Lisa's 2026 Reading

I have been stuck in quite the reading slump over the last few years; I'm hoping to do better this year with a 'simple' challenge - I'm using the 52 Book Club's 2026 Reading Challenge to help me choose books and therefore hope to read at least 52 books this year! The last time I read at least 52 books was 10 years ago - hopefully I can make it happen.

1. Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, 274 Pages
2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 18 - Provokes strong emotion
Completed 5 Jan 2026 ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Books Read 1
Pages Read: 274

2. Room by Emma Donoghue, 321 pages
2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 44 - Literary Device: Personification
Completed 5 Jan 2026 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Books Read: 2
Pages Read: 595

3. Lethal White by Robert Galbraith, 774
Cormoran Strike Series #4
2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 28 - From a series at least eight books long
Completed 10 Jan 2026 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Books Read: 3
Pages Read: 1369

Happy Reading! 📖

>5 genesisdiem: Thank you!

You’re off to a good start, Lisa. 3 within 10 days - you should easily achieve your goal of 52.
Good Luck! ☺️

>7 Sergeirocks: Thank you! As long as I don't get stuck in another reading slump!

4. The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned by Anne Rice, 436 pages
Ramses the Damned Series #1
2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 34 - Inspired by the top-grossing movie the year you were born (Cleopatra)
Completed 15 Jan 2026 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Books Read: 4
Pages Read: 1805

Looks like you are doing great! I like the challenge reading prompts. Good luck!

>10 craso: Thank you!

5. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, 499 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 24 - Uneven number of chapters
Completed 27 Jan 2026 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Books Read: 5
Pages Read: 2304

My fifth book of the year was The Sympathizer. I had started reading this last year but had put it down for a bit. It was a gift from a book-loving friend of mine, and it looked intriguing - won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016 and the Guardian blub on the front of the book was "Tremendously funny...". At that point, and now too, honestly, I was looking for an amusing book... I put it down last year after the first assassination in the book (and yes there is more than one). I just finished it yesterday, and that's after finishing my first four books by the 15th of January. Still and all, I'm glad I read it. The majority of the book is written as a confession to the commandant of a prison camp - the author is a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist sleeper agent who escaped Vietnam with the fall of Saigon to America. It's a very interesting read to see through the eyes of the narrator, a Vietnamese communist trying to fulfill his mission as a mole in the American Republic of Vietnam community. It's a challenging read and has a lot of difficult subjects, including torture.

6. The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America by Matt Kracht, 173 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 41 - A guide to...
Completed 29 Jan 2026 ⭐️⭐️ 1/2

Books read: 6
Pages read: 2477

I can't exactly remember when I got this book, or why I got it. Maybe it was a gift? I had a period of time when I wasn't doing a good job of cataloguing my books, pandemic weariness I guess.

Well, it was slightly amusing, and the idea was good (a sarcastic bird guide), but it got tiresome after a while. I liked some of the alternate bird names and the bird drawings were cute, but it looks like the author got really lazy with his sarcastic bird commentary.

Hi Lisa, and good job on using the challenge to help you go through your stacks of books this year!

Looking forward to staying up to date with your reads in 2026.

>14 threadnsong: Thank you!

7. The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo, 553 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 51 - Includes a map
Completed 4 Feb 2026 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Books read: 7
Pages read: 3030

This is the third book in the Detective Harry Hole series. I started this series with the seventh book in the series, The Snowman, a gift from a friend and resolved to start at the beginning. It's taken me a while, but I'm starting to make some more progress with this series! This was a good one ranging back and forth in time between 1999/2000 and WWII Norway. I would have given it five stars, but I had a hard time trying to remember who was who, which is partly due to the plot, and maybe partly due to me!

8. The Golden Ass by Apuleius, 256 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 1 - Set in an ancient civilization
Completed 16 Feb 2026 ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Books read: 8
Pages read: 3286

Set in Greece during the Roman Empire, this is the tale of Lucius, who because of his curiosity about magic, gets accidentally turned into an ass. In addition to his own trials and tribulations as an ass, there are many other tales interwoven in the book that are told to Lucius or that he overhears while he's an ass. Quite a few of the tales are bawdy. The introduction was really interesting - normally we wouldn't know anything about the author as he wasn't an important historical figure of the time, but because he represented himself in court, his defense speech was documented. The last chapter described how he became a priest of Isis, which was also somewhat autobiographical.

9. Pickups and Come-Ons by Knock Knock, 112 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 7 - Title starts with the letter 'P'
Completed 18 Feb 2026 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Books read: 9
Pages read: 3398

This was a gift from someone, maybe my BIL, a stocking stuffer or something like that, and I came across it while I was organizing the library to get painted. I flipped through it and saw a couple of funny pickup lines and thought I might as well just read it and knock it off the TBR. There were some good lines; I've never used any (I'm not a very good flirter) but some of them were cute and some would probably work on me, LOL. And lots wouldn't....

10. Eat This!: 365 Reasons to Stop Dieting by Mary McHugh, 240 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 40 - Author’s first and last name start with same letter
Completed 21 Feb 2026 ⭐️⭐️

Books read: 10
Pages read: 3638

I was going through all our cookbooks to prepare our kitchen to be painted and found this little book, a gift from my MIL. I wanted to enjoy it but it was disjointed and even insulting in places. On the one hand, it talks about life being too short to not enjoy food and it's ok to look womanly and that 'Italian and Brazilian men will love the way you look' and your boyfriend loves you; on the other hand, it talks about all the calories you can burn doing different kinds of activities. So, which is it - body-positive or you still need to lose weight?

11. I'm Not Complaining by Ruth Adam, 346 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 8 - A three-syllable word in the title
Completed 22 Feb 2026 - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Books read: 11
Pages read: 3984

Set in 1930's England, it's about a group of elementary schoolteachers. I didn't really know what to expect, not having read anything by Ruth Adam before; not much happened, but then again, a lot happened, if you know what I mean. At times I wasn't sure if I was reading about the 1970's or the 1930's, because an open marriage was discussed and one of the schoolteachers had a number of boyfriends. One thing that shocked me was when one set of parents left their seven kids at home to look for work in London and tied the youngest baby to the bed so it wouldn't fall off! The schoolteachers were generally considered spinsters by thirty and it was assumed that they were all desperate to be married. And when one of them got married at an older age, it wasn't really an improvement.

'The whole weight of public opinion which believes that there is something comical and humiliating in being an unmarried woman, and something rather dashing and enviable in being an unmarried young man, left me without an answer to crush him.'

12. The Official We Do Not Care Handbook Club by Melani Sanders, 199 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 52 - Published in 2026
Completed 27 Feb 2026 - ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Books read: 12
Pages read: 4183

I saw an interview with the author on Morning Joe last month and she was so funny and also her message really connected with me. The book is good, but I would say that even though it says it's for women in perimenopause, menopause and beyond, it's definitely more for those in perimenopause and menopause, and not so much for someone who is ~10 years beyond. There's a lot of really good advice, cute checklists and mini-biographies of strong older women.

February Summary

Six books and 1706 pages read. Book of the month was Redbreast with I'm Not Complaining a close second.

I'm currently reading I Am Number Four and Shirley; also thinking about The Loved and Envied and Nemesis for March.

13. I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore, 440 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 27 - Two or more author, one pseudonym (James Frey and Dobie Hughes)
Completed 2 Mar 2026 - ⭐️⭐️

Books read: 13
Pages read: 4623

I can't remember exactly where or when I picked this up, but I've had it for a few years, I think. It's probably something I picked up at Barnes & Noble. The dustcover looks interesting, but I was underwhelmed with this one. I don't read a ton of YA, but I do read some and there is a lot I like, so it's not because it was YA. The first thing that got me was a typo on page five - 'a soft wind bxlew' - it took me right out of the book and had me thinking there would be a lot more. I can't really remember too many other typos, and although it was a good story (young boy hiding on Earth until he gets his powers and can fight the enemy and someday go home), it was just written too simplistically for me - it never really drew me in. At first I thought I would give it 3 stars, but after thinking about it, I'm not even interested in continuing the series (and I have a ton of series going - I LOVE series!), so I lowered it to 2 stars.

14. The Ultimate Cartoon Book of Book Cartoons edited by Bob Eckstein, 142 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 2, Kangaroo word on the cover (cartoon - art)
Completed 19 Mar 2026 - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Books read: 14
Pages read: 4765

Another book I think I picked up around 2020. A quick read, this book of 133 cartoons about books and bookstores was amusing. I liked 95% of these cartoons and laughed out loud at about a dozen of them.

15. The Happy Foreigner by Enid Bagnold, 292 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 26, Title in a Serif Font
Completed 22 Mar 2026 - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Books read:15
Pages read: 5057

This Virago Modern Classics novel is based on the author's experience as a driver for the French Army just after the first world war. I had never read anything else by Bagnold and didn't realize she had written the classic children's novel, National Velvet. I really liked this - beautiful descriptions of the countryside, of a country so recently engulfed in war, along with the experience of driving as an Englishwoman volunteering in France. The description of her romance was a Russian Captain was bittersweet - she knew it was to be short-lived.

March Summary and Quarterly Update

15 books read - 29% of my goal of 52 books, so I'm ahead of target!

5057 pages read, 337 pages per book average

Only 3 books in March - I've been working on Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
and it's taking longer than I expected. It's good, but I can't seem to sit and read it for a long time! So, it's a chapter or two a day - lots of looking up words and reviewing the explanatory notes.

Some more statistics:

8 of 15 books read were by women

4/15 non-fiction

Places visited: United States (Florida, Ohio, California), United Kingdom (England), Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Greece, France, Egypt, Norway, Austria, Germany, South Africa

Favorites of the quarter:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Lethal White
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2 - Room, The Happy Foreigner, The Redbreast

April Reading Plans

Finish Shirley.
The Brimming Cup by Dorothy Canfield - my Virago Modern Classics challenge this year is to read a VVMC every month, and I'm choosing authors alphabetically.

Not sure what else, but these are some of the books I'm planning on reading this year:

Nemesis by Jo Nesbo
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Severance by Ling Ma

16. Shirley by Charlotte Bronte, 572 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 30, Author Related to Another Author
Completed 20 April 2026 - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Books read:16
Pages read: 5629

It took me a while to get through this tome - 572 pages, including the explanatory notes, which I definitely read! It's a good tale, well told, but still it took me almost two months to finish it - although I was reading some other books alongside it. It takes place in the early 1800's during the Napoleonic Wars and the Luddite rebellion, the second of which figures quite prominently as the owner of a mill who is modernizing it with equipment that will require fewer employees becomes the subject of the Luddites ire, as well as not doing well financially because of the wars.

The titular character is a wealthy, single landowner who many in Yorkshire would like to see married off. Shirley is a unique individual - headstrong and independent, running her property and not abiding by the normal expectations for single women of the time. When she moves to the area, she becomes acquainted with Caroline, who lives with her uncle, a rather thorny reverend. Shirley and Caroline develop a great friendship. The aforementioned mill owner is a tenant of Shirley's and the object of Caroline's affection.

The novel proceeds to describe the various relationships between these main characters, their families and their suitors. I didn't expect the resolution - it was all tied together nicely at the end.

One interesting factoid - before this novel was published, Shirley was an uncommon name for a woman!

17. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte, 264 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 31, Author related to author in prompt 30 (Charlotte Bronte)
Completed 30 April 2026 - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Books read: 17
Pages read: 5893

Anne Bronte's first novel is a look at what being a governess was like in the 1800's. I didn't realize that women outnumbered men by such a degree in England at the time, and this was made worse by the fact that many men were away serving in the military. This left young women with few prospects and why so many turned to becoming governesses, where they were paid very little and not treated well.

April Summary

Only two books read (836 pages). I blame Shirley, LOL - just wasn't a page-turner for me!

I was on vacation in May and yes, I did read more!

18. Nemesis by Jo Nesbo, 480 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 48, Related to the word Nemesis
Completed 5 May 2026 - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Books read: 18
Pages read: 6373

In the fourth book of the Detective Harry Hole series, there is a continuing subplot from the previous book, The Redbreast, and it will continue into at least the next book. There was a lot going on in this novel - a bank robbery/murder, the 'suicide' of someone Harry Hole knew well, someone from the Romani community who is important for Harry to solve multiple crimes, and the ongoing investigation of the murder of Harry's former partner. Almost five stars - similar to the last book in the series, I would've given it five stars, but it was a little hard to keep track of everything!

19. The Brimming Cup by Dorothy Canfield, 319 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 10, Spans a decade or more
Completed 17 May 2026 - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Books read: 19
Pages read: 6692

I hadn't heard of Canfield before, but she has 57 works listed on LT! a Virago Modern Classic sitting on my shelves for way too long, The Brimming Cup, is ostensibly about a rural Vermont homemaker. It turns out to be a really interesting look into the interior monologues of the main characters (and a lot of the lesser characters), with the main storyline about how the main character deals with an aggressive visitor who tries to convince her to run away with him, right under her husband's nose. In many ways, I found it unbelievable that this really happens (I never thought I was sheltered or inexperienced); I was discussing it with my partner, and he said that yeah, he knew guys like the one described in the book. I really liked how the main character worked through the issues.

20. The Sign by Raymond Khoury, 552 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 29, Set in the Arctic or Antarctic
Completed 19 May 2026 - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Books read: 20
Pages read: 7244

Starting off with an amazing sign in the sky above the massive breakup of an ice shelf in Antarctica, this thriller grabbed me. Traveling to Egypt and across the US, with peaks in other countries to observe the global response to these signs - extraterrestrial? Signs from God? Or could they be man-made? A good thriller.

21. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, 428 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 13, Bookface
Completed 22 May 2026 - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Books read: 21
Pages read: 7672

I did not expect to like this novel as much as I did. Beautifully written, this tells the story of a little girl who grows up to become a geisha in pre-WWII Kyoto, Japan.

22. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, 386 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 38, Domestic Fiction
Completed 25 May 2026 - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Books read: 22
Pages read: 8058

I was a bit hesitant to read it after seeing some conflicting reviews. In the end, it's not that far off from a lot of what I experienced as a chemical engineer. I didn't really appreciate the deus ex machina ending, but all in all, I liked the book.

23. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, 342 pages

2026 Reading Challenge Prompt 50, Set in a Castle
Completed 5 June 2026 - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Books read: 23
Pages read: 342

This was a delightful little book about a family come on very hard times living in a castle in England. It's narrated by the younger teenage daughter and is funny and sweet. I loved the eccentric cast of characters.