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

@Welshwabbit – I cant wait to read Clown Town and discuss on here!

@bibliomania – the new TV series drops on 24 September. I agree with you about the Awful Rodster.

96 The Counterfeit Candidate – Brian Klein (kindle) RWYO. Bonkers but brilliant story, where Hitler, Eva Braun and Martin Bormann escape from Berlin and move to Argentina. They then plan to create a 4th Reich in the US. Highly implausible. Or is it? Lots of CW for antisemitism, racism, violence and misogyny. This is Klein’s debut book and I was surprised. Far more polished and well written than I expected from a debutante. It obviously did well and he has written two more. However, I don’t want to spend anymore time with a bunch of horrible Nazis, even if the police officers are decent humans. So I’ll bash on with my huge TBR.

97 The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison. I wasn’t expecting to like this after the feedback on the thread and I was right. Too bitty and jumped around. It was short, so that was good.

A couple more from me:

67. Lady of Quality - Georgette Heyer

Annis is single through choice at the age of 29 and has set up her own establishment in Bath to give herself freedom and to avoid becoming pigeonholed and put upon as a spinster aunt if she had remained living with her brother and his family. The price Annis pays for this freedom is the companionship of Maria Farlow, an older impoverished cousin, who means well but is unbelievably annoying. Annis's life changes when she unexpectedly takes responsibility for and becomes temporary chaperone to young orphaned Lucilla who is beautiful, wealthy and determined to avoid the marriage mapped out for her by her aunt. Annis is keen to protect Lucilla but this brings her into conflict with Lucilla's legal guardian, "the most objectionable man in England". Entertaining Heyer fare.

68. My Family - David Baddiel

Recommended by others upthread (or on previous threads). I am of the age to remember The Mary Whitehouse Experience so interested to read about his background and upbringing. He certainly doesn't flinch from sharing personal information and balances humour with emotion and he certainly had an interesting family!

I loved the Mary Whitehouse Experience back in the day @TimeforaGandT . I remember meeting Baddiel at the Edinburgh festival and being quite disappointed that he was there with Frank Skinner and not Rob Newman who I fancied the pants off.

The South - Tash Aw. Number 10 in my Booker reads, I quite liked this one. It's about Jay who is 16 and visiting the farm in Southern Malaysia that his mother has inherited from their father-in-law, with his parents and elder sisters. Fong, a cousin of his father's, manages the declining farm with his son Chuan who Jay falls for. It took me a while to get into this - it didn't necessarily feel very Malaysian, for example I wanted to know what they were growing in the orchard which wasn't described until about a third of the way through. But I did get drawn in to the various familial relationships, his ageing autocratic father, his sisters and Fong. Apparently it's the first of a planned quartet and I would definitely be interested in reading the next one to b see where it goes, as this felt like it had only just begun.

@Stowickthevast I loved TMWE and I once met Rob Newman at a book signing. He was lovely I’m happy to report! Can’t remember how far back maybe 10 years

Two new reads from me.
139 Instructions for a Heatwave- Maggie O’Farrell
Ive had this one for ages and have finally got around to it. It tells the story of the Riordan family. Gretta’s husband Robert has disappeared - went to the shop and never came back. We see how she and her three adult children deal with this and the other complexities in their lives. We hear from all the main characters (except Robert) points of view. All the characters feel flawed and human. I enjoyed it well enough but it’s not a favourite O’Farrell (thus far that’s definitely Esme Lennox)

140 Stoneblind by Natalie Haynes
I imagine I’m the only person left here to read this as it was on the Women’s Prize Longlist a couple of years ago- I skipped it at the time as I’d had far too many myth retellings and had a sickener of them. This is supposed to tell the story of Medusa- and the parts that focus on her are the best parts of the book- but it jumps around general mythology and the story of Perseus a lot. Still it was good fun and light relief. I enjoyed Haynes’s humorous tone.

I haven’t read My Family but think I have it on kindle so must move it up the list as I was another fan of TMWE- ‘that’s you that is’ was a regular taunt when I was at secondary school.
@Stowickthevast I also enjoyed The South not groundbreaking but a nice read all the same.

I did go and see Baddiel and Newman live in the early/mid 90s but didn't get to meet either of them sadly!

Sounds like things didn't end well between them!

I actually have David Baddiel’s email and phone number - we organised an event together once

Totally irrelevant fact.

Fabulous @AgualusasLover !

160-162 Me Before You, After You, Still Me - JoJo Moyes

Found that the last in this trilogy was unread on my kindle, so re-read the first two and then read it. The first book was, I think, the one that made JoJo Moyes famous and it was made into a film. The books tell the story of 20 something Louisa Clark, who lives with her parents, sister, nephew and grandad in her childhood home where cash gets even tighter once Lou loses her cafe job. She gets work as a companion to quadriplegic Will Traynor, and tries to improve his life. They fall for each other over the course of the book.

Hard to summarise books 2 and 3 without spoilers if you haven’t read the first, but in book 2, Will’s previously unknown teenage DD shows up and crashes into Lou’s life, curtailing her plans. In book 3, Lou goes to New York for a new job and to finally find her path in life.

Lou is a lovely character to spend time with.

Singin' And Swingin' And Gettin' Merry Like Christmas by Maya Angelou

This is the third volume in her memoirs and before I read it I checked it was not about Christmas in case I needed to leave it a couple of months. It's not, apparently the title reflects a time in her life where she felt relaxed and partied like it was Christmas time of year. I would not have figured that out for myself.

This is the memoir where she becomes Maya Angelou and goes on a European tour with a show. The show also goes to Egypt so she meets Africans for the first time and her perspective on how her American blackness is different to African blackness (culturally) is really interesting. In the USA she feels less than, but abroad she is sought after as a marriage to her means an American passport.

I am spacing these out deliberately. Four more books to go.

@ÚlldemoShúl
I still have Stone Blind and several other books by Natalie Haynes TBR. I've read one of her books but bought most of them as they appear in deals.

I really enjoy her radio series Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics.

For anyone who looks out for award listed titles, Ootlin by Jenni Fagan (Women's Prize Non Fiction longlist 2025) is one of today's Daily Deals at 99p.

Thanks @elkiedee I just picked that up.

I felt Stone Blind was a little YA so gave it to my 13 year old to read on holiday - she absolutely loved it.

163. Truss at 10 by Anthony Seldon

Borrowed on Prime and reviwed by @PermanentTemporary not far upthread. We were away for halfterm on our first overseas holiday since covid when this all kicked off and it really is astonishing how mad it was, looking back.

Seldon has written bios of most of the recent prime ministers and this was a good read. He also - amazingly - wrote this whilst acting as head of Epsom College (following the murder of Emma Pattison and her DD Lettie by Emma's husband).

If anyone missed the theatre production of Ballet Shoes earlier in the year, it's back at The National Theatre in mid-November.

71. Warlight - Michael Ondaatje

A book club read. Narrated by Nathaniel, who with his sister Rachel lives in London together with their parents immediately after WW2, this becomes quite strange very quickly. Both parents leave for an unspecified destination in the East, consigning the children to the care of their mysterious lodger, 'The Moth'. Life becomes chaotic, filled with strange characters who come and go, and Nathaniel - by now a teenager - embarks on jobs in hotel kitchens that bring him into contact with a girl, Agnes, and into a sexual relationship. Then a shocking event occurs, and the narrative breaks, resuming with the adult Nathaniel filling in the details of what he later learned about this unmoored period in his life.

I found this hard to get into but as soon as I accepted its air of unreality, it became quite compelling - it never felt anything other than dreamlike, though, and despite a lot of detail about specific things, it never seemed a fully realistic narrative in the way that William Boyd's Restless did (with which it shares some similarities). It also peters out at the end in a way that feels somewhat frustrating, but overall, it definitely has a strange charm, with some good writing.

114 . The Long Walk by Stephen King (as Richard Bachman)

I bought The Bachman Books after some discussion on here a few years ago and then didn’t touch it

So this is a bit RWYO and a bit Read It Because A Film Came Out

A group of selected young men take the long walk of title and are summarily shot if they fall behind. Considering King was a teenager when he wrote this one, it’s really accomplished. I would maybe have liked more background detail about the world it is set in but it works just as well without it. I don’t like King’s approach to the N word across his output, but I’m aware his career began in different times. Overall I might even give this a bold I enjoy a good dystopian set up, even if I have a misgiving or two about the end..

in terms of RWYO there’s still Roadwork and The Running Man to read out of The Bachman Books and the latter is coming out as a film with Glen Powell so I’ll probably read that too. Can anyone tell me why I should make time for Roadwork?

141 The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith
This one wasn’t as good as the last. Strike and Robin investigate the identity of a man found dead in the basement of a silver shop which specialised in Freemason silver. There are too many characters and this one was a bit too convoluted to be believable. Obviously I’ll still read (listen to) the next.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I remember very little about Roadwork and don't think it's one I'd recommend. I'm so glad you rated The Long Walk and I'm pretty confident you'll like 'The Running Man* too.

Oh gosh - I thought the last one was even worse than the stupid online conversations one. That idiot in the dungarees in the sect was so...fucking...boring....

I might just have to ask one of you to message me about the shagging situation and not bother with the actual book at all.

I preferred the cult to the online stuff but I do have a weakness for a cult storyline in general.

I think cults might have just joined my banned list.

164 The Grave Artist - Jeffrey Deaver and Isabella Maldonado

Second in a two part series about a former FBI agent, Carmen Sanchez and a cybersecurity lecturer, Jake Heron, trying to solve serial murders in a new government agency, i squared. They are on the trial of the Honeymoon Killer, who has struck at several weddings. Carmen and her sister are also trying to solve the mystery around their father’s death, which came up in the last book. A good read.

I fear I may be the antiRemus- don’t enjoy sea peril and love a good cult