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

Glad to hear you are on the mend @EineReiseDurchDieZeit

Welcome @Frannyisreading

Welcome to @Frannyisreading! Sending fellow-feeling for struggling with the Tudors as I decided to start the read what you own challenge with Hamnet (I haven’t got very far).

Thank you everyone! I'm a bit frustrated with myself for failing to concentrate enough on Wolf Hall but I find I really have to focus fully or I get lost very fast. I think the prose is sometimes deliberately opaque, and combined with the length and numerous characters it's maybe a bridge too far for me. But several friends have loved the richness, depth and immersion, so I want to give it my best shot

Ive got a lovely selection of enjoyable books to indulge in when it's finished, so that's motivating!

Finally caught up as I’ve been away from the thread for a few days.
@Piggywaspushed - Sorry to hear your news. I hope reading brings some comfort at this time.
@EineReiseDurchDieZeit – good to hear you’re on the mend.
@GrannieMainland – belated congrats! (DD loved the Katie Morag books)

@Frannyisreading – welcome to the thread, the nicest corner of Mumsnet ™. Good for the soul, sadly very bad for the bank balance.

.53. Be Funny or Die – Joel Morris

This has taken me a while to read through, not because of its length, but because I was engrossed and the subject demands attention. Having said that, this is a definite bold and a book I’ll be buying to gift at Christmas. The author is a comedy writer in TV, radio and books, and this book analyses the rules of comedy, its importance and why it matters to us. As well as looking at how comedy works, it delves into the neurological effects of laughter and psychological processes in getting a group of people to enjoy comedy, then breaks down the rules to analyse further in short chapters. With examples from both British and US standups, writers and shows, it’s really well written and gives a fascinating trip to the heart of comedy from joke structure and material to characters, storylines to subjects.

Welcome @Frannyisreadingand thanks for the heads up about the Thomases! I think I’ll follow @ÚlldemoShúland read it nearer Christmas. I’m currently on 31 out of 50 books, so I’d like to knock off a few quicker ones first. I know it’s not a competition, but I’ve set myself a 50 book target for the last four or five years, and never achieved it yet, so I’m determined 😄

72. Miss Marple's Final Cases - Agatha Christie

Again, I had read this month's Christie Challenge books so was back on RWYO and selected this from my Kindle which is a series of short stories (not all of which involve Miss Marple). Some were better than others.

Welcome aboard @Frannyisreading. FWIW I avoided Wolf Hall for ages because of its reputed denseness/difficulty, then finally started reading it one Christmas and was so enthralled I barely lifted my eyes from the page. So having a chunk of time to devote to it mightn't be a bad strategy.

76. The Abominable Man - Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, transl. Thomas Teal

The continued adventures of Martin Beck and his not so merry band of fellow-Stockholm detectives. This is the 7th of the 10 books and by far the darkest to date. A notoriously-unpleasant senior policeman, in hospital for investigations, is brutally murdered. Beck and his team must track down the killer, as events build to an unexpected and (unusual for these writers) almost cinematic showdown.

The joy of this series is the growing familiarity with the characters and their individual foibles, as Sjöwall and Wahlöö (who were Marxists) set out to shine a light - mostly unflattering - on Swedish society and its shortcomings, especially the workings of the welfare state. It’s notable that this novel, published in 1971, is threaded through with a sense of muted hopelessness about the changes to society and to Stockholm, with old neighbourhoods demolished as the city was rebuilt. And yet, despite its bleakness, and perhaps surprisingly, there’s plenty of dry humour in there too. I really enjoyed this.

Drat! Wrote a whole review and then found out I wasn't logged in and lost it.

Now time to log on for work so the TLDR version is I finished God of the woods and enjoyed it!

Welcome @Frannyisreading

104 The Key To Rebecca – Ken Follet RYWO, Kindle. Bought July 2023. My longest outstanding Kindle book. This was ok. Set in Egypt in 1944, its about a German spy who uses the novel, Rebecca, as the code to broadcast to the Germans. The English officers (and they are all English) are awful. Treating the Egyptians appallingly and generally being superior. CW for racist language that I thankfully haven’t heard since the 1980s.

55 (Un)Kind by Victoria Smith
A non fiction read I’ve had on the go for a while, probably because to read too much at once makes me cross at the state of a lot of feminism today. It’s also quite densely packed with references that I liked to go away and explore further before reading on. Finished it last night. I agree with all her views but even if you don’t this is a worthwhile exploration of #BeKind being twisted into a shutdown of dissenting female voices about a variety of issues. I particularly admire the nods to the feminist her younger self was and how misogyny in society + age and experience = feminist reflection and even [shock/horror] sometimes changing our minds. An excellent companion piece to her previous book Hags.

Red Bones - Ann Cleeves I’m enjoying my re-read of the Jimmy Perez series but slightly worried that I have absolutely no recollection of what happens in them or whodunnit.

181 Such Charming Liars - Karen MacManus I liked this author's story in the Marple book, so thought I would try this. It's a heist novel about a mother and teenage DD, trying to 'go straight' after years working for a jewel thief. It was fine, I won't rush to read another.

182 Sorry for the Dead - Nicola Upson 8th in her Josephine Tey series (I read up to 7 a few years ago) - loosely based on The Franchise Affair, this follows JT in the past and in the present day, when she is training as a PE teacher but spending the summer supervising teenage schoolgirls learning gardening during WWI. One girl dies tragically in the greenhouse on a stormy night, which is ruled an accident, but the ladies running the school end up closing down owing to gossip.

183 Into the Darkest Corner - Elizabeth Haynes - Crime fiction which opens with Lee in court being prosecuted for an assault on Cathy, his girlfriend, and then goes back and forth in time with Cathy to her relationship with Lee and to the present day, where she is suffering from PTSD and OCD and dreading Lee getting out of jail. The time jumps were a bit confusing at first.

Don't worry about not remembering plots @BestIsWest as you're getting double value from re-reads 😁

I need the laugh emoji for that @WellWish.

58 Until Proven Innocent by Nicola Williams
59 Killer Instinct by Nicola Williams

The follow-up books to Without Prejudice, previously reviewed, still featuring Black barrister Lee Mitchell and the same cast of surrounding characters. Williams wrote these two books over 20 years after the first, but the timeline is telescoped so the whole series takes place over about 5 years. That was slightly mind-bending for me, as a barrister, as things in the profession have changed a good deal over those 20 - 25 years! It is a credit to Williams that she manages to style this out, and the later books remained as compelling as the first. Lee is a great character and I really enjoyed the fact that the supporting cast remains the same, so you learn more about her colleagues, friends and the police officers as you read through the series. I really hope she carries on writing as I would like to find out what Lee does next.

Also just need to add that Never Let Me Go is in the Kindle daily deals today <runs away sharpish>

Also in today's Daily deals are 3 from the Booker list: Love Forms, Endling and The Rest of Our Lives.

Also on offer and mentioned here; Natalie Fergie, The Sewing Machine

I've just caught up with the thread

@Piggywaspushed sorry to hear about your mum. My Mum passed away in 2020 during lockdown (not of Covid though) and I lost my reading mojo for ages. We used to enjoy the same books and used to swap them and recommend books to each other. I still miss her.

I have always been put off by Wolf Hall on the grounds that I have a perception it is difficult. I have the same perception about Donna Tart but The Secret History has just become availble on my Borrowbox list, so I am going in next.
I've read two since I last posted a review (Two ends of a spectrum!)

52. The Five by Hallie Rubenhold I am sure much reviewed on here, but here is my review for what it's worth. This was a real standout for me. I'd say it is a real feminist book and a should-read for everyone. It doesn't dwell on the murders and investigations into the murders, there have been dozens of books and documentaries written about these, not to mention the conspiracy theories about who Jack the Ripper actually was. In contrast, and uniquely, this book focuses on the five women, who never met but are now forever tied together as a group of women made famous by their respective murders. Unless you are a Jack the Ripper aficionado, you probably couldn't name even one of the five women - I certainly couldn't. It is written as five biographies, for four of the five, a surprising amount of detail is known about their early life, where they were born, what sort of education they had, and how their early lives, and in every case, misfortunes lead them to be scratching a living in the poorest part of London in the late 19th century. This book dispels some assumptions made by the Victorian press at the time (which by the sounds of it, could give today's Daily Mail a run for its money), namely that the five women were all common prostitutes. They were not by any stretch. What they did have in common (which is expressed so powerfully in the conclusion) is that they were all poor women, born into a world where a woman's reputation and well-being were wholly dependent on a man, and when those men repeatedly let them down, they were left walking the streets of Whitechapel in 1888.

Also, I think Hallie Rubenhold makes a very valid point at the end that the mythology that has been built up around Jack the Ripper (Halloween costumes, exhibitions etc), when the women he killed remain in obscurity means that we are belittling these women (and by default all women - we are not important). That a man who murders in this way can achieve immortal notoriety but no one gives a shit about the women - three out of the five left children behind, they all left friends and lives behind. But no one remembers them.

I think it was a really powerful book, I think everyone should read it. Off to have a book hangover now.

53. The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods

Probably the worst book I have read this year.
Ridiculously shallow, underdeveloped dual timeline story about a woman in the 1920s, runs away from home because her family are trying to force her to marry someone she doesn't know, ends up working for a bookseller in Paris, runs away again to Dublin when her evil brother finds her in Paris, opens her own bookshop there, gets pregnant, evil brother kidnaps her and has her thrown into a lunatic asylum, steals her baby, she escapes ludicrously easily from asylum about 20 years later, goes back to bookshop.
Present day timeline with another woman who can read people's feelings has just left a violent marriage, walks into a live in housekeeper position with mysterious old lady. Books keep magically appearing. Is wooed by foppish book collector. I have no idea how old the present day character are meant to be. They could be 20 or 50.
Throw in a ridiculous magic bookshop, mysterious tattoos appearing on peoples skin, and missing Emily Bronte manuscripts for good measure, all in about 400 pages.
Awful.

I envy you The Secret History @WelshBookWitch

Thank you @elkiedee

@WelshBookWitch - thanks for your review of The Five. I've always thought it wasn't for me because I imagined it to be yet another gory retelling of their murders but you have changed my take on it! I may well give it a go at some point.

It is grim in places not not gory, but the focus is definitely on the lives of the women and what lead them to being on the streets of Whitechapel rather than the murders themselves, all sad stories and very well researched.

36 - A better second half – Liz Earle
A very dry 'how to improve / maintain your health in midlife'
Seems well-researched but just too dry for me!

@WelshBookWitch I have The Five on my winter TBR along with Fingersmith - I’ve heard they make a good combo. I’m glad to hear such a good review.

@WelshBookWitch great review of The Five. I read it over lockdown and it has stayed with me since. @nowanearlyNicemum it’s not gory per se, as I think the idea was to humanise the victims, to make them more than just a list of names, dates, murder locations and gruesome injuries. I found it desperately sad in places, especially where their future changed so quickly by events outside their control, and the precariousness of their lives.

The author also did a podcast called Bad Women which went into the stories of the victims, but also featured her own fight when the book was published from traditional Ripperologists (awful word) who objected to some of the conclusions she came to; interesting feminist angle too. Fascinating stuff.