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

I liked NLMG but I won’t fight @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupiebecause, even tired she’d probably wipe the floor with me. However, I do like the sound of Spares so I’ve added that to my kindle list, thanks @MaterMoribund.

#TeamNLMG long while since i read it, but i know i enjoyed it.

I felt neither here nor there about NLMG

😂I'm 5 foot nothing in my stockinged feet and have muscles like grains of salt. I'm pretty sure you'd win. I do have long nails though, so might get a few scratches in before you floor me.

Ah, it was time for this to be fair. It’s been a while.

NLMG - liked more than I thought I would
BBB - LOVE THIS BOOK 💕

#TeamNMLG here too! Can’t be bothered to argue though, the good thing about this thread is that we all like different things and bring different perspectives (I do enjoy the regular Ishiguro arguments though!). For what it’s worth I am indifferent to the bloody boring butler.

It always amuses me that the arguments about BBB and NLMG always descend immediately into, 'CRAP'/'NO, GREAT' and none of us can be bothered anymore to try to justify our opinions. Meanwhile, anybody new to the threads since the last time it kicked off is probably just totally bemused.

I'm in a fallow reading period this week. I have several books on my, 'To read' list including, Woman in the Polar Night, Jamaica Inn and Queer Georgians but they're all making me tired before I even pick them up. This time of term is always a bit brutal, and I just want to curl up with a hot water bottle and The Grinch and not have to think, move or possibly even breathe much for a while. Maybe Little Women is what I need?

129 . Awake by Jen Hatmaker

This was referenced on the YouTube channel Supposedly Fun when he was doing, I believe, The New York Times List of Notable Books for 2025 and I thought it sounded great.

Awake is Jen Hatmaker’s memoir about the end of her 26-year marriage to Brandon Hatmaker, a well-known pastor, and her life as a pastor’s wife within evangelical culture. After discovering her husband’s infidelity, she confronts the collapse of both her marriage and the belief systems that shaped her identity. The book follows her journey through loss, reevaluating faith, and rebuilding a life defined by honesty and autonomy.

Unfortunately it’s all a bit “might be of interest if you knew them”. I believe she’s had a fair few books published and might be well known in the States.

I found it all a bit therapy speak, a bit quasi-religious, very anecdotal and almost random at times.

It was not for me.

I do like her surname.

I do like her surname.

Damned with the faintest praise ever.

This has given me a flashback to when I first joined the thread, and Remus and Cote were having a strenous disagreement about something, and I was scared.

Very glad I stuck around, and I still haven't read BBB so for me it remains Schrodinger's Butler.

65 Even Beyond Death - Fiona Melrose
Avignon, 1657. Rakish marquis Jehan Baudelaire relates his forbidden relationship with his manservant to a modern-day ‘scribe’ (aka Melrose herself).

Jehan’s narrative voice is great fun, but this was just a 3/5 for me, first because it focused almost solely on the romantic relationship with little political context, but also because of problematic elements in the relationship itself. There is a scene of semi- or even non-consensual violence that Jehan inflicts on Jonathan, but the impact of this on their love seems to be minimal and the power dynamics of a master/servant liaison are not problematised or resolved effectively.

Also the valet, Jonathan Kryk, has a name distractingly similar to a 90s TV magician/detective, surely.

66 The Fate of Rome - Kyle Harper
The hordes of invaders that brought down the Roman Empire included not just hairy barbarians, but sneaky microbes in alliance with shifts of climate. After about 150 AD, the climate optimum (hot and wet) that had sustained the heyday of the empire shifted to a less favourable pattern, alongside waves of smallpox, bubonic plague and even something hemorrhagic that looks a bit like Ebola. Pretty detailed (I did skim-listen a bit in places) but very interesting if you’re into ancient history and the history of disease.

Also thought you guys might appreciate this bookish Christmas display at my work (a university library).

Very nice @LadybirdDaphne ! 🌲

Ha ha. Cote and I had many strenuous disagreements (On the Beach was a particular bone of contention) but when we agreed, we really agreed! I miss her.

I’ve never aimed to be scary though. I’m a gobby Northener, but scared of my own shadow really. Belated apologies for being scary.

Loving the book tree.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I 'know' Jen Hatmaker as in I am a long time follower of hers and have read at least a few of her other books. I am torn on whether to read this or not. I read her Facebook posts at the time as she tried to explain the break up without publicly stating what happened or placing blame and I admired that, but my nosiness wants me to read the detail but it feels a bit grubby. Hmmm.

The Secret Christmas Library by Jenny Colgan

Did exactly what I wanted. Festive nonsense.

I did get a good sense of place from this and found the characters likable. The actual plot is ridiculous.

[rolls up sleeves and wades in] I like, rather than love, NLMG but ROTD is one of my all time favourite books and I’ll defend the very interesting, if somewhat repressed, butler to the death. To the death I tell you! (By which I mean I’ll whisper “but it’s sooooooo good” and then will scurry back to my reading nest)

@RazorstormUnicorn you DON’T get the grubby details that’s part of the problem. She (understandably) keeps her children low profile as well so what you get is

I got a new car
Some friends made me a porch swing
Here’s a poem that got me through

And stuff on that level

It's a long time since I read NLMG and I think I found it ok/interesting premise but no extreme views on it. I have to confess that I have never read ROTD but have a copy on my Kindle. I may move it up my RWYO pile so I can weigh in on this discussion. I do hate with a passion The Buried Giant by Ishiguro - loads of trudging and Axl repeatedly calling his wife Princess - it simultaneously wound me up and bored me.

Joining you in The Buried Giant hatred, @TimeforaGandT . This theory that if we just forgot the past, there would be no more conflict - it's just fundamentally inaccurate about what causes causes and ends human conflict. It's infuriating.

I don't think I have ever read any Ishiguro and I think perhaps I never will

The Housemaid - Frieda McFadden. Domestic noir type novel set in contemporary New York State it's about a live-in housemaid who discovers dark secrets about the wealthy family she works for. The momentum slowed near the end, but there were some canny observations and moments of sly humour that I enjoyed, so I'm looking forward to seeing the film adaptation in a couple of weeks' time.

I'm reading Helm by Sarah Hall and it's amazing but very dense. I'm having to really focus and I feel i might be too tired for it this week.
I would leave it for now but it's from the library and already overdue because someone else has reserved it! So if you're in Essex area waiting for Helm, I'm really sorry, it's me taking ages!

Another Buried Giant hater here! I find Ishiguro a really inconsistent author - love NLMG and also really liked A Pale View of Hills. Remains of the Day is fine (I enjoyed it more on a reread in my 40s than I did on the initial read when I was younger). However I DNF The Buried Giant and also DNF The Unconsoled which is one of the biggest piles of tosh I’ve ever attempted to wade through. I don’t think I’ve found another author where I’ve had such varied reactions across their work.

Edited to add that I liked but didn’t love Klara and the Sun.