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.

44 A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles - absolutely loved this. Really well written, funny and interesting.

Book 25: Such A Nice Girl by Andrea Mara
Love the way Andrea Mara writes, this was particularly good, lots of different paths crossing in unexpected ways. Some things didn’t make sense until nearer the end but I found all the questions I had were answered in roundabout fashion

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
The Other Side Of The Wall
No One Saw A Thing
Ward D
My Husband’s Wife
The Silent Patient
The Night She Disappeared
The Divorce
Hide And Seek
None Of This Is True
I Found You

The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri

This is a beautifully written book that opened my eyes to the war in Syria and the trauma of seeking asylum. Five stars from me.

1. The tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
2. James by Percival Everett
3. The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden
4. As long as the lemon trees grow by Zoulfa Katouh
5. To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee
6. I am I am I am by Maggie O’Farrell
7. Lord of the flies by William Golding
8. The midnight library by Matt Haig
9. All the broken places by John Boyne
10. Cilka’s journey by Heather Morris
11. The outside boy by Jeanine Cummins
12. How to stop time by Matt Haig
13. All her fault by Andrea Mara
14. Dominion by C J Samson
15. The light between oceans by M L Stedman
16. A better life by Lionel Shriver
17. The husbands by Holly Gramazio
18. Small pleasures by Clare Chambers
19. The list of suspicious things by Jennie Godfrey
20. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
21. The Beekeeper of Aleppo

23 The Lost Continent - Travels in Small Town America - Bill Bryson
One from my bookshelf that I haven't re-read since it first came out. Funny and sarcastic. His views on the American way of life and the direction in which it was going were very prescient.

I love that book, have read it many times

Book 21 was Chokepoints by Edward Fishman. It was a nonfiction book all about the US (and to a lesser extent EU/UK) undertaking economic warfare via sanctions and was super interesting.

I've also been struggling through Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang - it might be my first DNF in a long time. Can't put my finger on it but I just do not get on with it and it has really slowed my reading down!

17 Lonesome Dove - an epic about cowboys and settling the western frontier. I really enjoyed most of this and I can see why people love it. Some of the writing about characters is quite remarkable

18 Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov - this is about a man who lives in the grey area of Ukraine after the first Russian invasion and he his travels one summer. I thought it raised many interesting issues to consider and was insightful and thought provoking whilst appearing to be quite a gentle read.

19 Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - I was not sure about this to start but by the end I thought it raised many issues (none of which I can mention without spoilers) and was remarkable.

20 The Romantic by William Boyd - a fictional account of quite a remarkable life. I haven't read any other William Boyd. His writing style is clear, not overly descriptive (which I like). It was a sort of manly perspective which I do not think you get from many books these days, or maybe the ones I read! I enjoyed it and am going to read a few more of his.

All of these were well worth reading and I recommend them!

25 John of John by Douglas Stuart

a slow burner. Not one of my favourites of his, the readers learns everything literally years before the characters and while I adored almost all of these broken oppressed people, the lack of drama because were told everything meant stakes never felt that high and in truth nothing really happens. Worth it for the quality of writing but I preferred his other two books

22 - None of this is true by Lisa Jewell
A real page turner, full of lies and questions about a woman who grooms a journalist in a stalker kind of way. It reminded me of the Bea and Honey scenario in Eastenders.

1. The tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
2. James by Percival Everett
3. The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden
4. As long as the lemon trees grow by Zoulfa Katouh
5. To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee
6. I am I am I am by Maggie O’Farrell
7. Lord of the flies by William Golding
8. The midnight library by Matt Haig
9. All the broken places by John Boyne
10. Cilka’s journey by Heather Morris
11. The outside boy by Jeanine Cummins
12. How to stop time by Matt Haig
13. All her fault by Andrea Mara
14. Dominion by C J Samson
15. The light between oceans by M L Stedman
16. A better life by Lionel Shriver
17. The husbands by Holly Gramazio
18. Small pleasures by Clare Chambers
19. The list of suspicious things by Jennie Godfrey
20. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
21. The Beekeeper of Aleppo
22. None of this is true

Book 13 The Glass Hotel by Emily St John Mandel
I loved this, it's by the author of Station Eleven which I read last year.

@Philandbill
If you get a chance, you should watch the tv adaptation of Station Eleven. It’s beautiful.

I've looked at the trailers @MonkeyTennis34 but I loved the book so much that if they deviated from it I think I'd feel really disappointed.

45 The Cut by Chris Brookmyre. Thriller about a horror film fan and a special effects artist.
46 Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters. I had watched the TV series but only remembered a little about it. It was really well written, very rich. Quite long but I am on camp supervising DS who doesn't really need supervising.

Missy and @h0rsewithn0name Can I recommend Pat Barker's Blow Your House Down and Rachel Dawson's Neon Dreams? Very different (Barker's is grittier) but both evoke the first half of the 80s; the politics, culture, life for women in the margins and domestic lives.

Thank you for the recommendations @Scout2016, I've just ordered Blow your house down from the library. Something to look forward to.

@Scout2016 thank you! I’m on holiday and needed another book, I’ve downloaded Neon Dreams.

Although it’s actually called Neon Roses 😁

Sorry! I looked it up to check the author, got the name wrong and a band called Neon Dreams came up instead. Realised my mistake and then clearly repeated it on here. Duh!
Hope you enjoy it anyway. Of the two that's far more "holiday!"

24 Universality - Natasha Brown

Read this on BorrowBox as it was available to borrow immediately. I was a sucker for the cover initially, but then really enjoyed it. Very well written and compact. Where else would you find anarchists, an amoral banker, a sensationalist columnist and a violent assault with a gold bar?

Book 26: The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena
I found this hard going with the writing very stilted, I’ve persevered to find out what happens but tbh I’ve skimmed it, I picked up another of her books at a charity shop so I’ll give the author another go at some point.

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
The Other Side Of The Wall
No One Saw A Thing
Ward D
My Husband’s Wife
The Silent Patient
The Night She Disappeared
The Divorce
Hide And Seek
None Of This Is True
I Found You
Such A Nice Girl

Book 22 was Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro. I love Kazuo Ishiguro's books and this book, a collection of five short stories, was no different. It wasn't my favourite book of his, but it broke me out of my Yellowface induced reading slump!

How often do you not finish books? I don't often do it but I have two books sitting staring at me from my bedside table unfinished and it makes me uncomfortable 🥴

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 Doer
(12) The Book of Lost Names' by Kristin Harmel
(13) The Room on Rue Amélie by Kristin Harmel
(14) The Names by Florence Knapp
(15) The Stationary Shop of Tehran by Marjan Kamali

Latest book....

(16) Her Husband's Lover by Patricia Crouch

Description taken from Amazon:

A woman has to stop her rival from ruining her life in HER HUSBAND'S LOVER, the stunning new novel from the acclaimed Julia Crouch. 'Psychological thrillers don't come much better than this' Clare Mackintosh

She stole her husband. Now she wants to take her life.

After the horrors of the past, Louisa Williams is desperate to make a clean start.
Her husband Sam is dead. Her children, too, are gone, victims of the car accident in which he died.
Sam said that she would never get away from him. That he would hound her to death if she tried to leave. Louisa never thought that he would want to harm their children though.
But then she never thought that he would betray her with a woman like Sophie.
And now Sophie is determined to take all that Louisa has left. She wants to destroy her reputation and to take what she thinks is owed her - the life she would have had if Sam had lived.
Her husband's lover wants to take her life. The only question is will Louisa let her?

Entertaining enough and easy to read if completely unrealisitic lol

Onto the next!

Happy reading everyone :)

16 - One of us by Elizabeth Day
I enjoyed this very much, well written and easy to read with fictional political characters not too far removed from some of our own in very recent history! An interesting look at revenge, desire for power and complex relationships

10 Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale
Cassandra gets dumped and fired in the same day - then discovers she has the power to time travel, to go back in time and change things...

I found this easy to read, light hearted and funny. Lots of references to autism - and Greek myth!
Nothing too radical or life changing but a good read.

3 stars out of 5

@Twinsybalinsy last year I read everything I started but I regret finishing The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - according to Goodreads it was the longest book I read last year and it's hours I'll never get back 😫. I think that sometimes it's better to put a book aside and come back to it after a few months and sometimes you just really need to stop.