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

We must live not too far away @AgualusasL0ver

I used to see him at baby cinema when my now sixth former was a baby.

A Different Kind of Power Jacinda Ardern

I listened to this on audio as she read it herself which I think really added to the experience. I thought this was a really powerful memoir about fundamentally trying to be a kind and decent human being. Whether you agree or disagree with her politics or that she is a kind and decent human being, all the evidence in the book suggests she tries to be and much of what she said resonated with me and for me she stood out as a leader. Recommend.

The Memory of Love by Amanatta Forna
The story of three men across two different timelines in Sierra Leone. Adrian is a British psychologist, part of a medical team sent to Freetown in the wake of civil war. His colleague Kai who is from country Sierra Leone is an orthopaedic surgeon with symptoms of PTSD and Adrian is treating Elias Cole, a terminal patient and professor. The prose is beautiful and its narration is exceptional by Kobna Holbrook-Smith. It deals well with PTSD the impact of civil war and white saviours but it’s very slow moving and the female characters are flat. I may well have DNFed without the fabulous narration by Kobna Holbrook-Smith.

The Feast of Lupercal by Brian Moore
Diarmuid Devine is a bachelor and schoolmaster in a Catholic school in Belfast in the 1950s. He tries to get along with everyone, sometimes at a cost to himself. When he falls for his colleagues niece, the much younger and Protestant Una will he change?
this was short but much deeper than my synopsis suggests. Well written and thought-provoking, I plan to read more by the author- not least the well known Lies of Silence and The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne.

I still need to catch up on the thread but adding a couple of reviews while I have a min. The first two are RWYO and the third is free on kindle unlimited.

74 The Stone Circle by Elly Griffiths
75 The Lantern Men by Elly Griffiths

Next two Ruth Galloway books. I enjoyed the central crimes in these, but I’m finding the Ruth / Nelson cycle pretty irritating now and wish Ruth would get some self respect and Nelson some morals.

76 My Family by David Baddiel

David Baddiel writes a ‘warts and all’ portrayal of his late parents Colin and Sarah. I wasn’t sure I was going to like this at first. As you’d expect from a book by a comedian, this was funny in places, but I was definitely uneasy with some of the personal things he shared about his parents. However he addresses this head on and his explanation makes sense. Baddiel is really committed to ‘the truth’ and doesn’t spare the reader any aspect of his parents’ characters and general craziness. But you can tell that everything is written with love and, in the end, I found this kind of beautiful.

Serenity Falls by CJ Tudor

Dan and his teenage dd, Sadie, are surprised but cautiously thrilled to find out that Dan’s mother left him a premium property in a specially built community in the US. Things aren’t going well in the UK, so with reservations mainly coming from Sadie they set off for their new life. Serenity Falls is sheer perfection, no crime, super friendly inhabitants, even a job at the high school for Dan. Then an unfortunate town mascot drowns in their pool on the first night and things start to happen that suggest that it might not be the idyllic place it pretends.
Interspersed with the present day narrative are sections from past inhabitants. We know they are dead, because they tell us. It’s up to Sadie (and later, Dan) to untangle the secrets of Serenity Falls.
So far, so Scooby Doo……..
I did like this, as Tudor can write a good horror/mystery. Substituting Harold Winsom for Walt Disney is a cute move.However, the Stephen King fangirling is off the scale with this book. No mysterious balloons can appear without her referencing It. No one can be in peril near water without her shoehorning in ‘We all float’. She has a severe case of mentionitis where he is concerned and maybe for balance throws in the names of other horror writers in a stiltedly obvious way (Dan is vowing to improve the saccharine school library offering). I don’t know if Michael Marshall Smith has ever written a gushing quote for the cover of her books but Michael, if you’re reading, I think she really really would like that. King’s quote for this book is “”If you like my stuff you’ll like this” so maybe he’s getting sick of her going through his bins too.
Thankfully, the teenage sex scene is written without the lens of Creepy Old Male Horror Writer, so that’s good.
It’s a decent bit of horror fluff. Candy floss with razor blades. She’s written better.

That Stephen King quote was used on her first book in 2018! Wonder if he’s actually read any of the rest?

I thought it seemed familiar! At the time I was impressed that an unknown UK author had managed to get the King stamp of approval, as he’s not in need of the publishing mutual backslapping that goes on. It’s Will Deans turn on the front cover this time, hope she doesn’t start stalking him instead .
It’s irritating because she’s a decent author who doesn’t need to be anyone’s Stan to this extent.

Book 39: Cruel Acts by Jane Casey

Next installment of the Maeve Kerrigan series.
I am enjoying this as a series, but this wasn't my favourite case, too many dead women to keep track of. A serial killer is out on appeal and Maeve is involved in the reinvestigation of the murders hoping to ensure a retrial but more and more bodies keep turning up which cast new light on the case.

I am now reading The Giver of Stars to break up the Maeve Kerrigan fest. Seems ok so far.

I'm also about to sign up for the Oliver Twist readalong, hope to see some of you there.

97. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier. Stone-cold classic that doesn't really need a review. I don't think I'd ever read this but had the abridged version of this and Jamaica Inn played to us over speakers in dorms at boarding school when I was about 10 or 11 and had seen the Hitchcock movie. The voice from Jamaica Inn is particularly etched into my brain.

The atmosphere is great. I did like the Book Club take on this and was looking for clues about whether Du Maurier intended the second Mrs De Winter to be an unreliable narrator. On the whole, I don't think she did.

48. The Blame by Charlotte Langley

A police procedural which has a gripping yet utterly implausible plot - so of course it's being made into a TV mini series starring Michelle Keegan.

I picked it up on holiday - not my usual thing at all, but it looked intriguing. It touches on police corruption, which made it more interesting than most, and it is clearly going to be the first in a series, given the ending.

Anyway, I have to mention a phrase in this book which jumped out for me: "X was bearing his teeth". How did that get past the editor?!! Surely even trashy detective novels deserve better!

48. Assembly by Natasha Brown This has been on my reading list for years now, and I took it out of the library yesterday when dc were erusing kids books. It's short (100 pages) so more of a novella; it's absolutely beautiful. I couldn't put it down. Written in places like a poem, it seems to mix genres, and it is what I'd call an important book about the uncomfortable history of the British empire, and how the colonialisation plays into the identity of a brilliantly smart and ambitious young Black woman. I'd teach this in school if I were an English teacher.

I just realised that at the start of August I listened to 42.The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley on audio and didn’t review it. However, between being distracted by work while I was listening to it, perimenopause and the book itself not being massively memorable this review will be more than a little hazy.

It’s the story of former work colleagues at a highbrow magazine which sounds a bit like the LRB. The man is called Putnam and I can’t remember the woman’s name. Putnam has got the hump and quit after 25 years because a new flash Harry type editor takes over. The two meet in a pub and reminisce about their friendship. This is interspersed with vignettes from the woman’s history, the main one I can remember was that she was horribly groomed as a teenager by a stand up comedian who absolutely definitely has nothing in common with Russell Brand. By the end of the book Putnam’s back as some kind of contributing editor at the magazine but can’t recall how this happened.

Through my brain fog I distantly remember the writing was lean and spare in a good way. It was pleasant enough way to spend a few hours, but I’m not quite seeing what the Booker panel saw in it.

@StowickthevastI think the area and the vicinity are ripe with MNetters 😉 I’ve also just confirmed 2027 dates with my Howarth crew tp explore Frenchman’s Creek and general du Maurier country. Not until end of April but looking forward to it, and is a reason to push some of my unread books of hers up the TBR.

I’d like to get involved in the Oliver Twist readalong (I’ve inherited my Dad’s copy but never read it) but at the moment have trouble keeping up with 2 chapters of The Odyssey a month so might give it a miss. In the meantime I’ve been enjoying Pagans based on reviews from here. And a couple of RWYO fluffy reads, both consigned to the charity bag - hooray.

42… Drop the Dead Donkey 2000 by Andy Hamilton and Alistair Beaton

Based on the Channel 4 sitcom, this a separate story set in an alternative late 1999 where civil war rages in Switzerland, and Schindlers List – the Musical is breaking box office records. Amoral, news-hungry reporter Damian is looking into a series of suicides in Wales, reaching into the highest levels of government. In the meantime, Globelink News itself is under threat of downsizing with redundancies on the cards on the eve of the new millennium.

This was a fun, easy read but suffered from being a topical satirical comedy novel written in 1994 about events happening 5 years in the future. Some intervening high-profile events meant the references were superseded, and the topical nature of the writing rendered some 1994 plot points being unintelligible to modern readers. What was more interesting, but also depressing, was that some aspects of British politics/media haven’t changed in the intervening 30 years.

43… The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

You know the score by now, a frantic race against time set over the course of a few hours, secret societies and symbolism aplenty, one miraculous escape from death after another. Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned at short notice to deliver a lecture at the Capitol Building in Washington by his old mentor Peter Solomon. When Solomon is kidnapped, Langdon finds himself drawn into a race against time to decipher a series of codes and Masonic rituals deep in the heart of the city’s great buildings, with Solomon’s sister, noetic scientist Katherine, both pitted against an unseen enemy who is always one step ahead. Will they rescue Peter Solomon and reveal the lost symbol in time?

Both deeply confusing and frustratingly bad at the same time, racing from one life-threatening situation to the next, the never-ending peril exhausted me from the outset. I finished it despite the plot holes and a twist even I saw coming.

I'm struggling to choose what to read after finishing The Assembly last night. I was reading Wildfell Hall, and got about half way through and then had a genius idea to switch to the audio version. I moved recently and my commute now is far longer and has a good 15mins of walking in it, so I thought I'd utilise the time. But I much prefer to read in print at home,and nothing is particularly speaking to me. Stoner is also on my list, but I know it'll be heavy ging so I keep putting it off

I can’t seem to get on with CJ Tudor.

I finished a couple this weekend bringing me to 22.

In the Woods, Tana French

This is the first in the Dublin Murder Squad series. I thought this was just ok, the main character really started to annoy me. I’m also annoyed that one of the mysteries is left unresolved - what!! I’m not sure if I’ll carry on with this series but I have The Searcher (the first in French’s other series) on my kindle which I will pick up at some stage.

London Falling, Patrick Radden Keefe

PRK tells the story of Zac Brettler, a London teen who falls to his death from a prominent river side apartment building. After his death his parents discover he had been pretending to be the son of a Russian oligarch and had become entangled with some dangerous characters.

So good! A bold. I listened on audio.

I was so annoyed at the ending of In The Woods that I have avoided Tana French ever since.

I love Tana French 😀 In The Woods is, AFAI recall, her only one that is inconclusive in that sort of way.

76. Perfect Happiness - Penelope Lively

A RWYO. 49-year-old Frances finds herself suddenly alone when her husband, famous writer and media talking-head Steven Brooklyn dies unexpectedly. Frances has spent their marriage raising their two adopted children while Steven pursues a high-flying international career that takes him away from home (an AIBU thread waiting to be written), but she is poleaxed by his loss. Gradually, with support from her sister-in-law Zoe and a couple of new friends, she begins to emerge from the first dark phase of bereavement.

This was very beautifully written but if I'm honest it wasn’t one of my favourites by Lively. The mood is (understandably) muted and a few plot-lines feel a bit contrived (what are the odds that the husband of a neighbour Frances meets by a freak chance in her new area will turn out to have been a former schoolmate of Steven's?).
Ultimately the themes are all echt Lively: remembering, coping, finding strength from the past and reasons to go on.

I agree with @SheilaFentiman - the rest of the Dublin Murder Squad series is a treat, and you'd miss out if you judged it all on the (I agree, annoying) end of In the Woods.* *

That’s good to know about In the Woods - it’s currently a DNF for me but I’ve liked some of her other books.

79 . Something Light by Margery Sharp - Slightly dated readalong in which a young woman goes husband-hunting - I enjoyed this rather less than others as I didn’t care enough about the characters and didn’t find it funny enough to compensate.

80 . Madam will you talk? by Mary Stewart - a young widow goes on holiday to post - War France only to find her fellow hotel guests are caught up in a dastardly plot. The first part of this was immensely enjoyable featuring evocative descriptions of Provence, untrustworthy men & chases in fast cars. Unfortunately, the middle was spoiled to a degree with a whirlwind romance & a crucial plot twist based on coincidence but the end redeemed itself with more car-based drama.

In other news, I’ve just spotted that Ben Macintyre is talking about his new book on Dan Snow’s history podcast.

@Benvenuto that sounds pretty standard Mary Stewart fare! I've got it on my TBR list so will look forward to it.

Also glad to hear the rest of the Dublin Murder Squad series is an improvement on In the Woods, as I was also very miffed by the ending of that. @MonOncle The Searcher (and sequels) are very different and much better than In the Woods, in my view.

On books covered by the Book Club podcast - I'm currently partway through Rebecca and enjoying it (so far it seems to be about class differences, and being an awkward, shy post-teenager, but I'm expecting it to get increasingly gothic from the little I know - haven't listed to the episode yet so as to avoid spoilers!). As for Lolita, I read the first few pages as a teenager and decided it wasn't for me; nothing about the podcast episode has made my change my mind. And I got about halfway through Lord of the Flies, also as a teenager - I think I stopped reading when it got a bit grim (I have always been a bit of a wimp!). Perhaps I should go back and read the whole thing, though I won't be prioritising it over the mass of books I already have on my list.

Apologies if already posted, The Benefactors is 99p until 20th Sept.

Ooooh...

I know that TTTW is Marmite, but the sequel (about Alba DeTamble) is FINALLY out next month and I am excited!