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

Don't burn anyone at the stake today by Naomi Alderman

A short book on the current information crisis that draws parallels between now and the invention of the printing press time. This was based on her radio 4 series which I also enjoyed.

Definitely thought provoking and reassuring for our incendiary times. I really enjoy her writing and would thoroughly recommend her substack.

Still hoping to make it to 50 by the end of the year with lots of holiday reading when term ends.

I have 3 books to read this year so I can end on a nice round number, but nothing is enthusing me at all and I can’t get going.

@JaninaDuszejko great review of Sally! Hey whole "woman like painful sex" thing makes me feel quite uncomfortable (and old!).

@ÚlldemoShúl I don't think I finished The Heart's Invisible Furies either. I also read The Echo Chamber by him which in the was a bit silly and obvious so I haven't bothered with any others. Looks like he is very marmite.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit What about detective fare to finish the year off? I've enjoyed the M W Craven books and @ChessieFL is a fan too.

Congratulations on your 50 @Tarahumara!

Remus I re-read all the Katy books a couple of years ago (including In The High Valley) and loved them. Including the one in Europe. Very odd though, they were not very much as I remembered from when I was a child when I read the first two over and over again.

Still on Maeve Binchy

I had only ever read the first 3 until a few years ago. I must admit I can't remember much, if anything, of the later ones.

One thing that really makes me angry is books where illness/disability is somehow seen as a measure of goodness.

one thing that really makes me angry

I avoid disability narratives for this reason. Heroes or villains no nuance

I don’t want to buy anything @Stowickthevast thanks though!

Can anyone recommend a good Christmas book that works well on audio? Im feeling lousy today, the ward I work on closed this week due to flu cases and I think I may be coming down with it 😭 am too tired to actually read but could get away with just lying down and listening I think. I finished A Christmas Carol this week on audio which I loved and need something new now

@InTheCludgie Little Women is Christmassy?

I'm reading The Christmas Stocking Murders by the late Denzil Meyrick . I imagine that makes for a diverting audiobook as it's quite light in tone and retro so the narrator probably has fun with accents.

PS Hope you manage to miss the dreaded lurgy.

I was a fan of The Heart's Invisible Furies when I read it in 2018. I have read quite a few others by John Boyne since then and enjoyed some more than others. I enjoyed The Thief of Time and the element books which I have read. Less keen on Ladder to the Sky. Whilst I can't remember Next of Kin, I rated it at the time!

Fingers crossed you stay un-lurgied, @InTheCludgie

Sorry, my latest isn’t exactly Christmassy, but it was really excellent:

92. London Particular - Christianna Brand

A Classic green Penguin I picked up to tidy away, then started reading and found I couldn’t stop. By total chance this continued the 'doctor' theme of my previous read, set as it is in the comfortable, if shabby/rambling Maida Vale home of Dr Thomas Evans, his wife Matilda, small baby daughter, dotty grandmother, and (most importantly) his beautiful and irrepressibly man-mad much younger sister Rosie, who has returned from a spell being 'finished' in Switzerland to announce insouciantly that she’s With Child but doesn’t want to be.
A baffling phone call that arrives just as Rosie is out, confiding in Dr Thomas's partner, the stolid and faithful Tedward (it’s the sort of book where everyone has nicknames) sets the plot in motion with an apparently insoluble and inexplicable murder back in that otherwise cheerful home. Inspector Cockrill - old friend of the family - is soon on the case, but who could have killed the victim….and why? The 'London Particular' of the title is an evening of impenetrable fog that plays a crucial role in the reveal.

I loved the larkiness of the writing here - it’s very playful until the last third of the book, when it gets much darker and the final section unfolds dramatically in an actual courtroom during a trial. I was also quite surprised by how frank it was about Rosie's pregnancy and her absolute insistence that she wasn’t going to go through with it, which seemed pretty bold in 1952, when abortion was very much illegal. Christianna Brand wrote fairly prolifically and I’m now off to investigate how many more of hers I have.

128 . On The Calculation Of Volume 3 by Solvej Balle

Tara Selter remains stuck in the 18th of November, but she is no longer alone, she has met a man, Henry Dale who is in the same predicament.

I don’t know. I feel committed to this series now. The installments are short, but I did feel like I absolutely had to drag myself through it. Probably this strange non-reading mood I’m in as opposed to the book.

Blaze by Stephen King

He wrote this ages back and released it some years after to tie in with something else and I don't think he rates it much, but I enjoyed it.

Blaze is a crook with learning disabilities trying to make it on his own with one big hit to then go live off the proceeds. I found him a likeable character despite his propensity for hitting people really hard. We jump back to his back story and the poor lad stood no chance with his upbringing.

My next King is Duma Key which I already have on the shelf and will probably be 2026.

I'm on book 47 but suspect with the train journeys I have this week and time over Christmas I shall have no problems hitting 50.

185 Paved with Good Intentions by Peter McLean (Audio)
A standalone (I think) grimdark fantasy set in the same world as McLean’s War for the Rose Throne Series. Eline is recruited to work for the ‘King’s Men’ (essentially MI5 in this world) after killing her husband. This was fun even if the MC is a bit of a Mary Sue, and had quite a few callbacks to the previous series from this world. Enjoyable listen and I’ll keep trying anything else McLean writes- I like his imagination.

186 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
I got a set of 6 Persephone books for my 50th birthday last year and it’s about time I got around to one- after all the talk about this on here I went for this one and it was great. A light sparkly joy as dowdy Miss Pettigrew goes for a job and ends up having the day of her life. Can see why it’s well loved.

I have at least temporarily DNFed The Heart’s Invisible Furies. I may go back to finish it over the Christmas holidays.

62. The Bookshop, the Draper, the Candlestick Maker - Annie Gray

Thanks to Chessie and others who reviewed this last year - I’ve finally got round to reading it. A history of the High Street, mainly from the 1650s to the 1960s, this looks at the transformation of the shopping experience from market stall to out of town mall and beyond. The chronological chapters are intercut with written portraits of provincial high streets throughout history. Along the way some of the issues were surprisingly modern: concerns about the declining quality of mass produced goods; the rise of mail order and concerns this would lead to the death of local businesses (this in the 1880s); complaints about towns losing their individuality under the slew of chain shops (1930s); the grip of the supermarkets on trade etc, it all goes to show there’s nothing new in history. A lively and informative slice of social history, so recommended if that’s your thing.

In this case it was copy and paste, but as @noodlezoodle says you can also choose part of the username which doesn't have special accents on, you don't have to start at the beginning. (I also forgot to put the @ symbol in until after copy and pasting the name to get it right - if you put in first, it often helps).

The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt - Enjoyed this sad and funny novel of an academically gifted, but otherwise maladjusted, single mother Sibylla and young son Ludo. They watch the film 'Seven Samurai' on repeat to give the son male role-models, and spend their days riding the Circle Line to keep warm, and disdaining the bemused comments of other passengers on their exalted reading material. As Ludo grows up he wants to know who his father is, and tracks down several distinguished candidates, unable to accept the mediocre. I enjoyed the comedy, think much went over my head, and know it could have done with some pruning, but I enjoyed the ride.

53.The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner. This opens with Romy Hall being transported into a prison in the US to start serving two consecutive life sentences for her involvement in a homicide. Over the course of the novel we establish what led her to this extreme and shocking point in her life, and also explore the life experiences of other prisoners.

This was as sad and bleak as you'd expect from the subject matter, reflecting the prisoners' childhood trauma and abusive relationships, as well as the poor access to justice for those in poverty or socially excluded. I was impressed with how Kushner managed to make even the most briefly referenced characters come alive.

Pod, Laline Paull

Shortlisted for the Women's Prize a couple of years ago, I think many of you read this then. This is the story of Ea , a spinning Dolphin who doesn't quite fit her pod, for various reasons she leaves the pod and ends up with a group of bottlenose dolphins who live a very different way of life. There are a small number of other characters, all sea creatures who all come together eventually.

I thought this rather sublime and melancholic. It was distressing at times, some horrible things happen and the overarching presence of plastic and polution actually felt quite devastating reading the book. Not that I wasn't aware, but that the book put it in different perspective. The final chapters were so well done, and whilst sad, not sentimental really. I didn't cry (unusual for me), but I was glad I finished it alone in bed, so I could ponder. (My Kindle actually died about 15 mins from the end and I had to quickly download the app).

Edited to say: I also learnt lots of new words and will be finding inventive ways to throw in 'pelagic' (my fave) and cetecean into my everyday speech.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/5456695-to-the-barricades-2026-les-miserables-victor-hugo-read-a-long-interest-thread

Les Mis readlong thread

Thanks @AgualusasL0ver I'll pop over there now.

64 Every Little Secret - Sarah Clarke Grace lives the perfect life with her husband Marcus (a former professional rugby player who she’s been with since she was 16) and their adorable daughter Kaia. But Kaia starts accusing her dad of deliberately hurting her, he vehemently denies everything, and things unravel fast, with lots of family secrets being revealed. Who should Grace believe?

This was ok but not very believable, and lots of misdirection which I found annoying. I’m sure plenty of people loved the twists but I felt they negatively affected the characterisation. It was all a bit lightweight considering the serious themes and I wouldn’t particularly recommend the book unless you’re after a quick thriller fix. Also a trigger warning for abuse of women and girls - dealt with in a very sanitised way compared to eg Strange Sally Diamond, but nonetheless prominent in the story.

Thanks for the Les Mis thread @AgualusasL0ver !