

Very best wishes to @noodlezoodle and @EineReiseDurchDieZeit