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 235 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.
- A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
- Sheep Calm and Merry On
- The Shots You Take
- A Physical Education
- Honey Trap
- The Larks Still Bravely Singing
- Deck the Halls with Secret Agents
- Fall into You
- Benefit
- The Starseekers
- Psychopomp & Circumstance
- The Language of Liars
- The Odyssey
- Lives of the Saints
- Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
- Postwar
- Playworld
- The Wolf at the Door
- Mr Collins in Love
- Cloud Atlas
- Ninth House
- Hell Bent
- Dead Beat
- Land
- Bomber
- The Shadow of the Wind
- I'll Believe in Anything
- Seasons of Glass and Iron
- The Iliad
- Operation Mincemeat
- The Raven Scholar
- David Bowie Made Me Gay
- Midnight Timetable
- All the Seas of the World
- Written on the Dark
- The Song of Achilles
- The Power Broker
- Long Live Evil
- All Hail Chaos
- Blood over Bright Haven
- Punch Drunk Love
- John of John
- Dearly Departed
- Thirty Love
- Last Call
- Meet Me in the Bathroom
- The Magician of Tiger Castle
- Mobility
- How to Break Up with your Phone
- The Husbands
- The Spear Cuts Through Water
- The Westing Game
- Achilles in Vietnam
- A Shadow Intelligence
- The Outer Country
- Mairelon the Magician
- I Leave it Up to You
- Prospero's Cell
- The Everlasting
- The Red Winter
- The Will of the Many
- Station Eleven
- A Star is Scorned
- All is Bright
- Bodies of Magic
- Exit Party
- Every Time a Bell Rings
- It Was Her House First
- Ravenna
- Men at Arms
- Guards! Guards!
- Jane Austen's Bookshelf
- The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps
- Spoiler Alert
- A Restless Truth
- A Power Unbound
- The Moor's Last Sigh
- Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
- Niccolo Rising
- Death in Venice
- The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England
- Last Night of the Telegraph Club
- The Butterfly Koi
- Redshirts
- A History of What Comes Next
- Patchwork
- The Unspoken Name
- Supergods
- Press Reset
- Down the Nile
- In Memoriam
- The Hands of the Emperor
- The Starless Sea
- Three Parts Dead
- The Marquis Who Mustn't
- A Natural
- Together We Burn
- Five Points
- Funny Girl
- The Bell in the Fog
- Winter's Orbit
- Woodworking
- Health at Every Size
- Time and Tide
- Witchmark
- Let Me Tell You What I Mean
- Better Than Before
- Jane, Unlimited
- Game Changer
- Heated Rivalry
- Tough Guy
- Etiquette & Espionage
- Common Goal
- Role Model
- The Long Game
- The Ten Thousand Doors of January
- The National Team
- Empires of the Word
- Fellow Travelers
- Mike Nichols: A Life
- Brideshead Revisited
- A World Worth Saving
- Why I Cook
- A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking
- Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography
- Down Girl
- The City of Brass
- A Shore Thing
- Tooth and Claw
- Swordspoint
- The Story of England
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
- Unravel the Dark
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
- Hither, Page
- River-Horse
- The Tiger's Daughter
- The Warrior Heir
- The History of England
- The Black Company
- Most Ardently
- The Last Devil to Die
- Vinegar Girl
- Freed by Flame and Storm
- Demoting Vishnu
- My Body
- Mo Dao Zu Shi
- Gotham Writers' Workshop Writing Fiction
- The Emperor's Blades
- The Steerswoman's Road
- Flying Solo
- The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
- The Duke Who Didn't
- Good and Mad
- Unrivaled
- Red Sea Under Red Sky
- The Republic of Thieves
- "More"
- The Quantum Thief
- Kushiel's Dart
- The Infinite Noise
- The Office of Historical Corrections
- The Widow Queen
- The Grace of Kings
- The Scottish Boy
- Trickster's Choice
- The Space Between Worlds
- The Blind Dragon
- Bitter Medicine
- A Memoir of My Former Self
- Autonomous
- The Alloy of Law
- A Darker Shade of Magic
- A Gathering of Shadows
- A Conjuring of Light
- Hagseed
- A Sorceress Comes to Call
- Invincible
- The Golden Mean
- I Capture the Castle
- A Discovery of Witches
- Shadow of Night
- The Book of Life
- Pictures at a Revolution
- Remix
- The Necessary Beggar
- The King's Man
- Impossible Owls
- The Magicians
- Witch King
- Gardens of the Moon
- At Swim, Two Boys
- Swordcrossed
- A Shadow in Summer
- Eve of Darkness
- The Power
- Manhunt
- Dayspring
- The Pacific Circuit
- Light From Uncommon Stars
- Just Like You
- The Honey Witch
- Giovanni's Room
- Harrow the Ninth
- Nona the Ninth
- Alecto the Ninth
- The Vagina Bible
- Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows
- The Paris Apartment
- Lessons in Magic and Disaster
- Stargazy Pie
- Bee Sting Cake
- The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry
- Yes Please
- Rogue Heroes
- All the Feels
- Das Reboot
- The Prisoner's Throne
- Prophet
- Our Evenings
- Forged in Hell
- Enlightenment
- Hemlock & Silver
- Nicked
- Double Cross
- Spellbound
- Sunshine
- The Lilac People
- From Football to Soccer
- Here, There be Dragons
- Gift Horses
- The Sparsholt Affair
- Madly, Deeply
- The Wager
- The Appeal
- Wayfaring Strangers
- Infinite Jest
- Alan Opts Out
- Beth March Returns from the Dead
- Empire of the Steppes
- Babel
- Mama's Boy
- The Three-Body Problem
- The Priory of the Orange Tree
- Empress of the East
- Death in the Spires
- Middlegame
- Making Movies
- A Spy Among Friends
- House of Government
- Effingers
- A Suitable Boy
- Angel Down
- The Letters of Noel Coward
- All the Birds in the Sky
- Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers
- Killers of the Flower Moon
- Truthwitch
- The Traitor Baru Cormorant
- Why We Swim
- Joseph and His Brothers
- Big Friendship
- The Bright Sword
- Cinder House
- Agent Sonya
- New Spring
- A Place of Greater Safety
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