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.

31 - A Town Called Solace - Mary Watson
This kind of book is why I read! Absolutely loved this - very character driven, well written, beautiful setting in rural Canada. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to find this author - looking forward to reading her previous novels now and she also has a new once coming in November.

Great book!

Seconded!

It's taken me quite a while too - it's Mary Lawson! 😀Thanks for the recommendation ...

🤦 I was literally looking at the book while I wrote that mistake too 😅

Just finished this today and was trembling by the end. Agree, best book I've read for ages. The way it builds is so clever and the descriptions of the natural world are magical.

Bought the series - got it for £15

Looking forward to starting it - thank you for the recommendation :)

31 Us by David Nicholls

I've read some fantastic books this year, and this was one of them. It's narrated by an educated man who lacks emotional intelligence, exploring his marriage which is in trouble, and his relationship with his teenage son, which seems beyond repair. Dispite the subject matter, the story telling is pretty funny and I loved it. A good book if you're into self-analysis.

18). The seven moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka.

It’s taken me a long while to read this book but I think this is my theme of this year. Busy with lots of interruptions has made reading much harder!

Anyway a surreal/ magical realism take on the Sri Lankan civil war. Taken from the angle of a war photographer who is killed and from his perspective while dead, with a mission to get his hidden but very exposing photos out there.

I read anything about Sri Lanka as only recently it is really getting written about. My DH is Sri Lankan. This is by far the most different of all the books on SL I have read. But it’s very clever and weaves around and back and forth and is surprisingly also very funny. It helps to have a bit of reading momentum which I have struggled with but I got going this weekend with the last third of the book and could not put it down. Not a book for everyone but if you enjoy surrealism you will probably like it.

Afternoon :)

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
(16) Her Husband's Lover by Patricia Crouch
(17) Here One Moment by Liane Moriarity
(18) The New Neighbours by Claire Douglas
(19) Don't Let Him In by Lisa Jewell
(20) One Day by David Nicholls
(21) Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
(22) My Brother's Secret by Maggie Hartley
(23) Us by David Nicholls
(24) You are here by David Nicholls
(25) The Understudy by David Nicholls

Latest Book...

(26) Summer Island by Kristin Hannah

Description taken from amazon....

Years ago, Nora Bridge walked out on her marriage and left her daughters behind. She has since become a famous radio talk-show host and newspaper columnist beloved for her moral advice, while her youngest daughter, Ruby, is a struggling comedian who uses her famous mother as fuel for her bitter, cynical humour.

When the tabloids unearth a scandalous secret from Nora’s past, their estrangement suddenly becomes dramatic. After Nora is injured in an accident, a glossy magazine offers Ruby a fortune to write a tell-all about her mother and Ruby returns home under the pretext of taking care of the woman she hasn’t spoken to for almost a decade.

Nora insists they retreat to Summer Island, to the lovely old house on the water where Ruby grew up; a place filled with childhood memories of love and joy and belonging. There, Ruby is also reunited with her first love and his brother. Once, the three of them had been best friends; inseparable. Until the summer that Nora left, and everyone’s hearts were broken . . .

An enjoyable read - what I come to expect from Kristin Hannah she gives the reader hope that there will be a happy ending : )

Onto the next :)
Happy reading everyone :D

Book 24 The Bureau of Unknown Fates by Gaelle Nohant
This was an audio book as the printed book, a translation, is not out yet. I really wanted to like this novel more than I finally did. It follows a woman who works for the International Tracing Service which is a real organisation providing information about the Holocaust. It's such an important and traumatic and moving subject matter but there were flaws with this novel. The timelines didn't always seem to stack up with the age of some of the characters. The last chapter contained something frankly unbelievable about the present day main character. And there are many, many people mentioned which made an audiobook without a character list confusing at times. I was going through my bookshelf this morning and Into the Arms of Strangers surfaced. That's an oral history of the Kindertransport and is a far better book as it's factual.

25. The Story Of A Heart by Rachel Clarke.
I think this might be my book of the year.
Non fiction account of how a 9 year old girl's heart comes to be donated to a 9 year old boy who very desperately needs it. Interwoven with the history of heart surgery and the pioneers who didn't give up, and the flashes of genius inspiration.

The story is interesting but the characters and responses of the two families and all the fabulous medics are what makes it. Can't remember when I've teared up so many times over a book - the description of all the staff trying to make Christmas in hospital special and their care and commitment, the way the little girl's big sisters respond.... There are some bloody impressive people out there and it's wonderful to know it.

38 The Pretender by Jo Hardin

lent to me by a friend who said it’s one of he best books he’s read recently - I’d give it a solid 4/5. A boy is raised by a farmer in the 1400’s then as a 13 yr is suddenly told he is the son of the Duke of Clarence and therefore something like 3rd in line to the throne of England, which Richard III currently sits on. The princes in the tower are killed, Henry VII attacks from France and various nobles move John as a pawn in their own power play to the throne.

its described as a mix between Wolf Hall and Demon Copperhead and I see the resemblances though it’s not quite as good as either of those. The fall of of John’s morality is heartbreaking and all characters excellently wrought

26. A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson.
A few other people have read and loved this novel on this thread - I did too.

Fans might be interested that the author is on the Tea or Books? podcast episode 122.

25: Maurice & Maralyn: An extraordinary true story of love, shipwreck and survival by Sophie Elmhurst
This really is an extraordinary story, which is good because I found the writing style quite poor. I'm unsure what attracted Maralyn to Maurice because he seems a strange fellow, but she has to be the most resilient and resourceful person in the world!

26: North Woods by Daniel Mason
Everyone kept telling me I would love this book, but for me it didn't deliver. I love the premise of the story of some woodland over a few hundred years, but it seemed quite disconnected. It reads more like a collection of short stories on a theme.

I agree re North Woods, a friend recommended it and I just never connected, apart from the two sisters - I’d have taken a whole book just their story

Book 25 Marking Time by Elizabeth Jane Howard.
This is the second book in the Cazalet chronicles and I thought it was wonderful. I'm going to read something else before I read the third in the series as I need to stretch out the magic.

@philandbill they are such good books, you really do need to savour them.

36 One of Us by Elizabeth Day
This is a sequel to The Party. I thought it was well-written but ultimately left me cold. Too many of the same old tropes about corrupt politicians and the privileges of the upper classes.

Book 26 One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes. This is published by Virago in their modern classics imprint. DH bought it for me and I don't think that I'd have spotted it myself. However I'm glad he did as it's excellent and I couldn't put it down. It was written just after the second world war and is the day in the life of an upper middle class woman living in a village near the south coast. It's very domestic but superbly written as she's a great observer of character. I'm two books into the Cazalet chronicles and if you like them you may like this as it's set just after the war and deals with the social changes the war brought but was written contemporaneously. Highly recommend, a great way to hit my twenty six books target. 😀