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

HOORAH FOR MISS CLIMPSON

I read the Juliet Barker one. I had no idea til then that Charlotte likely died of hyperemesis gravidarium. It was a complete surprise. I hope that’s not a spoiler all things considered !

I think it’s a widely-repeated fact, Eine. Mrs Gaskell describes the symptoms in her biography even though she didn’t use the diagnostic term.

What a hideous way to die - after everything else, to find a bit of happiness, finally get married and be expecting a baby, then be struck down by something that couldn’t be understood or treated. Poor Charlotte 😢

The Elizabeth Gaskell biography of Charlotte has its faults but is a very atmospheric read by someone who knew Charlotte.

@Terpsichore treatment will have been limited or quackery as well. Awful.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit- thanks I’ve bought the Barker one on Kindle as it was a good price (I liked her book on Agincourt). It wasn’t a spoiler for me as I’m aware of the outline of their lives, but I do want to find out more about them especially Anne after reading those awful prefaces to The Tenant although I probably should reread Wuthering Heights & Charlotte’s other works first.

@FruAashild- thanks, I might have overlooked Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography as it’s old, but it’s a really good idea to read it too, especially as I like Gaskell as a writer.

@Terpsichore- you are right that what happened to Charlotte is so sad. Women had a awful time with childbirth in that century - I’ve always liked how Queen Victoria championed the use of chloroform as a painkiller.

One thing that I didn’t mention in my review of The Tenant was just how much I liked how strong Helen was as a character. One of my favourite parts is when the Vicar & Gilbert’s mother are so disapproving of her for not giving her child any alcohol & she just stands up to the bullying moral pressure and doesn’t back down.

@Benvenuto I love Tenant I always feel for Anne because Charlotte absolutely hated it and sought to suppress it in her lifetime

@EineReiseDurchDieZeitI don’t think Anne has been well-served by being judged against her sisters as her books are very different. There are some similarities between Anne’s work & that of her sisters but I don’t see either The Tenant or Agnes Grey as being Gothic novels.

The Tenant is squarely in the tradition of Richardson’s Clarissa (woman takes up with a rake & suffers the consequences) & Agnes Grey has some similarities with Jane Austen in the way it portrays “genteel” rural life in country houses. What links the two works & was groundbreaking is that AB portrays women in difficult positions (wife & governess) & shows just how awful those situations are & is explicit about how badly the other characters treat Agnes & Helen.

@BenvenutoCharles Kingsley said Every man should read it and every man should prevent his wife from reading it - or words close to that anyway

@PermanentTemporaryThe Gilded Age tv series is back in November and covered exactly this ground - maybe it’s based on this book actually as it’s pretty identical.

Part of me actually thinks we shouldn’t necessarily be grouping the Brontes together anyway. They were all individual women, with motivations, ideas, thoughts. Accepting that they were together a lot and probably did influence each other I think we (General we, plus most definitely me) group them a bit too much. Don’t get me started on the Brontes vs Austen thing - comparing apples and pears really. I would pick Emily over Jane, Jane over Charlotte and Anne (though I enjoy all of them for different reasons).

I was going to suggest Gaskell too, mostly because I’m unaware of others, but also I agree there is merit in reading something by someone who knew her.

I’ve started Piranesi for a new book club I’ve joined - early stages but I am wondering what I have done. Popped into new/old workplace where book club friends told me we are reading Yesteryear!

My Family - David Baddiel

Well written and entertaining, unsurprisingly. But… I do wonder what the family of Mrs Baddiel’s long term paramour made of it.

@AgualusasL0ver I love The Gilded Age!

57 When the Dust Settles - Lucy Easthope A thread favourite, and for very good reason. I was wary of reading this because I knew it would talk about terrible events and I am already a catastrophiser. It was difficult, particularly in the early chapters which have very graphic descriptions (though always matter-of-fact and never gratuitous). However, I found it got easier to read and the whole book was an absolute masterpiece of gently explaining the serious business of disaster planning and recovery, in a compassionate and straightforward manner, with just the right amount of the author’s personal story included as well.

Sadly one major takeaway is the frequency with which people like Easthope try to get proper plans in place for events that the authorities decide will never happen…only for them to occur very shortly afterwards with insufficient planning in place. The book is also (while resolutely non-political) quietly damning of the lack of proper planning by the conservative government since 2010 and the way previous governments’ extensive planning was ignored and forgotten.

Overall, absolutely fascinating and an important insight into Easthope’s world - a strong bold.

I love The Gilded Age too! Will look out for that book as it does sound very similar.

And @AgualusasL0ver keep going with Piranesi. It takes a while to get into it but it’s definitely worth it as the story’s revealed.

Meditation For Mortals by Oliver Burke man

I had previously read 4000 Weeks by the same author and liked his attitude towards how to live a life true yourself, and this 28 days of meditations is basically more of the same.

He writes about how we can't optimise productivity to make all our problems go away, the to do list will never end and we are best off accepting that and that it's better to start that project and do it imperfectly rather than procrastinate, do more research and never start.

All this resonates with me, and I enjoyed reading this a day at a time (took me three months as I kept forgetting, but proving his point to do it imperfectly!) and it gave me food for thought over a longer period than if I just inhaled a book in four days and then it's gone.

There have been a couple of changes since I started reading this, garden projects are about to take place and I have better balance in my weekend plans. I am also still journaling which I started in February. It's very sporadic, but it does help me order my thoughts.

The Copper Beech - Maeve Binchy

I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as others of hers, but still good. This is more a collection of short stories, all based around one small town where a copper beech tree grows in the schoolyard. All the stories are connected though, featuring the same people but just focusing on different people/families. I love her depictions of small town Ireland in the 1950s. I just would have preferred one ongoing narrative rather than dipping in and out of different stories.

38. Isola by Allegra Goodman Based on a true story from the 16th century, orphaned French aristocrat Margeurite lives with her nurse and two companions in her chateau, while her fortune and property are managed by her guardian who visits very rarely. She lives a comfortable life and knows she will have a marriage arranged by her guardian, but as she gets older there is no news of a marriage and her funds are continually cut until eventually another family moves into the chateau, as the guardian has sold part of it, and she and her companions are moved into smaller rooms. When she is around 16, she is moved to la Rochelle with her nurse, to her Guardian's house and she spends two years there expecting to get news of her marriage. Her Guardian is never there and there are bailiffs and debt collectors often asking for him. She is in a state on anxiety that her fortune has been mismanged and squandered but she is pretty powerless. Then her Guardian announces he is taking her to New France (Present day Canada) - on board ship she falls in love with her Guardian’s secretary and when the Guardian finds out ,he maroons them both, with her poor long suffering nurse, on a remote island. A good chunk of the book is descriptions of life on the island, how they learn to survive brutal winters and polar bears. It is an interesting story, enough to make me google the real life Margeurite. It’s very grim and miserable in places, but it held me enough to be rooting for her and it is ultimately uplifting about the survival of a strong woman who had no agency in her own life in society, which cast her out. It is one that stayed with me for a good few days after finishing it.

Finished Once the Deed is Done by Rachel Seiffert. This was one of the shortlisted books for the 2026 Walter Scott Prize. It is about Germany on the period immediately after the war ends, specifically focusing on one village in the North and the displaced persons, including children. It was an interesting read but should somehow have been more engrossing than it was. I think Seiffert was avoiding emotional manipulation and maintaining a kind of distance that may reflect the hollow shock of 1945 but this story is deeply troubling so the writing could seem a bit cold. There are a lot of voices and I did struggle with which German was which. I had to reread the very beginning at the end!

I've just picked up Fair Play for £1 at the charity shop so keen to see what the fuss is about! I'm intrigued. Do you happen to remember where the interview with the author was please?

@HagCymraeg Isola is my next book club read so will be starting it soon. Glad it sounds like a good one.

@Pigtailsandall it was in Booktime

www.nationalbooktokens.com/long-reads/booktime-interview-with-louise-hegarty-author-of-fair-play?srsltid=AfmBOooMP8049qIjlm51azL-HT91J5IWiqWjSa0QO7gIsQVq46YrFoct

This sounds like the kind of advice that I desperately need! Will keep an eye out for this.

94. Almost Life - Kiran Millwood Hargrave. This is about a young English woman, Erica, who goes to Paris in 1979 and meets Laure, a French lesbian communist who she falls in love with. The story follows then through 3 or 4 meetings over the next 20 years and traces the effect they have on each others lives. I really liked this. I thought Hargrave wrote it cleverly, at first my sympathies lay with Erica but as the book progresses, Laure becomes a more likely character and Erica becomes rather annoying. It felt realistic in how relationships pan out and affect your lives.

Is anyone on here reading Lolita for Dominic and Tabby? I read it years ago when I was a teen but did remember the start perfectly when Tabby read it out. Am tempted to reread as don't think I really appreciated all the subtext that they discussed last time but as a mother, am not sure how I'd feel about it.

I started it but just couldn’t continue. Reading his PoV made me feel ill. I get that it’s smart and he’s skewering himself but I just couldn’t bring myself to read any more than a few chapters.