50 Books Challenge 2026 Part Five

Absolutely loving the pet pictures - they all look very handsome & would make book characters. @LadybirdDaphne- I ought to have been clearer that the spaniel I mentioned was our DDog, who is excitable (as you said) but can outwit us all at times! I’ve no idea why the book description made such an impression on me as the spaniel only appears on 2 pages & does nothing of note (other than being called “witless”). Apologies for not uploading a picture.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie- nice to see you back. I enjoyed Airs Above Ground very much when I read it last year.

@Owlbookend- the Emily Wilson translation of The Odyssey that I am using for the readalong is very readable & might be worth a look especially as verse novels have become very popular for children / YA in the last few years. There’s also Charles Kingsley’s The Heroes which is absolutely ancient (should be on Project Gutenberg) but expands the legends of Perseus, Jason & Theseus into novellas. I liked it when younger & I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that it was an influence on Tolkien.

@MamaNewtNewt- re art from artist I don’t think this is easy & I think it depends on the genre - I think it’s less of an issue if the author is writing something very factual where there isn’t much scope for personal opinions. @TheDonsDingleberriesmentioned Gaiman, part of the problem for me is that he was writing for children, which is a type of writing that often needs a moral compass. What he has been accused of just jars with that. There was also the earlier case of William Mayne, who was found guilty of child abuse - that’s too much for me. Re the views of an author, I don’t necessarily have to agree with everything an author believes, but the author’s voice is often a powerful presence in a book & definitely can put me off reading more of an author’s work.

Thanks for alerting me to Killing Thatcher being on the deals, I’ve wanted to read it for quite a while.

Somehow I've ended up buying 12 books in the sale and only 5 were on my wish list. You're all such a bad influence!

I bought Let Me Go Mad In My Own Way, Once The Deed Is Done and 500 Mile Walkies (the last one not 99p but I wanted it, so I got it #recidivist)

I have bought Flesh and A Month in Sienna by Hisham Matar. Resisting other deals so far.

@VikingNorthUtsire thanks for mentioning Katabasis I didn’t see it

I've allowed myself a little book-buying spree in the 99p deals, as I've been pretty restrained so far this year and I have a little birthday money knocking about.

I've bought The Eights, Fundamentally, Heatwave, Killing Thatcher (as it was well reviewed by someone here) and Notes on Infinity.

Books that I would have bought but which I've added to my BorrowBox waitlist instead: Katabasis, Ripeness, My Father's House, Year of the Rat.

Wow, I've missed so much on this thread! I hope everyone who's been poorly feels better soon.

Interesting debate about authors whose views don't accord with our own. Knowing more about the author does inform what I read into the book/s but I wouldn't not read something I fancied just because I disagreed with someone's views - and as most of my books come from charity shops I don't need to worry about them profiting from my lack of principles! Re Shriver, I read Kevin years ago but don't think I've read any others - and by the sound of it I'm not missing out.

Thanks also for more recommendations. I really fancy Ripeness and another I'll have to back and find the name of. I have a list of books recommended by this thread (in the hope i find one in a charity shop!) and it's huge.

One of them was Shuggie Bain - and I did find it in a charity shop! Boy is it bleak. It's the story of a boy growing up in poverty with an alcoholic mother in Glasgow in the 80s. It's very well written and will stay with me for a long time, but don't read if you're hoping to be cheered up.

Book 27 is Instructions for a Heatwave - Maggie O'Farrell. I thought it appropriate last week!
During the heatwave of 1976 retired man Robert goes out to get a paper but doesn't come back. His wife and three children convene to try to find him at which point family secrets emerge. I enjoyed this. You have to suspend belief at times and I would have liked more of the characters' back stories though, which means it's not quite a bold, but it would make a decent holiday read.

We're also at the halfway point of the year so having just finished book 27 gives me hope that I might actually make 50 by the end of it!

I've caved and got The Keeper as well, despite it not meeting my self-imposed 99p threshold...been looking forward to finishing the trilogy for ages!

I've got a few in the deals from my wishlist:

The Eights - Joanna Miller
Broken Harbour - Tana French (Dublin Murder Squad 4)
The Racket - Conor Niland (tennis autobiography - I've been waiting ages for this to come down in price and hoped it would during Wimbledon - I was right!)
Material World - Ed Conway

37 Standing by the Wall - Mick Herron Short story tacked onto the end of Bad Actors; a nice little Christmas tale, with a link to the standalone book The Secret Hours.

@Stowickthevast I haven't read No Friend to This House or Stone Blind. I have a classics-loving daughter a little older than yours who says No Friend is her favourite yet though. Incidentally, I saw Natalie Haynes give a talk at a book festival with said DD a couple of years ago and she was amazing! I would definitely recommend if you/DD get the chance to see her.

My latest read: Dream State by Eric Puchner. Opens with Cece organising her wedding to Charlie - a doctor - at his family's Montana house. He sends his best friend Garrett to help her out, they fall in love, she leaves Charlie and marries Garrett. All this happens fairly quickly and early and then we have fifty years of what-happened-next. I thought this was Very Good Indeed. I love a love-triangle (see Heart the Lover) and a long-marriage saga. But there were also aspects of this that are not usually my thing - some of it is set in the near-future (which I'm not normally a fan of) and there's a focus on climate change. It was all very well done - moving, smart, funny in places but very sad in others, totally absorbing. If I had one criticism, it's that, as so often with these things, it's not entirely convincing the way Cece and Garrett fall in love to the extent that they ditch their partner/best friend and set up together. But I'll forgive it. I'm pretty sure it'll be a bold at the end of the year.

I am trying not to look at the deals or what you have all bought to avoid temptation.....

💯 empathise with that @countrygirl99

Damn this thread. How am I supposed to get my TBR down? First thing each month is check my wish list (largely populated by recommendations on here). Then I come on here and bam, before I know it, that's another 8 books bought and it's not even elevenses time.

Oh the deals look unusually good this month. I haven't bought any yet but plan to treat myself as I've been good so far with my RWYO so far this year.

Honestly I'm pretty wishy washy when it comes to separating art from the artist, although I suppose it depends on what I dislike about the artist.

For example, I was thinking about replacing my battered old copy of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, but I won't contribute to his sales now that there've been some very serious allegations against him. However I wouldn't throw out a book I enjoy, and if I came across a copy in better condition in a charity shop or at a giveaway I might buy it.

As someone noted up thread, I do find sometimes when you know more about the artist, things that you didn't notice before can hit differently on reread.

In theory, I'd still read a book by an artist who has different beliefs or political opinions to me. I say in theory because frankly, although I think it's good to read things from different perspectives, I'm not interested in spending my precious time reading anything extreme enough to amount to a diatribe against any particular group. On either side of the political fence.

I suppose how contemporary the artist is also plays a role. Long dead writers aren't going to personally benefit from me buying their books, so I have less qualms about consuming their work.

Like I said, I'm wishy washy! I have Monsters: What do we do with great art by bad people? by Claire Dederer on my shelf, so perhaps I should bump that up my TBR list.

I got what you meant @RazorstormUnicorn. I’m midway through being tested as it happens.

I mean that Shriver comment in relation to the book where she decides ADHD doesn't exist. It does, there are good reasons why it's more diagnosed now, and it will make me angry to read about it. I don't think my original comment is very clear!

I picked up Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy.

I am inconsistent on separating art from artist. I loved Kevin and thought about reading more Shriver but am certain her politics coming into play will just make me angry, especially as I was diagnosed with ADHD this year. However I also quite strongly believe retreating into our little bubbles and only looking at media that fits our narratives is Not A Good Thing. So I don't know how to reconcile this!

It also depends how much I like the media which has embarrassing to admit. For instance I am a huge Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan and continue to re watch on and off despite accusations against Joss Whedon. As far as I can tell, they mostly suggest he isnt a nice person, I don't think he assaulted anyone. Is that drawing the line in the right place? I don't know.

Got a veritable bonanza from my Wish List in the Deals :

Flesh by David Szalay
Alive by Piers Paul Read
The South by Colm Toibin
The Night We Met by Abby Jimenez
All The Beauty In The World by Patrick Bringley
The Original by Nell Stevens
The Lives And Deaths Of The Princesses Of Hesse by Frances Welch
Other People’s Fun by Harriet Lane
The Emperor Of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
American Kingpin by Nick Bilton
Pies And Prejudice by Stuart Maconie

Hopefully one of these will awake me from my slump

I have (from July deals)

Wilderness - Samantha Harvey
The Rose and the Yew Tree - Mary Westmacott/Agatha Christie

Mulling over The Prime Ministers we Never Had, The Kindness of Strangers and Cuddy.

I’m in the middle of The Keeper right now- it’s great! I picked up the same 3 as Stowick plus The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin

Parlabane fans - Quite Ugly One Evening is £1.99 in the daily deals, and the third Cal Hooper book (The Keeper by Tana French) is also there.

Early deals trawl. I've picked up:

The Eights
Lost Lambs
The Palm House

There are quite a few other recent ones on there including Ripeness, Audition and Katabasis.

Has anyone read Natalie Haynes No Friend To This House, the retelling of Medea? I'm toying with it for dd2 as she liked Stone Blind but not sure.

And that reminds me @Owlbookend the Percy Jackson films are terrible.. The recent Disney series sticks closely to the books though so if she liked that, I think she'd like the books.

It's an interesting question @MamaNewtNewt . I think some authors I read and can tell they probably have quite different political views to me - Chimanda Ngozi Adichie and Natasha Brown were a couple recently - but it doesn't bother me as it's just like reading The Times alongside The Guardian if that makes sense. But Shriver deliberately comes out with outrageous populist statements which makes me think less of her as a writer.
I read a book last year, Theory & Practice, where the Asian narrator is doing a thesis on Virgina Woolf and finds some racist comments she made. It has an interesting debate about how it makes the narrator feel even though those comments are of Woolf's time.

Yes, he was wonderfully Brooding in that. My favourite character he has played is Jonathan Strange, although I would have loved to see him as Miss Trunchbull!