50 Books a Year - The 2025 Challenge

My first book of the year is The Monk - Tim Sullivan

Plus I'm dipping in and out of The Plantagenets - Dan Jones

#1. My Darling Daughter by JP Delaney.

My first this year will be “The Voyage Home” by Pat Barker, the last in her Women of Troy trilogy. I hope it will be as unputdownable as the other two. I’m also still hauling my way through “A Column of Fire” by Ken Follett. It’s so long and there are so many characters in it that you lose track of who they are and it’s becoming tedious but I won’t give up on it.

I saw the New Year in by reading The Siege by Ben Macintyre.
It's non-fiction and covers the siege of the Iranian Embassy in 1979. I remember this very clearly because my children were toddlers and I was bathing them while my husband was watching the rescue of the hostages unfold live on tv. He kept shouting up to me, and it sounded so exciting that I quickly dried the children so that I could rush down and see it.

Ben Macintyre's book details all the behind-the-scenes work and practice that the SAS did before the "James Bond-esque" rescue, all the tech and gadgets that were used (nothing like today's of course) plus the police, MI5 and MI6 and many others. It has made me proud of our security services to read how it was handled. Absolutely astonishing. I am only halfway through the book and the rescue has yet to take place.

Happy New year to Terribull and all readers. Have just finished reading The Last Man by Jane Harper (The Dry, Force of Nature) and it's another terrific story set in the Australian outback. Her descriptions of the difficulties of living in such a remote area is wonderful. Next book is The chain of Curiosity by Sandi Toksvig, an easy one to dip in and out of.

I’m going to start The Whalebone Theatre. Not sure how much I actually fancy it to be honest but it’s our book club read!

*Actually my NY resolution is “must read more books”.
#lazygran

Hi, I’m reading the shipping news by Annie Proulx as it’s my current book club read .
I am finding this book quite a chore to read because some of the sentence construction is awkward. I like the actual story itself but feel that I have to force myself to pick it up .
I’m plodding on as I have another one to read already downloaded on my kindle

I've just started The Salt Path by Raynor Winn. I used to be an avid reader but have gone off the boil of late. I'll try to read a few this year. It won't be 50 I'm sure.

Hi I just found this book-readers' thread! I read a lot so perhaps I can join in here.

My first for 2025 is (as I've already shared on the main forum) "The Uninhabitable Earth, A Story of the Future by David Wallace-Wells.

I am finding it quite disturbing, although I knew many of the issues, to see them all in the one book is quite frightening. It's left me worried for my children/grandchildren and what life might look like for them when I am gone.

On a lighter note, there seems quite a few books named above that I like the descriptions of and that I may enjoy!

I'm still reading 'The Girl Behind the Wall' by Mandy Robotham. A story based in Berlin when the Wall was built.

I’m reading “Murder in the Falling Snow” a collection of 10 classic short stories.
I’ve also got “The Ghost Ship” by Kate Mosse on the go, but it’s taking me a while to get through for some reason. Not sure why, because when I do pick it up I find it quite absorbing.

I would not describe myself as 'well read' but I read all kinds of books; fiction and non fiction.

I am just about to start reading 'Americanah' by Chimamanda
Ngozi Adiche.

I usually have several books on the go and I am also reading 'The Green Man' by Kingsley Amis and 'Daphne du Maurier, A Daughter's Memoir' by Flavia Leng. Not sure about recommending TGM, it is typical KA and of its time, the 1970s. Flavia Leng's book is very readable and offers a glimpse of what it was like to be the child of two famous
people.

I am just about to start ‘The House of Spirits’ by Isabel Allende, my U3A book club choice. I must say I’m not looking forward to it as the font and line space is strange. Really hoping it’s a good read!

I am starting As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee. I think I read it many years ago, but it is fresh to me and warming to read of the spanish sun on a cold wet January day.

My first book of the year is,
Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon

HelterSkelter Just starting to read ‘Cider with Rosie’ once again. Then I will probably read the next two in the trilogy.

#1 Lights! Camera! Mayhem! Jodi Taylor.
Every Christmas Day the author releases a short story. I have only just had an opportunity to read this the latest. It involves members of St Mary's Institute of Historical Research and a movie star finding themselves in Troy just before the city falls to the Greeks. Just wonderful! I think Ms Taylor is one of my favourite authors.

Kate1949

I've just started The Salt Path by Raynor Winn. I used to be an avid reader but have gone off the boil of late. I'll try to read a few this year. It won't be 50 I'm sure.

I listen to audio books far more often than reading actual books these days.
Your library may be like mine and have free audio books available to library members.

I'm going to start Opal Country by Chris Hammer, which I believe is set in outback Australia. I do like a bit of Aussie noir

**
I meant to say your library may have free online audio books, as well as physical ones.

My first book this year is 'Nella Last's War', which I've been meaning to read for years (my best friend finally bought me a copy, I suspect to shut me up). The book I read last in 2024 (finished it yesterday) was Ben Aaronovitch's 'Moon Over Soho'.
My New Year's resolution is to work my way through the Cambridge Centenary version of 'Ulysses', a doorstop of a book with masses of extra material, which I can only read sitting up at the table (I don't have the strength to hold it on my lap).
I don't read just one book at a time, so my book-list isn't really a list. Rather, it's a jumble of disparate publications which I pick up & put down at will. I spend anything from a few minutes to several hours reading every day and have been known to go at something all night and then sleep until lunchtime (ain't retirement just grand?!). I'm always dipping in and out of whatever I've got going at the time, and it's an unusual week when I don't buy at least 1-2 new ones. The contents of my "must read" shelves are spilling onto the floor, but I wouldn't be without a good selection of the little varmints. Just ordered Paul Morley's 'How I Fell in Love With Classical Music & Decided to Re-Write its Entire History', which I know is going to take me out of the social whirl for a good amount of time! Happy reading, all.

My first book this year is The Place of Tides by James Rebanks,
anything he writes has me captivated, usually about his own life, this is too but set in Norway.
I have to read on kindle these days as my eyesight is poor but reading has been a lifelong passion.

Happy New Year, TerriBull, and all readers on this great thread. Thank you for starting this again. I joined last year but fell by the wayside, I'll try harder to keep posting this year. I love reading and it's great to get so many varied recommendations.
Just before Christmas I finished my annual Advent re reading of How Far to Bethlehem by Norah Lofts, which I found recommended here a few years ago. It is a wonderful fictional retelling of the Christmas story, with great characterisations and ' back stories' of the Wise Men, shepherds, Mary, Joseph and Mary's mother Anne. Amazing details about King Herod too.The author certainly puts flesh and blood ( sometimes warts and all!) onto the bare bones of the biblical characters.
I am about to start reading Coffin Road by Peter May for this month's Book Group with my sisters and friends.

I'm looking forward to reading more reviews and recommendations.