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 picked up This is where the serpent lives by Daniyal Mueenuddin which is my book club's book next month. Also got The editor's wife by Claire Chambers.

That is annoying. If you got it within the last two weeks, you can try to return it and then buy it for 99p.

The book about Facebook/Meta Careless People is in the Daily Deals for £1.99. I bought lots from Daily Deals and from other offers, including Workhorse by Caroline Palmer at 99p from my Kindle wishlist, a newish book I'd just reserved at the library (reservation now cancelled).

Oh and I got my own copy of Flashlight by Susan Choi, Booker shortlist and Women's Prize longlist title, previously read from the library and reviewed.

16 - The Wedding People – Alison Espach – have had this recommended to me all over the place. I did enjoy it but not quite sure what all the fuss was about.

@DesdamonasHandkerchief I haven't read any of this month's instalment of A Tale of Two Cities so you'll have to do without my insightful musings once again 😂I'll be along in a week or so...

I got the Julian Barnes as well and a Penelope Lively- The Road to Lichfield

I seem to have weaned myself off the monthly deals now they're so badly signposted, though I am dithering a bit over the Julian Barnes.

Latest for me: 24. Singled Out - Virginia Nicholson

A striking feature of many of our Rather Dated Bookclub reads has been the maiden aunt, a figure who crops up repeatedly in novels from the 20s to the 50s….actually, our latest, The Crowded Street, was entirely about one such unmarried woman, and its author, Winifred Holtby, is one of the dozens of 'involuntary spinsters' to crop up in this great book.
The carnage of WW1 left a huge disparity in the number of marriageable men and women, with 'the Surplus Two Million', as they were dubbed, facing a future with the very real prospect of never marrying or having children, often having lost their prospective male partners (Vera Brittain being the leading example). It's not an issue today to be single and working, but the rigid expectations of women's destiny meant there was huge prejudice around women getting (not to mention holding down) jobs to support their single state - even if they could get them.
Nicholson interviewed many very elderly single women, then living in care-homes, and the stories are fascinating, heartbreaking and often inspiring: there are lots of pioneering women in science, industry and the arts; others made quiet successes of everyday lives by forming loyal, lifelong - companionate - friendships for decades and ending their lives still together; I definitely shed a tear at one couple who insisted on sharing their care-home accommodation as one of them descended into dementia.
It’s an info-heavy read (and very small print in my edition) but never less than absorbing. A bold for me, I think.

I did finish The Best of Everything in the end and it was just OK.
I've got A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing waiting for me on Libby, I'm looking forward to reading that one.

My WP reads in order of how much I loved them:

The Correspondent 4.5/5
Heart The Lover 4/5
The Benefactors 4/5
Kingfisher 4/5
The Best of Everything 3.75/5
Audition 3.75/5

Am just about to start Flashlight on audio, got a 5 hour drive on Monday so am sorted for entertainment.

My other reading has been suffering slightly due to the WP - am many chapters behind with A Tale of Two Cities but hope to catch up when I'm on annual leave next week

Julian Barnes' latest (and he says, his last) novel is a Daily Deal, £1.99. An earlier book A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters is on offer for 99p.

You’ll be missed TimeforaGandT & NowanearlyNicemum but I look forward to your musings in a week or so.

On and @InTheCludgie is behind too. I’m going to be Billy No Mates on the Tale Of Two Cities thread 😂

18 The Crossing Places - Elly Griffiths First in the Ruth Galloway series, which I know lots of 50 Bookers like (I got the recommendation from here, as with much of what I read!). Ruth is an archaeologist specialising in bones and decomposition, and is called in to provide expert advice when bones (iron-age, it turns out) are found on the Norfolk marsh close to where she lives. That leads to her getting involved in the investigation into a missing child, a case which has strong parallels to an unsolved missing child case from ten years earlier.

There were a ridiculous number of coincidences in this book but I enjoyed it nonetheless and would like to see more of the characters - I’ll look out for book 2 in future deals. The writing and characterisation reminded me a lot of Ann Cleeves’ books (Shetland etc).

40 To Sir Phillip, With Love by Julia Quinn

I’ve read a couple of Bridgerton books and have not been impressed but I love the TV series, and as I’m still not feeling great I thought this might work well when I saw it in the monthly deals. I’m glad I made my first book purchase of the year as I really enjoyed this story of the romance between Eloise Bridgerton and Sir Phillip Crane, widowed father of two. It was streets ahead of the other Bridgerton books so I’m really looking forward to when they adapt this one.

I think I’m going to get a couple of other books in the deals this time.

Sorry @DesdamonasHandkerchief I’m also behind - will be catching up at the weekend!

@CrochetGrannySquare – I have the kindle app on my phone in case of emergencies, but I always take books with me if I’m away for a few days. I couldn’t bear the thought of not having a book to hand.

Since I updated my Kindle, I don’t see the deals. This is probably a good thing. I’ve managed to keep my numbers below 20.

My latest book has arrived for my America 250 book club, Ragtime by EL Doctorow. Has anyone read it? Or seen the musical?

44 The Impossible Fortune – Richard Osman – Thursday Murder Club 5. A year after the previous book and our intrepid heroes are living a quiet life. Except for Joyce, who’s daughter is getting married and its Joanna’s wedding that opens the book. At the wedding, Elizabeth is approached by a guest who is worried about his safety. A bomb was put under his car. Is this linked to the impossible fortune? Yes, of course is it. If like me, you have enjoyed the previous TMC books, then you’ll enjoy this one too. More peripheral characters are fleshed out and I liked that.

@DesdamonasHandkerchief - I am hoping to have caught up by tonight!

13. How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days by Sophie Irwin.

Regency romance.

Lydia has received a surprise proposal from Lord Ashford, and her family make it clear that she’s to accept or be shipped off in disgrace to live with a maiden aunt. She’s not keen and doesn’t initially understand why he’s even proposed (it’s motivated largely by her money and his estate’s lack of money).

But, Lydia and her brother Pip have also been invited to a 10 day long country house party which Lord Ashford will also be attending, and the end of the house party will mark the formal announcement of the engagement.

And so begins Lydia’s attempt to be as awful and unsuitable as she can get away with in a mission to have Ashford call off the engagement by the end of the party.

The ending was not at all surprising, but it was certainly entertaining getting there.

14. Fast Diet by Dr Michael Mosley & Mimi Spencer.

This is about intermittent fasting, specifically the 5:2 diet where the idea is you eat normally for five days of the week and then eat 500 kcal on the other two days of the week.
It all sounds fairly straightforward, but of course with these things the trickiest bit is always actually managing to put it into practice.

@SpunkyKhakiScroller- thank you, that’s a lovely compliment. Hope you enjoy Artists!

@BestIsWest- I didn’t know about the Gwen John exhibition & it sounds very tempting although both Edinburgh & Cardiff would be a trip for me. This though really shows the point I made earlier about why it’s important that libraries stock the longlists as it wouldn’t have occurred to me to even think about going to a Gwen John exhibition before I read Artists. Whether or not I go, you’ve also made me think about how much I used to enjoy going to exhibitions, but it’s not something I’ve done for a few years and that I should probably start to make more of an effort.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit- sorry to hear that you are so tired. I did wonder if you had thought about thinking about when you read as well as what you read - I always read late at night as it stops me thinking about the days events & I sleep better (it’s why there are lots of novels on my lists as it’s too late for anything challenging).

Today’s haul:
A Town Called Alice by Nevil Shute (reread due to the love on this thread)
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (reread partly because I have recently reread P&P & partly due to the book I’m about to review)
A Murder of Quality by John Le Carré
The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
Detective Aunty by Uzma Jalaluddin

38 . Heiresses by Miranda Kauffman - history book about 9 women living in 18th & 19th century England whose wealth was due to the slave trade. I liked this subject as I think that there is a need for more writing about the slave trade and the Abolition and this did increase my understanding of it. That said, it took me a while to warm to the book and I think that was because the first heiresses were not particularly interesting as - later ones were rather more interesting due to their links with famous &/ significant people. The book was very effective in showing how the heiresses tended to live “respectably” in England at a distance from the people whose exploitation funded their lifestyle. They also included Jane Austen’s aunt. Miranda Kauffman suggests that JA might have modelled some characters on her aunt: Mrs Allen in Northanger, Lady Denham in Sandison & Mrs Norris in MP (hence my recent purchase). Possibly the aunt didn’t realise this as she is known to have reread JA’s work in later life (if someone had modelled Mrs N on me I certainly would not be looking at their work again). MP is the JA book with the most references to the slave trade, which is why I want to look at it again.

16. A Schooling in Murder by Andrew Taylor

I slogged my way through this. It has some great reviews and he has a good track record. But oh dear, what a silly plot - a teacher is murdered at a girls' boarding school in the 1940s and the murdered teacher is the narrator, as she is still hanging around the school and grounds, like they do in the TV show Ghosts. She is able to communicate with her replacement teacher who is writing a detective novel, but only by somehow forcing him to type out her thoughts as he is typing his novel. I was so infuriated by this plot device, I could not take any of it seriously.

The Gwen John Exhibition is going to be on at Edinburgh between 1 August and 4 January. Is it worthwhile having a 50 bookers trip?

@Benvenuto – if you like a podcast, I can recommend Empire by Anita Anand and William Dalrymple. They interview Miranda Kauffman in Episode 307 Austen v Bronte: Unmasking Slavery Heiresses.

25. Treasures of Time - Penelope Lively

I switched on R4 yesterday and heard Harriett Gilbert and her guests raving about Penelope Lively's Heatwave on 'A Good Read'. That was going to be my next book, therefore, but I somehow got sidetracked into reading this, her third novel.
Museum worker Kate lives with aspiring historian Tom; they plan to marry. Kate reluctantly takes Tom home to meet her widowed mother, the narcissistic Laura, who lives in the idyllic countryside with her sister Nellie, confined to a wheelchair after a stroke. Laura is a monster of self-regard who basks in her status as the widow of famous archaeologist Hugh Paxton, despite not having had an atom of real understanding or interest in his work (there’s a never-mentioned history between Hugh and Nellie, however), and when a BBC producer arrives wanting to shoot a documentary on the great man, Kate and Tom also get involved. Things don’t end happily for the young couple.

It was all absolutely fine, with plenty of keen observation, but I’m just not quite sure I grasped what the story was trying to tell me, and sadly I didn’t love it. I think there are better Lively novels out there….probably the one I should have read in the first place!

A Forest, Darkly by A.G. Slatter
Another marvellous dark fairytale set in the author’s Sourdough alternative world. In her own words, this is her ‘menopausal witch in a forest’ novel and I loved it as much as the others. The ethereal, the everyday and the occasionally earthy perfectly mixed, doing what the best fairy tales should do, with a steely core of feminism that is fundamental, not just added on.

Finished The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh on a plane on the way back from Prague (lovely).

I had heard very positive things about this writer and I always like Indian novels. This left me a bit flat though. I think it was meant to be beautifully crafted, romantic, epic, sweeping - all that stuff. I got all the themes but really it took to the last 70 pages for the plot to build and by that point I had no real interest in , frankly underdeveloped and rather flat, characters. It was , for me, a bit of a slog.

Thanks @Benvenuto I usually read in the evening and have an audiobook after 10 but nothings happening at the moment

How are you feeling @EineReiseDurchDieZeit ? I got A Woman of Substance for 99p on the kindle. I find a nostalgic read helpful when I'm not feeling 100%.

Hi @Tarragon123im just so tired got a meniscus tear in my knee the physio thinks! I just want to find a book ! Might try and get a Woman of Substance Thanks