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

@noodlezoodle – I know right!!

@Piggywaspushed – I bought An African History of Africa for £1.99 on Kindle during the week as it was one that has been on my radar.

@Arran2024 – I’ve added Connective Tissue as a request to buy to my library, as we don’t have it.

@RomanMum – The Women is sitting in my TBR. DD raved about it.

92 Excellent Women – Barbara Pym RWYO. This has been in my TBR for at least two years, so I was pleased to tick this off. This book is set in the early 1950s and is perhaps best categorised as ‘rather dated’. I do get slightly confused with the Anglo-Catholic stuff. Does she just mean Anglican? Is Anglo-Catholic a term from the 50s? Anyway, it was gentle, sweet and enjoyable.

Thank you @Jecstar I’ll have a look for that episode.

Happy sunday everyone.
I've just caught up with the new thread (not that new now of course)

47. The Godmother by Hannalore Cayre

A bookclub choice.

Like all good bookclub choices, it is not something I would normally pick up but this is how you expand your reading. It was short - under 200 pages but it packed a lot in and I rattled through it pretty quickly.
Patience works as an approved Arabic translator for the Police in Paris, and does some work listening to monitored phone calls between drug dealers. She is widowed with two grown up children she doesn't seem particularly attached to, paid on an hourly basis no, has no savings, job security or pension. She is also paying for her mother's nursing home .
She realises one day that the mother of one of the drug dealers she listens to is her mother's carer in the nursing home and ends up intercepting a drug deal, stashing a huge amount of drugs in her own basement and starts selling to fund the nursing home and her retirement pension.
The story is full of dark humor (which I like). I also liked the social commentary by the author regarding the life of the Arab immigrants in France and the treatment they receive from the justice system and society as a whole.

48. Fire by John Boyne

Third in the series of John Boyne's short novellas. they stand alone quite well, but it is the interlinking of the plots that I thought clever and enjoyed. In this one, Freya is a burns specialist who is also a sexual abuser, who was herself abused as a child. The dual timeline of present day Freya and the historical story of her abuse as a child is of the three of the four stories I have read so far the most disturbing, but it is a compelling story.

49. Air by John Boyne

A great final story in the series, like the others, they are loosely linked together, but stand alone well as well.
Aaron and his 14 year son are flying from Sydney to Ireland and a lot of the story happens in flight (hence Air!). Aaron struggles with being over protective towards his son due to the fact he was sexually abused as a teen (the same age his son is now) - just as his son wants more freedom as he is getting older and more independent. This story explores the conflict between them and the relationship they both have with his equally troubled ex-wife/mother.
The story comes full circle and ends up on the small island where the first story Water is set, which makes the whole series very satisfying. Bleak and disturbing in places but a very well written series. Of the four, I think I liked Water most and Earth least, but enjoyed the whole series and would say they are a bold for me

30 Grown Ups - Marian Keyes
I think I got this free on Audible. It was slightly complicated to listen to due to the sheer number of characters so maybe the format didn't do it justice. Some good bits but overall pretty average.

Best review ever👆- clearly a reflection of how engaged I was with the novel.

The Safekeep - Yael van der Wouden. Predictable from the get-go, but I kept reading this dire novel because, surely, the book that won this year's Women's Prize for Fiction and was Booker-shortisted, has to be a little engaging and moderately enjoyable to read at some point in the book, right? Nope. She can't write well - the language was stilted and I wonder if the book could have been effective if she'd written in her native Dutch.

Having a break tomorrow from reading before starting on The Hallmarked Man - is anyone else here starting it on publication day or soon after? I wouldn't normally spend £15 on a book, but I've got Waterstone's vouchers to use. Somewhat inexplicably, the Kindle price is a whopping £17.99.

@Southeastdweller yes I'm waiting for The Hallmarked Man too. I've preordered on audible

@Southeastdweller Hoping to start on publication day here, but audiobook, will take me about a month, maybe longer!

Lots of reviews to catch up
130 The War of the Worlds - HG Wells
RWYO- I listened to this old classic on audio narrated (very slowly) by David Harewood. I had to listen on 1.7 speed in the end. I enjoyed it, tense and full of horror. I can see how it was such a hit at the time.

131 Love Forms by Claire Adam
Booker longlist. Told from the PoV of Dawn, a 58 year old divorcee living in London. It flips between her present and when she was an unmarried pregnant teenager on Trinidad, who was sent to Venezuela to have the baby secretly and give her up for adoption. It’s quite sparse prose and written as if she is telling the story of her life to someone as she explains features of both countries as if to someone who doesn’t know either. It is an emotional story, yet I never felt any emotion which took it down a notch for me. I’m surprised at its longlisting because it doesn’t seem like a Booker book. It is however a good read and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it on the Women’s Prize longlist.

132 The Grapes of Wrath- John Steinbeck
RWYO- Classic that’s been on my TBR for years. Three generations of the Joad family and an itinerant ex-preacher leave their Oklahoma home during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl to make their way to California where they assume life will be good. The chapters alternate between the Joad’s story and a wider societal commentary. Brutal and grim with only the odd patch of light, this is probably my least favourite Steinbeck so far partly because of the lack of hope (which I know is realistic but still makes for grim reading) and partly due to the utterly bizarre ending.

133 The Mysterious Affair at Styles- Agatha Christie
RWYO- Old, rich lady murdered. Poirot is on the case. I’m not a big fan of Agatha but this was mildly entertaining. Better than I expected.

134 Seascraper - Benjamin Wood
Booker Longlist. This is a short (163 pages) quiet book and yet is exceptionally moving. Thomas Flett is a seascraper like his grandfather before him- a dangerous and labour intensive way of bringing in shrimp. His life is quiet and trapped in 1960s England. A stranger’s visit to town makes him think about his life. This is beautifully written, the prose is just divine. I read it almost in one sitting- just could t put it down. I felt like I Knowles Thomas and the side characters in such a small word count. Really beautiful. Book of the Longlist for me so far. Definite bold.

Almost finished my current read Leonard and Hungry Paul by Roman Hessian which is an upbeat quirky little book that I’m really enjoying. May get it finished tonight.

I have the audio pre-ordered so will be starting as soon as it comes out but will probably take ages.

I'm reading The Safekeep now. There's repressed and there's Dutch repressed. It's a whole new layer of repression. I'm not minding it really!

Ha ha...I looked up my review of it while ago.
It is Repressed with a capital 'R'.

@Southeastdweller I wasn't a fan of The Safekeep either!

I've been lurking but not posting much, as a nasty cold has been sapping me of energy. I've just banged out the following reviews of the books I read (or finished) in August; apologies if the writing is a little incoherent due to virus-induced delirium.

51. Ripeness, Sarah Moss 5/5
    Sarah Moss is one of my favourite living writers, and this novel didn’t disappoint. We see the English protagonist Edith both as a young girl who travels to Italy, sent to help her pregnant older sister, and as a woman in her 70s in Ireland, living out a mostly peaceful life of her own making. I found both narrative strands equally compelling. A big theme of the novel is the hybridity of identity in an age of global migration. I also enjoyed the bits of famous poetry scattered throughout the novel (eg ‘Ripeness is all’ from King Lear).

52. Theft, Abdulrazak Gurnah 3/5
    This is the first novel I’ve read by Gurnah, who won a Nobel Prize in Literature. The novel tells the interlocking stories of three young people of different social classes, who grow up in Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam. I found the novel very readable and interesting, but the ending was a bit of a let-down for me. The final portrayal of a couple of the characters didn’t strike me as convincing.

53. Du côté de chez Swann, Marcel Proust [with reference to Lydia Davis’ translation for help understanding tricky passages] 5/5
    This novel took me a very long time to finish (what @Terpsichore said about rereading sentences multiple times was reassuring, because I did that a lot!). At the same time, it was a very immersive reading experience. I’ve rarely felt myself so much inside the head of a character on the written page, as I did in the case of the narrator and then of Swann. And I did get more used to the prose after awhile: the extended similes, for example (like Homeric epic similes gone crazy!). In the ‘Amour de Swann’ section, I felt much more sympathetic to Odette (and annoyed with Swann) than I think I was meant to, ha. There were also lots of very funny bits. I didn’t realise Proust was so good at comedy. I was entirely won over by the book as a whole; Proust shows that the lives we are living in our minds are more real than ‘reality’, if that makes sense. I will carry on with the saga but need a wee break first.

54. Glorious Exploits, Ferdia Lennon 4/5
    An impressively original narrative based on an episode in ancient history (the aftermath of Athens’ failed invasion of Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War). I’ve read many novels that retell classical myths (Madeline Miller, Pat Barker, etc), and I admire Lennon for doing something dramatically different with the genre. The comic elements, the theme of metatheatricality, and the Irish phrasing (which I loved) make his voice very distinctive. That said, the sheer grimness of staging Euripidean tragedy in what is effectively a concentration camp made the novel a difficult read, despite the ready humour.

55. Kristin Lavransdatter, I: The Wreath, Sigrid Undset, translated by Tina Nunnally 4/5
    Reading this novel as part of a read-along was a lot of fun, and I look forward to the next two volumes. I have mixed feelings about this saga set in medieval Norway. The world-building is very convincing, and the characters are satisfyingly complex. However, I’m still trying to make out what I think of the novel’s take on religion, marriage, sex and guilt. Not to mention gender roles! In short, there’s a lot to ponder.

The Booker longlist novels I reserved from the library are not coming through very fast, which is annoying. I think that when I reserved them, some titles had only just been ordered and weren’t yet in circulation. Never mind! So I’ve read two so far (in addition to Universality, which I didn’t care for much).

56. Flesh, David Szalay 3/5
    I admire the innovative aspects of this novel, but it’s not for me. The prose is extremely pared-back and minimalist, and the protagonist (a young Hungarian who moves from Hungary to the UK, and from poverty to wealth) seems to weather the events life throws at him in a frustratingly (intriguingly?) passive fashion, without ever displaying much agency or engaging in much reflection. He’s a kind of anti-hero really.

57. Flashlight, Susan Choi 5/5
    A sweeping family saga (the kind of book I have a weakness for), this novel moves back and forth from the U.S. to Japan to North Korea. It also moves back and forth between the perspectives of the main characters (American mother, Korean father brought up in Japan, sulky daughter and free-spirited son). The result is sometimes messy, but always thought-provoking, and the story describes a portion of history I knew nothing about: Japan’s mobilisation of Korean citizens during WW2, and the fate of these Koreans after the war. If the characters sometimes seem unsympathetic, and even cruel to one another, this must be because in some ways they remain strangers to one another, and even to themselves. They are all grappling with different bits of history that remain secret (the metaphorical flashlight of understanding shines on the past only incompletely, or not at all). I think this novel is too unwieldy to win the Booker, but it’s a bold for me.

Completely fell off the last thread right at the beginning so will try to do better with this one. Will come back tomorrow with my many reviews. Also personally a big fan of the lists, please don't ditch them!

@MaterMoribundI know it was a couple of days ago now, but I'd recommend My Heart is My Own by John Guy as a really good biography of Mary queen of Scots

I meant to say that I also like the lists! It's a reminder of what kinds of books individual posters like to read. And it's interesting to me to see that the same book can be a bold for some posters, but not for others.

That said I'm erratic about posting my own list and don't post it in every new thread. I figure if I post it every few threads or so, that's good (ADHD inconsistency!).

45 Shy by Max Porter
Shy is a teenager in the Last Chance home for wayward boys and at the beginning he is heading for a nearby pond with a rucksack of stones on his back. It’s stream of consciousness, with significant adults in Shy’s life chipping in now and again (mother, stepfather, therapist, etc). We learn of his extensive past misdemeanors, his innermost thoughts and the happiness and peace drum n bass music bring him. It’s one of Porter’s more upbeat books, for all the main character’s troubles.

This Rough Magic - Mary Stewart

Someone in the last thread read this and wasn’t impressed (sorry, I forget who it was) but I have read it a few times now and love it. Yes the dolphin stuff is a bit implausible but her stories aren’t meant to be taken entirely seriously anyway. The Corfu setting is also done well so a lovely one to read on holiday there.

The Puppet Show - M W Craven

The first in the series featuring Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw. Here they are trying to find out who is burning people alive in Cumbrian stone circles. A great story but some of the descriptions of the murders are too graphic for me.

The God of the Woods - Liz Moore - is 99p on kindle today, so I’ve snapped that up, along with some other recommendations from you lot 🙂

I noticed Glorious Exploits and Fundamentally in the Kindle monthly deals, along with The Only Plane in the Sky.. Here to tempt others - haven't bought them as they're all in my local library. Also intending to get The Hallmarked Man from the library. I don't mind waiting. It's not like I'm going to be short of things to read in the meantime.

Oh no!!! It’s Daily Deals day?! My arch nemesis strikes again!

Four from my Wish List :

Fundamentally
The Island Of Missing Trees
The Gathering
The Witches

There’s a film coming of this. It isn’t called Shy though, it’s called Steve!!

How prosaic @EineReiseDurchDieZeit ! I see they’ve changed the focus to the adults in the book, going by the cast list, which is a shame, but Porter has written the screenplay himself so maybe it’s more of an ‘extension’ piece to the book.

The Trees and The Echoes (Evie Wyld) are 99p in the Deals today. I find Wyld a little variable in quality so I waited for a price reduction on this one.

Thank you @satelliteheart, I will add that to my list. It’s one I saw for sale in the Mary-adjacent house I visited last week.

The thread lists - I don’t post mine much because I can’t be bothered to copy them all out from my notebook at the beginning of every thread. I do tend to skim past most lists and take my recommendations from the individual reviews people post. I don’t mind if the lists stay, nor do I mind if they go!

Ooh deals day. From my wishlist, I've bought Show Me Where It Hurts which I think was recommended on here and by Eric on YT. I've also picked up Fundamentally as listened to it earlier this year and think it could be one that my teens like. The Land in Winter is on for £5.99 so will probably get that too.

104. Bring The House Down - Charlotte Runcie. Thanks to @GrannieMainland for the recommendation. I enjoyed this quick read set in the Edinburgh festival. Newspaper critic Alex sees a first night one woman performance by Hayley, and gives it a 1 star review. He sees Hayley in a bar after the show and has a one-night stand with her without her knowing about his review. The book explores the fall out, told from the pov of junior culture critic and new mum Sophie who is sharing a flat with Alex. This captured the mood of the festival perfectly, lots of funny asides about the ridiculous shows that are put on, and also raises interesting questions. Not quite a bold for me, but would recommend for an easy read.

Oh dear, I've just gone through the full deals list and now have:
An MW Craven book
Bookish
The Gathering by Anne Enright
Death of The Author by Nnedi Okorafor
Sky Daddy by Kate Folk

I did give up my job 3 weeks ago and have been stupidly busy since so am looking forward to a chilled September when I should be looking for consultancy work but will actually be reading.

Another Audible pre-orderer of Hallmarked Man here, it’s the most cost effective way of buying a new book, but a little frustrating to be forced to listen rather than read. Can’t believe they’re charging more for the Kindle edition than the hardback - what a ripoff!