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

@FranCockerelVoiceplease stay here anyway now you’ve found us 😊

YAY you finally met me :)

@ÚlldemoShúl I do like the other Inspector Grant books but they are much more standard Golden Age-ry than TDoT.

Yes! And very pleased to have done so ☺️

ÚlldemoShúl
I read loads of JT’s last summer or the summer before iirc. The princes one was the worst by far, I thought. None of them set my world on fire, but they were okay.

Thanks @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupieand @SheilaFentimanwill maybe grab them if they’re on offer.

I loooove The Daughter of Time. it’s the only Tey my mother had, though she had all the DLS books. I read the other Grant books as an adult.

Nicola Upson has written a series of books in which Tey is the main character as a crime-solving crime novelist!

Thanks. I hadn't thought of looking for books not finished more ones not successfully started . I'll hang around.

On finishing books: I ised to be absolutely adamant that I had to finish s book if I'd started it - I'd committed and needed to see it through. Luckily, as my thirties ended I realised life was too short and happily DNF books now.

On Atonement (which someone mentioned): I used to love Ian McEwan's books. I loved Atonement, Amsterdam, and Child in Time. Chesil Beach was a bit of a dud, and then I gave up on some horrible one where a burglar breaks into a surgeons house and becomes reformed on the spot when the teenage daughter recite some poetry at him. What utter tosh. I wonder if his latter books have improved?

You mean Saturday @Pigtailsandall Dreadful

Yes! That was it. What a pretentious crap. There was something about the surgeon diagnosing a stranger with Huntingdons too - a complex neurological condition just magically diagnosed by a passer-by

Welcome, welcome @FranCockerelVoice

I have never read the BBB but I heartily endorse abandoning books that aren’t working for you. Sometimes they click another tome
and sometimes they never do; both are fine.

Please stay and give us more of this
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

I DNF more books than I finish and have no qualms whatsoever.

Catching up with the thread before I fall off altogether - have started a few things but haven’t been able to concentrate to really get going with anything since Demon Copperhead - still feel like that’s in my head and nothing else quite hitting as yet. Maybe I’ll read one of my frothy romances as a palate cleanser!

Sorry to hear of the worrying time you’re having @Stowickthevast, thinking of you and hoping all turns out well.

I’d never heard of Rachel Cusk I don’t think, this thread is great for disabusing me of any notions I might have entertained about being reasonably well read! I can’t decide from the posts whether I want to read her or not really.

I never used to be able to DNF a book, I’m more likely to do so these days although I’ve never fully got over the slight guilt and also FOMO I get doing it - what if it suddenly gets really good?! If I actively hate something it’s easy enough to do, but I persevere far too often with books that aren’t completely terrible I’m just not enjoying them. Hard to know where to draw the line sometimes.

I’m with you on the FOMO @AliasGrape, it’s that that keeps me going even if I’m not loving it. I nearly gave up on Piranesi but persevered in case it got better, and I’m so glad I did!

I hope all is well @Stowickthevast and everyone else going through tough times.

I’m half way through East of Eden and loving it but away this week with limited time to read. Unless it’s the guidebook…

Could you talk yourselves into FOMO of the great book you could be reading if you weren’t slogging through an unappealing one?

One wild and precious life, and all that jazz…

Book no. 50 - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Somehow I got to 44 years of age without knowing the storyline of Jane Eyre! I was on the edge of my seat for certain revelations.

I am reluctant to describe the plot in case others are in my position. It was actually a thing of joy to read this with no idea of what would happen.

Jane is an excellent heroine, principled and independent. The book was thoughtful, exciting and suspenseful.

Just finished the second Logan McRae. Even more gory than the first and a bit less convincing overall. The ending felt a bit rushed and lazy. I really like some of the characterisation but got weary of DI Steel. I’ll probably stop here unless I see any for 99p.

I enjoyed The Poisonwood Bible but have no desire to read any more Barbara Kingsolver.
Decades ago, an older colleague suggested BK to me and I enjoyed that book. It was rather irritatingly written in the present tense and had a little girl called Turtle.
I read Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper at the recommendation of another colleague and have no desire to read anything else by her.

@FranCockerelVoice The Bean Trees? I love that (it has a sequel, Pigs in Heaven)

I really liked both of those too. They’re quite different from any of her later books.

Yes! @SheilaFentiman . I read the sequel too. The same colleague recommended Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Foulkes, which I enjoyed but again don't plan to read anything else by the author.

I heard some of Demon Copperhead on Radio 4's Book at Bedtime and found it annoying so switched off.

88. The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Leo Tolstoy

Book club read. This is very short, a novella and one of Tolstoy's later pieces of fiction, written after he underwent a religious awakening. News of the title character's death sends his friends into immediate speculation about the promotions they might now be in line for, while his widow wants to know if she can get a government pension. The narrative then rewinds to Ivan Ilyich's own point of view, skipping through his agreeable and successful life until the point where illness strikes and he fears he’s going to die. After much agony of both body and spirit, he does.

This isn’t what you'd describe as a comfortable read, but Tolstoy's aim - achieved with much skill here - is to depict Ivan's failure to live a meaningful life, and his consequent terror of death, until, in his last few moments, he finds acceptance and peace. My Penguin version was very well-translated by Anthony Briggs.

66 A Killing in November - Simon Mason Thanks to the thread recommendations for this one, as I probably wouldn’t have come across it otherwise. First in the series about the two DI Wilkins (Ryan the chavvy one, Ray the posh one), with a murder in an Oxford college to solve. Great characterisation, good plot and lots of fun - I’m going straight on to book 2 as I want more of the same (and also want good things to happen to the main characters!). Maybe it’s even a bold, not sure on that yet.

137. Die Trying, Lee Child
The second Jack Reacher book. He politely helps a young woman with a crutch to pick up her dry-cleaning and is swept up in a kidnap orchestrated by a militia with violent plans. There were a few good set pieces but I thought this dragged a bit. Reacher keeps freeing himself and then getting caught again and it felt repetitive. Could be my mood - feeling a bit impatient with fiction. I have a stack of non-fiction books that I need to get stuck into.