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

@Southeastdweller are you OK to start a new thread, we are on page 40?

Thanks xx

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit – huge blue family. Contemplating going to a pre season game. Absolutely not going to Murrayfield to see Everton v Newcastle Utd. £88 a ticket! Scandalous.

@BauhausOfEliott – Dickensian United! Love it. May I suggest Asa Hartford from the 1970s please?

@RomanMum – depending on where you are going, you might find books at your resort? I sometimes take a book that I know I don’t mind leaving behind.

80 Miss Marple’s Final Cases – Agatha Christie. This popped up on my Borrowbox Audiobooks suggestions as I’d recently finished another AC. But its an odd one. According to Fable, where I track my reading, it’s eight short stories, however this was only three. June Whitfield is Miss Marple and I wonder if this was made for the BBC and then cobbled together for Borrowbox? Anyway, the usual AC, but amusingly for this particular chat, Miss Marple was talking about her two cousins, Anthony and Gordon! Snigger.

63. The Red Shore by William Shaw - I read this because I am soon attending an author event by the author. It was fine but unremarkable. A solid, well-constructed mystery with an unpredictable solution (or at least I couldn't predict it). The understated, emotionally distant writing style, however, kept me from fully investing in the characters, so while I enjoyed the mystery, I won't be reading more by the author.

Love this!

@Tarragon123 I’m technically nothing, I don’t really follow football outside of the internationals. But all my bullies at school were Evertonians so I’m a default Red.

Oh , how brilliant.

The footballers are brilliant.

is there room for a Dutch visitor - Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink?

We used to play verb surnames with famous people and there's quite a bit of crossover. One of my favourites was Nicky Butt.

Loving the Dickensian footballers. Am now picturing them all dressed like the Artful Dodger from the Oliver musical.

on hols too @RomanMum I brought 5 real books and my kindle- kindle is the game changer.
Finished Wild Shores by Maria Adolfsson - second in her crime fiction set in fictionalised Doggerland (a set of islands between the UK and Scandinavia). In this one a suspicious death on the north island brings our heroine DI Karen Eiken Hornsby to investigate. Decent mystery, great setting which feels real and a likable protagonist. Only 3 of these so far. Will read the third and hope she’s writing more.
DNFed Solace House. At 37% they were still just cleaning out the hoarders house with hints of mysterious goings on and future trips on magic mushrooms and I just couldn’t be bothered with the drama of it all (never mind the two dimensional characters, especially the women).

I used to work with someone called Anthony Gordon. And 'Harry Winks' is so Dickensian!

30) Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon It's 412 BC and, prior to the novel, Athens has recently been defeated trying to invade Sicily. Captured Athenian soldiers are being held in a quarry on the island, where they are left to the elements and half starved. Lampo & Gelon, two unemployed Sicilian potters with a love of Greek poetry, decide to cast the prisoners in their production of Medea.

Although set in the Ancient world, the narrator (Lampo) uses a contemporary conversational Irish voice throughout the story. Odd though it sounds, it really works, and I felt less distant from the characters than I usually do with classics. It also helped land the comedic elements of this tragicomedy.

There were some classical references that I had to pause reading and look up for context, but still a bold for me.

New thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/5551783-50-books-challenge-2026-part-six

I also read Glorious Exploits earlier this year and loved it! I'd never heard of it till someone recommended it, and I feel it's such an under-appricated book

I also loved Glorious Exploits.

Tart - Slutty Cheff

I finished a book! Unfortunately, not a book I liked much.

Sex, drugs and mise en place: this is the story of the anonymous author training to be a chef after quitting her office job. I bought this without knowing she was Instagram famous and I suspect it works much better if you already “know” her through that, because I just didn’t care that much about her personal life, though the restaurant kitchen parts were interesting.

Still, I finished something, so that is to be celebrated!

You’re on the old thread @SheilaFentiman!!

Oops!!