50 Books Challenge 2026 Part Eight

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the eighth 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 , the sixth thread here and the seventh thread

Thank youuuu!

My new bolds since the last time I posted bolds:

1. How to Kill Your Family - Bella Mackie
2. The Storied Life of A J Fikry - Gabrielle Zevin
3. Disobedient - Elizabeth Fremantle
4. Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty
5. Queen James - Gareth Russell
6. The Cheese Cure - Michael Finnerty

Thanks @Southeastdweller

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller
Just checking in before bed. No list for me this time. Taking @SheilaFentiman’s example and listing my bolds for the last few months (not sure which thread)

The Renovation by Kenan Orhan
Stoner by John Williams
The Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Cespedes
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Disappearers by Marlon James
The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne
Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
A Private Man by Stephanie Sy- Quia

Ooo new thread - I've never been on page 1 before!
Celebrating with my list so far

1. A Place of Execution - Val McDermid
2. The Ministry of Time - Kaliane Bailey
3. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
4. The Glass Maker - Tracey Chevalier
5. Nothing Ventured - Jeffrey Archer
6. The Janus Stone - (Ruth Galloway 2) - Elly Griffiths
7. The Reckoning - (Maeve Kerrigan 2) - Jane Casey
8. The Last Girl (Maeve kerrigan 3) - Jane Casey
9. Lincoln in The Bardo - George Saunders
10. After The Party - Cressida Connolly
11. The Briar Club - Kate Quinn
12. Light a Penny Candle by Maeve Binchy
13. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
14. The House at Sea’s End - (Ruth Galloway 3) - Elly Griffiths
15. Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
16. Dreaming the Eagle By Manda Scott
17. The Fair Botanists by Sara Sheridan
18. Bel Canto by Ann patchett
19. Nesting by Roisin McDonnell
20. The Stranger you know (Maeve Kerrigan 4) - Jane Casey
21. Shackleton by Ranulf Fiennes
22. Erebus- The Story of a SHip by Michael Palin
23. The Kill (Maeve Kerrigan 5) by Jane Caesy
24. The Frozen People by Elly griffiths
25. Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
26. A short History of Nearly everything
27. Our London Lives
28. The Salt Path - Raynor Wynn
29. Entitled by Andrew Lownie
30. After the Fire (Maeve Kerrigan 6) - Jane Casey
31. The Names by Florence Knapp
32. Mythos by Stephen Fry
33. The Circle of Days by Ken Follett
34. The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali
35. Lion - A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierly
36. Heroes by Stephen Fry
37. Let the Dead Speak (Maeve Kerrigan 7) by Jane Casey
38. Isola by Allegra Goodman
39. Cruel Acts (Maeve Kerrigan 8) by Jane Casey
40. The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyles
41. The CUtting Place (Maeve Kerrigan 9) by Jane Casey
42. The CLose (Maeve Kerrigan 10) by Jane Casey
43. London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe

Thanks @Southeastdweller.

Thanks for the new thread South.

I'll be back with my list later, but I was literally just about to post my latest so I'll do that first:

84. A Murder of Quality - John le Carré

A RWYO, an old green Penguin. Strange things appear to be happening at Carne, a public school in Somerset of modest reputation but some antiquity. Stella Rode, wife of one of the masters, writes a letter to a magazine of which she’s a faithful subscriber, confiding her fears that her husband is going to kill her. Miss Brimley, who edits the paper, is worried enough to ask her old friend George Smiley to go to Carne to make discreet enquiries. He arrives to find that Mrs Rode has indeed been murdered. So begins a dark and twisty story of hatred, suspicion and suppressed passions.

A Smiley novel, but not quite as we know it. This was only le Carré's second book, and he hadn’t yet got into the spy groove fully, so Smiley doesn’t quite seem fully realised. Nevertheless I enjoyed this slim novel a lot.

Thanks southeast!

List getting a bit unwieldy so won’t post it. Since the last thread I’ve read:

61 What Moves the Dead - T. Kingfisher
Retelling of the Fall of the House of Usher, transposed to late 19th century Europe and with more sentient fungi. And a non-binary narrator, presumably for reasons of trendiness. It was ok but maybe would have been better if I was more familiar with the original?

Place marking on the new thread - thanks southeast!

Thanks for the new thread Southeast.

43 - Mother Mary Comes to Me - Arundhati Roy

Much reviewed on here - Arundhati Roy's memoir of growing up with her emotionally abusive mother who was, by contrast, also a brilliant educator and woman. Roy writes so well and manages to convey her very mixed feelings about her mother, and how that shaped her life, beautifully. I also loved reading about her political activism, of which I had previously known nothing. A bold from me, and it's made me want to read more of her books - I read God of Small Things years ago but don't remember much about it and it would be interesting to go back and re-read.

Thank you Southeast!

36 Happy Go Lucky by David Sedaris
Thank you to the 50Booker who reviewed this, I’m glad to have read it and disturbed my dp by laughing a lot. I quite like that some of the weirder edge of Sedaris’ writing is no longer there, and that he’s become a bit more publicly romantic and emotional with age. Works for me.

Thanks for the new thread southeast.

Serenity Falls - C J Tudor

I liked Tudor’s first couple of books but then lost interest a bit, but this one caught my eye and I’m glad I read it. British father and daughter Dan and Sadie are left a house in Serenity Falls, a Florida town built by amusement park boss Harold Winsom to be a ‘perfect’ town. It’s all rather creepy, with a body found in their new swimming pool, an ice cream van that drives around at night, and people behaving in odd ways. Needless to say the town really isn’t as perfect as it looks. I liked the setting and the build up, and I didn’t mind the ending although some people might expect a bit ‘more’ from the ending based on how her previous books have gone (sorry, that probably doesn’t make much sense but hard to explain what I mean without spoilers).

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller .

My bolds since the last thread:
Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
The New Age of Sexism by Laura Bates
A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne
Mestra by Madeline Miller
Casting Off by Elizabeth Jane Howard

102. The Golden Hours by Louisa Young - If the original Cazalets were a 10 and the unfortunate All Change was a 4, The Golden Hours is a solid 8 with occasional sparks of insight elevating it to 9.

The thing that went missing for me in All Change was a sense of the characters as real people. I missed being in their heads, listening to their thoughts, understanding who they were, and why they acted as they did. Louisa Young recaptures that quite well. Her characters may not be quite the same as the original Cazalets but she gives us enough insight into them to make them believable as grown up versions of the people they used to be. We all change as we age after all. The important thing is that they are once again real people. I particularly liked this version of Louise and I am glad Archie is back to being Archie after his personality transplant in All Change!

Having said that, it is a bit uneven. Some of the introspection is a bit woolly and longwinded. There are continuity errors from the previous book though I suspect some of them are deliberate attempts to revise the worst bits of All Change. But I enjoyed reading it and will read the future sequels.

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller

List below, I’m currently reading Demon Copperhead after putting it off for so long and now I’ve no idea why I did, I’m loving it.

It is my birthday today though so I may take a little break for something a little less depressing! Will see.

I received the new Barbara Kingsolver and the new Kate Atkinson for my birthday - I know there were mixed/ not so warm thoughts about the latter and I’ve not caught up with the thread since the BK one has been out to see if anyone had anything to say about that. Looking forward to getting stuck in though. I’ve got my gallbladder op in a couple of weeks and some time off work to recover so may save them for then.

List-

1 The Christmas Appeal - Janice Hallett
2 The Book of Christmas- Jane Struthers
3 Different Class - Joanne Harris
4 Hausfrau - Jill Alexander Essbaum
5 The Lost Bookshop - Evie Woods
6 People Person - Candice Carty-Williams
7 Heated Rivalry - Rachel Reid
8 The Long Game - Rachel Reid
9 Step by Step - Simon Reeve
10 Miss Benson’s Beetle - Rachel Joyce
11 John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs - Ian Leslie
12 For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on my Little Pain - Victoria Mackenzie
13 The Heir - Elodie Hart
14 All the Birds Singing, Evie Wyld
15 The Correspondent - Virginia Evans
16 Odyssey - Stephen Fry
17 The Carer - Deborah Moggach
18 The Silence of the Girls - Pat Barker
19 The Wedding People - Alison Espach
20 The Children’s Book - A.S. Byatt
21 Fever Dream - Elsie Silver
22 How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days - Sophie Irwin
23 Decline and Fall - Evelyn Waugh
24 Really Good, Actually - Monica Heisey
25 We Solve Murders - Richard Osman
26 Vile Bodies - Evelyn Waugh
27 Tamar - Mal Peet
28 The Suite Secret - Tierney Page
29 Emma Watson - Joan Aiken
30 I Who Have Never Known Men - Jacqueline Harpman
31 None of This is True - Lisa Jewell
32 Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal- Jeanette Winterson
33 Night Waking - Sarah Moss
34 The Spare - Elodie Hart
35 Dare to Love Me - Rosa Lucas
36 A Song for Summer - Eva Ibbotson
37 So Late in the Day - Claire Keegan
38 The Convenient Marriage - Georgette Heyer
39 Kala - Colin Walsh
40 Super-Infinite: The transformations of John Donne - Katherine Rundell
41 The Summer Book - Tove Jansson
42 Mrs Quinn’s Rise to Fame - Olivia Ford
43 We Chase Shadows - Richard Osman

Happy birthday @AliasGrape 🎈

My bolds this year have been

• Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico
• All My Precious Madness by Mark Bowles
• The Children of Men by P.D. James
• Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly
• Departure by Julian Barnes
• The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley
• A Highland Christmas by Rachael Lucas

55. The reckoning by Jane Casey
    This is Maeve Kerrigan book 2. It was ok. Do they get better?

56. The things we never say by Elizabeth Strout
    I enjoy Elizabeth Strout but this one was just ok. Hate the narrative device of telling you what happened to that character in the future within in the text. Pulls me right out of the story. Don't mind it so much in an epilogue.

Thank you for the new thread, Southeastdweller.

My Name is Why Lemn Sissay
Invite Me In Emma Curtis
Hold My Girl Charlene Carr
Murder in The Mews Agatha Christie
The Open House Sam Carrington
Not a Happy Family Shari Lapena
Hush Kate Maxwell
Amazing Grace Adams Fran Littlewood
How to be a footballer Peter Crouch
The Names Florence Knapp
My Husband's wife Alice Feeney
The Green Road Anne Enright
Fair Play Louise Hegarty
Class Trip Emmanuel Carrere

My tiny eclectic list. No need for anyone to feel embaressed about any book choice. I have proudly listed a book by Peter Crouch (purely so everyone else can feel comfortable 😉). I enjoy reading all the reviews be they be about books by Jane Austin (im not likely to read any Austin) or Marion Keyes (I loathed the Keyes I read - & I think we can safely say that isnt due to literary snobbery). I just love hearing what people think regardless of whether I agree or not.
The threads are a great source of ideas. I just bought A Long Way to Verona that I heard about on here. When i'll get round to reading it though is another matter. Work, covid like horridness, usual hospital appointments & teen parenting - even though she is currently a super easy teen all seem to get in the way of actual reading. I'd quite like to retire to bed with toast and a selection of audiobooks. However, that is an unlikely option at the moment.

Happy birthday @AliasGrape ! And thank you for the thread @Southeastdweller 😊

I haven’t finished a book for weeks, but I’m pleased to see I’ve read a respectable number over the course of the last thread:

54 Shakespeare: The man who pays the rent - Judi Dench & Brendan O’Shea
55 At Risk - Stella Rimington
56 A Single Breath - Lucy Clarke
57 When the Dust Settles - Lucy Easthope
58 Telling Tales - Ann Cleeves
59 Les Cahiers d’Esther: Histoires de mes 15 ans - Riad Sattouf
60 Lady in Waiting - Anne Glenconner
61 Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
62 My Cousin Rachel - Daphne du Maurier

Happy birthday 🎂@AliasGrape
Thanks for new thread @Southeastdweller

Happy birthday @AliasGrape

& DD (who is reading more than me at the moment - a low hurdle) has just finished The Amber Spyglass by Natalie Haynes which she enjoyed. So thanks for whoever recommended thst for her. For balance she is also on series 4 of Gossip Girl that prompted an interesting discussion of threesomes. I suppose it is educational ...

Amber Fury not spyglass. Brain befuddled ...

Thanks for the new thread Southeast. My list to date:

1. Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
2. The Drums by Mike Joyce
3. The Wedding People by Alison Espach
4. The Long Shoe by Bob Mortimer
5. The Colour Of Our Sky by Amita Trasi
6. There Is Nothing For You Here by Fiona Hill
7. My Brilliant Friend
8. The Story Of A New Name
9. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante (7 to 9)
10. A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
11. The Story Of The Lost Child by Elena Ferrante
12. The Secret Hours by Mick Herron
13. Enough Said by Alan Bennett
14. Bookish by Lucy Mangan
15. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
16. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
17. Seascraper by Benjamin Wood
18. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
19. Never Mind
20. Bad News
21. Some Hope
22. Mother’s Milk
23. At Last by Edward St Aubyn (19 to 23)
24. The Gift Of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
25. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
26. The Vanishing of Margaret Small by Neil Alexander
27. A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles
28. The Giver Of Stars by Jojo Moyes
29. Thirst by John Robins
30. The Barbecue at No. 9 by Jennie Godfrey
31. A Ladder To The Sky by John Boyne
32. Taste by Stanley Tucci
33. Girl A by Abigail Dean
34. The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Grahame
35. Homework: A Memoir by Geoff Dyer
36. So Late In The Day by Claire Keegan
37. Leaving Home by Mark Haddon
38. The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

And latest read:
Walk The Blue Fields by Claire Keegan, a collection of short stories. Some of which worked better than others, but that’s always the way with short story collections.
My favourites were about a young girl escaping her abusive home in rural Ireland and the story of a neglectful father who gifts his little girl a dog.
My reading rate has slowed right down but I am very much enjoying Ian Leslie’s book about John & Paul. It does send you down a rabbit hole of listening to Beatle songs however so taking a while to get through!

And Happy Birthday to @AliasGrape 🥳🎉🎈🎁🍾🎂