50 Books Challenge 2026 Part Three

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the third 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 first thread of the year is here and the second thread here

I’m so sorry to hear of your troubles @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie . I hope things improve for you soon and until they do, may you find comfort in family friends and both high and lowbrow literature. ♥️

Sorry to hear that @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie. I hope things improve for you soon and I look forward to ‘seeing’ you when you’re ready to come back.

So sorry to hear that @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie do what you’ve got to do to get through and take care x

Hope you start to come out the other side soon @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie . It's a slog for sure, especially if other things are going on.

Hoping @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie returns soon 🍀

Sending love, Remus

I'll post my book related chat in a sec, but in case @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupieis still lurking, I'm sorry everything's gone to shit. We'll miss you while you're away.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie - you will be missed. Hope things improve and we see you again soon.

So sorry to hear that Remus, sending love. You know we'll be here when you're ready to return.

Sorry to hear that Remus, and see you when you feel ready.

Sorry to read that you're struggling Remus. Thinking of you.

Thanks @Southeastdweller for the new thread. Unfortunately I can't make the Liverpool mini meet-up despite being not too far away as I'm in London for the Easter weekend. But I'll keep watching in case the date changes...

My list to date:

1.Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
2.The Rest of Our Lives by Benjamin Markovits
3.Bournville by Jonathan Coe.
4.Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
5.Seascraper by Benjamin Wood
6.Shattered by Hanif Kureishi
7.Jump! by Jilly Cooper.
8.Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
*9.Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: China’s Stolen Children and a Story of Separated Twins by Barbara Demmick
10.The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald
11.Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

12.Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent. This kicks off with a grizzly murder, and so it's a whydunnit as opposed to a whodunnit. The murder, its precursors and its aftermath are dissected from the perpectives of the perpetrator, their accomplices and the victim's family. The fun is in the twists and reveals so I don't want to describe the plot, but it was a decent and pacey psychological thriller. I like Nugent's stuff. It's not wildly clever or inventive but gripping and entertaining.

13.Black and British: A Forgetten History by David Olusoga. I liked this less than I thought I would, but I think the fault here is between me and the marketing team, rather than the book. It seems to be sold as a broad history of Black britons from Roman times, black people in the medieval and Tudor periods, through the transatlanic trade in enslaved african people and into more modern times.

Obviously I am acutely aware that no history of Black people in the UK can be written without considering enslaved people, but most of this long book was spent focused on this period, which is the period I knew more about and so found less interesting. By contrast, the early sections on the first black people to settle in the UK via expansion of the Roman Empire were fascinating, as were the more detailed stories of individual Black Britons such as John Blanke, Pablo Fanque, and Sarah Forbes Bonetta. I was also deeply touched by Olusoga's harrowing reflections on his own family's experiences of racist abuse and harrassment. This is undoubtedly a very good and important book, just not quite what I wanted to read, and that's very much on me.

I'll miss you @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie, sending and lots of good wishes.

Sending love @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie. I will miss you. Hope things improve.

We'll miss you Remus and hope to see you again soon.

So sorry @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie , I hope things improve for you soon.

Sending good wishes @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie 💐Hope things look up in the future.

Look, we're missing you already, @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie !!
Take care of yourself

Hope you’re ok @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie and things improve soon.

Unfortunately I can’t make this meet up, but would love to at some point in the future.

Sorry to hear things are tough @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie 💐

Take care @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie. We'll be here when you are ready 💐

Latest reads:
13 The Tenant by Frieda McFadden - book club read and not really my usual thing; it's a psychological thriller in which a fairly unlikable man is tormented by the tenant he gets when he loses his job. Writing/characterisation etc was only OK, but there were a couple of good twists.
14 The Favourite by Fran Littlewood - as I've probably send before a 'big house, multi-generation family saga' is about my favourite type of set-up, and this one did a great job with the premise. The title refers to the father moving to save one of three daughters from a falling tree, and the fallout as they all grapple with the idea that she is the favourite. Moves between the perspectives of the women in the family - three sisters in their forties and their mother. I enjoyed it very much.
15 Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr (who wrote All the Light I Cannot See). I'm going to Rome at Easter with one of my daughters and did a quick search for books set in Rome and this came up. It's about his year as a writer-in-residence in Rome, which was also the first year of his twins' lives (and the year Pope Jean-Paul II died). There's a lot about art and history that went over my head (though was also a good primer because daughter-companion is highly interested and knowledgeable about Roman history), but the writing is as lovely as you'd expect. We relocated from London to Cornwall when my own twins were babies, so stuff about having baby twins in an unfamiliar place was particularly evocative for me. Really glad I stumbled on it.

I'm also a Marian Keyes (novels) fan - they are among the comfort-favourites I turn to when I can't cope with anything new. I haven't come across her non-fiction, but it doesn't sound very appealing to me based on what you've said here! Can't decide whether to watch the TV series or not though...

@ÚlldemoShúl thanks for the WP and IB reviews. I was wondering about choosing The Correspondent for book club as it's in paperback but was worried it sounded a bit twee, so you've confirmed I was right! I went for She Who Remains from the IB instead. Having just read The Manningtree Witches, more witch content doesn't really appeal at the moment so am also glad to swerve Olga Ravn.

I'm currently reading The Remembered Soldier - very long, interesting prose style - and listening to The Mercy Step so should have those done soon.

20 The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald. Re-read for Ben Reads Good March challenge. I did this for A level and was completely in love with Gatsby at the time. I didn't quite feel the same way now but there are still some great lines in this book.

21 A Family Matter - Claire Lynch. This is set in two timelines. We follow Dawn in 1982, a young mother who falls in love with her friend, and Heron and his grown up daughter Maggie in 2022. Heron has just found out he is dying and has been a single parent to Maggie. I thought this was brilliant. It's short but with some lovely writing and shines a light on custody battles of the 80s. A bold.

A Family Matter is currently waiting for me at the library @Stowickthevast. Been looking forward to it for a while, so this is a very well-timed endorsement!

The word “twee” in relation to books makes me think of The Midnight Library by Matt Haig or The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. It does not, for me, conjure up The Correspondent it was a bold for me, I really enjoyed it @Stowickthevast @ÚlldemoShúl