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

Looking at the how the list was chosen explanation, I see they asked critics and academics as well as writers. Everything can't fit into a 100 novels list and I guess that there were lots of other books suggested but only by one or two people, but I just find the list limited, and I find it hard to just consider novels in isolation from other literary forms and non fiction.

A Walk In The Park by Kevin Fedarko

Pete McBride (outdoors photographer) asks his best mate Kevin (a writer) to walk the length of the Grand Canyon with him. I followed this on Instagram and the photos are incredible so I jumped on the book.

The opening page was so funny and included some great turns of phrase so that I read it out to DH. From there I've gripped from their first unprepared foray into the canyon and the journey through.

As well as some epic nature descriptions, he weaves in stories about the tribes who live there and their battles against both the government and the park service and how commerce and big resorts are inching closer to becoming a reality at the canyon edge.

I have read a lot of outdoors adventure books. It's my thing. This is top three, which means it sits along side Into Thin Air and Born To Run.

It's an overstatement to say it's changed my life, but it's certainly kick started something. DH and I have taken up running (again!) as a means to get outdoors more. I have officially added hiking to Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the canyon to my bucket list. I also want to raft the canyon, but having looked it up, I can see rafting basically any other canyon is better value for money so maybe I'm not committing to a location for that goal.

This is a big fat boldest of bolds. Highly recommended as stand out in the genre. I paid £19 for the paper book and it's never leaving my bookshelf. I doubt it will be 99p any time soon, maybe one to add to birthday wish lists?

I've got Pete McBrides book too, so I think I might keep my head in the canyon and hop on that next.

I DNF A Walk In The Park. I found the writer really annoying. I know others on the thread have enjoyed it though so probably just me! A shame as I usually do enjoy books like that but just couldn’t get on with that one.

Sounds great @RazorstormUnicorn
47. Luckenbooth - Jenni Fagan. I was inspired to read more books by Jenni Fagan after reading her memoir Ootlin which was on the Woman's Prize non fiction list last year (and I thought was brilliant). This did not disappoint. It's set in Edinburgh spanning the 20th century and starts with Jessie Macrae rowing her coffin from an island into town to a house, 10 Luckenbooth Close, which is off the Royal Mile. There we discover that her father has sold her to a couple to be their surrogate. But they get more than they bargained for with Jessie, who is the devil's daughter. She ends up haunting the house, and the book then follows various residents through its pages, exposing the dark side of the city. I went to uni in Edinburgh and lived there for a couple of years afterwards so loved her descriptions of the city and the atmosphere of this book. You definitely need to have a tolerance for a bit of woo , but it's a bold for me.

The Guardian's final 20 is out and this is very much a greatest hits of literature that you'd expect. I've read 16 if the top 20, the ones I'm missing are:
Tristam Shandy
Moby Dick - DNF unlikely to ever read
Proust - maybe one day
Ulysses - likewise.

All my A level books are in the top 20 - Bleak House, Emma and Gatsby - so I guess school chose well.

My final number is 59/100 which is quite respectable. I think I may try and read some of the ones I've missed by more obscure writers. Don't think I'll ever go back to Thomas Hardy or Henry James etc.

I’m really glad you liked it @RazorstormUnicorn ! I thought it was great too (and got it for 99p on kindle, so there is hope!)

The Guardian’s full list is up now, and I’ve read 12 in total (though one of them was a rare DNF - 100 Years of Solitude). There are several more which I’ve got waiting for me in my kindle library, mostly thanks to 50-bookers’ recommendations!

I too have read 16 of the top 20 taking me to 47 in total. The ones I haven’t read in the top 20 are
Tristram Shandy
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Ulysses(this is one of my book group books for June, July and August) and
Moby Dick (which is my book group read for Nov/Dec)

I've read 8 of the top 20 taking me to a total of 24. I am happy with that.

I'd like to congratulate Cutflowers on her guesses!

Edited to add - my tally is only 37 but if I included my DNF it jumps to 58. I'm clearly an uncultured swine 😉

Only read three in the last list: Wuthering Heights, 100 Years of Solitude, P&P. That takes me to 14.

I read 100 Years for book club and boy was it a slog. WH was read as a teenager, I have no desire to reread. On the other hand P&P was a delight on rereading recently (and* *another GCSE set text).

13 for me in the last lot: Wuthering Heights, Persuasion, 1984, Mrs Dalloway, Emma, The Great Gatsby, Madame Bovary, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, War and Peace, Anna Karenina, To The Lighthouse and Ulysses. That brings me to 40 overall. I've chosen my favourite on all the other days so I'll do the same today (harder this time) and I think it's Pride and Prejudice.

@ÚlldemoShúl we have done a thread top 100 before, ages ago, but it would be great to do it again!

Thanks for the review @RazorstormUnicorn that's going on my wish list.

I've read 15 of the greatest hits so 49 in total. Of the five I haven't read I'm never going to read Ulysses, In Search of Lost Time or Moby Dick so happy with that. So Jane Austen gets three, Tolstoy gets two and Virginia Woolf gets two but George Eliot only gets one although I suppose it did get the top spot though which possibly counts for something, but I suspect that owes a lot to Virginia Woolf declaring it 'one of the few English novels written for grown-up people'.

• 20 Wuthering Heights
• 19 The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
• 18 Persuasion
• 17 One Hundred Years of Solitude
• 16 Nineteen Eighty-Four
• 14 Mrs Dalloway
• 13 Emma
• 11 The Great Gatsby
• 10 Madame Bovary
• 9 Pride and Prejudice
• 8 Jane Eyre
• 7 War and Peace
• 6 Anna Karenina
• 2 Beloved
• 1 Middlemarch

12 for me today taking me to a total of 37:

Wuthering Heights - view differently now I am older!
Persuasion - great
1984 - need to reread
Emma - not as big a fan of this as of her other books
Bleak House - A level text and not re-read since
The Great Gatsby - liked
Madame Bovary - again, need to reread
Pride and Prejudice - love and have read countless times
Jane Eyre - reread recently and rate
War and Peace - excellent (even for a non-lover of military stuff)
Beloved - can't remember well enough to comment
Middlemarch - don't get all the love for this, it was fine but didn't sweep me away

Final total of 28 for me - lots more in that last chunk. To be honest I feel distinctly cheated by the inclusion of Proust as a single book, having just completed the 6th and last volume, so I'm tempted to revise my total up to 33!

Glad to see the plaudits for Middlemarch. I really must re-read it.

I didn’t notice Jane Eyre! 15 in total then

21 - Death at the sign of the rook - Kate Atkinson

I had been really looking forward to this and yes, it was good, but not as good as I was expecting. It might be me. I seem to be flitting between too many things at the moment and not having enough time to get fully absorbed. Obviously a good read overall though! Do we know whether more adventures with Jackson Brodie are planned??

I think I've read twenty-five from the list.
Numbers increased in the second half.
I might use the list as a reading list to see what I've missed out on.

Ten for me:

One Hundred Years of Solitude
Emma
Persuasion
Pride and Prejudice
Wuthering Heights
Jane Eyre
Madame Bovary
The Great Gatsby
1984
Beloved

No Catcher In The Rye or To Kill A Mockingbird. No Steinbeck.

Death at the Sign of the Rook was my least favourite of the Jackson Brodie books. @nowanearlyNicemum There’s been nothing confirmed about new adventures featuring Jackson, but she has a new book being published in September set around the Festival of Britain.

10 for me making 30 overall.

I DNF 100 years and Beloved so obviously have no taste.

I have read 51 in total. We had pretty good guesses! I added Middlemarch to my guesses upthread and knew as soon as I did it would be number one. I have read it but am not bowled over. Pleased Beloved is number tow. I think it is extraordinary.

I had to read Moby Dick and Tristram Shandy at university. I am not going to pretend I finished Ulysses.

Bleak House wasn't my favourite Dickens in my readalongs but I can see why it is the most admired.

So much Woolf! She leaves me cold.

On looking again, surprised by no big hitter Hardys!

Yes, no Steinbeck or Golding. No Animal Farm. The judges didn't do GCSEs I guess. My user name is feeling left out.

I think you deserve a spot Piggy!