50 Books Challenge - 2025 Round up

[RomanMum]

Hello again 50 Bookers! Here’s a separate thread to gather together our top recommendations from the year. Please post your final lists, or just your outstanding reads – good and bad - if you prefer. If you are posting the full list just a reminder to please bold your favourites (the best written, plot, characters, or books that stayed with you long after you finished them), and italicise the duds, disappointments or any DNFs if you can.

It would be handy if you could mark which are Fiction and which Non-Fiction too. Thank you!

I’ll wrangle the spreadsheet and put together some meaningful stats in early January – there’ll be a reminder on the main thread nearer the deadline.
Still ploughing through my current NF so I’ll come back later in December with my bolds.

Cheers! Roman

Excited to do this

I didn't join in the thread this year, which is a shame as I smashed my 62 book goal as currently at 79. But very much looking forward to seeing what everyone else liked.

Just checking in!

Amazing thank you!

Stull hoping to hit 50 but am stuck at 43 at the moment. Going to post now though. These are ALL bolds, I haven’t really DNFd anything which is why I’m so behind on numbers.

Fiction
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
The Fraud by Zadie Smith
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
James by Percival Everett - my book of the year
Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban
The Names by Florence Knapp

Nonfiction
Gomorra by Roberto Saviano
We Wish To Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevich
How to Win an Information War by Peter Pomerantsev
Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong by David Walsh
Round About a Pound a Week by Maud Pember Reeves
Dreams of the Good Life: The Life of Fiona Thompson and the creation of Lark Rise to Candleford by Richard Mabey
East West Street by Philippe Sands

Checking in, will post at end of Dec - thank you so much!

Fiction Bolds :

My Friends by Hisham Matar
Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Achede
Outside The Door by Jane Casey
The God Of The Woods by Liz Moore
Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens
The Secret Room by Jane Casey
Our London Lives by Christine Dwyer Hickey
Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang
I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue
Seascraper by Benjamin Wood
Immaculate Conception by Ling Ling Huang
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
The Long Walk by Stephen King
Unsticky by Sarra Manning
Light A Penny Candle by Maeve Binchy

Non Fiction Bolds :

A Very Private Schoolby Charles Spencer
A Voyage Around the Queen by Craig Brown
Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays The Rent by Judi Dench and Brendan O’Hea
The Story of a Heart by Rachel Clarke

Italics

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Day by Michael Cunningham

Thank you @RomanMum !

Fiction bolds:
Girl A - Abigail Dean
The Lamb - Lucy Rose
Squeaky Clean - Calum McSorley
Glorious Exploits - Ferdia Lennon
Paperboy - Calum McSorley
Murder At Gull’s Nest - Jess Kidd
Falling Animals - Sheila Armstrong
Strange Journey - Maud Cairnes
Nickel Boys - Colson Whitehead
Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir
The Boy From The Sea - Garrett Carr
The Book Of Guilt - Catherine Chidgey
The Names - Florence Knapp
Helm - Sarah Hall
The Zone Of Interest - Martin Amis
To Calais, In Ordinary Time - James Meek

Fiction duds:
Quite Ugly One Evening - Christopher Brookmyre
Night Swimming - Roisin Maguire (for a truly ridiculous ending)
In A Place Of Darkness - Stuart Macbride
The House That Horror Built - Christina Henry
Autonomous - Annalee ?

Non fiction bolds:
You Don’t Have To Be Mad To Work Here…. - Benji Waterhouse
The Rule Of The Land - Garrett Carr

Non fiction duds:
The Story Of A Murder - Hallie Rubenhold
Haunted - E J Gilbert

I haven’t read much non fic this year, but I have a couple on the go that will be on next year’s lists, plus quite a few on TBR lists.
I’m up to 61 so far and will probably read at least 2 more before the end of the year.

Thanks @RomanMum . Hoping to finish a few more books so will post towards the end of the month!

Thank you @RomanMum for collating the stats! And thank you to all the 50 Bookers for another year of book related chat .

I don’t read much non-fiction, but have marked the ones I did:

1.Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad by Daniel Finklestein (non-fiction)
2.Hotel Du Lac by Anita Brookner
3.The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis
4.A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
5.Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
6.Butter by Asako Yuzuki
7.The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
8.Middlemarch by George Eliot.
9.Wellness by Nathan Hill
10.My Friends by Hisham Mater.
11.Rizzio by Denise Minna
12. Staring at the Sun by Julian Barnes
13.Nesting by Roisín O’Donnell
14.Appassionata by Jilly Cooper
15.Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad
16.You Are Here by David Nicholls
17.The Trees by Percival Everett
18.A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
19.Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens
20.The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey
21.Dracula by Bram Stoker
22. Case Studies by Grace McRae Burnett
23.Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
24.Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry
25.How to Eat (and Still Lose Weight) by Dr Andrew Jenkinson (non-fiction)
26.Score! by Jilly Cooper
27.Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst
28.The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
29.The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe
30.Erasure by Percival Everett
31.Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson
32.Ripeness by Sarah Moss
33.Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
34.Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
35.Sandwich by Catherine Newman
36.Eurotrash by Christian Kracht
37.Pandora by Jilly Cooper.
38.Universality by Natasha Brown
39.A Cold Death in Amsterdam by Anja de Jager
40.Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
41.The God of The Woods by Liz Moore
42. A Cold Case in Amsterdam Central by Anja de Jager
43.The Seaside: England's Love Affair by Madeleine Bunting (non-fiction)
44. Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick (non-fiction)
45. The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole
46.The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
47.The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst.
48.Skin Deep by Liz Nugent
49.After the Party by Cressida Connelly
50.Flesh by David Szalay
51.The Party by Tessa Hadley
52.Auditon by Katie Kitamura
53.The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner

Top five of the year for me (although ask me on another day and there would no doubt be another answer):

Middlemarch
The Trees
The Land in Winter
Glorious Exploits
Nothing to Envy

Stinker of the Year is awarded jointly to Sandwich and How to Eat (and Still Lose Weight)

Ooo @StrangewaysHereWeCome you've italicised Audition I should have as well @RomanMum hated it!

Many thanks for doing the leg work @RomanMum.
I’ll also post later in the month in the hope I can fit another book or two in.

I’m still going strong and hoping to fit at least another 2 or 3 books in so I’ll hold off for now. Slightly hesitant about joining in thanks to my usual weird selection of reading material but I might jump in with you all at the last minute!

I’d like to see Patricia Brent, Spinster up there in the bolds. I didn’t keep track and can’t remember anything else, sorry!

The Haunted Woods

It’s not wierd, it’s eclectic - that’s what I tell myself.

(Predicting an even more ‘eclectic’ list next year after RWYO!)

Yep. I think most of my favourites this year were oldies.
Wont do any until around Christmas- I’m sure I’ve another 5 books in me!

Marking place but hoping to get some more in. Thanks to TCOMC (which I loved) and Intermezzo (which I was less enthusiastic about) I have a very low count this year.

Thanks Roman! I'm also holding off because I'm stuck at 40, but have a lot of half-read books in progress, so you never know, I might make it.

Thanks @RomanMum, just checking in for now.

May I join? I've not been in the thread but have lurked a bit. I've done my 50. Just need to work out how to format text!

Welcome @Everythingwillbeokay

Formatting is always a dark art on these threads

Thanks @RomanMum

1 Wild Air by James MacDonald Lockhart
2 The Dead of Winter by Stuart MacBride
3 Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
4 Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
5 Annie Bot by Sienna Greer (Fiction)
6 The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
7 Utopia by Thomas More
8 Frank and Red by Matt Coyne
9 The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
10 Shakespeare: The man who pays the rent by Judi Dench
11 All Fours by Miranda July
12 A History of Women in 101 Objects by Annabelle Hirsch
13 These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant (Fiction)
14 The Black Mountain by Kate Mosse
15 One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware
16 Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (Fiction)
17 Paper Aeroplanes by Dawn O’Porter
18 Whiteout by RS Burnett
19 Good Material by Dolly Alderton
20 Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister
21 Butcher’s Crossing by John Williams (Fiction)
22 Nesting by Roisin O’Donnell
23 The Figurine by Victoria Hislop
24 Raking the Ashes by Anne Fine
25 The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey
26 Precipice by Robert Harris
27 Birding by Rose Ruane
28 Goose by Dawn O’Porter
29 The Herd by Emily Edwards
30 The Death of Grass by John Christopher (Fiction)
31 The Crash by Robert Peston
32 Claw by Katie Berry
33 Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
34 The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell
35 In the hide by Gordon Buchanan
36 An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson
37 Hotel World by Ali Smith
38 A Bit of A Stretch by Chris Atkins
39 All the colours of the dark by Chris Whitaker
40 Going infinite by Michael Lewis (non-fiction)
41 Maurice and Maralyn by Sophie Elmhirst
42 The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins
43 Fire by John Boyne
44 Unlawful Killings by Wendy Joseph KC
45 Funny Story by Emily Henry
46 The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
47 The Mother by TM Logan
48 Over Sharing by Jane Fallon
49 Cecily by Annie Garthwaite (Fiction)
50 The King’s Mother by Annie Garthwaite (Fiction)
51 The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
52 I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue (Fiction)
53 Manhattan Down by Michael Cordy
54 Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden
55. The Ministry of Time by Kalaine Bradley
56. The Holiday by TM Logan
57. The Woman in the Cabin by Becca Day
58. Last One at the Party by Bethany Clift (Fiction)
59. The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel
60. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel
61. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
62. Audition by Katie Kitamura
63. To Be Taught If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
64. Kissing Girls on Shabbat by Sara Glass (non-fiction)
65. Where the Lost Wander by Amy Harmon
66. Room on the Sea by Andre Aciman
67. Bring The House Down by Charlotte Runcie
68. The Woman in Suite 11 by Ruth Ware
69. The Orgeon Trail by Rinker Buck (non fiction)
70. The Compound by Aisling Rawle
71. Mayday by Holly Craig
72. The Man Made of Smoke by Alex North
73. The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith
74. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
75. Havoc by Rebecca Wait
76. The Hottest Girl at Burn Camp by Krystal Evans
77. Educated by Tara Westover
78. Courtiers by Valentine Low
79. When You Disappeared by John Marrs
80. Ordinary Love by Marie Rutkoski
81. Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
82. The Quality of Silence by Rosamund Lupton
83. This Book Will Bury Me by Ashley Winstead
84. The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
85. Wool by Hugh Howey
86. The Tenant by Freida McFadden
87. The Wreckage of Us by Dan Malakin
88. The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard (fiction)
89. The Examiner by Janice Hallett
90. The Rose Field by Philip Pullman
91. The Cabin in the Woods by Sarah Alderson
92. The List by Yomi Adegoke
93. Shallow Graves by Ray Fysh
94. A Month in the Country by JL Carr (fiction)
95. The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff
96. Every Contact Leaves A Trace by Jo Ward
97. Exiles by Mason Coile
98. Seascraper by Benjamin Wood (fiction)
99 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey
100 The Names by Florence Knapp

Book of the year:
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

Stinker of the year:
All Fours by Miranda July

(post edited because I found two more books on my kindle that I forgot to add to the list. Brings it to a pleasingly round 100)

Interesting... very nearly a bold for me but didn't quite get there.

I'm just going to list the ten I enjoyed the most. It hasn't been a memorable reading year for me: plenty of reads that were perfectly fine, but not many that thrilled me. There've been quite a few books that I confidently expected to love but didn't quite. In no particular order:

Fiction
Absent in the Spring, Agatha Christie
Sometimes People Die, Simon Stephenson
The Talisman Ring, Georgette Heyer
The Rising Tide, Molly Keane
Conclave, Robert Harris

Non-Fiction
Bookish, Lucy Mangan
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age, Eleanor Barraclough
Upon a White Horse, Peter Ross
The Cure for Good Intentions, Sophie Harrison

I'll add a top-up post if I read anything wonderful over the next 3 weeks.

Thanks @RomanMum and to everyone else for all the chat, readalongs and general book fun.

I am holding out a little as well, as definitely can squeeze in my next two and a couple of unfinished. I’ve had a good year I think, I set my target at 30 and it’s currently 60 and I’ve largely ignored counting and read just as a pleased and this was the year I embraced audio - 8 of those so far. There has been some good stuff as well.