50 Books Challenge 2026 Part Two

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the second thread of the 50 Books 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.

The previous thread is

From John Soane's it's a short walk to Foyles on Charing Cross Rd which is a delight.
Then carry on a bit further to Cecil Court which is a narrow street of antiquarian booksellers like something from a storybook.
If you keep going you reach the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery which are always worth a look!

Adding my voice to the F & M afternoon tea. I did it for my 40th birthday and I was a bit “is that it?” when presented with it, but they just refill indefinitely

And they have so many different teas to choose from and you can have a different one every time if you like. And they will give you cake to take home too.

Just finished the third of the Earthsea trilogy. I thought the first half was really quite terrible and the second half pretty good, but it’s a slow and boring build up and then the ending happened all in a rush.

Overall, I’m glad I got them on a deal and didn’t pay for paperbacks. Worth reading, not rubbish but I think I just expected more.

It's been raining relentlessly so do bring wellies if you're planning on Highgate!

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie- I think your point about the characters skin colour being tokenistic in The Wizard of Earthsea is perfectly fair. I found my Kindle copy to check after your last post & read the introduction for the first time - I particularly noticed the bit where she wrote about the Puffin edition’s cover (probably the copy I read years ago) being too white. I can’t help wondering if the illustrator just skimmed through the text & didn’t notice the character descriptions.

Joining the Lord Peter debate - the first ones I read years ago were the one set in Scotland and the one with the church bells, and I didn’t get a good impression of him. I was then quite surprised to read on MN that Gaudy Night was such a favourite, and read the whole series. I really do like Gaudy Night, but the rest of the series his character seems to be all over the place - particularly in Murder Must Advertise with the diving into the fountain looking like a Greek god bit. That said. Dorothy L Sayers really does deserve praise for dealing with the detective in love theme in only 4 volumes, which is admirably concise compared to modern authors.

Oh that may rule it out- I’m coming hand luggage only!

Tehanu by Ursula le Guin
Oh, so it wasn’t a trilogy. I’ve just gobbled this one up! The best of the four, for me. More plot led, with much less introspection and much tighter. She says in the afterword that the others were trying to challenge racism and this one is challenging sexism, but I just thought it was a better told (maybe better edited?) story, although I’m not sure who the target audience is: it’s a bit like Philip Pullman’s later work that it feels she’s forgotten who she’s writing for (themes of rape and a wizard cursing a woman and making her kneel in the dust and crawl for him don’t feel very child-friendly).

I very much enjoyed seeing Tenat/Arha and Ged/Sparrowhawk together again here.

She says that illustrators are told what vibe to go for by publishers and that writers (unless v famous) have little to no say in cover work.

That last to @Benvenuto , sorry.

So many typos there - sorry!

I’ve been enjoying the discussions of early reading habits. I didn’t realise until now, but I also don’t remember learning to read and am 90% sure I was able to read before starting school. I was an indiscriminate reader when I was younger, probably because I read so much, so would read any books I could get my hands on. When I was younger I adored all Enid Blyton books, and had a penchant for annuals from charity shops, so Bunty, Jackie, Mandy, and Misty. I also read a few SVH books but the Point Horror books didn’t come to my attention, which is a shame as I really loved spooky, supernatural tales (A Stranger Came Ashore was a book I read again and again). Like some of you, I went through a Virginia Andrews phase, and as a teenager I worked my way through my Mam’s Mills and Boon books and my Dad’s spy and thriller books. I read classics from pretty early on, The Scarlet Pimpernel was a particular favourite and I enjoyed books about the apocalypse (Z for Zachariah) which is probably how I discovered Stephen King in my early teens.

18 Path of Bones by LT Taylor

Psychic helps the police to find a serial killer. Kinda. Very basic and not at all interesting.

19 Last One at the Party by Bethany Clift

It’s the end of the world, but not as we know it. A virus has wiped out everyone, well everyone apart from one woman who is not all that likable, and a variety of wildlife. As she adapts to life after the end of everything we get flashbacks to her previous life. At first this did little to endear her to me, and I started to think that maybe there were other survivors, but they were just hiding so they didn’t have to spend the rest of their lives with this vapid, selfish woman.

But as the story unfurled I came to understand the character more, and while I didn’t exactly like her by the end I did kinda admire her. I also really liked the ending. Not sure yet if it will be a bold, but glad I read this, especially as it was free with kindle unlimited, so I still haven’t bought a book so far this year!

On Dorothy L Sayers, I've read Gaudy Night, which is focused on Harriet Vane attending a reunion at her Oxford University college (a women's one). Presumably a lot of the detail comes from DLS' experience. I've listened to Whose Body? on audio. I think in my teens when devouring Agatha Christie, I tried a DLS book from the library and didn't get far. It was partly because in The Other Way Round, Judith Kerr's autobiographical follow up to When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, set during the London Blitz, Anna/Judith is doing a course and someone reads aloud from a DL Sayers book. I really was too young to "get" that at the time.

I've been meaning to try her other books for 20 years, and occasionally hear bits on the radio, rather than following a whole book. But I think, perhaps, that rather than worrying about series order, I should just read the ones that interest me most: Murder Must Advertise set in an advertising agency of the time, and Strong Poison (where I know at least part of the outcome, as Harriet Vane survives to feature in several other novels).

Daunt's is absolutely wonderful but the last couple of times I've been it has been absolutely packed, and moving around was more of a shuffle than anything else. I would definitely go but if you're at all prone to overwhelm I'd make sure it's after some food and drink and a nice sit down

Daunt Books is lovely but my husband was in there recently and complained it was full of instagrammers making book content!

On the subject of teenage reading, I’ve now finished Margaret Atwood’s memoir Book of Lives - reading The Blind Assassin and Alias Grace particularly around 16 were absolutely formative for me, and I think defined my taste in books ever since. It’s an interesting although quite frustrating memoir. There’s lots of detail about her unusual childhood growing up in various log cabins in the wilderness which I found interesting but long. I would have liked a bit more insight into the books themselves that have been so important to me over the years but she’s as spiky and elusive as ever (‘people asked me if Grace was really guilty, I said don’t be so stupid it’s a book’). The final sections about the loss of her partner were very moving. So on the whole worth reading, but as a fan I didn’t get as much as I would have liked.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. I enjoyed this, epistolary novel told through the letters sent and received by Sybil, charting her life and relationships. I thought her tricky relationships with her adult children were well handled. It probably didn’t need so many twists towards the end, I felt there was enough sadness and reconciliation there without revealing buried secrets.

Ghosts by Dolly Alderton. I wanted something light as have been feeling pretty miserable with a sinus infection this week. It was fine - fairly sharp analysis of modern dating, but most of the story lines didn’t really go anywhere. Kept me occupied enough while I was ill.

@GrannieMainland Have you read Cat's Eye? It sounds like that was based on her younger days but is also a good story.

Daunts in Hampstead may be less busy and a walk on the heath is always nice, you can stick to the paths and avoid the mud. Quite a few literary figures lived round there including Keats and Agatha Christie - Dd1's north London school house is called Keats- and I'm sure there are some plaques around.

6 All Creatures Great And Small - James Herriott

Pure listening pleasure, read wonderfully on Audible by Christopher Timothy (of course).

Duma Key by Stephen King

A re-read after more than a decade.

Edgar goes on a retreat to Florida to get himself back together after an accident with life changing injuries also spells the end of his marriage. He starts painting as a hobby and it's gets out of control.

It's a stupendously creepy story with one of the best slow builds King has ever done. The ending is climatic and fits the story. You get the feeling he knew where he wanted to go with this (which is not always the case!).

I loved this, for me it's right up there with Green Mile and 11/22/63 as one of his best.

I seem to have picked out some great books so far this year. Alongside other efforts, my mobile phone usage is down by 30-50%. It's not just luck, thanks to everyone for the reviews helping to guide me.

I used to devour fantasy in my teens in the 1980s - Lord of the Rings, The Belgariad, The Pern Dragon Books etc etc, but The WIzard of Earthsea somehow passed me by and I ended up reading it a few years ago after recommandations on here. I remember being unimpressed and finding it tedious. I can't remember a single thing about it and I usually remember books I have read, at least the name of the main character and could give a brief summary of what it is about. But no - nothing.
I thought I had just grown out of fantasy really. I tried The Fourth Wing last year after everyone was raving about that. I can see that my 15 year old self would have loved it but - no.

I am currently listening to Annie Bot on Audible after recommendations on here - something I would never normally read and enjoying it in a dark kind of way. As someone who has left a relationship with a controlling emotionally abusive manchild, there is a surprising amount of common ground with my actual marriage.

@HagCymraeg well done on getting out of that.

I used to read loads of fantasy too and remember loving The Belgariad but know what you mean about going off it. I did quite enjoy Fourth Wing as a bit of an easy holiday read though.

Recently I've found I still quite like slightly harder fantasy like N K Jemisen & Adrian Tchaikovsky, but I have to be in the right frame of mind.

@Stowickthevast - thanks!
Me and my sister devoured The Belgariad as they came out, they were the Harry Potters of our day, not quite queuing up at midnight but buying it as soon as it was out and fighting over who got it first and reading it in a day. I have never read them again, I wonder how they have dated?
The Shannara books were another one I loved.

5 The Giant, O'Brien - Hilary Mantel
A fictional account of the story of Charles Byrne, a real-life man who exhibited himself as a giant in 1780s London freak shows, and his dealings with John Hunter, surgeon and anatomist who met Byrne and coveted his remains for his personal collection of physical oddities.

This is beautifully written. Mantel's Byrne is an intelligent man, gentle and learned, a gifted storyteller who leaves Ireland with a coterie of hangers-on to seek his fortune in London. While his arrival on the freak circuit causes intense curiosity and earns him and his agent a handsome profit, takings drop off over time until Hunter is the only regular customer. Hunter's offer to buy the giant's remains in advance of death fills Byrne with horror and our protagonist dies alone while his agent makes off with the cash and the remainder of the group move on to more lucrative endeavours.

Thanks for the tips re Daunts. Today we had a lovely wander down Cecil Court, mooched away a couple of hours in the National Gallery, went to Westminster and environs and visited Waterstones Piccadilly. I think it’s safe to say I broke RWYO and bought Daughters of the Bamboo Grove, The Lack of Light, one whose name I’ve forgotten about a Catholic priest in 1953 that I picked at random and a John LeCarre for DH. Thank you all for the tips. Hopefully more bookish shenanigans tomorrow. Going to see Playboy of the Western World in the National Theatre tomorrow evening.

And now I’ve also added The Giant O’Brien to my TBR

Me too!