50 Books Challenge 2026 Part Five

@HagCymraeg it's odd how someone passing affects us when we hardly give them a thought when they are alive. Hope Mr Bryson cheers you up. Which one are you listening to? I am currently reading One Summer America 1927. No one can ramble with purpose like he does!

I have started Our London Lives which I know was much reviewed on here, for bookclub in a few weeks.

I loved the Elements - but I haven't read a John Boyle I didn't like. I agree with the bleakness of these though - and Water is my favourite too. Fire was just a bit too dark. My favourite (and in my opinion underestimated) John Boyle is The House of Special Purpose which is the story of a young man in the service of the Romanov family during the Russian Revolution.

I also fancy The Forbidden Notebook and the Notes of an Execution - I really shouldn't be buying more now.

I am back to comfort reading as my exH passed away a few weeks ago. He is no loss to me, we hadn't been in contact for years and he was never a nice man or dad, but still - weird feelings. I am listening to Bill Bryson (who my DD has on her ideal alternative potential Dads list)

@Piggywaspushed – ooh Sara Sheridan is also hyped? Excellent. I’ve met her on a couple of occasions and she is really lovely.

@chessie – Just from google. Although I am on a lot of drugs at the moment, so maybe I read it wrong? I’ve taken a screenshot.

@Stowickthevast – you have summed up my thoughts about Birnam Wood. The mansplaining! Give me a break. I don’t care if it was meant to be sarcastic. And the ending from that particular POV was an odd choice.

@SpunkyKhakiScroller – I’m only starting book 2, The Satapur Moonstone

Has anyone seen the trailer for the new Klarna And The Sun film? Looks like it is being played for laughs which is odd because the book is quietly melancholic

@Stowickthevast @ÚlldemoShúl I remember someone arguing with me in uni that divorce was illegal in Ireland and them actually phoning their Dad to “prove me wrong” and then not apologising after being told - she was called Kate and was a thorn in my side all 3 years I was there!!

50. Regions of Thick-Ribbed Ice - Helen Garner

I hesitated to put this down because it’s so ridiculously short - a tiny piece of journalism, only 24 pages - but decided to include it in the end to round off my Garner binge. She mentions during the diaries that she goes on an assignment to write about a cruise to Antarctica, and the piece exemplifies everything I like about her writing. It’s down-to-earth - you can visualise immediately the setting and people she’s writing about - funny, and as always, her own neuroses and irrational reactions aren’t glossed over. Plus, her writing about the natural world is always great (I'll forgive her for being rude about penguins).

I'm going to read 'The Correspondent' soon. I'll keep these points in mind.

I remember the divorce referendum and I think it may have been the first one that I voted in as well. I think it narrowly passed. I remember my father being completely against divorce and so was my mother, even though she was not as staunch a catholic as my father was. At the time, we were strongly influenced by the church. I was influenced by my father at the time and it wasn't until later on in my twenties when I started to think for myself. At that time too, the scandals of child abuse in the church began to emerge and there was a huge shift in people's attitudes to the church.

My dad's family is from the north but he left as soon as he could so never really knew much apart from the fighting as I was growing up. We'd maybe go once a year at most to visit my grandparents.

I did- the divorce referendum was my first ever vote. I remember a friend’s sister’s relief when it passed. The church had an unhealthy stranglehold here for a long time, and it was in the 90s that it started to break down (which is why I was so flummoxed by Boyne’s representation of that relationship). I moved north in 1999 so am only up and down to see family now.

I really liked the Correspondent. I thought the other characters she created were convincing and I got a real feel for them. Clever to do that purely through letters. The ending was a little feel good, but really so many other books on the longlist were quite depressing, that it was a relief.

@ÚlldemoShúl Have you read The Coast Road? I was really shocked when I read that to find out Irish women weren't allowed to divorce their husbands until the 1990s!

undeserved

I completely disagree

Hi @VikingNorthUtsire I am with you on Audition hated it and The Book Of American Martyrs was a good idea but a bit patchy and a bit of a slog.

Totally agree. I also don't see how collating a series of letters makes it a novel or prize winning - with a novel you have to introduce new characters and themes in a coherent way, while here the author just had to add in a new, random letter.

27 Tamar - Mal Peet
This has been on my Kindle for almost ten years and I’m not entirely sure why I bought it in the first place, as it’s not really my usual sort of thing. But I did enjoy it.

It’s a dual timeline novel, moving between the Second World War, where two Dutch resistance workers are operating undercover, and the later story of a granddaughter trying to make sense of what has been left behind. I didn’t actually realise it was YA until we got to the granddaughter’s timeline, which didn’t hold up quite as well for me, felt a bit clunky and less interesting overall. I’d rather have read about what went down with the dad - but then I’m not exactly the intended audience and I can see why the granddaughter worked better for the purposes of this book.

The twist/betrayal was fairly obviously signposted, so it wasn’t really a surprise, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. A good read, I’m glad I picked it up all that time ago and even more glad to tick it off the RWYO list!

49. How To End A Story - Helen Garner

Finally finished this whopper of a book, which in retrospect might have been easier to manage on kindle, as it's a brick (just over 800 pages). However, I was gripped by it, despite stopping partway through and then starting again purely for a breather.

Garner has always kept diaries, and these extracts cover 20 years from 1978, when she was still married to F (everyone in her personal life is given an initial) and was living with him and their daughter M in Melbourne. The marriage with F breaks up. Eventually she meets the married V, another writer, and begins a relationship with him.

At this point I started to feel very angry indeed, because V, as he emerges from her entries, is a dour fun-sponge, rarely missing an opportunity to sneer, laying down impossible ground-rules (once they finally move into a flat together, in Sydney because he won’t countenance Melbourne, she has to go out all day, every day, because he works at home and can’t endure even to hear her moving about in another room. She has to give up her piano, and her beloved Bach. She has to sell her car. She can’t have friends to stay. And so on). There’s more, much more, but after a solid year of Garner turning herself inside out to save things - and despite them by now actually being married - it emerges that what he insisted was a 'friendship' with another woman, 'X the painter' is an affair, which he then continues to lie about…to both women. All of this is sadly familiar to anyone acquainted with the MN Relationships board, but I still cheered when Garner finally moved out.

Throughout all this, she writes so, so well; is so funny and sharp and wry and self-deprecating, that I often couldn’t put the book down and had to just read one more entry, then one more, then another…

I know @cassandre rated this, and it’s a bold for me.

I think if Ferrante is who everyone says she is then she is writing about characters in the Neopolitan novels that are about the same age as she is. But obviously written partly as historical novels.

Agree that reading Her Side of the Story was compelling partly because we know it reflects her own wartime experiences. Been talking to DD about this (she's just done her A level history about WW2) and I'm so glad that we are now getting so many mid century women's writers in translation, they present an alternative history of the war to the version I was taught at school.

I think Irish society was less progressive than the UK in the 1980s and 90s (I am Irish) but not as backward as he’s portraying it. That’s why it surprised me when I found out he was only a couple of years older than me- I’d assumed he was talking of the Ireland of his youth but as Stowick said it’s more like his parents youth- more of a time with Maeve Binchy

@cassandre - I hope I haven't oversold Scaffolding!

@Iamnotaloggrip - I love The Shadow of the Wind and need to reread the series as there is now a fourth one I haven't read. Just to confuse you, The Angel's Game is a prequel.

@Stowickthevast - I have read all the Elements books but spread out and Water was my favourite. I agree that they're quite depressing so not reading them all at once worked well. There were some uplifting moments (occasionally!). In terms of being dated or not reflecting the period it almost feels like an Irish thing (gross generalisation!) as Small Things Like These also felt like it was set much earlier in time or wasn't reflective of the time it was set. Now I will be dredging my memory for further examples....

It won't let me @ UlldemoShul above! Sorry....

Welcome @VanGoSunflowers
💐to you both @GrannieMainland and @Tarragon123 and hope all is well
Hello @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie (waves)

Although I’ve also checked out The Other Bennet Sister, which if the TV series is a faithful adaptation at least, shouldn’t include any cannibalism. @LadybirdDaphne thank you, this did make me snigger.

29 Orbital, Samantha Harvey (RWYO)

I had the luxury of reading this in a single day while on holiday - I think if Id tried to dip in and out I would have struggled due to the almost complete lack of plot. It would be very easy to lose the sense of what it's doing, I think, without plot points to navigate by. As it was, I was able to appreciate the supremely beautiful use of language, and the experience of seeing ourselves and our lives on earth from a novel and revealing perspective.

30 The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau, Graeme Macrae Burnet (RWYO)

I wasn't sure about this but remembered how much I had enjoyed His Bloody Project and decided to give it a go - I am glad I did.

A woman goes missing in a small French town. The local oddball, Manfred, is suspected of involvement. Burnet keeps us guessing as to the level of Manfred's involvement. Apparently strongly influenced by Georges Simenon, who I have never read (but will try off the back of this) - I also (wanky A Level French student that I once was) could see a LOT of L'Etranger in this.

31 The Book of American Martyrs, Joyce Carol Oates (RWYO)

This book opens with a murder - an obs-gynae doctor shot outside an abortion clinic by a fundamentalist Christian protester. It then follows, at length, the stories of the two men and their families, the circumstances that led to the murder, and its aftermath.

This has been hugely praised as a Zeitgeist novel about modern america, capturing its polarisation and the widening gap between people with different life experiences. I thought it was decently done but waaay too long (this is the problem with Kindle books, it's too easy to start reading and then realise, once you are committed, that you're reading an 800 page monster). I also found the author's depiction of the lower class family to be patronising and belittling (albeit interesting) - there's only so many times you can use animalistic imagery to describe someone before it starts to feel kind of uncomfortable. Nonetheless, and especially considering its length, an interesting read.

32 Audition, Katie Kitamura

Extremely self-aware and self-regarding actress interacts with two men, one of whom may or may not be her son and the other of whom is probably her husband. The story switches up part way through in a way that is linked intricately to her experiences rehearsing intensely for a demanding stage play where the link between the two halves is difficult to understand.

I know there are people who love overly stylised books like this, where it's not quite clear what's going on and what (if anything) is real. I am not one of them. It reminded me of The Unconsoled, and in my world that is not a good thing.

@Tarragon123 that's wonderful news about the Perveen Mistry series and even better news that you are feeling better. Which Perveen Mistry are you starting? Libby only had till #3 in all my libraries.

I hope the people trying out Alba de Cespedes aren't disappointed!

I agree with @FruAashild's remark that she is like Elena Ferrante in that her women characters aren't always very likeable. But they are compelling.

I'm also a fan of Ferrante, but Ferrante's Neapolitan novels look back to the past, whereas de Cespedes is actually writing about her own time, which makes her work seem even more forceful to me.

She reminds me a bit of Simone de Beauvoir, in that they both combine an interest in feminism with a broader interest in politics. De Cespedes herself moved to Paris after the war, and she and Beauvoir knew each other.

It did feel like it was set much earlier. The attitude of the wife felt far more like my parents than mine.

I haven’t read Birnam Wood but do have it on my kindle. Not long after DNFing The Elements @Stowickthevastthere’s something about John Boyne I just can’t get on with- his depiction of a Dublin courtship and marriage in the 1990s (in Water)was more like the 1970s or 80s which is strange- he’s the same age roughly as me so would have been a young man at that time and surely Dublin would’ve been more progressive than the two horse country town I grew up in where those ideas would have been old-fashioned? Even the POV character’s voice was old-fashioned for a modern day middle class middle aged Dublin woman. I didn’t even reach the end of Water. Anyway, I know now he’s ’not for me’ so that was 99p well spent.

63. The elements - John Boyne. I think several people read these when they were first published as novellas. All 4 deal with abuse but the protagonist role varies in each one. There is the enabler, accomplice, abuser and victim although it's not quite that clear cut. I thought the first Water was probably the strongest. I found Fire a bit far-fetched, Earth was very bleak and Air gave somewhat of a respite. They're very readable, but rather depressing.