I am posting my 2026 Master List in May, which honestly feels pretty appropriate for this year! But it's sunny and warm out, so maybe this is the start I actually need for this project this year.
I also didn't read a ton of books in the first third of the year, largely because all of my narrative brain space was taken up by two television shows I remain obsessed with, the writing I want to do for both of them, the Olympics, and two other ongoing sports leagues. To put it bluntly, my ability to focus on new books was pretty bad, but less because of everything going on in the world in 2026 and more because I had too much else to focus on. So! I'm not mad about that, even though I do want to read a lot more than I did in the first part of the year.
Other things! Last year felt like an off year for me reading-wise, but I read 45 new books and 6 rereads, and that's almost one book a week! As is true most years, I read mostly in chunks, and about half of the books on my list were books that had already been on my list at the beginning of the year, and half of them were new additions. That doesn't bode well for the idea of me making a dent in my current list, but well that's the nature of this project. I am also getting better at not finishing books or even just taking a book off the list before even starting it if I feel like it's just not actually what I'm interested in anymore.
Anyway, here is this year's list! I'm starting with 238 books, and while I do not expect to get to bookcase zero by the end of the year, I would like to end the year with closer to a hundred rather than two hundred.
- The History of England
- On Dancer
- Sheep Calm and Merry On
- The Shots You Take
- The Wolf at the Door
- Game Changer
- Heated Rivalry
- Tough Guy
- Agent Sonya
- Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
- A Physical Education
- The Will of the Many
- It Was Her House First
- A Star is Scorned
- Honey Trap
- The Larks Still Bravely Singing
- Deck the Halls with Secret Agents
- Fall into You
- Recipe for Trouble
- The Power Broker
- Wrecked for the Holidays
- Look Up, Handsome
- The Song of Achilles
- Tic-Tac-Mistletoe
- Hashtag Holidate
- All is Bright
- Death in Venice
- Patchwork
- Dayspring
- The Butterfly Koi
- Etiquette & Espionage
- Ninth House
- Hell Bent
- In Memoriam
- Mr Collins in Love
- The Husbands
- Lessons in Magic and Disaster
- Guards! Guards!
- Men at Arms
- All the Seas of the World
- Written on the Dark
- A Restless Truth
- A Power Unbound
- Nicked
- Winter's Orbit
- Cinder House
- Last Call
- Meet Me in the Bathroom
- The Horse's Mouth
- The Magician of Tiger Castle
- A Memoir of My Former Self
- Wayfaring Strangers
- Glorious Exploits
- Hemlock & Silver
- Our Evenings
- The Silence of the Lambs
- A Spy Among Friends
- Enlightenment
- Forged in Hell
- House of Government
- Manhunt
- Flying Solo
- A Place of Greater Safety
- The Paris Apartment
- The Everlasting
- The Duke Who Didn't
- The Prisoner's Throne
- The National Team
- The Lilac People
- Rogue Heroes
- Most Ardently
- A World Worth Saving
- Swordcrossed
- Hither, Page
- Cloud Atlas
- Benefit
- River-Horse
- Unravel the Dark
- The Hands of the Emperor
- Empires of the Word
- A Natural
- The Quantum Thief
- The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England
- A History of What Comes Next
- The Moor's Last Sigh
- Vinegar Girl
- Let Me Tell You What I Mean
- Babel
- Spoiler Alert
- The Wager
- Niccolo Rising
- Supergods
- Press Reset
- Down the Nile
- Gotham Writers' Workshop Writing Fiction
- Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
- The Starless Sea
- I Leave it Up to You
- A Discovery of Witches
- The Bell in the Fog
- Yes Please
- Last Night of the Telegraph Club
- The Black Company
- Double Cross
- The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps
- Mike Nichols: A Life
- The Priory of the Orange Tree
- The Ten Thousand Doors of January
- Prophet
- A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
- Hagseed
- Redshirts
- Health at Every Size
- David Bowie Made Me Gay
- The Three-Body Problem
- Freed by Flame and Storm
- The Pacific Circuit
- My Body
- The Infinite Noise
- Woodworking
- The Steerswoman's Road
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
- A Shadow Intelligence
- Rejection
- The Last Devil to Die
- Fellow Travelers
- Witchmark
- The Unspoken Name
- The Marquis Who Mustn't
- The Warrior Heir
- Pictures at a Revolution
- Jane, Unlimited
- Making Movies
- Three Parts Dead
- Station Eleven
- Demoting Vishnu
- The Story of England
- Tooth and Claw
- Ravenna
- The Emperor's Blades
- Swordspoint
- Killers of the Flower Moon
- A Shore Thing
- Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography
- A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking
- Together We Burn
- Empress of the East
- Funny Girl
- The Tiger's Daughter
- The Scottish Boy
- Long Live Evil
- Why I Cook
- Time and Tide
- The Appeal
- Five Points
- Down Girl
- The City of Brass
- Brideshead Revisited
- I Capture the Castle
- The Widow Queen
- Gardens of the Moon
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
- "More"
- The King's Man
- The Office of Historical Corrections
- A Sorceress Comes to Call
- Red Sea Under Red Sky
- A Darker Shade of Magic
- The Blind Dragon
- Mo Dao Zu Shi
- The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
- Better Than Before
- The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry
- Eve of Darkness
- The Alloy of Law
- The Space Between Worlds
- Stargazy Pie
- Bee Sting Cake
- Autonomous
- Operation Mincemeat
- The Necessary Beggar
- Trickster's Choice
- The Honey Witch
- Remix
- Good and Mad
- Kushiel's Dart
- Bitter Medicine
- Just Like You
- Invincible
- The Grace of Kings
- The Magicians
- Impossible Owls
- At Swim, Two Boys
- Giovanni's Room
- Light From Uncommon Stars
- The Power
- Sunshine
- From Football to Soccer
- Here, There be Dragons
- Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows
- A Shadow in Summer
- Witch King
- Empire of the Steppes
- The Letters of Noel Coward
- The Vagina Bible
- All the Birds in the Sky
- The Bright Sword
- The Traitor Baru Cormorant
- New Spring
- Middlegame
- Das Reboot
- Mama's Boy
- Madly, Deeply
- Spellbound
- Truthwitch
- All the Feels
- Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers
- Why We Swim
- Big Friendship
- Gift Horses
- The Sparsholt Affair
- Death in the Spires
- Harrow the Ninth
- Mobility
- The Sleeping Soldier
- The Summer War
- The Red Winter
- Postwar
- A Marvellous Light
- Bomber
- Joseph and His Brothers
- Seasons of Glass and Iron
- Playworld
- The Starseekers
- Psychopomp & Circumstance
- The Language of Liars
- (Bound by Blood and Sand)
- The Golden Mean
No comments:
Post a Comment