26ish books 2026

[Tinkhasflown]

A shiny new thread for 2026.

All welcome and note 26 is just a number. Everyone can set their own target and you are welcome here even if you only read 2 books a year.

I personally count the larger novel style books I read to my children and audio books I listen to. Others don't and there are no rules.

I look forward to all your suggestions again this year.

My love affair with Ann Patchett started with Bel Canto! She’s an amazing writer - State of Wonder is a great read too. I’m looking forward to her new release soon

Ooo, thank you. I might just put that/those on my list

15: The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman (audio). I'm not sure I'd have finished this if had been an actual book but the narration made it such an easy pleasant listen that I did get to the end but had lost track of some of the minor plot threads/characters by the end (not helped by having a break for a week in the middle). Friends say the books that follow in the series are better.

4 One of Us by Elizabeth Day
Read this inspired by the thread. Enjoyed it very much. Looking forward to reading more by her and also checking OIt her podcast.

No 15 - The Light Between Oceans by M L Stedman

I'm as hard as nails, but this book made me cry like a baby. This is a beautifully written book about a couple in early 20th century Australia who live in a lighthouse. A small boat containing a dead man and a crying baby crashed into the rocks, and they made the ill-judged decision to pretend the baby belonged to them.

A book about a mother's love and complex relationships. Beautiful.

16: Children of Radium by Joe Dunthorne. A family memoir, Joe delves into the inherited diaries of his great-grandfather Siegfried, a German Jewish chemist who worked on radiochemicals, gas masks and chemical weapons, fled the Nazis and later found that his life’s work had led to the use of chemical weapons in concentration camps, where family and friends had died. It is also the wider story of the family and how the war affected marriage, family and relationships, but largely it is about how Siegfried lived with the truth of what his life’s work had led to, a really interesting read.

11: All Change by Elizabeth Jane Howard
I had been bracing myself for finishing the final book in the Cazalet Chronicles because I have loved them so much and I didn't want any distractions reading the last one. I will really miss these books.

12: Mariana by Monica Dickens
This is one of those lovely Persephone books and actually had a very similar vibe to the Cazalets.

@DiggoryVenn
I love the Cazalets too and have been putting off reading the final instalment. Is it as good as the others?

@MonkeyTennis34 yes, I think it is as good as the rest. I have just seen that Louisa Young has written a follow on called The Golden Hours, but not sure I want to read it.

33 Margo's got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe. Written in quite a fun way but a bit too "happy hooker sex positive". It's a series on Apple TV, might give it a go anyway.
34 Kuleana by Sara Kehaulani Goo. Really informative and well written, it's the story of her Hawaiian family. Made me want to go to Hawaii but also not to, because it's over touristed.

Ive dropped off completely. Currently have our child with complex medical needs out of school,.seem to spend most my time when I would have been reading myself reading with her, things like Roald Dahl and daisy meadows at the moment

Hugs to you @Flowers90. I've many been reading a lot due to reading in the bath and on the bus - my escape from the family.

5 Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better by Woo-Kyoung Ahn
Very easily forgettable. Rehashed research on how we think, with all the usual shortcuts that the brain has evolved to take, which lead to biases. Not much advice in the way of how to overcome that and think better.

Book 14: One Click by Andrea Mara
this was an enjoyable and easy read, lots of twists and nicely written characters

2026 books so far:
then she was gone
beautiful ugly
the intruder
the shadowman
the family upstairs
Rock Paper Scissors
The Family Remains
The House we Grew up in
It Should Have Been You
Dont Let Him In
Daisy Darker
Someone In The Attic
The Tenant

15 We, the drowned - Carsten Jenson. This was brilliant, maybe the best book i have read all year. Spanning around 100 years, 4 loosely linked generations of Marstel a sailing village in Denmark who sent sailors around the world for hundreds of years. It covers adventures, wars, social commentary, economics, so many things, great characters. It does not get bogged down in boring sailing detail, it is story telling at its best. 690 pages of close typed font and I did not want it to end.

16 The Silence of the Girls - Pat Barker. I did finish this. The writing is excellent, it topped up my ancient Greek knowledge but it is a rape camp book and, if it were not for my strong desire to finish something I start and the great writing, I would not have read it

Morning :)
Books read so far:
(1) The French for Christmas by Fiona Valpy
(2) The Outside Boy by Jeannie Cummins
(3) Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
(4) All the Broken Places by John Boyne
(5) A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
(6) Crooked Branch by Jeannie Cummins
(7) Nesting by Roisin O'Donnell
(8) Never Lie by Frieda McFadden
(9) All Her Fault by Andrea Mara (Audio book)
(10) The Locked Door by Frieda McFadden
(11) All the Light We Cannot See by By Anthony Doerr
(12) The Book of Lost Names' by Kristin Harmel

Latest Book...

(13) The Room on Rue Amélie by Kristin Harmel

Description taken from the world wide web!

For fans of Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale and Martha Hall Kelly’s Lilac Girls, this powerful novel of fate, resistance, and family—by the international bestselling author of The Sweetness of Forgetting and When We Meet Again—tells the tale of an American woman, a British RAF pilot, and a young Jewish teenager whose lives intersect in occupied Paris during the tumultuous days of World War II.
When newlywed Ruby Henderson Benoit arrives in Paris in 1939 with her French husband Marcel, she imagines strolling arm in arm along the grand boulevards, awash in the golden afternoon light. But war is looming on the horizon, and as France falls to the Nazis, her marriage begins to splinter, too.
Charlotte Dacher is eleven when the Germans roll into the French capital, their sinister swastika flags snapping in the breeze. After the Jewish restrictions take effect and Jews are ordered to wear the yellow star, Charlotte can’t imagine things getting much worse. But then the mass deportations begin, and her life is ripped forever apart.
Thomas Clarke joins the British Royal Air Force to protect his country, but when his beloved mother dies in a German bombing during the waning days of the Blitz, he wonders if he’s really making a difference. Then he finds himself in Paris, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, and he discovers a new reason to keep fighting—and an unexpected road home.
When fate brings them together, Ruby, Charlotte, and Thomas must summon the courage to defy the Nazis—and to open their own broken hearts—as they fight to survive. Rich with historical drama and emotional depth, this is an unforgettable story that will stay with you long after the final page is turned.

Another enjoyable book - but I love easy to read books that take place during WW2 - looking forward to reading all books written by the author!

Onto the next!

Happy reading everyone :)

That sounds like an interesting read @Clairedebear101286

my best friend bought me EIGHT books off my wish list for my birthday which is very exciting. My mum asked for my list then went and bought me a book that wasn’t on it….

just finished #21, I’ve been reading 1984 to DD in 10min chunks at bedtime (she’s 14 before anyone gasps at me!). Not a book I’d recommend reading this way but it was a good excuse to go back to it after many years

35 How to Get Away with Murder by Rebecca Philipson - really enjoyed this - a bit of a twist on a police procedural. It was also on several Goodreads lists so I ticked off at least 2 of them!

14 The Eights by Joanna Miller
i really enjoyed this book - it is a fictionalised account of the first women who were permitted to receive degrees at the University of Oxford in 1920. Based on 4 young women characters, this book is an ode to the closeness of female friendship and also opens your eyes to the prejudice and misogyny they had to face. Lovely book I thoroughly enjoyed reading it

This sounds really interesting - onto my wish list!

Oh that does sound interesting!
My great-great-aunt was in a group who did not receive degrees but then were able to go back later and get them. When they were first awarded, she was overseas with her husband so she went back on the 100th anniversary of the college's founding and got it then! My DM was so cross with the wider family as she/I/DF were living close and nobody from the wider family told us it was happening and we could all have gone.

You would definitely find it interesting with that family history! It’s very well researched and a fascinating topic

Book 22. Milkman - Anna Burns

I bought Milkman in 2019 I think - read a few pages, put it down. Picked up a few years later, read 25 pages, put it down. Picked it up in February this year, read up to 75 pages and left it at work and forgot about it. Finally picked it up few weeks ago and have finally finished it last night. It is not a reader-friendly novel, it is so dense has only 5 chapters and barely any paragraph breaks. It is not a book to dip in and out of, but one which you have to read at least an hour at a time to really appreciate it.

I loved the themes and the narration, but I would be a bit hesitant to recommend it univocally.

Morning :)
Books read so far:
(1) The French for Christmas by Fiona Valpy
(2) The Outside Boy by Jeannie Cummins
(3) Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
(4) All the Broken Places by John Boyne
(5) A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
(6) Crooked Branch by Jeannie Cummins
(7) Nesting by Roisin O'Donnell
(8) Never Lie by Frieda McFadden
(9) All Her Fault by Andrea Mara (Audio book)
(10) The Locked Door by Frieda McFadden
(11) All the Light We Cannot See by By Anthony Doerr
(12) The Book of Lost Names' by Kristin Harmel
(13) The Room on Rue Amélie by Kristin Harmel

Latest Book....

(14) When We Meet Again by Kristin Harmel

Description taken from the world wide web!

Emily Emerson is used to being alone; her dad ran out on the family when she was just a kid, her mom died when she was seventeen, and her beloved grandmother has just passed away as well. But when she's laid off from her reporting job, she finds herself completely at sea . . . until the day she receives a beautiful, haunting painting of a young woman standing at the edge of a sugarcane field under a violet sky. That woman is recognizable as her grandmother—and the painting arrived with no identification other than a handwritten note saying, "He always loved her."

Emily is hungry for roots and family, so she begins to dig. And as she does, she uncovers a fascinating era in American history. Her trail leads her to the POW internment camps of Florida, where German prisoners worked for American farmers . . . and sometimes fell in love with American women. But how does this all connect to the painting? The answer to that question will take Emily on a road that leads from the sweltering Everglades to Munich, Germany, and back to the Atlanta art scene before she's done.

Along the way, she finds herself tempted to tear down her carefully tended walls at last; she's seeing another side of her father, and a new angle on her painful family history. But she still has secrets, ones she's been keeping locked inside for years. Will this journey bring her the strength to confront them at last?

I absolutely loved this book - I could not put it down - sad when it ended lol

The story was a tad far-fetched but it is what I love to read; easy language, love story, mystery and set in WW2!

Onto the next.....

Happy reading everyone :)

Book 15: The Other Side Of The Wall by Andrea Mara
I’ve fallen into a bit of an Andrea Mara rabbit hole, this book was fantastic, kept me interested right from the start, great characters and twists in all the right places. My only grumble is it didn’t clear up what was happening with the sub-story about Sylvia’s work and it ended very abruptly after the big reveal - maybe that’s the sign of a good book that it left me wanting to see more of their daily lives afterwards!

2026 books so far:
then she was gone
beautiful ugly
the intruder
the shadowman
the family upstairs
Rock Paper Scissors
The Family Remains
The House we Grew up in
It Should Have Been You
Dont Let Him In
Daisy Darker
Someone In The Attic
The Tenant
One Click