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’ve just given up, for now at least, on Meet me at the Museum. I was quite enjoying it, but then I waded through four pages about pheasant shooting and lost the will to live.

Happy birthday @EineReiseDurchDieZeit

A Degree of Murder - Maz Evans

I really enjoyed Evans’s first two (adult) books but was left disappointed by this. The first two were in a similar vein to Janice Hallett, being told through things like emails and transcriptions. This had a bit of that, but most was just normal storytelling. However there were far too many characters and I didn’t care about any of them, and it’s hard to keep track of what time period it is. It’s about a group of students getting together for their 25 year reunion, when a murder happens and also a body is discovered that relates to a murder that happened at their graduation. I hope her next one is more of a return to form.

Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir

Science fiction isn’t really my thing but DD is currently obsessed with the film so wanted me to read it (she’s read and loves the book too). I found all the science stuff too heavy going and hard to follow (probably not helped by listening to it on Audible rather than reading it) but I loved the relationship between Grace and Rocky and was rooting for them to succeed in their respective missions. I’m glad I listened to it rather than read it due to the way the voices are done.

Happy birthday @EineReiseDurchDieZeit

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller, happy birthday @EineReiseDurchDieZeit and congrats to the 50-booker offspring for exam results as well as @AgualusasL0ver for your new job.

I haven’t put this in italics so it might be a little harsh to say - I read this so you don’t have to…
34 - The Comeback - Mel Giedroyc
I went into this one with high expectations for something that would make me ROFL but sadly Mel’s humour didn't translate to the page.
The premise is fun: a youth theatre outreach programme, an eccentric cast, and a storyline that leans fully into farce (intentionally, I think!). The main protagonist was Miranda-esque and the one-liners, puns, quips and innuendos came thick and fast. Overall it felt too contrived and nothing made me laugh out loud, which is what I was hoping for most.
Thanks to netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Snap! How are you finding the Goodreads Challenges? I've been quite disappointed with the Summer ones. They seem quite lazy and almost exclusively focussed on books published in the last 6-12 months.

Happy birthday, @EineReiseDurchDieZeit 🥳

I’m a bit slumpy at the minute (for me) in terms of taking ages to read something and getting caught up in mindless scrolling instead. I need to do something serious about the scrolling- it’s such a pointless time suck.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve finished two books where I’d normally have read at least 5 and they’ve been books I liked so I’m not sure why I’ve been avoiding picking them up.
Anyway the two reads are

Mrs Bridge by Evan S Connell
This book was written in 1952 but set mainly in the 30s. It tells the story of India, a middle class housewife in the US who has three children and a workaholic husband. She is rarely referred to as her own name just Mrs Bridge and this is written from her POV in vignettes. It is utterly depressing in how controlled her life is - not in the toxic way, but in terms of society and hers and her husband’s understanding of their roles - and how controlling she becomes of her children’s lives at times. It was an interesting read having read The Forbidden Notebook recently- the different countries and genders of the authors changing markedly how their character responds to their life. There is a partner novel from Mr Bridge’s PoV (and he is a cypher in this book) which I intend to read.

The Pretender by Jo Harkin
I read this after seeing many positive reviews on here and really enjoyed it. it tells the story of Lambert Simnel, a pretender to the throne of Henry VII. The voice in the book is excellent- Simnel’s voice changes as his life circumstances and names change but always maintains the same core beneath it and feels like a real person (this is where the strong voice in A Little Trickerie didn’t work for me- she didn’t feel like a real person). I did get a little bogged down in the middle when it lost a bit of its momentum but overall found this thoroughly enjoyable and look forward to reading anything else she writes.

Happy Birthday @EineReiseDurchDieZeit - what book did you receive?

@SpunkyKhakiScroller - I like the idea of the 52 challenges and am intrigued to see how many I can tick off from this year's books already.

@noodlezoodle - I started off loving A Covenant of Water but have become more disenchanted with characters as we work our way down the generations. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had managed to read it in a few days (on a sun lounger!) rather than it taking me a while to get though. Still 150 pages to go and am enjoying Mariamma (the younger) more than her father.

@ÚlldemoShúl yes the scroll has got me lately too, I really need to knock it on the head.

Happy birthday @EineReiseDurchDieZeit . Hope you got lots more books.

@TheDonsDingleberries I agree, the Goodreads challenges are very obvious attempts to make you buy from Amazon but so far I have managed to find books I wanted to or didn't mind reading. I really liked the Staff Picks one - wish they would do more of those. I still have two to finish for the Summer Challenge. How are you getting on?

Ah shucks, Thanks guys

I got 3 books in the end @TimeforaGandT An Englishman In Madrid by Eduardo Mendoza, Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton and Galatea by Madeleine Miller.

I also scored an Amazon Card so I can feed the habit and one of those scratch off poster things for what books you’ve read but i cant do it yet because I’ve got no Blu Tack. Some quite random childrens and YA choices mixed in there!

Sounds like a good mix @EineReiseDurchDieZeit

Hope you have had/are having a lovely day

Happy Birthday Eine 🎉

I really like the Washington Poe books too. They're not great literature but definitely a decent crime series.

Another one stuck in a bit of a reading slump. I've been trawling through book 5 of Dungeon Carl but this will be my last as they're too samey, and very long!

I've got 3 of the Goodreads challenges to go - Community Picks (90s), Chart Toppers, & Worlds Away.

Community Picks was easily the one I had the most choice out of my TBR pile, and luckily my bookclub's pick is a World's Away title. Not sure what I'm going to read for Chart Toppers yet, but there's a few that look interesting.

Happy birthday @EineReiseDurchDieZeit

Thanks for the thread @Southeastdweller
Happy Birthday @EineReiseDurchDieZeit 🎂
I wont post the teeny tiny list, but i have read (well listened to) another book.
My Husband's Wife Alice Feeney
I saw this on borrowbox and thought i'd give it a go as it had a positive quote from Chris Whittaker & I enjoyed We Begin At the End reviewed up thread. The multiple reviews suggested it would be a dark and pacy psychological thriller. It was pacy ...
Eden Fox returns home from a run to find another woman in her house who appears to have taken over her life. The woman claims she is Eden and her husband Harrison accepts this woman is his wife and denies he has ever seen Eden before. The door is slammed in Eden's face. We must accept that Eden cannot contact a single person to confirm her identity (the first of many improbabilities we must accept) and her world is thrown into turmoil. What follows is bonkers. It includes (in no particular order) a multi-millon pound company that predicts people's death dates, a secret passage in a library, a terminal diagnosis that can be switched on and off as the plot requires and more unlikely coincidences than you can shake a stick at. It was pacy and the twists kept coming. I rather liked it as easy reading holiday nonsense. But dark it was not.

Heads up Maeve Kerrigan fans, The Silent Neighbour is available for preorder 6th May

Sorry that makes no sense! Published 6th May, preorder now!

Ooh thanks @EineReiseDurchDieZeit added to my wishlist

Happy birthday @EineReiseDurchDieZeit

68. Tom Lake - Ann Patchett

I was curious to read this after the recent Patchett chat, having read only The Dutch House previously and none of her other books.

It's a dual-timeline novel - narrator Lara Kenison, a married 57-year-old settled in contented domesticity on a Michigan cherry farm, has her three 20-something daughters back at home during Covid, and as they work with Lara and their father to get the fruit harvest in, she tells them the oft-repeated family story of her brilliant youthful career as an actress, and the summer she spent playing the role of Emily in 'Our Town'. This took place at a semi-pro staging of the play in a small Michigan playhouse at Tom Lake. There she meets the devastating Duke, her co-star and (very soon) her lover.

I so wanted to like this but it didn’t help that I thought the supposedly-irresistible Duke was a dick; nor that Lara's daughters - well into their twenties - come across as needy young teenagers with a weird over-investment in their mother’s past love-life. There were other things I found rather irritating but I won’t go on about it as I know this is widely liked!

Happy birthday @EineReiseDurchDieZeit !

Belated happy birthday Eine!

I've never read Tom Lake. Now I'm curious!* *

11/22/63 by Stephen King

Continuing my read through of his work, this one is a re-read for me and I was looking forward to it.

Jake Epping is a school teacher who finds himself trying to live out the wishes of a dying friend, by using a time travel portal to go and save the world. His friend is convinced that by stopping the JFK assassination, the course of history will change for the better.

This is right up there with The Green Mile as the best of Stephen King. It's a real page turner, and you are rooting for Jake and his new friends he made in the Land of Ago.

For once the ending is fitting. I dont think I am alone in this view, but King writes amazing stories of creepiness and evil and otherworldliness and then when the brooding presence is unveiled and beaten at the end, it's never as scary as he built it up to be. The endings don't always make sense, and after the drawn out detailed escapades to get there, often the finish is rushed. Not here.

This is also one the few crossover books DH also loved. (The others are Project Hail Mary and The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August)

Happy belated birthday @EineReiseDurchDieZeit.

The Five Star Weekend - Elin Hildebrand

Food writer and influencer Hollis is devastated when her husband is killed. Seven months on she invites four friends, one from each phase of her life, to her luxury beach house in Nantucket for a weekend full of brunches and lunches and cocktails. Each one has their own story.
I thought this was immensely enjoyable without demanding anything of me. A great beach read. Lots of lovely descriptions of food and drink and clothes and got me looking up Nantucket on Google maps.