The 52 Book Club: 2025 Challenge discussion

WEEKLY CHECK-IN
December 2, 2024 -- Week 49

Happy December, book friends! It's our final month of 2024 and we have a few weeks left to wrap up those 2024 reading challenges before we kick off for 2025! (Although you're more than welcome to carry any uncompleted prompts into 2025 too. 😉🥰)

For this week's discussion question, we'd love to know which books are in your reading pile for December? Which books are you hoping/planning on reading before the end of the year? (Challenge or otherwise!)

I am in progress on the last two books I need for this challenge:
Hidden Figures (women in stem)
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald (city starting with M)

Also finishing for other challenges:
The Year of Reading Dangerously
A Hitch in Time: Writings from the London Review of Books

No idea which prompts these might fit, but I am reading Spoils of War and The Air War by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Veiled Intentions by Michael R. Miller, and Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T.J. Klune.

I also hope to get to I Am These Truths: A Memoir of Identity, Justice, and Living Between Worlds by Sunny Hostin (for the Ghost Writer prompt) and maybe The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman for Magical Realism.

At the moment I am swiching between 5 books:

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Immigrant Women Who Changed the World by Elena Favilli which I stated reading today,

Mens jeg har dere her. Eller om det å bli gammel. by Tor Åge Bringsværd

En kort introduksjon til Norge i høymiddelalderen by Hans Jacob Orning

Alle these 3 are librarybooks, and the last two are my own TBR books,

Femtio djur som ändrat historiens gång by Eric Chaline

Peter den store by Tomas Blom

I'm currently deep into Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross
and Witch Way to Murder by Shirley Damsgaard.
Tiptoing through The 36-Hour Day by Nancy Mace.
I have a pile aside, but I need to see which prompts aren't yet filled before I choose the order.

Finishing up Fairy Tale by Stephen King and
The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine That Changed Women's Lives Forever by Lydia Reeder (an ARC)
Then (in no particular order), the following to finish other reading challenges - I am currently at 108 completed books for the year:
The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Can't Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne
X-Ray: The Unauthorized Autobiography by Ray Davies
The Promise of Tomorrow by Mary Ellen Taylor

I would like to finish Cliff Divers by Carmen Armato (#9). Been speed reading on dementia lately 😔
Would like to squeeze in The Presidents Daughter by James Patterson and Bill Clinton (#41).
Happy Holidays

Currently listening to Take Your Breath Away by Linwood Barclay for #25 & enjoying it, so will read more of his books.

Still to read - #50, not yet decided on a title.
#48 waiting for a library copy of The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie by Freida McFadden
#37 waiting for library copy of Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir by Anna Marie Tendler
#29 The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman which I'm leaving till last as it's a short read & I'm running out of time...

I just finished The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement by Sharon McMahon.

I am midway through Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto.
Planning to finish How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin as my final 2024 prompt and The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths for my book club.

I finished The Vaster Wilds , my last prompt for the main challenge, last night. I also want to complete the December Mini-Challenge with Midwinter Murder, The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year and The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding. I also plan to read Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murders for book club.

I am most excited about continuing to plan for 2025.

I’m reading my last two There There by Tommy Orange and The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz to complete the main challenge. Also trying to finish the Oct. Nov. and Dec mini challenges