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 liked The Book Club episode on Lord of The Flies. I didn't know any of the background and always find it fascinating when a book has changed so much from its original state - all the third world war stuff and more overt mystical messages that Golding took out. (See also To Kill A Mockingbird). It's not my top 5 but it's a fascinating book and rightfully has a place in the literary canon IMO.

It's the only essay I remember writing for GCSE English over 30 years ago on the final line '"Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy". Discuss'.

But I did find The Inheritos unreadable. Although haven't tried since I was a teen.

I've never read Stoner. Your review is inspiring me to give it a go @ÚlldemoShúl.

Apologies for the gibberish here, which I’ve only just noticed. In my defence, it was late and I was tired.

I’m in a rut and can’t find anything I want to read.

It’s in my top 10 @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie (LOTF). I think it’s brilliant and terrifying.

I also really like Lord of the Flies. Wouldn’t be in my top 5 or 10 but it is one I have read a few times and will read again, probably several times. I think it definitely stands up to rereading as I get something new from it each time.

41.The Cut-Throat Trial by The Secret Barrister writing as S.J.Fleet. Three 17 year old young men are accused of murdering an older man. Each has a different account of the events that took place on the night of the man’s death, and their defence teams endeavour to ensure that the cards fall in their favour. The narrative switches mainly between two defendants, and one defence barrister and the prosecution barrister.

I really enjoyed this. It’s a classic courtroom drama, and obviously heavy on the legal accuracy right down to the minutiae of how exhibits are labelled. It slowly reveals how the personal and professional experiences of the barristers involved shapes their handling of the trial, and there’s a nice juicy twist that I didn’t see coming.

47. Fair Play by Louise Hegarty - read and reviewed a lot by many. It's an unusual book and I read it quickly (in fairness I had a lot of commuting the last few days). I'm not sure how much I liked it. It was clever, but I really didn't get the ending; or rather, I didn't much like it.

I thoroughly recommend Stoner. Would love to hear what you think of it.

Well, we all know where I stand ( or fall...weep).

I hope you enjoy the reads @bibliomania. The Banine is a book club read so I am interested to see what the group thinks. It is a newish club in that I have only attended the zoom sessions with before, but am going to the in person meet up this time. Well done on the Pennine Way - I had to google and am very impressed.

@Owlbookend things close to my own experience are often a no go for me, or I go all in and sometimes feel they help me get my emotions around things out. I had a terrible bereavement a number of years ago and I'm still angry and I usually refer to the person by their relationship to me rather than by name - but occasionally I read stuff around their illness, or the families left behind and I have a good old scream and cry. I hope you are ok.

It is common knowledge I am a Shafak fan @SheilaFentiman , but The Island of Missing Trees is up there as one of my favourites. Islands, figs, yearning, displacement - everything I love.

@Stowickthevast .

Brando's Bride Sarah Broughton
Non-fiction about Marlon Brando's first wife, Anna Kashfi. The writer has done a great deal of research including interviewing Anna herself. Anna starred in a number of Hollywood films before marrying Brando at 23. The book surrounds Anna's many identities. She was presented to Hollywood as an Indian princess as part of he studio's fabricated bios but also presented herself as Indian or Anglo-Indian at various junctures. Shortly after marrying Brando, her parents came out and said she was Welsh, called Joan and had no Indian blood whatsoever. Broughton carefully unpicks all the testimony, goes deep into Kashfi's genealogy and tries to piece together who Kashfi really was amongst her own changing testimony and her parents assertions. The argument is pretty convincing, though the reasons why various people lied is less clear and speculated.

Kashfi's story is interesting and incredibly sad, and there is some really interesting historical background about Hollywood and its women in particular, the place of the Anglo-Indian in decolonisation and race and identity in post-war Britain.

It does read a bit like a dissertation sometimes and in the acknowledgements Broughton talks about a 'cohort' which made me think maybe it is the result of a Masters or a PhD, but it is not the worse for it. It is accessible and interesting.

p.s. I am up for both readalongs, just not the same time. @FuzzyCaoraDhubh I did laugh at your comment about Hugo, I am desperately trying to catch up and am very stuck in a lengthy Napoleon lecture.

92. Isola by Allegra Goodman - based on a true story about a 16th century French noble woman, whose guardian stole and then sold her estates, failed to arrange a marriage for her, and then took her with him by ship to establish a colony in France. On the journey she falls in love with his secretary on learning of which the guardian abandons them (and her former nanny) on a deserted island.

Isola means island in Italian but I think it's a clever title because the book, for me, was about different forms of isolation and how it inhibits freedom in different ways. In France, social strictures about what a woman cannot do means she has no freedom and is completely isolated from the world around her and from her own sense of self. On the island, she is isolated from society but has the freedom to discover who she is. And back in France, she has to hide her self and perform to societies expectations to win herself a degree of freedom.

There are interesting themes but it feels like the novel loses confidence in them at the end. It's a reasonable ending but could have been sharper. Not a bold but a better book than I expected in the beginning.

You're welcome @AgualusasL0ver:) glad you liked it.

I'm doing more teaching now and my reading time is going to take a hit. I'm only keeping up with Les Mis at the moment and the Rather Dated Bookclub.
I'll be lucky if I get to fifty books this year.

121. London Falling, Patrick Radden Keefe
Non-fiction account of a 19-year-old man leaping to his death from a London balcony, and the search for the reasons behind it. He had been pretending to be the wealthy son of a Russian oligarch, which brought him into contact with some dangerous people. This story would have been so different if it were a fictional police procedural - a dedicated and principled detective would have made some marvellous leap of intuition and solved it. It's sobering to see how differently it pans out in real life.

122. Peggy at the Chalet School, Elinor M Brent-Dyer
Aka Bitching at the Chalet School, aka Unusual Punishments at the Chalet School. Jo reproaches an errant member of the Special Sixth for spreading malicious gossip by getting her to pluck a chicken outdoors on a windy day - like feathers blown by the wind, her unpleasant words cannot be recalled..= The naughty Fourths decide to speak in Georgian slang, culled from Georgette Heyer books in the school library, and are duly punished by being treated by the Prees as if they were indeed Georgian schoolgirls. I missed this book from my childhood reading of the Chalet School, but picked it up, appropriately, for about 20p at a school fair, and it's all rather pleasingly bonkers.

123. Stone Lands, Fiona Robertson
This is a memoir that weaves the author's delight in prehistoric monuments into an account of her husband's death at a young age, contrasting the lengthy existence of the stones with the fleeting life of humans. It was deeply felt, well written, and I'm as keen as the next person on a Neolithic grange or Bronze Age barrow. It feels mean to be critical, but it could be said that the description of ancient sites got a bit repetitive. Overall I did admire it though.

Swan Song - Elin Hildebrand
I’m still enjoying these books set on the island of Nantucket. In this one a young woman acting as an assistant to wealthy island newcomers disappears off a boat and the chief of police is called away from his retirement party to investigate.

60 Lady in Waiting - Anne Glenconner Memoir of one of Princess Margaret’s ladies-in-waiting, though her life has a lot more to it than that. The daughter of the future Earl of Leicester, she grew up in Holkham Hall in Norfolk playing with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, before being evacuated to Scotland during the war and returning for finishing school and her debutante season. She then ended up marrying Colin Tennant, a flamboyant friend of Princess Margaret (and the guy who turned Mustique into an exclusive destination) who unfortunately also turned out to be a vile, psychopathic abuser - but she’d been brought up to grin and bear it so remained married to him until his death over 50 years later, and seems to think his charm made up for his temper. She also dealt with lots of tragedy involving some of her children, which is very sad, but was still going strong in her late 80s when she wrote this (and is still around now, in her 90s). An interesting insight into a world that has disappeared - both the aristocratic upbringing and the hedonistic parties on Mustique in the 70s and 80s.

75. Just Ignore Him - Alan Davies

Anyone who knows Alan Davies from 'Jonathan Creek' in years gone by, or from his appearances as the manic shouty one on 'QI', might find themselves very taken aback by this memoir. After many years of success as an actor and comedian, and having happily married and had children, Davies decided to do an MA in creative writing. As part of that process, he started to write about his childhood: when he was six, his mother died of leukaemia, and two years later, his father began to sexually abuse him.

There are, in fact, a lot of jokes in this book, and despite the often grim details, tender and poignant writing in Davies's fragmentary memories of his mother. Ultimately I found myself in awe of his honesty and openness in facing what happened to him, which includes going to the police in his 50s to report his father’s actions, and finally coming to an understanding of what a sad and dysfunctional upbringing he was subjected to. Emotionally speaking, quite a tough read.

That’s very well put on London Falling, biblio - it really does show by contrast why crime fiction can be so comforting, with avengers ready to swing into action to right wrongs.

God that’s awful @Terpsichore 😟 I’ve got the book but haven’t yet read it - I knew he had had a difficult childhood but hadn’t realised the details. Not sure I’ll be able to bring myself to read it.

Probably a bit late but just in case anyone is still up, The Untouchable by John Banville, which is one of my favourite novels (and for my money, by far his best) is on the daily deals today.

A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing by Alice Evelyn Yang

I loved this. The book begins abruptly as Qianze has to go and collect her estranged father who has turned up out of the blue at their old house. From here, we get different points of view of his childhood and previous life and that of his mother and father too.

There are elements of folklore and supernatural woven into the brutal times. I had somehow not even heard of the Chinese cultural revolution before nor the Japanese invasion of a part of China. The descriptions of both these were vivid enough to make my stomach churn and a tear to my eye.

A bold for me. I loved the style and how it was all put together. Definitely one that will stay with me.

Huge thanks to those to who read all the women's prize nominations and review on here. I feel like I don't have time to read the list myself, but from the reviews I pick out one or two I think I would enjoy the most, and this was it for 2026.

I hummed and haa-ed over getting this, then went to add it to my wishlist on Goodreads/Storygraph and found it was already there. Which usually means someone here has reviewed it well - probably you @Welshwabbit 😊 anyway, I bought it. Looking forward to it.

Another recommendation for Stoner from me @Stowickthevast @ÚlldemoShúl. I absolutely loved it when I read it, and it’s one I would read again (I rarely reread, too many other books to discover!)

I read Lord of the Flies to DS this year, which was a reread for me and I was glad of the excuse/opportunity. I wouldn’t say I love it - too disturbing - and revere is probably too strong a sentiment but it’s definitely one I’d recommend people read if they haven’t.

@Terpsichoremy son was playing on the same football team as Alan’s and we did weekend football chit chat when the book came out. I really wanted to say something but I just didn’t know what to say (I’ve only read the book).

It would be so hard to formulate words, wouldn’t it? It certainly made my heart go out to him. He seems such a likeable person and very courageous to have faced everything that happened to him (and it’s sad to hear that his brother appears to refuse to believe it and indeed no longer be in contact, if I'm reading things correctly). His father - well, I have no words.

I meant the reviews I only read the reviews.

yes, that must be so hard.