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

I see what you mean about it not being explicitly stated. I can’t remember if the postmortem said he was clean or not. Surprising it wasn’t included because it was relevant

From what I recall of London Falling the heroin suggestion didn’t come until well after the post mortem and testing for opiates wouldn’t be standard I wouldn’t think.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeitwe definitely differ on our cannibal books 🤣 Tender… was a bold for me. I haven’t tried The Lamb yet as reviews were mixed on here but I haven’t tried it on kindle. Must give it a go.

It just never clicked with me, the writing style

Thanks Úll and Eine. It did come up later in the book, maybe too late to prove.

Oh, I loved Tender Is The Flesh!

It really fascinates me how people respond so differently to books. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy threads like this.

@Benvenuto
I missed out that I didn't actually like Therese Raquin much, too much repetition and deliberately very thick on a style of colour description - after nearly 40 years I can't remember much more than that. A woman and her lover murder her husband at the start of the novel and spend most of the rest of it in fear that they'll be caught - just really feeling trapped. There might be whole plot points I can't remember. And if I was asked to pick out just one or a few books, it sounds almost impossible - hard enough to pick out just 100! I guess it's very understandable why a Zola book isn't there and Madam Bovary as overwhelmingly Flaubert's best known novel is.

Of my 4 French lit texts the one I really loved still seems like a very weird choice for a bunch of 16 year olds to read. Le Noeud de Viperes is in the form of a long deathbed letter to a wealthy man's estranged wife and family. They disagree on the existence of God. Mauriac's politics were very different from mine and I can't imagine why I found this really compelling at 16 but I did.

On James Baldwin, I would choose Another Country rather than any of the books on the list.

I've not read Ulysses or felt the urge to but I do understand why it's there.

For Hardy, my choice would be Tess but that might be an emotional response.

Cecile Pin's first novel Wandering Souls was longlisted for the Women's Prize. Her new novel Celestial Lights is in today's Daily Deals - I bought it and others - a wishlist book, a couple of crime novels, and a copy of Orientalism by the late Palestian academic, intellectual and political writer Edward Said (Vintage edition), 99p. It's been in Penguin Modern Classics although this isn't, and sounds very heavyweight and daunting, mix of political theory and literary criticism, but I have wanted to read some Edward Said for many years.

@elkiedee I was just coming on to say Cecile Pin's new book is in the deals. Looking forward to reading it.

It also means I can return a library copy today and make space to pick up something else on my library card, along with Jennie Godley's The Barbecue at no 9 which I borrowed and then bought on offer. I've just finished the Jennie Godley, interesting mid 80s nostalgia - I think I'd just finished O-level exams and turned 16, and it was the first of those long summer holidays between exams and 6th form, then university.

36. Last One Out - Jane Harper

Rowena returns to the small, once-idyllic country village of Carralon, where she and now-estranged husband Griff raised their children, Sam and Della. It’s five years since Sam vanished without trace on his birthday, and now Ro only comes back once a year to mark the anniversary of the day. The community is riven with tensions over the presence of a mega mining company which is gradually making the settlement unliveable. This time, will Ro find answers to the mystery of her son’s disappearance?

Blimey, this was dull. I plodded on to the end but by then I didn’t really care. Virtually nothing happens for 200 pages beyond Ro remembering (again and again and…yet again) how she and Griff locked eyes at a wedding and eighteen months later they were vowing eternal togetherness under a quaint stone arch….and after reams of filler, the resolution (such as it is) all happens in a rush in the very last part of the book. Not one of this author’s best.

I read the classics sporadically. Even when they take some perseverance they can be rewarding. I was actually considering Moby Dick as this years classic, but I am getting the impression from the comments here it's a bigger read than I realised! I've also got East of Eden sitting on my kindle and looking me. I love Steinbeck but I really have to be in the right mood!

@RazorstormUnicorn

You couldn’t pay me to read Moby Dick again. Hard work

East of Eden it was very good BUT the portrayal of a Chinese character was really uncomfortable and dodgy.

@Terpsichore I’m reading the Jane Harper now and I usually love her books but god this is a borefest. Considering DNF. Might get you to pm me the ending!

@ÚlldemoShúl say the word! I can’t promise the ending will be worth it….

Finished Russell Jones' Tories: The End of an Error. As with its predecessors , this is sharp, incisive and entertaining. But he seems sadder, more deflated, more disillusioned which gives this a darker edge.

But , Russell!! Get yourself a proper editor or proofread better! There were seven glaring typos in one single page near the end of the book!! And many others scattered around.

@Terpsichore and ÚlldemoShúl, glad it’s not just me who found Last One Out deeply dull! Surprising how different it is from her other books!

24) Mary Toft, or The Rabbit Queen – Dexter Palmer

A RWYO. This year is the three hundredth anniversary of a real-life medical mystery that started in a small Surrey town and grew into the talk of London, attracting the attention of the King and nobility. A farm labourer’s wife, Mary Toft, claimed to have given birth to a number of dead rabbit parts after seeing them in a dream. In an unenlightened society, where birth defects were seen as the fault of the mothers, dreams and premonitions could have serious implications.

This novel is told mainly from the perspective of Zachary, the young apprentice to the first surgeon who helps to actually deliver the rabbits. As the story gathers pace more spectators come from London, where Mary is taken to continue her strange births.

I found the first third of the book drifted, but once the action switches to London there was more of a sense of place and wonder, drawing the reader in. The book looks into the ideas of belief and faith – why we believe what we believe, when an idea is contradicted by what we see before us, and how miracles can spread if enough people are engaged in them. The struggle between religion and science was then in its infancy and the concept of medical anomalies (a theme that continues throughout the novel in various forms) was still being explained away by God’s wrath on sinners.

I would have liked to have heard more about/from Mary herself, or from her mother-in-law who sits silently by during the birthing, and Zachary’s story didn’t resolve itself satisfactorily for me. However, overall it was a good thoughtful read.

I enjoyed Last One Out! I agree that it’s not action packed but I really enjoyed the descriptions of the town and its inhabitants and how they’re all affected by the gradual decline of the town.

Posters who liked The Pretender might be interested in an interview with the author on the Talking Tudors podcast.

@FruAashild- what I remember about Scott was that in Regency times he was the author that everyone thought would endure. The novel was quite a low status form of writing then (inferior to poetry & drama) - there’s a passage in Northanger Abbey where Jane Austen justifies why you should read a novel - but Scott wrote these great historical epics that were thought to elevate the novel to a higher form of art that were wildly successful. Unfortunately, he is becoming less read (which I’m not surprised at as I dragged myself through Waverley & Ivanhoe when younger & found it hard work) & that’s a shame as there are some wonderful stories about him including his rediscovery of the Scottish crown jewels. He definitely merits having a prize named after him.

@StitchesInTime- thank you & definitely don’t feel guilty. Being high-brow doesn’t necessarily mean a book is any good (I’ve definitely had to own my own low-brow tastes since joining this thread). A Suitable Boy is an absolutely wonderful book - I reread it in lockdown & it was a real comfort.

@elkiedeeI enjoyed Thérèse Raquin enough to be tempted to read a lot more Zola, but my favourite is Au Bonheur des Dames - that isn’t regarded by Zola critics as his best as it has a happy ending but it’s immensely enjoyable for all its flaws as the portrait of the department store is so engaging. That’s the real problem of choosing the greatest books, as the most perfectly realised book isn’t always the most lovable. I definitely agree with Tess for Hardy as it does feel like the pinnacle of his writing but it also has that strong appeal to readers to discuss the characters. Possibly The Mayor can rival it for literary quality (I need to reread both) but it doesn’t seem to have that connection to readers. I think I have read Le Noeud de Vipères & I have definitely read Thérèse Desqueyroux, but I can’t remember much about them. Reading them was definitely good for my French, but my French wasn’t really good enough then to engage with the story. There are some very strange choices for set texts at times, but that is a whole other discussion.

I read Moby Dick years ago. I, like Eine, found it very hard work. I can’t say I enjoyed it and I’ve never felt any desire to repeat the experience.

But I was talking to a dad from DC3’s class in the library this afternoon and he was gushing about how he’d just finished Moby Dick and that how amazing and interesting he thought it was, so now I’m wondering if I missed something.

Maybe it’s one of those books where you have to be at a certain life stage to appreciate it?

how amazing and interesting he thought it was

yeah all those endless chapters of whale anatomy and classification were SO fascinating 😩

I could do with a laughing reaction for that 🤣

Yes, there was far too much trivia about whaling wedged into Moby Dick for my liking too 🤣

Who knows, maybe the dad I was talking to has a strong interest in whales.

DS2 brought a graphic novel version of Moby Dick home as a school reading book once. It was less than 100 pages, and had all of the whale facts edited out, and was much more enjoyable than the full unedited version had been.

I think my desire to read Moby Dick comes from not knowing the story and wanting to understand the cultural references, so I might get the graphic novel! What a joy that stories can be told in so many different ways.

Witness To Water by Pete McBride

Pete is the half of duo from the Grand Canyon walk and this book spans a decade or so of his determination to document the flow of the Colorado River.

This is not an in depth book, his writing is fine but I think it's clear that photography is his main love. The story he tells is so important, and often heartbreaking. Rivers no longer meeting the sea, not enough water to kayak down them and arguably more importantly Glen Canyon reservoir is so depleted that the Colorado flow may stop altogether with huge implications for drinking water and farming across the whole south west of America.

There are pockets of hope, examples of states working together to reduce their draw from the river, Las Vegas is paying it's citizens to turn their laws back to desert shrubbery, but it does feel very late in the day.

5 stars as it's speaks to my heart and issues I am interested and I nearly cried as he describes his father aging through the book. His dad encouraged him to look at the river and water, so it's interwoven, not randomly written about as I made it sound!

I'm going to finish Ministry of the future and then I am going to find some 99p light and fluffy romances as this is all a bit heavy!

I think men who like Hemmingway also like Moby Dick.

Saw a comment on the Guardian list bemoaning the "diversity gone mad" and lack of Roth, Updike, Hemmingway etc. I am delighted by this having read all of the former and quite happy to never read anything more by them.