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

@ChessieFL I'm glad to see that I’m not the only person confused by this book!

I’ve been spending far too much time this evening trying to figure out what was meant to be going on 🤣🫣

I'm Glad My Mom Died - Jennette McCurdy.

Memoir from former child actress Jennette, in which she writes about her struggles as a child actor, her abuse by her mother, her romantic relationships and her eating disorders. This was mostly unengaging - the writing was mainly mundane and there was a lot of repetition - her story would have been better told in a newspaper article, and with more self-reflection from the author. I also felt some of the passages in which she detailed her sexual encounters were gratuitous and cheapened her story. I feel slightly regretful I spent a tenner on this instead of waiting for a library copy and I'm looking forward to dumping it in a charity shop tomorrow. The acclaim for this mediocre book is mystifying.

31. The City of Brass by Shannon Chakraborty - I found this heavy going to start with as there was a lot of worldbuilding with a lot of names and history to keep track of. About halfway in, it started picking up momentum and I ended up enjoying it. Have reserved the sequel at the library already. I read some fantasy but not loads and it needed a mental adjustment - I suspect I will enjoy the rest of the trilogy more now that the context is established. I appreciated that the romance element is very low key and that the politics is very grey. There are no obvious goodies and baddies!

I read it a while ago and found it touching. My kids were big I Carly fans back in the day and so I was very familiar with her and she came across as so capable, tough even, so the book was quite a shock. I had a very controlling mother and a lot of what she experienced resonated for me.

Watching You - Helen Fields

Police thriller on KUL about a surgeon and the stalker who drove her DD to suicide. Rather far fetched.

I also appreciated I’m Glad My Mom Died but I tried Half His Age and couldn’t get past the beginning. Admittedly this was as audiobook, she narrated it herself and it was like listening to someone speaking very fast at you and it was hard work!

I listened on audio last year and enjoyed it too - if enjoyed is the right word.

My daughter has just discovered Sam & Cat (though I’ve hidden it for now as I still think it’s a bit grown up for her she’s only 5) and I got a jolt when I realised who she was.

Umpteenth attempt at posting this and cannot get it to format well at all. There are my 2026 books numbers 25 to 35 that I read in March but MN can’t cope with my original formatting!

1. In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead
2. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (audiobook)
3. Foster by Claire Keegan
4. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (audiobook)
5. The Daughter by TM Logan
6. The New Age of Sexism by Laura Bates
7. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling (audible audiobook)
8. The Storm Sister by Lucinda Riley (audiobook)
9. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
10. The Kommandant’s Girl by Pam Jenoff
11. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (audiobook)

Few random picks in there for local book club and also Goodreads winter challenge. Very pleased to see God of the Woods is going to be made into a television series. Set in an American summer camp over a duel time line and from multi character POVs. In August 1975 13 year old Barbara goes missing overnight from her cabin, 14 years after her older brother Bear also vanished, never to be seen again. Lots of suspense, loved Judyta the young state’s first female detective. This is a thriller, full of suspense but with no gore/injury details. Almost all the character POVs are women/girls and very relatable.

I have also just finished My Husband’s Wife by Alice Feeney (audiobook). This was ok, I’m not a huge fan of hers but this was definitely better than Beautiful Ugly which I just couldn’t get on with at all. This is about Eden, who returns from a run to find her key doesn’t fit in the front door and the woman who answers the door is pretending to be her. This is one of those twists upon twist books and I felt more confused than satisfied at its conclusion!

Recently finished Witness 8 (Eddie Flynn #8) by Steve Cavanagh which is one of the best of the series for me so far.

Also just finished Theo of Golden by Allen Levi which I’d seen raved about online. This is about Theo an 86 year old Portuguese man who moves to Golden, Georgia. He stars purchasing portraits which are displayed in a local coffee shop and reunites them with their subjects. It is very touching but should really be advertised as Christian literature, not that that was an issue for me but not really my thing. The last 50 pages or so were really excellent and tied everything up nicely but I did get quite bored in the middle and didn’t feel the urge to pick it up. But there are thousands of 5 star reviews so maybe I just have a cold dead heart!

Loving the reviews of the WBP nominees, I have lots saved on my reading lists and am finding them very helpful in deciding which ones to give a go.

22 . Death Of The Author by Nnedi Okorafor

Zelu, a paraplegic Nigerian American, writes a book called ‘Rusted Robots’ which is quickly lauded as the next big thing and the consequences for Zelu are far reaching.

I bought this by clicking on Buy Now by accident and it has broken my slump, but I did think this was poorly written throughout and I found the excerpts from the allegedly ground breaking novel absolutely excruciating. I skimmed them in the end.

Additionally, though Zelu is well rounded, no other character comes off the page as a believable person.

Claims of being ‘a visionary sci fi novel’ are thin at best.

Back to casting around for my next read!

11 Tom Lake - Ann Patchett
Recently discussed on here, not much for me to add really. I didn't love it, didn't hate it. I'm not familiar with Our Town but I get the impression this is engrained in the US national psyche and as such would be far more meaningful to an American reader.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I read that last year and wasn't impressed. My quote - "For me, neither story was particularly compelling. In the first story, Zelu and her family are all a bit annoying and the second doesn't have much depth. There are some interesting descriptions and ideas but it's not brilliantly written." Weird how it's had rave reviews.

31. Three Days in June by Anne Tyler - super quick read about Gail, a 61 year old woman, who has been told she'll have to leave her job on the day before her daughter's wedding. The story revolves around the wedding and Gail's relationship with her ex Max. Good for Tyler fans, and not going to convert any that aren't.

I enjoy your reviews too cassandre. Have also been enjoying the prize list reviews. I’ve very much been taking a break from the literary with: The Last Girl (Maeve Kerrigan no. 3), which I didn’t love but hoping the series will take off soon, and Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby van Pelt which was a book group choice and I persevered with as I’d spent actual money on. A cleaner with a tragic past is befriended by an octopus at the aquarium she works at. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say it provides a feel-good happy ending as this is very much coded for on the front cover. The rest of my book group may like it, it really wasn’t for me.

@Stowickthevast yeah it’s big on ideas but it doesn’t come off because the writing can’t reach them

14) The Names by Florence Knapp. A sort of three-way Sliding Doors with the inciting incident being the name that a mother registers her newborn son - Bear, Julian, or Gordon. A timeline for each name emerges, following the 3 different lives of Cora's son at seven year intervals across the first 35 years of their lives

This book has been spoken about a lot and, while I enjoyed it, from how it was marketed I thought the focus would be how Bear/Julian/Gordon were perceived by the wider world as a result of their names and the effect this has on their lives. Perhaps examining a teacher's preconceived ideas about a boy called Bear in their class during the early 90s, when the name would have been unheard of. Or whether Julian's CV was given preference over another equally qualified job applicant because the recruiter thought they sounded more 'professional'.

Instead the different timelines were actually a result of how Cora reacts to her husband's abuse after registering the birth. Beyond that the names are fairly irrelevant to the storyline, which wasn't what I was expecting.

Still worth a read though.

I get what you’re saying @TheDonsDingleberries and I had some preconceived ideas about The Names too but it ended up as a bold for me

I thought it was just about how the boys' lives developed because of their names

It’s been a busy couple of weeks but I finally caught up with the thread – hence the review dump.

18) Educated – Tara Westover

I’m late to the party as always, as this memoir has been much reviewed here. It recounts the childhood into early adulthood of Tara, growing up in a large Mormon family in rural Idaho. It’s very matter of fact about the consequences of a dangerous combination of extreme religious beliefs, the rural landscape, and her father’s state of mind that put Tara and her siblings into constant danger, and the impact this had on her family, her elder brother in particular. Her education pulled her out of the cycle but was a hard-won victory with the deeply-sown beliefs hard to discard. Not an easy read, but a powerful story.

19) Desperate Undertaking – Lindsey Davis

A RWYO, ninth in the series of the Flavia Albia whodunnits set in ancient Rome. Someone bears a grudge against the theatrical community and determines to get their revenge by a series of publicly-discovered murders, each themed around a Greek or Roman tragedy. Albia is asked to investigate by an old friend of her father’s, but is her own family on the killers’ list to suffer a gruesome stage death?
The world of Falco/Flavia Albia is my happy place, though the murders were some of the most disturbing in the series. For long-term Falco readers it was rewarding to meet with old (and some very early) characters again, some in tragic circumstances, others in more upbeat encounters, and the set pieces were as enjoyable as ever.

20) Expert Witness – Dr HJ Walls

Another RWYO, this describes the early career of the author at Hendon and Bristol Laboratories in the fledging days of forensic science, from the late 1930s onwards. Published in 1971, this was surprisingly readable, apart from the chapter on the author’s visit to South America to investigate a case of arson, which made for uncomfortable reading – not the case itself, but his personal views. Overall though, it was an interesting insight into the early development of forensic science, and the final chapter on his thoughts of what the ‘future’ may hold for the discipline was fascinating and in some ways quite prescient.

Inspired by @PermanentTemporary ’s recent (perhaps not so recent, sorry!) insightful review of Erotic Vagrancy I have started on The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, which I was going to tackle last year in honour of his centenary. This is no small undertaking – the introduction alone is 30 pages of small print in a large hardback – so I’ll look to divide it up through the year interspersed with other books. However, I’ve been well and truly sucked in by what I’ve read so far, and I need to be careful not to get fully submerged into Sellers’ world, not a place I’d be comfortable spending much time by all accounts.

Two more RWYOs finished for me.

41 We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker

From the title I thought this was going to be one of those books where they tell you at the start what happened and then spend the rest of the book showing you how we got there, but it wasn’t. Vincent King is getting out of prison after 30 years and is returning to the town where he grew up, and where the girl he killed also lived. His best friend is now the police chief, and his ex girlfriend, and sister of the girl he killed, also lives there with her two children, Duchess and Robin. This had a few obligatory twists and turns, some of which stretched my credulity, and others which were quite good. Overall I quite enjoyed this one.

42 Focus: Birth of a Time Traveler by Kendra Rumbugh

A girl at college (can’t remember her name now) discovers she can travel into the past by hyper focusing on specific memories. It’s not brilliantly written, and the main character is irritating, but there were enough intriguing elements to keep me reading. I liked this enough to begin the second in the series, but that’s was a quick DNF. Free on kindle unlimited.

43 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Evelyn Hugo, Hollywood icon, tells the story of her life to a little known journalist, structured around her 7 marriages. As we grow to know Evelyn, both the good and the bad, we discover just why she has decided to tell all now, and why she has chosen Monique to tell her story to. I enjoyed the glimpse of the rot behind old Hollywood glamour and thought this was an engaging story. High literature it ain’t, but I really enjoyed it, although yet again it’s not a bold.

Finished book 16, The Sleepwalkers by Scarlett Thomas today. I found it very unnerving and atmospheric in a really oppressive way and it was extremely well-written with cleverly drawn (almost all unpleasant) characters. Ultimately I think it tried to do a bit too much but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Now about to start Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison, a subversive horror novel.

33. Independence by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - A quicker read than I expected given the harrowing subject matter - the violence surrounding Indian Independence and the Partition of India. Looked at from the perspective of 3 Hindu Bengali sisters - one of whom marries a Muslim - it covers about 18 months preceding and after Independence, focusing on the horrific communal violence triggered by the Partition. I am familiar with the historical events on the western/Pakistan side of things but this was about Bengal and was new to me. It was a solid read but didn't break the emotional barrier for me which it really should have. The plot is fine if a little melodramatic. I was left wishing it was longer and just better. It could have been so much more than it is.

Oh I also just finished The Infamous Gilberts @ChessieFL and had mixed feelings about it - I liked the style and the structure but got a bit frustrated at how much happened off the page (‘of course you’ll have read all about this scandal…’) and I found it hard that every character but one was so irredeemably ghastly!

I also finished Female, Nude by Rhiannon Lucy Coslett. Set over a week long hen party at a Greek villa which ends (not a spoiler!) in disaster, the main character Sophie is weighing up whether to have a baby with her partner when she really wants to be an artist, and having a fling with a local waiter. It’s interspersed with little vignettes about different female artists who have painted or created self portraits throughout history, which I found interesting and it introduced me to some artists I hadn’t heard of. The drama at the end all got a bit silly but I do like a book about a hot holiday going wrong and I zipped through it.

Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin

I was drawn in by reviews on here and the cover line of 'the first time I kissed a girl my brother died' and it didn't disappoint.

Ferdia is to be made a saint and his sister Jay is not sure how she feels about it. That's the whole book but the exploration of grief and how it stretches out and affects your whole life was excellently done. Jay felt one of the most real characters I have come across in a long time, she wants to make excuses and leave difficult conversations, she isn't brave and she doesn't always say the right thing. This feels more realistic than those who are able to clearly articulate their feelings about deep important subjects.

I also learned a huge amount about the Catholic faith, but I still feel very wtf about it all. I grew up Baptist and remain baffled how people looked at the same teachings and constructed such different churches from it! As an adult I strongly suspect everyone is getting it wrong, I think it's simply about loving your neighbour as yourself.

36 Experience, Martin Amis
Memoir by the novelist circling around three main themes: his relationship with his father, the author Kingsley Amis, his dental woes, and the death of his cousin Lucy Partington at the hands of Fred West. The latter two blend around the edges, so he says that whenever he is restrained for a medical procedure and whenever he has an x-ray, he thinks of her (her bones were found alongside evidence of binding). It's all a bit of an odd mixture, but in the end, the impression it left was family love: the sorrow of elderly members dying (and the horror of those who die before their time) and the joy of new arrivals. More touching than I expected.

37. These Old Shades, Georgette Heyer
Wicked duke acquires unusual young woman as ward. The outcome is never in any doubt, but GH has some fun getting there - secret identities, an abduction, pistols and very glamorous wardrobes, not least for the men.

38. The Aspern Papers, Henry James
Biographer takes up lodgings in Venetian palazzo as he hopes to coax the old lady who lives there to give him the papers of a famous poet she knew in her youth. If she won't, perhaps her niece will? And what kind of bargain is he prepared to make to get those papers? I was expecting a bit more melodrama from this novella - I had a vague idea that maybe the palazzo was burnt down in the end or something, but it's more about the narrator's tussle with his conscience about how unscrupulous he is willing to be. I say "tussle" but he finds that his conscience is very accommodating to his wishes. Read as I am currently reading a biography of the real-life inspiration, Claire Clairmont. I hope the fictional doesn't spill over into my picture of the real person, who is a much livelier character - admittedly I'm still reading about her teen years rather than her extreme old age.

39. Wreck, Catherine Newman
Sequel to Sandwich and more of the same. Woman in her fifties frets about her health and the wellbeing of her two young adult children, particularly the ethics of her son's career choice. If you liked Sandwich, you'll like this; if not, it won't convert you. It's a warm portrayal of family life (there's a scene where her elderly father snipes at the narrator because he's missing her mother - I thought this was really well done) that sometimes descends into smug and cloying. I did find it very readable, despite some irritation.

You Broke Me First - Lorraine Brown

This was my Amazon first reads freebie, chicklit about a journalist interviewing a bad boy tennis player. When a photo of them together is misinterpreted they decide to fake a romance to improve his image and get back at her ex. It’s as predictable as you would expect but as a tennis fan I liked all the tennis settings - wouldn’t have bothered with it otherwise.

L is for Lawless - Sue Grafton

Kinsey chases someone across the country in a search for some stolen money. This was a bit better than the last few although the ending felt rushed and inconclusive.

Behind on the thread so some reviews from me, and will try to catch up with chat and responses to others' reviews later.

19 Smoke and Ashes, Abir Mukherjee (RWYO)

Third in the Sam Wyndham series (I read the first, accidentally skipped the second but it didn't spoil anything).

In 1920s India, Sam is trying to hide his increasingly problematic opium addiction from his superiors in the Calcutta police force. While off his head in a backstreet opium den, he sees, or thinks he sees, a dead body with strange mutilations, but when he returns the next day there's no sign of it. Then he's sent to investigate a completely unrelated death - except that the woman's body bears the same strange mutilations.

Set against a backdrop of political unrest and increasing protest against British rule, this was an engaging and easy read - can recommend this series for anyone in a reading funk.

DNF Thirtynothing, Lisa Jewell

Love a second chance romcom, usually love Lisa Jewell. Gave up on this after 2-3 chapters as both the main characters were insufferable.

20 Atmosphere, Taylor Jenkins Reid

I have had mixed success with TJR - read a couple that I loved (I am happy to go along for a schlocky, over-emotive ride as long as it's fun!) and a couple that left me cold. This was a mixed bag.

It's told as a dual narrative. In the present (well, 1984 when the book is set), there's been an accident on a US space shuttle. It's down to the one astronaut still conscious to bring the shuttle back to earth, and Mission Control to talk her down. As the two women get onto the radio, it's clear that there is some history here between them.

In the flashbacks, we see our two MCs meet as pioneering wannabe astronauts, trying to succeed in a NASA who have never let women join the space programme before. And yes, they fall in love, and that's problematic as well, because it's the 80s, and NASA is very conservative.

There was a lot of promise in this set-up but for me, the book fell short. I wanted a lot more geeky space/science stuff and less repetitive feeeeeelings stuff (both the main love relationship and the relationship between the main protagonist and her sister and niece just seemed to go round in circles taking up a lot of words).

I don't have a heart of stone. I WAS moved by the final couple of chapters. But God, you can see TJR writing her little socks off absolutely DETERMINED to wring tears from you, and it felt a little forced.

21 Death in Venice, Thomas Mann

Gosh, this was a strange little book. I thought I knew what I was reading but apparently I did not.

It's only 5 chapters long (about 150 pages on my Kindle). Gustav von Aschenbach is a writer who has settled into a successful and respectable middle age. One day, while waiting for a tram, he catches the eye of a passing man on the street, and this awakes in him a desperate and dream-like longing to travel south.

In Venice (surprisingly, to me, he is staying at the beach and not in the city - I thought this would all take place among the mysterious little streets and canals), he develops an obsession with a "beautiful" 14 year old boy who is staying with his family at the same hotel. With the oppressive sultry weather and the ancient and filthy city of Venice, everything is described in a strange trance-like fashion. Von Aschenbach's actions become less and less rational, as he fantasises that he and the boy are figures in a Greek myth, or a classical teacher and student learning philosophical wisdom together (no huge spoilers but I can reassure you that, unlike Humbert Humbert, von Aschenbach doesn't get anywhere near to the disturbingly young object of his affections - mostly he follows him around in a comically underhand way, having a panic attack when they accidentally meet face-to-face).

I didn't really enjoy this. It's a dense read, stuffed with classical illusions that I often didn't get, and the (apparently closely autobiographical) plot of erotic obsession with an actual child was just way too weird for me.

However, the real theme, it seemed to me, was not "ooh aren't teenage boys sexy" but rather von Aschenbach's fear of ageing and death. And yeah, that struck a chord. I can't say I haven't felt a desire to travel and have adventures that feels uncomfortably connected to understanding that life is short and that I am getting older. I just hope I do it without making a strange, pervy fool of myself.