50 Books Challenge 2026 Part Six

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the sixth 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, the fourth thread here and the fifth thread

Hello, I lost you all for a while as totally missed the last thread was full!

I’m listening to Yesteryear on audiobook at the moment and finding it a real slog to be honest - I’m keeping going as I want to know what the big reveal is, but mainly I think it could have been a short story.

Into the Blue by Emma Brodie. Another one that’s been all over my social media but I really enjoyed it. Similar vibes to Tomorrow x3 (though not quite as good), it’s about two actors who meet as teenagers, one from a famous acting dynasty, and forge an instant connection. They spend hours practicing improv drama together and are clearly in love, until circumstances separate them. Over the years they encounter each other over and over again while they decide if they can ever be together. The obstacle to their relationship is a bit mawkish, almost too mawkish, but it works in terms of the whole book. Towards the end there’s a very strong and moving section where they improvise different routes their lives might take together or apart. I don’t think it’s the greatest romance ever, as I see hyperbolic book influencers claiming, but a really fun, emotional and thoughtful summer read.

The Keeper by Tana French. The final (?) instalment in her trilogy about Cal, washed up Chicago detective in an Irish village. This was similar to the others, very strong on atmosphere and menace, and I loved the community of farmers and their relationships with each other. I guess a big theme across these books is Cal struggling with people in the village keeping secrets and never saying what they mean, but I thought in this one some of the characters’ feelings and reactions were just a bit too opaque and I couldn’t always follow why they were doing what they did.

And actually, not sure if I’m ’counting’ it or not but I just read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to my daughter and was blown away by it all over again, 30+ years after first encountering it! I remember being obsessed with Narnia as a child but I definitely didn’t appreciate the beauty or flow of the language back then, an absolute joy to read aloud. Alas Prince Caspian was rejected after one chapter for being too boring.

I loved The Magician's Nephew as a child. Must re-read!

@GrannieMainland@CutFlowersI adored the LW&W as a child. I remembered why when reading it aloud to my DC as the part where Mr Tumnus confesses his betrayal to Lucy is so powerful to read - it’s completely chilling & I can remember DS1 reacting as I read it.

I also think of the Turkish Delight scene a lot when thinking about stuff that’s nice but not good for you.

@Benvenuto yes! And the part where they go back to Mr Tumnus’ house and it’s been smashed up by the secret police was so sinister and upsetting as an adult

I loved the Narnia books when I was a child.
Prince Caspian was my least favourite of them all, and often skipped during my frequent Narnia rereadings, so I can somewhat sympathise with the complaint about it being too boring!

Ever late to the party I've just finished thread favourite 31.Precipice by Robert Harris. It's 1914 and the 62 year old Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith is engaging in an extramarital affair with 26 year old aristocrat and socialite Venetia Stanley. The novel tracks how Asquith leans increasingly on Stanley as a confidant as war breaks out.

This has been reviewed extensively, and I'll add myself to the majority who really enjoyed it. It's definitely one of those situations where the truth is stranger than fiction. It would be difficult to envisage a senior government member being so lax with official secrets and so dependent on his mistress that he wrote to her several times daily (the man would definitely have been chronically online today) were it not for the fact that Asquith's letters survive. Harris is a great storyteller and builds the drama nicely, and his version of Venetia is confident and sparky, so I was really engaged despite Asquith coming across as a proper wet lettuce.

64. Arrowhead by Ruth Eastham

Children’s book. Jack and Skuli find a centuries old frozen boy in a glacier, and accidentally awaken an ancient Norse curse when they take the magic arrowhead the dead boy was holding. They and their friend Emma now need to figure out how to end the curse before it’s too late.

It’s quite thrilling, although a bit darker than expected for a children’s book. It all gets surprisingly apocalyptic towards the climax of the book, and there’s some unsettling mobs of murderous children roaming around.

On my way home to be reunited with my kindle. Thank you for all your kind suggestions. I forgot that I left Red Famine in the cottage last year and then found Belgravia in a charity shop. It could have been a lot worse

35) Hitler, Stalin Mum and Dad by Daniel Finkelstein
I found this at the back of my book case - can't believe it took me so long to get round to it. What an amazing story. I know it has been much reas and reviewed here but if you haven't read it, it is well with a read. Not only is his mother's escape from the Nazis incredible, but his father suffered a different kind of abuse under Stalin and we hear a lot less about what went on in the East. Definite bold.

@GrannieMainland@StitchesInTime- I liked Prince Caspian as a child (once I got past the initial chapters & the Pevensie children reappeared). The one I really don’t like is The Last Battle - it’s on my list for worst endings in children’s literature.

Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout

I’m not sure whether I enjoyed this or not. It felt like a bit of a slog at around 60% in and I wasn’t encouraged to pick it up. Lots of short stories or vignettes either centring around Olive herself or featuring her as a peripheral character. Olive isn’t necessarily a likeable character nor is she treated particularly sympathetically until the very end but I did feel that she reminded me of me at times. (I am going through a very grumpy phase at the moment).

I can see why it received the plaudits and I will attempt more Strout but I need a break first I think.

The talk about LW&W reminds me of DS asking to be read the book about the turkeys when he was about 4. Puzzled me for a bit that one.

I think Blo Jo is probably the modern equivalent of a “statesman” driven by his dick at the expense of/detriment of the office he was elected to. Or Hatt Mancock springs to mind too. I’m sure their WhatsApp messages would provide plenty of evidence, if crocodiles hadn’t eaten their phones, or whatever it was.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I don't deny the last administration were both sexually incontinent and corrupt, but Asquith sending actual top secret war memos directly to Venetia in the post makes even Mancock et al look like the souls of discretion .

Johnson getting pissed with the Russians can’t be that far removed though!

I think one of the reasons that I didn’t care as much for the book overall as so many on here have was that Asquith was so utterly stupid and I got bored of his nonsense.

@Benvenuto I quite liked The Last Battle and all the doomy drama, but despite that, I do have to admit that the train crash revelation is a bit WTF.

It’s the train crash revelation that gets me. Ironically - given Philip Pullman has been very critical of CS Lewis - I feel the same about The Amber Spyglass Alison Uttley’s A Traveller in Time is similarly grim in the ending (although it’s a book I otherwise find haunting). It just feels really inappropriate for a children’s author to suggest that life peaks at a really young age.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie- I thought of the Covid government too. If Ben Macintyre is still writing in a decade or so, I can imagine that being the subject of one of his books.

I just checked my own review of Precipice @StrangewaysHereWeCome @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie it says “I lost the will to live at around 60% “

Hahaha @EineReiseDurchDieZeit

I love Precipice but I do agree Asquith is highly punchable 😀

47 . Transcription by Ben Lerner

I READ A BOOK

A man drops his phone in some water before an important interview and is unable to record it. This has consequences.

This by and large went over my head and I thought it was style over substance. As such it will probably win The Booker.

Very slight but not for me.

I READ A BOOK

Congratulations @EineReiseDurchDieZeit 😃

Meanwhile I’m knackered after spending about 6 hours in traffic jams on the m6 and musing about whether I can be bothered to watch the darts or go to bed …. peak laziness.

Yay @EineReiseDurchDieZeit 🎉
Finished The 39 Steps by John Buchan - 2 hour pacy and preposterous read as Richard Hannah’s neighbour tells him about a conspiracy theory and is then bumped off. I’d say it’s a better movie than book so must watch out for the Hitchcock one.

Oh & whilst I’ve been listening to the Peter Crouch audiobook DD finished Pandora’s Box by Natalie Hayes. Another hit so thanks to whomever recommended Hayes - I can’t remember who - apologies.