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

Review catch up! 2 RWYOs. I’m really pleased with how many of these I’m working my way through in this latter part of the year.

Mercy Street by Jennifer Haigh
An Exploration of the characters who are at least tangentially attached to an abortion clinic in Boston- including the staff, patients and some of the protesters. I think this was more of an exploration of an issue than the characters though and none of them really felt fully fleshed. There was also a lot of focus on weed and a weed dealer and I found the droning on about drugs mind-numbing. Disappointing.

Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor
Set on a remote Welsh island in the 1930s, the book focuses on Manod, a young woman who begins to work with two researchers who come to record island life. I’m sure most people have read this at some point. It’s a beautiful reflection on isolation and belonging and the impact and ethics of anthropological studies on people.

Thank you southeast

Bringing across my list (sorry list-haters):

#1. Small Bomb at Dimperley - Lissa Evans
#2. James - Percival Everett
#3. Five Little Pigs - Agatha Christie
#4. Spook Street - Mick Herron
#5. Shy Creatures - Clare Chambers
#6. Hangman Island - Kate Rhodes
#7. Blaming - Elizabeth Taylor
#8. Strange Sally Diamond - Liz Nugent
#9. The Thirteen Problems - Agatha Christie
#10. The Wizard of the Kremlin - Giuliano da Empoli
#11. The House on the Strand - Daphne du Maurier
#12. The Photograph - Penelope Lively
#13. Ballet Shoes - Noel Streatfeild
#14. Witness 8 - Steve Cavanagh
#15. The Eighth Hour - Linda Segtnan
#16. Kitchen - Banana
#17. Towards Zero - Agatha Christie
#18. Three Act Tragedy - Agatha Christie
#19. Paper Cup - Karen Campbell
#20. The Ink Black Heart - Robert Galbraith
#21. The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie
#22. The Good, the Bad and the History - Jodi Taylor
The Very First Damned Thing - Jodi Taylor (novella)
#23. Just One Damned Thing After Another - Jodi Taylor
#24. A Symphony of Echoes - Jodi Taylor
When a Child is Born - Jodi Taylor (novella)
#25. My Father's House - Joseph O'Connor
#26. A Second Chance - Jodi Taylor
Roman Holiday - Jodi Taylor (novella)
#27. Cards on the Table - Agatha Christie
#28. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
#29. North Woods - Daniel Mason
#30. A Trail Through Time - Jodi Taylor
Christmas Present - Jodi Taylor (novella)
#31. No Time Like the Past - Jodi Taylor
#32. What Could Possibly Go Wrong - Jodi Taylor
Shops and Stings and Wedding Rings (novella) - Jodi Taylor
#33. Lies, Damned Lies and History - Jodi Taylor
The Great St Mary's Day Out (novella)- Jodi Taylor
My Name is Markham (novella) - Jodi Taylor
#34. And the Rest is History - Jodi Taylor
A Perfect Storm (novella) - Jodi Taylor
Christmas Past (novella) - Jodi Taylor
#35. An Argumentation of Historians - Jodi Taylor
The Battersea Barricades (novella) - Jodi Taylor - Jodi Taylor
The Steam Pump Jump (novella) - Jodi Taylor
And Now for Something Completely Different (novella) - Jodi Taylor
#36. Hope for the Best - Jodi Taylor
When did you last see your father (novella) - Jodi Taylor
Why is nothing ever simple (novella) - Jodi Taylor
#37. Plan for the Worst - Jodi Taylor
The Ordeal of the Haunted Room (novella) - Jodi Taylor
#38. Another Time Another Place - Jodi Taylor
The Toast of Time (novella) - Jodi Taylor
#39. A Catalogue of Catastrophe - Jodi Taylor
#40. The Good, the Bad and the History of- Jodi Taylor
#41. The Crooked House - Agatha Christie
#42. Of all Faiths and None - Andrew Tweeddale
#43. A Remembrance of Death - Andrew Tweeddale
Lights! Camera! Mayhem! (novella) - Jodi Taylor
Christmas Pie (novella) - Jodi Taylor
#44. Some Tame Gazelle - Barbara Pym
#45. Learning to Swim - Clare Chambers
#46. Death in the Clouds - Agatha Christie
#47. Island in the Sun - Katie Fforde
#48. Small Great Things - Jodi Picoult
#49. The Corinthian - Georgette Heyer
#50. The Scarlet Papers - Matthew Richardson
#51. Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively
#52. The Cypress Maze - Fiona Valpy
#53. The Cut - Chris Brookmyre
#54. An Officer and a Spy - Robert Harris
#55. One, Two, Buckle my Shoe - Agatha Christie
#56. Glorious Exploits - Ferdia Lennon
#57. Caledonian Road - Andrew O'Hagan
#58. Kiss Myself Goodbye - Ferdinand Mount
#59. The Talisman Ring - Georgette Heyer
#60. Platform Seven - Louise Doughty
#61. The Foundling - Stacey Halls
#62. Mrs England - Stacey Halls
#63. The Man who made Husbands Jealous - Jilly Cooper
#64. Syndicate - Felix Francis
#65. The Secret Place - Tana French
#66. Kristin Lavransdatter : The Wreath - Sigrid Undset
#67. Lady of Quality - Georgette Heyer
#68. My Family - David Baddiel
#69. The House of Doors - Tan Twan Eng
#70. The Sittaford Mystery - Agatha Christie
#71. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
#72. Miss Marple's Final Cases - Agatha Christie
#73. Appassionata - Jilly Cooper
#74. Kristin Lavransdatter : The Wife - Sigrid Undset

And latest read:

75. Nesting - Roisin O'Donnell

I think quite a few have read this book about Ciara's marriage to Ryan and her attempts to leave him. I had to stop reading this from time to time as I found the tension and her situation really difficult. Not similar to anything I have read before and will, I think, stick with me for sometime.

Thanks southeast for the new thread!

43 to 45 Childhood, Youth, Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen. I wasn't quite sure how this autobiographical trilogy ended up on my kindle, given that I had not read any of the author's books or poems or in fact even heard of her. Then I saw that it was selected in the New York Times list of the best 100 books of the 21st century (although they were originally published between 1967 and 1971, but this translation was published in 2019), so I expect I came across them as a result of that. Anyway, they are very good (although not as good as that plaudit implies!). For those of you who also haven't heard of her, Ditlevsen was a Danish poet and author who lived 1917 to 1976. She lived an unusual life, and her autobiography is interesting from both a personal and a historical perspective.

46 The Seven Ages of Death by Richard Shepherd. Shepherd is a forensic pathologist. I read his first book Unnatural Causes a couple of years ago and enjoyed it, so I thought I would give this one a go. The relevance of the title is that he divides the book into sections according to the age of the deceased, and as well as discussing some specific cases, he also comments more generally on the common causes of death at different ages. Worth a read if you like this kind of thing.

1# Watermelon Marian Keyes
2# Guide Me Home Attica Locke
3# Girl Woman Other Bernadine Evaristo
4# Nothing More to Tell Karen McManus
5# The House of My Mother Shari Franke
6# The Clocks in This House all Tell Different Times Xan Brooks
7# Terms & Conditions: Life in Girls Boarding Schools 1939-1979 Ysenda Maxtone Graham
8# Five Sumners Una LaMarc
#9 The Hawthorne School - can't remember who wrote this one - enjoyable silly weirdness
#10 We Begin at the End Chris Whittaker
#11 The Couple at No. 9 - cant remember the author - doesnt matter - dont read it.
#12 Big Dunc Duncan Ferguson with Henry Winter
#13 Appointment with Yesterday Celia Fremlin
#14 Swimming Home Deborah Levy
#15 The God of the Woods Liz Moore

I have read one book during the last thread. Not great. I have just bought a book (an early Hilary Mantel) so i suppose that is a start. Was considering deactivating my account (there seems to be a lot more depressing stuff on mumsnet these days). However, the nicest corner of the internet was one of the reasons i stayed.

I’m glad you stayed @Owlbookend

I cope with MN by hiding a bunch of topics 😀

Thanks @Southeastdweller!

No list here.

Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

This was weird. I thought initially it was young adults as the short punchy sentences and fast pace put me in the mind of younger audience. Then the story took a very dark turn, and I decided this should really be for adults. It's kind of based on fairy tales. The premise suggests the protagonist gets caught up in stories/books and I hoped it was like The Neverending Story which I loved as a child/teen but it wasn't really like that.

A child adventures into a strange land, scary stuff happens and he grows up fast. I don't know why this didn't grab me, but it didn't. I found this easy to put down and as a result it took ages to read. I think I have another in my TBR by this author but I won't be rushing to it.

55 The Witching Hour anthology ed. Bridget Collins
I look forward to the annual autumn release of these spooky anthologies and treat myself to the physical book so I can pass it on. This one has a particularly beautiful vine detail design on the page edges,
13 disquieting, Jamesian stories, no outright horror but plenty of shivers if you like that style of writing. I forget the male/female ratio of the previous volumes but this one has 11 written by women and 2 by men.
Around midnight, pretty much anything can happen. A variety of time periods, settings such as mysterious country houses, college buildings, remote cottages…..
My favourites were by Natasha Pulley, Jess Kidd, Catriona Ward, Elizabeth Macneal and Andrew Michael Hurley. Even Stuart Turton was pleasantly bearable in short story form. Not a dud amongst them and I savoured just one or two each evening before bed.

I have been asked to help set up a Book Club at work. We’re a time-poor set of people all told (well, I’m not, generally but I am fortunate to be able to prioritise reading as a leisure activity). I’m going to try and steer it towards we all bring a book we enjoyed and recommend it to the others because the thought of reading a popular book benign enough for mixed tastes fills me with horror
Or I suggest Cuddy or The Lamb as our first book, that should put them off

@Owlbookend I'm glad you stayed though agree about recent posts on MN - I've been quite shocked by some of the vitriol directed on the participants of the Celebrity Traitors!

The ghost stories sound great @MaterMoribund Lol at scaring your book club away with Cuddy. Though my brother was given TJR book to read at his work ones, the seven husbands, and was pretty unimpressed with that!

Books since the last thread

103. When the Cranes Fly South - Liza Rizdén
104. Bring The House Down - Charlotte Runcie
105. Perfection - Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes
106. Death of the Author - Nnedi Okorafor
107. Show Me Where It Hurts - Claire Gleeson
108. Love Forms - Claire Adams
109. London Rules - Mick Herron
110. The South - Tash Aw
111. Getting Away - Kate Sawyer
112. The Land In Winter - Andrew Miller
113. Sky Daddy - Kate Folk
114. The Book Of Guilt - Catherine Chidgey
115. Immaculate Conception - Ling Ling Huang
116. The Mercy Chair - M W Craven
117. Ootlin - Jenni Fagan
118. The Benefactors - Wendy Erskine
119. The Loneliness of Sonia & Sunny - Kiran Desai
120. Bitter Sweet - Hattie Williams

The land in winter - Andrew Miller

Much read and reviewed on here I found this slow going to begin with but it really drew me in and by the end I found it completely captivating and that it really evoked a sense of time and place. The four main characters were well drawn. I really enjoyed it.

Two recent reviews from me too

121. Joe Country - Mick Herron. More slow horses shenanigans. This time they're off to snowy Wales to look for Min's teen, who's got involved in something shady. Usual amusing cast including a peripheral Prince Andrew type. Herron is scarily good at his satire of government.

122. What We Can Know - Ian McEwan. McEwan has described his latest novel as sci Fi without the science, but it is in fact rather old fashioned. It's a book of two halves. The first is set a hundred years in the future when climate change has struck and Britain is a series of islands. The main character Tom Metcalfe is an academic who is researching a famous poet from 2010s - the time of the "derangement" when the world was dying but people were obsessively consuming as much as they can. The poet has a lost poem that Metcalfe is obsessed with finding, and he is piecing together his life with archives, particularly from his wife Vivienne. The second part is Vivienne's narration. I listened to this and the narration was quite dry but I'm not sure if it was the actor or the characters. Despite being set in the future, the characters feel quite dated, and Vivienne's part is very much the chattering literati of Oxford and academia. Then again, McEwan is 77 so it feels a bit unfair to accuse him of being a bit old fashioned when I'm really quite impressed that he's still writing.

@Owlbookend I too am glad you stayed. This is the only part of mumsnet I read regularly too. I dip in and out of the other bits but only comment once in a blue moon.

@RazorstormUnicorn I struggled with The Book of Lost Things too and I love John Connolly’s Charlie Parker series so it may be worth giving the other book a try if it’s one of those. That said they are quite dark, especially the early ones.

I just finished Ripeness by Sarah Moss. I have no idea how some of the dross like Misinterpretation made it into the Booker longlist over this. This was a beautifully written exploration of family, motherhood, belonging, exclusion and loss and immigration and so many things. It tells the story of Edith in two timelines- one when at 17 she is sent to Italy to care for her pregnant sister before she resumes her own life to go to Oxford and the other modern day where she lives as an English immigrant in Ireland and has found some sort of peace. I loved it. As bold as bold can be! This is probably recency bias but it’s my best book of the year so far.

Place-marking on the new thread.
I've nothing new to add to my list as I haven't been reading recently.

80. The Mouthless Dead - Anthony Quinn

Aboard a post-war cruise ship, ex-Detective Inspector Key (first name never revealed as far as I can see) becomes friendly with a couple of fellow-passengers who are enthralled by his background as a policeman in Liverpool in the 1930s, and specifically his close involvement in the celebrated Wallace murder case - a killing that’s never been solved (Wallace's wife was brutally murdered while he was out, having been phoned the evening before and asked by an unknown caller to go on business to an address that turned out to be fictitious).
One of the friends is an ambitious young would-be film-maker keen to plan a documentary on the case, and Key finds himself drawn more deeply into the project than he feels comfortable with.

This reminded me a bit of Precipice in the sense that the central historical event actually happened - the Wallace murder - and Key has been created as a fictional element woven into the real events. Ultimately I’m afraid I found this quite disappointing and it didn’t really grip me, despite being well-written and having a convincingly authentic Liverpool setting (which it should do, as Quinn comes from there). It passed the time but no more than that.

Thanks for the new-ish thread, @Southeastdweller

Bringing my list over:

1 Winter Swimming - Dr Susanna Søberg
2 The Story of Art Without Men – Katy Hessel
3 Mr Loverman – Bernadine Evaristo
4 We Solve Murders – Richard Osman
5 City of Destruction – Vaseem Khan
6 Girl A – Abigail Dean
7 The Slap – Christos Tsiolkas
8 Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World – Mark Aldridge
9 Black Butterflies – Priscilla Morris
10 Portrait of a Marriage – Nigel Nicolson
11 The Sibyl in her Grave – Sarah Caudwell
12 The Dispossessed – Ursula Le Guin
13 Dark Wives – Ann Cleeves
14 The House of Doors - Tan Twan Eng
15 A Mouth full of Salt – Reem Gaafar
16 One of the Good Guys – Araminta Hall
17 Ghost Wall – Sarah Moss
18 Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood
19 Why we Swim – Bonnie Tsui
20 Such a Fun Age – Kiley Reid
21 Happiness – Aminatta Forna
22 Shakespeare: The Man who Pays the Rent – Judi Dench and Brendan O’Hea
23 Queen Macbeth – Val McDermid
24 Mad Honey – Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan
25 In a Lonely Place – Dorothy B. Hughes
26 The Anxious Generation – Jonathan Haidt
27 The In-Between – Christos Tsiolkas
28 When the Dust Settles – Lucy Easthope
29 The Safekeep – Yael van der Wouden
30 Excellent Women – Barbara Pym
31 The Death of Us – Abigail Dean
32 Rural Hours: the Country Lives of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann – Harriet Baker
33 Lolly Willowes – Sylvia Townsend Warner
34 The Transgender Issue – Shon Faye
35 White Tears/Brown Scars – Ruby Hamad
36 Latitudes of Longing – Shubhangi Swarup
37 Abundance – Amit Majmudar
38 The Thirteen Clocks – James Thurber
39 Childhood – Tove Ditlevsen
40 Youth – Tove Ditlevsen
41 Dependence – Tove Ditlevsen
42 Young Jane Young – Gabrielle Zevin
43 On Looking – Alexandra Horowitz
44 Ru – Kim Thuy
45 Deadly Animals – Marie Tierney
46 Swim London – Joe Minihane
47 Butter – Asako Yuzuki
48 A Touch of Silk – Caro Fraser
49 Wild Geese – Soula Emmanuel
50 Clown Town – Mick Herron
51 The Suspect – Rob Rinder
52 The Protest – Rob Rinder
53 Haven’t You Heard? Gossip, Politics and Power – Marie Le Conte
54 The Family Upstairs – Lisa Jewell
55 None of this is True – Lisa Jewell
56 Private Revolutions – Yuan Yang
57 Without Prejudice – Nicola Williams
58 Until Proven Innocent – Nicola Williams
59 Killer Instinct – Nicola Williams

And my latest:

60 The Girl in Cell A by Vaseem Khan

I really love Khan’s Malabar House series, but I haven’t got along as well with his other books so far. This is a stand-alone psychological thriller about Orianna, who was convicted of killing the wealthy son of the leading family in her insular small-town home. We flash between two timelines – the first present-day, as Orianna returns to her home town after being released from prison, and tries to find out what happened all those years ago; and some time in the past, when she is still in prison and being assessed, by Annie, a psychologist. This just didn’t really hang together for me. I found the split timeline distracting, and the writing of Orianna’s memories of her trial was stilted and oddly formal. This choice makes a bit more sense by the end of the book, but I still didn’t really think it worked. The denouement was enjoyably ambiguous, but overall I thought this was too long, and not really compelling enough to retain my interest.

Thanks for the new thread southeast!

1 Notes for Neuro Navigators - Jolene Stockman
2 Years That Changed History: 1215 - Dorsey Armstrong
3 The Darcy Myth - Rachel Feder
4 To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
5 Matrescence - Lucy Jones
6 Strong Foundations - Clare Bourne
7 Alexa, What is There to Know About Love? - Brian Bilston
8 The Voyage Home - Pat Barker
9 The Medieval World - Dorsey Armstrong
10 I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was - Ruby Wax
11 One for the Money - Janet Evanovich
12 The Golden Mole - Katherine Rundell
13 Glorious Exploits - Ferdia Lennon
14 Blood and Guts: a history of surgery - Richard Hollingham
15 To Calais, In Ordinary Time - James Meek
16 The Power of Women - Dr Denis Mukwege
17 Oranges are not the Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson
18 A Life of Meaning - James Hollis
19 Welsh Witchcraft - Mhara Starling
20 Orfeia - Joanne Harris
21 Martin Chuzzlewit - Charles Dickens
22 The Once and Future Sex - Eleanor Janega
23 Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers - Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English
24 All Fours - Miranda July
25 Welsh Fairies - Mhara Starling
26 Platonic - Marisa G. Franco
27 The Resilience Myth - Soraya Chemaly
28 Mischief Acts - Zoe Gilbert
29 Plagues Upon the Earth - Kyle Harper
30 The Lost Man - Jane Harper
31 Patriarchy Inc - Cordelia Fine
32 Stay with Me - Ayobami Adebayo
33 Briefly, a Delicious Life - Nell Stevens
34 You Only Die Once - Jodi Wellman
35 Wise Women: myths and stories for midlife and beyond - Sharon Blackie and Angharad Wynne
36 Creation Lake - Rachel Kushner
37 The Bonobo and the Atheist - Frans de Waal
38 Hex - Jenni Fagan
39 The Folklore of Wales: Ghosts - Delyth Badder and Mark Norman
40 Watching Neighbours Twice a Day - Josh Widdicombe
41 Good Girls - Hadley Freeman
42 Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - John Berendt
43 Infinite Life - Jules Howard
44 Annie Bot - Sierra Greer
45 A History of British Serial Killing - David Wilson
46 The Lost Love Songs of Boysie Singh - Ingrid Persaud
47 The Witch’s Heart - Genevieve Gornichec
48 Untrue - Wednesday Martin
49 Cunning Folk - Tabitha Stanmore
50 Motherhood - Lisa Marchiano
51 The Lamb - Lucy Rose
52 Havoc - Rebecca Wait
53 Boy Parts - Eliza Clark
54 Matrix - Lauren Groff
55 Thou Savage Woman - Blessin Adams
56 I’m Sorry You Feel That Way - Rebecca Wait
57 Human Errors - Nathan H. Lents

Currently reading The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo and Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth.

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller

Nothing to report here, and will save my list, but am patiently waiting for at least two of you to finish Elif Shafak’s latest offering so we can discuss! Am hoping to wander down to the British Museum for some Mesopotamia fun in the week (making the most of free time whilst I have it).

1 Suggested in the Stars by Yoko Tawada. Translated by Margaret Mitsutani
2 Your Wish is my Command by Deena Mohamed
3 The Fraud by Zadie Smith
4 After Midnight by Irmgard Keun. Translated by Anthea Bell.
5 Mrs Granby's Secret or The Bastard of Pinsk by Eleanor Farjeon
6 Mr Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo
7 Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan
8 The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta
9 A Little Luck by Claudia Piñeiro. Translated by Frances Riddle
10 The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Translated by Robin Buss.
11 The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter
12 Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian by Rick Riordan
13 The Leopard by Guiseppi Tomasi de Lampedusa. Translated by Archibald Colquhoun
14 Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan
15 Heroes of Olympus: The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan
16 Heroes of Olympus: The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan
17 Child of All Nations by Irmgard Keun. Translated by Michael Hofmann
18 Heroes of Olympus: The House of Hades by Rick Riordan
19 The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
20 Greek Lessons by Han Kang. Translated by Deborah Smith and E. Yaewon
21 Alberta and Freedom by Cora Sandel. Translated by Elizabeth Rokkan
22 Lolly Willowes or The Loving Huntsman by Sylvia Townsend Warner
23 Destination Biafra by Buchi Emecheta
24 The Provincial Lady in Wartime by E. M. Delafield
25 Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan. Translated by Heather Lloyd
26 A Certain Smile by Françoise Sagan. Translated by Heather Lloyd
Currently reading The Women of Troy by Pat Barker which I'm loving.

Thanks for the thread @Southeastdweller ! I'm posting my whole list since I haven't done it for ages...

1. Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
2. Period Piece, Gwen Raverat
3. The Cracked Mirror, Christ Brookmyre
4. Abelard: A Medieval Life, Michael T. Clanchy
5. Shy Creatures, Clare Chambers
6. The Crossing Places, Elly Griffiths
7. Vernon Subutex 1, Virginie Despentes
8. Cold Earth, Sarah Moss
9. These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson, Martha Ackmann

10. Butter, Asako Yuzuki, trans. Polly Barton

11. The Trees, Percival Everett

12. Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit [I Remain in Darkness], Annie Ernaux

13. Annie Bot, Sierra Greer

14. All Fours, Miranda July

15. Dream Count, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

16. The Forbidden Notebook, Alba de Céspedes, trans. Ann Goldstein

17. Nesting, Roisin O’Donnell

18. Fundamentally, Nussaibah Younis

19. The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley

20. The Artist, Lucy Steeds

21. Dream Hotel, Laila Lalami

22. The Persians, Sanam Mahloudji

23. Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens

24. A Wreath of Roses, Elizabeth Taylor

25. Un monstre est là, derrière la porte [There’s a Monster Behind the Door], Gaëlle Bélem

26. Good Girl, Aria Aber

27. Bookish, Lucy Mangan

28. Un chapeau léopard [A Leopard-Skin Hat], Anne Serre

29. There’s No Turning Back, Alba de Céspedes, trans. Ann Goldstein

30. The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism, George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison

31. Writing on the Hearth, Cynthia Harnett

32. The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings, Olaudah Equiano

33. Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal: My Adventures in Neurodiversity,
    Robin Ince

34. La Vie extérieure [Things Seen], Annie Ernaux

35. Le Comte de Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

36. Bodies of Light, Sarah Moss

37. Naufrage [Small Boat], Vincent Delecroix

38. A View of the Harbour, Elizabeth Taylor

39. Quiet Girl in a Noisy World: An Introvert’s Story, Debbie Tung

40. Theory and Practice, Michelle de Kretser

41. Her Side of the Story, Alba de Céspedes, trans. Jill Foulston

42. Change Your Thinking: Overcome Stress, Combat Anxiety, and Improve Your Life, Sarah Edelman

43. Westwood, Stella Gibbons

44. Gwen John: Art and Life in London and Paris, Alicia Foster

45. In a Lonely Place, Dorothy Hughes

46. The Talented Mr Ripley, Patricia Highsmith

47. Perfection, Vincenzo Latronico, trans. Sophie Hughes

48. Coming of Age: How Adolescence Shapes Us, Lucy Foulkes

49. Universality, Natasha Brown

50. A Killing in November, Simon Mason

51. Ripeness, Sarah Moss

52. Theft, Abdulrazak Gurnah

53. Du côté de chez Swann, Marcel Proust [with reference to Lydia Davis’ translation]

54. Glorious Exploits, Ferdia Lennon

55. Kristin Lavransdatter, I: The Wreath, Sigrid Undset, trans. Tiina Nunnally

56. Flesh, David Szalay

57. Flashlight, Susan Choi

58. Love Forms, Claire Adam

59. Seascraper, Benjamin Wood

60. The Land in Winter, Andrew Miller

61. The South, Tash Aw

I was lurking on the last thread but have been very snowed under with work, so haven't posted in ages.

Very belated sympathy on the loss of your DM, @Piggywaspushed. My DF died in the US some years ago, and I found it very hard to be here in the UK when it happened.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit also very belated sympathy about your illness, and I'm so glad you're feeling better.

@MamaNewtNewt I hope you also start to feel better soon. Mental health management is a constant feature in my life, so I'm very sympathetic.

@Terpsichore the Catherine Hogarth book sounds great (if depressing); I've added it to my TBR list.

@PermanentTemporary I'm glad you liked The Names and read it quickly, because it's one of the titles I've proposed for my new book group at work (I haven't read it myself yet). The members of the book group are very mixed in terms of the type of book they read, so I wanted to find something that would be both satisfying from a literary point of view, and accessible to people who don't read a lot!

@ÚlldemoShúl I also loved Ripeness! I agree it's a crime that Moss hasn't been nominated for the Booker. I liked Misinterpretation more than you did though.

I'm ridiculously behind with reviews but here are the four books I've read most recently:

62. The Rest of Our Lives, Benjamin Markovits 3/5
    Booker Prize shortlist (I’m not sure why!). I had a similar reaction to other reviewers of this book. A middle-aged American man goes on a road trip. An enjoyable read, with a convincing portrayal of the protagonist, but the protagonist wasn’t interesting enough for me to want to spend a lot of time in his head.

63. Audition, Katie Kitamura 3/5
    Booker Prize shortlist. This is the type of novel I’ve come to associate with the Booker: it’s very self-consciously literary. The first person narrator is a stage actor, and the second half of the story retells the first half with significant differences, so as to leave the reader unsure what is truth and what is performance (and to remind them that living is a performance!). Well-written, but I never became convinced that the characters and their story really mattered.

64. Misinterpretation, Ledia Xhoga 4/5
    Booker Prize longlist. This novel is narrated in the first-person by an Albanian woman translator living in New York. I found it gripping and insightful, and the depiction of eastern European / Balkan culture seemed very authentic. Tensions in a cross-cultural relationship (American man/Albanian woman) were well portrayed, and so was the experience of immigration, which can ultimately leave you with a sense of not belonging to either country where you live / have lived. The ending of the novel doesn’t provide much closure, but I didn’t mind: it was satisfying in its own way.

65. Signs for Lost Children, Sarah Moss 5/5
    I’m still carrying on with my reading of Moss’ back catalogue, and I loved this novel, which is a sequel to Bodies of Light but can be read independently. The plot strands alternate between the life of the newly qualified 19th century woman doctor Ally, who is working in a mental asylum in Cornwall, and her husband Tom, who has travelled to Japan to build lighthouses. Both stories are complex and moving. Since I read Moss’ memoir My Good Bright Wolf, I’ve seen autobiographical elements in some of her novels as well, and Ally’s austere, imperious mother, who insists on the moral merit of depriving oneself of basic life necessities (whether food or warmth or beauty) certainly has characteristics of Moss’ own mother. Yet the novel is about Ally discovering that she can work hard for the benefit of others (in this case, women asylum patients) AND nurture herself.

I’m not bringing over my full list but here are the books I’ve read since I last got round to reviewing anything (I knew I had fallen behind with reviews but hadn’t realised it had been that long!)

• The Writer’s Room: The Hidden Worlds That Shape The Books We Love - Katie da Cunha Lewin
• Lush!: My Story - From Swansea to Stacey and Everything In Between - Joanna Page
• When Gavin Met Stacey And Everything In Between - Ruth Jones and James Corden
• Fawlty Towers: Fawlts and All - John Cleese
• Murder On Lake Garda - Tom Hindle
• Christmas Tales From The Farm - Amanda Owen
• The Candlelight Murders - Gyles Brandreth
• The Long Shoe - Bob Mortimer
• Time Lost - Elyse Douglas
• House of Splinters - Laura Purcell
• The Time Hop Coffee Shop - Phaedra Patrick
• Marshal of Snowdonia - Simon McCleave
• The Saturdays - Elizabeth Enright
• The Killing Stones - Ann Cleeves
• Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey Through the Space-Time Continuum - Michael J Fox
• Peter Kay’s Diary - Peter Kay
• The Passengers on the Hankyu Line - Hiro Arikawa
• The Botanist - M W Craven
• Light A Penny Candle - Maeve Binchy
• Marilla Before Anne - Louise M

The last one was very disappointing- it’s a prequel to Anne of Green Gables telling Marilla’s story, but the storyline it comes up with goes against everything in AoGG and just doesn’t make sense. And it’s badly written. Not recommended!

I loved Light a Penny Candle though! I have realised that I really like books that follow characters through long periods of their lives.

The Passengers on the Hankyu Line was picked up on a whim and I ended up really liking it. It follows various different people all using the same train line in Japan, and we find out little bits about their lives as they interact with each other. Nothing much happens but I liked the characters and the way it all tied together with their interactions.

Thanks cassandre. 'Nice' to hear of someone in the same boat because it's a very particular situation.

Thanks for the new thread. My list is of medium length (relative to the thread's standards!)

• We Need To Talk About Kevin – Lionel Shriver
• Divine Might – Natalie Haynes
• Run Towards The Danger – Sarah Polley
• Remember, Mr Sharma – AP Firdaus
• Super-Infinite – Katherine Rundell
• The Mischief Makers- Elisabeth Gifford
• Say Nothing- Patrick Radden Keefe
• Soldier Sailor – Claire Kilroy
• Deeds of Autumn –Anders de la Motte
• Comfort Eating –Grace Dent
• The Island of Missing Trees – Elif Shafak
• Glorious Exploits – Ferdia Lennon
• James – Percival Everett
• How to Expect the Unexpected- Kit Yates
• The Black Angels – Maria Smilios
• Lessons – Ian McEwan
• There Are Rivers in the Sky- Elif Shafak
• The Wrath to Come – Sarah Churchwell
• The Kellerby Code – Jonny Sweet
• A Woman Like Me- Diane Abbott
• The Women- Kristin Hannah
• All The Colours of the Dark – Chris Whitaker
• Killing Thatcher- Rory Carroll
• Dream Count – Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie
• She Speaks! – Harriet Walter
• Precipice- Robert Harris
• Hungry – Grace Dent
• Munichs – David Peace
• Babylonia – Costanza Casati
• Fair Rosaline – Natasha Solomons
• Strangeland – Jon Sopel
• Costanza – Rachel Blackmore
• The Wild Men David Torrance
• Little Englanders- Alwyn Turner
• On Starlit Seas – Sara Sheridan
• The Story of a Heart – Rachel Clarke
• A Case Of Mice and Murder – Sally Smith
• The Fair Botanists- Sara Sheridan
• Cleopatra – Natasha Solomons
• Gabriel’s Moon- William Boyd
• The Tarot Reader of Versailles – Anya Bergman
• King Leopold’s Ghost – Adam Hochschild
• The Midnight Feast – Lucy Foley
• You Are Here- David Nicholls
• The Secrets of Blythswood Square – Sara Sheridan
• Small Bomb at Dimperley- Lissa Evans
• Peepshow- Kate Summerscale
• An African History of Africa – Zeinab Badawi
• The Safekeep – Yael van der Wouden
• Rapture – Emily Maguire
• Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad- Daniel Finkelstein
• Frankly- Nicola Sturgeon
• Marble Hall Murders – Anthony Horowitz
• The Land In Winter – Andrew Miller
• Broken Threads – Mishal Husain

I don't know why the bullet points since the list I copied across had numbers! If I could double bold Munichs, I would.

@ChessieFL so glad you loved Light A Penny Candle you must read The Glass Lake next!

Thank you @cassandreI’m not fully recovered but I’m certainly getting there