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

@Stowickthevast I have the Rieu translation but the Wilson translation as audio has just been suggested on thread and I’m game!

I read the Odyssey (Emily Wilson translation) this year, but will lurk on the readalong and chip in every so often!

Is there a new thread ready to go for tomorrow?

South hasn’t done it yet AFAIK!

I’ve read The Odyssey but not the Emily Wilson translation yet and I have it on my shelves so I will attempt to follow along.

Not yet, but there will be one in the morning.

@Midnightstar76 I did the Popsugar challenge for a couple of years. Initially it was a really good way of getting me out of a crime/thriller/mystery rut, but after a couple of years I found it a bit constraining so I stopped.

I've had to accept there will be no more finishes for me this year, so here are my last two reads of the year:

39. The Impossible Fortune, by Richard Osman. More Thursday Murder Club, and a very good installment at that. Some new characters added who will presumably become repeat fixtures. Not quite a bold, but great fun.

40. The Year of the Dog, by Sophia Money-Coutts. I read Sophia's Substack and really enjoy it, so when she released this I snapped it up. It's a diary format, about the year she went through a break up, acquired a puppy, and how that affected her life. Very gentle, I loved it, it reminded me of Jilly Cooper's The Common Years (although with less fighting with other dog walkers).

I'm disappointed not to get to 50 as I started my reading year with a bang, but then my dad was very ill over the summer and I lost my mojo. He is much better now and I am reading again, but there was a 4 month spell where I read very little, that scuppered my 50 goal.

Finishing the year with LM Montgomery's Anne's House of Dreams, just because I love the description of Anne and Captain Jim's New Year's Eve.

@noodlezoodle I have absolutely put too much pressure on my self and will highly likely drop off after probably one week. In the Christmas lull and reality will be quite a different matter but the prompts have given me scope to widen my reading as normally do thriller/war time period books. So the first prompt is 1. Set in an ancient civilisation so I have gone for The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper totally out of the norm for me and will listen to the first chapter tomorrow. The next has to have a kangaroo in the title so will search Australia fiction and see what appeals.

Cracking up - ancient civilizations sounds very do-able, but kangaroo in the title more challenging!

@ReginaChase Mister Pip is one of my all time favourite books. Grace's funeral had my in ugly ugly tears on public transport, and it wasn't even the worst thing to happen to anyone. I bought this along as my book swap to a MN meet up - it wasn't to you though I don't think, or maybe it was and my brain cells have just died. I am reminded I have his book Biografii which if I remember correctly is about Albanian politics.

@Midnightstar76 Twee vicars much easier to find than kangaroos I reckon.

Happy New Year, I have decided not to rush on my non fiction, even though I only have a few chapters left so it will be my first read of the year I reckon.

Thank you to @Southeastdweller for hosting as always, and everyone for the chats, the bun fights, the meet ups., the recommendations, the sympathy, the advice and everything in between. Looking forward to more in 2026.

@AgualusasL0ver- the 9s are a very cool times table (as well as the order, there is the finger trick to learn it and the way you can add the digits to figure out if a number is in the 3 / 6 / 9 times tables). However, the eights edge it for me as I like to bake in imperial (based on the 8s), so I’m pleased to have made 64! I also love your reading plan - I have just bought myself a Faber Poetry Diary to keep track of various personal goals and your plan has started to make me think how I could use the Notes page …

Final reviews of the year:

62 Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher. After a tragedy, 2 friends retreat to the Scottish Highlands where they final solace helping others overcome difficult moments in their lives. I really liked the idea of festive reading in December, but wasn’t organised enough for the whole month - so I promised myself to read this. It is s similar format to The Shell-Seekers (centred on an older woman main character but with other main characters of different ages - I think I said in my review of The Shell-Seekers that I think this is a clever device as readers can find a character to identify with whatever their age). Initially, I thought I wasn’t going to enjoy it as details of the initial tragedy are in the book info and it felt somewhat distasteful - but the way it was described in the book was very powerful and pulled me in. This and the past if the other characters give the book an emotional depth - basically the book has a lot in common with a standard Christmas romance, but it feels like a much more sophisticated piece of writing. I enjoyed it immensely and will be putting it in a specially created Kindle Christmas folder to reread next December. It’s not a bold as the characters did get over varying traumas suspiciously quickly.

63 Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross - this is a sequel to Divine Rivals (a young adult Romantasy version of You’ve Got Mail). I enjoyed the first book with it’s Clark Kent / Lois Lane vibe, but this was a DNF for a while because I lost interest when the story moved to be more about gods. Mainly reading to tidy up my Kindle & make up my numbers.

64 A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas - yesterday’s deal, which I couldn’t resist. Surprisingly (given his fame) I can’t remember reading any Dylan Thomas although I must have come across some of his poems. I liked the eponymous story - the others are interesting, but quite an unsettling account of life 100 years ago. I could clearly see why his style is said to be so distinctive. Another one to reread next December - it’s a text that I want to revisit before I decide how good I think it is.

Book 18 sneaked in
#The Wrong Shoes Tom Percival
Short novel about chid poverty and friendship for tweens (maybe im regressing). Despite suggesting it wont, it finishes with a rather unlikely happy ending. It made me think about so many mumsnet threads ive read this year, but wont say more to keep this the nicest corner of the internet 🙂. Despite suggesting it wont it finishes with a rather unlikely happy ending. Anyway nice to go into the new year on a hopeful upbeat note.

@Benvenuto i have the liberty Faber poetry diary, I use it for day to day notes rather than recording books, but i do love it!

@SheilaFentiman- I was very tempted by the Liberty Version as it sounds wonderful (I used to love picture diaries when I was younger), but for some reason I just preferred the plainer version. It was mentioned on another book thread & just sounded perfect as I have been thinking that I really ought to read more poetry. It’s really meant to track & help me manage important stuff like exercise goals, but then books are important too.

@Benvenuto My very favourite poem is by Thomas. https://allpoetry.com/poem/14327024-Being-But-Men-by-Dylan-Thomas

I as usual fell off the threads but have tried to catch up….please to say I read 48 books this year…a personal best for me. I was geared to hit 50 but fell into a slump November onwards. A couple of my favourites:

Weyward
Devolution (a reread)
Earthling
Three hours

Happy new year everyone

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie- thank you! I like that (it’s one to read again & think about - this is why I don’t read enough poetry (it takes more effort than prose although the payoff is that I can remember poetry I like whereas its impossible to remember prose in the same way)).

Was that the rhyme scheme you used for your recent verse?

The thread is moving v quickly! Whereas I am reading v slowly - determined to finish the third book of The Forsyte Saga tonight which will take me to 85 books. Think I generally end up on 88 so not far off.

Glad you enjoyed it.

I'm not sure what your question about rhyme scheme means though, sorry. I've had a couple of glasses of wine and might be being very stupid.

Happy New Year everyone. See you on the 2026 thread!

I haven't put together my list, and have had trouble with my laptops/internet connection - hoping to address all that properly in the New Year. @Stowickthevast , I read and loved 5 of your bolds this year, and 2 previously - and I see that @ÚlldemoShúl also listed Fingersmith and The Lesser Bohemians as bolds.

I've read 228 books this year, lots quite good, a few disappointments - not sure about numbers. My favourite read of the year, I think, was a reissue with some revisions or changes of a novel first published in the 1980s. Her First American by Lore Segal is quite autobiographical although she made some changes to her character's back story.

This is set in the US a few years after WWII. Ilka is a Jewish woman in her early 20s whose family had to leave Vienna as refugees. Her American cousin has found her and helped her to come to the US, but Ilka realises her new home is in an area filled with people from a very similar background, so takes a train journey west to meet real Americans. The first person she meets is Carter, a light skinned black American intellectual, a journalist and academic, and a serious alcoholic, in his early 50s. Ilka settles in the US, falls in love with Carter, meets his friends, learns that her mother is still alive and brings her to New York. But I might have been put off by some of this description of the story - young woman falls in love with a middle aged alcoholic, but the balance of humour, sadness and tragicomedy here is so brilliantly done.

I didn't get given books for Christmas - I got some vouchers from a publisher website which offers a rewards scheme but they turned out to be vouchers to use in store (not online) and Waterstones doesn't stock any of Lore Segal's books. So I today I spent some of my Christmas money on Her First American and 3 of her other books for my Kindle. I have a paperback copy of Other People's Houses, another autobiographical novel about Ilka aka Lore Segal as a child refugee in England, which I plan to start in the New Year

Happy New Year 🎉

Happy new year, lovely folk of the books!

Happy New Year 🥳

Happy New Year everyone. I finished on 39 - I started reading a Dylan Thomas one to try and make 40, but hated it and thought it wasn’t worth hurrying through a book I didn’t like, just for the sake of a number. Still a personal best though, so I’m satisfied with that.