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

Oh and on posters who haven’t been around - hope highlandcoo is ok, I’ve wondered if Pepe is about?

Fell off the thread a bit as I am currently reading three books and not finishing any of them to review.

I think my pace has definitely slowed over the summer as I am out and about a bit more. And perhaps choosing less gripping books.

Still, I have an hour before work right now so perhaps I can make a dent in one of them.

DNF King Sorrow by Joe Hill
An interesting premise based around collective human consciousness bringing into being a spirit à la the Philip Experiment of 1972. Arthur is a student at prestigious Rackham College in the US, with a responsible job as a library assistant. Due to his mum being threatened in prison he is drawn into stealing high value books for local hoodlums. When he and his friends look at a book bound in human skin before they pass it on, they summon King Sorrow, a violent trickster god in the form of a dragon.
Some genuinely creepy moments in the 300 pages or so that I read but I ditched it for the following reasons:
Editors seem reluctant to insist repetitive and bloated sections are cut.
We hear little about Arthur’s time at Magdalen College, Oxford. As a Black student following in the footsteps of his dead father into academia, this would have been quite interesting.
The female characters are written entirely for the male gaze - the Stunner, the Local Girl Made Good, the Slut From The Wrong Side Of The Tracks. If they don’t service male fantasies then they are dumpy, lesbian, cardboard cut-outs. I called time on it after a particularly grim sex scene.Shame that Hill takes after his father in writing this way about women.
At 600 pages I just couldn’t be arsed to invest any more time or head space in it.

I’ve read through the Booker list & I haven’t spotted any that I really want to read. Phrases like “a meditation on desire, metamorphosis and mortality” really don’t encourage me to read a book. May we Feed the King sounds the most appealing but not a particularly original format.

I think some people predicted Land by Maggie O’Farrell would be on the list - that actually sounds more interesting that those on the list.

I can remember borrowing A Farewell to Arms when younger - I skim read bits of it & decided to give up on reading Hemingway.

@VikingNorthUtsire@DuPainDuVinDuFromageA Traveller in Time is sad and very romantic and haunting - but when I reread it despite all of this, I was still annoyed by the ending. That said, I think I have grown out of timeslip novels as a genre. I used to love them as a child (probably because I was young enough to like the idea of going back in time).

@Benvenuto I’m definitely going to have to read it, am bracing myself for the ending!!

43 This Rough Magic - Mary Stewart Set on Corfu in the 60s, young actress Lucy is visiting her (conveniently rich and well-married) sister and comes across a famous but now reclusive actor and his taciturn son, as well as a mystery involving smuggling and suspicious deaths. She gets thoroughly involved with both these elements and the standard Stewart recipe of thrilling adventure and bland romance ensues, with plenty of wit, lots of references to Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and sumptuous descriptions of the island. Lots of fun and all the different aspects combined add up to a bold for me - not sure if I’m being unusually generous with my bolds this year, but it was just a lovely book and exactly what I needed. DD1 had just finished reading My Family and other Animals (and loved it), which I read when I was her age, so it was serendipitous that my kindle list threw up another book about Corfu, its people and its flora and fauna!

A Traveller in Time was my favourite childhood book. My wider family came from Derbyshire and I was obsessed with Tudor history and any kind of timeslip story (see also Tom’s Midnight Garden), even as a child, so it was inevitable really. I still have the paperback copy I saved up my pocket-money to buy, so carefully read it looks almost new. Happy days (although yes, a sad ending).

Anyway, on to 57. Ironwood - Michael Connolly

Connolly hasn’t quite put Bosch out to pasture yet (there’s a new book out in the autumn) but he’s expanded the Bosch-o-sphere with Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer; Renée Ballard, and now Catalina-based cop DS ‘Stil’ Stilwell - all linked somehow to Bosch.
There’s absolutely nothing complicated or deep about this as we follow Stil around the idyllic island on his beat, helping Ballard out with an unsolved cold case and single-handedly investigating a shooting despite having been expressly told by his irritating captain not to (a very familiar Connolly trope). I find these books as hard to resist as a tube of Pringles and scarfed it down in little more than a day with no regrets.

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh I've added Pied Piper to my Wishlist I think a few people have read and reviewed A Town Like Alice and one of the things I liked about it was that it was written only a year or two after it was set. I'm currently watching the film version starring Virginia McKenna, made in the early 50s.

I'll get round to reading it and seeing the film @NotWavingButReading :)

I went to Waterstones today with my birthday gift cards and plus points and only bought 1 Booker book- The Vivisectionists. I pre-ordered The Disappearers with an audio credit and I’ll pick up what I can in the library.
Instead I spend my tokens on books I’d liked the sound of on all the BookTubers prediction lists that my library doesn’t have so I got:
Venus Vanishing by Rebecca Birrell
Father Alberto and the Flying Girl by Timothy X Atack and
Uprising by Tahmima Anam
Here’s hoping I made the right choices!

I'm a big Michael Connelly fan too! Have you watched Ballard on Prime? We're just on the last episode atm

@InTheCludgie I've seen Ballard, really liked it but didn't realise it was based on a book. I've read a few of the Bosch series and they are always fun.

Just realised I managed to misspell Connelly. Doh! I always get Michael Connelly mixed up with John Connolly 😖

I haven’t seen any of the TV adaptations, @InTheCludgie - we’re dismally old-school and don’t have Prime, Netflix, or anything beyond basic Sky. I don’t mind too much when it comes to Bosch because I have a very distinct mental picture of him and the TV actor was just wrong!

Every time I see a John Connolly book I do a double take because my step dads name is about 3 letters different! Very confusing.

@Terpsichore I loved a good time slip book as a girl. Tom's Midnight Garden is filed next to A Traveller in Time in the library of my girlish heart. Also Charlotte Sometimes - did you read that?

On holiday and just finished Jonas Jonasson's latest book. Silly, as expected but easy reading.

I was obsessed with ATIT when I was a child. I wanted so much to be whisked away in a time slip. Still do!

I never came across ATIT but have always been keen on time slip. My favourite as a child was The Story of the Amulet by E Nesbit. Loved all her books.

I quite like Tom’s Midnight Garden, but prefer Minnow on the Say by Philippa Pearce (it’s not a timeslip but has 2 boys looking for Tudor treasure).

67 . The Favourite by Ophelia Field - biography of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. I read this after listening to the author speak on the Talking Tudors podcast, where she was really interesting. The book isn’t quite as good - I think the problem for me is that Sarah’s career was so enmeshed with that of her husband that I would have preferred a joint biography with more information about the wars he was fighting. That said, she was an interesting and a highly influential woman at a time that was very difficult for women and I would like to read more about her.

68 . The Night We Met by Abby Jimenez - romance with echoes of Cyrano de Bergerac by an author recommended on this thread. I read it as I was looking for something light to read & rather liked it.

69 . The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood - someone reviewed this author upthread, which lead me to read this. It’s a fake-dating romance, that I mainly like as the university setting is sharply observed and the author nicely captures the embarrassment inherent in the main characters situation. It is unnecessarily graphic at the end, which I could have done without.

70 . The Quantum of Menace by Vaseem Khan - a way of milking the legacy of homage to Ian Fleming being a murder mystery set around the character Q. This was a clever idea for a spin-off & was readable, but I didn’t like the update to the current day (although I did enjoy Bond’s cameo appearance). Authors wishing to emulate Fleming really ought to study Ben Macintyre’s book on his writing style.

71 . Coming Home by Rosamunde Pilcher - predictable but immensely enjoyable about a girl befriended by a Cornish family as her own family are abroad and what happens to them all in the Second World War. This would be a great one to share with a teen as there is a lot in it about women’s education & choices & the War to discuss. This is a bold as it was very enjoyable but it was also very reminiscent of …

72 . A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute, which is the better book. This is the story of a girl caught up in a prison match during the Second World War & what happens to her afterwards. It is cleverly structured and although it covers several years it is pacy and avoids dragging (this is a problem for me with saga type stories that cover several years even with authors like Maeve Binchy that I otherwise like). The description of the war events were both interesting & genuinely moving. Shute is though describing a racist time and this can be shocking in places - the bit that really got to me was the need to have 2 counters at the ice-cream parlour at the end. Despite this a bold.

73 . The Pied Piper by Neville Shute - this is the current RWYO thread. An old man is visiting France at the time of the German invasion and is persuaded to escort some children back to England. I did find the initial premise somewhat unlikely, but then got caught up in the drama of his nightmare journey across France.

I find Connelly, Harlan Coben and Agatha Christie books to be almost comfort reading, which is probably a bit bizarre

@Benvenuto

I DNFd The Favourite , I loved Coming Home as a teen, ITV made it with a young Keira Knightly and I’ve read a few Abby Jimenez on this thread but not yet The Night We Met

The only Shute I have read is Trustee From The Toolroom which I controversially disliked

36 Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto
I love Japanese detective novels - this one is a Penguin Modern Classic, regarded as one of the best of its kind. It is set in Tokyo in 1960 and is full of fascinating details about life in Japan then (for example the shopkeepers use an abacus to top up purchases). ItThe crime part of the novel is complex, particularly towards the end, where I got a bit lost for a while. But all became clear in the end. It's a stylish novel, featuring an avant-garde group of artists, a haiku- loving inspector and a beautiful bar hostess.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit- I can understand DNFing The Favourite. I was very motivated to finish it after listening to the author & because I’d been reading about the 17th century.

I haven’t read Trustee from the Toolroom yet but I probably will read more Shute - it sounds like it could be good or bad (although it isn’t the best title).

Has anyone else lost access to the kindle preview feature? In a funny way I don't mind because I don't buy a kindle book without previewing it so it's saving me money!

Annoying though; I don't want to send tons of samples to my kindle and then have to tidy them up.

@Benvenuto TFTT is loved on here and I was the only naysayer I think. I expected to love it given the high praise, I found it dated and silly.

@VikingNorthUtsire weirdly, I only discovered Charlotte Sometimes as an adult!

@NotWavingButReading E. Nesbit - now you’re talking! I loved 5 Children and It so, so much.