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

@TheDonsDingleberries thanks for the review. It sounds like exactly the kind if book I would pick up and then be disappointed by so will give it a swerve.

You're welcome. Like I say, even if I was a bit disappointed, I definitely enjoyed reading it. It has really good reviews, so was possibly a victim of unreasonable expectations on my part.

I also thought Lula Dean was just ok.

25. Digging the Trenches: the Archaeology of the Western Front – Andrew Robertshaw and David Kenyon

This is the second (and probably final) book I’ve read this year on military archaeology, and in some ways can be seen as a companion to Broken Pots, Mending Lives. Divided into themes such as the trench layouts, daily life, fighting, and of course death in the trenches, the book focusses on a series of digs which took place on the Western Front in the early 2000s, looking at a few discoveries and what the team were able to interpret from them. It was published in 2008, so I’d be curious to read an updated version.

What I found most engrossing was the section on the approach to Great War archaeology – ‘regular’ digs might reveal human activity happening over a long period, but, like Pompeii, these excavations can capture a moment in time, sometimes a day, or even a single event which is backed up by detailed documentary evidence not always afforded to other types of digs. Other unique elements to Great War archaeology such as the confusion in stratigraphy caused by shelling, the potential to find live weapons of war and the preservation of their different elements, and the ethics of uncovering human remains, with the sensitivities of caring for these soldiers who are not that far from living memory, are also discussed. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this book as much as I did, and can recommend it to anyone who has an interest in the subject.

An unexpected bold, often the best kind.

26. Strange Pictures – Uketsu

It’s hard to talk about this without giving away spoilers. Essentially three stories set in the recent past of Japan, which are linked by a drawing being central to the plot of each and solved in steps along with the reader so that even I, who usually can’t work out whodunnit, could keep up. The translation was well written too.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue

Picked this up as a rec on here and really enjoyed it as a bit of quite easy reading in-between some heavier books. A look at the messy period post uni while you're trying to figure life out. I went straight to work and in a time where it was easier to get a job, so my experience doesn't line up with the book, but it seemed very true to life. I loved the characters who all had good and bad points (I hate perfect lead character!). I'd happily read another by this author.

50. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro - I am so pleased this was my 50th book of the year. It restored my faith in the belief that literary fiction doesn't have to be abstract and self aware. It can also be simply written and make you think without telling you what to think or even what to think about. Klara is an Artificial Friend that the Mother buys for her teen daughter Josie to keep her company in her chronic illness. Klara is a very observant AF and pieces together the dystopian world in the way that you do as a reader. Ishiguro does not world build, he implies and leaves clues but he trusts the reader to work it out. As the story progresses, it makes you think about whether artificial intelligence can mimic human emotion to the point where it does not matter that they aren't human. And that raises further questions about identity and what being human means. Klara, as a character, is so well written that I became very attached to her. She does not change throughout the book but my feelings towards her did. Very well written and the boldest of bolds for me.

@SpunkyKhakiScroller I loved the beginning and the end of Klara I didn’t so much enjoy the quest side of things

I have several reviews to catch up on so they will be rather brief:

22 Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline. This is a dual timeline novel, with 17 year old Molly in the present day helping to sort out the attic of Vivian, an elderly lady who has more in common with her than she realises. Vivian is Irish by birth and was orphaned as a child and sent away from New York on the "orphan train" in the 1920s and adopted by country folk. In the older timeline (which is the main one) we find out about her experiences. This was a good read.

23 The Pure Gold Baby by Margaret Drabble. This is the story of single mum Jess, who lives in north London and has a daughter Anna with learning difficulties, told from the point of view of Jess's friend. It spans a period of many years as Anna grows up. It's a meandering tale, more about the characters than the plot - it reminded me of Anne Tyler. Drabble's writing is excellent and I enjoyed this a lot.

24 Is It Just Me? by Miranda Hart. I like Miranda and she comes across as a nice person, but I found this a bit boring and not as funny as I hoped. I've had it on my kindle for years and I finally got round to it, with the idea of following it up with her more recent memoir (in which she discusses her diagnosis of Lyme disease and ME), but I'm not sure if I can face it after this. I should probably try though, because I think that one will be more interesting. This one is just a bit "fluffy".

25 Snap by Belinda Bauer. Jack is 11 years old when his mum is murdered by a stranger when she goes to look for help after their car breaks down (not a spoiler - it happens early on), and his dad bails out soon afterwards. Jack struggles to survive and take care care of his little sisters. Meanwhile, newlywed and pregnant Catherine has a disturbing experience while alone in her house. As the plot unravels we find out how the two are linked. This was a good page turner.

26 Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith. Guy and Freddie meet by chance on a train, Guy is having problems with his estranged wife and Freddie with his father. Freddie conceives the idea that each of them should murder the other one's "problem", so that the person with the motive has a cast iron alibi and the person without an alibi has no obvious motive. Can they get away with it? This is great - a classic for a reason!

£16K doesn't sound like that much given that I think he is quite well known.

Maybe it's just me, because my dad used to give me lots of cattish books, which progressed from obvious kids' classics to Louis Wain and almost any painting featuring nice cats. Not to mention a rather nice paperback of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - TS Eliot's original poems, and definitely no tie in edition with the musical.

eek, no, on this, that sounds AWFUL. Is that the Audible edition? Because I'm considering investigating Audible.

@elkiedee yes it’s the Audible one but it’s also the same one as Spotify.

I have managed loads of books in May . I think I will slow down again tomorrow!

My last book of May was Belinda Bauer's The Impossible Thing. Despite using characters form Rubbernecker (which I vaguely remembered) this is a real departure for her. It's about egg theft and has two time frames - the period form 1926 until the mid 40s and the present day. It's loosely based on a real, precious egg.

I enjoyed this. It's quirky and really quite engaging. I like her sympathetic characterisation of a present day ASD protagonist and his 'weird' gaming pal. I like the 1920s heroine ,too. Some of it was rather unlikely , especially the rampaging, vengeful (armed!) RSPB man! I hope, anyway...

Shame, because it's a great story and this is disappointing. My dad now struggles to read, I think but loves audio, and I've wondered about trying to give him a present, but ugggggjh it would have to be a high quality version. I never knew what to give him in print. Hmmm wonders about French or Russian language audio (!). I am far more middlebrow and less discerning than my father, but that's not hard.

@elkiedee An Audible subscription is definitely worth getting but the downside is that, for me personally, not every narrator works for me and I’ve had quite a lot of trial and error in that not every book that I’ve wanted to listen to has been a success because I’m so picky about the reader. You really have to use that Preview function

• Still Life - Louise Penny

Last book of May and book 94 of the year.

This is the first Chief Inspector Gamache book and the first Penny I have read. I enjoyed it very much.

Gamache is called to the Québécois village of Three Pines, to investigate the death of Jane Neal, a local artist who may or may not have been killed by accident, as it is the start of the hunting season. Penny establishes her key characters and the world of Three Pines very quickly and it’s an immersive and gripping one.

The Jealous One by Celia Fremlin

Rosamund is rather jealous of her next door neighbour Lindy, so is rather perturbed when she has a dream about killing her. However, she convinces herself she was just delirious due to flu. But then Lindy can’t be found…

I enjoyed this. Fremlin has a great knack of ratcheting up domestic tension. However I did find the ending slightly underwhelming. Still worth reading though.

Forever by Judy Blume

A reread. It was very refreshing at the time to have a book that focused on teenagers wanting to have sex. While it is dated now (written in the 70s) it still captures those feelings of first love and uncertainty. I enjoyed revisiting!

Hunger and Thirst by Claire Fuller

I’ve only just finished this and I’m not really sure what I think of it. It’s well written, as are Fuller’s other books, and it kept me gripped wanting to know what was going to happen. Ursula is a vulnerable 16 year old who has spent her life in care, so when she makes friends with Sue and others at the art school where she works, she is willing to accept their dares to try and fit in, until it goes too far. The blurb intrigued me, and it is an intriguing story. However it’s hard to like or root for any of the characters, and there’s a supernatural/horror element I didn’t expect (which isn’t really my thing). I also found the ending rather unsatisfying as it left too many loose ends and unexplained things. I did like it (with those caveats) but I don’t think it’s one I’ll reread.

Hunted Abir Mukherjee
This is a tentative bold for me. I often find that I rate a book 5* but can't remember a few days later why. So I'm going to hold off doing that for a couple of days. I got lost a couple of times about who was who, but that could be because I was reading at 3am!
This is one of the first books I applied for on NetGalley, and its been published for 2 years now, so that shows how long it's been languishing on my kindle!

It's a multi POV story based on a suicide bomb that goes off the week before the US presidential election and the ensuing fallout. Two teenagers caught up in the terrorist group that set the bomb, their parents who are desperate to find them and a police woman who is more involved than she realises. Everyone is hunting everyone. The police are hunting the teens and the parents. The terrorists are hunting the teens who ran away from them. The parents are hunting the teens. There were plenty of twists and I didn't guess any of them.

@Southeastdweller could we have a lovely new 1st June thread tomorrow please ❤️

That's my worry, and even with dementia, my dad would get very upset with a bad version of a classic, I'm sure. He is very very highbrow, or he was, although he did occasionally love something surprising. He loved The Wire on TV* *but I suspect time to watch it attentively was not something I had when my boys were that young. Probably not awake.

ETA: only 6 posts left for nearly 4 hours of this month!

@elkiedee I bloody love The Wire worth trying now if you have more time

Just squeezing into this thread and passing the halfway mark to my 50:

25 In The Kingdom Of Ice - Hampton Sides

One for the polar peril lovers among us, a really well-told account of the ill-fated USS Jeanette, which set out from San Francisco in the 1880s in search of a route to what was then believed to be the open sea at the North Pole. I wasn’t aware of this voyage at all so found it really interesting as well as gripping.

Over on Audible, I’m very much enjoying Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, though at 66 hours long it’s going to take me a while!

To all: I'm worried about helping to kill this thread without a new one to go to. Hence this will be one long multi topic post, sorry. I could do with more time to edit this post, not for bait and troll and then delete, which I assume is the problem, but just for flexilbilty in threads which are for talking not screaming at each other....In fact, I might set up a thread 4A that can be linked to a thread 5 as soon as possible?

possible pretentious warning, sorry... this is about the relationship between books and television.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit
I am sure The Wire would be worth trying, even though as with everything at the moment, I will probably have to start by watching every episode 3 times until I can follow it by watching every episode 2. Because it looked like Art not just when I last tried to watch it. My counter rec to anyone who enjoyed The Wire is a book called My Life is a Villainess, an essay collection by Laura Lippman, who has been married to David Simon for oh, 20 years, now, is also one of my favourite authors, met him when they were journalists on a Baltimore quality broadsheet style newspaper. She has also contributed to the Wire, as have other crime writers like George Pelecanos from down the road in the DC suburbs. They have a daughter together, via adoption I think, and there are many stories about her in the book too.

He has also written books, one of which (tbr) became a series about crime on the streets in Baltimore (TBW) - I can find that on a Sky channel available through my cable service! I first bought this in in June 2021, but then listened through a library e-audio copy on my phone in 2022, I can work this out because I was waiting for cataract surgery, and should probably "reread" already on my Kindle. And I loved so much of it - if you like the Wire I particularly remember a piece about meeting fansplainers who explained.

Only trouble, how to watch somewhere I can take my time, like years. I don't have a DVD player to use my already bought boxset. Otherwise I've been looking years for an affordable option, as this is I think more than 100 of hours of quite intense attention demanding premium TV.

@MegBusset and @EineReiseDurchDieZeit d, glad it's not just me talking about TV now!

Because this thread is so full already, a transition thread (as in easing the move primary to secondary school!)

www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/5536851-50-books-challenge-2026-part-4a-transition-thread-between-4a-and-50books-part-5

@elkiedeeI had a Wire box set, it was loaned out and never returned. I don’t have Sky so I eventually paid for it digitally on Amazon and it’s linked to my Firestick

THIS THREAD IS NOW CLOSED, new one here:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/5536931-50-books-challenge-2026-part-five