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

I'm listening to the How To Train Your Dragon series with my daughter on our car rides at the moment. David Tennant does a great job.

@AliasGrape I'm not sure how old your daughter is, but she might like the Isadora Moon series. It still has fairies in it, but also benign vampires, witches and the main character goes to school with human children. I found them less saccharine and overly gendered than some other fairy books.

Also the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic book series has a range of characters with different interests, dreams, and attributes.

Ooh @Stowickthevast I am star struck! I've just picked up Wifehouse from the library purely because it's written by Sonya Walger.

A Private Man by Stephanie Sy Quia
I picked this up on a 99p deal as it had been longoisted or shortlisted for one of the prizes- the Orwell or the Waterstones Debut maybe. Anyway I loved it. It tells the story of David, an English Catholic priest ordained in 1953 and Margaret a student and later teacher of theology who he meets in the 1960s. It also flashes forward to their grandson (not a spoiler- it’s in chapter 1) and Margaret when she’s elderly. I found this a beautiful exploration of love- not just lust but the meeting of minds and the flaws and difficulties that every relationship must encounter. The writing is poetic and the sections in Rome are particularly beautifully written. I cried several times. Really gorgeous book.

Snuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
RWYO and part of my Booker winners project. I’m probably the last to this sad tale of Snuggie and his siblings growing up in poverty in Glasgow with an alcoholic mother who he adores and despairs of. It’s very real and well written but there’s no hope at all which made it a hard read. I think John of John was a better read for me, but maybe that’s because I read it first.

@VikingNorthUtsire interested to know what you think. If we ever meet in person, I'll give you the goss!

I’m also a huge fan of Mother Mary. I think it will be difficult to find another NF that will top it for the 50Bs.

88 Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages – Jenny Colgan. Still being punted as Book 8 in the Island of Mure series, despite, like the last two books, its not set on Mure. Meh. Predictable. This is my last JC, I think. I was irritated by most of the characters, in particular, the daughter of the main character. I would have cheerfully slapped her. There is a lot to be said about second home ownership, housing in rural communities etc but I just felt that I was being preached to (and I don’t have a second home!). The local authority where Carso is meant to be located have just introduced a 300% council tax charge on second homes, but that isn’t mentioned.

89 Yesteryear – Caro Claire. Much discussed on here. I did enjoy it. I thought the twist was clever, if utterly bonkers.

45 The Thirty-Nine Steps - John Buchan A quick re-read of an old favourite; just as fun as it always was, and just as silly. A lot of it is very old-fashioned, especially the ideas about foreigners and the right way for a proper Brit (including “colonials”) to behave, but that’s partly the point - it’s an interesting window on the early 20th century British mind-set and the evolution from Sherlock Holmes to James Bond (as explained by Dominic and Tabby in their most recent episode!).

52 . My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

In 1950’s Naples Lenù becomes enthralled by Lila, the shoemakers daughter.

This was previously a DNF for me, but I resurrected it due to the Goalhanger podcast. I can’t say I particularly enjoyed it, I was especially bored by all the random townspeople, couldn’t have cared less.

The thing is, I was page counting and when you are counting like that you aren’t enjoying the book.

It ended on something of a cliffhanger but I don’t have it in me to read 3 more. I just haven’t got the energy for it.

meh

22 The Queen's Gambit - Walter Tevis
Orphaned at the age of 8, Beth grows up in a Children's Home where the Janitor teaches her how to play chess. She is a natural, and when she is adopted by a childless middle-aged woman she finds a route to making a name for herself as a child prodigy. Her teenage years are spent in the pursuit of fame and fortune on the US chess circuit, along with battling her addition to tranquilizers and alcohol, and she finally realises her dream of competing internationally with the Big Boys of the Russian Grandmaster clique.

I saw the Netflix adaptation of this a few years ago and thought it quite well done. The book version is a little more difficult due to the technical descriptions of chess games. My rudimental knowledge of the game was enough to manage the chess sections, but these weren't the best parts of the novel for me!

Interesting to read your review of My Brilliant Friend @EineReiseDurchDieZeit. I’m an hour into the audiobook and I’m not especially engaged with either the plot or the characters yet...

Pretty sure it’s been well read and generally well liked on the thread but I just really couldn’t engage with it

I think My Brilliant Friend is very marmite. I absolutely loved it and all the sequels.
I’m about 17% into Helen of Nowhere and close to DNFing. Awful man navel gazing.

23. RWYO. Tilt, by Emma Pattee. A heavily pregnant and thoroughly fed up Annie is at Ikea in Portland, Oregon buying a crib for her baby when a huge earthquake hits the city. As she begins to walk back to the city to find her husband, we learn about their relationship via flashbacks. This was absolutely brilliant and I think will stay with me for a long time.

An Unlikely Visitor by Joanna Cannon
I’m a big fan of her books and, while undoubtedly farfetched, this is full of her usual compassion and humour.
Jeanie, Margaret and Derek’s 11 year old daughter, went missing many years ago. In the present day Derek has died and Margaret is struggling to reconnect with any part of her life. I found this section particularly affecting due to a close bereavement last year, so just a heads up for anyone in a similar situation. However, Derek is the ‘unlikely visitor’ of the title and together he and Margaret start to unpick what really happened on that awful day. This is where it turns a bit ‘Ghosts’ and whimsical, but I didn’t mind that, as Cannon handles it well (and of course there’s always the alternative interpretation of what might be going on for Margaret, but I ignored that because it’s far too miserable to contemplate ).
She writes older people as people and it made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me go “Oooh, interesting plot development……!”. So, job done, really.

I think book 2 of the series is much better than book 1, @EineReiseDurchDieZeit. But I can see why you might not want to expend more time on them.

I gave up on My Brilliant Friend for being really fucking boring. Each to their own, but I really don’t get the love for it.

I was certain I'd already reviewed numbers 45 and 46 below, but can't find them on the thread so have done (possibly) again.

45 Conundrum by Jan Morris
Morris’s memoir of her life and, principally, her transition from male to female. I’ve not read any of her travel writing and feel I really ought to. I read this for a book club and it was a fascinating insight into Morris’s thought processes, albeit heavily shaped by the timing of her transition and of its writing (1970s). I was intrigued by Morris’s conception of femininity, which was extremely stereotypical. I also felt that some of her suggestions about differences between men and women – e.g. the idea that men care about climbing Mt Everest because it’s there, whereas women would not engage in such a pointless pursuit – are much more indicative of differences between individual people, rather than between men and women generally (there have, of course, been several women who have climbed Everest!). This now feels like a period piece; things have changed so much for trans people in the last 50 years.

46 Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann
I wanted to read this after reading Rural Hours, Harriet Baker’s book about the time Lehmann, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Virginia Woolf spent living in the countryside and how it shaped their writing. The protagonist, Judith, grows up before WWI, living next door to a group of children who are all in the care of their grandmother. Some are siblings; some cousins, but she is fascinated by all of them. The book tells the story of her childhood interactions with them, then her adolescent passion for some of them, then her university career (where she becomes obsessed with a female fellow student). There are losses along the way. It’s written like a kind of fever dream, which I thoroughly enjoyed although other readers may find it wearing. And the descriptions of the countryside are glowing. I was quite sad to leave the characters when it ended. One moan about my Kindle version – for some reason, the name of one character (Mariella/Marietta) kept changing in the text. I’m still not sure which it was meant to be!

47 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
I feel like the last on the thread to read this Women’s Prize winner. We discover the life and secrets of Sybil, a woman in her 70s, through her correspondence with friends, family members and famous authors. I really liked this. Sybil is a great character and I thought the revelations were cleverly done.

Me too. I’m a serial giver upper. No patience.

I loved the Brilliant Friend Neapolitan Quartet but would agree the second and third novels were the strongest, and for me the final book did run out of steam.
I’d also watched the Sky series before coming to the books which I think really helped with keeping the huge cast straight in my head and meant I knew the trajectory the story was taking and was invested in the characters - one of the few times watching first then reading was the right call.

Same here!

Looks like I’m in good company!!

It was a DNF for me. I tried a few times but never got into it.

I loved them too, but for me it was kind of like olives or gin - I started out not enjoying them at all and I can’t say exactly at what point I got into them, but was obsessed by the end and would happily read 4 more.

Double DNF
Helen of Nowhere Act 1- thoroughly unpleasant academic makes excuses for being a prick. Act 2 realtor monologues. I just can’t be bothered. If it wins the Booker I’ll go back to it.

And speaking of pricks. I just can’t do Hemingway- or I can’t do him right now. I read the first chapter of For Whom the Bell Tolls and just thought no. Sorry Tabby and Dominic.

I enjoyed the Neapolitan Quartet though I was a bit baffled by all the discourse at the time it got big about it being reflective of real female friendships - not like any of mine, thankfully!

@AliasGrape I think A Song for Summer is my favourite of her books, especially the love interest whose signature move is throwing Nazis out of windows.

I’ve just finished Dolly All The Time by Annabel Monaghan which is a charming summer romance for those who like that kind of thing. A lovely New England beach town setting, a great community and cast of supporting characters, and a properly grown up heroine who can change a car tire, grout tiles and sew curtains. It has some fun Pretty Woman references too, a film I still love despite its many, many problems.

Ooh that does sound up my street @GrannieMainland!