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

Argh We Solve Murders was my #6 not #1

I’ve never come across The Belgariad - is it something I need to investigate?

Actually that’s a good point @ÚlldemoShúl - I read the Hobbit and LOTR well before the Belgariad.

The sex scenes are another thing putting me off Fourth Wing - I’m not sure I want to read what 14yo DD is reading, especially knowing that I was reading Flowers in the Attic etc (in between the fantasy books).

I too have wondered how the Belgariad has aged. I loved them so much that I’m not sure I want to re-read at this stage, in case they’re awful.

@Southeastdweller I used to walk past (and sometimes into) that vast Waterstones on my regular route from Euston station to work. It started life as Dillon's University Bookshop in 1956, apparently (if anybody remembers, Dillon’s was a well -known chain in London in the 80s/90s but it’s gone now). The amazing building itself is Grade 2 listed.

The whole area round there is just full of history, I love it. Not just because of the university; the Bloomsbury group was born in Gordon Sq next door; suffragette Millicent Fawcett lived down the road, as did Darwin and Dickens at different points; RADA is there, and the School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine with its decorated frontage adorned with gilded (disease-causing) bugs and beetles. Plus there’s the beautiful memorial to the war hero Noor Inayat Khan in Gordon Square Gardens. And of course Jeremy Bentham's auto-icon in its own box in University College! You could spend hours just mooching round there discovering its secrets.

ETA Sorry South, you did say the Waterstones was listed, I’ve just realised!

All this London talk is making me “home”sick. We moved away to Bristol a few years ago and I miss it so much! The Gower Street Waterstones is also my favourite big London bookshop. It’s a delight.

I’ve just finished Still Life, by Sarah Winman. I feel like I’ve seen it mentioned fairly frequently on here so I picked it up in the daily deals a few weeks back. I had a great time reading this, the sense of place was fantastic, I loved the characters, I was charmed. But… you really have to suspend your disbelief. The amount of times I thought to myself ‘as if!’. It would be a great summer holiday read.

@Terpsichore Ahh you’ve given me memories of when we used to be sent on IT training courses to High Holborn and used to wander around the area in long lunch breaks and evenings. We used to go to a really old fashioned Italian restaurant called Cosmoba. Of course class based training courses are a thing of the past now, they are all on Zoom or Teams. I used to love trips to London for training. A nice hotel and evenings free to wander round or see a show or a late evening at a museum.

@cassandre thank you so much for the Levy recs!

Seven. Bunny by Mona Awad
Campus novel about a student at an elite creative writing course and a bunch of mean girls that then goes very weird.

This was for book club and was certainly unusual. Should make for a good discussion. I liked it for it's unusualness.

My aunt used to work in Dillons in Gower Street, in the late 1970s - I'm not sure when she moved to the LSE Bookshop, but I remember as a kid, probably from about 8, being taken there so that she could use her staff discount to make my book money stretch further.

@GrannieMainland Cat's Eye was my first Margaret Atwood and you may be wise to avoid. I was 50 when I read it but it catapulted me back to being a child and being bullied by a succession of different girls throughout my school life.

I was a Shannara fan as well as Earthsea, LOTR and Thomas Covenant. Never quite got into Belgarad for some reason. I think my gateway to fantasy was The Phoenix and the carpet. Not quite a band of merry men on a quest, but a time travelling flying carpet. Ties in with my love of time travel fiction.

We had a Dillon’s in Nottingham when I lived there, I preferred it to Waterstones tbh. It was huge, I loved it.

I didn’t really enjoy Cat’s Eye, although it was thought-provoking. I read it expecting something more like the MaddAddam books or the Handmaid’s Tale, all of which I loved. It’s completely different.

How funny, my daughter lives across the road from this bookshop, on Patshull Road, I was in Owl Bookshop yesterday buying Owl Babies (appropriately enough)for my granddaughter. I had to queue up to buy it. I was heartened to see an independent book shop doing such a roaring trade, and it is indeed a lovely space.

7.The Blue Castle: L.M. Montgomery.

Valency Stirling is twenty-nine; plain and mousy, a confirmed spinster living at home with her stuffy and overbearing mother and aunt. She dreams of a fulfilling life and takes refuge in her imaginary 'Blue Castle', where she can be who she wants to be; a beautiful, confident woman with a handsome man at her side.

One day, she secretly makes an appointment to see the doctor and asks him about the mysterious pains in her chest. When he gives her devastating news, she decides to make a break for it and goes off to find her Blue Castle and live the life of her dreams.

Written by the author of 'Anne of Green Gables' for an adult audience, this is a wonderfully funny and heart-warming book with a thoroughly well-deserved happy ending for the plucky heroine. I loved the characters, particularly Valency, and I enjoyed the stuffy Stirling clan as well.

The writing here is excellent. The way that Montgomery captures the places the stories are set is just sublime. Recommended for a lively and lovely escapist read.

I am making slow progress on The Beautiful and the Damned which for some reason I convinced my self was Tender is the Night and then couldn't understand when I started it why it didn't accord with my hazy memory! 40% through and not loving it but interested enough to find out what happens to the characters. Annoyingly long chapters....

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh that’s on my vast TBR. Worth a bump then ?

I’m still in a no reading slump I’ve been binging Mad Men constantly in my free time

I reread The Belgariad recently shortly before starting to post on 50B. I had bought it for my DS who likes fantasy but who had run out of books to read - he and I were a bit stuck about what he could read next as a lot of modern fantasy is romantasy which didn’t appeal to him. It was much as I remembered it and I enjoyed it immensely. It’s clearly of its time so I suspect if you wanted to, you could find plenty to criticise - but I didn’t want to as it was a teenage favourite of mine.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie- The Belgariad (David Eddings) is a 5 volume quest story in which a farm boy finds that he is called to a great destiny. It lacks the epic depth of LOTR nor does the author aim for this, although that does have the advantage of sparing the reader from substandard Tolkienesque prose. You mentioned re Earthsea that there wasn’t enough dialogue - that’s not a problem with the Belgariad as the characters bicker talk constantly. I’ve no idea if you would like it - it’s 40ish years old & has the values of that time, so there’s lots a reader could find jarring if they dislike like the style / plot.

I originally found The Belgariad in Waterstones teenage section as someone had shoved a few of the volumes in there. Sadly the modern editions don’t have the print quality of the ones I remember - the maps are disappointingly blurred. What the new ones do have are endorsements by the children’s / YA authors Darren Shan & Christopher Paolini, who have both written a paragraph extolling how much they loved the series when they are younger. I do think that there is maybe a role for this type of classic easy read fantasy / Sci-fi in YA collections to appeal to teens who enjoy the adventure side of these genres rather than the romantic side.

Worth a bump, Eine, if you like the sound of it :)

I am in a reading slump with Palace Walk still ongoing and a sort of related non fiction about 1920s Cairo night life. I have just caught up with Les Mis so am hopeful I might be back on it.

Ramadan starts this week and although I don't fast and am not that religious, I have decided to try The Qu'ran this month just so I know what it actually says and argue debate better. To that end, I have the audible, Kindle and hard copy that I already had. I am also going to try to read some Muslim writers this month, not necessarily Muslim themes, I have found a light fantasy that I might try.

@ÚlldemoShúl You have already probably done everything and the weekend is over, and you'll already be at the NT and hopefully discovered possibly the most wonderful small book/bookish space in London. I work very close to there now, and when I am less lazy hoping to spend some of my lunchtimes there mooching about. I also have two Daunt's nearby, one is very close to a relative who I visit regularly so I spend way too much money in there.

@DesdamonasHandkerchief next time you are near Owl and if you have spare time, hit me up for a coffee, I am very local.

@TheDonsDingleberries @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I loved We which makes it one of I think two books Remus and I agree on, but I read it at uni (also wonderfully Bloomsbury so love Gower Street Waterstones) when I was immersed and obsessed with Russian literature and history.

p.s. I am debating the "Wuthering Heights" film, but Emerald whatsherface just winds me up in interviews. I love the book, but can accept it is inspired by. My instagram though - RAGING.

Do it but know that 75% of the novel isn’t in it, and its very silly and at times the tone is off. I agree about Emerald Fennell, Martin Clunes is very good as is Alison Oliver even if their parts are bastardised.

I still can’t reconcile her apparently loving the book and yet cutting it to ribbons

If We Were Villains - M.L. Rio

This had a really strong start and interesting premise. A mystery set in the drama department of a prestigious American college. 7 students are friends and lovers and rivals and then 6 of them become witnesses... and perhaps more... to the violent death of the 7th. They close ranks to hide their complicity and things start to unravel.

Anyone who has read The Secret History will find many parallels here and I was enjoying it for a while as a kind of tribute act to Donna Tartt. I liked the writing and there were some wonderful scenes of tension and menace. But as the book went on I found it harder to suspend disbelief or care about the ongoing dramatic twists, and I also got very weary of the endless Shakespeare quotes the students use constantly in conversation. I ended up disappointed and disenchanted.

I'm really finding it hard to find anything I love this year after so many highlights in December. I'm pushing through my To Read shelf but nothing's hit the spot yet.

"I just got irritated by the amount of times she used the word pivot. Esp in the sex scenes."

This did make me snigger, @HagCymraeg .

"PIVOT!". The mind boggles.

I regularly go to Kentish Town Library to return and borrow books, and try to check out whatever charity shops are still open when I get there, usually several hours later than intended. In fact, I've been intending to go all week, and got as far as putting on my shoes and coat this afternoon before deciding that I wasn't sure I would get there on time to sort out my library books, and probably wouldn't have time left to look at anything else. So I'm probably going on Tuesday.

So if anyone fancies a mini meet up in Kentish Town in future, with some advance planning, let me know. There is the Owl Bookshop, two specialist charity bookshops (Amnesty International and Oxfam, and several charity shops with a good selection of books, mostly a bit cheaper than the specialist ones - I've also bought secondhand mugs and new tea towels there.

The Owl Bookshop also hosts several book events a month - tickets are about £7 and the last event I planned to go to sold out, so next time I will book sooner. I'm still looking forward to the book, Mrs Peacey by Lottie Moggach - it was only published last week and my library reservation has come through already at Kentish Town. I think Lottie Moggach's mother, Deborah, still lives quite locally.

Me three.

Just finished my tenth book of the year, another RWYO - Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce. I was a way into it when I realised it was the same author as Harold Fry etc, and I had the same issue with this as I did with that in that I just never quite believed it. I had to force myself to keep going with this a few times as it was just irritating me, but I definitely enjoyed the second half more than the first.