50 Books Challenge 2026 Part Seven

[Southeastdweller]

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

I thought I wasn't going to get anything for the first few but have ended up with:

Sunstruck
The Bean Trees
Sublimation
The Last Samurai

A Woman of Berlin is in the deals which is a great memoir about the end of WW2 and the invasion of Berlin.

Bibliomaniac: An Obsessive’s Tour of the Bookshops of Britain - Robin Ince

If you want to feel better about your RWYO piles, this is the book for you. In the Preface, Ince explains that he has recently donated over 1000 books to Leicester Prison and 5000 to charity but his house is still overrun with unread books (Tsundoku is apparently the Japanese word for this). At one point, in twelve days on the road giving talks at independent bookshops and visiting charity shops, he buys a pile of books over three feet tall.

Honestly, this book was a little manic for me. I prefer my books about bookshops to be gentler in their pacing; here, Ince tours over 100 bookshops in the pandemic times when his arena tour with Brian Cox is cancelled in autumn 2021.

But the list of bookshops at the back will be useful and I’m already considering building weekend breaks around some of the towns mentioned 😀

56 A Single Breath - Lucy Clarke I said a couple of weeks ago that I wouldn't bother reading any more of Clarke's books but it turned out I had already bought this one so...

Eva is recently married to Aussie love of her life Jackson, who she met on a plane a couple of years ago - but then he is washed off the rocks while fishing in Cornwall and she has to come to terms with his death (especially hard as his body isn't recovered). She travels to Tasmania to visit his family, never having visited before, and meets his estranged brother; then the secrets start trickling out. This started reasonably well but the last third of it was dull and drawn-out as Eva flips back and forth between her options and the final secret (which was obvious from about halfway through) is eventually revealed. The last 20 pages or so were excruciating - just bloody get on with it! Another one on the "average at best" pile, unfortunately.

Robin Ince lives locally to me and I can confirm is often to be found in the Oxfam bookshop boring the pants off the staff having very - very - lengthy somewhat one-sided conversations.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit – that looks like a great present! Thank you for sharing. I fancy it for myself, but might buy one for DD. Its her birthday this month.

@MaterMoribund – isn’t Lissa Evans just great? I don’t know why more people don’t know about it. I first found her on this thread thankfully. I think we all read Small Bomb At Dimperley and IIRC, everyone loved it?

Well done @Cherrypi

@SheilaFentiman – Liane Moriarty has just completed a sequel called Big Little Truths. I’ve just reserved it from my library. Released on 25 August, but they haven’t arrived yet. I’m no 7 on the list, with 5 copies expected and we get two weeks for the new releases. Whoop whoop!

@Terpsichore – not for the first time, I wish we had the laughing emijo as a reaction!

97 End of Watch – Stephen King. Third in the Mr Mercedes trilogy. It was a bit too techy for me. Serial killer Brady Hartfield is taking over peoples’ minds via a video game, while presenting as a patient with severe brain damage, unable to speak etc. Pleased to have completed this trilogy. The second book in the Holly Gibney series is out, but I think I will leave it for another couple of months or so. Plenty to bash on with in the meantime.

I got There are Rivers In The Sky, Watching You - Lisa Jewell and
Anything Is Possible - Elizabeth Strout*.

I loved There are Rivers

How old @Tarragon123?? There’s a good offering of children’s and YA books on there

Nothing bought here in the Kindle deals. I'm also thinking I might free up a Borrowbox slot by taking The Vivisectors off my waitlist after recent reviews here!

I think that the TV series of Big Little Lies expanded the story into series 2 beyond what was in the book. LM was on board in some capacity, I wonder whether the new book follows the same lines as the TV series - there's a third season on its way apparently so I am guessing this may tie in with that? Agree @NotWavingButReading it had a fantastic sound track and also Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation, Severance) with a huge beard which does it for me in some inexplicable way.

@Piggywaspushed thanks for the review of the Alice Jolly. I loved Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile when I read it a few years ago (my review here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/3646570-50-Book-Challenge-2019-Part-Six?page=4&reply=89673649&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share)

Also LOL at the mental image of Robin Ince hanging around bookshops, holding forth and boring people to death. He does seem like that sort of person.

55 Asta's Book, Barbara Vine (RWYO)

You probably know that Ruth Rendell published some of her books under this pen-name. The Barbara Vine books tend to be more creepy, more psychological - not always about a crime, sometimes about a strange happening. Often involving the past, found documents, someone researching something long forgotten.

Part of this book is formed of diary entries written by Asta, a young Danish woman who moves to London in 1905 with her husband and two sons. At the opening of the book they are newly arrived, she is heavily pregnant with what she hopes will be her first girl (and nervous, after her last baby died in infancy), her husband is away and it's a heatwave. Asta isn't a likeable person but her voice zings on the page, and the descriptions of the hot Edwardian streets, stuffy rooms and uncomfortable intimacies in their upper-working-class neighbourhood are brilliantly vivid.

The other half of this book, running alongside the diary entries, is the story of Anna, Asta's granddaughter. Anna has inherited everything after the death of her Aunt Swanhild, including Asta's diaries, which have (after Asta's death) been translated and published, becoming bestsellers. Anna becomes intrigued by a family mystery from the past, and its possible links to a notorious murder case. The answer, she thinks, lies somewhere in the unpublished sections of the diaries.

Slow and rather confusing in parts, this came together with a cracking conclusion which made sense, didn't rely on coincidence, and picked up clues which had been scattered throughout.

Me too, in fact I've enjoyed everything I've read so far by Elif Shafak

I want to read more but I think she’s a “big chunks of time” author not a “ten pages on the commute” author so I will have to plan ahead!

Re Big Little Lies, I read that after the success of the original TV series, Moriarty wrote a novella (that’s never been published) that they based Series 2 on. I gather that the new book is set 10 years on from then so presumably follows on from the end of TV series 2. And I assume the third TV series will be based on the new book but who knows.

@VikingNorthUtsire Asta’s Book is one of my all time favourites. It’s exactly the kind of book I love, set in the modern day with a mystery in the past.

I managed to avoid the lure of the monthly deals with the exception of London Rules, which is the only Slough House book I didn't already own. Speaking of which

26. Joe Country, by Mick Herron. Continues to be brilliant. Could have done with a bit of tightening up; some of the snowbound stuff in Wales went on too long for me. But still absolutely epic.

27. RWYO. Slough House, by Mick Herron. I should be spacing these out but I can't seem to stop! Another excellent outing for the Slough House gang. Peter Judd continues to be repellent (and brilliantly sketched), an old friend reappears, and a cliffhanger ending has me holding my breath. Which means I'm unlikely to space them out and may have to jump straight into the next one. I think my favourite so far.

Two rereads:

A God In Ruins - Kate Atkinson

The companion piece to Life After Life, this time telling the story of Teddy, Ursula’s younger brother. I don’t like it quite as much as LAL, but it’s still brilliant.

Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty

Ready for the sequel now so I hope my library reservation hurries up! Unfortunately on my library app it doesn’t tell you where you are in the queue, so no idea how long I might have to wait.

Elif Shafak has a new book coming out in October. In One Brief Moment All Eternity is a biographical novel about Gustav Flaubert. I've just put myself on the reservation list, and I'm in the first batch (#4 of 4).

Just managed to take a look at the deals and I got Franny and Zooey which I’ve been meaning to read for years. There are a couple of others that I might get too.

Ooh. I never did get through Flaubert’s Parrot so this will be good!

89. I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett - The fourth in the Tiffany Aching series, this one sees Tiffany face up to the Cunning Man, a manifestation of rumours/ othering/ divisive thinking/ herd mentality. Tiffany Aching is a series aimed at older children and the first three were a great blend of humour and serious topics about the nature of evil.
This one was not our favourite. The themes were very dark and there were some uncomfortable scenes involving child abuse. And the humour which comes from the Scottish brawling fairies, the Nac Mac Feegle, was very minimal. As a villain, the Cunning Man is both terrifying (especially with the current state of the world) and oddly nebulous. It also felt like he was defeated too easily.
I read this to my teen over 5 months as a bedtime book. We both love Pratchett. I think he is a genius and Nation is a masterpiece. So maybe my reaction was because I simply read it too slowly to feel the full effect.

41) Class Trip by Emmanuel Carrère, translated by Linda Coverdale. Nicolas is a socially anxious, unpopular boy, prone to flights of fantasy and imagining the worst in all scenarios. As a result, he dreads his school's residential ski trip, convinced he'll be humiliated and further ostracized. Instead Nicolas is unexpectedly taken under the wing of the mercurial class leader/bully, granting him a degree of protection from the mockery of the other boys.

Then a local child goes missing, and Nicolas decides to investigate. But whilst playing detective, he learns some devastating truths.

I highly recommend this. It was a very short book (150 pages total), but all the characters felt fully developed and engaging. What starts as an exploration of awkward adolescence becomes much darker about halfway through the book when the child disappears, but there's an ominous undertone throughout. Possibly a little bit rushed at the end, but I'll definitely be looking out for more Carrère titles.

You're not the only one! I have never read anything by her, though I keep picking up Bel Canto in book stores and then putting it down. I think I am partly attracted to the cover! I think my main issue is that I don't know what to start with.

For those interested the sequel to Queenie by Candace Carty Williams - a new release is 99p today. IIRC reviews on here were mixed

My favourite is The Dutch House.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit – sorry, I’m busy laughing. I think I’m a bit older than everyone on here and DD will be 33 on her birthday 😂

Ha no! Mine will be 34!