50 Books Challenge 2025 Part Nine

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the ninth and final thread of the 50 Books Challenge for this year.

The challenge was 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 , the seventh thread here and the eighth thread

@RazorstormUnicorn- good review of You Are Here (which I still have to read). I agree about the 15 miles & it’s the type of thing that would annoy me in a book too. That said, a lot of books that I really like, are my favourites because the characters are what I class as “people I would like to hang out with” so I’m hoping to like it.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit- I now have a problem due to your post about numbers. I do not find 61 a satisfactory number to finish on so I’m currently weighing up if I can reach the much more satisfactory 64 (being both a square number and in my favourite times table).

60 Sleeping Tiger by Rosamunde Pilcher - in which an Englishman living on a Spanish island has his life turned upside down when a young woman arrives believing that he is her father. This was a Kindle deal that I bought after enjoying the Shellseekers, but it’s a book that is showing its age in several ways including a large age difference in the love story and one scene where a man hits a woman. It’s best feature is the evocative description of Spain although I was amused by the use of a cat to
show moral worth (cuddle the cat and you will be rewarded with true love: kick the cat and you will be dumped).

61 Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy - another collection of interlinked tales this time centred on a proposal to build a new road, which will destroy holy well and a shrine to a saint. Each tale is told from two perspectives. I thought this was a great subject for a novel, and overall I enjoyed this - the dual perspective worked rather well. That said, I would have preferred a narrower focus on fewer characters (sometimes the story of the road got lost) and more details about local government.

More end-of-year catch-up reviews:

76. One Boat, Jonathan Buckley 4/5
    Booker Prize longlist. A British woman goes on a kind of retreat of her own to a small town in Greece, following the death of her father. A sort of meandering, self-reflexive novel where not much happens. However, there is a strong sense of place, and the characters (including the heroine-narrator) are pleasantly quirky.

77. Rapture, Emily Maguire 3/5
    I had high hopes for this book; it’s about a medieval woman who dresses as a man and successfully infiltrates the priesthood. (The novel was given to me by a dear friend who is an Australian nun; a bookseller in Sydney recommended it to her.) However, the concept of the novel was better than the realisation. We’re repeatedly told that the heroine is an extraordinary scholar, scribe and illuminator, but I didn’t find the portrayal very convincing. Steamy sex scenes were interspersed throughout the narrative, but I didn’t find them very convincing either. Still, it was an enjoyable read.

78. Frank and Red, Matt Coyne 4/5
    Book group read. A feel-good novel about how a young boy melts the heart of a curmudgeonly old man (yes, I know!) who is recently widowed and estranged from his own adult son. Told from the alternating perspectives of young boy and old man. I liked this much more than I expected to; the perspective of the child in particular is well done, and there are lots of amusing moments.

79. Kristin Lavransdatter, II: The Wife, Sigrid Undset, translated by Tiina Nunnally 4/5
    
    I enjoyed this volume of the saga more than the first one. Kristin and her lover, the dashing Erlend, are now married, but instead of living happily ever after, they deal with the all-too-realistic complications of parenting (including step-parenting) and running a household. The depictions of pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding are very detailed: a reminder that the saga is authored by a woman. The triangular relationship of Kristin, Erlend and Simon (her former fiancé, who is still in love with her) evolves in interesting ways.

80. Kristin Lavransdatter, III: The Cross, Sigrid Undset, translated by Tiina Nunnally 5/5
    The last volume of this saga was the one I found most gripping – perhaps partly because I had been with the characters for such a long time, and had become deeply invested in their fates. There is perhaps also less emphasis on sin (and specifically sexual sin) than in the earlier volumes. We are in a very human world: Kristin and Erlend have a troubled and turbulent marriage, but are both sympathetic characters. Their sons, now young adults, follow their own disparate paths. The theme of Christianity versus pagan ritual remains: Kristin herself is prepared to use dark magic, but also rescues a child from a barbaric ritual in the final pages of the book. The plague or Black Death gives the novel a tragic ending, but also anchors it firmly in European history.

@MamaNewtNewt I have read 3 Han Kang novels this year including The Vegetarian and thought they were all excellent. I chose Human Acts for my books of the year as it was so moving but also a very difficult read. She's a really original author.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I think I'm. going to reach 150 by reading 3 or 4 short books in the last week to push my numbers up!

ETA of my last 10 in fact, 4 are around 150-200 pages. One of those was Snow Country though which I had to hate read to finish...

About numbers, it looks like I might be finishing the year on 86! Which is not a satisfying number, ha. Last year I read 90, which was better.

I’m on 197 which is very unsatisfactory. I might make it to 198 if I finish The Heart’s Invisible Furies which I’ve taken back up and am enjoying it more this time. No chance I’ll make it to 200 (which would be such a lovely number) because I’m reading Project Hail Mary 2 chapters a day with book group (otherwise I’d fly through it) and two heavy hitters with Tracy Borman’s biography of Thomas Cromwell which someone on here recommended alongside my first ever read of Wolf Hall which I’m loving so far and want to savour until at least January 1st if not beyond.

I actually prefer odd numbers, my favourite number is 7 and @Benvenuto delighted someone else has a favourite set of times tables - I favour the 9s for their sequential pattern.

I’ll hit 62 with 8 more chapters to go with my non fiction. An all time record for me, but setting my target next year at 30 again so I can largely ignore numbers and just read what I fancy - a book club and a free choice a month puts me in a decent position.

I got my good reads email today and I’ve read 19,500 pages, my last read will satisfyingly round this to 20,000 ish.

I don't like to set myself a numerical goal either; I don't want the pressure! But being on these threads has definitely encouraged me to read more books, because people's recommendations are so tempting. I also get sucked into reading prize longlists though those are usually ultimately rather disappointing.

I also have this slightly silly self-imposed goal of reading one nonfiction book per month (since I tend to neglect nonfiction) and one book in French per month (to keep my French going strong). Therefore I need to finish two more nonfiction books and one more French book in order to meet my goal this year. I'm almost there; I just have to finish a few books I've been reading on and off for ages 😂

Movie Shoes was originally The Painted Garden - think I might still have an old Puffin copy, though my baby sister raided my Noel Streatfeild collection so I have some of my own childhood copies and some replacements and duplicates, not all in the same covers as the ones I had to start with, and some with the daft Americanised Shoes titles. I really wish that they'd publish the books under their original titles - there are 3 books that have "shoes" in the real title and they're not linked in other ways (Ballet Shoes, Tennis Shoes and Ballet Shoes for Anna), whereas Movie Shoes aka The Painted Garden does at least have Pauline Fossil as a supporting character - she also appears briefly I think in Party Frock which has been republished as Party Shoes. Shoes is misleading, there isn't really a series here - there are two 2 book series or books which have a real follow up, and a 4 book series (the Gemma books) and some of the titles are quite silly.

All I really remember is that a family gets the chance to go and live in California, near Hollywood, where one of the children somehow gets a part in a film version of The Secret Garden and also meets Pauline Fossil from Ballet Shoes. I enjoyed it at the time.

I've just recently finished Judith, one of her novels for adults about a neglected child, following her through her teens. It's interesting but Judith is a very frustrating character as she lets herself be pushed around, in contrast to her best books - the Fossil sisters want different things but they come to know what they want.

Just DNFed The Heart’s Invisble Furies again, and for good this time. Cyril is gutless, and has no regard for anyone else’s feelings. I really don’t want to spend another (what feels like) 40 hours listening to him. I’m out.

Thanks @elkiedee . I’m pretty sure I’ve read The Painted Garden before actually, but I didn’t remember these characters. Anyway, it was okay but nothing to do with shoes in terms of the movie bits of the story.

I'm a big Streatfeild fan and collector but find the more you read of her, the less enjoyable it becomes as she can be so repetitive and use the same tropes repeatedly! Still amazing comfort reads though and some are genuinely brilliant, eg Ballet Shoes. The current production at the National Theatre changes a few things I love about the original but it's a beautiful show nonetheless.

I'm due to finish on 138 for the year if I can get through a non fiction book I'm not making much progress with.

Movie Shoes is (according to Wikipedia) an abridged version of The Painted Garden. I still have my old copy, along with Ballet Shoes for Anna which is memorable for starting with the parents dying in a Turkish Earthquake which I had assumed was the big 1939 but I've just realised was publish in 1972 so might refer to a later earthquake.

I remember loving The Painted Garden as a child because I'd already read The Secret Garden - I think it must have been the first time I'd realised books could be written about other books, iyswim.

My last two of the year – I won’t be finishing on a nice round number either. And it’s not a prime number, or even a common or garden odd number, so disappointing all round really. But I am finishing with a bold.

55.Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent. Sally is a 40 year old woman, friendless and jobless, who lives in isolation with her father in rural County Roscommon. When her father dies Sally tries her best to cope, and is bemused that following his light-hearted suggestion to “put me out with the rubbish when I die” gets her into trouble. As Sally comes to the attention of police, healthcare services and the wider community her story of past abuse is understood.

I think this has had pretty mixed reviews on here, but I thought it was a decent enough psychological thriller. It’s most straightforwardly described as a cross between Room and Eleanor Oliphant, and if neither of those was your cup of tea you won’t like this. The supporting characters are very one-note, but it's a plot-driven book so I wasn't so bothered about that. The storyline does peter out rather at the end though.

56. My Family by David Baddiel. An autobiographical work in which Baddiel shares stories of his late parents’ considerable idiosyncrasies – his emotionally blunted father’s struggles in his professional life, and later with frontotemporal dementia; his mother’s refuge in a long affair that she makes no effort whatsoever to hide.

This is far, far funnier, and also more sensitive than I’ve just made it sound. Baddiel reflects on intergenerational trauma, particularly for European Jews, his mother having left Konigsberg shortly after her birth in 1939, and his father’s family settling in the UK after escaping pogroms in Latvia. This underpins their unusual values and behaviours, which despite their roots in trauma provide a rich vein of darkly comic anecdotes. Like @LadybirdDaphne I listened to this on audiobook, missing the photos that Baddiel does his best to describe, but equally his delivery is as sharp as you’d expect from a successful stand-up, so I’d still recommend it. A bold.

Footnote – The Mary Whitehouse Experience era Baddiel was an absolutely huge teenage crush of mine, and this may have affected my objectivity.

@elkiedee- thanks for explaining the Noel Streatfield rename (which I wondered about as soon as I read the post). I agree about the rename - my favourite NS as a child (I haven’t read them all) was White Boots and I’m not impressed that it has apparently been renamed Skating Shoes.

@ÚlldemoShúlreading your review made me think that I need a list of books not to touch with a barge pole! This thread is as good for that as it is for recommendations!

Be careful- this book really annoyed me but loads of others have loved it so you may too!

I just finished Dombey and Son and now I'm Silly Crying. I'm so relieved. It didn't finish how I thought it would and I'm ridiculously, sentimentally happy.

An underrated Dickens, definitely.

240 Silent Bones - Val McDermid

I admit, I slightly cheated so that I could get to a round 240 😀 I had started A Perfect Spy but didn’t like my chances of getting through 600 odd pages of spycraft in a couple of days.

This is the latest Karen Pirie book; it’s well written, as with the others. This time, Karen’s cold case is a body found when a motorway siding collapses. The body is that of Sam Nimmo, a journalist who disappeared shortly after his pregnant fiancée died in their flat, and the police concluded he had done it and fled.

However, the book opens with a young woman going to a posh party to try and get a marketing job, so we know we will loop back to the terrible events of that night too.

If you like Val McDermid you will like it, and if you find the Tony and Carol series too graphically violent, Karen Pirie is less so.

It’s not that I have a number in mind, or a number goal, I just can’t end on a random number

Could be worse. I appear to be ending on 69....

I think so too. I put it on my list of bolds.

I didn't because I hadn't at that point finished it but it would be now.

The link for the new Read What You Own thread is (hopefully) here for anyone who wishes to join.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/5467592-read-what-you-own-2026

It's not too late, Piggy! I was very moved by the ending of Dombey as well.

I think I'll wind up the year at 70 books. It's lower than last year because I went back to college for two months and I only read a bit of Kristin Lavransdatter during that time.

Mini Waterstones peril haul.