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

46 - The Mercies - Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Published in 2020, this was her first adult novel. I believe she has a new one out right now.
The writing is rich and evocative, with the feel of a folk tale or fable. Having just finished a very different novel, I was immediately swept up in this one. I love the way the author writes: she transports you to another time and place and lets you bathe in the atmosphere for a while. I have no real frame of reference for either the period or the geographical setting, which perhaps makes its very foreignness all the more appealing.
But beneath the beautiful prose lies a dark and often gruesome story. The tension builds as suspicion and superstition take hold, and the witch hunt becomes increasingly stressful to read. This was never going to be a happily-ever-after kind of story, but that doesn't make its darker moments any less unsettling.
One of the things that particularly drew me in was the network of women at the heart of the story.
And Maren — what a beautiful name. Apparently meaning of the sea, it feels entirely at home in this wild seascape.
Beautiful writing; a deeply unsettling story.

The Dance Tree is her second adult novel, written a few years ago. It is OK, not as good as The Mercies but about an interesting historical phenomenon.

Totally topic but I have a second cousin called Maren. It's a common Nordic name, and I agree, very pretty. I really like lots of Nordic names like Astrid and Sigrid etc

@Terpsichore the Sunday Times today flagged that there’s a programme called Anita Brookner on Art on iplayer

These were mentioned in the book - and I've just found them. Thanks! Will definitely watch.

Sending you healing vibes @Stowickthevast and others having a tough time at the moment.

Cold Granite by Stuart Macbride
The first in the Logan McRae series
I won’t say that I enjoyed this because it’s about child abuse and murder, but I found it very readable and have bought the second. I like the main character and I liked the fact that there were clues enough for me to guess some things but not everything.

148. Heart the Lover - Lily King
Loved this. Somewhat reminiscent of "Tomorrow, and.." for me, with the US college girl and her relationships with two male best friends and theirs with each other. I didn't cry, but many have.

149. The Winter Dead - Lynn McEwan
Reviewed up thread cos I got out of order

150. Witchcraft for Wayward Girls - Grady Hendrix
Slow start but heart-pounding towards the end. Pre Roe/Wade US, unwed pregnant girls (literally - our heroine is 15) are shipped off to a home in Florida to have their babies out of sight, have them adopted without any clear consent, and then return to "normal life". Except this particular cohort of girls discover that the benevolent travelling librarian is a not-so-benevolent leader of a coven.

151. Hungry - Grace Dent
Well written memoir of Grace's life up to the late 2010s, published during Covid.

66 . Doctor Sleep by Stephen King (audiobook)

Set about 40 years after the events of The Shining Danny Torrance is all grown up and an alcoholic who moves from place to place.

Finally settling in New Hampshire - he is contacted by a child Abra Stone who has a stronger level of Shining than he. As the years go on, Abra comes to suspect she may be in danger and enlists Dan’s help.

This was a mixed bag for me. First and foremost I hated the audiobook narrator but I’d already bought it so too late. I really enjoyed the Dan and Abra relationship and any time spent with them but the problem here is the villains - The True Knot. They are completely unscary and non threatening and have stupid names like “Rose The Hat” there’s a level of peril and fear and foreboding that just isn’t present. The end result is never in doubt. I did like how it linked back to The Shining

I think Stephen King’s ideas are often better than his execution. I could see there being another book in this series though.

Came here as I'm currently trying to read Bloody Boring Butler. I'm a third of the way down page 2 and can't be arsed to read on.
Any advice?

I found the BBB name on another thread and knew that it referred to the book in question.
I'm finding the writing stiff.

@Stowickthevast

Sorry I hadn't realised just how much of a review dump this would be. Apologies!

80.The Academy by Elin Hilderbrand
Thank you for the recommendation upthread. I would never have come across this otherwise. An American teenage campus novel set in and elite boarding school. I very much enjoyed Jenny Colgan's British Boarding school series. This is a bit like those but more grown up. It follows both staff and students through a year. There are traumas and triumphs but it's pretty cosy in the end. Good fun.

81.The Thoroughbreds by Elin Hilderbrand
I immediately picked up the sequel as I wasn’t ready to leave this world. Very enjoyable escapism.

82.A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J Maas
I feel that these have got better through the series. More of the same. Enjoyed this.

83. A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J Maas
A pointless shorter novel set around the ACOTAR version of Christmas. A bit of character building but nothing happens.

84.Benighted by JB Priestley
A 1927 novella about a couple and their friend who are travelling home from a weekend away in Wales. There is a horrendous storm and they have to take refuge in a creepy house with a very weird family. They endure a terrifying night.

The only other work by JB Priestley I know is An Inspector Calls. This also felt like a stage play to some extent. The settings and the characters and conversations felt like they were laid out for viewing from an audience. The creepiness was effective. Good for a stormy, cold night.

85. When There Are Wolves Again by EJ Swift
Futuristic novel about climate change. Hester is a documentary filmmaker who travels to Chernobyl and adopts a half wolf puppy. The novel revisits her life over the course of 40 years as she oversees the rewilding of her home Somerset Levels. Interspersed is the life of Lucy who is a young climate change protester.

I enjoyed the optimism in this novel. Rather than taking climate change and showing us how horrific it will all be in 50 years time, Swift chooses to show struggles that result in positive changes and how hard, but how worthwhile, those changes were.

86.Crash Into Me by Robinne Lee
An artist is married to a Hollywood director and they move to LA. She becomes entwined in an affair with a model she knew from her past. I found this quite hard going. There were lots of questions about race and about identity but it was just a bit daft.

87.All Boats Are Sinking by Hannah Pierce
Autobiographical book about a young woman who splits up with a partner in London in 2019 and buys a narrowboat. I really enjoyed this. I liked living on a boat vicariously. I enjoyed her journey up to Yorkshire after the pandemic.

88.Haunted by E. Jay Gilbert
A collection and analysis of ghost stories from the UK and abroad. I enjoyed this and some of the stories were very very creepy. I'm team skeptic but I do enjoy these sorts of stories. I found it interesting that some experiences I have had were recounted by others but with supernatural explanations. For example after my cat died I saw her in the corner of rooms for weeks and sometimes felt her jump onto my bed. I interpreted this as part of the grieving process in my brain... but maybe I was being haunted by my cat.

While the stories were good, the interspersed passages were over long, rambling and often irrelevant.

If it isn’t working for you now, that’s unlikely to change

Thanks @EineReiseDurchDieZeit , I think it can go in the 'to be read' pile with Withering Tights, Muddlematch, Captain Corelli's Mandarin,100 Years of Solitaire and other must-reads that I got no further than a few pages.

@FranCockerelVoice I do have a shadowy tbr pile that's ready for the day I become a different, and possibly better, person.

@FranCockerelVoice Other than kindle samples, I try to give books 30 pages before I decide if I like them or not. But I’m not hopeful for you re BBB.

@elspethmcgillicudddy I saw a very strange black and white film in an art house cinema a couple of years ago, which was based on a JBP story. I think it must have been this one.

Only 99p on kindle so I’ll give it a go.

@elspethmcgillicudddy I’ve recommended J.B. Priestley’s The Good Companions on here a few times, it was a favourite of mine as a teenager.

Here’s my 2022 review.
The Good Companions - J.B. Priestley
On the same day, a Yorkshire tradesman, a Cotswold spinster and a prep school teacher with a talent for the piano leave behind their old lives and set off to seek a new life. A series of events leads them to meet up with a failing touring concert party, The Dinky Doos. They rescue the concert party and accompany them around the theatres and end of pier pavilions of 1920s England.
This is more a series of funny anecdotes and caricatures than it is a story, although each character has his or her story arc but still very evocative of the decaying towns and traditions of depressed England in the 1920s.
I first read it as a teenager and remembered loving it. This time round I didn’t love it so much and found some of the characterisations and ‘accent writing’ irritating but by the end I had warmed to it and was sorry to leave Jess Oakroyd and Miss Trant behind. I’m also finding it hard to believe it’s almost 100 years since it was written.

His Non-fiction English Journey is good too.

You’ve barely started it @FranCockerelVoice ! Personally if a book hasn’t grabbed me by about one-fifth in (typically by p70) I bin it off and move on.

With most of the others, I at least got through about 10-20 pages, but this one feels so stiff, it feels like it's been written in a second or third language. It's the writing style not the language.
I've read plenty of translated books (Tolstoy, Dostoevski, etc) and they were fine. Loved them.

There aren't many books that defeat me.
I think I tried to read a couple by Julian Barnes (Flaubert's Parrot, Atonement) and some Booker Prize winners and gave up on those too. There was a Jilly Cooper I gave up on - the one with the teacher but it was too dated and too long for me to bother with it.
I gave up on Wild Swans but enjoyed it after being encouraged to try again by a friend.
Not even tried the Elena Ferrante ones and not going to. Same goes for several others.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I reckon it was worth 99p.Good companions is going on my TBR list. thanks

87. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club - Dorothy L. Sayers

My Wimsey-fest continues. The discovery of the body of ancient General Fentiman, dead under his newspaper in the Bellona Club, causes shock to all, not least his grandsons, Robert and George. But the confusion mounts to fever-pitch when it emerges that the General’s sister, from whom he was estranged for many years, died at her residence at around the same time….and who died first will determine which legacies go to which family members. Was the death natural, or murder? Lord Peter is, as ever, on the case.

Sayers' wit and cleverness continue to astonish and delight. I'm having a thoroughly good time finally catching up with these.

@FruAashild I think Taiwan Travelogue sounds up my street, thanks for recommending (I am, of course, Team Remains of the Day)

@Piggywaspushed I bought The Dance Tree to read when I was Strasbourg this year, but I got distracted by other stuff. Must get on to it.

@RomanMum I really enjoyed The House on Half Moon Street as well, and you've reminded me that there are more Leo Stanhopes that I should get hold of.

47.May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry. A curator is hired to dress the rooms of a 750 year old palace that’s open to the public, staging them as if the inhabitants have just stepped outside for a moment. In the course of her work she imagines details of the reign of reluctant King who was never supposed to take the throne and does not appear to want it.

This has received pretty mid reviews on this thread, but I definitely enjoyed this one. For a historical novel there is a paucity of period detail, but I didn’t mind this too much, as it was in keeping with the shifting, slightly detached and dreamlike quality of the King’s narrative, echoed by the lack of names, places and specific dates. The lush descriptions of food did get a bit overly flowery at times.

48.Case Histories by Kate Atkinson. Private detective Jackson Brodie is hired to find out what happened to three girls many years ago. One is dead, and two are missing, each case connected only by the holes left behind for the families missing their loved ones and trying to make sense of events.

A placeholder re-read on audio, as my BorrowBox reservations are taking ages, and I don't have another Audible credit until next week. Brodie is an absolute cliché of a Gruff Northern Bloke, but the story is pacey and satisfyingly plotted.

Thank you for not being mean to me earlier when I gate-crashed the thread.
The thread I needed was Which books have you decided not to finish and why?

Happy reading!

Few reviews to catch up- have spent the long weekend reading

Angel Down by Daniel Kraus
Winner of this year’s Pulitzer. This book is war/ horror/ magical realism and tells the tale of 5 ‘losers’ in the US Army in the trenches in the First World War, who are sent out to silence a screamer in No Man’s Land who is having an impact on morale. But the screamer turns out to be an angel. The writing is overblown and urgent with far too many adjectives and all written in one sentence (this is easier than it sounds as it’s still split into chapters and paragraphs all of which start with ‘and…’). It was very effective in bringing home the horror and brutality of the trenches and illustrating both the camaraderie and human selfishness of the soldiers. The first 75% is excellent but the ending didn’t live up to its early promise for me.

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
I was reading this a chapter a day with both my book club and in the readalong here but I ended up getting sick of it and didn’t want to DnF after coming so far, so I speed read the last 200 pages. The digressions killed my earlier love for the characters that by the end I didn’t care what happened them. Tbh bar Gavroche, Eponine and JVJ I didn’t care after the half way point. Marius and Cosette were a bit too drippy.

The Daughters of Time by Josephine Tey
Much reviewed on here. Inspector Alan Grant is flat on his back recovering from surgery and distracts himself with looking into the mystery of the Princes in the Tower. It’s very of its time with using physiognomy as a detection method and its views on many things still it was enjoyable enough. Is the ret of the series worth a look?