50 Books Challenge 2025 Part Eight

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the eighth 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 , the sixth thread here and the seventh thread here

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Her first novel. 15yo Kambili goes to visit her aunt when there is a military coup in Nigeria and learns there is life beyond the narrow confines set by her fanatically religious father. Distressing but so well written (and I'm now considering buying a hardy hibiscus for my garden!).

This American Woman: A one in a billion memoir Zarna Garg

I really like Zarna Garg as a comedian, and enjoy her family podcast reels. In hindsight, this would have been great on audio with her reading, but I did find myself reading it in her voice and I really enjoyed this. There has been some real despair and struggle at times in her life, but she wears it lightly here, especially her time sofa surfing in Mumbai when she ran away because her dad wanted to marry her off at 14. She doesn’t display any real animosity or hold
any grudges for what happened, but her drive for academic and fiscal success all makes a lot of sense. This was very funny and a lesson in what you can do when you start out in your 40s.

The Wife Sigrid Undset
Second in the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy readalong. I’ll save my commentary for that thread, but I seem to be struggling more than most with these, though I’ve come this far so will finish the trilogy.

Just finished Slow Horses, not my usual sort of thing, but I enjoyed it, once it got going. I’ve got the next one so I’ll read that, but I quite fancy a bit of Chalet School before I do. I read a few of them when I was younger, but I think I must have been given them, I had five or six books, but not consecutive ones, just a random assortment.

64 Orbital by Samantha Harvey

In my usual fashion, I'm getting round to reading last year's Booker winner at around the time of this year's prize. I know this was a controversial winner on the thread, but I really liked it. Harvey has said she was trying to create a novel that was more like a painting (there is an interesting discussion of Las Meninas in the book itself) and I think she succeeded in that. Her use of language is lush and gorgeous and I loved the images she painted. But I think the real success of the book is in evoking the repetitiveness, disorientation and moments of clarity that must be part of the lives of astronauts orbiting the globe in this completely out-of-kilter way. I will continue thinking about this for a while, I think.

Made it through 129. The Hallmarked Man, Robert Gilbraith
This wasn't her best. Too long, too much repetition (will Strike tell Robin he fancies her? For the hundredth time no). Too much dialogue, too little action, too little humour. Too many plotlines and I'm not sure I could say what actually happened. Would have been better as a 300-page book rather than three times the size.

130. Death in the Stocks, Georgette Heyer
One of her detective novels, picked up in the deals. I'm a sucker for a 1930s detective story, so I quite liked it as a period piece, but it's nothing special. Dame Agatha does it better. Still, I have the three sequels lined up on kindle and a bad cold, so this fits the bill.

Currently also reading All Consuming: Why We Eat the Way We Eat Now, by Ruby Tandoh and am really enjoying it. She's exploring food culture in the age of Instagram and TikTok. I might google the odd recipe but am otherwise behind the curve so this is new and interesting for me.

47 The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. Really interesting book about the effects of trauma, including the way it can be seen on brain scans, explanations of the behaviours associated with sufferers of trauma, and details about effective treatment. I like the broad range of treatments that the author is open to, from neurofeedback to therapy to yoga to Shakespeare workshops. Not quite a bold because it is rather long, and I feel it could have been trimmed without losing any of the important messages.

48 Paula by Isabel Allende. Some of you have mentioned The House of the Spirits recently, which I haven't read but is now on my tbr because Paula is so good. It is a memoir about the period when Allende's daughter was in a coma and Allende was caring for her, interwoven with pieces of family history. The part about Chile the early 1970s was fascinating (Salvadore Allende's time as president followed by Pinochet coming to power), as were some very personal stories about the author's marriages and relationships. Beautifully written and I really loved this.

@SheilaFentiman – whoop, whoop! Well done 👏

@TeamToeBeans – I would be happy to share the DropBox Chalet School Books if I can work out how to do so lol. I was a huge fan of the Chalet School and as a child wished that I could attend. I still dream about being able to speak French and German fluently ha ha

118 Connective Tissue – Eleanor Thom. Again, huge thanks to @Arran2024 for recommending this book. Absolutely a bold. Helena is in present day Scotland, 35 weeks pregnant with complications. (Helena is loosely based on Eleanor). Her grandmother Dora, is a young Jewish woman in Berlin from 1922 to 1937. The Dora part of the story is true. We know that Dora comes to the UK and marries Eleanor’s Scottish grandfather and lives in Elgin for the rest of her life. But how did she leave Berlin? And what happened to the rest of her family? Its such an incredible story. Dora is not considered to be a German National, despite being born in Berlin, because her father was born in the Austria-Hungarian Empire. I think its present day Ukraine, but I might have picked that it wrong. Eleanor Thom now proudly has German citizenship, after Germany changed the law in 2022, allowing descendants of non-Nationals, who clearly were Nationals, to become German. I think I’ll be buying this for my Mum as part of her Christmas or maybe for her birthday. She really enjoyed Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad.

The Murder at World’s End by Ross Montgomery

Locked room, country house murder mystery solved by a footman and a foul-mouthed aunt in her 80s. Good fun and I liked the two main characters.

Then There Were Five by Elizabeth Enright

Sequel to The Saturdays that I read a few weeks ago, featuring the four siblings of the Melendy family living in New York State in the 1940s. Here, the family has adventures in the countryside including adopting another boy whose family has all died. Nice but I didn’t enjoy it as much as the original.

The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by Sean Lusk

Zachary is the son of a clockmaker in the late 1700s with a special skill that he can sometimes see into the future, a skill he had to put to use when his father is kidnapped and held prisoner in Constantinople. However despite the title, his second sight isn’t actually mentioned as much as I expected. Liked but didn’t love. The cover is beautiful though!

The Dare - John Boyne

Short story about how a young boy copes when his mother is in a car accident involving another local young boy. Fine but a bit too short to really develop the story or characters.

Home Work: A Memoir of my Hollywood Years by Julie Andrews

Despite the title this is far more about her family and their living arrangements than it is about the films she was in. I enjoyed the bits about Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music but after that it started to get less interesting with all the family focus. I also got rather frustrated with her complaining that their residency in Switzerland prevented them spending as much time in the US with their children as they would have liked - well live in the US and pay your tax then! It was their choice to live in Switzerland. Not recommended unless you’re a real fan.

The Curator and The Mercy Chair by M W Craven

I am gradually working my way through this series about detective Washington Poe and his very very intelligent but socially awkward colleague Tilly Bradshaw. These books are (I think) 5th and 7th in the series as I’m just reading them as I come across them. I’m really enjoying them - some of the crimes are a bit gruesome but the descriptions soon move on and I love the friendship between the main characters.

Glad you were happy to have found Connective Tissue. Wonderful book.

@Tarahumara
Paula is one of my very favourite books. I’ve given it as a gift several times, but nobody has ever got back to me to say they loved it. They clearly didn’t deserve it.

My Invented Country about Chile is also very good. I think her non-fiction is vastly superior to her fiction.

Let's pretend you gave it to me as a gift and I am telling you that I loved it😀

I’m so glad you enjoyed this wonderful book and that I was able to give you something so deserving of your love. 😀😍

@Tarragon123 If you can work out the Dropbox thing that would be brilliant, thank you.

124 . Precipice by Robert Harris

Set against the backdrop of the beginning of WW1, Prime Minister Asquith conducts a highly inappropriate affair with The Hon Venetia Stanley. They are quietly investigated by an early version of Mi5.

Half the thread has read this, this year, I lost the will to live with it at around 60% and dragged myself through the rest. I found the letters both sick making and repetitive and I thought the subplot with the detective was oddly handled and strangely truncated.

Not for me, though it got off to a great start.

124. The Awakening - Kate Chopin

Wow, I'd never heard of this book before this year and am a bit cross this isn't generally renowned as a classic. (Or is it just me who didn't know of it?)

This was definitely a bold for me. The writing stopped me in my tracks a few times with a striking phrase or idea. It was published in 1899 and the writer was outcast because of the subject matter of a woman trying to find personal freedom outside of the constraints of her marriage. It feels very modern in its naturalistic style and the feminist ideas. It's novella length but I read slowly to savour the beautiful writing.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I’m so glad you didn’t like it. I thought it was just me.

And a quick search back shows that @Terpsichore didn’t like it either.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I think I possibly don’t like Robert Harris. Conclave was ok but I hated Fatherland can’t see myself reading a 4th

I loved Fatherland but nothing else has come anywhere near for me. Pretty sure I’m done with him.

I liked Precipice- but I find that period of history riveting so I was always disposed to like it.
@Frannyisreading I read and enjoyed The Awakening last month though it wasn’t quite bold for me.
Finished two more- both RWYO
The Waiting by Michael Connelly
A Ballard and Bosch book. Too many plot lines in this one all of which finished rather suddenly. I’ve stuck with these this long though that I’ll probably keep reading them.
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
I’m sure everyone else has read this light read of Agnes’s quest to help her family who live in gentile poverty. It’s more witty than I expected and fairly predictable- but none the worse for that. Agnes herself is rather sanctimonious and judgemental though which makes her quite hard to like.

@ÚlldemoShúl I found myself wondering if it was fair to any of the real people mentioned particularly Diana Cooper (nee Manners) who comes off quite badly in the first quarter

She does but from the little I know of her it sounds fair! My interest in this era is mostly about the Suffragettes and the Irish Home Rule crisis, reform of the Lords etc so I’m not very well-versed on London society of the era- would be interesting to find out though.

201 The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Turton (P)

Described by the author as a body hopping time travel murder mystery. And hot damn, it is confusing.

Aiden Bishop is trapped inside a country house party (of an Agatha Christie bent) and finds himself in a new body/character every time he falls asleep or otherwise loses consciousness. He’s tasked to solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle, which happens every night at 11pm, and he has to avoid the mysterious footman and make allies with Anna and Daniel, who are similarly out of place.

If you liked The Mirror Crack’d then you might like this, but do read when you are awake enough to focus!

Juliet Nicolson's The Perfect Summer is a portrait of the year 1911 (non-fiction) and covers a lot of the personalities mentioned in Precipice. There’s quite a lot about Diana Cooper (still Lady Diana Manners then of course) - I really enjoyed it although it's written in a very diffuse, rather gossipy sort of style. But then that maybe suits the kaleidoscopic nature of the topic.

I was disappointed in Precipice, yes - tbh the real story is just so incredible I don’t think you even need to fictionalise it. And the bolted-on detective character wasn't very well done, I thought. But I'd better not rehash my whole review!