50 Books Challenge 2026 Part Five

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit @elkiedee @cassandre @SpunkyKhakiScroller thanks all for the recommendations (hope I havent missed anyone out). I am going to make a concerted effort to search out something I genuinely want to read & finish it

I haven’t read The Correspondent yet as the waiting time for reservations for it on BorrowBox is extremely long. That might be a clue to its success - except that from the non-fiction list it’s Arundhati Roy’s book that has the long waiting list!

I liked The Finest Hotel in Kabul but found it quite a slog to read. I preferred Daughters of the Bamboo Grove but that didn’t make the shortlist.

I read the first book in the Cal Hooper series four years ago. I had no idea there were two more! That's good to find out!

I've bought The Correspondent. I might read it when I'm on holidays.

@Owlbookend Just to add my vote to @cassandre and the Cal Hooper series. I am halfway through the second book right now. I am neither a habitual crime reader nor an audiobook listener and I can't put the audiobooks of this series down. Atmospheric with excellent characterisation. The rural Irish village is a character in its own right.

@Owlbookend if you like Attica Locke, have you tried Tana French's Cal Hooper trilogy? It's about a retired Chicago police cop who has moved to an Irish village. I just read the third volume in the trilogy, The Keeper, and loved it. Not too demanding and very engrossing. All three novels in the trilogy are excellent IMO.

Thanks to @SheilaFentiman who reviewed The Keeper recently and made me realise it existed!

I love Attica Locke's books, though they can be quite a stressful read at times. I think she comes from Texas and most of her stories are set there, or possibly in neighbouring states.

Have you tried Louise Erdrich, another part of the country and Native American not Afro-American?

Or Colson Whitehead, particularly his more recent novels?

All very readable but with a hard edged portrayal of the societies they're set in, and a mix of historical and contemporary.

That's a coincidence Piggy!

I'm happy enough with The Correspondent winning. I thought it was original and charming. It would have been a bold for me except I thought the ending verged a little on the saccharine.

I look forward to reading The Finest Hotel in Kabul as I've heard good things about it.

Both those winners just came in the post for me this very day. Psychic delivery men!

I am clearly out of touch - i am bewildered by the popularity of The Correspondent and I am here to give my review of my latest read, (27) By Your Side by Ruth Jones (Nessa from Gavin and Stacey) which has excellent reviews, but i didn't like it at all. I only kept going because my husband went to the Hay Festival and brought it back as a present (of all the books....).

It's like one of those romantic novels, only with 50 somethings rather than 30 somethings - the sort where people become best friends with multiple complete strangers in a few days and go through a complete transformation and all strings are satisfactorily tied up.

It is described as "heart warming" in lots of reviews - I clearly have a heart of stone!

It breezes on through the tbf fairly interesting plot, but with little subtlety. My previous read was a William Trevor - understated, with nothing much happening, but oh the complexity of it. By Your Side was simply not for me.

Also glad The Correspondent won, was expecting it to be Flashlight (a DNF for me).
@Stowickthevast I'm currently reading Kin and like you, am finding it just OK.

I've started The Break by Marian Keyes on audio and have forgotten how funny her books can be. It's years since I last read anything by her.

I’m very glad The Correspondent won even though its had its critics on here and elsewhere

Women’s Prize has been announced- Spoilers below…

Non-fiction- The Finest Hotel
in Kabul - Lyse Doucet (I really liked this)

Fiction- The Correspondent- Virginia Evans (not my favourite but still a good read and will be a very popular choice I reckon- may also be a good read for you Owlbookend)

I think that is a good shout. I dont mind it being a bit heavy if I can get into it.

@Owlbookend I nominate The Names by Florence Knapp, though TW for DV it might not fit your mood

@Stowickthevast something with a plot that will get me hooked, but not mindless dross 🙂. Looking at my old lists something like Attica Locke (ive read most of hers now - modern deep south set thrillers), The God of the Woods or The Vanishing Half. I have been stingy & sticking to borrowbox. The selection unless you are patient to wait for reserves is a bit shit. Trying to labour through stuff just because it is available isnt helping. I have DNFs in double figures. I need to splash out on a kindle book i actually want to read.

@Owlbookend

Sorry to hear things are tough. What are you on the mood for? I really enjoyed The Correspondent recently as a light but not too light read.

57. Kin - Tayari Jones. This follows two girls who grow up motherless in a small town in Mississippi in the 40s and 50s. Vernice's mother was murdered by her father when she was a baby and she is brought up by her aunt and Annie whose mother walked out on her when she was a baby leaving her with her grandma. The book follows the paths the two cradle mates take up to their early 20s. It was ok but not one I felt particularly emotionally involved in.

58. Look What You Made Me Do - John Lanchester. This was a quick read. Two main characters again. Kate is a West London housewife in her 50s married to an architect Jack. They're quite smug marrieds until Jack suddenly dies (very early on). While Kate is coming to terms with his death, the new must watch show premieres about a married man having an affair with a younger woman. The show has intimate knowledge of their love life and is written by the other main character Phoebe. The rest of the book is partly about why and partly about the fallout. Both Kate and Phoebe are pretty horrible people, but there are some quite amusing parts where people are theorising about ridiculous things - Jack has a tirade about Ottolenghi at one point. Again it's not bad, but not sure I agree with Marina Hyde who was raving about this.

Women's prize winner about to be announced. The favourite seems to be Flashlight.

Still catching up with comments very belatedly, as is my wont. 😳

@Piggywaspushed you said You can still get through AQA A level English Lit without doing a single text by a non white male, unbelievably. Apart from the odd poem. Bloody shocking that is!

@elkiedee interesting that you studied Comp Lit; I did a degree in Comp Lit as well. I think that one healthy message I took away from that degree was a suspicion of literary canons. I do love Comp Lit as a discipline. One problem with academia is that it can be very compartmentalised. Whereas Comp Lit encouraged reading in translation, reading across periods, reading across genres. You didn't have to be an official expert in order to jump in and say something interesting about a text, any text. I like that mindset.

@Terpsichore amazing review of When the Coffee Gets Cold 😂I'm a member of two book groups in real life: one is more highbrow and the other more geared toward popular literature. I can see Kawaguchi going down well with the latter book group! I do love both groups though and they both induce me to read books I wouldn't have picked up otherwise.

@ÚlldemoShúl I'm very envious of you attending the Sarah Moss / Wendy Erskine event. I'm glad it didn't disappoint.

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh I'm very excited about reading Land now after your glowing review! I feel a bit bad I was so underwhelmed when I heard O'Farrell speak about it last week. I suspect it's much better to attend an author event after you've read the book, rather than before; you get more out of it.

@SpunkyKhakiScroller I felt the same as you about Sonia and Sunny. I wanted to like it, but it just never engaged me. I did finish it, but it felt like more a chore than it should have done.

Speaking of DNFs, The Mercy Step was a DNF for me: another book that I wanted to like but didn't. I just didn't get on with the narratorial voice (I think someone else on the threads said this too, but I can't remember who it was). Some of the narrator's language and perceptions were very adult, while others were very childlike, and the inconsistency drove me crazy. I don't mind child narrators, but this one didn't work for me.

Am looking forward to finding out the Women's Prize winners tonight. Am hoping for Susan Choi and Arundhati Roy (though I'm not very qualified to nominate Roy as her memoir is the only book on the nonfiction shortlist I've read).

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit - yes i have certainly seen a few walkwithmetim 🙂

@Owlbookend

I watch a lot of WalkWithMeTim doing travelogues

I also watch a group of 4 YouTubes that do food reviews and sometimes interact : Harrison Webb, Hannah Ricketts, Gary Eats and Danny vs Food. Hannah also does hotel reviews

for books Book Thing, And They Were Readers, Supposedly Fun, Paperback Journeys amongst others

That formatting went weird. It might have been low brow, but it was nicely formatted when i posted.

Absolutely all sorts & a lot of complete rubbish. Confessions:

• A lot of comedy - Peter Kay, Micky Flanagan etc. *Old films & series. It has been taken down now but there was a channel with old series & films from Oz. I got into it - no idea why. *Football podcasts. The overlap etc. I like my football. World cup will be another reading distractor. *Cruise vlogs. I honestly cant think of many things worse than a cruise. Trapped with all those people in a floating metal box. Shudder. But I developed a morbid fascination. Im odd. *BBC archive. I love an old documentary from the 50s/60s/70s/80s. I could watch the slice of life stuff indefinetely. Morning in the Streets - Liverpool in the 50s - it is my mum's childhood - 'tis my favourite. Love stuff watching stuff like that. BBC archive is a treasure trove of old docs. *Watching people play cosy computer games I like. Cant believe I admitted that on this thread 😳. Honestly when life and the world is too much it is the ultimate escapism. Nothing bad happens - can help me fall asleep. Nothing book related im afraid, but always open to extending my range. The algorithm makes it very addictive. I can always lower the tone of the thread 😁

I have a bad YouTube addiction too @Owlbookend who do you follow? I follow a lot of book type people

Hello all. Life has been challenging & i havent read anything new. I tried to motivate myself by not posting until I'd actually finished something. That didnt work - my tablet is a graveyard of DNFs. So im back to lurking & looking for inspiration in the hope that I may get out of my new youtube addiction (Peter Kay has been cheering me up). Off to catch up on the thread and what everyone (else) has been reading.

*@Stowickthevast asked: Did it work on a Kindle? Graphically I mean as I always find maps terrible on them.

That's always my worry as well.

@Stowickthevast Strange Houses worked great but with Pictures I found some formatting issues and they definitely are slight - 99p but no more I think