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

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller

Happy birthday @AliasGrape I hope you get some 📚

@DesdamonasHandkerchief I think Netflix is making the title story of Walk The Blue Fields, which should be interesting.

List since last thread

92. The Butcher's Masquerade - Matt Dinniman
93. Go Gentle - Maria Semple
94. Almost Life - Kiran Millwood Hargrave
95. The Story of Lucy Gault - William Trevor
96. The Country Girls - Edna O'Brien
97. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
98. The Wolf Tree - Laura McCluskey
99. Sublimation - Isabel J. Kim
100. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie
101. Dream State - Eric Puchner
102. Switzy - Emma Cline
103. This House of Grief -Helen Garner
104. A Month In The Country - J.L. Carr
105. Pachinko - Min Jin Lee
106. Time To Burn - Ellery Lloyd
107. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë

Near bolds for me were also Almost Life, The Story of Lucy Gault, Dream State and Pachinko.

Dropping by with my list since the last thread (and sending happy birthday wishes to @AliasGrape)

68. Tom Lake - Ann Patchett

69. Patch Work - Claire Wilcox

70. The Things We Never Say - Elizabeth Strout
71. Extra Virgin - Annie Hawes
72. Unnatural Death - Dorothy L. Sayers

73. The Last Journey of William Huskisson - Simon Garfield
74. Cop Killer - Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö, transl. Thomas Teal
75. Just Ignore Him - Alan Davies
76. Perfect Happiness - Penelope Lively
77. Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle - Ben Macintyre
78. Happy-Go-Lucky - David Sedaris
79. How To Be Good - Nick Hornby
80. John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs - Ian Leslie
81. The Night Always Comes - Willy Vlautin
82. Other People’s Letters - Mina Curtiss
83. A Murder of Quality - John le Carré

(Apologies for weird formatting - the usual nightmare forcing this site to accept a simple numbered column 🙄)

Happy birthday @AliasGrape

Happy Birthday @AliasGrape and yes @Cherrypi they get much better

Happy birthday @AliasGrape !

Happy Birthday @AliasGrape 🎈

Thank you @Southeastdweller and Happy Birthday @AliasGrape

My list since the last thread:

67 The Warden - Anthony Trollope
68 The Magician's Nephew - CS Lewis
69 Wavewalker - Suzanne Heywood
70 Human Acts - Han Kang trans Deborah Smith
71 Dead in the Water - Simon McCleave
72 Heart Lamp - Banu Mushtaq trans Deepa Basthi
73 Cracking the Menopause - Mariella Frostrup
74 The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida - Shehan Karunatilaka
75 Earth - John Boyne
76 How to Own the World - Andrew Craig
77 After Dark - Hanuki Murakami trans Jay Rubin

78 Fire - John Boyne
79 The Sympathizer - Viet Thanh Nguyen
80 Air - John Boyne
81 Who Gave Pinta to the Santa Maria - Robert S. Desowitz
82 Taiwan Travelogue - Yang Shuang-Zi trans Lin King

I am currently reading Dead Lions by Mick Herron.

Happy birthday @AliasGrape!

I finished Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst. It was part of read what you own, and one of those books that neither dh nor I can remember buying. We have a few mystery ones.
This is a story of Dave, half-burmese gay man who gets a scholarship in 1962 to a prestigious boarding school. He remains friends with the sponsoring family and becames semi-successful actor.

The novel is long and far too detailed on mundane memories which I skimmed over. Particularly the middle part sagged; i think it was meant to work as a buildungsroman, but the main protagonist remained aloof and inaccessible. He was also meant to have a huge conflict with the sponsors' conservative son Giles, but it never quite materialised like the cover suggested. In fact, Giles disappeared for large part of the novel even though their relationship was meant to be the central conflict. The ending also felt overly melodramatic.

It was fine, but didn't really do much for me.

Happy Birthday @AliasGrape

@Cherrypi I have just finished A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan #11 I think) - they definitely do get better. I thought the first one was a bit weakm can't remember the plot of The Reckoning at all, I think they pick up from No3 or 4.

1. The Lamb by Lucy Rose
2. The Book Of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey
3. Sonny Boy by Al Pacino
4. The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine
5. The Names by Florence Knapp
6. Helm by Sarah Hall
7. Love Forms by Claire Adam
8. Patricia Brent, Spinster by Herbert George Jenkins
9. Black Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey
10. Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis
11. Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley
12. Paper Cup by Karen Campbell
13. The Wedding People by Alison Espach
14. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
15. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
16. The Favourites by Layne Fargo
17. John and Paul : A Love Story in Songs by Ian Leslie
18. The Trouble With Mrs Montgomery Hurst by Katie Lumsden
19. Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors
20. Last One At The Party by Bethany Clift
21. Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst
22. Death Of The Author by Nnedi Okorafor
23. Boy Parts by Eliza Clark
24. The Beginning Of The End (Apocalypse Z : Book One) by Manel Loureiro
25. On The Calculation Of Volume IV by Solvej Balle
26. The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne by Ron Currie
27. Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green
28. A Court Of Thorns And Roses by Sarah J. Maas
29. A Woman Of Substance by Barbara Taylor Bradford
30. London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe
31. Strange Houses by Uketsu
32. Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez
33. Termush by Sven Holm
34. I’m Thinking Of Ending Things by Iain Reid
35. Homeschooled by Stefan Merrill Block
36. Tender Is The Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
37. My Husband’s Wife by Alice Feeney
38. Slags by Emma Jane Unsworth
39. Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
40. The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell
41. The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck
42. Look What You Made Me Do by John Lanchester
43. Fall And Rise : The Story Of 9/11 by Mitchell Zuckoff
44. Strange Pictures by Uketsu
45. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
46. It Could Have Been Her by Lisa Jewell
47. Transcription by Ben Lerner
48. The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
49. The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff
50. Ask Not by Maureen Callahan
51. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
52. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
53. Meet Me At The Museum by Anne Youngson
54. Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa
55. The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell
56. The Original by Nell Stevens
57. Molka by Monika Kim
58. Bury Our Bones In The Midnight Soil by VE Schwab
59. Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman
60. Our Noble Selves by Kate Atkinson
61. The Night We Met by Abby Jimenez
62. The Puppet Show by M W Craven
63. Black Summer by M W Craven
64. The Shining by Stephen King
65. The Curator by M W Craven

Shockingly low numbers for me and not many bolds

Thank you for the new thread @Southeastdweller, and happy birthday @AliasGrape!

I slowed down a bit, but here are the books I've finished since my last full list on thread 7:

39. Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao
40. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpha Lahiri
41. Class Trip by Emmanuel Carrère
42. Make Believe by Mac Bennett
43. Facial Justice by L.P. Hartley
44. Slewfoot by Brom

I'll do a review of Slewfoot in a separate post.

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller and happy birthday @AliasGrape

Here's my up to date list:

1 To All The Boys I've Loved Before - Jenny Han
2 Vagabond - Tim Curry
3 Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett
4 Legends and Lattes - Travis Baldree
5 The Housemaid - Freida McFadden
6 Last Night at the Lobster - Stewart O'Nan
7 Literary Noir 1 - Cornell Woolrich
8 Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell
9 The School of Night - Karl Ove Knausgaard
10 Burial Rites - Hannah Kent
11 Across The Nightingale Floor - Lian Hearn
12 The Benefactors - Wendy Erskine
13 Gone Tomorrow - Lee Child
14 Heart The Lover - Lily King
15 Kingfisher - Rosie Kelly
16 This Is The Story Of A Happy Marriage - Ann Patchett
17 The Correspondent - Virginia Evans
18 The Best of Everything - Kit De Waal
19 Accidental Tourist - Anne Tyler
20 On Earth As It Is Beneath - Ana Paula Maia
21 The Mercy Step - Marcia Hutchinson
22 A Guardian and A Thief - Megha Majumdar
23 A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing - Alice Evelyn Yang
24 The Director- Daniel Kehlmann
25 Poirot's Early Cases - Agatha Christie
26 Strange Houses - Uketsu
27 A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
28 Future Homemakers of America - Laurie Graham
29 Jamaica Inn - Daphne du Maurier
30 Heated Rivalry - Rachel Reid
31 The Nineties - Chuck Klosterman
32 Three Days in June - Anne Tyler
33 Third Form At Malory Towers - Enid Blyton
34 Kin - Tayari Jones
35 Palaver - Bryan Washington
36 Passing - Nella Larsen
37 The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
38 Rizzio - Denise Mina
39 Half of A Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
40 Trustee From The Toolroom - Nevil Shute
41 Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Jack Finney
42 Golden Hill - Francis Spufford
43 The Palm House - Gwendoline Riley
44 We Used To Live Here - Marcus Kliewer
45 Sandwich - Catherine Newman
46 Yesteryear - Caro Claire Burke
47 Renovation - Kenan Orhan
48 Chronicle Volume 3 - Various
49 Whistler - Ann Patchett
50 Diary of A Bookseller - Shaun Bythell
51 Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
52 Vigil - George Saunders
53 Life Moves Pretty Fast - Hadley Freeman
54 All Them Dogs - Djamel White
55 Greenlights - Matthew McConaughey
56 John of John - Douglas Stuart
57 The Things We Never Say - Elizabeth Strout
58 Three Fires - Denise Mina
59 Farewell My Lovely - Raymond Chandler
60 May We Feed The King - Rebecca Perry
61 The Travelling Bag - Susan Hill
62 On The Calculation of Volume - Solvej Balle tr. by Barbara J. Haveland

44. Slewfoot by Brom - Set in 1666 Colonial Connecticut, this is a folk-horror tale about a woman called Abitha who is trying to maintain her independence in a Puritan village after the mysterious death of her husband. She needs a successful harvest to settle her debts and keep her farm. In desperation, she teams up with Slewfoot, an ancient forest deity just woken from an enchanted slumber. Meanwhile Slewfoot is suffering from amnesia and hopes Abitha can help him piece together the fragments of memory he still has. But this is the age of the witch trials, so it isn't long before rumours of witchcraft start to fly around the village, and Abitha finds herself on the wrong end of a pitchfork.

This was just ok. I don't read a lot of horror, but I wouldn't really classify this as such. The Puritanical villagers were all very similar to each other, and one dimensional, meaning the ending felt a bit anticlimactic. I also didn't find Slewfoot's story or the secondary spirits particularly interesting.

2.5 out of 5

Thanks for new thread @Southeastdweller and happy birthday @AliasGrape

I'm up to book 40 but these are just the bolds

A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute.
Take a Chance on me by Beth Moran
Holes by Louis Sacher
A Secret Escape by Sarah Morgan
The War Poems by Siegfried Sassoon
Hitler's Secret by Rory Clements
Let the Dead Speak by Jane Casey
Once upon a Thyme by Jane Lovering.
We Belong Together by Beth Moran
Cruel Acts by Jane Casey
The Man Who made Husband's Jealous by Jilly Cooper
The Herring Girls by Chrissy Walsh.
Murder in the New Forest by Carol Cole.
The Siege by Helen Dunmore .
Fall of Giants by Ken Follet.
The Summer Everything Changed by Sian O'Gorman.
Far from Home by Val wood.
How not to be a Political Wife by Sarah Vine.

My reading seems to have revved up a bit in recent weeks - just finished 84. About Time - Penelope Mortimer

A typically-mordant volume of autobiography from this excellent novelist (wife of the serially-unfaithful John Mortimer, her second husband). Mortimer’s childhood was fractured and often bleak, punctuated by frequent house moves as her clergyman father (who had ceased to believe in God) moved parishes. The relationship between her parents seemed fairly nonexistent, and her father intermittently attempted to abuse his daughter sexually. She writes about this with a curious remoteness, and had distant dealings with her mother too; in lieu of secure parental love, young ‘Peggy’ formed deep attachment to places, and clearly still mourns exile from her grandmother’s rambling Wiltshire home. Maybe it’s not surprising that she was married with a baby by the age of 21, at the outbreak of WW2, when this volume ends.
She writes so superbly, and often very funnily, about the grim events of her childhood, that this was a fast read. There’s a sequel, About Time Too, which has definitely joined the tbr list.