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

I mean that Shriver comment in relation to the book where she decides ADHD doesn't exist. It does, there are good reasons why it's more diagnosed now, and it will make me angry to read about it. I don't think my original comment is very clear!

I got what you meant @RazorstormUnicorn. I’m midway through being tested as it happens.

Honestly I'm pretty wishy washy when it comes to separating art from the artist, although I suppose it depends on what I dislike about the artist.

For example, I was thinking about replacing my battered old copy of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, but I won't contribute to his sales now that there've been some very serious allegations against him. However I wouldn't throw out a book I enjoy, and if I came across a copy in better condition in a charity shop or at a giveaway I might buy it.

As someone noted up thread, I do find sometimes when you know more about the artist, things that you didn't notice before can hit differently on reread.

In theory, I'd still read a book by an artist who has different beliefs or political opinions to me. I say in theory because frankly, although I think it's good to read things from different perspectives, I'm not interested in spending my precious time reading anything extreme enough to amount to a diatribe against any particular group. On either side of the political fence.

I suppose how contemporary the artist is also plays a role. Long dead writers aren't going to personally benefit from me buying their books, so I have less qualms about consuming their work.

Like I said, I'm wishy washy! I have Monsters: What do we do with great art by bad people? by Claire Dederer on my shelf, so perhaps I should bump that up my TBR list.

Oh the deals look unusually good this month. I haven't bought any yet but plan to treat myself as I've been good so far with my RWYO so far this year.

Damn this thread. How am I supposed to get my TBR down? First thing each month is check my wish list (largely populated by recommendations on here). Then I come on here and bam, before I know it, that's another 8 books bought and it's not even elevenses time.

💯 empathise with that @countrygirl99

I am trying not to look at the deals or what you have all bought to avoid temptation.....

@Stowickthevast I haven't read No Friend to This House or Stone Blind. I have a classics-loving daughter a little older than yours who says No Friend is her favourite yet though. Incidentally, I saw Natalie Haynes give a talk at a book festival with said DD a couple of years ago and she was amazing! I would definitely recommend if you/DD get the chance to see her.

My latest read: Dream State by Eric Puchner. Opens with Cece organising her wedding to Charlie - a doctor - at his family's Montana house. He sends his best friend Garrett to help her out, they fall in love, she leaves Charlie and marries Garrett. All this happens fairly quickly and early and then we have fifty years of what-happened-next. I thought this was Very Good Indeed. I love a love-triangle (see Heart the Lover) and a long-marriage saga. But there were also aspects of this that are not usually my thing - some of it is set in the near-future (which I'm not normally a fan of) and there's a focus on climate change. It was all very well done - moving, smart, funny in places but very sad in others, totally absorbing. If I had one criticism, it's that, as so often with these things, it's not entirely convincing the way Cece and Garrett fall in love to the extent that they ditch their partner/best friend and set up together. But I'll forgive it. I'm pretty sure it'll be a bold at the end of the year.

I've got a few in the deals from my wishlist:

The Eights - Joanna Miller
Broken Harbour - Tana French (Dublin Murder Squad 4)
The Racket - Conor Niland (tennis autobiography - I've been waiting ages for this to come down in price and hoped it would during Wimbledon - I was right!)
Material World - Ed Conway

37 Standing by the Wall - Mick Herron Short story tacked onto the end of Bad Actors; a nice little Christmas tale, with a link to the standalone book The Secret Hours.

I've caved and got The Keeper as well, despite it not meeting my self-imposed 99p threshold...been looking forward to finishing the trilogy for ages!

Wow, I've missed so much on this thread! I hope everyone who's been poorly feels better soon.

Interesting debate about authors whose views don't accord with our own. Knowing more about the author does inform what I read into the book/s but I wouldn't not read something I fancied just because I disagreed with someone's views - and as most of my books come from charity shops I don't need to worry about them profiting from my lack of principles! Re Shriver, I read Kevin years ago but don't think I've read any others - and by the sound of it I'm not missing out.

Thanks also for more recommendations. I really fancy Ripeness and another I'll have to back and find the name of. I have a list of books recommended by this thread (in the hope i find one in a charity shop!) and it's huge.

One of them was Shuggie Bain - and I did find it in a charity shop! Boy is it bleak. It's the story of a boy growing up in poverty with an alcoholic mother in Glasgow in the 80s. It's very well written and will stay with me for a long time, but don't read if you're hoping to be cheered up.

Book 27 is Instructions for a Heatwave - Maggie O'Farrell. I thought it appropriate last week!
During the heatwave of 1976 retired man Robert goes out to get a paper but doesn't come back. His wife and three children convene to try to find him at which point family secrets emerge. I enjoyed this. You have to suspend belief at times and I would have liked more of the characters' back stories though, which means it's not quite a bold, but it would make a decent holiday read.

We're also at the halfway point of the year so having just finished book 27 gives me hope that I might actually make 50 by the end of it!

I've allowed myself a little book-buying spree in the 99p deals, as I've been pretty restrained so far this year and I have a little birthday money knocking about.

I've bought The Eights, Fundamentally, Heatwave, Killing Thatcher (as it was well reviewed by someone here) and Notes on Infinity.

Books that I would have bought but which I've added to my BorrowBox waitlist instead: Katabasis, Ripeness, My Father's House, Year of the Rat.

@VikingNorthUtsire thanks for mentioning Katabasis I didn’t see it

I have bought Flesh and A Month in Sienna by Hisham Matar. Resisting other deals so far.

I bought Let Me Go Mad In My Own Way, Once The Deed Is Done and 500 Mile Walkies (the last one not 99p but I wanted it, so I got it #recidivist)

Somehow I've ended up buying 12 books in the sale and only 5 were on my wish list. You're all such a bad influence!

Absolutely loving the pet pictures - they all look very handsome & would make book characters. @LadybirdDaphne- I ought to have been clearer that the spaniel I mentioned was our DDog, who is excitable (as you said) but can outwit us all at times! I’ve no idea why the book description made such an impression on me as the spaniel only appears on 2 pages & does nothing of note (other than being called “witless”). Apologies for not uploading a picture.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie- nice to see you back. I enjoyed Airs Above Ground very much when I read it last year.

@Owlbookend- the Emily Wilson translation of The Odyssey that I am using for the readalong is very readable & might be worth a look especially as verse novels have become very popular for children / YA in the last few years. There’s also Charles Kingsley’s The Heroes which is absolutely ancient (should be on Project Gutenberg) but expands the legends of Perseus, Jason & Theseus into novellas. I liked it when younger & I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that it was an influence on Tolkien.

@MamaNewtNewt- re art from artist I don’t think this is easy & I think it depends on the genre - I think it’s less of an issue if the author is writing something very factual where there isn’t much scope for personal opinions. @TheDonsDingleberriesmentioned Gaiman, part of the problem for me is that he was writing for children, which is a type of writing that often needs a moral compass. What he has been accused of just jars with that. There was also the earlier case of William Mayne, who was found guilty of child abuse - that’s too much for me. Re the views of an author, I don’t necessarily have to agree with everything an author believes, but the author’s voice is often a powerful presence in a book & definitely can put me off reading more of an author’s work.

Thanks for alerting me to Killing Thatcher being on the deals, I’ve wanted to read it for quite a while.

Loving the pet photos, none to contribute here sadly.

Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa tr from Portugese by Daniel Hahn Scared to admit that I struggled rather with this. It was harder work than I’d expected a book narrated by a gecko to be. Set in Angola in the house of Félix Ventura, a professional seller of histories to those who want to buy a better past in life. Our narrator gives his gecko-on-the-wall perspective, alternating between encounters between Félix and his customers, and the gecko’s dreams of his own past as a human.

There are philosophical musings, most of which went over my head, but I did like the way the book justified incorporating dreams - which I’d normally run a mile from - ‘there is truth - even if there isn’t realism - in everything a man dreams’. Apparently the translator suggested the English title translation (the original was more prosaic ‘the seller of pasts’), and Agualusa was delighted with the idea. The ending was neat, unsurprisingly some of the characters’ pasts are shown in a new light, but I wouldn’t be minded to reread to understand better.

61. The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes - I am reading this YA series at the insistence of my 14 year old. I enjoy a bit of YA occasionally - I loved the Hunger Games, The Firekeeper’s Daughter, and The Hate U Give for example - but this series is quite a bit more Y than those! Puzzles, twists, and thrills abound as do 4 billionaire brothers, each of whom is an archetype from a teenage fantasy. I can absolutely see why teens love it. It holds less interest for me but has been a perfect holiday reads with short chapters full of momentum.

Separating author from art - I would read more by writers whose politics I respect. I am more fuzzy on good books by bad people. I recently read a book by someone new to me. The book wasn't bad but on looking them up, I decided not to read more.

@Tarahumarayour black cat is identical to mine

@Benvenuto I actually think non fiction from a bad faith author can be worse than fiction, depending on the 'facts' they chose to present or not.

It's more insidious because it often hides under the guise of unbiased science or statistics, but if you scratch the surface there's often more to the story, misinterpretation of the data, shoddy data collection, etc.

It's all lies, damn lies, and statistics! 😁

I can generally divorce the art from the artist- I don’t think we could ever read any classics without being able to do that- I mean who would actually want to spend time with the Brontes? And I love [edit for autocorrect to live- every damn time iphone] Virginia Woolf’s writing but she was a terrible snob and carried a lot of prejudices. (bet we’d all like Wilkie Collins though- and I don’t want to know of any bad things about him!)
Of course that’s easier when it’s distant in time than people who are alive today. I generally don’t know a lot about authors private lives (or celebs in general) but I will not read or engage with the work of child abusers or those found guilty of sexual crimes- for some reason that’s my red line. I loved the books I read of Marion Zimmer Bradley in my late teens and early 20s- especially The Firebrand which retells the story of the fall of Troy from Cassandra’s perspective but I can’t reread them now I know what she did (child abuse).
Ideas is a woolier one to come to terms with. If their work is not riddled with ideas I find abhorrent then I can read it. With Lionel Shriver I think her ideas leak into her work (after Kevin, and probably including if I read it again now) so I would tend to avoid.

I have finished another bold read for me The Keeper by Tana French. This is another book I had on preorder- though I see it was in the daily deals yesterday. In this third, and I would think final, Cal Hooper book, a local young girl is found dead from what is widely believed to be suicide. Or was it? Cal, Trey and Lena develop more widely as characters as does Ardnakelty itself and the men and women that make up the village. It’s a marvellous read, slow and atmospheric, adding even more layers to characters we already knew but now know better, and introducing some interesting new ones. This is not one to read without having read the first two I think, but it’s a tremendous finale to the trilogy- truly literary crime where the characters, the setting and the society are explored subtly but with even more emphasis than the crime itself. I'll read anything else she writes.

I forgot about Marion Zimmer Bradley @ÚlldemoShúl I loved The Mists of Avalon as a teen but the things she and her partner did are unforgivable.

I picked up Transcription by Ben Lerner today. I didn't see it in yesterday's deals or today's but it was in my wishlist and is one that has been heavily backed as a potential Booker longlistee.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - JK Rowling
Just finished with DD. A re-read for me though I barely remembered any of it from when I first read it 20-odd years ago. I enjoyed it though, as did DD.

Forgot to say yesterday, loving all the pet pics. I lost my lovely dog a few years ago, still miss her. Lovely to see everyone else's.

I was just about to post about the Ben Lerner too!