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.

I didn’t cry at the Hamnet film, but thought it was very good.

@Frannyisreading I read Either/Or by Elif Batuman a couple of years ago not realising it was a sequel to The Idiot and feeling a bit confused. I didn’t enjoy it enough to prioritise The Idiot and now barely remember it. It’s possible that you didn’t know where you ended up because there’s the sequel and I think the series is carrying on.

Welcome new people

I did wish Max Richter hadn’t used his piece “On The Nature Of Daylight” for me that belongs to the film Arrival through and through

I’ve never seen Arrival so that didn’t bother me. Although I do think that music would bring a tear from a stone on first hearing it.

You must rectify that at once ! @UlldemoShul Fantastic film - Top 10 for me

Thanks for the recommendations, will definitely add those to my wishlist.

Just finished Nine Perfect Strangers thanks to a rare day to myself yesterday. Nine people go to a health retreat where they get a lot more than they bargained for. I really enjoyed this - very easy to read, I liked the way she builds the characters’ stories as we go and it’s all satisfyingly tied up at the end. I’ve also realised it’s a TV series so will check that out if I can wrest the remote from my son.

I’m currently reading The Lowlife by Alexander Baron, which is was written in 1963 and is about Harryboy, a single man and compulsive gambler whose life becomes with that of a young couple and their small child when they move into rented rooms in the same building. I’m really enjoying it - it’s set in the part of London my family are from and I recognise all the locations, and it’s also got brilliant mid-century vibes.

I’m also listening to the audiobook of Nevernight by Jay Kristoff. I’m loving it but it doesn’t measure up to his Empire trilogy which I adored so much that it gave me a huge book hangover.

Previously this year I’ve read a graphic novel (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore) which was a lot of fun and Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan which is a semi-satirical novel about a young woman who becomes a character in her favourite fantasy novel series to escape terminal illness. I enjoyed some elements of it but only really got into it near the end and I found the protagonist incredibly irritating, plus there were elements that simply didn’t work as plausible explanations for her behaviour - but I feel like I’m going to read the sequel when it comes out simply because it was just starting to get interesting at the end and there are supporting characters that I was fascinated by.

Next up is John Milton’s Paradise Lost and a non-fiction book by Sam Leith, The Haunted Wood, which is a history of children’s literature.

I’m currently reading The Lowlife by Alexander Baron, which is was written in 1963 and is about Harryboy, a single man and compulsive gambler whose life becomes with that of a young couple and their small child when they move into rented rooms in the same building. I’m really enjoying it - it’s set in the part of London my family are from and I recognise all the locations, and it’s also got brilliant mid-century vibes.

I’m also listening to the audiobook of Nevernight by Jay Kristoff. I’m loving it but it doesn’t measure up to his Empire trilogy which I adored so much that it gave me a huge book hangover.

Previously this year I’ve read a graphic novel (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore) which was a lot of fun and Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan which is a semi-satirical novel about a young woman who becomes a character in her favourite fantasy novel series to escape terminal illness. I enjoyed some elements of it but only really got into it near the end and I found the protagonist incredibly irritating, plus there were elements that simply didn’t work as plausible explanations for her behaviour - but I feel like I’m going to read the sequel when it comes out simply because it was just starting to get interesting at the end and there are supporting characters that I was fascinated by.

Next up is John Milton’s Paradise Lost and a non-fiction book by Sam Leith, The Haunted Wood, which is a history of children’s literature.

1 North Woods by Daniel Mason
A series of interconnected narratives about a stretch of woodland in New England over time. I didn’t love this. It was a spotify audiobook and I found the narrator’s voice intrusive in parts. I also just didn’t connect with lots of the stories. I did, however, enjoy the final chapter and I think if I had felt deeply about the story I would have found it very moving.

2 The Wedding People by Alison Espach
Phoebe has decided to go to a posh hotel to kill herself but instead gets swept up in a wedding. Clearly implausible I enjoyed this immensely. I felt that it managed a fine balance of comedy and serious matter. Good escapism.

3 You Are Here by David Nicholls
I am no stranger to long distance hiking routes and I enjoyed this romantic comedy about two acquaintances who end up hiking the coast to coast walk together. Good chemistry is difficult to write but this managed it well.

4 The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
For a course. A bit of a struggle to get into (I’m really not great at reading things because I have been told to- not ideal for an English Literature undergraduate but hey ho!). I now need to read it again from the start and pay attention this time (and also work out how to compare it to Custom of the Country). Eek.

5 Bluff by Francine Toon
A gothic mystery set in the East Neuk of Fife. A man comes home for Christmas ten years after leaving school but one of his schoolfriends seems to have disappeared. This was set in two timelines- one at the time of leaving school and one in the present.

This left me cold. I didn’t feel the horror or the menace particularly. I also felt the whole thing was pretty anticlimactic. It just sort of... ended. Not that great.

@NotWavingButReading Tge problem is that I’ve read my comfort books so much that they are not feeling comforting at the moment! 😂

@BauhausOfEliott I loved The Haunted Woods.

@ChannelLightVessel I loved Foster. The last line floored me!

@Iamnotaloggrip I haven't read that one but I love Liane Moriarty and thought the TV adaptation of Big Little Lies was spot on. I'll need to read Nine Perfect Strangers before watching it!

I loved Big Little Lies - book and tv - too. Nicole Kidman appears in NPS as well so I have high hopes!

1. Hangover Square - Patrick Hamilton

This book is so far up my street I can't quite believe I've never come across it before.

In the months leading up to WW2, George Harvey Bone is leading an aimless and disappointing life. His obsession with the beautiful but unpleasant Netta keeps him in a cycle of drink and hangovers in nasty Earls Court pubs and seedy hotels in the company of various spivs, fascist sympathisers and violent bully-boys. George suffers from some sort of dissociative disorder, characterised by himself as "dead moods" in which he plots the murder of Netta and escape to Maidenhead where he anticipates enjoying a quiet, sober lifestyle.

George's spiral into hopelessness corresponds with the build-up to war, though he only has a passing interest in such things, the only real interest in his life being Netta and his unrequited love for her.

On the whole a sad and unsettling read, but beautifully done. A bold for me!

I thought it was an amazing book, @Yolandiifuckinvisser and gave it a bold last year. 'Tis bleak, though, for anyone who doesn't know it and is thinking of reading it.

I have Hangover Square on TBR. Looking forward to it now

Both DP and I DNF Hangover Square. I bought it for him after seeing it recommended on here, but we both disliked it intensely. I don’t mind misery/grim but I do mind boring misery/grim. I really wanted to like it to prove him ‘wrong’ but it was not to be!

I wonder which side of the fence I’ll land on then!

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit that's interesting! I didn't feel invested enough to read a sequel unfortunately. Thinking about it some more, I found Selin's lack of agency quite hard to take. I understand that's probably a common experience of growing up but it made me want to shake her!

@Yolandiifuckinvisser i saw the Matthew Bourne dance production The Midnight Bell which was apparently based on Hamilton's novels and I enjoyed it very much. It had a wonderful mournful, slightly sleazy, glamour. Probably the costumes and the beauty of the dancers saved it from being too depressing.

Let us know :)

Love Patrick Hamilton.

That is all.

Patrick Hamilton is one of my top 10 authors of all time. Highly recommend Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky and The Slaves of Solitude as well as Hangover Square.

Hamilton is also responsible for the term ‘gaslighting’ - it comes from something that happens in his play Gaslight.

@Yolandiifuckinvisser thank you for reminding me of Patrick Hamilton! Years ago I read Twenty Thousand Streets which I thought was brilliant, but a very intense read. I had a break from Patrick after that and never found my way back.

Oh, I hadn’t put two and two together on Gaslight.

I will add him to my wish list

Arrival was such a beautiful film so I sought out the book (usually I am a bit fearful of book to film adaptions, they often go horribly wrong) Stories of Your Lfe and others by Ted Chiang is a fab collection of high quality science-fiction, so although I read it awhile back, would recommend it now.
Also loved Hamnet & going to see it on Tuesday. Fingers crossed. Love Maggie O’Farrell as a writer.

Hangover Square was too depressing for me.

Envious of all of you who have been to see Hamnet. The play was very good so I have high hopes for the film but not sure I can get to the cinema.

5. Double Cross - Ben MacIntyre

Tells the story of the double agents in the U.K. who worked with MI5 to feed false information to their German handlers. The pinnacle of their work was to misinform the Germans of the location of the D-Day landings. Really interesting disparate collection of individuals who kept MI5 on their toes.