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

Thanks for that @Stowickthevast it was on my Wish List as well

76 Ragtime – EL Doctorow. I read this as part of an America 250 online book club. I’d never heard of it before and then it popped up on The Guardian’s Books You Should Read (or whatever it was called). Has anyone else read it? Its just…weird. Its based in New York City in around 1912/1913 and follows three families, a wealthy white American family, a wealthy black musician and a poor Jewish immigrant family. The plot also weaves in real life characters, like JP Morgan, Harry Houdini, Booker T Washington and the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. I had to google a lot of the characters to find out if they were real or fictional. Everyone in the book has names, except for the rich, white folks. They are referred to as Father, Mother and Younger Brother. This irritated me beyond reason. This has been adapted into a movie and also a musical. I cannot imagine either. I might try to track down the film, just to see what they do with the source material.

The book club discussed this the other night, but meetings are at 1am our time. I'll watch the online and see what everyone else thought. The ones based in the NYC area also went to see the musical, so will be interesting to hear them compare.

I liked Ragtime. I quite like those meandering ensemble pieces that don’t necessarily have a strong narrative direction. It was definitely weird though - am I right in remembering that it was rather, for want of a better word, penisey?

I haven't managed to totally catch up, but have a bit. Sorry to read about those having hard times with grief, health and other things. Wishing you all the best. ----------------@FuzzyCaoraDhubh as you can imagine I was delighted to read your review of Honour by Elif Shafak. It was one of her first books I read and had seen it in Turkey on a book stall, where interestingly the title is Iskender after the son. I thought it was a really interesting take on Honour (and associated crimes that come with that term), because it is usually a rebellious daughter who is the focus. The London setting is also where my GPs lived and so much of it was 'real' if that makes sense. You're review of Land has also convinced me to give O'Farrell another try after I hated A Marriage Portrait - plus I loved Friel's Translations so perhaps this will speak to me. ----------------@CornishLizard Obviously I am a fan, but I do see how Agualusa/Hahn can be all the things you described. He does seem to be a sort of weird writer, everything I have read is approached in quite different ways. I don't always get everything, but overall they seem to work for me, but I am definitely guilty of already being 2-3 stars along simply because I want to like everything they do. -----------------On the Hahn note, a review. If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation, by Daniel Hahn I saw Hahn speak at the Oxford Literary Festival earlier this year to a small, select crowd (including our own Cassandre) and it was just an utterly sublime geek-fest. His book signing was relatively short so we got to have a really lovely chat with him about Shakespeare (I am a big fan), translation (I'm pretty obsessed with words and languages) and general story-telling. We spoke about Agualusa obviously and he was just a really nice man who really cares about commas and iambic pentameter. The book itself I really enjoyed reading, some of it went over my head, some of it I didn't know how to engage with e.g. when explaining the rhythm of a Japanese sentence underlining the stress was interesting but also didn't really tell me a great deal since I cannot read Japanese. He has never translated Shakespeare and only translates into English but he has basically travelled around and spoken to other translators having a right old time. He speaks to Turkish translators a fair bit, which helped me. Overall, this felt like sitting next to someone who you discover has the same niche interests as you at a dinner party but is better informed and you just have a wonderful evening discussing, thinking, debating and learning new things.

Oh, my paragraphs won't work. Not sure what the problem is, I have tried twice.I have tried to fix it with lines but have made it worse.

28 - How not to be a boy - Robert Webb

I listened to Webb narrate this himself, and I'd definitely recommend that format. His delivery adds an extra layer of humour and emotion to this funny, surprisingly moving, and at times brutally honest memoir, which explores masculinity, family, and growing up with vulnerability.

That sounds utterly wonderful Agualusa. Lucky you (and cassandre). Thanks for sharing.

@TheDonsDingleberries- that’s a fair point re statistics. I was trying to think of something that was purely factual - I had in mind when writing a book on the geology of rocks - but perhaps readers just can’t escape the insidious influence of the author’s character.

@ÚlldemoShúl- I read one MZB as a teen - I can’t remember what it was but I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would (possibly because it was a sequel). Looking back, I had the ability to read adult books but not the critical reading skills to cope with sleazier / bad faith authors. I also don’t particularly want to know about authors’ characters but as well as some being irredemiable, I also find with misbehaving writers there’s a difference between those who have wider interests in their work (eg Dickens, Victor Hugo) & those who seem to draw on & reinterpret their private life (eg DH Lawrence). I much prefer spending time with the thoughts of writers from the first group.

@AgualusasL0ver- the translation lecture sounds wonderful. I was thinking about translation recently (probably due to thinking about Greek myths & French plays after reading The Odyssey) & that it’s hard to see European classic plays unless you live in London & that might be because we lack translations that have become classics in their own right.

Halfway through The Other Bennet Sister and… it’s one of those where the TV series is better, isn’t it?

Low point so far has been Mr Collins saying, ‘We have verbs to decline.’ No sir, you really don’t.

Thanks for your thoughts on separating the art from the artist. I was actually thinking of Neil Gaiman when I asked the question as DH has the Sandman books and I was contemplating reading them but recent revelations have definitely made me reluctant. I’m not buying anything new by him, but I might read the stuff we already have. I’m just not clear myself where my line is, I know that I never want to read anything by Alice Munro as I find the revelations by her daughter so repugnant that I never want to read anything originating from her mind, but that’s easy as I was never that keen anyway, would I feel the same if it was one of my favourite authors? I just don’t know. Anyway no judgement from me on what anyone else decides, I think it’s a very personal thing, I’m just trying to figure out where I’m at on this.

I’ve been looking for the deals link but I can’t find it, can anybody help please ?

68 The Dark Angel by Elly Griffiths

Continuing my journey through the Ruth Galloway books, this one set in Italy. Ruth is invited by an old friend / colleague / one time lover to consult on some bones at an archaeological dig in Italy and decides to get away from the ‘Ruth - Nelson - Michelle - Tim’ saga (can’t say I blame her for that) and make a holiday of it in Italy with Kate, Shona and Louis. Of course there’s a murder, and of course Ruth gets mixed up in it, and of course Nelson and Cathbad end up in Italy, somehow. This was just silly, too much infidelity (just call time on that marriage already), too many guns and barely a sniff of any archaeology. Not one of her best.

Your view re Alice Munro mirrors mine, @MamaNewtNewt. My immediate reaction on the ‘separate art from artist' topic (and I think I've mentioned it before on an earlier thread) is the almost visceral reaction I had on reading Valerie Grove's biography of Laurie Lee. Despite the popular narrative of Lee being some sort of magical Pied Piper, with his violin and storytelling, beloved by all, I found the details of his compulsive womanising throughout his marriage, invariably with very young women (some barely out of their teens) so grim that I never want to go near any of his books again. Not that I was ever a great fan of Cider with Rosie, or indeed any of his works.

@MamaNewtNewtA big part of the Neil Gaiman issue for me is that Coraline, The Graveyard Book & others used to be (& maybe are still) taught in schools, which I find really uncomfortable given the news reports about his behaviour. I took DS1 to the Jorvik museum last year and I can still remember that Odd & the Giants was a big feature of their display and the children’s book corner was otherwise quite limited re authors even though this was after the allegations. This I really find difficult and I don’t like the way this debate is framed as censorship. In reality, we do curate books for children and if we are including Gaiman, then we are excluding other authors as there is a limited amount of space in the curriculum or on library / book shop shelves.

It’s not that Gaiman is the only author who writes about Vikings or fantasy - the reason I was looking at the book corner as I was quite tempted to buy Kevin Crossley-Holland’s second Viking book (I bought the first for the DC several years ago but never go round to buying the second) but I can’t remember seeing that or any more of his work even though he really ought to be part of a childen’s Viking themed book selection. There’s a big difference between a child randomly coming across his works in say a library and in showcasing his works through teaching / displaying them.

On a related note, I do wish publishers would stop the cringy one line celebrity author endorsements on book covers as Neil Gaiman is quoted on most of my DS1’s Diana Wynne Jones collection. (I don’t mind longer endorsements on the back / inside where it is clear the authors etc have read and loved the actual book.

I know what you’re saying @MamaNewtNewt Rob Delaney gave Alice Munro a rave on Between The Covers and so I bought Runaway then the news came out, no chance of me reading this now

Interestingly Lionel Shriver is in the deals today - I have not bought it! Did pick up The Director though and the new Janice Hallet.

@bettbburg if you go to the Kindle deals page and then scroll to the bottom, it should say see all deals.

@StrangewaysHereWeCome – Ba ha ha ha!! Yes! There was a VERY descriptive episode of Younger Brother masturbating that I could have done without. But then I never really want to read about men masturbating to be fair.

@MamaNewtNewt – The Dark Angel was a low point in the series.

I was very well behaved with the deals and only bought a 99p Jenny Colgan which was on my wish list and I went bananas and paid £2.99 for an Elin Hildebrand that I had my eye on.

Thanks @Stowickthevast i had somehow only found a few deals!

The Spy and the Traitor by Ben McIntyre is in there. Fabulous book. Also there is No Friend to this House by Natalie Haynes, which someone asked about upthread

77 The Bombay Prince – Sujata Massey - Book 3 in the Perveen Mistry series. I’m so enjoying this series. Perveen is such an interesting character. We are back in Bombay in 1921, awaiting the arrival of Prince Edward, who is undergoing a tour of the subcontinent. Ghandi is organising protests and boycotts. Perveen is approached by a young female student, Frenny Cuttingmaster at the local university for advice on non attendance at the celebrations for Prince Edward. Frenny is found dead later on after the procession has passed through. Naturally Perveen investigates.

Lots of different themes here. Womens education, racism, Indian Independence, religious intolerance. I loved it.

Finished book 32, one of my own which had been collecting dust on the shelf for years - Between the World and Me, by Ta-nehisi Coates. It is a very powerful account by Coates, written to his teenage son, about the experience of growing up as a black kid in America. It focuses a lot on the body; how American succeess was built on the destruction of the black body. It is a very powerful read, and I did somethig unusual with this book; I couldn't really "feel" it, which was the whole point as it is so viscreal and physical, so I downloaded the audiobook, narrated by Coates himself, and listened to it for about half an hour before returning to the print version. I could then hear his voice in my head as I read it.

(should say, as a disclaimer, that I can't do audiobooks. I really struggle to stay focused on audio, but in this case, it propelled me to the text version nicely)

I'm trying to read my physical pile of books as we are moving house soon. I feel like if I'm avoiding reading something year on year, it is probably a good indication to get rid of it and not lug it to the next house.

Thank you, I did look but there’s nothing like that.

45 . Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (Audio)

If you haven’t been living under a rock then you will have heard of this. Billed as Trad Wife Natalie going back into the past to suffer the realities of traditional roles, the description selling it doesn’t really add up to the content.

She’s not a trad wife for a start, she’s a phoney and a fraud. What she is is deeply insufferable. The past sections are very slight and give way to more and more chapters about Natalie’s rise to trad wife influencer status and the consequences and it’s boring, she’s boring.

The ending is ludicrous and doesn’t work.

I’m glad I finally read something but honestly, don’t believe the hype here. Decidedly average. Dragged myself through it.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit thanks for that review. I was dithering over reading it because I suspected it was a compelling hook with not enough to back it up (like The Names and Fundamentally). I have a feeling I would agree with you if I read it - so I won't!

weird @bettbburg

try this link
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?i=digital-text&rh=n%3A205863640031&ref=lp_3017941031_sar

I am half way through atm. I guess it's a satire on the whole trad wife movement and so from that perspective it's clever. It raises so many issues about being a woman, motherhood etc. It would be great to discuss it in a book club. I have heard it has a preposterous ending, so I'm braced for that!