The Artist Recommends

On this page, you’re going to find lists of best books by holiday, blogs about recommended reads/anticipated titles for the month, a season, or year, and articles about new titles The Starving Artist is especially excited about.

There is a post HERE breaking down the infamous New York Times list of best of the 21st century’s first quarter and their reader’s choice version of the same. I also give you my picks.

For the New Year

For Valentine’s Day

For St. Patty’s Day

For the Oscars

For Easter

For Mother’s Day

For Summer:

For Independence Day/Fourth of July:

For My Birthday

For Back to School

For Halloween and Harvest Time

  • Holiday: What to Do Tonight, where from way back in 2012 I give a short list of what to read and watch (and eat) on Halloween night.
  • Series Review: Harry Potter, which talks about the books and the movies and has a recipe for unofficial Butterbeer.
  • Holiday: A Very Harry Month, which is my celebratory musings on October, with a few reading and other recommendations spattered throughout.
  • Let the Holidays Begin: October, where I give you the long version of my personal Halloween, etc. recommendations from the vantage point of 2020.
  • What to Read in October, 2023, from plenty of Halloween reads (and a few watches) to exciting new titles like Zadie Smith’s The Fraud and books that have been jumping out to me like A Winter’s Promise.
  • What to Read in October (2024). A few of the standards, but a bunch that I just happen to have lying around, as well.

For Thanksgiving

  • Holidays Change, all the way in 2020, when I posted a journalistic view of my life during the Pandemic and considering Thanksgiving.
  • More to Be Thankful For, an actual list of Thanksgiving books to read and movies to watch… as much of a stretch as that might be. Poor Thanksgiving. So neglected.
  • What to Read in November, 2023, which yes gives Thanksgiving ideas, but also lots of YA (based on Save the Cat) and Carolina cryptid (Mothman and Bigfoot).
  • What to Read in November, 2024, which is no more than 2023 but also new publications and ideas for comps and genre.

For Christmas

This list, by the month I recommended them within each category, includes many titles I have not yet read.

TRENDING

  • October 2023–The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings, Philip and Carol Zaleski (C. S. Lewis trend)
  • Becoming Mrs. Lewis, Patti Calahan (C. S. Lewis trend)
  • A Severe Mercy, Sheldon VanAuken (C. S. Lewis trend)
  • A Winter’s Promise (Mirror Visitor Quartet #1), Christelle Dabos (popular)
  • The Priory of the Orange Tree (Roots of Chaos #1), Samantha Shannon (popular)
  • I Have Some Questions for You, Rebecca Makkai (popular)
  • December 2023–Fourth Wing and Iron Flame (Empyrean Series #1 and #1), Rebecca Yarros (popular)
  • The Bee Sting, Paul Murray (best of 2023)
  • Chain-Gang All-Stars, Nana Kwame Adjai-Brenyah (best of 2023)
  • Eastbound, Maylis de Kerangal (best of 2023)
  • The Fraud, Zadie Smith (best of 2023)
  • North Woods, Daniel Mason *** (best of 2023)
  • The Best Minds, Jonathan Rosen (best of 2023)
  • Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs, Kerry Howley (best of 2023)
  • Fire Weather, John Vaillant (best of 2023)
  • Master Slave Husband Wife, Ilyon Woo (best of 2023)
  • Some People Need Killing, Patricia Evangelista (best of 2023)
  • Yellowface, R. F. Kuang (best of 2023)
  • Spare, Prince Harry (best of 2023)
  • Birnam Wood, Eleanor Catton (best of 2023)
  • Crook Manifesto, Colson Whitehead (best of 2023)
  • Discalculia, Camongne Felix (best of 2023)
  • The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride (best of 2023)
  • I Have Some Questions for You, Rebecca Makkai (best of 2023)
  • Let Us Descend, Jesmyn Ward (best of 2023)
  • Tom Lake, Ann Patchett (best of 2023)
  • The Lost Americans, Christopher Bollen (best of 2023)
  • The Wren, The Wren, Anne Enwright (best of 2023)
  • Loot, Tania James (best of 2023)
  • he Vaster Wilds, Lauren Groff (best of 2023)
  • The Adventures of Amina Al-Shirafi, Shannon Chakroborty (best of 2023)
  • Hell Bent, Leigh Bardugo (best of 2023)
  • Prophet Song, Paul Lynch (won the Mann Booker)
  • Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver (won the Pulitzer)
  • Trust, Hernan Diaz (won the Pulitzer)
  • A Shining, John Fosse (won the Nobel Prize)
  • Freewater, Amina Luqman-Dawson (won the Newbery)
  • Hot Dog, Soug Salati (won the Caldecott)
  • Bliss Montage, Ling Ma (won Book Critics Circle)
  • The Furrows, Namwali Serpell (won Book Critics Circle)
  • Nettle & Bone, T. Kingfisher (won Hugo)
  • Akata Woman, Nnedi Okorafor (won Hugo YA)
  • Children of Time series, Adrian Tchaikovsky (won Hugo series)
  • Babel, R. F. Kuang (won Nebula)
  • February 2024–Erasure, Percival Everett (current movie)
  • The Power Worshippers, Katherine Stewart (current movie)
  • May 2024—A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas
  • Tom Lake, Ann Patchett
  • The Travel Book, Lonely Planet
  • Epic Hikes of the Americas, Lonely Planet
  • Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day, Kate Bowler
  • 50 Must-Read Books Bucket List jigsaw puzzle, Ripley’s
  • July 2024—Kairos, Jenny Erpenbeck (Book Prize)
  • The Berry Pickers, Amanda Peters (Carnegie Medal)
  • Night Watch, Jayne Anne Phillips (Pulitzer Prize)
  • I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home, Lorrie Moore (Book Critics Circle Award)
  • Big, Vashti Harrison (Caldecott Medal)
  • The Eyes and the Impossible, Dave Eggers (Newbery Medal)
  • The Collectors, compilation (Printz Award)
  • Rez Ball, Byron Graves
  • World Travel: An Irreverent Guide, Bourdain and Woolever
  • The Iliad, translated by Emily Watson, Homer
  • Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, Benjamin Stevenson
  • Memory Piece, Lisa Ko (best of 2024)
  • Good Material, Dolly Alderton (best of 2024)
  • Anita de Monte Laughs Last, Xochitl Gonzalez (best of 2024)
  • The Fetishist, Katherine Min (best of 2024)
  • How to End a Love Story, Yulin Kuang (best of 2024)
  • The Paradise Problem, Christina Lauren (best of 2024)
  • I Hope This Finds You Well, Natalie Sue (best of 2024)
  • This Summer Will Be Different, Carley Fortune (best of 2024)
  • Summer Romance, Annabel Monaghan (best of 2024)
  • The Bulgarian Training Manual, Ruth Bonapace (best of 2024)
  • Moonbound, Robin Sloan (best of 2024)
  • Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Rufi Thorpe (best of 2024)
  • Bear, Julia Phillips (best of 2024)
  • A Novel Love Story, Ashely Poston (best of 2024)
  • Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands, Heather Fawcett (#2 in a series) (best of 2024)
  • The Reappearance of Rachel Price, Holly Jackson (best of 2024)
  • August 2024–Coming Home, Brittney Griner (birthday gift)
  • October 2024—Whalefall, Daniel Kraus
  • Half-Life of a Stolen Sister, Rachel Cantor
  • America Fantastica, Tim O’Brien
  • Piranesi, Anna Clarke
  • Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain and Wild, Amy Jeffs
  • Heroes and Troy, Stephen Fry
  • The Book of Japanese Folklore, Thersa Matsuura
  • The Mythology Book, DK, Big Ideas Simply Explained
  • Flame Tree series: Aztec Myths & Tales, Irish Fairy Tales, Lost Atlantis Short Stories, Babylon & Sumer Myths & Tales, Persian Myths & Tales, African Myths & Tales, Scottish Folk &Fairy Tales, Gods & Monsters Myths & Tales
  • The Emotion Thesaurus, Ackerman and Puglisi
  • The Conflict Thesaurus, Puglisi
  • 1,000 Character Reactions from Head to Toe, Valerie Howard
  • The Psychology Workbook for Writers, Darian Smith
  • November 2024—The Mythmakers, John Hendrix
  • December 2024–Murdle, Volume 1., G. T. Karber
  • Murdle: More Killer Puzzles, G. T. Karber
  • Murdle: Even More Killer Puzzles, G. T. Karber
  • Murdle: The Case of the Seven Skulls, G. T. Karber
  • Murdle: The School of Mystery, G. T. Karber
  • February 2025–How We Learn to Be Brave, Mariann Edgar Budde

NEW PUBLICATIONS

  • October 2023–The Fraud, Zadie Smith
  • How Far to the Promised Land, Esau McCaulley
  • November 2023–Save the Cat Writes a YA Novel, Jessica Brody
  • February 2024–The Atlas Complex (The Atlas trilogy #3), Olivia Blake
  • Wandering Stars, Tommy Orange
  • March 2024–How to Solve Your Own Murder, Kristin Perrin
  • House of Hidden Meanings, RuPaul
  • James, Percival Everett
  • The Great Divide, Christina Henriquez
  • April 2024—The Familiar, Leigh Bardugo
  • Funny Story, Emily Henry
  • The Reappearance of Rachel Price, Holly Jackson
  • The Demon of Unrest, Erik Larson (historical nonfiction)
  • The Age of Magical Overthinking, Amanda Montell (nonfiction)
  • May 2024—Last Murder at the End of the World, Stuart Turton
  • You Like It Darker, Stephen King (book of short stories)
  • The Honey Witch, Sydney J. Shields
  • When Among Crows, Veronica Roth (*)
  • The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley
  • June 2024–The Midnight Feast, Lucy Foley
  • Children of Anguish and Anarchy, Tomi Adeyemi
  • Lady Macbeth, Ava Reid
  • Fire Exit, Morgan Talty
  • I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself, Glynnis Macnicol
  • Cue the Sun!, Emily Nussbaum
  • The Lucky Ones, Zara Chowdhary
  • Liars, Sarah Manguso
  • July 2024—Grandest Game, Jennifer Lynn Barnes
  • This Great Hemisphere, Mateo Askaripour
  • The Briar Club, Kate Quinn
  • The Lost Story, Meg Shaffer
  • The Bright Sword, Lev Grossman
  • Slow Dance, Rainbow Rowell
  • I Was a Teenage Slasher, Stephen Graham Jones
  • The God of the Woods, Liz Moore
  • The Love of My Afterlife, Kirsty Greenwood
  • State of Paradise, Laura Van Den Berg
  • Grown Women, Sarai Johnson
  • Someone Like Us, Diwan Mengestu
  • August 2024–The House Keeper’s Secret, Iona Grey
  • There Are Rivers in the Sky, Elif Shafak
  • The Truth According to Ember, Danica Nava
  • You Will Never Be Me, Jesse Q. Sutanto
  • September 2024–The Life Impossible, Matt Haig
  • Here One Moment, Liane Moriarty
  • The Hitchcock Hotel, Stephanie Wrobel
  • The Booklover’s Library, Madeline Martin
  • We’re Alone, Edwidge Danticat (short story collection)
  • Quarterlife, Devika Rege
  • Adam and Evie’s Matchmaking Tour, Nora Nguyen
  • Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner
  • Final Cut, Charles Burns (YA graphic novel)
  • The Gates of Gaza, Amir Tibon (memoir)
  • The Empusium, Olga Tokarczuk (Nobel prize translation)
  • Intermezzo, Sally Rooney
  • The Women Behind the Door, Roddy Doyle
  • Colored Television, Danzy Senna
  • Lovely One, Ketanji Brown Jackson (memoir)
  • Somewhere Beyond the Sea (The House in the Cerulean Sea sequel), T. J. Klune
  • Nexus, Yuval Noah Harari
  • Entitlement, Rumaan Alam
  • Playground, Richard Powers
  • October 2024—The House at Watch Hill, Karen Marie Moning
  • The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • The Mighty Red, Louise Erdrich
  • American Scary, Jeremy Dauber
  • The Elements of Marie Curie, Dava Sobel
  • Absolution (Southern Reach #4), Jeff VanderMeer
  • Good Reasonable People, Keith Payne
  • The Universe in Verse, Maria Popova
  • The City in Glass, Nghi Vo
  • Be Ready When Luck Happens, Ina Garten
  • Revenge of the Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
  • What I Ate in One Year, Stanley Tucci
  • Dogs and Monsters, Mark Haddon
  • November 2024—The City and Its Uncertain Wall, Haruki Murakami
  • The Half King, Melissa Landers
  • Somewhere Beyond the Sea, T. J. Klune (Cerulean Sea #2)
  • The Magnificent Ruins, Nayantara Roy
  • Believe, Jeremy Egner (the story behind the making of Ted Lasso)
  • The Authors’ Guide to Murder, Beatriz Williams
  • Murder Town, Shelley Burr
  • We Shall Be Monsters, Alyssa Wee
  • December 2024–A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping, Sangu Mandanna
  • Heartstopper Vol. 6 (Heartstopper #6), Alice Oseman (which will be the final installment)
  • Cabin, Patrick Hutchison
  • Rental House, Weike Wand
  • Wind and Truth (Stormlight Archive #5), Brandon Sanderson
  • The Rivals (Claudia Lin #2), Jane Pek
  • Roland Rogers Isn’t Dead Yet, Samantha Allen
  • The Voyage Home (The Women of Troy #3), Pat Barker
  • January 2025–The Stolen Queen, Fiona Davis (historical fiction mystery)
  • Homeseeking, Karissa Chen (historical fiction)
  • Good Dirt, Charmaine Wilkerson (historical fiction)
  • Beautiful Ugly, Alice Feeney (domestic thriller)
  • The Crash, Frieda McFadden (psychological thriller)
  • Immortal, Sue Lynn Tan (romantasy)
  • Water Moon, Samantha Sotto Yambao (cozy romantasy)
  • Lightfall, Ed Crocker (Everlands trilogy #1, high fantasy)
  • All the Water in the World, Eiren Caffall (dystopian sci fi thriller)
  • Death of the Author, Nnedi Okorafor (sci fi saga)
  • Hammajang Luck, Makana Yamamoto (cyberpunk mystery)
  • Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, Grady Hendrix (psychological horror)
  • Out of the Woods, Hannah Bonam-Young (tomance)
  • The Starlight Heir, Amalie Howard (romantasy)
  • Onyx Storm, Rebecca Yarros (Empyrean #3, romantasy)
  • I Am Not Jessica Chen, Ann Liang (YA fantasy dark academia)
  • You’ll Never Believe Me, Kari Ferrell (memoir)
  • The JFK Conspiracy, Meltzer and Mensch (history)
  • The Harder I Fight the More I Love You, Neko Chase (autobiography)
  • Realm of Ice and Sky, Buddy Levy (history/biography)
  • Black in Blues, Imani Perry (history)
  • Penitence, Kristin Koval (coming-of-age crime fiction)
  • We Do Not Part, Han Kang (literary fiction)
  • What Happened to the McCrays?, Tracey Lange (domestic fiction)
  • A Sea of Unspoken Things, Adrienne Young (magic realism mystery)
  • Beg, Borrow, or Steal, Sarah Adams (romance humor)
  • The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus, Emma Knight (coming-of-age domestic fiction)
  • Too Soon, Betty Shamieh (literary fiction saga)
  • Confessions, Catherine Airey (literary fiction saga)
  • The Life of Herod the Great, Zora Neale Hurston (historical fiction)
  • The In-Between Bookstore, Edward Underhill (transgender time travel)
  • Yeonnam Dong’s Smiley Laundromat, Kim Jiyun (Korean domestic fiction)
  • Darkmotherland, Sumrat Upadhyay (dystopian political fiction)
  • Rosarita, Anita Desai (literary fiction)
  • She Doesn’t Have a Clue, Jenny Elder Moke (mystery romance)
  • The White Peril, Moses Omo (civil rights memoir)
  • Three Wild Dogs, Marcus Zusak (memoir)
  • February 2025–Three Days in June, Anne Tyler
  • We All Live Here, Jojo Moyes
  • Famous Last Words, Gillian McAllister
  • The Queens of Crime, Marie Benedict
  • You Are Fatally Invited, Andre Pliego
  • Black Woods, Blue Sky, Eowyn Ivey
  • Listen to Your Sister, Nina Viel
  • Something in the Walls, Daisy Pearce
  • Deep End, Ali Hazlewood
  • Scythe & Sparrow, Brynne Weaver
  • Needy Little Things, Channelle Desamours
  • Rebel Witch, Kristin Ciccarelli
  • Memorial Days: A Memoir, Geraldine Brooks
  • Cleavage, Jennifer Finney Boylan
  • Source Code, Bill Gates
  • The Bones Beneath My Skin, TJ Klune
  • Stone Yard Devotional, Charlotte Wood
  • Booster Shots, Adam Ratner
  • Nothing Serious, Emily J. Smith
  • Air-Borne, Carl Zimmer
  • Bibliophobia, Sarah Chihaya
  • Victorian Psycho, Virginia Feito
  • Pure Innocent Fun, Ira Madison III
  • Nesting, Roisin O’Donnell
  • March 2025—Dream Count, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (literary fiction)
  • Wild Dark Shore, Charlotte McConaghy (psychological thriller)
  • This Book Will Bury Me, Ashley Winstead (mystery thriller)
  • The Dream Hotel, Laila Lalami (sci fi-thriller-lit fic)
  • When the Moon Hits Your Eye, John Scalzi (sci fi)
  • Dissolution, Nicholas Binge (time travel thriller)
  • The Unworthy, Agustina Bazterrica (dystopian horror)
  • The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones (horror)
  • Oathbound, Tracy Deonn (Legendborn Cycle #3, YA fantasy)
  • Our Infinite Fates, Laura Steven (YA romantasy)
  • They Bloom at Night, Trang Thanh Tran (YA queer body horror)
  • Sunrise on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins (YA fantasy, in the Hunger Games world)
  • Everything Is Tuberculosis, John Green (nonfiction, history-science-culture)
  • I Leave It Up to You, Joo-Win Chong (literary fiction)
  • A Gentleman’s Gentleman, TJ Alexander (transgender Regency romance)
  • Raising Hare, Chloe Dalton (nature memoir)
  • The Antidote, Karen Russell (historical fiction/magic realism)
  • Stag Dance, Torrey Peters (transgender multi-genre story collection)
  • Care and Feeding, Laurie Woolever (food memoir)
  • On Air, Steve Oney (NPR history)
  • Early Thirties, Josh Dubuff (romance)
  • Saving Five, Amanda Nguyen (magical realism memoir)
  • Theft, Abdulrazak Gurnah (historical fiction family drama)
  • Tilt, Emma Pattee (literary mystery thriller—see a title trend?)
  • Twist, Collum McCann (which could also double as a St. Patty’s Day read)
  • April 2025—Great Big Beautiful Life, Emily Henry
  • Audition, Katie Kitamura
  • The Bright Years, Sarah Damoff
  • Heartwood, Amity Guige
  • A Drop of Corruption, Robert Jackson Bennett
  • Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, Kylie Lee Baker
  • Say You’ll Remember Me, Abby Jimenez
  • Flirting Lessons, Jasmine Guillory
  • My Best Friend’s Honeymoon, Meryl Wilsner
  • Where Shadows Meet, Patrice Caldwell
  • Watch Me, Tahereh Mafi
  • Protocols, Andrew D. Huberman
  • Fearless (Powerless Triology #3), Lauren Roberts
  • The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits, Jennifer Weiner
  • The Geographer’s Map to Romance (Love’s Academic #2), India Holton (which I should have a review for shortly)
  • No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson, Gardiner Harris
  • Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (Vera Wong #2), Jesse Q. Sutanto
  • How to Seal Your Own Fate (Castle Knoll Files #2), Kristen Perrin
  • Gifted & Talented, Olivie Blake
  • Don’t Sleep with the Dead, Nghi Vo
  • To Save and Destroy, Viet Thanh Nguyen
  • Vanishing World, Sayaka Murata
  • The Pretender, Jo Harkin
  • Julie Chan Is Dead, Liann Zhang
  • The Friend, Sigrid Nunez (new movie)
  • May 2025–Broken Souls and Bones (Stonegate #1), L. J. Andrews
  • The Tenant, Frieda McFadden
  • One Golden Summer, Carley Fortune
  • My Friends, Frederik Backman
  • The Knight and the Moth (Stonewater Kingdom #1), Rachel Gillig
  • Rewind It Back, Liz Tomforde
  • The Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong
  • It’s a Love Story, Annabel Monaghan
  • The Love Haters, Katherine Carter
  • A Curse Carved in Bone (Saga of the Unfated #2), Danielle L. Jensen
  • The Missing Half, Ashley Flowers
  • The Names, Florence Knapp
  • The Raven Scholar, Antonia Hodgson
  • The Man Made of Smoke, Alex North
  • Run for the Hills, Kevin Wilson
  • The River Is Waiting, Wally Lamb
  • The Incandescent, Emily Tesh
  • The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club, Martha Hall Kelly
  • All Fours, Miranda July (to paperback)
  • The Book of Doors, Gareth Brown (to paperback)
  • Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt (to paperback)
  • Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop, Hwang Bo-Reum (to paperback)
  • Summer 2025–Murder Takes a Vacation, Laura Lippman
  • The Slip, Lucas Schaefer
  • King of Ashes, S. A. Cosby
  • The Age of Video Games, Jenn Zeid and Emilie Rouge
  • The Hounding, Xenobe Purvis
  • Flashlight, Susan Choi
  • Bury Your Bones in the Midnight Soil, V. E. Schwab
  • The Mobius Book, Catherine Lacey
  • Maggie; or, a Man and a Woman Walk into a Bar, Katie Yee
  • Katabasis, R. F. Kuang
  • Is a River Alive?, Robert McFarlane
  • Atmosphere, Taylor Jenkins Reid
  • A Sorceress Comes to Call, T. Kingfisher
  • The Dry Season, Melissa Febos
  • Great Black Hope, Rob Franklin
  • A Marriage at Sea, Sophie Elmhurst
  • Murderland, Caroline Fraser
  • How to Lose Your Mother, Molly Jong-Fast
  • So Far Gone, Jess Walter
  • Meet Me at the Crossroads, Megan Giddings
  • A Family Matter, Claire Lynch
  • The Girls Who Grew Big, Leila Mottley
  • Baldwin: A Love Story, Nicholas Boggs
  • The Listeners, Maggie Stiefvater
  • Waiting for Brittney Spears, Jeff Weiss
  • My Friends, Frederik Backman
  • Mark Twain, Rob Chernow
  • Great Big Beautiful Life, Emily Henr
  • It’s a Love Story, Annabel Monoghan
  • Fox, Joyce Carol Oates
  • Run for the Hills, Kevin Wilson
  • Last Soul Among Wolves, Melissa Caruso
  • The Magician of Tiger Castle, Louis Sachar
  • The New Age of Sexism, Laura Bates
  • Hollywood High, Bruce Handy
  • Food Person, Adam Roberts
  • Sounds Like Love, Ashley Poston
  • Well, Actually, Mazey Eddings
  • Julie Chan Is Dead, Liann Zhang
  • September 2025–This Inevitable Ruin (Dungeon Crawler Carl #7), Matt Dinniman (Is this a re-release? I’m a little confused)
  • The Last Letter, Rebecca Yarros (which is a re-release/special edition)
  • The Secret of Secrets, Dan Brown
  • Strong Ground, Brene Brown
  • Good Things, Samin Nosrat
  • Alchemised, Senlin Yu
  • The Impossible Fortune, Richard Osman
  • What We Can Know, Ian McEwan
  • The Incredibly Human Henson Blayze, Derrick Barnes
  • The Academy, Elin Hilderbrand
  • We Love You, Bunny, Mona Awad
  • Fake Skating, Lynn Painter
  • Sisters in the Wind, Angeline Boulley
  • Buckeye, Patrick Ryan
  • Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy
  • All the Way to the River, Elizabeth Gilbert
  • The Poisoned King, Katherine Rundell
  • The Loneliness of Sonia Sonny, Kiran Desai
  • The Wilderness, Angela Flournoy
  • Will There Ever Be Another You, Patricia Lockwood

IMMINENT TBR

  • November 2023–The Truth About Horses, Christy Cashman (ARC) (*)
  • The Book of Delights, Ross Gay
  • Devolution, Max Brooks (Bigfoot, book research)
  • The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac, Sharma Shields (Bigfoot, book research)
  • Eerie Appalachia, Mark Muncy and Kari Schultz (Bigfoot, book research)
  • Hollow Kingdom, Kira Jane Buxton (Mothman, book research)
  • I’m In Love with Mothman (Mothman in Love #1), Paige Lavoie (Mothman, book research)
  • Mothman’s Curse, Christine Hayes (Mothman, book research)
  • Mothman’s Merry Cryptid Christmas, Andrew Shaffer (Mothman, book research)
  • Dear Mothman, Robin Gow (Mothman, book research)
  • The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games Collection #1), Jennifer Lynn Barnes (YA, book research)
  • One of Us Is Lying, Karen M. McManus (YA, book research)
  • The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas (YA, book research)
  • Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1), Neal Shusterman (YA, book research)
  • Eragon (Inheritance Cycle #1), Christpoher Paolini (YA, book research)
  • December 2023–Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (Christmas)
  • The Christmas Pig, J. K. Rowling (Christmas)
  • On This Holy Night: The Heart of Christmas, company (Christmas)
  • Christmas with Kim Joy, Kim Joy (Christmas)
  • ESV Single Column Journaling Bible, Artist Series, God and Ruth Chou Simons (New Year)
  • March 2024–Letters to a Young Writer, Colum McCann
  • April 2024—The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
  • May 2024–Born a Crime, Trevor Noah
  • June 2024—Universal Love, Alexander Weinstein
  • If I Had a Lemon We’d Throw It and Call That the Sun, Christopher Citro
  • Open Page, Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing
  • Happy Place, Emily Henry
  • Save the Cat Writes a YA Novel, Jessica Brody
  • September 2024–Digger Volume 1, Ursula Vernon
  • A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, T. Kingfisher
  • The Dutch House, Ann Patchett
  • Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
  • Tom Lake, Ann Patchett (*)
  • October 2024—Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, for Kwame Alexander
  • Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions and Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut
  • November 2024—City of Ghosts, V. E. Schwab (comps/genre)
  • Hold Me Closer, Necromancer, Lish McBride (comps/genre)
  • Lost Man’s Lane, Scott Carson (comps/genre)
  • We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson (comps/genre)
  • Ghost Roast, Shawnee and Shawnelle Gibbs (comps/genre)
  • Nothing More to Tell, Karen M. McManus (comps/genre)
  • Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (comps/genre)
  • Sabriel, Garth Nix (comps/genre)
  • Belladonna, Adalyn Graces (comps/genre)
  • A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians, H. G. Parry (comps/genre)
  • Miles Morales Vol. 1: Straight Out of Brooklyn, Saladin Ahmed (comps/genre)
  • The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co. #1), Jonathan Stroud (comps/genre)
  • Two Sides to Every Murder, Danielle Valentine (comps/genre)
  • Stalking Jack the Ripper, Kerri Maniscalco (comps/genre)
  • Vespertine, Margaret Rogerson (comps/genre)
  • Moriarty, Anthony Horowitz (comps/genre)
  • The Dysasters, P. C. Cast (comps/genre)
  • Renegades, Marissa Meyer (comps/genre)
  • I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, Michelle McNamara (comps/genre)
  • December 2024–A Deadly Education (Scholomance #1), Naomi Novik
  • His Majesty’s Dragon (Termeraire #1), Naomi Novik
  • The Spellshop, Sarah Beth Durst
  • Piranesi, Susanna Clark
  • The House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune
  • January 2025–The First Five Pages, Noah Lukeman (writing)
  • Abba’s Child, Brennan Manning (Christianity)
  • Not Your Grandma’s Menopause, Inez Haynes (health, obviously)
  • Overwhelmed, Brigid Schulte (New Years reading)
  • Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie (finish once and for all!)
  • James, Percival Everett (best book of 2024, singular “book” intended)
  • Coming Home, Brittney Griner (bought for me off a wish list by my daughter)
  • The Sandman Vol1, Neil Gaiman (finish once and for all!)
  • Maniac Magee, Jerry Spinelli (work-related)
  • Kingdom of Copper (Daevabad #2), Chakraborty (continue a series)
  • I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, Michelle McNamara (work-related)
  • Best American Mystery Stories 2015 (work-related)
  • The Eyes and the Impossible, Dave Eggers
  • The Bee Sting, Paul Murray (bests/award winners of 2023)
  • Intermezzo, Sally Rooney (bests/award winners of 2024)
  • February 2025–Me Before You, Jojo Moyes
  • The Secret of the Tower, Andrew Beattie
  • The Angel Player, Andrew Beattie (ARC)
  • Solito, Javier Zamora
  • Julie Chan Is Dead, Liann Zhang (ARC)
  • Wicked, Gregory Maguire (finish)
  • The Eyes and the Impossible, Dave Eggers
  • Love & Lemon’s Simple Feel Good Food
  • Painted Devils, Margaret Owen
  • Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Saenz
  • Hold Me Closer, Necromancer, Lish McBride
  • Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut
  • I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home, Lorrie Moore
  • A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
  • Eleanor & Park, Rainbow Rowell
  • Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner
  • Chain-Gang Allstars, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
  • Red, White and Royal Blue, Rajani LaRocca
  • Prayer, Timothy Keller
  • ADHD Is Awesome!, Penn and Kim Holderness (finish)
  • Save the Cat! Writes a YA Novel, Jessica Brody (finish)
  • March 2025—And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie
  • Big, Harrison
  • In the Woods, Tana French
  • Murder by Cheesecake, Rachel Ekstrom Courage (ARC)
  • The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu
  • A Family Matter, Claire Lynch (ARC)
  • The Story, God
  • Worth Fighting For (Meant to Be #5), Jesse Sutanto (ARC)
  • The Familiar, Leigh Bardugo
  • How to Learn to Be Brave, Mariann Budde
  • The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas
  • The Fraud, Zadie Smith
  • Dark Forest, Cixin Liu
  • Some Desperate Glory, Emily Tesh
  • Lost Man’s Lane, Scott Carson
  • The Commitments, Roddy Doyle
  • This Must Be the Place, Maggie O’Farrell
  • April 2025—I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com, Kimberly Lemming
  • What Pecan Light, Han Vanderhart
  • The Geographer’s Map to Romance (Love’s Academic #2), India Holton
  • And Yet Held, T. De Los Reyes
  • If We Had a Lemon We’d Throw It and Call That the Sun, Christopher Citro
  • A Family Matter, Claire Lynch
  • The Symmetry of Fish, Su Cho
  • Worth Fighting For (Meant to Be #5), Jesse Q. Sutanto
  • The Phoenix Pencil Company, Allison King
  • The Familiar, Leigh Bardugo
  • We Do Not Part, Han Kang
  • The Fraud, Zadie Smith
  • The Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong
  • Ghost Roast, Shawnelle Gibbs
  • Swordheart (The World of the White Rat), T. Kingfisher
  • The Bright Sword, Lev Grossman
  • The Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad #2), Tana French
  • May 2025–Alice Chen’s Reality Check, Loo and Young (ARC)
  • Hemlock & Silver, T. Kingfisher (ARC)
  • The Magicians (The Magicians #1), Lev Grossman
  • Nothing More to Tell, Karen M. McManus
  • Yellowface, R. F. Kuang
  • Iron Flame and Onyx Storm (Empyrean #2 and #3), Rebecca Yarros (new)
  • The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels (Dangerous Damsels #1), India Holton
  • The Cemetery of Untold Stories, Julia Alvarez
  • Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, Lisa See
  • Thornhedge, T. Kingfisher
  • Arm of the Sphinx (Books of Babel #2), Josiah Bancroft
  • My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Vol. 1, Emil Ferris
  • The Raven Scholar (Eternal Path Trilogy #1), Antonia Hodgson
  • Summer 2025–Emily of New Moon, L. M. Montgomery
  • Emily Climbs, L. M. Montgomery
  • Emily’s Quest, L. M. Montgomery
  • Funny Story, Emily Henry
  • ADHD 2.0, Edward M. Hallowell
  • The Spider-Man Handbook, Grahame Smith
  • 100 Places to See After You Die, Ken Jennings
  • Children of Solitude, Michael G. Williams
  • Run for the Hills, Kevin Wilson
  • The Road to Tender Hearts, Annie Hartnett
  • The Familiar, Leigh Bardugo
  • The Fraud, Zadie Smith
  • Swordheart, T. Kingfisher
  • Hemlock & Silver, T. Kingfisher
  • A Sorceress Comes to Call, T. Kingfisher
  • Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner
  • The Raven Scholar, Antonia Hodgson
  • The Likeness, Tana French
  • Brightsword, Levi Grossman
  • The Magicians, Levi Grossman
  • The Last of August, Cavallaro
  • Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, Lisa See
  • The Cemetery of Untold Stories, Julia Alvarez
  • The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels, India Holton
  • Iron Flame and Onyx Storm, Rebecca Yarros
  • The Knight and the Moth, Rachel Gillig
  • The Mobius Book, Catherine Lacey
  • Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir
  • Fun Home and Spent, Allison Bechdel
  • We Do Not Part, Han Kang
  • The Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong
  • The Incandescent, Emily Tesh
  • The Phoenix Pencil Company, Allison King
  • Alice Chen’s Reality Check, Loo and Young
  • Hot Desk, Laura Dickerman
  • First Lie Wins, Ahsley Elston
  • Flashlight, Susan Choi
  • The Hounding, Xenobe Purvis
  • My Friends, Frederik Backman
  • Fever Beach, Carl Hiaasen
  • Endling, Maria Reva
  • Sisters in the Wind, Angeline Boulley
  • You Dreamed of Empires, Alvaro Enrigue
  • Writing Creativity and Soul, Sue Monk Kidd
  • The Wayfinder, Adam Johnson
  • The Gryphon King, Sara Omer
  • September 2025–A Forbidden Alchemy, Stacey McEwan
  • The Seven Year Slip, Ashley Poston
  • A Novel Love Story, Ashley Poston
  • 100 Places to See After You Die, Ken Jennings
  • The Spider-Man Handbook, Grahame Smith
  • The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, Axie Oh
  • The Dead Fathers Club, Matt Haig
  • The King of Infinite Space, Lyndsay Faye
  • Nutshell, Ian McEwan
  • Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk
  • Dungeon Crawler Carl, Matt Dinniman
  • Assistant to the Villain, Hannah Nicole Maehrer
  • The Experiment, Rebecca Stead
  • Lessons in Magic and Disaster, Charlie Jane Anders
  • Endling, Maria Reva
  • The Incandescent, Emily Tesh
  • The Phoenix Pencil Company, Allison King
  • Hot Desk, Laura Dickerman
  • True Colors, Elise Gravel
  • A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, George Saunders
  • Refuse to Be Done, Matt Bell
  • Get Signed, Lucinda Halpern
  • Before and After the Book Deal, Courtney Maum
  • Save the Cat Writes a YA Novel, Jessica Brody
  • Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, Arielle Eckstut

RECENT FAVORITES

GENRE FAVES

BOOK CLUB READS

HOLIDAYS

  • October 2023—Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stephenson (Halloween) *
  • Harry Potter Minalima editions, J. K. Rowling and Minalima (Halloween) **
  • The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (Halloween) *
  • Among the Shadows, L. M. Montgomery (Halloween) *
  • Dracula, Bram Stoker (Halloween)
  • Sherlock Holmes & Mr. Hyde (The Classified Dossiers #2), Christian Klaver (Halloween) (*)
  • Tales of Mystery and Imagination, Edgar Allan Poe (Halloween)
  • “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” Washington Irving (Halloween)
  • Preludes & Nocturnes (The Sandman vol. 1), Neil Gaiman (Halloween)
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde (Halloween) *
  • Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier (Halloween)
  • November 2023–Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen, Laurie Colwin (Thanksgiving) ***
  • “Turkey Remains and How to Inter Them with Numerous Scarce Recipes,” F. Scott Fitzgerald (Thanksgiving) *
  • “Thanksgiving in the Anthropocene, 2015,” Craig Santos Perez (Thanksgiving) *
  • first chapter of There, There, Tommy Orange (Thanksgiving) *
  • December 2023–A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (Christmas) **
  • Honest Advent, Scott Erikson (Christmas) **
  • How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Dr. Seuss (Christmas) **
  • The Polar Express, Chris Van Allsburgh (Christmas) *
  • January 2024–Dear Ijeawele, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (New Years) (*)
  • Anxious for Nothing, Max Lucado (New Years) *
  • Notes on a Nervous Planet, Matt Haig (New Years) *** 
  • Don’t Feed the Monkey Mind, Jennifer Shannon (New Years) * 
  • Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, Robert M. Sapolsky (New Years) *
  • Talking to Strangers, Malcom Gladwell (New Years)
  • Finding Your Way in a Wild, New World, Martha N. Beck (New Years)
  •  Beyond Hashtag Activism, Mae Elise Canon (New Years)
  • Overwhelmed by Bridgid Schulte (New Years)
  • Decomposition Book (New Years)
  • Kokuyo Jibun Techo Diary (New Years)
  • Keri Smith Deluxe Boxed Set  (New Years)
  • Bibliophile Reader’s Journal, Jane Mount (New Years)
  • What I Wore Today, Gemma Correll (New Years)
  • ADHD Workbook for Women, Tracy Neel (New Years)
  • No Worries, Bella Mente (New Years)
  • Free of Me, Sharon Hodde Miller (New Years)
  • February 2024–Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen (Valentines) ***
  • Les Miserables, Victor Hugo (Valentines) ***
  • Sonnets from the Portuguese, Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Valentines) ***
  • Sonnets, William Shakespeare (Valentines) ***
  • A Severe Mercy, Sheldon Van Auken (Valentines) **
  •  Book Lovers, Beach Read, People We Meet on Vacation, and Happy Place, Emily Henry (Valentines) *
  •  Circe and The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller (Valentines) *
  •  Betting on You, Lynn Painter (Valentines) **
  • To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Jenny Han (Valentines) *
  • Me Before You, Jojo Moyes (Valentines)
  • Persuasion, Jane Austen (Valentines)
  • Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Saenz (Valentines)
  • March 2024–Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (St. Patty’s) ***
  • Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt (St. Patty’s) *
  • Trespasses, Louise Kennedy (St. Patty’s) (*)
  • Circle of Friends, Maeve Binchy (St. Patty’s)
  • Normal People, Sally Rooney (St. Patty’s) *
  • This Must Be the Place, Maggie O’Farrell (St. Patty’s)
  • Ulysses or The Dubliners, James Joyce (St. Patty’s)
  • In the Woods, Tana French (St. Patty’s)
  • Everything in This Country Must, Colum McCann (St. Patty’s)
  • The Commitments (The Barrytown Trilogy #1), Roddy Doyle (St. Patty’s)
  • Erasure, Percival Everett (Oscars)
  • Nimona, N. D. Stevenson, (Oscars)
  • Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann (Oscars)
  • The Color Purple, Alice Walker (Oscars)
  • Junie B. Jones: Dumb Bunny, Barbara Park (Easter)
  • The Berenstain Bears and the Easter Story, Stan and Mike Berenstain (Easter)
  • Ben-Hur, Lew Wallace (Easter)
  • May 2024—The School for Good Mothers, Jessamine Chan (Mother’s Day)
  • Mother-Daughter Murder Night, Nina Simon (Mother’s Day)
  • Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen, Annabel Abbs (Mother’s Day)
  • The Glass Hotel, Emily St. John Mandel (Mother’s Day)
  • Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich (Mother’s Day)
  • The Witch Elm, Tana French (Mother’s Day)
  • The City We Became, N. K. Jemisin (Mother’s Day)
  • July 2024—Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders (Fourth of July)
  • The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien (Fourth of July)
  • A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (Fourth of July)
  • Fever 1793, Laurie Halse Anderson (Fourth of July)
  • The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne (Fourth of July)
  • The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead (Fourth of July)
  • To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (Fourth of July)
  • The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (Fourth of July)
  • Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (Fourth of July)
  • Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder (Fourth of July)
  • Africans in America, Johnson, Smith and WGBH Research Team (Fourth of July)
  • Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, Jean Lee Latham (Fourth of July)
  • Inside Out & Back Again, Thanhha Lai (Fourth of July)
  • One Crazy Summer, Rita Williams-Garcia (Fourth of July)
  • Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Mildred D. Taylor (Fourth of July)
  • Sign of the Beaver, Elizabeth George Speare (Fourth of July)
  • Lyddie, Katherine Paterson (Fourth of July)
  • Johnny Tremain, Esther Forbes (Fourth of July)
  • Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann (Fourth of July)
  • Lincoln, Gore Vidal (Fourth of July)
  • Chains, Laurie Halse Anderson (Fourth of July)
  • Night Watch, Jayne Anne Philips (Fourth of July)
  • The Demon of Unrest, Erik Larson (Fourth of July)
  • A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith (Fourth of July)
  • The Alienist, Caleb Carr (Fourth of July)
  • The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon (Fourth of July)
  • Before We Were Yours, Lisa Wingate (Fourth of July)
  • The Lacuna, Barbara Kingsolver (Fourth of July)
  • The Women, Kristin Hannah (Fourth of July)
  • The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd (Fourth of July)
  • August 2024–Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery (my birthday)
  • Till We Have Faces, C. S. Lewis (my birthday)
  • Winnie-the-Pooh, A. A. Milne (my birthday)
  • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard (my birthday)
  • Frog and Toad Are Friends, Arnold Lobel (my birthday)
  • Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak (my birthday)
  • The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (my birthday)
  • Brand New Ancients, Kae Tempest (my birthday)
  • Orphaned Believers, Sarah Billups (my birthday)
  • Ruby Redfort series, Lauren Childs (my birthday)
  • How to Train Your Dragon series, Cressida Cowell (my birthday)
  • Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, Jean Lee Latham (my birthday)
  • October 2024—The Harry Potter series, J. K. Rowling (Halloween)
  • The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (Halloween)
  • Among the Shadows, L. M. Montgomery (Halloween)
  • Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders (Halloween)
  • North Woods, Daniel Mason (Halloween)
  • The Witches, Roald Dahl (Halloween)
  • Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (Halloween)
  • The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Halloween)
  • Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier (Halloween)
  • The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo (Halloween)
  • What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher (Halloween)
  • When Among Crows, Veronica Roth (Halloween)
  • Ninth House and Hell Bent, Leigh Bardugo (Halloween)
  • Weyward, Emilia Hart (Halloween)
  • Preludes & Nocturnes, Sandman vol 1, Neil Gaiman (Halloween)
  • Hollow Kingdom and Feral Creatures, Kira Jane Buxton (Halloween)
  • Devolution, Max Brooks (Halloween)
  • Scythe (Arc of a Scythe trilogy #1), Neal Shusterman ** (Halloween)
  • Haunt Sweet Home, Sarah Pinsker (Halloween)
  • A Fall in Autumn and Perishables, Michael G. Williams (Halloween)
  • North American Lake Monsters, Nathan Ballingrud (Halloween)
  • November 2024—Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen, Laurie Colwin (Thanksgiving) ***
  • “Turkey Remains and How to Inter Them with Numerous Scarce Recipes,” F. Scott Fitzgerald (Thanksgiving) *
  • “Thanksgiving in the Anthropocene, 2015,” Craig Santos Perez (Thanksgiving) *
  • first chapter of There, There, Tommy Orange (Thanksgiving) *
  • Book of Delights, Ross Gay (Thanksgiving)
  • The Ice Storm, Rick Moody (Thanksgiving)
  • Thanksgiving Night, Richard Bausch (Thanksgiving)
  • Oldtown Folks, Harriet Beecher Stowe (Thanksgiving)
  • The Thanksgiving Visitor, Truman Capote (Thanksgiving)
  • Strangers at the Feast, Jennifer Vanderbes (Thanksgiving)
  • Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Ben Fountain (Thanksgiving)
  • American Pastoral, Philip Roth (Thanksgiving)
  • The Holiday Season, Michael Night (Thanksgiving)
  • December 2024–A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (Christmas) **
  • Honest Advent, Scott Erickson (Christmas) **
  • How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Dr. Seuss (Christmas) **
  • The Polar Express, Chris Van Allsburgh (Christmas) **
  • Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (Christmas) **
  • The Christmas Pig, J. K. Rowling (Christmas) *
  • “The Gift of the Magi,” O. Henry (Christmas) *
  • “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Christmas)
  • “Afterward,” Edith Wharton (Christmas) (*)
  • The Life and Times of Santa Claus, Frank L. Baum (Christmas)
  • Mr. Dickens and His Carol, Samantha Silva (Christmas) (*)
  • Wishin’ and Hopin’, Wally Lamb (Christmas)
  • Hiddensee, Gregory Maguire (Christmas)
  • Comfort and Joy, Kristin Hannah (Christmas)
  • Celebrations, Maya Angelou (Christmas)
  • Holidays on Ice, David Sedaris (Christmas)
  • Winter Street, Elin Hilderbrand (Christmas)
  • “Christmas Trees,” Robert Frost (Christmas)
  • January 2025–Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Sleigh!, Mo Willems (Christmas) **
  • The Polar Express, Chris Van Allsburg (Christmas) **
  • The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Barbara Robinson (Christmas) ***
  • February 2025—Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (Valentines)
  • Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (Valentines)
  • Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (Valentines)
  • Emma, Jane Austen (Valentines)
  • Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen (Valentines)
  • Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen (Valentines)
  • Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte (Valentines)
  • Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare (Valentines)
  • Sonnets, Shakespeare (Valentines)
  • The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller (Valentines)
  • A Long Petal of the Sea, Isabel Allende (Valentines)
  • Sonnets from the Portuguese, Elizabeth Browning (Valentines)
  • The Princess Bride, William Goldman (Valentines)
  • Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Valentines)
  • A Severe Mercy, Sheldon Van Auken (Valentines)
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare (Valentines)
  • Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery (through the first three) (Valentines)
  • Rilla of Ingleside, L. M. Montgomery (Valentines)
  • Les Miserables, Victor Hugo (Valentines)
  • Betting on You, Lynn Painter (Valentines)
  • To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Jenny Han (Valentines)
  • Book Lovers, Beach Read, People We Meet on Vacation, or Happy Place, Emily Henry (Valentines)
  • Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (Valentines)
  • Universal Love, Alexander Weinstein (Valentines)
  • Stay with Me, Ayobami Adebayo (Valentines)
  • Normal People, Sally Rooney (Valentines)
  • Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros (Valentines)
  • If I See You Again Tomorrow, Robbie Couch (Valentines)
  • The Marriage Portrait, Maggie O’Farrell (Yeah, it doesn’t turn out too well for this princess) (anti-Valentines)
  • Miss Iceland, Audur Ava Olafsdottir (the real love here is between friends) (anti-Valentines)
  • The Vegetarian, Han Kang (a book about isolation, with failed love at every turn) (anti-Valentines)
  • Me Before You, Jojo Moyes (Valentines)
  • Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Saenz (Valentines)
  • Eleanor & Park, Rainbow Rowell (Valentines)
  • Funny Story, Emily Henry (Valentines)
  • The Love Hypothesis, Ali Hazelwood (Valentines)
  • The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Victoria E. Schwab (Valentines)
  • Love, Theoretically, Ali Hazlewood (Valentines)
  • ACOTAR series, Sarah J. Maas (Valentines)
  • Iron Flame and Onyx Storm, Rebecca Yarros (Valentines)
  • Better than the Movies, Lynn Painter (Valentines)
  • Heartstopper series, Alice Oseman (Valentines)
  • Divine Rivals, Rebecca Ross (Valentines)
  • Legends & Lattes, Travis Baldree (Valentines)
  • North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell (Valentines)
  • The Thornbirds, Colleen McCullough (Valentines)
  • Red, White & Royal Blue, Casey McQuinston (Valentines)
  • On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong (Valentines)
  • Everything I Know About Love, Dolly Alderton (Valentines)
  • Imogen, Obviously, Becky Albertalli (Valentines)
  • March 2025—Prophet Song, Paul Lynch (St. Patty’s)
  • Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell (St. Patty’s)
  • The Marriage Portrait, Maggie O’Farrell (St. Patty’s)
  • Trespasses, Louise Kennedy (St. Patty’s)
  • Normal People, Sally Rooney (St. Patty’s)
  • In the Woods, Tana French (St. Patty’s)
  • Maggie O’Farrell, This Must Be the Place (St. Patty’s)
  • Circle of Friends, Maeve Binchy (St. Patty’s)
  • Ulysses, James Joyce (St. Patty’s)
  • Dubliners, James Joyce (St. Patty’s)
  • Everything in the Country Must, Cullum McCann (St. Patty’s)
  • The Commitments, Roddy Doyle (St. Patty’s)
  • Wicked, Gregory Maguire (Wicked) (Oscars)
  • Conclave, Robert Harris (The Conclave) (Oscars)
  • The Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead (The Nickel Boys) (Oscars)
  • Dune, Frank Herbert (Dune: Part Two) (Oscars)
  • The Wild Robot, Peter Brown (Wild Robot) (Oscars)
  • Dylan Goes Electric!, Elijah Wald, (A Complete Unknown) (Oscars)
  • Black Box, Shiroi Ito (Little Black Box) (Oscars)
  • Magic Candies, Paek Hui-Na (Magic Candies) (Oscars)
  • April 2025–Ben-Hur, Lew Wallace (Easter)
  • Chocolat, Joanne Harris (Easter)
  • Miz Fannie Mae’s Fine New Easter Hat, Melissia Milich (Easter)
  • May 2025–Mother-Daughter Murder Night, Nina Simon (Mothers Day)
  • The School for Good Mothers, Jessamine Chan (Mothers Day)
  • Prophet Song, Paul Lynch

SEASONAL (INCLUDING “MONTH”S)

  • April 2024—How to Eat a Poem, The American Poetry & Literacy Society (poetry month)
  • Brand New Ancients, Kae Tempest (poetry month)
  • Asphodel & Other Love Poems, William Carlos Williams (poetry month)
  • Glass, Irony and God, Ann Carson (poetry month)
  • Spinning the Vast Fantastic, Britton Shurley (poetry month)
  • “The Jabberwocky” from Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Caroll (poetry month)
  • “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven,” William Butler Yeats (poetry month)
  • “Kingdom Animalia,” Aracelis Girmay (poetry month)
  • “A Song in the Front Yard,” Gwendolyn Brooks (poetry month)
  • “The Afterlife,” Billy Collins (poetry month)
  • “Falling,” James Dickey (poetry month)
  • “The Long Boat”, Stanley Kunitz (poetry month)
  • The Norton Anthology of Poetry (poetry month)
  • The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse (poetry month)
  • June 2024—The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (Summer Reading)
  • To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (Summer Reading)
  • The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway (Summer Reading)
  • Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt (Summer Reading)
  • The Pearl, John Steinbeck (Summer Reading)
  • Where You’d Go, Bernadette?, Maria Semple (Summer Reading)
  • Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens (Summer Reading)
  • Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus (Summer Reading)
  • All the Light We Can Not See, Anthony Doerr (Summer Reading)
  • Prophet Song, Paul Lynch (Summer Reading)
  • Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell (Summer Reading)
  • The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai (Summer Reading)
  • Stay with Me, Ayobami Adebayo (Summer Reading)
  • Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn (Summer Reading)
  • Eligible, Curtis Sittenfeld (Summer Reading)
  • The Guernsey Literature and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (Summer Reading)
  • Till We Have Faces, C. S. Lewis (Summer Reading)
  • The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller (Summer Reading)
  • Shadow and Bone trilogy, Leigh Bardugo (Summer Reading)
  • The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury (Summer Reading)
  • The Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins (Summer Reading)
  • September 2024–On Writing, Stephen King (editing season)
  • Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott (editing season)
  • Zen in the Art of Writing, Ray Bradbury (editing season)
  • Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, Jessica Brody (editing season)
  • Outlining Your Novel, K. M. Weiland (editing season)
  • The Business of Being a Writer, Jane Friedman (editing season)
  • The First Five Pages, Noah Lukeman (editing season)
  • The Writers’ Guide to Queries, Pitches and Proposals, Moira Anderson Allen (editing season)
  • Save the Cat! Writes a YA Novel, Jessica Brody (editing season)
  • How to Write a Mystery, Mystery Writers of America, Lee Child (editing season)
  • Open Page, Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing (editing season)
  • Refuse to Be Done, Matt Bell (editing season)
  • Get Signed, Lucinda Halpern (editing season)
  • Before and After the Book Deal, Courtney Maum (editing season)
  • Formatting and Submitting Your Manuscript and Get a Literary Agent, Chuck Sambuchino (editing season)
  • The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, Arielle Eckstut (editing season)
  • The Forest for the Trees, Betsy Lerner (editing season)
  • The Portable MFA in Creative Writing, NY Writers’ Workshop (editing season)
  • The Modern Library’s Writer’s Workshop (editing season)
  • The Invisible Man, H. G. Wells (back to school)
  • The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (back to school)
  • A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (back to school)
  • March, John Lewis (back to school)
  • American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang (back to school)
  • Macbeth, William Shakespeare (Folger’s) (back to school)
  • The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams (back to school)
  • The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, Paul Zindel (back to school)
  • The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway (back to school)
  • Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery (back to school)
  • Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson (back to school)
  • Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls (back to school)
  • When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead (back to school)
  • The Giver, Lois Lowry (back to school)
  • The Princess Bride, William Goldman (back to school)
  • The Book Thief, Marcus Zusak (back to school)
  • The Maze Runner, James Dashner (back to school)
  • A Monster Calls, Patrick Ness (back to school)
  • The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (back to school)
  • The Truth About Horses, Christy Cashman (back to school)
  • Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (back to school)
  • Lord of the Flies, William Golding (back to school)
  • Call of the Wild, Jack London (back to school)
  • Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling (back to school)
  • Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane (back to school)
  • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain (back to school)
  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain (back to school)
  • Old Yeller, Fred Gipson (back to school)
  • The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (back to school)
  • To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (back to school)
  • The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins (back to school)
  • Born a Crime, Trevor Noah (back to school)
  • The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien (back to school)
  • The Lord of the Rings trilogy, J. R. R. Tolkien (back to school)
  • The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis (back to school)
  • April 2025—Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery (spring)
  • Emily of New Moon, L. M. Montgomery (spring)
  • “The Jabberwocky,” from Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Caroll (with commentary, as well)
  • How to Eat a Poem, The American Poetry & Literacy Project (poetry)
  • Brand New Ancients, Kae Tempest (poetry)
  • Asphodel & Other Love Poems, William Carlos Williams (poetry)
  • Glass, Irony and God, Ann Carson (poetry)
  • “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven,” William Butler Yeats (poetry)
  • “Kingdom Animalia,” Aracelis Girmay (poetry)
  • “A Song in the Front Yard,” Gwendolyn Brooks (poetry)
  • “The Afterlife,” Billy Collins (poetry)
  • “Falling,” James Dickey (poetry)
  • “The Long Boat,” Stanley Kunitz (poetry)
  • Spinning the Vast Fantastic, Britton Shurley (poetry)
  • Hell, I Love Everybody, James Tate (poetry)
  • Call Us What We Carry, Amanda Gorman (poetry)
  • The Divine Comedy (Michael Palma trans.), Dante Alighieri (poetry)
  • The Book of Psalms, Robert Alter (poetry)
  • A Light in the Attic, Shel Silverstein (poetry)
  • For There Is Always Light (journal), Amanda Gorman (poetry)
  • The Anthology of Black Mountain College Poetry (poetry)
  • Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke (poetry)
  • If Not, Winter, Anne Carson (poetry)
  • You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, Ada Limon ed. (poetry)
  • The Odyssey (Emily Wilson transl.), Homer (poetry)
  • Kitchen Hymns, Padraig O Tuama (poetry)
  • New and Selected Poems, Mary Oliver (poetry)
  • No One Is on the Line, Mohsen Mohamed (poetry)
  • Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World, Padraig O Tuama ed. (poetry)
  • Water, Water, Billy Collins (poetry)
  • The Sonnets, William Shakespeare (poetry)
  • Modern Poetry, Dianne Seuss (poetry)
  • A Century of Poetry in the New Yorker (poetry)
  • Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, Pablo Neruda (poetry)
  • The Complete Poems, Emily Dickinson (poetry)
  • Howl and Other Poems, Allen Ginsberg (poetry)
  • Mountain Interval, Robert Frost (poetry)
  • Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman (poetry)
  • Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson (poetry)
  • Metamorphoses, Ovid (poetry)
  • 100 Selected Poems, E.E. Cummings (poetry)
  • The Essential Rumi, Rumi (poetry)
  • Annie Allen, Gwendolyn Brooks (poetry)
  • American Primitive, Mary Oliver (poetry)
  • The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, Langston Hughes (poetry)
  • Spring and All, William Carlos Williams (poetry)
  • Sonnets to Orpheus, Rainer Maria Rilke (poetry)
  • Collected Poems, Wallace Stephens (poetry)
  • Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘Fore I Diiie, Maya Angelou (poetry)
  • May 2025–The Geographer’s Map to Romance, India Holton (summer)
  • The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love, India Holton (summer)
  • A Family Matter, Claire Lynch (summer)
  • Julie Chan Is Dead, Liann Zhang (summer)
  • Great Big Beautiful Life, Emily Henry (summer)
  • Funny Story, Emily Henry (summer)
  • Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (summer)
  • Emma, Jane Austen (summer)
  • Eligible, Curtis Sittenfeld (summer)
  • Bridget Jones’ Diary, Helen Fielding (summer)
  • Miss Iceland, Audur Ava Olafsdottir (summer)
  • Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar (summer)
  • The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai (summer)
  • Universal Love, Alexander Weinstein (summer)
  • The Dream Hotel, Laila Lalami (summer)
  • Frog and Toad Are Doing Their Best, Jennie Egerdie (summer)
  • The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin (summer)
  • Swordheart, T. Kingfisher (summer)
  • Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler (summer)
  • Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros (or Onyx Storm if you have read that far already) (summer)
  • Want, Gillian Anderson (summer)
  • The God of the Woods, Liz Moore (summer)
  • How to Solve Your Own Murder, Kristen Perrin (summer)
  • Good Material, Dolly Alderton (summer)
  • The Wedding People, Alison Espach (summer)
  • Monk and Robot, Becky Chambers (summer)
  • Tilt, Emma Pattee (summer)
  • Bandit Queens, Parini Schroff (summer)
  • Children of Solitude, Michael G. Williams (summer)
  • The Cemetery of Untold Stories, Julia Alvarez (summer)
  • Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, Lisa See (summer)
  • Olympus, Texas, Stacey Swan (summer)
  • Good Dirt, Charmaine Wilkerson (summer)
  • Water Moon, Samantha Sotto Yambao (summer)
  • The Harder I Fight, the More I Love You, Neko Chase (summer)
  • James, Percival Everett (summer)
  • All Fours, Miranda July (summer)
  • North Woods, Daniel Mason (summer)
  • Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell (summer)
  • Intermezzo, Sally Rooney (summer)
  • The Bee Sting, Paul Murray (summer)
  • Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner (summer)
  • Night Watch, Jayne Anne Phillips (summer)
  • Thornhedge, T. Kingfisher (summer)
  • The Imperial Radch Trilogy, Ann Leckie (summer)
  • Orbital, Samantha Harvey (summer)
  • The Vegetarian, Han Kang (summer)
  • I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home, Lorrie Moore (summer)
  • Some Desperate Glory, Emily Tesh (summer)
  • The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera (summer)
  • Summer 2025–Call Me by Your Name, Andre Aciman (summer)
  • Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier (summer)
  • Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury (summer)
  • The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith (summer)
  • Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin (summer)
  • The Known World, Edward P. Jones (summer)
  • A Room with a View, E. M Forster (summer)
  • Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward (summer)
  • To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf (summer)
  • Crazy Rich Asians, Kevin Kwan (summer)
  • The Keep, Jennifer Egan (summer)
  • The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (summer)
  • The Secret History, Donna Tartt (summer)
  • Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (summer)
  • Beach Read, Emily Henry (summer)
  • Bel Canto, Ann Patchett (summer)
  • Big Little Lies, Liane Moriarty (summer)
  • Daisy Jones & the Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid (summer)
  • Dial A for Aunties, Jesse Q. Sutanto (summer)
  • Everything I Never Told You, Celeste Ng (summer)
  • Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Fannie Flagg (summer)
  • Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn (summer)
  • My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante (summer)
  • Pachinko, Min Jin Lee (summer)
  • Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver (summer)
  • Red, White & Royal Blue, Casy McQuiston (summer)
  • Sag Harbor, Colson Whitehead (summer)
  • Seven Days in June, Tia Williams (summer)
  • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson (summer)
  • The God of the Woods, Liz Moore (summer)
  • The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (summer)
  • A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, Holly Jackson (summer)
  • The Martian, Andy Weir (summer)
  • Twilight, Stephanie Meyer (summer)
  • The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins (summer)
  • Scythe, Neil Schusterman (summer)
  • The Geographer’s Map to Romance, Indian Holton (summer)
  • Isola, Allegra Goodman (summer)
  • The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukerjee (summer)
  • To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (summer)
  • North Woods, Daniel Mason (summer)
  • Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar (summer)
  • Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell (summer)
  • Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver (summer)
  • The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien (summer)
  • A Prayer for Own Meany, John Irving (summer)
  • One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (summer)
  • The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien (summer)
  • Animal Farm, George Orwell (summer)
  • A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith (summer)
  • The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka (summer)
  • A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor (summer)
  • White Teeth, Zadie Smith (summer)
  • The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann (summer)
  • The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton (summer)
  • The Warmth of Other Suns, Elizabeth Wilkerson (summer)
  • The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman (summer)
  • In the Woods, Tana French (summer)
  • And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie (summer)
  • Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt (summer)
  • The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway (summer)
  • All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr (summer)
  • The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai (summer)
  • Miss Iceland, Audur Ava Olafsdottir (summer)
  • Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (summer)
  • The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (summer)
  • We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson (summer)
  • The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector (summer)
  • Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin (summer)
  • Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler (summer)
  • Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros (summer)
  • The House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune (summer)
  • The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (summer)
  • James, Percival Everett (summer)
  • September 2025–Iodine, Haven Kimmel (back to school)
  • Normal People, Sally Rooney (back to school)
  • Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis (back to school)
  • Bunny, Mona Awad (back to school)
  • Villette, Charlotte Bronte (back to school)
  • David Copperfield, Charles Dickens (back to school)
  • Matilda, Roald Dahl (back to school)
  • My Teacher Is an Alien, Bruce Coville (back to school)
  • Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery (back to school)
  • How to Train Your Dragon, Cressida Cowell (back to school)
  • Wonder, R. J. Palacio (back to school)
  • The Wheel on the School, Meindert DeJong (back to school)
  • I Speak Boy, Jessica Brody (back to school)
  • Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone, J. K. Rowling (back to school)
  • Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs (back to school)
  • The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky (back to school)
  • We Are Okay, Nina LaCour (back to school)
  • The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater (back to school)
  • One of Us Is Lying, Karen M. McManus (back to school)
  • Twelfth Knight, Alexene Farol Follmuth (back to school)
  • The Chocolate War, Robert Cormier (back to school)
  • Ghosted, Amanda Quain (back to school)
  • Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros (back to school)
  • Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card (back to school)
  • Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro (back to school)
  • If I See You Again Tomorrow, Robbie Couch (back to school)
  • “Dear Mountain Room Parents,” Maria Semple (back to school)
  • To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, Moniquill Blackgoose (back to school)
  • A Study in Charlotte, Brittany Cavarallo (back to school)
  • The School for Good and Evil, (back to school)
  • White Noise, Don DeLillo (back to school)
  • New Kid, Jerry Craft (back to school)
  • Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo (back to school)
  • Babel, R. F. Kuang (back to school)
  • My Oxford Year, Julia Whelan (back to school)
  • If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio (back to school)
  • The Secret Place, Tana French (back to school)
  • Lessons, Ian McEwan (back to school)
  • The Idiot, Elif Batuman (back to school)
  • Changing Places, David Lodge (back to school)
  • The Secret History, Donna Tartt (back to school)
  • Erasure, Percival Everett (back to school)
  • A Deadly Education, Naomi Novik (back to school)
  • The Love Hypothesis, Ali Hazlewood (back to school)
  • The Atlas Six, Olivie Blake (back to school)
  • Vicious, V. E. Schwab (back to school)
  • Blood Over Bright Haven, M. L. Wang (back to school)
  • Stoner, John Williams (back to school)
  • Nocticadia, Keri Lake (back to school)
  • The Deal, Elle Kennedy (back to school)
  • God of Wrath, Rina Kent (back to school)
  • Legendborn, Tracy Deon (back to school)
  • Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon (back to school)
  • Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh (back to school)
  • The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach (back to school)
  • The Magicians, Lev Grossman (back to school)
  • The Rebel Angels, Robertson Davies (back to school)
  • Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett (back to school)
  • The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss (back to school)
  • A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole (back to school)
  • Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld (back to school)
  • A Separate Peace, John Knowles (back to school)
  • Galatea 2.2, Richard Powers (back to school)
  • Old School, Tobias Wolff (back to school)
  • My Education, Susan Choi (back to school)
  • The Groves of Academe, Mary McCarthy (back to school)
  • Pnin, Vladimir Nabokov (back to school)
  • 2666, Robert Bolano (back to school)
  • Disgrace, J. M. Coetzee (back to school)
  • The Human Stain, Philip Roth (back to school)
  • Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers (back to school)
  • Possession, A. S. Bayatt (back to school)
  • Rez Ball, Byron Graves (back to school)
  • Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, Carlos Hernandez (back to school)
  • Truly Devious, Maureen Johnson (back to school)
  • A Very Large Expanse of Sea, Tehereh Mafi (back to school)
  • I Have Some Questions for You, Rebecca Makkai (back to school)
  • True Biz, Sara Novic (back to school)

PAIRINGS (like books and movies)

  • May 2024–The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen and The Sympathizer Max series (2024)
  • Dark Matter, Blake Crouch and Dark Matter Apple TV+ series (2024)
  • A Man in Full, Tom Wolfe and A Man in Full Netflix movie (2024)
  • Dragonkeeper, Carole Wilkinson and Dragonkeeper movie (2024)
  • Romancing Mr. Bridgerton (Bridgerton #4), Julia Quinn and Bridgerton season 3, Netflix series (2024)
  • Garfield series, Jim Davis and The Garfield Movie (2024)
  • Robot Dreams, Sarah Varon and Robot Dreams (2024)
  • The Idea of You, Robinne Lee and The Idea of You Amazon Prime series (2024)
  • Manhunt, James L. Swanson and Manhunt Apple TV+ series (2024)
  • If It’s Not Impossible…, Barbara Winton and One Life streaming series (2024)
  • The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu and 3 Body Problem Netflix series (2024)
  • We Were the Lucky Ones, Georgia Hunter and We Were the Lucky Ones Hulu movie (2024)
  • A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles and A Gentleman in Moscow Paramount+ series (2024)
  • The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith and Ripley Netflix series (2024)
  • Shogun, James Clavell and Shogun Hulu serues (2024)
  • Dune, James Herbert and Dune: Part Two (2024)
  • Summer 2025–Murderbot Diaries series (Martha Wells) and Murderbot Diaries series (2025-)
  • Mickey 7 (Edward Ashton) and Mickey 17 (movie, 2025)

AWARD WINNERS

  • December 2025–The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother), Rabih Alameddine (National Book Award)
  • Flesh, David Szalay (Booker Prize)
  • Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq (International Booker)
  • James, Percival Everett (Pulitzer)
  • Laszlo Krasznahorkai (Satantango, etc.) (Nobel Prize)
  • The First State of Being, Erin Entrada Kelly (Newbery)
  • Chooch Helped, Andrea L. Rogers and Rebecca Lee Kunz (Caldecott)
  • My Friends, Hisham Matar (NOT Fredrik Backman) (Book Critics Circle)
  • The Safekeep, Yael van der Wouden (Women’s Prize)
  • Small Rain, Garth Greenwell (PEN/Faulkner)
  • The Slip, Lucas Schaefer (Kirkus)
  • The Tainted Cup, Robert Jackson Bennett (Hugo)
  • Between Earth and Sky, Rebecca Roahorse (Hugo series)
  • Sheine Lende, Darcie Little Badger (Lodestar)
  • Someone You Can Build a Nest In, John Wiswell (Nebula)
  • My Friends, Fredrik Backman (Goodreads Choice Fiction)
  • Atmosphere, Taylor Jenkins Reid (Goodreads Choice Historical Fiction)
  • Not Quite Dead Yet, Holly Jackson (Goodreads Choice Mystery/Thriller)
  • Great Big Beautiful Life, Emily Henry (Goodreads Choice Romance)
  • Onyx Storm, Rebecca Yarros (Goodreads Choice Romantasy)
  • Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, V. E. Schwab (Goodreads Choice Fantasy)
  • The Compound, Aisling Rawle (Goodreads Choice Science Fiction)
  • Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, Grady Hendrix (Goodreads Choice Horror)
  • Alchemised, Sen Lin Yu (Goodreads Choice Debut)
  • Sunrise on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins (Goodreads Choice YA Spec Fic)
  • Fake Skating, Lynn Painter (Goodreads Choice YA)
  • Everything Is Tuberculosis, John Green (Goodreads Choice Nonfiction)
  • The House of My Mother, Shari Franke (Goodreads Choice Memoir)
  • How to Kill a Witch, Zoe Venditozzi and Claire Mitchell (Goodreads Choice History)