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 read it in 2020 and said :

Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov

Over the years I have avoided reading Lolita because I believed I would find the content too disturbing.
At the same time, I have heard a lot about it in terms of its literary merit and so thought I was missing out.
I found it too disturbing, it made me really uncomfortable and I skimmed the last 100 pages.
🤷‍♀️

I don’t remember much if I am honest! I have fallen quite far behind on Dominic and Tabby. I was defeated by Hemingway!

I don’t know who/what Dominic and Tabby is/are, but I think Lolita is a work of genius. It’s obviously disturbing and awful, but that’s the point. I’ve read it many times, but must admit that the most recent time of reading I was bored by the endless schlepping around hotels on the latter chunk. I see it on a par with A Clockwork Orange in its ability to create incredible literature from deeply unpleasant content.

Dominic Sandbrook and Tabby Syrett host the reasonably new Goalhanger Book Club podcast @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie they did Lolita this week

I’ve only listened to Dominic & Tabby on books that I can remember fairly well (so far that is quite a lowering combination of Hamnet, ACOTAR & Little Women & I clearly have a lot of reading to do) - but I’m not intending to read Lolita as it’s always sounded grim. I’m happy to defer to @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie’s judgement & accept it’s a masterpiece (but I still don’t want to read it).

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit- I love the Kingsley quotation (very apt in a Victorian kind of way).

78 . The Countess by Jehanne and Katie Wake - biography of Emily Lamb (later Cowper then Lady Palmerston) who was the sister of one prime minister & the wife of a second. This was a Kindle deal that I couldn’t resist as the subject appears in several Georgette Heyer books as she was a patroness of Almacks. This was an enjoyable & easy to read biography of an interesting woman & political hostess and her equally interesting friends & relations. It gave a good insight into the workings of early 19th century politics & follows on well from Amanda Foreman’s Georgiana biography as a number of people feature in both. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Earl Grey’s government & the Reform Act and the portraits of Emily & her family in the illustrations are stunning. It’s not a bold as there is an accusation towards the end that I didn’t feel was dealt with sufficiently well.

I also only listen to Dominic and Tabby when I’ve read the book, book to be honest I fundamentally disagreed with everything they said about The Thirty-Nine Steps - but I am appear to be alone in thinking it is meh really. I was thinking of listening to their Little Women episode because I very much did not enjoy that either.

Piranesi Susanna Clarke
I am probably the very last person to this party. I have owned a Kindle copy for ages, but never really fancied it as I don’t really like fantasy or fantasy adjacent stuff. I will say I was pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed this and devoured it. I’m sure there are holes in the world building, consistency with various things but if there are they went way over my head.

Very quickly, as I am probably reviewing to those who have read it - Piranesi lives/occupies/is in a labyrinth House, that has seemingly infinite doors, halls and staircases. The House is prone to tides and flooding. Piranesi doesn’t know why they are there or how they came to be there, only that they are and have jobs to do - looking after the Dead, caring for the statues that inhabit the House and helping the Other with their research. Make sense? No, but that is the beauty of it I guess. It unravelled in a very clever way I thought without wearing its cleverness too heavily (looking at Laurent Binet and HhHH which I know many love but was too clever and contrived for its own good for me).

I am really glad I read this, and if you are miraculously are someone who hasn’t but is thinking about it - do it.

No @AgualusasL0ver I thought the 39 steps was really meh as well

@SpunkyKhakiScrollerits our next bookclub book as well. Maybe we are in the same bookclub .

Yep @AgualusasL0verand @EineReiseDurchDieZeit I thought they were far too effusive on The 39 Steps and a little harsh on Brave New World.

@HagCymraeg maybe we are! Are you in Southeast London? Or maybe we are just in different chapters of the Chapter 25 book club.

90. The Rose Code by Kate Quinn - having previously enjoyed the author's The Briar Club, I was looking forward to this and the first 80% did not disappoint. It follows three women recruited to work in Bletchley Park - one the socialite girlfriend of Prince Philip (based on a real person), one an East End girl, and one a clearly autistic genius with an abusive mother. The characters, their lives at Bletchley, their friendship, their love lives - all absorbing and interesting. It's a proper historical novel embedding you in the lives of it's characters till you feel you know them. I had a couple of small quibbles like the intense foreshadowing of a particular event. Short of a neon sign, every hint was given. But the event was still emotional and moving and the aftermath felt real. So far so great.

Then in the last 20%, the author decided writing a historical novel was not enough, it needed to be a full on thriller complete with daring escapes, assembling a team, solving an unsolvable puzzle in the nick of time, chasing villains through crowds. You name it and the trope was there. Why? Why ruin a really good historical novel by tacking on Oceans Eleven at the end. Why does everyone get a happy ending? Why are all the loose ends neatly tied up - even the ones that weren't doing any harm staying loose? It honestly felt like the end was written by a different person. It could so easily have been a bold and instead was a disappointment.

34 And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
There aren’t many authors that I just don’t get that I’ve read as many of as Christie. Her books are fairly unavoidable as physical objects but I don’t have to read them, but somehow I do. To me she’s just not much of a writer. I’m fond of an ellipse myself but not the way she was, they appear every line or two to define that she doesn’t know how to finish or link the sentence. Her characters are cardboard and none of the murders that I’ve read make any sense. Clearly she does have something but I couldn’t tell you what it is.

I read Lolita as a teenager and remember being struck by the beauty of the writing. Having listened to the podcast I am tempted to revisit it….

That's how I feel @elspethmcgillicudddy

I read a lot of the books they're discussing in my teens or 20s and now feel like I need to read them again to get the subtleties. But do agree with Remus re Lolita. I thought the background about Nabokov was really interesting.

I think I posted that I find For Whom The Bell Tolls incredibly dull and am not a Hemingway fan. And I can't see myself liking Bertie Wooster as much as they did but haven't read or listened to that one.

Fair Play Louise Hegarty
I have an affection for Christie novels. Although (whispers) I think they often work best as TV adaptions rather than novels. When I was very ill I would watch the old & new adaptions to while away the time. Sometimes when I read them like @PermanentTemporary I find them rather hollow & unsatisfying. However, there are some I do really love including The Murder of Roger Ackroyd ( I read it as a teen and didn’t know the twist) and Endless Night (again read as a teen - the atmosphere seemed then quite sinister & it had a very unsympathetic protagonist that was unusual to me when you have been used to kid & teen books). To me they are enjoyable because they are ‘puzzles’ and evoke a predictable past that I am not sure ever existed. They are about murder but they are safe. Character development and emotional depth is erm limited. I was intrigued enough by the reviews on here about Fair Play doing an interesting take on the genre to not only buy it on kindle, but read it in two sittings.
As has been described up thread, it opens with Abigail hosting a present day murder mystery party before diverting off into something different and experimental. It draws on Christie and similar country house & closed room mysteries. It was definitely interesting and I’m glad I read it … but fundamentally I think the central premise/message is quite obvious. God that makes me sound pompous. I think as adults we know what plot driven mysteries/thrillers are for and it isn’t a reflection or exploration of tragedy. It was enjoyable and is undeniably original and clever, however there is a ‘but’ in my mind. Hard to say more without spoilers. I’m probably missing something - I have reviewed Micah Richard’s autobiography on this thread - I’m no literary critic.
As an aside, I think Snow by John Banville is an interesting take on the country house mystery. Although, you do have to put up with what appears to me to be his distaste for female characters.

I read Lolita a few years ago. The writing is brilliant, and the simmering menace in the first half is grippingly awful. Then it turns into a sort of Ripleyesque thiller but not in a good way. I have no desire to read it again as the first section was so well done as to be a very difficult read, and the last part was a bit silly really.

39.London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe. Extensively reviewed on here already, this is a deep dive into the tragic circumstances around the death of a 19 year old man from North London. Zac Brettler's body was found in the Thomas. CCTV showed that he jumped from a luxury apartment complex. The book looks into how Brettler came to be in that apartment, why he was associating with those people, and how no one in that flat was really who the others thought they were, alongside the smoke and mirrors that seem to prop up London's property market.

This was incredibly detailed, gripping and very touching. Radden Keefe goes back generations into Brettler's family history, a story of immigrants escaping persecution and achieving stability and success in the UK, and draws strong parallel's between Brettler's background and those of the shadier figures he was drawn to. Sometimes I have a wistful daydream about living glamorous jet-set kind of lifestyle, but this was a stark reminder to be grateful for my quiet life.

Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry

This is a huge novel (it took me a month to get through) which follows Gus and Call - two aging Texas rangers - who go on a journey driving cattle from a small town called Lonesome Dove north to Montana. With them they take a rag tag mix of cowboys and other townspeople and many misadventures and lucky escapes happen along the way.

This was great, a really enjoyable read. The characters were fantastic and it felt very atmospheric. My only complaint was that it took ages to get going, there was a lot of repetition at the beginning. I need to track down the TV series but unbelievably it’s not on any of the streamers, even to buy.

The Escape Artist, Jonathan Freedland (audiobook)

This is an amazing story about Rudolf Vrba, one of only four jews who managed to escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp. As you can imagine it’s full of horror, detailing life for those labouring in the camp, as well as the swift deaths many faced after transportation. On escape, Vrba and his friend were hell bent on trying to alert the world as to what was happening at the camp, in particular the Hungarian Jewish population who they knew were the next cohort to start arriving. They managed to save 200,000 lives. Highly recommend, and the audiobook is very well read.

I’m now ploughing through London Falling, PRK is a brilliant writer, he had me hooked from the start.

I think much of my Agatha Christie love comes from the TV series. I also like the time they evoke amongst certain groups of people, but since it was contemporary for her she doesn’t actually really describe things so I’ve probably got that from TV. I like the clue puzzle element though I never really work it out, but things like Sherlock he comes up with some fundamentally hidden or new detail with which he solves the crime, with Christie it is all there. That said, I don’t actually enjoy crime fiction though, she is my exception and I think she was just my next ‘known’ step from Catherine Cookson as a reader.

The full miniseries of Lonesome Dove is available on Youtube if you don’t mind watching it there.

@SpunkyKhakiScroller lol not in London, but the wilds of Wales (hence username!)

Interesting review of The Rose Code, I read it a few years ago and remember really enjoying it, along with The Alice Network and The Huntress - so I was a Kate quinn fan a few years ago. I was excited to read The Briar Club this year, but I found it very slow and boring, I did finish it because I kept thinking it would pick up, but it didn't for me. Not the worst book I have ever read, but my least favourite by Kate Quinn by a long stretch.
The experience of a good story trundling along and enjoying it, but it being ruined in the last quarter by the author thinking the need to introduce some unnecessary baddies and a final perilous chase is exactly as I felt about The Ministry of Time

I have added London Falling to my Borrowbox waitlist, thanks for the recommendations.

@SpunkyKhakiScroller I read The Rose code a couple of years ago.
I loved it. It was one of those books I wanted to race to the end and simultaneously take it slow to savour it. I love the language, a sign of how much I enjoy a book is the amount of underlining (kindle).
There's quite a lot of author's notes at the end and I hadn't twigged that many of the characters were based on real people. The only bit I was slightly less keen on was the Philip character but by the end, and after reading the author's notes, I changed my mind.
I also enjoyed The Alice Network but was disappointed by several others that I tried.

I think part of the reason I was so disappointed by The Rose Code was because so much of it was so good! I just felt the Avengers Assemble style ending made a mockery of the majority of it.

I don't want to give spoilers but I found it very silly that the villain turned up to confirm they were the villain just before the escape. Also the newspaper article about the escape was published late enough for the BP crowd to solve the puzzle but early enough for the villain to make an escape attempt resulting in a dramatic chase. And the happy endings for the women were so convenient. I eye rolled so hard when coat man not only turned up but turned out to be an ideal match! It just felt like Kate Quinn built up these amazing, flawed, authentic characters through the book and then sacrificed their authenticity for a Hollywood ending.

53 La Disparue de la Cabine no. 10 – Helen Ware (tr. Heloise Esquie)

I bought this second hand in France last year, as I thought it might be easier to read a detective novel originally written in English that had been translated into French than a French original. Finally got round to reading it in when in France this summer. I was right about the ease of reading - I was able to follow the whole thing without needing a dictionary once - but IMO this is an extremely silly story, the plot of which is largely nicked from Agatha Christie's Dead Man's Folly, albeit with more water (although a boat house features prominently in Christie's version), a lot more words and less racism.

(I love Christie, by the way and I think she writes with great economy and is very good at dialogue, which is why her books translate so well to the screen. Her characters can be archetypes but at her best she's capable of getting someone's essence across in a few pen strokes)

54 A Stranger in the Family – Jane Casey
55 The Secret Room – Jane Casey

And I was doing SO WELL with my one Casey a month - until I got to the end of A Stranger in the Family and those who have read it will understand why I had to go straight on to The Secret Room. I am so glad I read these books in order (I recommended them to a friend who started with ASinF and I think that is a travesty), because I think you have to to get the full impact of these two. I loved both of them. I enjoyed the mystery in ASitF more, and think it's a better novel, but - no more, because spoilers. Any crime lovers on the thread who haven't read these yet - absolutely recommended and PLEASE read them in order.

The Shadow Step by Mark Billingham
I don’t know why I keep reading these because they are very stupid indeed.
DC Declan Miller is still in Blackpool (yes, with those world famous cliffs), still talking to his dead wife, keeping his pet rats, irritating his co workers and sharing details of confidential cases with his ballroom dancing group.
The accidental death of a minor drug dealer sees him dragged into the orbit of the Cutler family - Wayne may be in prison but Jacqui and her loyal henchman ‘Google’ MacDougall are very much still in the game.
There’s an ex soldier and a daschund with a neurological disorder. For gravitas Billingham repeatedly throws in ‘deaths of despair…..poverty….addiction….crime capital of the NW…..blah blah blah’. Thankfully, he’s just made Miller your common or garden knobhead rather than labouring some random point about ADHD.
It was 99p and I still hold a torch for the early days of Tom Thorne, what can I say? 🤷

91. The Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion vol 3 by Beth Brower - The third instalment is a both more serious and more frivolous than the previous two. On the one hand we see the sadness behind Emma's in joi de vivre more clearly. On the other the hijinks in St Crispians get more ridiculous. The best parts are Emma's developing relationships with her male friends. I still enjoyed it but will take a break before I listen to the next one.

52% on something and just cant get moving!

I’ve just finished all of the Fethering mysteries by Simon Brett. Not a patch on the Mrs Pargeter books but they’ve seen me through a holiday, a post-holiday slump and a nasty bout of flu.