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

For Christmas

Ooh, tell us how that is when you get/read it 🙂

Personally I preferred A Place of Greater Safety to Wolf Hall, which I know is a bit unusual. I agree it's hard to keep track at times, but I found that with Wolf Hall too!

220 Wintering - Katherine May
I really liked this. A bold.

The author uses wintering in both the literal sense of cold weather and the emotional sense of a period of calm/self focus akin to winter dormancy in honeybees etc. This is a lovely book about finding the rituals in the cycles of life, coping with depression and difficulties and not expecting everything to be linear.

It’s a good day to talk about Black Beauty as there’s the new law banning the importing of dogs with clipped ears. When I first heard about dogs having clipped ears, I remember thinking how can this be a thing - it’s in Black Beauty that it’s really cruel. I was given a copy at age 7ish - my Mum read the first part to me, and I read and reread it. I don’t usually like books that preach a message, but Black Beauty is the great exception.

@Tarahumara- I prefer A Place too. I think it’s flawed, but I feel much more involved with the story in the parts that work.

@Arran2024- I remember your post about Margaret Forster now. I’m impressed that you wrote to her.

That’s good news @Benvenuto. I own a breed that has its ears clipped in the States and I’ve never been able to understand the cruelty.

The trick to this is not to start with the first letter - so if you type @ and then demo or @ and then lldem it will bring up @ÚlldemoShúl as an option.

This is on a laptop, no idea if it's the same on a phone.

Bugger, it let me choose her user name but then didn't actually work in my post! <stamps foot petulantly>

@ÚlldemoShúl
Just testing 🤔
This is on a phone

136. Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism - Amanda Montell

This is a look at how words are used to influence people to accept the doctrines of cults. It was accessible and chatty while containing a lot of well organised information. I found the examination of modern "cults" such as MLMs, QAnon and some exercise regimes (eg CrossFit) fascinating, as well as lots of anecdotes and interesting takes about groups such as Heaven's Gate.

Same for me!

lol I’m an enigma! It’s just the accent I think. Maybe I should translate myself back from Irish to English for the new year!

Has anyone read The Hearts Invisible Furies by John Boyne? I’m 39% in and I’m just not sure about it. Sometimes it’s enjoyable but a lot of the time the writing feels forced- forced humour and caricatures. I’m not sure whether I should keep going.

I had a couple of nice train journeys yesterday, so, instead of Miss P, I opted for the What Katy Did series. I thoroughly enjoyed 1 and 2, as always, but the third was a struggle and I can’t face anymore. Endless tourism and people being ill.

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

My name is Sally Rooney. I write about middle class academics in Dublin who have age gap relationships, I think people in their 30s are ancient and lots of women like a bit of physical pain during sex.

Peter was terrible, Ivan was great, Margaret was written like she was in her 50s rather than in her 30s. I think this probably is her best book but I also think it was the one I liked least. And it took me a bloody month to read. Now to read sonething light and Christmassy.

@ÚlldemoShúl I was not that keen on The Heart's Invisible Furies but it gets a lot of love on here. I agree with you that it didn't seem to flow for me.

I have reached 50 books - a little later than in some years, but I got there in the end!

49 Open by Andre Agassi. This was a RWYO as it has been sitting on my kindle since 2013! After finally getting around to it, I really enjoyed this. I was an Agassi fan back in the day, which helps of course, and he is very honest about his personal struggles and his feelings about the people in his life, including family members, Brooke Shields and the tennis players he competed against (I suppose this is one of the meanings behind the title). This makes for a fabulous gossipy read, although it must have been uncomfortable (to say the least) for some of them.

50 Burning Questions by Margaret Atwood. This is a collection of essays written between 2004 and 2022. Many of them are about books / writers / writing (I particularly enjoyed the one about writer's block), with other themes including the environment and feminism. As always with a collection, some are stronger than others, but she generally comes across as a thoughtful, interesting person.

Hmm. I've just searched for my old review and it says that I loved it! I must have enjoyed it at the time, but for some reason I have less positive memories of it 🤔

I DNF The Heart’s Invisible Furies but I think it was pretty popular on here.

Thanks @Tarahumara and @BestIsWest it seems to have lasted forever already and I’m seriously considering DNF. I find books that try too hard to be quirky irritating (A Little Trickerie was another book that I couldn’t take to for the same reason). I’ve started Miss Pettigrew after hearing all the love and am really enjoying it so I’ll decide when I finish it whether to go back to it or not I think.

221 Before the Coffee Gets Cold - Toshikazu Kawaguchi

A charming and sad book about a mysterious cafe where one seat allows you to travel in time - but only to that same spot and only for as long as it takes for your cup of coffee to get cold.

Congratulations @Tarahumara on 50. Excellent timing.

I read The Heart’s Invisible Furies earlier this year and really loved it, was a definite bold for me and I’ve since gone on to read several others by Boyne.

This is in my “Might Finish/Might Not” kindle folder. I think I got to about 39% too! It wasn’t what I expected - found it crude, far fetched and silly.

@ÚlldemoShúl I loved it, but I loved it from the start. Here is my review in case it helps.

The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
I think this one was a bit of a favourite on the thread a year or two ago and I’ve finally got around to reading it. It was a beast of a book but I loved every single minute of it. I know it’s fiction but it reinforced my decision to move from lapsed Catholicism to full on “I’m out”. It amazes me how something that could have been such a force for good caused so much pain and suffering. Second bold in a row.

Thanks @ChessieFL and @MamaNewtNewt - I thought that I had seen it get a lot of love before and some of your reviews could well have been what made me try it. I think I might join @MaterMoribund and put it in a DNF that I might go back to collection on my kindle- I do have the elements quartet too so will definitely give them a go at some stage.

I have a few books that I’m planning to come back to over Christmas and tidy up for the year, sometimes the mood just isn’t right.

The Endless Country: A Personal Journey through Turkey’s First Hundred Years, Sami Kent

Ooofffff, ooooffff, as we would say in Turkey.

I actually has some back and forth with the writer when I was doing my academic thing and our background and research interests cross over heavily. So heavily in fact, that part of me wants to hate this book, because I feel like if I had stuck with it this might have been something I could have produced, particularly the lens he chooses to analyse through - culture, music, poetry. I don’t hate it though, I really identified with it, had to take many breaks to watch a film mentioned, listen to the music etc. He explored the politics through his cultural touchpoints and those touch points until recent years haven’t necessarily always been clear in Turkey because of censorship etc. As many of you know I am super sentimental anyway, and I cried my way through his chapter on the bandit Kocero, not because it was sad, though there certainly was sadness but because I know Kocero from a poem that I have been listening to since I was 6 years old.

In some ways, I would recommend this to anyone interested in Turkish history that takes on more than Ottomans and Ataturk, it’s readable, and Kent’s choice to focus on one aspect for each decade means it’s interesting if a bit fractured - in that one chapter does not necessarily follow the one before except chronologically.

I do feel inspired to get back to my writing (fiction) whilst I am still not working.