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 missed Mary Beard's response to the Rhodes Must Fall campaign, which is very disappointing. I do think she's a small l liberal who may well be a floating anti-Tory voter, I don't think she's a racist.

I think there has been a lot of change in what comes up, but I did find a letter from 2019 that lots of famous writers/broadcasters etc signed:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/14/concerns-about-antisemitism-mean-we-cannot-vote-labour\

John le Carré (David Cornwell), Fay Weldon, Joanna Lumley, William Boyd, Simon Callow, Antony Beevor, Sathnam Sanghera, Janina Ramirez, Trevor Phillips, Jimmy Wales, Suzannah Lipscomb, Tom Holland, Frederick Forsyth, Peter Frankopan, Ghanem Nuseibeh, Dan Snow, Fiyaz Mughal, Tony Parsons, Dan Jones, Maajid Nawaz, Oz Katerji, Nick Hewer, Ed Husain, Terry Jervis

Some have never voted Labour, at least one has been outspoken for UKIP, others supported Blair and/or Brown, some were mavericks, but I'm really disappointed that Ramirez and others whose work I Iove would have joined these people to give htem some cover in their views.

Thanks, good steer, @Stowickthevast, that is intriguing. Will we have more or less Classics influenced books? She might want to steer away from Greece and Rome with the lists so she can't be accused of favouring her own (especially if they are former students). Maybe other awards, Women's Prize and debut prizes, and more parochial British awards, can make up for this, if so.

@AgualusasL0ver
"Maybe I will have to hang up my feminist credentials here, but I am irrationally irritated by books (largely non fic) that start with ‘women stories are missing, I’m putting them back…’ Rationally I know we are still not where we need to be with equality and equity but I find it weirdly dumbing down - and I dislike that I feel that way."

Interesting I hadn't thought so much of this as a difference in how you do/write feminism but I am sympathetic to what you wrote.

Myself, I think that it's better to have your values inform the work you do than proclaim views you can't back up in any kind of practice. I'm also a bit cynical about the "identity" but also the theory. I prefer history, biography and fiction to some of the very abstract theory (and my degree options had huge amounts of all of those, so it was very tempting to stay in my comfort zone, reading wise).

I'm going to the whole of the Women's Prize event again next Wednesday. It's extravagant, yes, but a lot cheaper than going to festivals outside London (for me/those of us in zones 2 and 3, say). No accommodation, lower transport costs. Official food is expensive but as in most festivals, it is possible and often sensible to take a break outside the grounds. I didn't find my bag stuffed as advertised with goodies - just 2 books but the tote bag is perfect - longer than average with a nice long handle, and it's black - nice white bags get so grubby and even washing doesn't deal with it - when my rucksack is full of library books or giveaway books. Only I seem to have lost it. I'm ordered a replacement via Vinted, and also some previous designs so I'm of sort hoping that the original will reappear, and I might end up with 5 or 6. Then I can lose them all.

@Terpsichore,
Perhaps when I finish at least 10 of the books I've started, more if I add more library books, that is the problem, I will add Family Romance to my Librarything List "Maybe This Year" - I've had books on this list though since at 2022 that I've still not read!

I think I managed to see Translations a couple of times, one at West Yorkshire Playhouse when I lived in Leeds - that was a great place, as tickets could be very reasonably priced. Manchester had some very cheap theatre performances on the university campus, not just the local drama club though, some of it was repertory outreach, I think, and a theatre in the central Library, as well as the Royal Exchange.

I loved Family Romance too, have tried a couple of his others and never got very far.

The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson - In 2009 a 20 year old broke into the Natural History museum in Tring and stole a huge number of rare bird specimens. This book is a real curiosity cabinet of stories and history - of the scientist Alfred Wallace who collected many of the specimens in the 1840s; of the craze for feathers in women’s fashions in the later 1800s and the catastrophic impact on bird populations; of the use of feathers in fly tying, originally for fishing hobbyists, but which has come to be an art-form in itself. There’s a whole community of people obsessed with getting hold of rare feathers to work with.

All this is the background to the heist itself, the scientific value of what was stolen, and the author’s own obsession with finding out more about the perpetrator and the market for what was stolen. I really enjoyed this and recommend.

Thanks for reminding me about 'Land'.
I read the sample on my Kindle just now and I'm hooked!

Wow. There are 17 books by Edna O'Brien in the Kindle deals today. Well, it will save me some money in charity shops on what I can't find in my house, and some books I can find can be rehomed.

which one would you recommend if I have never read her. @elkiedee

That's a tough but sensible question! If I can't persuade you to get everything at such a bargain price, I will come back with a narrowed down list later this morning or early a but at the moment I'm falling asleep again. Her autobiographical trilogy, the memoir of a similar name, maybe Girls and the Skin Chairs, haven't read, and her short story collection. Back for formatting later.

Enjoy! I'll be trying to watch a live stream if I get the time. If you see Eric Karl Anderson say hello to him from me!

Do report back on The Women's Prize day @elkiedee. I've been tempted but am just finishing a contract so can't take a mid week day off.

I'm also an Eric fan @InTheCludgie and have joined his book club.

I've picked up The Country Girls trilogy which I've never read. I think the only book by her that I have read is The Little Red Chairs which was the first book my real life book club chose in 2016. It's about the Yugoslavia war. I don't think I loved it but may revisit it one day.

Actually my RL book club is about to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Does anyone have any bookish ideas of what to do? I was thinking of trying to make a collage of all the books we've read but not sure what to do with it!

Actually my RL book club is about to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Does anyone have any bookish ideas of what to do? I was thinking of trying to make a collage of all the books we've read but not sure what to do with it!

@Stowickthevast If you’re handy at baking you could have it printed onto an icing sheet and use it as a cake topper. I've done this before with photos. Lots of companies do it - you just send them the photo and they send it back in edible form! You choose the size and whether you want it round, square etc….

The only Edna O’Brien book I’ve read is Girl and that was brutal.

It’s about a Nigerian teenage schoolgirl who was one of a group of girls captured by Boko Haram, and it was very harrowing to read.
It was well written, but the subject matter did make this a difficult and frequently disturbing book to read.

@Terpsichore that's a great idea! I am terrible at baking but maybe could do a tray bake or some very simple cake. Could enlist dc2 who is more proficient.

Will think of you out there @InTheCludgie. If you've bought a ticket you have a month to watch the Livestream, and I know very well that's not very long - it took me years to watch all 7 series of Mad Men for example. I wonder if my ticket includes Livestream access for a month, must check.

@Stowickthevast wrote:
"Actually my RL book club is about to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Does anyone have any bookish ideas of what to do? I was thinking of trying to make a collage of all the books we've read but not sure what to do with it!"

Cake topper sounds good but also another complicated for a busy woman. How about setting up a blog which you may be able to use again for something else and putting pics on it? Then maybe we can all look too!

I've done exactly this in the past for someone's leaving cake at work. A big slab cake (lemon drizzle, but could be anything of course) with the rectangular topper with a significant photo on top. Got a lot of laughs but also wonderment!

(ETA the wonderment was unjustified really as it’s so simple to do)

Yes, I acquired it on Kindle within months (?) of publication and am still nervous of reading it.

On Edna O'Brien, I think all of her books have content that may be controversial. Her first book was about two little girls growing up and becoming big girls then women in Ireland. Convent school, the church, death, sex, alcohol, references to violence. All that. It was banned. Her Wikipedia is clearly a mini literary biography in its own right, up there for free, and is quite useful as are posts on here, for getting enough idea of what might come up in the book rather than being triggered with no prior warning.

I recently read and reviewed a self-published bio of O'Brien, another newish library book, which I returned a bit late, couldn't renew because another reader wanted it. My favourite libraries are all in areas with a substantial Irish diaspora, that may not be fully reflected by demographic statistics. It was very professional but just didn't have the flow of the best literary biographies, that storytelling skill. But it did fill in the background to every book - and so I love that I now have all these books at my fingertips without having to ransack the house/borrow books that I own from the library because I can't remember where my copy is.

32 Joe Country - Mick Herron Another Slough House book, this time set in deepest winter, including an excursion to snowbound Pembrokeshire. As good as the others, though with some devastating events (trying to avoid spoilers) and a general sense of hopelessness (appropriately for the slow horses…). Also a (thoroughly believable) cameo by the male subject of my latest BorrowBox arrival, Entitled by Andrew Downie…

The Guardian has now complied a reader's top 100

https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/jun/06/readers-top-100-novels-of-all-time?CMP=fbgu&utmmedium=Social&utmsource=Facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawSQ4qdleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETAyVU5hZERXQkFJRVdVTVJwc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHhNQpPzW5bIbOZlQkzSp6FONEnzIZzCBDCVyy8c5NVcogKay7ZLhfq0s495aemuv2gTcoBjiNw4ZGVoC4v5g#Echobox=1780734252

Note the ones in there we lamented being missed - Steinbeck is there, Tess is there, Seth and Roy, Harper Lee

Still got BBB though... and NLMG!

I've read 46

I DNF'd 2 on that list - Magic Mountain and Midnight's Children. Have read 43.

Ah now that list is right up my street! I've read 56 and loved many of them.