50 Books a Year - The 2025 Challenge

For me that’s one of the great advantages of audiobooks, Greyduster. I set mine for 15 minutes and get my head down - I always have to rewind at least 10 minutes in the morning!

CanadianGran that book sounds like it might be set in a village near here famous for having isolated itself to stop the plague spreading. I might try and get hold of a copy if it’s in print (I can’t get on with audio books - they lull me to sleep!😁).

CanadianGran I enjoyed Year of Wonders but the narrator's accent must make a huge difference. I also enjoyed People of the Book. Geraldine Brooks chooses unusual topics.

I have just finished Book 2 Precipice by Robert Harris. Very well written as usual.

It tells the true story (weaving fact with fiction) of British Prime Minister Asquith starting in the summer of 1914 with the world on the brink of World War 1. He is in his 60s and obsessed with a young aristocratic woman in her 20s. He writes to her continually and his actual letters are revealed in which he either shares.... or even encloses..... top Government secrets. Her replies are fictionalised because her letters were destroyed by Asquith.

I found it terrifying that Asquith and his Cabinet were controlling the war when he was scribbling love letters during Cabinet meetings, and it really brought to mind the quote "Fought by lions, led by donkeys."

It is an interesting book that evokes that period in history. 8/10

Hercule Poirot's Silent Night - Sophie Hannah / Agatha Christie.
One of a series of brand new Poirot stories.

It didn't quite grab me like an authentic Christie although it does have surprises, including the solution.

Parts seemed to have too much unnecessary waffle but I liked hearing more about the feelings of Poirot and his new chum Inspector Catchpool re the situation they're in.

Hello to this thread! I haven't yet finished any books this year, but am listening to Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks.

from the publisher:
When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer.

Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition.

I had recommended it to my daughter just a few chapters in, but then it got to a very heart-wrenching spot, and I told my DD not to read it! I did continue and it is a very good story. I'm having a hard time with the narrator's accent and the use of some old words (the story is set in 1665-1666). If I was reading I could see how they were spelled (spelt?), but spoken I just have to use context and guess what they mean.

I have enjoyed a previous book by this author, People of the Book which chronicles a prayer book from the middle ages to current time.

I finished my first New Year book, Coffin Road by Peter May. I found it hard to follow, especially all the technical stuff about the bees. If it hadn't been chosen as out January Book Group read, I wouldn't have persevered.
Book 2, was a much easier read, The Girls Next Door by Anita Waller. A bit far fetched, not sure I'd recommend that either!
So I'll read through your recent reads and find something more gripping for Number 3. 🤞📚

I am enjoying Rachel McLean’s Dorset Crime series. I tend to read on my kindle using kindle unlimited. On my second book this year.

Book 1
Standing in the Shadows - Peter Robinson
The last ever Inspector Banks book.
It was alright, but I have over the years been less thrilled with each new book, whereas, with his earlier books I couldn’t wait to get to get the latest Banks and binge read it.
I am fed up with all of the musical comments, I have no interest whatsoever in what is playing on the pub duke box, or in the car, or in his cottage, and it’s continual, every situation has to have a musical backdrop.
Not keen on his team either, not a terrible book by any means, but I’m not sorry it’s the last.

I’m pleased to hear your views, Sara and TerriBull. To read the rave reviews you’d think it was a modern classic! I particularly liked the scene where a millionaire’s wife walked into the florist shop on day one and practically begged for a job (unpaid of course) because she was so bored with her life of luxury. And then - spoiler alert - it turned out that she was the hot neurosurgeon’s sister (well knock me down with a feather!).

Agree Maggiemaybe and Sarah. I read, one of them it Ends or Starts With Us, simply because it appeared. the writer, Colleen Hoover was consistently topping the best seller charts, a literary sensation it apparently. I read later she launched herself via TikTok Yes not impressed, woman meets tall, dark stranger who happens to be a neurosurgeon, yeah right, they're really thick on the ground. The female lead writes to her hero Ellen de Generes, did she not realise she's an absolute horror??? that's been out in the public domain for ages Honestly! I wouldn't bother with anymore, one was enough

Maggiemaybe, it End With Us, is honestly one of the most awful, badly written books I’ve ever read. Why it became so popular is completely beyond me, I thought it was absolute rubbish.

3. It Ends With Us, Colleen Hoover

I’d heard a lot of hype around this, so when I saw it as a library audio offering, thought I’d give it a go. I nearly gave up on it several times. Everything seemed so repetitive and slow, the characters mainly people with daft names who became millionaires a few months after starting up businesses from scratch in areas they knew absolutely nothing at all about, with no money behind them or backers. Oh, apart from the renowned neurosurgeon who gets drunk a few hours before performing groundbreaking surgery, before dashing home, always looking hot in his scrubs, to seduce or beat up his wife. The main female character, Lily Blossom Bloom the florist, didn’t seem to change much from her mid teens to mid twenties, still OMGing her way through life and writing a journal by way of letters to her hero, Ellen de Generes. There’s a serious theme of domestic abuse, which is dealt with well, but the rest of it seemed to be a very soppy romance written for the young adult market. Can you guess I didn’t really get it?

I’ve given up on “The Column of Fire”, having read five hundred and odd pages with another three hundred and odd to go!! I kept forgetting who was whom. My book two “The Voyage Home” was, as expected, brilliant, and book three is “Dreaming the Eagle”, the first of a set of four novels about Boudicca by Manda Scott (the set was a Christmas present from GS!). They were critically acclaimed when they were published and rightly so. I read them all some time ago, but out of sequence because that’s the only way our library could get hold of them. Now I can follow the whole story properly.

So pleased to have found this thread, I hadn’t come across it before. I read 65 books last year, so hopefully I can record this year’s books, as I complete them, on here. A couple I’ve seen mentioned already are my all time favourites - I’ve read How Far to Bethlehem just about every other Christmas for the last 30 years, and I am Pilgrim is in my top 10 books of all time.
I’ve started the year with Lucinda Riley’s The Girl on the Cliff. I very much enjoyed her Seven Sisters series, so hopefully this won’t disappoint. It’s based n Ireland and moves between present day and the past in a family’s history.

Weenanni59, the Shipping News is my all time favourite novel.
I read it about twenty years ago, and it’s yet to be knocked off the top spot.

Well, off we go again!
Book 1, Murder on the Dance Floor, by Shirley Ballas. I wasn`t over impressed, but it was a Christmas gift, and there`s another one to go yet.

#3. Murder Before Evensong by Richard Coles.

Thank you, Terribull for starting this for 2025.
No.1 for me is Anyone for seconds? by Laurie Graham. Witty as all her books are, but weakfish plot and irritating heroine, nothing like as good as, e.g Early Birds.

My Christmas haul included A.N Wilson on Dickens and A. N Wilson on Goethe so I shall have to stagger those. Some good suggestion here.

Hello all , I’m hoping that by joining this I can revive my love of reading. Since DH died 5 years ago I have only read books intermittently. No idea why lacking concentration maybe ? I always go through subscription magazines , weekend papers but need to get back to serious reading . I’m not keen on a book club as don’t like being told what to read. So this is the answer maybe.
I’ve decided to reread a favourite Driving Over Lemons and the sequels . Loved it some years ago . Then I will try out some of the suggestions on this thread ,looking forward to becoming a proper reader again .

Happy New Year, everyone. Thank you for starting the best thread on GN once again, Terribull. I fell out of the loop and off the thread in 2024, but we helped two of our three adult children to move house as well as other things that were happening at the same time. I did finish fifty books by the end of the year, though. 2925 is a new year with a fresh start and I plan to regain my reading mojo.

2 The Monk - Tim Sullivan

Tim Sullivan has created his very own unique character, in DS George Cross, who is on the autistic spectrum with behavioural traits that are dogged and pedantic and often an irritant to those he works with. Generally misunderstood by those around him with the exception of colleague DS Josie Ottie who has a simultaneous level of patience tinged with exasperation. Nevertheless for all his difficulties George is always bang on when finding the right culprit frequently overlooking the obvious when he pursues what other colleagues deem as blind alleys.

In this he is called to investigate the vicious murder of Brother Dominic who is found savagely beaten in a woodland close to the monastery of Benedictine Monks. Nothing is known about his past life and on the surface there aren't any clues as to what led up to his savage death. Gradually DS Cross with his colleague DS Josie Ottie piece together a past that included a career in banking at a top level in a 300 year old bank that went to the wall in the banking crisis of 2008 with the misappropriation of client funds in the frame. What was his involvement in that? what happened to his small fortune accrued during his working life? and was his calling to a monastic life an escape from the many pressures of the world he left behind?

This was my favourite book amongst the ones I've read in the series, recommended for those who like crime.

Indigo8 my library have a few Alison Lurie’s, are there any in particular you would recommend?

I'm glad you said that vena11, it's on my soon to read pile.

#2 was Where You Once Belonged by Kent Haruf. A Christmas gift (which I requested).
When Jack Burdette fails to make it as a college footballer, he returns to his small hometown of Holt, Colorado, where he takes a job with the local farmers’ cooperative. He seems to settle back into small town life, but appearances can be deceptive. He returns from a weekend conference with a new wife, then leaves her behind when he runs off with other folks’ money. Nearly a decade later, he returns and resentment runs high.
A short book of 170 pages, with wonderful, spare prose, like all of Kent Haruf’s books. If you enjoy the likes of Anne Tyler, I think you will enjoy Kent Haruf. 9/10

TerriBull thanks for the Jo Baker recommendation, I enjoyed Longbourn.

I will also look out for Alison Lurie Indigo8, I haven’t heard of her before.

I am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes. I found it hard to start with but kept going and then I could not put it down.