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

I’m torn because I love the story of the giant, but don’t much like Hilary M as a writer. IIRC his skelused to be displayed in the Hunterian museum alongside another known as something like the Venetian fairy. There’s an excellent non-fiction book about John Hunter. I’ll try and find a link.

The Knife Man by Wendy Moore
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/mar/12/featuresreviews.guardianreview8

My early reading. I was at school in the 1960s and 70s, my mum taught me to read before I started school at 5 and I assumed everyone could read but it turned out they couldn't. I used to be sent into the next class for reading books.
My absolute favourite at primary age were the books of E. Nesbitt. Then Malory Towers, St. Claire, the Narnia books. I don't think I read at all between ages 11 and 16 because of school. I hated it and hated having to read set books.
Took up reading again with a vengeance at 16 and read Fear of Flying, the Women's Room, Jackie Collins, Shirley Conran, The Far Pavilions and The Thorn Birds ( there seems to be something of a sex theme going on there). Also my dad's thrillers and spy novels.
Then I got into fantasy starting with Tolkien and then all the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

7.Let the Dead Speak by Jane Casey
A new member of the Maeve Kerrigan fan club. Unfortunately I started at book 7, simply because I found it on borrowbox. It's clear Maeve has ruffled feathers in earlier books and there's obviously history with Derwent but it was still fine as a stand alone.
It was refreshing to read a book with a female detective, loved the writing. I know there are others but I don't like Ann Cleeves (too slow) or Val McDermid ( too violent). I'll be reading the rest.

DNFd all the audio books I've tried, even at 1.5 speed I just can't stand them.

Another Belgariad and Thomas Covenant fan here too - tried to reread the TC Chronicles a year or two back and found them really tedious and also I’d somehow forgotten that he was a rapist (plus some dodgy stuff with his daughter!) - teen me obviously less fussed about such things!

Also, Dragonlance. So much Dragonlance…

Wuthering Heights FILM REVIEW - verdict if it’s “sexed up” I wasn’t particularly shocked by it. Absolute hatchet job in that it takes a scythe to the majority of the plot, name it and it’s not there, just the central romance, with a lack of chemistry between the leads. No one is particularly believable and Isabella’s abuse is both short lived and played for laughs. Gaah. Twas tripe. <gavel>

@MegBusset I thought TC was a bit tedious at the time, he was such an annoying character but teenage me was also unjudgemental about the dodgy stuff. Drangonlance passed me by, but a quick Google tells me it was written in the 1980s when I had moved on to my spy novel phase.

Great review. The Guardian’s review was fun too. I won’t be going to see the film as a) I hate the book and b) it sounds utter codswallop. Hope you enjoyed a good laugh, at least.

Skeleton! wtf is a skelused????!!!! This one handed typing combined with insane predictive text and middle aged eyesight is really something else.

Thanking you @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie , I have just bought The Knife Man.

If you have time before the play, the National Theatre has quite an impressive book and gift shop.

As does the BFI nearby.

Hope you enjoy it.

<wonders idly if there will be a London meet-up this year >

Another London meetup would be great. I'd be quite interested in coming outside London with advance preparation (being able to book tickets at advance fare prices, for example).

Waterstones in Gower street is my favourite bookshop in London - has anyone been there, the branch by UCL? The shop is in a beautiful grade 2 listed building, on five floors, and there's a café. Lots of quiet corners to relax in as well. I agree Daunts on Marylebone High Street is fabulous, but you need to pick your times to go to escape the worst of the crowds. I'm in London on Wednesday, so will pick up some books at both branches, and (yet another) canvas bag at Daunts - they are gorgeous and terrifically durable. @ÚlldemoShúl enjoy the rest of your break 😊

I’ve been to the Gower street one but only once and I was soaking wet so not able to enjoy it as much as I would have liked!

It’s a shame that Daunt Books has been taken over by the Insta crowds - it used to be so lovely. And yes, their bags are lovely.

The Owl Bookshop in Kentish Town is a former indie bookshop now owned by the Daunt chain. It's quite a large space and they have book events. I assume their tote bags are quite similar to the Daunt ones, but they have owls on - this makes them more appealing to me!! I hoped to go to one of their book events last week but left it to the last minute to book - for some reason I didn't think it would sell out but it did. Fortunately I checked online before setting off. I have a reserved library copy of the book (by Lottie Moggach) waiting for me at Kentish Town. And next week I'm hoping to pick up, or get DP to collect for me, a copy of the new Elly Griffiths book (Ali Dawson #2_

@Stowickthevast you know Cat’s Eye is, I think, the only one of her books I haven’t read as I’ve always thought the subject matter was too upsetting. But yes she does talk about it in her memoir and it’s very much based on her own time at school.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit enjoyed your Wuthering Heights review, and indeed all the ones I’ve read! I will absolutely still be seeing it…

Good to hear that the Owl bookshop is still going. I grew up near there and have happy memories of it.

The Dead of Jericho by Colin Dexter

Morse meets an attractive woman at an event. She gives him her contact details but he doesn't follow it up straight away. Later, when he finds himself in the area she lives in, he visits her house and is surprised to find the door unlocked. He enters the house but there's nobody home. Later that day he learns that there is a police investigation into an apparent suicide at that house.

An enjoyable read but the plot relies on a rather unlikely coincidence. I usually get irritated by the use of coincidences in stories, and this one certainly had a negative impact on my enjoyment of the book. Love Dexter's writing generally though. He's a writer of his time, and reflects the casual and inherent sexism that was the norm in 1980s Britain. This may be a problem for some modern readers.

1. Audiobook We Solve Murders by Richard Osman and read by Nicola Walker. I thoroughly enjoyed it, probably more than if I'd read it. It was included in my prime membership on Spotify.

I am going to see Wuthering Heights tomorrow. It’s my favourite book so I am already expecting to hate the film! DD wants to see it though so I said I would take her. I think I just need to approach it as a completely separate entity that just happens to share the same name as the book. I will report back!

The Belgariad was really my first introduction to fantasy, I read them simply because they were on my dad’s bookshelf and I’d read pretty much everything else in the house. Earthsea and the Shannara books were also on the shelf - I think @HagCymraegand I probably read a lot of the same books.

I was thinking of raiding DD’s bookshelf as she’s got Fourth Wing and similar, but I’m just not sure it would hit the spot for me now.

My 15 year old self would have loved The Fourth Wing.
I just got irritated by the amount of times she used the word pivot. Esp in the sex scenes

My first fantasy was Lord of the Rings and it turned me into an epic fantasy fan for life. Haven’t tried romantasy but seeing as I’m not keen on romance I don’t think it would be for me- on the other hand, a chosen one, a band of merry misfits and a grand quest and I’m in!

Finished two books last night
19 The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer
Next read in my quest to read the Booker winners- this one was not as successful as the last two. Written during Apartheid, the book tells the story of Mehring, a white South African businessman who has bought a farm, Jacobus the Black farm manager and the people who work for him, and the Indian family who run the local shop. It’s written in stream of consciousness as the farms festers and moulds and the body of a Black man is found in a field. The characters are all allegories to show the evils of Apartheid and it does this well with vivid descriptions of the farm and Mehring’s corruption but because it’s an allegory the characters don’t feel real for a reader like me who is all about the characters. I imagine it was very powerful at the time, but not my cuppa. RWYO.

20 The Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry
Perry writes of the death of her father-in-law David, who died of oesophageal cancer very shortly after his diagnosis. It describes the mundanity and horror and privilege of looking after a loved one when they’re dying. A total gut punch for anyone who has been through it. Bold for me but not recommended for anyone with a recent loss. This is my first read from the Women’s Prize for non-fiction longlist and I was able to get it from the library.