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

Pym isn’t twee at all! Her books are generally set in genteel circles and often have church-related scenes and characters, but they’re not twee. Her writing is acerbic and observant and funny, and actually subtly subversive, especially about the lives and roles of women at the time she was writing. Excellent Women and A Glass Of Blessings are both brilliant in my opinion.

I love Barbara Pym. She's great at describing the pleasures of an unrequited crush and how much more enjoyable it can be than being stuck with the person as a husband. Some Tame Gazelle in particular - nobody ends up with the object of their affection (apart from some peripheral characters) and they're all the happier for it. Her characters seem quiet and conventional on the surface, but their lives are still interesting and surprising to them. She's the doyenne of anti-romance - I love Crampton Hodnet for its account of the least enthusiastic elopement ever.

Yes to everything you said about Pym, @bibliomania ! Great point about how she shows that NOT getting married can be a great thing 😂

Book 34 was A Short Stay In Hell by Steven L Peck. As well being a short stay in Hell, it's also a short book, as it's novella, and I read it in one sitting.

It's narrated by Soren, a Mormon from Utah, who dies in his 40s and finds himself allocated to a specific form of Hell, which is a giant library. Before you think 'But that doesn't sound like Hell at all', this particular library happens to contain every single possible book that could ever be written. They don't have to make sense. They could just be the letter 'A' written 100,000 times, so there are billions and billions of books which make zero sense - in fact, whenever one of the inhabitants of Hell even finds a recognisable word by chance, there's a sense of wonderment and celebration. To escape Hell, the damned have to search the library to find the book that happens to contain their own life story.

I really loved this book, although I'm very conscious that it wouldn't be for everyone. It's a bleak existential fable and it's a tiny book with a huge scope. But I'll be thinking about it for a long time.

Book 35, also on a Hell-related theme, is Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin. The film is one of my all-time favourites (although sadly directed by a rapist, so there's that) and I've had a little flurry of reading books in the last week or two that have been adapted into films that became more famous than the books - Picnic At Hanging Rock, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Stepford Wives - which was something that I decided after a discussion in some creative writing classes I've been doing. Only a couple of chapters into Rosemary's Baby so far, but I'm enjoying it a great deal.

Also listening to the audiobook of the fifth and currently last book in the DI Wilkins(es) series by Simon Mason, The Dangerous Stranger. The plot was clearly inspired by the racist riots of 2024, but with everything that's happened in Belfast etc in recent weeks, it feels uncomfortably topical. So that will be book 36.

• The Outsider - Jane Casey

Published in November 2023, this is a linked book to the Maeve Kerrigan series and follows a case-in-the-life-of undercover cop Rob Langton. 99p on kindle at present.

Rob is tailing a target criminal in his bashed up car and under his Mark Howell identity. Fortunately he saves the guy’s life after a heart attack/car crash, then in a Dickie Roperesque moment, he ends up being taken onto the payroll as a Junior Thug. Mayhem and plots ensue. A good read and I liked Rob.

18 The Architect's Apprentice - Elif Shafak

A small Indian boy runs away from his unhappy home in the company of a baby elephant (a gift for the Ottoman Sultan) and makes a life for himself in Istanbul. Alongside his duties as elephant tamer in the Royal Menagerie he is engaged as an apprentice to the renowned architect Sinan (a real-life character responsible for many of Istanbul's most prestigious 16th Century buildings).

This book took me an absolute age to finish. It is beautifully written and spans decades of Jahan's life involving his unrequited love for a princess, his wholehearted and reciprocated love for his elephant, his love and respect for his Master, an ongoing partnership with a Gypsy family and quite a lot of Ottoman history. As such it didn't feel like one to rush through and I read it in small chunks at quiet times.

Going back to Pym, it’s not that I don’t detect that it’s meant to be humorous and observant and not that I don’t see the side-eye towards the men, more that it just bores me. I keep persisting because so many people whose views I respect tell me how wonderful she is. We had a C of E canon in the family and I really didn’t like him much and I saw how the women in the family and the village treated him with adoration so it’s not as if that world is totally alien to me either. Not that I need to have experienced a particular world to enjoy a book (Georgian Bath for example). Maybe it will click one day.

Anyway, on to John Lanchester. I don’t like these people either so far.

Have you read Quartet in Autumn? It’s not exactly a tribute to being single!

Ha, very true, @Southeastdweller ! But Quartet in Autumn is a bit of an outlier, as Terpsichore said.

@BestIsWest , that makes sense. I do think her books are rather marmite. When we read Crampton Hodnet for my book group, about half of us loved it and the other half were underwhelmed.

39. Deadman's Pool - Kate Rhodes

Ninth in the Isles of Scilly murder series which sees ex Met policeman, Ben Kitto, back in the islands where he grew up and trying to find another murderer. I like the relationships Ben has with colleagues, friends etc from book to book and enjoy the familiarity of the characters and the setting. Failed to spot the murderer (again....).

A few more of mine.
37 Three days in June. Anne Tyler Very much Anne Tyler. A small family drama set around a wedding. A good short read, beautiful characters of course but lacking a bit of substance for me and not one of her best in my opinion. She knows what she's good at though and sticks with it.
38 The Astral Library. Kate Quinn Started by hating this book but kind of loved it by the end. The magical library allows the needy to live inside a book of their choosing. Has a rather noisy and annoying protagonist. I didn't much care for her or the super woke cliché of a love interest or indeed the easy dismissal of the constraints on public services but I just loved the idea of living in a book! I read a lot of books that I soon forget, but I think I'll remember this one, it did have charm.
39 My Husband's Wife. Alice Feeney No. Just no. It's a free falling hot mess. We plummet through improbabilities like there's never going to be another opportunity to chuck them in a storyline. I won't be trying this author again.
40 London Falling. Patrick Radden Keefe. Inquiry into the very suspicious death of a London teen and the consequent cover up. Good but depressing read. As everyone else, I wanted more answers. Trust is a dangerous thing. May his memory be a blessing.

34 Making It So - Patrick Stewart
Autobiography of the Star Trek star, lovely to hear him read it himself on Audible in his stentorian tones.

35 The Starving Saints - Caitlin Starling
Medieval-esque horror fantasy - the castle of Aymar has been under siege for six months, people are starving, so naturally people start eating people… Not great writing but I loved the concepts - the religion based around saint worship and honey as sacrament, and obligations of fealty encompassing both the human and supernatural realms.

Signed up to a kindle unlimited trial (99p for two months) to read this as would have paid 99p for it otherwise. Which led to…

36 Hellmouth - Giles Kristian
Violent medieval hist fic/horror short - I loved Kristian’s creation of atmosphere and military detail, but ending was a bit daft and very abrupt.

I have a feeling more Kindle Unlimited guilty pleasures involving medieval/fantasy gore may follow. Although I’ve also checked out The Other Bennet Sister, which if the TV series is a faithful adaptation at least, shouldn’t include any cannibalism.

25 - Hungry Eyes - Dawn O'Porter

O'Porter's memoir is about food, family, friendship, love and loss, and I thought it was pretty good. The writing feels conversational, like you're sitting down for a chat with someone you're gradually getting to know.
While her childhood was marked by loss, there's also a strong sense of being surrounded by people who loved and cared for her. Food runs through every part of the story, becoming a source of comfort, connection and identity. It's also a fascinating (and sometimes horrifying!) reminder of the attitudes towards food, dieting and body image that many of us grew up with in the 80s and 90s.
The recipes sprinkled throughout were a lovely touch. Not every one was for me, but they were all simple and achievable, and I particularly enjoyed the Scottish influences and her wholesome wedding menu.
I did find the repeated depictions of binge drinking and binge eating quite uncomfortable at times, but that's probably the whole point! - and it's what makes the memoir so honest. O'Porter is refreshingly open about the difficult parts of her relationship with food and her body.
The final chapters, where she reflects on the aunt and uncle who raised her and the importance of the food shared around their table, were especially moving.
More than anything, I connected with her belief that feeding people is an act of love and care, and that's probably the main reason I rate the book.
That, and the fact that the title is brilliant ;)

This was an ARC - due out on 18th June I believe.

@Southeastdweller Interesting question. You could read Quartet in Autumn as showing the practical downsides of singledom - insecure housing in some cases, a slight trepidation about what to do over Christmas and holidays - but the characters themselves aren't especially yearning to be coupled up, at least as I read it.

A few more reads:

73. Brat Ferrar, Josephine Tey
By coincidence, my second book in a row about someone showing up eight years after their death, although books were written nearly seventy years apart. We're in the horsey English squirearchy, when a missing twin shows up just before the twenty-first birthday celebrations to claim the inheritance. Not my favourite Tey book but redolent of an era.

74. In a Summer Season, Elizabeth Taylor
We spend time with a comfortable middle-class woman, her two nearly grown children and her unsuitable second husband. Not a huge amount happens, apart from a flurry at the very end - this is one of those novels where we spend time in people's heads and understand what their life feels like to them. I'm not sure this will stay with me, but there were some enjoyable moments - I liked Aunt Ethel taking tea with her old cellmate from Holloway (they were imprisoned as suffragettes in their youth) and the housekeeper agreeing to play along as the perfect old-fashioned servant. And a lady sorting jumble has a hot flush, puts her cardigan down for a moment and is annoyed to find it marked up for fourpence. For a novel published in 1961, it was franker about sex and menopause than I expected.

75. The Toll-Gate, Georgette Heyer
Unusually for Heyer, the romance largely happens in the background while in the foreground our hero gets caught up in investigating the mystery of the missing gatekeeper. Not her best, but there's still fun to be had.

Checked my Amazon wishlist today and there seems to be mid-month deals on!

Never Whistle at Night (Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology) - I got this as fairly random insta rec and am hoping it's what I wanted to read when I got and was disappointed by an anthology last year. Can't remember the name. Apparently it's not even on Storygraph!
Solace House by Will MacLean - Can't remember where this one came from but at 99p it's worth a go
The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine - Long listed for the women's prize and to me sounded better/more interesting than a lot of others
City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky - I either like or love his books so always a must buy for me at 99p

I am 70% of the way through East of Eden and wanting to pick it up and read it all the time which surprised me as I found Grapes of Wrath an effort.

@RazorstormUnicorn thanks, just checked my Wish List and got Japanese Gothic

Well, it certainly cannibalises Jane Austen.

Hi everyone. Thank you to whoever mentioned the Charles Paris books, which I’m currently in the process of gobbling up.

I read Solace House last week which I thought was really good, until it got really fucking bad.

More Than This Layla Emmerson
This is a chunky book. Just over 400 pages, and too tall to fit in my bookshelf. But it was an enjoyable read. Some sex scenes which bordered on cringy, there's a fine line for me between ok and cringe and this was close.

Harper is a widow with a late teens/ early adult son. She's a successful author, but has got stuck in a rut writing her newest book. In comes Reid. He's also a successful author. They decide to role-play as the characters in each other's books in order to write the romances. Of course they fall in love. But Reid isn't just an author, he works for the Secret service. There's loads of other secrets too which I won't reveal.

Ultimately it's a story about a woman who is so used to being abandoned (her parents both abandoned her) that she never really trusts anyone, until she does. There's a lot of love, and quite a bit of sex.

nice to see you Remus. I found too much mushroom induced naval gazing in Solace House, it definitely started off better than it finished!

Have you seen the thread I tagged you about?

@Stowickthevast Yes, the mushrooms were probably the turning point into stupidity and it got more and more ridiculous from that point on.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit No, I haven’t read the full thread, sorry . What did I miss?

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupiethere’s a thread in What We’re Reading specifically about books where terrible things happen at sea. I thought of you!

Hi @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie.

i think it was @elkiedee who gave the Charles Paris heads up. I’ve got a few of the series, fun cosy reads.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie lovely to ‘see’ you!