50 Books Challenge 2026 Part Five

I would recommend Ann Cleeves in general - I've read books from 2 of her series - Shetland and Two Rivers. There are at least 2 others. plus other bits. Plus I've met her several times, from just before Vera got Tv Rgihts on. Did you recommend a specific book?

35 for me, a few DNF, another few on my reading list & like @BlueFairyBugsBooksI’m trying to desperately catch up with Les Mis.

Including series unreasonably annoys me as it just feels like cheating - Dance to the Music of Time & the Neapolitan Quartet are also on the list. Surely if you love an author that much you can narrow it down to one book on the list?

There’s still not much comedy there though - the only purely comic book that I spotted was Hitchhiker although Jane Austen, Dickens & A Suitable Boy have a lot of humour. I can remember hearing a lecture about Molière many, many years ago that claimed that comedy was much harder to write than tragedy - maybe that explains why comic books are missing on all these lists?

I’ve read 25 from that Guardian list, DNF a few more and also have several on my TBR list.

DH was looking for something for on holiday next week. He likes detective series which isn't my genre. Thanks to these threads I've suggested Ann Cleeves so fingers crossed.
I have 56 unread books on my Kindle so I should be ok for a week 😂.

I can't seem to get the whole list to load, there's nothing between 98 and 75 for me.

But of the ones i can see definitely read 4. Possibly a few others and am horribly behind partway through Les Mis.

There's lots on there that are on my TBR so maybe I'll start working my way through it.

I’ve read 56 on that list. Much more like it. (Though I’d put Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon above Gravity’s Rainbow - and everything else tbh - any day of the week.)

The Sea Sisters - Louise Douglas (Touissant Detective Agency 4)

Thank the goddess that’s over.

I loved her book The Secrets of Villa Alba and I very much enjoyed the first book in this quartet (very nominally about a detective agency in coastal France, actually about Mila who returns to the town when her step sister Sophie drowns) but I rather get the impression the mystery of Sophie’s death was originally going to be wrapped up in two books, except the first one did well and so the resolution got elongated, annoyingly.

This one was particularly irritating because there was a highly obvious step that the client would have taken before approaching detectives and it didn’t “occur” to anyone until a fifth of the way in.

There is rather too much turgid prose (eg they sat a table amongst the other tables and Mila opened her cold drink, which was an orange flavour) and rather too little detecting, but the French seaside sounds very idyllic, especially if you get to work at an agency that never mentions anything as crass as payment to the one client they have per summer 😀

46 for me if I include Les Mis which I am part of the way through. Some others on my TBR pile.

25 ish for me. Could be more as I haven't counted the ones I think I have read but can't remember and some I read one book of the series.Glad to see Gentleman in Moscow there- one of my favourite reads this year.

Quite a lot for me - 71 or 72, depending on whether I can count one Elena Ferrante as I'm not going to read any more. A couple of DNFs too and some I feel I should read - mainly the classics like Hardy, Steinbeck and most of Dickens.

Agree it feels like a more even list - though perhaps modern lit is slightly skewed to the 21st century.

65 for me on that list a couple on TBR and a couple of DNFs there too. Much better list.

22.5 (halfway through Les Mis 😄) and one DNF - but there are lots more that are on my “to read” list. Definitely a better list than the authors’/critics’ one!

49 for me. 49.5 if you count the two times I got halfway through LOTR (not trying again)

@Piggywaspushed- just scanned the list & will go back to it later, but it feels a much richer and less pretentious list & I like the range of genres as it feels like there is something for everyone, both re recognition of personal taste & finding reading recommendations. Re French Lit I’m pleased to see Stendhal, Zola, Dumas & Camus have entries - but I’m completely mystified that Proust (still cheating by being allowed to class all of the massive tomes of À la recherche as a single book) beats Les Mis.

Also pleased to see school stalwarts like Animal Farm & To Kill a Mockingbird (both of which I like - although I get that there are issues with the latter now) on the list as it shows the impact of English teaching on reading when there’s a decent book choice.

LOTR is back in its rightful place on the list too - technically that’s cheating too as it’s three books, but I don’t find that as irritating as Proust as you can buy all 3 in a doorstopper omnibus edition if you really want too.

I’ve read 55. Loved some. Hated others (A Little Life I’m looking at you…)

Another Gary Younge admirer here by the way . One Day in the Death of America has really stayed with me.

I like David Olusoga a lot.

Snap @countrygirl99 have read 43 of those. We’re about to read another for book club. I think that’s an ok list.

Ah now that list is right up my street! I've read 56 and loved many of them.

I DNF'd 2 on that list - Magic Mountain and Midnight's Children. Have read 43.

The Guardian has now complied a reader's top 100

https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/jun/06/readers-top-100-novels-of-all-time?CMP=fbgu&utmmedium=Social&utmsource=Facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawSQ4qdleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETAyVU5hZERXQkFJRVdVTVJwc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHhNQpPzW5bIbOZlQkzSp6FONEnzIZzCBDCVyy8c5NVcogKay7ZLhfq0s495aemuv2gTcoBjiNw4ZGVoC4v5g#Echobox=1780734252

Note the ones in there we lamented being missed - Steinbeck is there, Tess is there, Seth and Roy, Harper Lee

Still got BBB though... and NLMG!

I've read 46

32 Joe Country - Mick Herron Another Slough House book, this time set in deepest winter, including an excursion to snowbound Pembrokeshire. As good as the others, though with some devastating events (trying to avoid spoilers) and a general sense of hopelessness (appropriately for the slow horses…). Also a (thoroughly believable) cameo by the male subject of my latest BorrowBox arrival, Entitled by Andrew Downie…

On Edna O'Brien, I think all of her books have content that may be controversial. Her first book was about two little girls growing up and becoming big girls then women in Ireland. Convent school, the church, death, sex, alcohol, references to violence. All that. It was banned. Her Wikipedia is clearly a mini literary biography in its own right, up there for free, and is quite useful as are posts on here, for getting enough idea of what might come up in the book rather than being triggered with no prior warning.

I recently read and reviewed a self-published bio of O'Brien, another newish library book, which I returned a bit late, couldn't renew because another reader wanted it. My favourite libraries are all in areas with a substantial Irish diaspora, that may not be fully reflected by demographic statistics. It was very professional but just didn't have the flow of the best literary biographies, that storytelling skill. But it did fill in the background to every book - and so I love that I now have all these books at my fingertips without having to ransack the house/borrow books that I own from the library because I can't remember where my copy is.

Yes, I acquired it on Kindle within months (?) of publication and am still nervous of reading it.

I've done exactly this in the past for someone's leaving cake at work. A big slab cake (lemon drizzle, but could be anything of course) with the rectangular topper with a significant photo on top. Got a lot of laughs but also wonderment!

(ETA the wonderment was unjustified really as it’s so simple to do)

@Stowickthevast wrote:
"Actually my RL book club is about to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Does anyone have any bookish ideas of what to do? I was thinking of trying to make a collage of all the books we've read but not sure what to do with it!"

Cake topper sounds good but also another complicated for a busy woman. How about setting up a blog which you may be able to use again for something else and putting pics on it? Then maybe we can all look too!