50 Books Challenge 2026 Part Four

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fourth 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 as this makes it much easier to keep track of books or authors that may appeal (or not appeal) to everyone else.

Some of us bring over our updated lists to the new thread. Again, this is up to you.

The first thread of the year is here the second thread here and the third thread here

Thanks, South.

I'm almost embarrassed to admit I'm reading Beloved by Toni Morrison for the first time in my late fifties. How I've not got to it before now is bizarre - it's such a classic.

I struggled with the first 100 pages to get the book's voice right, but I think it's incredible now.

Signing in!

@BeaAndBen I have never read it either. I am hoping to read Paradise this year which has been on my shelf for far too long!

Thanks for new thread. I’m still with Liz and Burton on a yacht off Sardinia.

Thanks for the new thread. Just joining. I'm reading The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy at the moment. I don't love it yet, but I definitely might...

Thanks for the new thread SoutheastDweller

I’ll add my list later.

Thanks for the new thread. Here are my latest..
25 A Spool of Blue Thread. Anne Tyler. I'm getting a bit bored with being disappointed!
Here we have an exploration of three generations of the same family and their traumas and idiosyncrasies. Denny was interesting and well done, especially the way the others characters react to him. Others characters less well developed. I was disappointed not to say shocked at the ending as nothing was resolved. It's not generally thought to be one of Anne's best works, which maybe I should have looked up before I started, and I agree, it wasn't great.
26 The Tomorrow Project. H Critchlow. Bold. Post apocalyptic, we follow a group of children who have been sent to safety in the decade following the collapse of society. It wasn't perfect by any means, quite a few clichés and dramatic manufacturing but I did enjoy it very much. I can't imagine it having been written before covid and it really took me back to those days
I'm a bit fictioned out at the moment, so the next book will be a non fiction.

My list such as it is, thanking you southeastdweller

1. The Lamb by Lucy Rose
2. The Book Of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey
3. Sonny Boy by Al Pacino
4. The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine
5. The Names by Florence Knapp
6. Helm by Sarah Hall
7. Love Forms by Claire Adam
8. Patricia Brent, Spinster by Herbert George Jenkins
9. Black Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey
10. Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis
11. Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley
12. Paper Cup by Karen Campbell
13. The Wedding People by Alison Espach
14. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
15. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
16. The Favourites by Layne Fargo
17. John and Paul : A Love Story in Songs by Ian Leslie
18. The Trouble With Mrs Montgomery Hurst by Katie Lumsden
19. Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors
20. Last One At The Party by Bethany Clift
21. Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst
22. Death Of The Author by Nnedi Okorafor
23. Boy Parts by Eliza Clark
24. The Beginning Of The End (Apocalypse Z : Book One) by Manel Loureiro
25. On The Calculation Of Volume IV by Solvej Balle
26. The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne by Ron Currie
27. Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green

There are worse places to be Best, I imagine there’s plenty to drink 🤷‍♀️

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller .

1 Who Wants to Live Forever, Hanna Thomas Uose (RWYO)
2 The Marriage Portrait, Maggie O'Farrell (RWYO)
3 A Long Way from Verona, Jane Gardam (RWYO)
4 The Two Lives of Louis & Louise, Julie Cohen (RWYO)
5 The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, Margareta Magnusson
6 The Parallel Path, Jenn Ashworth
7 Consider Yourself Kissed, Jessica Stanley
8 Plain Bad Heroines, Emily M Danforth
9 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, V.E. Schwab
10 Strong Poison, Dorothy L. Sayers
11 Easy Connections, Liz Berry
12 Black and Blue, Anna Quindlen (RWYO)
13 Dream Count, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (RWYO)
14 The Housemaid, Freida McFadden
15 Let's Make a Scene, Laura Wood
16 Everland, Rebecca Hunt (RWYO)
17 Appointment with Yesterday, Celia Fremlin (RWYO)
18 Esther is Now Following You, Tanya Sweeney
19 Smoke and Ashes, Abir Mukherjee (RWYO)
20 Atmosphere, Taylor Jenkins Reid
21 Death in Venice, Thomas Mann
22 A Stranger City, Linda Grant
23 A Bright Ray of Darkness, Ethan Hawke

Currently reading Mind Over Money by Claudia Hammond.

Thanks for the new thread southeast!

1 Psyche - Kate Forsyth
2 The Forgotten Forest - Robert Vennell
3 Did I Ever Tell You This? - Sam Neill
4 Raising the Sen-betweeners - Lisa Lloyd
5 What We Fear Most - Ben Cave
6 A Tale of Two Titties: a writer’s guide to conquering the most sexist tropes in literary history - Meg Vondriska
7 The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
8 Cultish: the language of fanaticism- Amanda Montell
9 William Wordsworth - selected by Seamus Heaney
10 Oaxaca Journal - Oliver Sacks
11 The Greatest Nobodies of History - Adrian Bliss
12 Hunchback - Saou Ichikawa
13 Crypt - Alice Roberts
14 The Lost Rainforests of Britain - Guy Shrubsole
15 The Midnight Library - Matt Haig
16 The Wager - David Grann
17 Hero - Katie Buckley
18 Birds, Sex & Beauty - Matt Ridley
19 Witch Trial - Harriet Tyce
20 Heresy - Catherine Nixey
21 Ghost Wall - Sarah Moss
22 Creatures of a Day - Irvin D. Yalom
23 No One Would Do What the Lamberts Have Done - Sophie Hannah

24 Embers of the Hands - Eleanor Barraclough
Social history of the Vikings told through a focus on particular objects from the archaeological record. Somehow a bit pedestrian, even though I like a good Viking.

25 Little Face - Sophie Hannah
Reread for book club. New mother Alice goes out for a couple of hours, but comes back to find the baby in her house isn’t her own… Detectives Simon Waterhouse and Charlie Zailer investigate in the first of the Culver Valley series. One of the best of Sophie Hannah’s, although loses a lot on second reading when you already know the twists.

26 A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Masterclass in writing a page-turner. And I’m in love with Sydney Carton.

27 The Age of Magical Overthinking - Amanda Montell
Not entirely sure what this was trying to be - superficial exploration of cognitive biases and how they operate in our online lives - with large doses of personal anecdote thrown in. Brain kept drifting off from the audiobook and I was not inspired to rewind to catch the bits I’d missed.

1 The Bear and the Bird by Katherine Arden
2 Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami. Translated by Allison Markin Powell
3 The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin NF
4 The Giddy Limit: Fifth Anniversary Book by Alex Leonard
5 Seascraper by Benjamin Wood
6 An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie. Translated by James Kirkup NF
7 A Long Way to Verona by Jane Gardam
8 The Artificial Silk Girl by Irmgard Keun. Translated by Kathie von Ankum
9 Bitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal by Lucy Cooke NF
10 Rosarita by Anita Desai
11 Heroes of Olympus: The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan

Just started reading Last Days in Old Europe by Richard Bassett which is a book I think DH got for Christmas one year. Dreamlike writing so far.

Also, I think you need to set up new threads while in the group to get it added to the group.

Thanks @Southeastdweller

Just posting to bookmark

Thanks, I’ve let them know to add the thread to the group.

Many thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller

Here's my list:

• Lethal White – Robert Galbraith
• Revenge wears Prada – Laura Weisberger
• Bookish: How reading shapes our lives – Lucy Mangan
• Maurice & Maralyn – Sophie Elmhirst
• Menopausing – Davina McCall + Dr Naomi Potter
• Crazy Rich Asians – Kevin Kwan
• Troubled Blood – Robert Galbraith
• There are rivers in the sky – Elif Shafak
• East of Croydon – Sue Perkins
• Notes on a nervous planet – Matt Haig
• Learn Italian – Paul Noble

DNF - Making it up as I go along – Marian Keyes

• The Ink Black Heart – Robert Galbraith
• The Light between Oceans – M L Stedman
• Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow – Gabrielle Zevin
• Went to London, took the dog – Nina Stibbe
• The Wedding People – Alison Espach
• Home Fire – Kamila Shamsie
• Fallout – Eleanor Anstruther
• Project Hail Mary – Andy Weir

Currently reading Death at the sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson and listening to Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann.
I seem to have fallen off the Tale of Two Cities readalong 🙄

Thanks Southeast for the new thread. My list to date:

1. Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
2. The Drums by Mike Joyce
3. The Wedding People by Alison Espach
4. The Long Shoe by Bob Mortimer
5. The Colour Of Our Sky by Amita Trasi
6. There Is Nothing For You Here by Fiona Hill
7. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
8. The Story Of A New Name by Elena Ferrante
9. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante
10. A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Latest Read:

#11. The Story Of The Lost Child by Elena Ferrante. The longest of the tetralogy (Everyday’s a school day, thanks for teaching me this word @cassandra- a group of four related literary or operatic works, for anyone else who doesn’t know!) and not my favourite. I think that accolade goes to the second and third books covering their lives from 16 to 30’s. This book takes them to old age there is much tragedy and too much Neopolitan history for my liking crowbarred into the narrative. But still a great read with some jaw dropping scenes, I’m sad to leave Lenù and Lila’s world, I’ll miss them.

Onto The Secret Hours, which is hotting up after the introduction of the Berlin storyline, and in tandem a library book - Alan Bennett’s fourth diary Enough Said covering Jan 2016 to Dec 2024 and taking him past his 90th birthday.

@FruAashild - isn't it The Bear And The Nightingale? I loved that trilogy* *

Place marking on the new thread- thanks southeast.

@BeaAndBen I haven't read Beloved either - it's on my tbr list!

Oops! I must have been thinking of The Tree And The Bird And The Fish And The Bell (Glasgow coat of arms for those of you who don't know) when I wrote that. Anyway, yes, I've already got the second in the trilogy to read.

@nowanearlyNicemum I could NOT cope with Ducks, Newburyport as an audio I had to DNF

THE FACT THAT - ARRRRRGGH

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit - I don't think I could cope with it in another format. I sort of let it wash over me as I drive so THE FACT THAT just adds a sort of rhythm to her musings. I'm only 3 hours into the 45 hour monster though 😂

Thank you for the new thread @Southeastdweller

Read so far this year:

1 ) I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue

2 ) North Wood by Daniel Mason

3 ) Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

4 ) The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

5 ) Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend

6 ) A Village in the Third Reich: How ordinary lives were transformed by Fascism by Julia Boyd & Angelika Patel

7 ) If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio

8 ) Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite

9 ) The Country of Others by Leïla Slimani

10 ) The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen

11 ) Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

12 ) Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves by Sophie Gilbert

13 ) I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

14 ) The Names by Florence Knapp

15 ) Play Nice by Rachel Harrison

16 ) I'm a Fan by Sheena Patel

Currently reading Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and really enjoying it.

Thank you for the new thread Southeast!

Here's my list - my reading rate has been much higher over the course of the last thread than in the first two months of the year (mainly because the fiction to non-fiction ration has gone up a lot!):

1. The Umbrella Murder - Ulrik Skotte
2. There is nothing for you here - Fiona Hill
3. In a good light - Clare Chambers
4. The White Darkness - David Grann
5. Doppelganger: A trip into the mirror world - Naomi Klein
6. The Country Set - Fiona Walker
7. A Walk in the Park - Kevin Fedarko
8. Conclave - Robert Harris
9. Katabasis - R F Kuang
10. Say Nothing - Patrick Radden Keefe
11. Small Bomb at Dimperley - Lissa Evans
12. The Siege - Ben Macintyre
13. The House on the Strand - Daphne du Maurier
14. Ex-Wife - Ursula Parrott
15. The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands - Sarah Brooks
16. The Rachel Incident - Caroline O’Donoghue
17. You let me in - Lucy Clarke
18. The Crossing Places - Elly Griffiths
19. Slow Horses - Mick Herron
20. Dead Lions - Mick Herron
21. Dead Water - Ann Cleeves

I always try to plug local libraries instead of Amazon or Audible. Mine has loads of audiobooks available on Libby and Borrowbox and it's all free. Authors get a payment from library lending as well. And if your local library doesn't have a big collection, you can sign up for several libraries online or to those near your place of work.

PSA over. As you were. 😄