50 Books Challenge 2026 Part Five

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I really wanted to know more about her, such an interesting character.

@BestIsWest I think I know which character you mean, yes its odd

The Glass Lake - Maeve Binchy

I’m unsure whether I’ve read this before as bits seemed familiar or whether I’ve just read too many Maeve Binchy books.
12 year old Kit McMahon burns the letter her mother leaves behind on the night she disappears believing her to have drowned in the lake.

As always with Binchy she excels in describing small town Ireland with its gossips, drunks, nuns and priests, shopkeepers, schoolchildren and the ‘quality’ folk and their complicated relationships. This lulled in the middle for me and I was bored for a while but it picked up enough to retain my interest.
There was also one character, pretty central to the story for the first half of the book who gets written out and I wasn’t sure exactly why, dispensed with as no longer useful I think but her story seemed unresolved and I was a bit dissatisfied with that.

Edit - meant to say best wishes @AliasGrape, hope you feel better soon.

@Tarragon123 Altar to St Margaret for you. Hope your health is continuing to improve

Healing wishes to you also @AliasGrape

I am enjoying The Art Of A Lie. Undemanding, terrific descriptions of the delicacies sold in the shop, larger than life villains,

29 Factfulness by Hans Rosling. Recommended upthread, this is an excellent book about how and why our perceptions of how things are in the world tend to be worse than the reality. There is a good mix of evidence-based facts and stories / anecdotes to add interest, plus some ideas about how to challenge our cognitive biases in this area.

30 Little Children by Tom Perrotta. Sorry to stereotype, but this was very much "chick lit written by a man" in that it had all the ingredients of chick lit in terms of characters, relationships, plot etc, but had a rather darker than normal edge to it.

31 Ripeness by Sarah Moss. This is a dual timeline novel with Edith as the protagonist in both. In the earlier timeline she is 17 years old and spending a few months in Italy before going to university, to support her pregnant sister Lydia. In the later timeline, she is a woman in her 70s who is divorced and has retired to Ireland. Both timelines are good for most of the book, until near the end when I was much more invested in the earlier timeline and couldn't wait to get back to it. I absolutely loved this book, especially the reflective nature of seeing the span of an adult life from its beginning to the twilight years. I like Sarah Moss and, for me, this is her best yet. A definite bold.

Interesting! Apparently, the original title was just The Trumpet-Major and then in subsequent editions it had a longer subtitle akin to that film title.

Apparently there’s a new film adaptation of The Trumpet Major which was filmed in Dorset and due for release about now - but they’ve retitled it The Soldier and the Sailor. It’s all part of something called the Wessex Dramas Project - I suspect released only quite locally?

www.hardysociety.org/oxo/705/the-wessex-dramas-project/

I feel like he remembered he was Thomas Hardy all of a sudden!

@AliasGrape- that’s good news & hope you feel better soon.

@Piggywaspushed- I have been thinking about The Trumpet-Major recently as I want to reread Hardy. I haven’t read it since being a teen but I remember the ending being as you described (teenage me was not impressed as I wanted an Austen-style happy ending). I agree it would make a great BBC serial.

63 . Rivals by Jilly Cooper - reread due to its popularity on MN. I didn’t take to Jilly Cooper when younger partly due to the upsetting event at the beginning of Polo & partly as there are quite a lot of relationships in her books where the characters aren’t suited to each other which I found rather unsettling. I still found this on the reread, but what I also found was that it is very funny - especially the opening chapters & the description of work - a bold.

64 . The Girl in the Glass Tower by Elizabeth Fremantle - I have wanted to read Elizabeth Fremantle for a while as I’ve enjoyed listening to her being interviewed on podcasts. This is a historical novel about Arbella Stewart (cousin on James VI) & a minor Elizabethan / Jacobean poet Aemilia Lanyer (who has been identified as Shakespeare’s Dark Lady in his Sonnets although the author does not agree with this theory). This was very readable and the setting of the Jacobean court was interesting (Queen Anne is an interesting & overlooked historical figure) but the problem for me was that I just don’t find Arbella to be a particularly interesting subject despite her tragic life. This probably isn’t the author’s fault (I found the same when reading a biography of Arbella) & I would like to read more of her work.

65 . Wildfire at Midnight by Mary Stewart - this was my favourite Mary Stewart mystery as a teenager & it’s a book that had a lasting impact on me as it led me to have the mistaken view for many years that spaniels are stupid dogs (a view eventually dispelled my meeting an actual spaniel). It’s the story of a young woman who goes for a restful holiday in Skye only to encounter some old acquaintances & a murder enquiry. Despite some antiquated views on relationships, I very much enjoyed the mystery, the characters, the descriptions of the mountains & the 1950s setting. A bold.

I have read other Toibin besides Brooklyn but it was quite a long time ago. I have read The Story of the Night and The Testament of Mary. I can't remember much about either but seem to recall enjoying them at the time - perhaps I need to unearth them from my bookshelves or try Blackwater Lightship.

@Piggywaspushed - I am liking the sound of The Trumpet-Major!

I'm a gallbladder evictee!

Yes, his house is visited at one point .

TBF, Captain Hardy IS a Dorset chap - I believe that the later TH claimed him as a distant relative.

Good news Alias. I had my gallbladder out a few years ago (after years of gallstone
attacks and an awful bout of cholycystisis that kept me in hospital for a week) and it was life-changing- no more pain!

Good news that I can go home, hurray! I’ve got to wait for an ultrasound but the levels they were concerned about are not normal but much improved thank goodness, I do feel very much better but this is a recurring problem and I’m not sure why I never escalated it before, I’ve had more painful attacks than I did the other night, I’d just reached the end of my tether so insisted on my GP seeing me the next day, they couldn’t but sent me an out of hours appointment, who sent me to A&E who fortunately seem to be getting to the bottom of things. Fingers crossed anyway!

Gat better soon alias!

I continue my quest to read the lesser Hardys and just completed The Trumpet-Major. This shortish novel really is not very Hardesque at all. It is his only historical novel for starters, locating it firmly in Austen era of Napoleonic Wars.

I found this very entertaining- much lighter than many of his novels in all sorts of ways. It involves a love triangle , brothers, lots of farce, an awful silly rake (but at one point genuinely menacing) and a conniving actress (the horror!). there are some genuinely comedic scenes but it obviously has a bit more sense of country bumpkins than Austen. Apaprently , he extensively researched, dialect (Dash my wig!), military history, costume - and the detail convinces. Slightly jarringly, Hardy persists with his Wessex setting, despite including real characters (Captain Hardy, King George) and real events (Trafalgar). There is some splendid comedic satire of military training and a very determined pressgang. It reminded me how much more well travelled young men were than women.

In tone it reminded me less of Austen , more of the splendid (on telly at least),Other Bennet Sister. This novel would actually televise really well. The BBC ought to get on to it.

It is also surprisingly poignant especially the ending. I shall say no more on that.

@AliasGrape hope you get back from hospital and feel better soon.

59. The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes - A strong recommendation from my teen, this wasn't too bad as an airport read. Short chapters, fast paced, and a reasonable mystery. It is clearly aimed at teens with the requisite dramatic relationships amongst impossibly gorgeous teens. I channelled my inner 14 year old and enjoyed it enough that I will read the rest of the trilogy.

Good luck @AliasGrape - hope you are not stuck in a boiling room for too long.

31. Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

This was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker so some of you may have read it. The reviews are amazing "may have written the novel of the year" according to The Telegraph.

I think i was expecting more plot-wise. The Observer said "an espionage drama pulsating with twisty revelation" - so I was expecting plot twists, which never really came.

But it is clearly a very well written book. It concerns an American undercover agent trying to infiltrate an eco community in the south of France. Part of the story is her increasing obsession with a man called Bruno, who acts as a mentor to the eco community and whose emails she has hacked into. Bruno talks at length about his theories about Neanderthal man, the stars, hearing and seeing those who came before us, local history (there is a very interesting section on the Cagot people, which i knew nothing about). I like these philosophical musings.

But I didn't care for our protagonist, Sadie, who is not as good as she thinks she is.

This would make a great summer read.

Hope you aren’t stuck there too long @AliasGrape ❤️

oh I need to read Blackwater Lightship, I think it's on my Kindle somewhere.

I liked Nora Webster and The Heather Blazing - the two I've read other than the Brooklyn books. I couldn't get into his one about Thomas Mann though. To be fair, I don't know anything about Mann and didn't realise it was about him when I bought it.

I like the way he has created a literary universe. I'd like a map of his characters like the one Elizabeth Strout does.

Best wishes @AliasGrape

Also as another one who kind of wrote off Toibin due to not getting the fuss about Brooklyn I’m interested in that discussion, thanks @VikingNorthUtsire i might look out for that one!

Thank you for the good wishes everyone. I’m back at SDEC for some bloods which I’m hoping are back to normal, im already feeling so much better and silly for ‘causing a fuss’ (although it was the GP who insisted I go to A&E!) There’s definitely an underlying issue (gall bladder I think is most likely) but hoping that I can go home and await follow up scans etc rather than admission today.

Have got my kindle with me as well as I Who Have Never Known Men paperback so who knows might finally get round to that one.

I loved Blackwater Lightship too @VikingNorthUtsire

Hope you’re ok AliasGrape.

And belated best wishes to you and little one Grannie.