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

I read the John Lennon bio many years ago, which seems to have satisfied my need for info on the Beatles

(Whispers) - I hate Queen too!

I also really disliked *Our Man in Havana.

35. Cotillion by Georgette Heyer
[happy sigh] I will always love Freddie Standen.

59 Quentins- Maeve Binchey. Set in Dublin and following a large number of people connected to a restaurant called Quentins.This was a gift given to me by someone I really like but don't know very well. I have never read any Maeve Binchey - the covers put me off a bit. I thought this was OK. Some of the plot was a bit unlikely but I liked some of the characters. Don't think I would necessarily read another of hers but am pleased I read it so that I can say thank you.

Was that Glastonbury 2022 noodlezoodle? If so I was there too and was similarly blown away. I was in two minds whether to get tickets for his recent tour after that, but gigs are so expensive these days, and I’m an avid gig goer so it gets costly, so I decided seeing him once would have to do!

31 Brain food – Lisa Mosconi
Listened to on audible and the authors voice is a little monotone for my liking. Fairly interesting 'what to eat / what to avoid' with regards to brain health but nothing new for me sadly.

Belated birthday greetings to @Piggywaspushed and @Arran2024 - I hope you've been a bit spoiled.

On The Beatles, I admire them more than like them. I get the songwriting craft and the importance of their influence on those coming after them, but I never find myself reaching for their albums to listen to. I grew up in the weird not quite London, not quite Kent area of Bowie and the Stones, and find of the artists from that rough era, their stuff speaks to me a bit more than that of The Beatles.

37.Pandora by Jilly Cooper. A not-quite Rutshire novel, with a largely new cast, although Rupert obviously has to appear as a bit of a cameo. It's a not very subtle satire of the art world, focusing largely on the YBAs of the 1990s and 2000s. Lots of the usual affairs, mad coincidences, and impossibly glamorous locations proving the expected silly fun.

38. Universality by Natasha Brown. This opens with an investigative journalist's long read piece on the circumstances behind a lockdown rave that took place on a farm in West Yorkshire. The farm had been taken over by a counter cultural group while its wealthy owner was down in Surrey. The rave ends in a serious assault. The aftermath of both the incident and the impact of the viral article is told from the perspective of each of the main characters

Set out as a satire with far too many targets to list, including clickbait columnists, gentrification, and political tribalism, it's as lacking in subtly as the Jilly Cooper above, but with none of the joy. It was too short and slight for any of the characters to be anything other than a vehicle for discussion points. Brown did have some smart and snappy lines though, which made me want to go back and read her début, but overall this one felt a bit half-baked.

70. Dusty Answer - Rosamond Lehmann

Latest for the Rather Dated Book Club. I’ve never read any Rosamond Lehmann and always intended to, so this was an excellent opportunity - it was her first novel, published in 1927 and a scandalous success. The central character, Judith Earle, is a fictionalised Lehmann herself - a childhood friendship with a group of 5 cousins living next door comes to dominate Judith's emotional life over the years as she becomes variously preoccupied with the boys - Charlie, Julian, Roddy and Martin - and goes up to Cambridge, where she falls under the spell of mesmerising fellow-student Jennifer (the portrayal of their relationship, clearly a barely-suppressed lesbian infatuation, is what caused the book to be condemned).
Judith returns home and falls back under the spell of the Fyfe cousins, but ends the novel having finally managed to break free.

Mixed feelings about this - some of the descriptive writing was beautiful, quite strikingly unlike anything else I've read, but the emotional turbulence didn’t do it for me. I got a bit weary of Judith and her endless angsting; however, I’d be interested to read some of her later novels to see how they compare.

Injury Time by Beryl Bainbridge

Edward and Binny are having an affair. Binny reaches the stage of wanting to host a dinner party for Edward and his married friends. Things don't go to plan when some uninvited guests turn up.

Awful book, hated it. Fortunately the book is so short it can be read in a day. The supposed black comedy didn't work at all especially towards the end when there is some unexpected violence which adds nothing to the plot. And the ending! I had to check that the book was complete as the ending wasn't an ending. It felt like Bainbridge had got bored with it all and had closed it off with a 'that'll do'.

It won a Whitbread award so what do I know.

Interesting review, Terpsichore, thank you.
I have only started this. The writing style strikes me as rather dreamlike, as if she is seeing the past through a veil.

32 (I think) The Wilderness – Samantha Harvey
I started reading this 2 years ago during my summer hols but marked it as DNF after a month. I held onto it as I was pretty sure I would go back to it at some point. And so I did. In one of those weird moments that often happen where 2 books you’re reading have a connection, I’d been reading Brain Food by Lisa Mosconi – ultimately ‘how to help yourself avoid Alzheimers’ - and once again picked up this story of Jake, who has Alzheimers. Still can’t say I loved it. Truthfully, I found it an absolute slog. Just too bleak and depressing, as anyone who has come into contact with this disease will know. No amount of clever writing was ever going to change that.

I completely agree with your review of Universality @StrangewaysHereWeCome . Quite a few people on Bookstagram seem to love it but for me the satire is obvious.

108. Love Forms - Claire Adam. Another Booker read, this one is about a Trinidad woman who gives up her baby for adoption when she's 16. The novel is written as a first person point of view in her 50s looking for her child and tracing how it has affected her life. This was a reasonable read, and quite moving. Dawn basically does what her parents tell her when she was 16 and as she gets older questions her choices. But I don't really see what makes it a Booker book other than the fact that's is published by Sarah Jessica Parker's company.

109. London Rules - Mick Herron.
     This was a bit of much needed light relief after Booker reading and ahead of the new season coming out in Apple. Very enjoyable shenanigans for the Slow Horses.

Flashlight by Susan Choi. One of my first from the Booker list. This is a very long, big family novel spreading across Japan, Korea and America. Aged about 9, Louisa is walking on a beach in Japan with her Korean academic father. She blacks out and next thing she knows, is being found cold and alone, her father having disappeared, assumed drowned. The book follows the family over the next 60 years as their lives are shaped by making sense of the events.

I have to say I found this hard going. The story it tells is actually extraordinary - and a true account of events on the Japanese coast at the time - but the length and level of detail made it feel very slow and plodding to me. I did think it was very strong on memory and the way we create stories to explain things that happened in the past.

Sounds Like Love by Ashley Poston. Changing gears completely, an exceptionally silly romance about a singer and songwriter who suddenly have a telepathic connection and decide the only way out is to write a song together.

I'm picking up The Benefactors and The Land in Winter at the library later both of which sound good! I really need a book that falls in between those last two - readable and engaging without being completely ridiculous.

No, it was Outsidelands (in San Francisco) in 2013 - I had to check the date because I could have sworn it was only a few years ago. The pandemic has utterly ruined my sense of time and placing what happened when!

I've never been to Glastonbury but would love to go.

Happy belated birthday @Piggywaspushed and @Arran2024!

49 Wild Geese by Soula Emmanuel

Read for a book club. Phoebe is an Irish trans woman who has begun a new life in Denmark. The book takes place across three days when an old flame from her past, Grace, comes to visit. I really didn't enjoy this at all. A sub-Sally Rooney slog through the minutiae of three days in every turgid detail. Plus the author seemed determined to show off her vocabulary in a way that felt forced rather than natural, and the use of simile and metaphor was similarly jarring. It redeemed itself a little at the end, but overall it was one of those reading experiences that left me resenting the time I'll never get back.

50 Clown Town by Mick Herron

I didn't actually realise this was my 50th, but Mick Herron is always a reliable choice. This isn't my favourite of the Slow Horses series, but as ever there were some great one-liners and there's a fabulous set piece at the end. Left on a sort-of cliffhanger which I'm afraid isn't really a cliffhanger - and if I'm right, I'm sad about the ending. But that's how this series rolls.

Thanks for this review @Terpsichore - I've been meaning to read Dusty Answer ever since I read about Lehmann's life in the country in Rural Hours and have just snapped it up for 99p on the Kindle!

I'm on the library waiting list for Clown Town, @Welshwabbit I've lost track of most of the characters and can't remember who is who and who is still alive (although I'm fond of the awful Roddy Ho) but there's fun to be had just letting it wash over you.

105. The Buried City: Unearthing the Real Pompei, Gabriel Zuchtriegel
Enjoyable account by the Director of the Pompei site. As he promises, not a dry recital of the facts and figures, but what it was like for the people living there, including recently-gained insights into the lives of slaves. He also looks at us looking at the past - what are we failing to see, what are we getting from the experience?

106. The Ferryman, Justin Cronin
Life appear delightful in Prospera, but there are rumbles of something darker - there's a resentful class of workers, and something strange in the air. There's a reveal towards the end which has the effect of undermining what has gone before. It was pacy enough but I don't think it will stick with me the way The Passage trilogy has.

107. The Good Soldier, Ford Maddox Ford
A married couple make each other extremely miserable, without necessarily having any malicious intent. Told by a narrator who may or may not be toying with the reader. Plenty to admire, but I found it rather too bleak to clasp it to my bosom.

108. Stone and Sky, Ben Aaronovitch
Latest instalment of the Rivers of London series, this time set amongst the oil industry in Aberdeen. At first I missed the Folly, back when it was Peter and Nightingale and Molly, but this won me over - there's still some mileage left in the series.

For all the Beatles fans @BestIsWest @MamaNewtNewt @noodlezoodle @Desdemonashandkerchief - Paul McCartney's The Lyrics is £1.99 today. It’s
like an autobiography through the medium of his songs - some great photos too.

@Terpsichore Thank you! Bought. I’d been eyeing it up last week and have the sample downloaded already.

Thanks for the heads up @Terpsichore👍

@Welshwabbit I'm trying to hold out on Clown Town until it's cheaper on Kindle. He's tricked us before with his endings, so I'm intrigued as to where he finishes with this one.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I was either going to buy Clown Town or The Hallmarked Man and this was cheaper, so I'm waiting on that one!

I'm expecting to find The Hallmarked Man in a charity shop before too long, especially if @EineReiseDurchDieZeit 's review is anything to go by!

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie The more I reflect on the ending the more I feel annoyance. A slow build is one thing but testing fan’s patience is quite another. Yet I’ll definitely be in the market for the next.