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

@FruAashild I read Mammoth by the same author a couple of years ago. it was also very good, if rather disturbing.

Agree with the maeve kerrigan recommendations. Im currently on no5.

Adding my bugle to @Terpsichore 's phalanx. I am one of those stubborn readers who very, very rarely DNFs but Proust defeated me! I'll try him again one day....

Welcome to @Bertiebiscuit!

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit@ChessieFL- as well as being lazy, comparing someone to Rhysand also requires the reader to have a good recall of ACOTAR for the description to work. All I can remember of his appearance is that he has wings.

🎺 for @Terpsichore .

@Stowickthevast there were indeed parts of Boulder that were disturbing (one sex scene in particular) but I'm tempted to read Mammoth and Permafrost as well so I've read the Trilogy.

Adding to the fanfares for@Terpsichore ! Amazing effort! ⭐🎺

I read it like last week and I can barely remember! @Benvenuto

🎺 for @Terpsichore
I can imagine that feels like quite an achievement!

Congratulations Terpsichore!

Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green I enjoy books about history from an unusual angle and this certainly started in that vein, with the outbreak of WWI, the cowboy hat, and New Mexico all related to TB. However, after a while it became less involving. There was a bit too much of the author, and although I didn’t expect it to be a cheery read, it laboured too long on health inequalities - I’d rather have read an article length piece. Green is a YA writer and that’s apparent. Hats off to him for the awareness raising he’s doing about TB and the millions of annual preventable deaths due to it - I’m not a monster, I was moved and I have made a donation - but I didn’t love the book.

I felt similarly @CornishLizardit wasn’t the book I was expecting. I preferred the Anthropocene Reviewed

I have now also finished The Pretender by Jo Harkin. O now need to go away and look up Lambert Simnel - the Tudors aren't really My History so I was never taught much about them.

I did really enjoy this. It raises really interesting ideas about gender, inheritance, love , innocence corrupted and violence. I enjoyed Joan the most so it is a shame she disappears from the book .

I did get a bit confused by who was who. It definitely does have Wolf Hall vibes.

Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

This has been languishing on my kindle for ages, not because I didn't want to learn about anti-racism but because I had already read a good few books on this subject in late 2020 - 2022.

This was published in England in 2017 so has more local references than much else of what I have read, including a section on Stephen Lawrence which was horrifying but good to read as I didn't realise I hadn't fully understood what had happened there.

I'm pleased I've read it, and a good reminder there is still work to be done. Her final chapter was especially useful reminding me white guilt or apology doesn't move the cause forwards. Essentially get over yourself and do something.

33 . Termush by Sven Holm

After some kind of nuclear disaster, those rich people who were prepared live in luxury at Termush, a specially designed hotel. When four people are found dead on its steps, it sets a chain of events in motion no-one is prepared for….

This was good, affecting. It was very short at <150 pages and is currently 99p. There’s not a lot to it really but it’s well done and eerily believable in terms of the creeping atmosphere of doom.

Thank you @Terpsichore its added to my list!

Welcome @Bertiebiscuit I love crime fiction. I'm working my way through Louise Penny's Three Pines series. Some are better than others! I'm a big fan of Abir Muckerjee's Wyndham and Bannerjee series, set in 1920s Calcutta and Vaseem Khan's Inspector Persis series, set in Bombay from 1948. Also happy to read anything by Val McDermid, Ian Rankin etc. Sara Sheridan's Mirabelle Bevan series in 1950s Brighton. I really like historical fiction lol.

I'm currently reading The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey as recommended by @SpunkyKhakiScroller

The Giver of Stars - Jojo Moyes

Following the pattern of The Ship of Brides, Moyes takes an event of women’s history and invents personalities and stories to go with it.

Englishwoman Alice weds Bennet Van Der Cleve and moves back to Kentucky with him in the mid 1930s. Her marriage isn’t the dreamy escape she hoped for, not least because they share a house with her curmudgeonly FIL, who also owns the local mine. Racism and sexism abound, but it doesn’t stop Alice joining up with the local Horseback Library, a (real) initiative of the First Lady to improve literacy in local communities. She makes some fast friends along the way. I like Moyes and this is a bold for me.

43. So Long a Letter - Mariama Bâ
I read this for an around the world type reading challenge. It's author is from Senegal, it is translated from French, and is considered one of the first and most important novels by and about the New African woman i.e. educated and post colonial.

I didn't expect to like it much but I was pleasantly surprised. It takes the form of a long (100 pages) letter from a newly widowed middle aged woman, Ramatoulaye, to her best friend as she carries out the traditional 40 day mourning period for a husband who abandoned her 5 years previously.

It is a brilliant portrait of a person, a place, and a time that makes you feel - these would not be my choices, but I understand and respect that they are yours. It does so much in such a short duration - the trade off between being modern and global while living in a traditional society that is both a cage and a support system. The experience of being the first generation in a new reality, the freedom and the fear as you try to build a new world. The gap between the personal and the political space. What I loved is that she is never a stereotype. She faces her life and makes her choices as her and these don't always line up with 'modern independent woman' or 'traditional Senegalese mother'.

I could go on but I will just highly recommend it. It's a short book and definitely worth it.

I've waited ages for a bold (they've been thin on the ground for me this year) and then three come along at once!

19 The Railway Man by Eric Lomax. Lomax is a railway enthusiast who enters WWII as a signalman, is sent to Singapore and then captured by the Japanese. He spends the next three years in POW camps and prison in Singapore, and the torture that he suffers goes on to shape the rest of his life. This is an important memoir, although very difficult to read at times.

20 The Siege by Ben Macintyre. This is my third Macintyre (the other two were Operation Mincemeat and A Spy Among Friends) and I think it is his best yet. It covers the 1980 siege of the Iranian embassy in London, and as well as giving all the details of the six-day siege and its dramatic conclusion, it includes the background of the terrorists and their cause, and the behaviour of the hostages and their varying psychological reactions to an event of extreme stress. Excellent.

21 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. This is an epistolary novel, made up of letters to and from Sybil Van Antwerp, a woman in her 70s who corresponds with a wide variety of people (friends, family, authors, random encounters). She is a super character and this is a wonderful book. I haven't read any of the others on the shortlist of the 2026 women's prize for fiction (although two of them are on my tbr) so I can't comment on whether it should win, but I certainly won't be disappointed if it does.

They all sound great Tara and Spunky.

21.A Family Matter by Claire Lynch Heron, a single parent to his adult daughter Maggie, is coming to terms with a terminal cancer diagnosis which he is trying to keep from Maggie. The narrative moves back and forth between the present day and the early 1980s, where Heron's then wife Dawn finds a charming and captivating new friend in Hazel, whom she meets by chance at a jumble sale. Dawn and Hazel's relationship deepens into a love affair, another secret that Heron has not shared with Maggie.

This was a very sad reflection of the impact of bigotry towards mothers in same sex relationships. The custody battle following the end of Dawn and Heron's marriage was shocking, and even more so was the author's note that the lines spoken by the barristers in the novel were lifted directly from court transcripts.

It certainly dealt deftly with some very emotional issues, but for me it was a like rather than a love. I think the pacing was a little off, with a very slow burning start and a slightly rushed ending, and the conciseness of the novel meant that perhaps the characters weren't as fleshed out as I'd have liked, Maggie in particular. I think this was Lynch's debut and I'm really interested to see what comes next.

I really liked A Family Matter @StrangewaysHereWeCome - would have been a worthy inclusion in the Woman's Prize.

@RazorstormUnicorn I also have Eddo-Lodge's book languishing on my Kindle. I will move it up.

44. The Barbecue at No. 9 - Jennie Godfrey. This was a quick read - could be good for those stuck in a rut. It is set over the day of the Live Aid concert in 1985. 16 year old Hannah's parents host a barbecue for their neighbours and various secrets come to light. I enjoyed this, the time and place are brilliantly captured and the main stories of different people living in the close are interesting enough to keep you reading. I preferred it to her first book, the List of Suspicious Things, which I read earlier this year.

45. Good Morning, Midnight - Jean Rhys. This is short and dark semi-autobiographical novel set in 1930s Paris and published in 1939. It's narrated by Sasha/Sophia Jansen, who is living in near poverty and spends her time drifting between bars, while carefully avoiding the ones she's been banned from. The writing is stream of consciousness, but a great portrait of depression and alcoholism. Sasha is passive but also darkly funny at times and there are plenty of parts I could underline. I don't think it's quite a bold but I'm pleased I read it - think fans of Virginia Woolf would like it. Also very short.

The Siege by Ben Macintyre. This is my third Macintyre (the other two were Operation Mincemeat and A Spy Among Friends) and I think it is his best yet.

The Spy and the Traitor is his absolute best, though @Tarahumara
In case you are interested. both the Operation Mincemeat film and the Spy Among Friends ITV series were worth watching, even if they do introduce some non-existent characters/relationships.

20 - Eat Bitter – Lydia Pang (ARC)

Much nodding went on during the reading of this book!
I had never heard of Lydia Pang before but her memoir resonated with me in so many ways. As someone whose love language is food, lives in a 'foreign' country and has raised children bi-culturally with a big focus on cooking and sharing meals I was hoping it would be just my bag - and it was!
What really worked for me was the way Pang writes about food as something far bigger than nourishment. It becomes memory, comfort, care, grief and love all tangled together. The idea of “eating your emotions” is nearly always treated as something negative, but Pang reframes it as a way of surviving, connecting and caring for people when words aren’t enough.
We learn about the author and her family, but more specifically the Hakka culture and the concept of “eating bitter” — enduring hardship before sweetness arrives. The language throughout is bold and inventive, full of memorable food metaphors that somehow never feel overcooked.
Some of the parts focussing on her professional life dragged slightly for me and felt a little repetitive in places, but then another brilliant observation or description pulled me back in.
We are entreated to get rid of our 'good-girl giblets' and avoid ‘performing a microwaved life’, We should allow ourselves to be vulnerable and honest, and let food and family help us survive the more unpalatable moments of life.

I wholeheartedly concur!! Definite bold from me - it's due out next week I think.

Happy Sunday everyone. I popped into Toppings and Waterstones in Bath yesterday and didn’t buy anything, though I was very tempted by The Wreck, by Lizzie Stewart which is a new illustrated novel, it looked like a very interesting format!

Just Kids, Patti Smith

A memoir of Smith’s early life and relationship with artist Robert Maplethorpe. I loved this, I am a sucker for an artists tale, a sucker for a book set in NY, and I was very happy to get to know her just a little. Beautiful and tragic.

The Mirror & The Light, Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall trilogy)

I’m finally done! This is the longest audiobook I’ve listened to at a whopping 38 hours. I have absolutely loved this series, I originally tried the written books but would get really lost so would highly recommend the audio. Ben Miles is brilliant at the narration. My only criticism is that TM&TL is just too long.

I’m also part way through Americanah.

23. Broken Pots, Mending Lives – Richard Osgood

An absolute belter, this was a Christmas present that I’ve been saving up to read and it didn’t disappoint.

Operation Nightingale was set up in 2011 as an initiative to help the recovery of injured armed services personnel by involving them in the archaeology of the British Training Areas, principally Salisbury Plain which is packed with sites. This book looks at some of the digs which the teams have worked on, expanding to encompass sites across the UK and into France. These range from twentieth century military installations and recovery of aircraft wreckage to prehistoric burials and Bronze Age roundhouses. It’s not a detailed study of each site – each have academic reports available if that is your thing – but gives a summary of the findings and looks at some of the key artefacts recovered by a combination of professional archaeologists, volunteers and veterans from the UK forces and abroad. Each site brings different challenges and rewards to the veterans who have contributed to this work, with involvement in experimental archaeology as well as the preparation and excavation itself as a key feature.

The value of the project as an aid to rehabilitation of physically and psychologically scarred veterans is clearly illustrated, with testimonies from the participants, many of whom have gone on to further study or careers in the field. Informative, moving and packed with stunning photos. Yes, it’s a bold.

Thanks @SheilaFentiman I'll give that one a go next!