50 Books Challenge 2026 Part One

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the first thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2026, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

If possible, please can you embolden your titles and maybe authors as well of books you've read or going to read? It makes it much easier to keep track, especially when the threads move quickly at this time of the year.

2 John and Paul - A Love Story In Songs - Ian Leslie

Charting the relationship between Paul McCartney and John Lennon using one of their songs for the title of each chapter, this book tells their story from first meeting until John’s death in 1980. I’m a bit of a Beatles obsessive and perhaps you have to be to get the most out of this book but I adored it. I eked out the last few chapters - I knew what was coming and didn’t want it to end. Cried a bit.

Where this was particularly good was the years after the Beatles break up - most of the books end at this point- but the 10 years of initial bitter feuding and then slow reconciliation were covered in very touching and moving way.
I loved it. My DS is probably a bit fed up with me sending him Spotify links to Lennon and McCartney songs along with random facts though.

Definitely a bold.

6 . Winter Val McDermid . A very quick to read book so I'm happy I picked it up from the library.
It's really good though , she comes across as a very nice lady and I was left thinking I wished I knew her personally.
Her take of winters with a lot of good knowledge of history of Scotland , winter festivals , Art , small amount of music , birds , and her life growing up and how she celebrates winter now .

@HagCymraeg I remember you couldn’t get past the time travel aspect, I felt she pulled it off so I could just enjoy the story but I totally get why it would just get in the way for some people.

@BestIsWest me and my DP loved that book, it is so tender and a refreshing read, quite a feat considering all that has been written about John and Paul over the years!

@AliasGrape- that was a lovely story about your DD & her reasons for choosing your present.

8 This Must Be The Place by Maggie O’Farrell - I bought this as a Kindle Deal last year & decided to read it as I’d just finished another of the author’s books and because there is lots about Hamnet in the press. It is in Maggie O’Farrell’s typical style - there is a present in the book focussed on Daniel (who hears a radio interview with someone from his past then he embarks on a journey / midlife crisis) and lots of flashbacks to Daniel’s past and the past of his various relations. If - like me - you enjoy Maggie O’Farrell’s writing style you will probably enjoy this as her style is powerful enough for the reader to overlook the various problems in the plot. However, there are lots of those problems that stretch the novel’s credibility: for example Daniel is married to a reclusive & stunning former film star, who he just happens to meet by the roadside while on a trip to Ireland (as you do). I also find it hard to believe that in the 1990s (prime phone hacking time), the paparazzi would let an A list film star carry out a Garboesque disappearance without tracking her down. It also has to be said that while Daniel & his wife aren’t quite as awful as the mother in After You’ve Gone, they both consistently fail to put their children’s interests first (although they both have the benefit of contrasting with previous partners who are even worse). I enjoyed it, but it isn’t her best work.

2. Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer

This was rather underwhelming.

The protagonist, Jam (short for Jamaican), has been sent to a therapeutic boarding school for emotionally fragile teenagers.

She’s put in a “Special Topics in English” class with a small number of other students, where they study Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and are told to keep a journal.

Turns out the notebooks they’ve been given are special magic notebooks that transport them into another world where they can relive the past before the traumatic events that led to them being enrolled in the therapeutic boarding school, and when they get to the end of the notebooks they relive events in a way that leads to acceptance (rather than more trauma).

There’s a fair bit of content about the various traumatic events the teenagers have experienced, but where this book lost me was when it came to Jam reliving her trauma. There’s a bit of a twist there which was all a bit WTF and not in a good way.

@BestIsWest I adored it too and like you I found the sections after the Beatles split to be really interesting. I’m a fellow Beatles obsessive but definitely learned a few things from this book

What did you think of Brimstone compared to Quicksilver ? I thought QS was entertaining enough, but needed a really good editor. My understanding is that it was originally self-published, so can forgive some clunky writing. I hope the sequel is more polished though.

2. The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde

A reread from many years ago. Set in an alternate 1985 where the Crimean War is still trundling on and literature has far more importance in society, this action packed, enjoyable adventure tells of the work of the SpecOps team to stop a crime wave which has moved in on the literary market. Agent Thursday Next is investigating the case: who has been kidnapping characters from literature and holding them to ransom? Once you’re inside the book how do you return and persuade the man you love to marry you?

There was much funny, clever stuff to appreciate here with many literary in-jokes and character names; I really enjoyed the Jane Eyre main plot and some set pieces such as the Rocky Horror Show style Richard III production. But there was a lot going on, with many different elements to take in, simplifying these would have helped I think. We have some others in the series so I might tackle these later this year, but I need to take a breather first.

.3. Araby - Gretta Mulrooney

A funny and moving portrait of a man’s relationship with his larger-than-life mother. Rory is called back to Ireland to visit his mother who is nearing the end of her life. He recalls incidents in his childhood in London caused by Kitty’s unpredictable behaviour and bizarre habits, her range of strange hobbies and fiery encounters with others. Rory comes to accept his confused feelings for his mother and reconcile himself to the person she was. A sweet read that I raced through.

4: Murder At The Black Cat Cafe
By Seishi Yokomizo

This Japanese author, contemporary to Agatha Christie, was hugely popular, writing a series of 77 books featuring detective Kosuke Kindaichi. This translation into English also features a second story: Why Did The Well Wheel Creak?

Yokomizo was inspired by western mystery and detective stories, and his writing style will feel familiar to any reader of Golden Age detective fiction. These tales are set in post-war Japan in the late forties and have some interesting details from that time. I found it solidly readable, a bit dry and ‘nuts and bolts’ in places. I preferred the second story which was in large parts told in the form of letters. These were really well written and created an atmosphere of tension and horror.

I like to read detective stories with this kind of easy, clear prose between books that have done my head in a bit - I would normally turn to Simenon or Christie. So it is nice to find a new (to me!) author with a back catalogue now being translated into English.

I didn’t enjoy Brimstone as much as Quicksilver. It was good but it waffles a lot and I think it could have been a good hundred pages shorter. I’ll still read the next one as I like the overall storyline.

The L-Shaped Room - Lynn Reid Banks
Rather Dated (contains racist, sexist and anti semitic attitudes) but a strong portrait of Jane - pregnant, unmarried and thrown out by her father - finding a new independence in a room of her own in a Fulham boarding house. Over the course of the book and the pregnancy, Jane grows in understanding of love, friendship and family.

2. Chinese Parents Don't Say I Love You, by Christine Chung
Memoir looking at family, food and falling in love. I thought we were going to get more about the past trauma of immigrant parents, but that wasn't really the subject. Her parents moved from Hong Kong to Australia when the author was a child for her father's banking career. She became semi-estranged from them when she went to live with a previous boyfriend and they have largely reconciled, but over the course of the book, she's entering another romantic relationship (intensified by lockdown) and re-negotiating her relationship with her parents. I rather liked it, although it may be a little over-wrought in places.

3. Overwhelmed, Brigid Schulte
The author looks at the stresses of modern life, particularly but not exclusively for working mothers of young children. It's very US-focused, although she looks at other countries to see how they do things differently (the usual suspects such as Denmark feature heavily). It was published in 2014 and things have moved on in terms of remote working etc (she was fairly prescient about it). I skimmed a bit as a lot of it is fairly familiar stuff, and now that my only offspring has reached 18, it doesn't feel so personally applicable. I did like her argument that adult women have been unfairly deprived of play, and deserve to have more of this into their lives.

I'm toying with the idea of keeping January as a non-fiction month. I didn't set out to do it - the first two books were due back at the library and the third was RWYO, and they just happened to be non-fiction - but I think I might carry on. It feels like a counterpart to Dry January - looking the world in the eye.

6. The Proving Ground - Michael Connelly

The latest outing in Connelly's secondary Mickey Haller series (alongside the Bosch novels). Haller, the erstwhile 'Lincoln Lawyer', has given up operating out of his car but has lost none of his chutzpah. In fact this weirdly meshed with my previous read, Careless People, as Haller sets out to try and expose a tech company whose virtual AI companion, 'Clair', has been built by adult male engineers to interact with teen users. One of those users, a 16-year-old boy, killed his girlfriend and Haller needs to prove that Clair urged him to do it. But the dark forces of Big Tech are against him, not to mention a shark-like pair of twin attorneys on the other side.

I can’t claim this was a great work of Eng. Lit.; rather a quick and pacy read. I regard Connelly's books as a kind of guilt-free comfort treat and it filled that gap nicely.

@RomanMum I read the sample of Araby and loved it. I've ordered a hard copy to read in Feb and I have a relative in mind who I think will enjoy it too.

I loved this book as an independent-minded teenager (moved out of home at 17).

First finish of the year for me:

1 Shadow Of The Silk Road - Colin Thubron

In which the travel writer takes a slow journey overground from Xian in China to Antakya (formerly Antioch) in Turkey. I love Thubron’s wry, thoughtful writing style and it really made me want to visit Central Asia one day.

Central Asia is right at the top of my list.

It goes:
Central Asia/Caucasus over a month or two
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Everything else

4 Milkman by Anna Burns (audio)
This was my read for the Read Good challenge on Storygraph- it had to have a food in the title. It also fits with my own personal challenge this year of reading more Booker winners.
The story is narrated in stream of consciousness, set in the middle of the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland and told by an unnamed narrator- an 18 year old girl living in an inner city Republican area. The other characters have no names either, referred to as older sister or maybe boyfriend. This emphasises the ‘say nothing’ culture of areas supposedly protected by but also intimidated by paramilitaries on both sides. The prose also does an excellent job of building an atmosphere of claustrophobic tension - which is further built on by the narrator of the audio. It also emphasises the misogyny built into the culture at the time. The story begins when the narrator catches the attention of the 41 year old married ‘milkman’- a paramilitary gunman. Excellent. Definitely bold for me. My Booker winners have been two bolds for two reads so far- I’m sure that won’t last but it’s a great start.

@SheilaFentiman- thanks for the review of the Gordon Corera book, which sounds interesting. (You’ve also made me work out that I do actually own it - I bought it in the deals as it looked a good companion to Ben Macintyre’s books, but then it didn’t appear on my Kindle so I assumed something has gone wrong. However, it has now reappeared as I searched for it after reading your review).

@bibliomania it was recommended to me by DM who saw a lot of her own mother in Kitty. I hope you enjoy it.

Wintering by Katherine May
This is described as a book for the "fallow periods' of life, which felt appropriate. I liked it well enough, but wished I'd bought it when it was in the Kindle sale! It was quite a soothing read and made me feel a bit better about being stuck at home not able to do very much for now.

As with anything like that, it's a bit self indulgent; this would normally irritate me, but I must be getting more mellow in my old age. I couldn't help thinking how much easier it is to advise people to get out into nature when you live right on the coast and don't work the 9 to 5 though.

First finish of the year for me - I'm not going to get through 50 books at this rate.

The Rosetti Letter by Christi Phillips

The story is set mostly in Venice and alternates between two timelines. One follows 17th century courtesan Alessandra Rosetti and the other is about 21st century PhD student Claire Donovan, who's writing her thesis on Alessandra's alleged role in the Spanish conspiracy. What they have in common is that both women have been bereaved and are working hard to establish careers for themselves.

Alessandra's story also includes murders (and the first is really disturbing), a few detailed sex scenes, swordfights and skulduggery. Claire's story also includes academic rivalry, trying to solve a historical mystery, romance and the challenges of looking after a troubled teen.

Romance novels aren't my usual choice, so I found this to be a mixture of absorbing historical fiction, feminism, unexpectedly graphic violence and pure cheese, but I enjoyed it.

That sounds right up my street @EstoyRobandoSuCasa

3 The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett (audiobook)
This is included with my Spotify subscription. I’ve never really got on with Pratchett - and I know this isn’t supposed to be a very good one - but I definitely enjoyed it more as an audiobook, though it’s a bit repetitive.

4 Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin
I know most of you have read this already (even my 82 year old mother has read it), but I really enjoyed it, and I’m not at all a gamer, if that’s putting anyone off.

Darkrooms - Rebecca Hannigan

Crime thriller about a woman who finally returns to her home town and gradually the event that caused her to leave town as a girl is revealed. Not an original story by any means but well written and I enjoyed it.

Case Histories - Kate Atkinson

I love Atkinson’s writing and this (along with Behind The Scenes At The Museum) is my favourite of hers. Loved this reread. This is the first in the Jackson Brodie series, here investigating three separate cold cases.

The Land In Winter - Andrew Miller

Set in a small village just outside Bristol in the early 1960s, this follows two couples who live near each other during a very cold, snowy winter. There was some lovely writing in this, and I really got a sense of the period setting. However not a lot happens which meant it dragged at times (sometimes there’s a couple of pages just describing the household tasks one of the women does during the day) and I never really felt particularly engaged with any of the characters so didn’t really care that much what happened in the end. I was left slightly wondering what the point was.

5: Seven Empty Houses
By Samanta Schweblin

I found these seven stories to be unsettling, surprising and very funny. After I had finished reading I kept on thinking about them.

They explore expectations about our behaviour in different spaces (and with objects in those spaces), interior and exterior, private and public - and what happens when these expectations are disrupted. Schweblin’s writing seems to turn everything upside down so that what should be stable and safe is not, and vice versa.

A definite thumbs up!