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 was a bit disappointed by it too although I did finish it. Not sure why, I'd say if I were reading it now I probably would have DNFd as I didn't care enough about the characters tbh

Interesting! I cared about Harry and also about the mystery.

33 - Four mums in a boat – Janette Benaddi, Helen Butters, Niki Doeg & Frances Davies
Listened to this on audible - lovely narration which fitted well with the Mums' background. I had a great time preparing for and enduring this epic row across the Atlantic with these lovely lasses. I'm very late to this as I see it was published in 2017 and as I haven't lived in the UK since 2000 this momentous achievement had passed me by completely. Not sure it would fit your criteria of sea peril @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie 😂but very adventurous and inspiring nonetheless.

@nowanearlyNicemum I’ll have to give Four mums in a boat a read. My cousin did the Talisker Challenge in 2017-18 with 3 of his friends and (I think) still holds the record for the fastest time. He was really glad he did it and they raised a huge amount for a charity close to their heart but he said it was absolute hell!

Edit: just checked and they do still hold the record at just under 30 days.

Meet Me at The Seaside Cottages - Jenny Colgan

I quite liked this. I generally like Jenny Colgan’s brand of cosy fiction but the last few haven’t really done it for me. This was better. Young woman returns home to remote village in Scotland to live with Audiologist mum after losing high flying job with investment banking firm in Edinburgh and gets involved with local man developing property. There’s quite a lot of politics here with the issue of second homes and AirBNB destroying communities and a lot about hearing and the work of audiologists.
It’s all tied together with a bit of a silly story about puppies which draws the various characters together but on the whole, enjoyable.

142 Lanny by Max Porter
RWYO- A strange little book that looks at village life- the positives like community and the negatives like small-mindedness, through the story of an eccentric little boy Lanny, his parents and an artist neighbour. Crossed with folkloric report in the character of Dead Papa Toothwart. I’m not sure I fully ‘got’ this book but I did like it- the stream of consciousness voices in part 2 and the voices of the village in part 1. I’ll definitely read more Porter (well I own another two for a start!)

Also two DNFs- The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton- by the time it got to body jump number 3 I’d lost any interest in what happened- too repetitive and dependent on keeping readers in the dark and Ghostwritten by Ronald Malfi on audio. The narrator was unlistenable for me (it was audible plus so easy to give up and return).

I know a number of us have read Careless People so I thought this was of interest

www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/21/meta-expose-author-sarah-wynn-williams-faces-bankruptcy-after-ban-on-criticising-company

@TattiePants amazing! Such an achievement. I was quite emotional at some points - particularly when they arrived in Antigua.

@BestIsWest I picked that up in the kindle deals and am looking forward to reading it once I've finished The Only Plane in the Sky which is taking me forever as I can't read much of it at any one time - harrowing.

In other news I started listening to Cally Beaton's Namaste Motherfckers *yesterday and should warn my dear friends and family that many of them will be receiving it as a gift. Recommended so far, but honestly I'm only about an hour in so hope I haven't spoken too soon!

38. Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

I fell like I have overdosed on Elizabeth Strout - she writes beautifully but it gets a bit predictable for my liking. And I was irritated by the way the characters just have to look at each other to 'know' something which becomes integral to the plot. And Olive Kitteridge being as unsympathetic as ever....

Hello, been off the thread for a while as I’ve been finishing the Silo trilogy, which I’ve absolutely loved. Right up my street, I love a dystopian future.

Now I need something quick and fun to read, and it really ought to be something I already own. I’ve got no excuses on that front, the amount of books I’ve bought recently!

@ÚlldemoShúl I read Lanny a couple of years back. It is a strange book, but I did enjoy it. Might have another read of it. (But not today.)

A quick google tells me that this is Book 8 in the Mure series. Book 7 was a huge bugbear for me, as it wasnt part of the Mure series and I wish that the publishers would stop with this nonsense. Have you read Summer Skies or Close Knit, which were set around Carso? Are there any crossovers? TIA :)

@Tarragon123 it is set in Carso and a couple of the characters get a mention but only in passing (the pilot, the knitter). I didn’t like the knitting book much but thought that this was better - the story is divided between the daughter and the mother and it was a change to have Colgan write about an older woman which I thought she did quite well. There are a few totally daft bits of course.

None of the Mure people are in this.

51 The Suspect by Rob Rinder
52 The Protest by Rob Rinder

Vested interest as I trained as a barrister with the author. I enjoyed both of these, particularly the parts I thought I recognised! Likeable junior barrister Adam Green gets overly involved in two more cases, doing far more sleuthing than a barrister would be allowed to get away with (because otherwise it would be a bit boring). I like the bits with Adam's mum best. I wonder if Adam is going to get a love interest. At the moment there are a few very small hints left around, but nothing more. It's sort of the opposite of Caper Court (Caro Fraser) where everyone seems to be having sex with each other all the time.

That's a pretty cool connection, @Welshwabbit . I have the first one on my kindle but haven't got round to it yet.

109. Fragile Minds, Bella Jackson
A former mental health nurse trainee writes about her experience on placements and shows how our system fails people - people who are reacting to intense trauma are treated as if there is something biologically wrong with them; diagnosing is sloppy; medication is used in harmful ways; the system has inbuilt racial bias. These aren't new critiques, but she does a good job in using case studies to illustrate them. I did grind my teeth a bit at how she portrayed herself as the heroine of every anecdote - she alone has the compassion and insight to reach suffering individuals and make things better for them. Irritating, but it doesn't negate the points she makes.

110. The Meteorite Hunters, Joshua Howgego
Pop science book about how meteorites are found and analysed. I'm not sure I absorbed all the technical detail - wouldn't like to sit an exam on it. But I did like the searching part - tell me about a scientific expedition with a Tuarag fixer nicknamed The Locust, and I'm sold.

111. How to Lose Your Mother, Molly Jong-Fast
The daughter of the writer Erica Jong writes about the year when her mother and step-father disappeared into dementia and she had to find care for them, as well as dealing with her husband's cancer diagnosis. She writes about her conflicted feelings about having to care for a mother who was a poor carer for her. She's wryly self-aware and honest about her own flaws, which makes this a compelling read.

My Dark Vanessa - Kate Elizabeth Russell

At the age of 15 Vanessa started having an affair with her teacher, which carried on until adulthood. Vanessa has never seen herself as a victim of rape but is forced to start confronting her interpretation of what happened when the teacher is accused of doing the same to other girls. Despite the subject matter I found it really hard to engage with or sympathise with any of the characters, and the ending is very inconclusive.

Buckeye - Patrick Ryan

Margaret and Cal meet on VE Day in 1945, when she goes into his hardware store to listen to the radio. The events following that meeting affect them and their families over the next 30 years. The characters in this are well drawn and the small town American setting is also really well brought to life. I really liked this.

45 Room To Dream - David Lynch and Kristine McKenna

Brilliant mix of biography and autobiography - in the audiobook the chapters are alternately read by McKenna (in a traditional biographical format with dates and names etc) and Lynch (reflecting on, and sharing anecdotes from the period just covered). It’s a funny and illuminating account of an extraordinary creative life and highly recommended to Lynch fans.

46 Saltwater Mansions - David Whitehouse

This was a decent enough 99p Kindle punt - Whitehouse is a journalist who became obsessed with trying to find out what happened to a woman who vanished without trace from a flat in his home town of Margate, and his investigation shines an interesting light on the lives of her neighbours and the gentrification of the town. But it did make me want to reread David Seabrook’s All The Devils Are Here for the real dark underbelly of the east Kent coast.

Farewell Fountain Street, Selçuk Altun trans by Mel Kenne and Nilgün Dungan

I have joined a new book club that read Turkish writers in translation and this is my first book.

It is pitched as a thriller, but it isn’t that thrilling. Ziya bey is dying and hires Artvin, a companion - both are fledging academics. The interview begins with Artvin telling Ziya bey all about himself and as the book unravels we hear more about each of their lives. The tone is very deadpan and no one is likeable or redeemed really, but the passages about Istanbul are really something special and I’m inspired to walk some of the streets next time I go. I also liked all the casual references to literature and the arts - of Turkey but Europe more broadly. Ziya bey is consistently trying to write about Beckett for example.

Not going to lie, I thought Samuel Beckettt was a monk writer in the Middle Ages! Turns out he is firmly 20th century.

@AgualusasLover To be fair, SB would probably have made an excellent monk.

@AgualusasLover I've made the same mistake - mixing up Samuel Beckett 20 century playwright with Thomas Beckett, turbulent priest who was murdered apparently at the behest of Henry II.

I saw a post by Eric Karl Anderson raving about Buckeye @ChessieFL although I think he is friends with the author. Sounds good though.

Booker day tomorrow and I finished number 11 this morning from the Longlist - The Land In Winter by Andrew Miller. I thought this was quite beautifully written following 2 couples in the winter of 1962. The characters were well drawn and I could really picture the various scenes. My main criticism is that it ended very abruptly, but I think this is one that will stay with me.

My shortlist would probably be :
Seascraper
The Land In Winter
Flesh
Flashlight
Endling
Audition

I'm expecting tomorrow's one to have the Kiran Desai book included which hasn't been published, and probably Universality which I didn't think was very good but seems to have quite a few fans.

Also finished The Book of Guilt - Catherine Chigley. This is an alternate reality set in the 1970s following Vincent, one of triplets, living in a children's home where all the other children have left, and Nancy, a girl living with her elderly parents who is kept inside. It gradually becomes clear what is happening - very similar to another book - but the story was well told and kept me interested. There was a twist at the end that I didn't see coming but was maybe quite obvious.

Cue - "will nobody rid me of that troublesome Irish literary legend?" lines.

Brilliant Remus!

You're in top form tonight Remus! 😂

I've been lurking on the thread but have been rubbish at posting. Stowick, thanks for your Booker shortlist! I've only managed to read six of the longlist so far, but I chose them rather carefully, on the basis of what people were recommending on this thread, and though I've only read six, my ranking is very similar to yours:

My top category so far:
Seascraper (loved this)
The Land in Winter (also loved this)
Flashlight (also a bold for me, but I don't think it will win; the plot is too sprawling)

My middle category:
Love Forms

My lowest category:
Flesh (I can see how it's original from a literary perspective, but I didn't like it much)
Universality (also didn't like it much as I found the satire too heavy-handed).

So I'm keen to discover the shortlist tomorrow. I plan to keep reading the longlist anyway, regardless of what's on the shortlist, because I have the rest of the books on reserve at the library (they have trickled in disappointingly slowly).

Here are reviews of my most recent longlist reads, although I don't think they add much to what other reviewers have said already!

58. Love Forms, Claire Adam 4/5
    Booker Prize longlist. A sensitively written novel in the 1st-person about a mother looking for her adopted daughter. The story moves between Trinidad, Venezuela and London. The narrator’s voice is quite calm and self-contained (almost too self-contained?), even when she is relating traumatic events, and the depiction of living between two cultures (the UK and Trinidad) is quite gripping.

59. Seascraper, Benjamin Wood 5/5
    Booker Prize longlist. This is a gorgeous short novel and my favourite on the longlist so far. It’s set on the northwest English coast (Wood grew up in Merseyside), perhaps in the 1960s, and evokes a very strong sense of place and character, in relatively few words. A young man’s brief encounter with an outsider changes his perspective on the world in subtle ways.

60. The Land in Winter, Andrew Miller 5/5
    Booker Prize longlist. A remarkably good historical novel, set in the West Country in 1962. Miller explores the lives of two newlywed couples: one household consists of a doctor and his sensitive, educated wife; and the other of an amateur farmer (the son of a wealthy British-Hungarian businessman) and his charismatic wife, who has a mysteriously troubled past. Themes the novel treats thoughtfully and convincingly include female friendship, mental illness, and the lingering aftereffects of World War II.

Thanks for the interesting review of How to Lose Your Mother, bibliomania; that's on my TBR list. Some close friends of mine are friends of Molly JF and her husband, and I've followed her life from afar with some fascination. She's been a strong political voice for the Democrats for some years now.

I found her very likeable, cassandre.. It's a good read

73. The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith

I didn’t love this as much as the last two. It was good though.

74. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

This was the palate cleanser I needed somehow. A tract of land is owned by a rich American family in the Adirondaks and run as a holiday camp. A camper goes missing and there are echoes to when another child went missing over a decade earlier.

The world building in this was good. There were lots of characters and different chapters were centred around different characters- sometimes this gets confusing and unwieldy but Moore managed to keep control of this. Her tying up of loose ends was also immaculate (well I couldn’t spot any...). A good read.

75. Havoc by Rebecca Wait

A teenager in the 1980s is desperate to escape her Hebridean home with a feckless mother. She obtains a scholarship to a boarding school on the south coast of England but it’s all a bit strange. The school is falling down and the headteacher is obsessed with the threat of nuclear war. Soon some of the girls start to have seizures and twitching episodes. I didn’t love this but the story held together relatively well.

76. The Hottest Girl at Burn Camp by Krystal Evans

Autobiography by a comedian about her quite extraordinary early life. Growing up with a mother with significant mental health problems, Krystal and her sister are dragged various places across the USA to live with various unsavoury characters. Her sister dies at the age of 6 in a house fire. This was quite raw but told with real insight and compassion (both for herself and her family members).