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

66. Make Change That Lasts by Dr Rangan Chatterjee

Self help book about trying to reduce reliance on unhelpful habits. Some useful tips, although a lot of it is stuff I’ve read before in similar books. It’s nicely packaged though. Lots of nice pictures of the author looking contemplative and inspiring.

67. Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries by Kate Mosse

Subtitled How Women (Also) Built The World.

I wanted to like this more than I did. Mosse is aiming to highlight the names of many women who deserve to be better known in many different fields. It’s a noble ambition.

Unfortunately, the sheer scale of the task means that most of the women mentioned (with the exception of Mosse’s great-grandmother) get very little space on the page, and it often feels more like looking at lists of names.
I guess the book would be many times longer if each woman got a decent amount of space, so it’s understandable, but also often frustrating. I wanted more details, more information about the lives of these women, and most of the time, I didn’t get it.

It’s also one where I kept taking breaks because I found the volume of names in each chapter a bit overwhelming.

The Husband’s Secret - Liane Moriarty

Charity shop purchase, quick read, typical Liane Moriarty (though less farfetched than some).

Cecilia’s husband is travelling when she finds an “open in the event of my death” letter in their loft. Will she resist opening it? (Spoiler: not for long!) Her story intertwines with that of Rachael, school secretary at her kids’ school and Tess, who grew up in the area and has recently moved back with her son Liam.

Ideal book for unwinding after a stressy day!

@ÚlldemoShúl I’m on Chapter 5 and not sure if I’ll finish!

I also DNF'd My Brilliant Friend despite everything about it being my sort of thing. I do think it was wrong place and wrong time. It took me three attempts over a number of years to read Captain Corelli's Mandolin but once I did I never looked back and I still be LdB's books in hardback.

Northanger Abbey Jane Austen
I don't re-read much but do seem to have a habit of re-reading an Austen each year. There is a touring outdoor production at the moment so I was refreshing my memory in time to see this at the weekend. (The play was average, but a fun day out). This is one of Austen's first novels, but published posthumously and tells the story of young Catherine Morland, her first season in Bath and is a satire based around the fashion for gothic literature at the time. I am keen (as I was the first time I read this) to read all the books referenced but have not go to them. This ranks as no.5 out of the 6 main books by Austen for me, not because I didn't enjoy it but because I just think that Persuasion, P&P and Emma are much stronger narratives with more wit and charm.

Over the Water: Essays on Islands various (no editor)
This is part of a series published by Daunt Books. This one is a set of essays from various writers about islands. Others in the series focus on the garden, rivers, the kitchen, cycling. I continue to be somewhat obsessed with island based literature and non-fiction as I humbly write about 20 words a month about an island that in my head will one day be a coherent story.

This is my first bold of the year I think. It is almost a 5 star, but I knock off 0.5 because some of the essays are a bit metaphorical and stretch the island connection. Overall though, I read this in 24 hours and just did not want it to end.

Here is a picture of the island book, because I think it’s stunning and love it.

59. The Feather Thief - Kirk Wallace Johnson

Recommended on here (sorry, I can’t remember who mentioned it - I want to say @CornishLizard but that may be wrong). Jaw-dropping account of the theft of hundreds of historic (and dizzyingly valuable) specimens of rare birds from the Natural History Museum at Tring by American Edwin Rist, whose obsession with obtaining feathers for his hobby of fly-tying led him to break in by night and stuff a suitcase with almost 300 birds before escaping undetected. He was subsequently caught after making substantial amounts of money in sales from his haul, but faced only a suspended sentence after successfully putting forward a very convenient defence of Asperger's syndrome.

The author became involved in the case after Rist's trial and tried his best to track down the birds that were never recovered (174 were retrieved intact, but many without their vital identifying labels). He failed, but he did manage to interview Rist, and his scepticism about the Asperger's defence is evident (I'd share that scepticism, tbh).
Fascinating for me as it's a story that happened virtually on my doorstep, but I'd recommend it to anyone - a bizarre but gripping insight into a hidden (and very strange) world.

I found it hard going at the start, but eventually grew to like it. I never read the fourth book, because it hadn't been published when I got to the end of book three. I'm not sure I'd go back to it now (re My Brilliant Friend).

I did recommend The Feather Thief recently Terpsichore - glad you enjoyed it.

The Island book sounds (and looks) great Agualusa - I’ve read a couple of their fiction books and they are so beautifully done.

I was also bored by My Brilliant Friend and had no desire to read more of them. So many people love it though, feel I'm missing something.

46 Verity, Colleen Hoover

(rant, also slightly spoiler-ish, consider yourselves warned)

Bloody book group! First of all they made me read The Housemaid, in which a vulnerable and emotionally damaged young woman escapes money problems and homelessness by taking a live-in job with a wealthy married couple, consisting of a super hot guy and a scary psychotic wife. Now, only months later, they have asked me to read this one, a book in which a vulnerable and emotionally damaged young woman escapes money problems and homelessness by taking a temporarily live-in job with a wealthy married couple, consisting of a super hot guy and a wife who is brain damaged and unable to walk.

OR IS SHE.

Our protagonist, Lowan, starts to suspect that Verity may not be as helpless as she seems. Also that she may have murdered either one or two of her children. She finds Verity's diary which promises to tell her the truth. But because apparently Hoover is awful at pacing and also at writing plots that have any relation to anything that a real human person might do, instead of either leaving her employers' house or reading the diary in one sitting, Lowan inexplicably reads one chapter at a time, because she's so busy mooning lustfully over Verity's husband, a man with a black hole of nothingness where charisma and personality should be.

Also, not only is the protagonist called Lowan, but Verity's children are called Chastin, Harper and Crew. CREW.

The only good thing I can say is that it made me feel more positive about The Housemaid, because Freida McFadden does at least introduce a couple of plot twists, and manages to subvert some of the clunking great cliches of this Jane-Eyre-but-make-it-Booktok genre. Hoover attempts a twist but it manages to be both entirely predictable and execrably executed, so that the last chapter of the book is even worse than the tosh that preceded it.

I have never read a Colleen Hoover before. I am pretty sure I never will again.

What's the opposite of a bold? That.

@VikingNorthUtsire I enjoyed your review far more than I suspect I would enjoy the book. I was forced to watch the film of The Housemaid and that is hours of my life I will not get back. I hope your book group appreciates your sacrifice.

Haha, I will probably be much less forthright with them than I was here! We're quite a new group and I am not ready to be the resident Grinch quite yet.

Good lord. You are certainly suffering for somebody else’s ‘art’ in this group. I’m impressed/astonished that you’re prepared to go back for more! But I hope you do, so we can read more of these excellent reviews.

@VikingNorthUtsire great review and why I have a history of failed book groups.

I love the idea of a book group, like minded people, new friends, lots of book chat. Unfortunately they all feel like I'm at school being made to read something I hate and I very seldom found a book to love. One notable exception was Life After Life.

That is a solid review, @VikingNorthUtsire and I applaud your willingness to suffer for your book group! 👏👏

This is the only book group I can tolerate I can’t imagine having to read [insert name of book that you personally can’t stand] and talk about it <shudder>

@VikingNorthUtsire lol. I don’t know how much value you’re getting from the book club but we certainly are

LOL Verity was on my mental list because there’s a film coming out - NO MORE @VikingNorthUtsire

@StitchesInTime That Mosse book was a DNF for me last year, for similar reasons though it was on audible and just did not work in that format sadly, I did think I might go back to it if I ever found eg a cheap charity shop copy that I could just dip in and out of. Like you I really wanted to like it!

@VikingNorthUtsire great review! There’s a woman on tik tok that does dramatic recaps/ reviews of Colleen Hoover books and they’re hilarious but have thoroughly cured me of ever wanting to read one.

Lol @VikingNorthUtsire I think you need a new book group.

I remember dd1 having a brief "co-ho" phase when she'd just started secondary and telling me a plot about someone who beat his wife, but it's ok as he had a really damaged childhood....I hopefully put her straight!

I think that was the one that Blake Lively made into a film.

Love the review 😂 If your fellow book-clubbers like the book, it sounds like they may not be your people…

@VikingNorthUtsire maybe everyone will hate it? That can be fun too. We had an enjoyable evening critiquing Fundamentally at ours 😀

I have enjoyed some of Hoover’s books but agree Verity is a steaming pile of dud.

Don't let me put you all off Verity. I am also an Elena Ferrante hater and apparently those are quite popular.

The absolute worst book I have ever had to read for a book club was A Street Twat Cat Named Bob. That fucking cat.

I HAD THIS AT MY BOOK CLUB EXCEPT IT WAS THE CHRISTMAS ONE

Steaming turd

My Book Club was good but I drifted away and they moved venues to somewhere I couldn’t get to

I seem to have fallen off the thread. I thought I would have loads of reading time while away on holiday but it was much busier than I had envisaged. Lovely holiday but literally no reading!! Weird.
Awaiting a flurry of various visitors from later today until mid to late August so not sure will get much reading in any time soon. Can’t seem to settle to it.

I have just managed to catch up on the thread though, which is a book in itself!

@Welshwabbit - Loved your review of An Unnecessary Woman - added to my wish list.

@Bunnyofhope - I too really enjoyed The Island and even reread it after I visited Spinalonga 4 years ago. Then I followed up with the sequel, which was nowhere near as good to be honest.

@Iamnotaloggrip - I started Intermezzo but have put it to one side - certainly to be returned to at a later date - but I wasn’t immediately smitten with it.

On the subject of real people in books, I bought an autobiography that someone I used to know way back when has written and was quite frankly horrified to see how he has portrayed my very close friend :(

On the Hemingway chat - I’ve only read The old man and the sea which I quite liked - but admittedly it was a quick read!

Thanks to whoever recommended Ballard on Prime - DH (non-reader) and I are enjoying.

Also in current chat - I’m reading My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante and really enjoying it!

31 - Thirst - John Robins
I imagine this was an important book for him to write and I hope it helped. I ‘enjoyed’ the beginning and very much appreciated the overall message but felt it was far too long and was tempted to skip sections towards the end. @DesdamonasHandkerchief - I agree that the butt hole surgery seemed highly irrelevant!!

Off to check the monthly kindle deals...