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 felt quite nostalgic reading your post @elkiedee thinking of those lovely times I had mooching about in charity shops in Kentish Town and Hampstead, and how quickly I used to get new library books from Camden council (and Westminster) when I lived in London. Here up north, I have to wait a month (first world problem, I know). Good to see that library’s still going.

@AliasGrape - I have Miss Benson's Beetle lingering on my Kindle and in my sights as part of RWYO. However, I haven't read Harold Fry so will be coming to it cold....

7) If we were villains by M.L. Rio. Ten years ago, Oliver Marks was one of seven final year drama students at an elite academy. The seven lived in each others' pockets, and considered each other family, complete with friendly rivalries. Until the competition turned serious, one of them was found dead, and Oliver ended up in a prison for a murder he may or may not have committed.

On the day of his release, Oliver's met by the detective who arrested him. Detective Colbourne has never believed Oliver's story and now, as he approaches retirement, he wants to know the truth.

This is basically a popcorn version of The Secret History. All the characters are insufferable, the ending is ridiculous, and Oliver is nowhere near as 'nice' or 'good' as his friends keep telling him he is. But damn if it wasn't entertaining! 😁

Thanks for this. I’ll see if I can get the sample of the first one.

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh That sounds my sort of thing. Bought for a grand total of 29p.

@AgualusasL0ver that would be lovely. We were actually helping DD pack up her flat as she’s renting it out and moving to New York with her job next week, but all this talk of wonderful London bookshops is making me think it would be worth a special trip to a few anyway and I certainly could have spent hours in Owl.

@AgualusasL0ver I’m imagining you working on a Venn diagram of our cross-over novels and our huge disagreements. 😂

6 Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
I almost loved this, but sheered away at the last moment. I’m left feeling deeply uncertain about any of it - the mixture of the comic and the bleak, the intense limitations the characters live under, an inability to visualise any of the people in the book. Probably it was just the wrong book at the wrong time. Maybe it will stay with me.

@TheDonsDingleberries a coincidence, I just finished the same and commented above. I found it very entertaining at first but lost faith with it around Act 4. I think for me it never reached the same heights of tension that it did after the death, and that's a lot of book left to get through!

Great!
I know, it's for nothing!

@elkiedee I love the idea of a mini- meetup and charity bookshop wander. I'm not close to London, but I do occasionally visit. I tend to stay away from shops selling new books, enticing as they are, as I can't risk that level of financial temptation, but a good charity shop is a joy.

@Frannyisreading I enjoyed it overall, but Shakespeare really should have been credited as a second author for amount he was quoted!

As I had already bought it, I ploughed ahead and read Slow Horses after not enjoying the Zoe Boehm outing. I preferred this as some of the characterisation was OK but there was too much dialogue for me, too much intrigue to follow and too many characters I couldn't care less about. Only poor Hassan caught my interest. I shan't read another.

7. Zero Days by Ruth Ware

Jack and her husband Gabe work as penetration specialists (basically breaking into companies to test their security systems).

But after one routine job goes wrong, Jack returns home to find Gabe brutally murdered, and when it becomes clear that she’s the only suspect the police are looking at, she decides to go on the run to uncover the truth behind Gabe’s murder.

It’s an action packed thriller and I found it a very good read.

@bibliomania

I think charity shops can be more dangerous, as if I see something in a new bookshop here, I can think I'll look at library catalogues/add it to my Amazon wishlists (both) - as well as checking them for Kindle deals frequently, I use them as a reminder of what I'd like to look for in library catalogues.

But do let me know if you'd like to arrange to meet up in London, and where - Kentish Town has a cluster, Crouch End has a larger Oxfam Bookshop and quite a few others on the next street. In central London there's a cluster of shops in walkable distance, including an Oxfam Bookshop, from the south end of Bloomsbury down to Leicester Square tube station.

A bit far from me these days, but for northerners, if anyone finds themselves in Leeds/West Yorkshire, the Headingley Oxfam Bookshop is now absolutely gigantic. Ilkley, where my mum lived for the last 18 years of her life, is a good place to check out all the charity shops. On one visit up there I arranged to meet up with someone from an online book group, Read It Swap It, and a few others wanted to join us. I was amazed when we ended up having about 12 of us meeting for lunch, even though the original person I'd planned to have a mini-meet with couldn't make it. My mum had had very upsetting news the day before so I was also feeling a bit sad and distracted.

A Kindle freebie I came across yesterday, just checked this morning, The Skip Langdon Mysteries by Julie Smith is a 9 book collection of a series featuring a maverick female detective in New Orleans. I read and enjoyed New Orleans Mourning and The Axeman's Jazz years ago, but it's become yet another series that I still haven't caught up with. This Kindle edition has numbered pages, over 3,000+ of them too- though it's rare I read more than one book in a series consecutively.

I'd be up for a mini North London meet too - I'm a bit further east but easy enough on tube/overground.

I don't understand why no-one makes the second half of Wuthering Heights - at least there's a slight redemption at the end. Agree about Emerald Fennell being quite annoying @AgualusasL0ver I want to support her as not very many successful women directors but she also feels incredibly over privileged.

14. The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield. As I type this, I realise I missed a trick by not reading this as my 13th book of the year. This was a RWYO and was one of the oldest books on my Kindle. It's narrated by Margaret whose father owns an antique bookshop. A famous but mysterious author summons her to her Yorkshire house (on the moors obviously) to be her biographer and tell the story of her life. It's got a lot of references to Victorian novels like Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Woman in White with a typical cast of housekeeper, gardener, dissolute parents, orphans and governess. I was really drawn into it - especially just having read WH. It does lose its way a little in the second half, there's a bit of woo which I wasn't convinced by - but on the whole I really enjoyed it. It could be a good one for those in a slump.

@Stowickthevast I’ve read 3 Diane Setterfields, I don’t know if she has more I enjoyed Thirteenth Tale
Bellman and Black was unusual and eerie, but I basically don’t remember Once Upon A River

Not sure I’ve posted any reviews recently.

5 Menopausing – Davina McCall + Dr Naomi Potter
A book that needed to be written. I listened to Davina read it on audible which I think was a good delivery. Although with audio you obviously need to go back or take notes on anything of particular interest. Much of the content I already knew and quite a bit I didn’t so overall useful but probably too many real-life examples for my liking.

6 Crazy Rich Asians – Kevin Kwan – must have picked this up on a kindle 99p deal, years ago. Not really my thing. All a bit galling to read about how multi-billionaires spend their time and money. Probably won’t read any more in the series. Did a good job of providing a few very-easy-reading hours though.

7 Troubled Blood – Robert Galbraith – loved it. My favourite yet? Quite possibly. Can’t wait to start the next one...

Still having a fabulous time in London. Went to Bloomsbury, saw the Virginia Woolf bust and the Gower St Waterstones (fabulous) yesterday also Sir John Soanes and the Foundling museums today on the advice of 50 Bookers. Enjoyed both but Sir John Soanes was a particular delight- helped by the enthusiasm and knowledge of a young volunteer in the sarcophagus room. Just fabulous.

Also finished another book
21 The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
Lush gothic prose, the book is set after the Second World War when Dr Faraday is called to the ‘big house’ Hundreds Hall, where his mother worked as a nursery maid. He becomes intimately involved with the Ayers family who are living there in straitened circumstances and the house seems to have a mind of its own. This took my a while to finish- slower paced and not quite as engrossing as Fingersmith, still a good solid read and I will read more by Waters (and take more advice from 50 Bookers!)

I have watched “Wuthering Heights”.

As an adaptation of the book it’s atrocious. Leaves out half the book and characters, casting is terrible, adds in loads of stuff that isn’t in the book, etc. etc.

However, if you approach it as a mad fever dream where Jilly Cooper was asked to write a Wuthering Heights bodice ripper parody, and set it in a parallel universe that bears only a passing resemblance to late 1700s Yorkshire, then you won’t go far wrong and watching it through that lens I actually quite liked it. Some of the costumes and house design is quite stunning (while being totally wrong for an accurate representation of the book).

@ChessieFLI just feel so frustrated that there was this opportunity to do a new version and that was the result!

Yes, I do wish someone would have a go at a proper adaptation that tells the full story and doesn’t turn it into a romance!

I'm going to see it on Wednesday. A friend of mine asked me if I want to see it with her.

Thanks @elkiedee , I'll let you know if I'm in those parts.

@ÚlldemoShúl glad you liked the Sir John Soane's museum. It's so atmospheric.