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

Yes, I bought it too as I remembered some discussion about the book/author on here a while back

@Terpsichore regarding the Dickens marriage and the biography you posted about

There's a novel by Gaynor Arnold about Catherine, Dickens' wife, which I read a few years ago so my memory's hazy. It's called Girl in Blue Dress - and it very much had the perspective you describe from reading this biography.

Thanks @elkiedee - yes, she mentions that novel. It's waiting on my tbr shelf!

124. Ordinary Time, Cathy Rentenzbrink

Recently recommended by @Arran2024 . Lonely vicar's wife wonders if she should break away from her life and seek new love. Really enjoyed this, from the frustrations of parish life to the musing on the strangeness of marriage and the love you feel for your child.

A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel just finished this, I am sure most of you have already read it. What a brilliant book. I thought it would take me ages but I galloped through it only slowing down as it reached it's inevitable conclusion. Mantel has the capacity to make the most unlikable people likeable and also believable.

The Hallmarked Man - Robert Galbraith. I can't even begin to summarise even in two sentences the sprawling murder case story here. What a surprise - the book is far too long, has too many characters, and is unnecessarily complicated. She does astutely capture Robin and Strike's complicated feels for each other, but I've now reached the point of not being invested enough in that relationship because other elements of this series and this book in particular are poor or average, and it's finally affected how I feel about the two main characters. Most of this book concerns the murder case story, which is as enthralling as watching grass grow. No way would a major publisher publish this 897 page mediocre tome with its dull central story if it weren't for the famous author.

Finished 2 library books today.
The Departed by Sarah Mellor. This is a decent police procedural. Set in 70s Liverpool our protagonist is the first woman detective to make it to serious crime where she is part of the team investigating the murder if a young unidentified man. This has some of the cliches- her life’s a mess, she has unresolved trauma in her own life etc but it also has some interesting angles- finding her way as a woman in the 70s, her developing relationships with her work partner, her mum and her other colleagues. I also didn’t work out whodunnit until it was staring me in the face seconds before the reveal. She is apparently continuing the series so I’ll read the next when it comes out.

Mercy Street by Jennifer Haigh
Set in a Boston winter amongst the people connected to the ‘Mercy Street’ abortion clinic including counsellors, protestors and the stories of some of the women. Some of the stories are interesting but the two main characters Claudia and Tim, never really come to life- probably because the book is focussed more on the issues and I need to be interested in characters. There’s also a bit too much wittering on about buying, selling and smoking weed which bores me senseless. A bit disappointed in this one

74. The Wife - Sigrid Undset

The second book in the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy. Kristin is married and giving birth to endless sons whilst running the estate. Meanwhile, Erlend (her husband), carries on hunting, fighting and enjoying himself and complaining that Kristin is always tired or pregnant.

Strong on relationships and scenery. Could do with less dwelling on her sin!

I’m just starting never let me go - wish me luck !

I love it @bettbburg, have read it twice in my pre-50-booker days.

56 I’m Sorry You Feel That Way - Rebecca Wait
I enjoyed Havoc last month so got Rebecca Wait’s earlier book out of the library. Prodigal daughter Hannah returns for her aunt’s funeral, following a rift from her people-pleasing twin Alice and controlling mother Celia. Funny and immensely readable, but somehow forgettable - a lot of the detail has departed my brain now, a week later. Has a bit with an escaped ferret at a party that goes on far too long.

57 Human Errors - Nathan H. Lents
Light-touch exploration of all the things that are badly ‘designed’ about the human body and mind, from ridiculous sinuses with drainage holes at the top, to an inability to assess probability, via an immune system with a tendency to take against its owner’s body. Not sure why there was all that guff about whether aliens exist at the end - presumably he had a word count.

125. Upon a White Horse, Peter Ross
A few of us enjoyed his previous book A Tomb with a View. In this one he travels visits prehistoric sites and artefacts around the UK and Ireland and thinks about what they mean to us. I like this kind of thing both in real life and in books, so I enjoyed it. I could have done without the reported conversations with other visitors and people volunteering on the site - journalistic filler. I listened on Audible. He has a pleasant Scottish accent and reads well, so that was a great way to do it.

121 . Entitled : The Rise And Fall Of The House Of York by Andrew Lownie

It’s difficult to know what to say, in the circumstances about this exposè of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.

it feels like it doesn’t go far enough on Him, maybe it went as far as it could..and She is revealed to be worse than you thought, vapid and venal.

I don’t support the monarchy, but I find the people that are in and around it very interesting

In the case of these two though, they need some kind of legal reckoning pair of scumbags

Thanks to all the 50 Bookers discussion about Slow Horses we have binged the whole series and are now patiently waiting for the last couple of episodes. I don’t really read police/spy stuff, but I have really enjoyed the series which I wouldn’t have bothered with without you lot.

Love and Louise XIV: The Women in the Life of The Sun King, Antonia Fraser

I’ve been reading this since I went to Versailles in the Summer and honestly would have whizzed through if I didn’t read 4-5 things at the same time. This was published in 2006, so I expect scholarship has moved on a bit, but I enjoyed Fraser’s Marie Antoinette bio, and I really loved this one. I’m really interested in Anne of Austria, but there seems to be little about her knocking about so this book started well with a real focus on her at the beginning and in the conclusion as the first woman in the Sun King’s life - his mother. I’ve seen Versailles on TV so I knew there were a lot of mistresses, but that was not unusual for the time. What was fascinating was the stories of the women and how Louis grew and changed as a consequence of his relationships. I was particularly unaware and enjoyed the parts focussed on his morganatic second marriage. All in all, a good read, very accessible and extremely interesting.

@TimeforaGandT I am
going to try and make time to finish The Wife this week. Though, I feel rather as you do about the sin stuff at present.

50 Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace

Didn’t plan for this to be book 50, but kind of feels right that it is. It’s the third time round for me reading this epic, but the first time in 20+ years, and hit entirely differently (especially as a mother to two teenage boys) than when I first read it, barely older than a teen myself. (And a lot easier navigating its 1000+ pages including copious endnotes on a kindle than my original paperback!)

It’s an extraordinary piece of writing - very funny, profound, and painfully insightful particularly on addiction (and some beautiful writing about tennis). It’s not perfect- the female characters are thin compared to the male protagonists and let’s say DFW definitely had some mother issues! But I do think it stands up as a work of literary brilliance as well as hugely prescient w/r/t the future of mass entertainment. And I enjoyed the heck out of reading it. Won’t leave it so long next time.

@AgualusasL0ver I read that book a few years ago and really liked it too, I definitely found his morganatic marriage fascinating.

103 The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez

My second book by this author, I don’t want to write too much as there would be a spoiler for the first book. The main characters from the last book I read are minor characters here, which I liked. Again I found the ending slightly too neat but really enjoyed it.

191 The Likeness - Tana French

A reread of the second Dublin Murder Squad book. Cassie Maddox (Rob’s work partner in book 1) has left the Murder squad to work in Domestic Violence, but is drawn back into Undercover work by her former boss Frank (who will feature again in books 3 and 5).

I love this series and this book in particular: The premise is beyond credible (Cassie looks so much like a murder victim, Lexie, that she can slot into the house she shared with 4 others) but if you can accept it, the psychological and emotional threads being woven thereafter are rather beautiful, as is the writing.

38 The Traitors Circle: The Rebels Against the Nazis and the Spy Who Betrayed Them by Jonathan Freedland

This is so far up my street it’s practically sitting on my sofa. I like Freedland’s writing and this is a fascinating story of a group of aristocratic anti Nazis and their fates. I didn’t do it justice by having it on audiobook - I think it’s too long for that, though the chapters are short and Freedland reads it well. I just don’t find it easy to stay fully present with audiobooks.

58 The Other Valley - Scott Alexander Howard Fascinating premise, excellent world-building and a great story - and it’s got time travel, but not like any time-travel novel I’ve read before. The mechanics of the world in which the story is set are not fully fleshed out, so it would be easy to poke holes in the internal logic but it made enough sense for the purposes of the story (it reminded me a bit of The Handmaid’s Tale in that respect - I can imagine a TV adaptation adding lots of background details which would be interesting but might risk losing some of the essence of the book).

The story follows Odile, a 16-year-old living in The Valley and entering her final year of school before deciding what career she wants to pursue; it’s very like any coming-of-age story except for the fact that The Valley (comprising a town on a lake and a bit of countryside) is the entirety of her world, and is bounded to the west and to the east by past and future versions of the same valley. The practical and emotional implications of this geographical set-up are explored in a fascinating way. Hard to believe this is a debut novel - I absolutely loved it and I’m sure it will stay with me. Strongly recommended!

I don’t know how I’ve only just found this thread! I’m on my 110th book of the year. I’m going to read through and make a note of books for my future reading and hopefully join a 2026 thread.
I don’t think I have the patience to post all 110 books but I can post a few I’ve particularly enjoyed if anyone would like me to?

Welcome @Irmnern and please do post your favourite reads of the year - always interested!

Go for it @Irmnern 🙂

Thanks @DuPainDuVinDuFromage - that book is on Prime so I have borrowed it.

Welcome @Irmnern !

Blue Lightning- Ann Cleeves reread and the one with the ending nobody likes.
Time to move on to something else now. Maybe even something new.