50 Books Challenge 2026 Part Five

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fifth 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, the third thread here and the fourth thread

Latest reads:

I Go By Sea, I Go By Land - P L Travers

A lesser known children’s book by the Mary Poppins author. It’s told from the point of view of an eleven year old girl, who is evacuated along with her younger brother to live with relatives in America during the war. This mainly covers their journey but also a bit about settling in to their new life. It was OK but all a bit simplistic and in my opinion surprisingly positive - nothing about the upheaval most children would have felt going through an experience like that. However it was published in 1941 while the war was still going on so maybe she didn’t want to make it too negative and scare children who might still have to go through something similar.

From Source To Sea: Notes From a 215-Mile Walk Along the River Thames - Tom Chesshyre

Pretty much as the title says! I found this interesting although as someone who used to live in Reading I was a bit disappointed that he skipped over that section quite quickly. It’s an interesting mix of nature, history and the people he meets/things he sees along the way.

The Truth About Ruby Cooper

I have enjoyed Nugent’s previous books but I really wasn’t keen on this. The main character is a pretty awful person and I didn’t like the way the story went (hard to explain without spoilers). It’s about Ruby and her family, which splits apart due an event when Ruby is 16 and which has repercussions over the years. Luckily I only paid £1.29 for it - I would have been really annoyed if I had paid more for it.

Havisham - Elle Machray

The story of Miss Havisham before she appears in Great Expectations. Or so it claims to be. As a story in its own right it’s fine, but the characters bear no resemblance to those in Great Expectations, and in fact the ending of this is impossible if it’s going to tie up with Great Expectations. And if it doesn’t tie up, what’s the point?

The Age Of Miracles - Karen Thompson Walker

YA novel. It’s told from the point of view of 11 year old Julia, who lives in California. One day the earth’s rotation starts slowing, so days gradually get longer until time is completely messed up. I really enjoyed this and personally thought it did a great job of building up the scenario. I’m sure those who are more knowledgeable about the science would be able to pull this apart but I found it a really interesting idea. My only quibble really is that Julia’s voice sounded more like a 14 year old than an 11 year old.

R is for Ricochet - Sue Grafton

Latest in the Kinsey Millhone series, where we get endless descriptions of what she’s wearing, what she’s eating, and what everybody and every place looks like. In between all this there’s some sort of plot - here it’s to do with embezzlement and money laundering. I do like Kinsey as a character but I think once I’ve finished the series there will only be one or two that I might want to reread in the future.

My 26th book was Night Film by Marisha Pessl. It’s a really odd literary thriller and full of ambiguity around things that may or may not be supernatural. It’s definitely got noir influences. It’s not a fast-paced read and there are some things wrong with it but I loved it and couldn’t put it down - while at the same time completely understanding why a lot of people hate it.

27 and 28 were The Broken Afternoon and The Lost & The Found by Simon Mason. I think they’re vey well-written, character-driven whodunnits and a lot of my reservations about the first one in the series were resolved for me in these two books.

29 was The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin. It’s one of the few books where I think the (original) film is better, mainly because it’s so short that there isn’t really time to build up to the reveal and when it does, it feels rushed and under-explored. But it’s a great story and exactly the sort of concept/premise that Ira Levin was good at.

30 was London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe and - sorry Mumsnet, as it seems de rigeur on here to praise it - I didn’t love it? It’s not that it’s a bad book. Radden Keefe is an excellent journalist and writer. But I just felt it taught me nothing about London and the shady super-rich underworld that I didn’t already know and although I obviously do feel sorry for the Brettlers and their loss, I also just couldn’t connect with them or warm to them as people.

31 is Picnic At Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay which I’m loving so far.

@Tarragon123 I read Ordinary Saints last year. Loved it.

I really liked Ordinary Saints too.

@BauhausOfEliott I have just finished the audio of London Falling too. I thought it was interesting, depressing and slightly frightening as a mother of London teens. I actually didn't know how little investigated Russian caused deaths were, and I say that as someone who has worked in government on Russia related matters. I also thought the whole blaggy nature of everyone involved was interesting, no-one actually had what they pretended to or lived where they said they did. Reminds me of some people I know living in the UAE who seem super rich but are a bit hazy about what they actually do. A couple of minus points on the audio for Keefe's pronunciation of Loughborough - varied and all incorrect - and Graham (Gram).

55. The Weekend - Charlotte Wood. This is by the author of Stone yard Devotional. It's about 3 women in their 70s who met at Christmas in Australia to clear out the beach house of their 4th friend who has recently died. The women are all quite different characters and get exasperated by various habits of each other, but also feel sympathy towards each other. I really liked this as a look at friendship and how it changes.

@Stowickthevast Don’t forget his pronunciation of Abramovitch had me correcting him every time

I worked in for a council with plenty of poverty but also some very expensive housing for some years. I was a typist/PA in different roles at different times but working with people who got high value property relatd queries. I was warned to be a bit careful with the gangster types.

There's a lot of stuff about this in books set in Ukraine between the 1990s up to 2010 or so, before things got nastier across Ukraine and the former Soviet Union.

Elizabeth's Rival - Nicola Tallis

Very good - better than Crown of Blood though not quite as good as Young Elizabeth and Uncrowned Queen.

This is non-fiction about Lettice Knollys, who was (probably) the granddaughter of Henry VIII, through Mary Boleyn's DD Katherine (Carey).

Thus she was both niece and first cousin once removed to QEI; Lettice was 10 years younger, bore a strong resemblance to QEI, lived to the age of ninety-one (!!). Also married Robert Dudley as her second husband, after which QEI basically refused to see her again (whilst still welcoming Dudley at court and sending him hither and yon on her business; I feel that QEI and Mrs Thatcher would have had a lot to talk about regarding prioritising men over women). Tallis is a gifted historian and interesting writer - Lettice's letters to her husbands are mostly lost but she puts together her life from other sources.

If you fancy it, it's on Kindle Unlimited at present.

That sounds really interesting @SheilaFentiman

Thanks as always to southeast for the new thread

My latest reads:

41. Enid Blyton - The Valley of Adventure
42. Michael Crichton - Timeline
43. Rachel McLean - The Chesil Beach Murders
44. Michelle Salter - Murder at Big Ben
45. Emily Organ - Murder in the Soho Graveyard
46. Magda Alexander - A Murder in Mayfair
47. Magda Alexander - A Murder in Trinity Lane
48. Magda Alexander - A Murder on the Thames
49. Magda Alexander - A Murder at the Royal Opera
50. Magda Alexander - The Stolen Sparkler
51. Lesley Cookman - Murder in Steeple Martin
52. Deb Marlowe - Murder on the Mirrored Lake
53. Deb Marlowe - Revenge in the Rogue's Hideaway
54. Deb Marlowe - Carnage from the Cursed Crown
55. Tim Sullivan - The Cyclist
56. Lucy Greenhill - An Utterly Unsuitable Lady
57. Rachel McLean - The Beach Hut Murders
58. Lesley Cookman - Murder in Midwinter
59. Deb Marlowe - Betrayal from Beyond
60. Tom Mead - Cabinet Macabre
61. Deb Marlowe - Dark Tidings on the Thames
62. Darcy McGuire - A Lady's Lesson in Scandal
63. Kelley Armstrong - A Rip Through Time
64. MRG Davies - Murder by the Book
65. LM Montgomery - Anne of Green Gables

Not much stands out here - I'm reading lots of tat non-demanding books to make the most of a Kindle Unlimited trial - but I did add in a re-read of Anne of Green Gables. My granny gave me the book when I was about 10 and I loved it, however, from an adult point of view I find Anne quite irritating and what is it about all her friends knowing they can't compare?! Anyhow, I still made it a bold as it's very nostalgic for me, and I'd still love to visit PEI.

@AliasGrape I thought the same about the Sophie Irwin book - really didn't think it worked as a concept - it was just cringe-making in some places. What a shame, as I loved the first two and will probably re-read both this year.

@Terpsichore my book club also had When the Coffee Gets Cold as a choice, which was the only reason I read it - not my cup of tea at all (no pun intended!). Loving your review though

@PiggywaspushedA Suitable Boy would be fantastic for a readalong (I would join) not least because there are so many interesting characters & subplots to talk about.

@SheilaFentiman The Tallis book is one of my earliest kindle purchases, bought in May 2018. I really do need to read it!

@Tarragon123 I really liked Ordinary Saints. I’m a recent convert to Catholicism (brought up C of E but not with any real commitment, family now firmly atheist), so knew my way around faith, but the prominence of saints in RC was quite new to me. Luckily, we followed the Sycamore journey in faith, written and presented by Fr Stephen Wang, which laid out the purpose and importance of saints in a clear and accessible way. I think my prayers to saints are still a bit clunky and self conscious though! Anyone who knows my reviews on here will be able to tell I gravitate towards the Northern Saints - we didn’t have to choose a saint’s name for Confirmation as an adult but if we had, I’d have chosen Saint Hilda of Whitby. The process of canonisation for the modern saints such as Carlos Acutis is fascinating and I thought the book handled the conflicted feelings of the sister very well. I’m particularly interested in the social history of when saints lived; what might have motivated them, where do they fit into faith and what relevance might they have to someone trying the live that faith today?

@Stowickthevast A couple of minus points on the audio for Keefe's pronunciation of Loughborough - varied and all incorrect - and Graham (Gram)

Yes, and there are a lot of bits in the book where he explains/contextualises British things for American readers too. That's understandable because it was probably written for an American readership first and foremost, but it grated on me a bit.

44. Black Sunset - Clancy Sigal

This was one of those rare and precious times when a totally accidental discovery turns out to be a cracker of a read. Clancy Sigal is a larger-than-life ex-WW2 serviceman, ex-Union organiser, Jew, movie nut and Communist, racketing round Hollywood in the 1950s at the height of McCarthyist paranoia. Perma-tailed by two FBI agents he christens ‘Mutt and Jeff’, Clancy lands a job as an agent at the prestigious Sam Jaffe agency and steps into the upside-down world of films at a time when names might be named, and nobody knows when they might be denounced to the House Un-American Activities Committee - including Clancy himself, whose undercover work with the group of refuseniks calling themselves the ‘Omegas’, devoted to sticking it to J. Edgar Hoover, continues unabated.

As everyone on here knows by now, I’m not a lover of the continuous present, but Clancy S pulls it off triumphantly in this memoir with huge verve, bite and mordant hilarity, so much so that you can almost see the sparks crackling off the page. A big, beautiful bold for me.

I've been reading women's fiction this year, but haven't got very far.

The Rossetti Letter by Christi Phillips (lent to me by a friend) - a historical novel, set in 17th century Venice, which is unstinting in its sex and gore.

Gunk Baby by Jamie Marina Lau - a novel by a young adult living in Australia, which is unsettling in its implied violence, consumerism, and passivity of the main characters.

Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively - I don't like the main character much, but that's not important. It's a clever and lyrical novel, and thought provoking about the impact of war.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan - a very simply but powerfully written story about man born out of wedlock in Ireland and how he subsequently comes into contact with the cruelty of the Magdalene Laundries.

The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield - I love Katherine Mansfield, though I have to admit I prefer the spell she weaved with her story collection "In a German Pension" published in 1911 and set entirely in Germany, as far as I remember.

Lisa & Co - Jilly Cooper Collection of short stories written for women’s magazines in the 60s and 70s. Much as I love her, some of these really haven’t dated well. All those women giving up work upon getting married or hiding away babies, the odd rape. Some sweet ones though. Very JC

32. Trust by Hernan Diaz
    This book follows an ultra rich new York financier and his marriage leading up to and after the wall street crash. The book is divided into parts in which the same story is told from different points of view (different enough not to feel repetitive) giving different perspectives on power and the how this effects the characters. The structure is excellent but without this it would be a very dull book, the different perspectives kept me wondering what was the ‘truth’ and cam to the conclusion that none of them were and that the truth was somewhere inbetween. However ultimately I didn’t particularly care but admired the structure.

33. None of this is true by Lisa Jewell
    Standard thriller I listened to on audiobook, overall I really enjoyed this as the book is following a woman making a podcast which lends really well to the autobook format. Predictable ending but I enjoyed the ride.

34. Hunger and Thirst by Claire Fuller
    If you like your books to have a neat tidy end with all questions answered then stay away from this one. This is about a Ursula coming out of the care system who moves into a squat that may or may not be haunted while in a future timeline a true time documentary is being made about an event that happened while the Ursula was living in the squat.
    While the first part of the book follows how Ursula gets on with her life and dealing with loneliness, the second half leads more and more into outright horror. This one will likely stay a bold for me

35. Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito
    Loads of fun and I believe a film is shortly going to be released. A Victorian governess arrives and murder and mayhem ensues. This is a very short book which is about right as the concept was never going to stretch to 300 pages and I enjoyed the references to some of the Victorian governesses tropes.

You make me almost want to read it to see how bad or good each story is.

Land: Maggie O'Farrell.

The latest book by this author is a wonderfully immersive story about the lives of a family in the decade or so following 'The Great Hunger'. Tomás is a cartographer for the British Ordinance Survey Office and is meticulously recording the changes that the famine has had on the land. He and his young son stumble upon a hidden copse and Tomás has a transformative experience when he drinks from an ancient well. This experience alters the course of his and his family's lives.

This is a beautifully-written story of the fate of a family woven through the history and geography of the land that is their home. I found that reading about their circumstances, relationships and the exploration of the land very moving.

It recalls Irish folklore and the tradition of story-telling perfectly. It has a splash of magical realism embedded in the story at its most mystical point. I loved it from beginning to end and I'm sure it will be my book of the year.

@FuzzyCaoraDhubhI’m delighted to see your good review- I pre-ordered Land and have it lined up as my first read of the summer holidays which start on Monday 29th June. Can’t wait (for both the holidays and the book!)

I hope you enjoy both book and holiday, @ÚlldemoShúl !

I managed to pace myself during the first half, but then I got so drawn in, that I read the second half straight through. I'll also admit to having a lump in my throat and leaky eyes. You might want to keep your sunglasses on :)

I’ve just bought Land on the strength of your review @FuzzyCaoraDhubh.

My review doesn't do it justice, @BestIsWest. Let me know what you think of it.

I'm already in doing my best to be patient mode. I should be relieved if I knew I would have to wait until autumn

So pleased to hear Land is so good! I have it ready and waiting, might read it next, but was going to read DH’s book about maps and mapping first hoping for some context.