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

@elspethmcgillicudddy@RomanMum can I please put All Fours in stinker corner as well? Forgot I had even read it

I liked All Fours! I found it pleasingly deranged! I can understand the dislike though.

My faves from the year are
A Little Trickerie - Rosanna Pike
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
The List of Suspicious Things - Jennie Godfrey
Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver
Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters
Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
Empireland - Sathnam Sanghera
The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters
Shy Creatures - Clare Chambers
The Mercies - Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Boy Parts - Eliza Clark
Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell

My least faves were
Perfection - Vincenzo Latronico
Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work - (non fiction) Sarah Wynn-Williams
It's Not a Cult - Joey Batey

Non Fiction

Extreme Economies by Richard Davies

Fiction
Wild by Kristin Hannah
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

I read a lot of books that I rated 4 to 4.75 but these are the ones I am still thinking about.

God of the woods and The Wilding get an honourable mention as both were excellent when I looked back at my app I couldn't initially remember which was which so I don't know they can be counted as bolds! I did read them one after the other!!

My favourites were

Non fiction
Dont burn anyone at the stake today
Naomi Alderman
Why Can't I Just Enjoy Things?: A Comedian's Guide to Autism
Pierre Novellie

Fiction
Ordinary Time
Cathy Rentzenbrink
The last remains
Elly Griffiths
The Safekeep
Yael van der Wouden

I’d like to add The Book of Guilt as a bold, for being so uncomfortably compelling.

Also, is it okay to add re-reads?

84 Charing Cross Road
The Long Walk

I usually count re reads :-)

I don’t count my reading, so not bothered about how many I’ve read, but just wondering if I can add re-reads to the yearly review, or if it might skew the figures.

Last one at the party was my favourite this year. So good I read it twice!

Marking place. I need to get my list together.
I’ve done a LOT of re-reading this year.

I'd also like to nominate the Slough House series by Mick Heron although I can't name a favourite without searching back through all the threads, which I cba to.

I always include rereads so yes please.

Just checking in - I will post mine in a few days as both the fiction & non-fiction books I’m currently reading are likely to be bolds!

Wrong thread!

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer - another re-read; another bold.

Here's my bolds and stinkers. I did a lot of re-reading this year including the whole of Hazel Holt's Mrs Malory series, all 22 of them, which I adore but I won't count them here. Currently reading my way through Maeve Binchy.

Loved:

The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present - Paul McCartney
WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM THEIR FRIENDS: the history and music of the Beatles - Stuart Maconie
Munichs - David Peace
The Story of a Heart - Rachel Clarke
The Lives and Deaths of the Princesses of Hesse: The curious destinies of Queen Victoria's granddaughters - Frances Welch
On Rue Tatin: The Simple Pleasures of Life in a Small French Town - Susan Loomis

Hated:
My Good Bright Wolf: A Memoir - Sarah Moss
Kitchen Confidential: Anthony Bourdain

I'm not ready to post but place marking so I don't get lost.

I was a fan of All Fours and quite liked Audition, though get the hate for both.

One Boat & The Rest Of Our Lives on the other hand , I have no clue how they made the Booker Longlist.

Here to add a real standout of the year:
Helm by Sarah Hall
Absolutely brilliant.

Thank you very much for organising this, RomanMum! 🌟

Here is my list of best books in 2025 in chronological order:

Hangover Square: Patrick Hamilton
The Colony: Audrey Magee
After Midnight: Irmgard Keun (trans. Anthea Bell)
Minor Detail: Adania Shibli (trans. Elisabeth Jaquette)
My Friends: Hisham Matar
The Greengage Summer: Rumor Godden
Conclave: Robert Harris
Le Comte de Monte-Cristo: Alexandre Dumas
The Ghosts of Rome: Joseph O'Connor
Glorious Exploits: Ferdia Lennon
The Trees: Percival Everett
Naufrage ('Small Boat'): Vincent Delecroix
Dalla parte di lei ('Her Side of the Story'): Alba de Céspedes
Immaculate Conception: Ling Ling Huang
Patricia Brent, Spinster: Herbert Jenkins
Dombey and Son: Charles Dickens.

A Woman in the Polar Night by Christine Ritter

Just remembered All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whittaker which I gobbled up and really enjoyed.

Thanks RomanMum for this.

My bolds this year were:

fiction:
Clown Town by Mick Herron
Old Filth by Jane Gardam
O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker
The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith

Non fiction:
Bookish by Lucy Mangan
The Life Inside by Andy West
The Plague and I by Betty Macdonald
The Wager by David Grann

This is my list. I have added three I will definitely finish by end of 2025:

• 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
• Atmosphere- Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Pet – Catherine Chidgey
• The Proof of My Innocence – Jonathan Coe
• I’m Sorry You Feel That Way – Rebecca Wait
• The Covenant of Water – Abraham Verghese
• Dead of Winter- Anders de la Motte
• Murder Under the Mistletoe – Richard Coles
• The Christmas Stocking Murders- Denzil Meyrick
• The Dead of Winter- Sarah Clegg
• 12 Ways To Kill Your Family At Christmas – Natasha Bache
• Murder At Mistletoe Manor - FL Everett
• Dombey and Son - Charles Dickens
• Black History for Every Day of the Year - David Olusoga

68 in total.

If I could double Bold Munichs and Story of a Heart, I would!

I'm assuming we have until the 31st to post @RomanMum ?

@BestIsWest I loathed Kitchen Confidential too - was a DNF for me!