The PolyBlog

Leveling up – From Goals to Pondside Planner

May 27 2026

I write a lot about goals. Goals for the day, goals for life, goals for the week. Goals before retirement. Setting goals, monitoring goals, achieving goals, dropping goals. Different types of goals, different types of methods for managing goals. Having goals as a goal in and of itself. Sometimes it veers into performance measurement.

Yet, all of the posts, regardless of the topic, are really about planning.

Hence, I’m going to rename the entire category “Pondside Planner”. Plus, I have long-term plans (hah!) for a book and an app with the same name. I have tentatively given it three related “descriptions”. Purpose, priorities, and progress; goals, grit, and growth; and fundamentals, focus, and frameworks. I know, they need work.

In the meantime, I’m upgrading my imagery too. In the past, I’ve used a combo of images. Initially, I loved the idea of my version of the “Insights Discovery”-type four-quadrant colour map. I even added a yin-yang symbol in the centre.

I even went all-in at one point on those motifs, with a much deeper framework diagram of a Personal Development Model (they both might resurface in the book / guide).

I also have specialized images for a larger quest, 60 things by age 60, 50 by 50, travel, experiences.

At different times, I’ve used and loved all of those images. By contrast, for the day-to-day stuff, I went with more mundane images. A planner, a checklist, an arrow hitting a target.

They have served me well over the last 25 years, although mostly in the last 15. But as I said in previous posts, I am leaning into the frog motif and the new name, the Pondside Planner. An almost new identity, built as much to reflect the energy of my warrior frog as the calm demeanour of my reader frog.

I’m showing the whole image for this one, not just the rounded view, as there is a lot going on in the image. The frog, of course, is a red-eyed tree frog. That’s standard.

He’s not just wearing glasses, he’s wearing MY glasses.

Working on a to-do list to signify goals, next to the pond aka Pondside.

There’s a penguin in the scene, my son’s avatar.

And I have a four-quadrant personality profile diagram on the wall behind him.

If you can’t read the to do list, it says:

Eat more flies
Start quest
Clean swamp

Oh, and a crossword puzzle, in honour of my father, who always had a crossword puzzle book on the go next to his kitchen chair.

That simple category image is pulling a lot of weight in a small space. I love it. And perhaps for the first time since I started the blog, the category of “goals” is now accurately reframed as “The Pondside Planner”.

Let me know whether you think the image is conveying “planner” well enough or if it could be improved with some better props, particularly if you have ideas!

Until the next project starts…

PolyWogg signature in green with a dark blue quill at the end.

Leveling up – Movie reviews

May 27 2026

Similar to the work on the Lilypad Library (my book reviews), I’ve upgraded my movie reviews, too. First and foremost, I’ve changed the name to Lilypad Cinema. Notice the theme? Yes, I’m leaning fully into the frog motif.

Second, I’ve upgraded my featured image. Previously, I used the couch potato-style image below, with the man slouching in front of a TV, or an image of a film projector.

But the ’90s called and it wanted its clipart back. So, here we are, my new froggified movie reviewer:

If I want something a little different for movies, there’s always my new projector image:

And, finally, I worked through a series of options for potential movie review “card” formats. I originally wanted to figure out a way to put the entire movie review on a card that could be shared on social media. But it doesn’t take long before the text overwhelms the card and I’m down to either dropping images of the movie poster OR reducing the text to 8-point font to get all to fit. Instead, I’ll go with some form of teaser card.

I have not written many movie reviews in recent years, mainly as I don’t GO to the movies as often as I would like (something I’m hoping to change in retirement), and partly as I didn’t like my current format. Now that I’ve solved the “social media” aspects, I feel more motivated to write some. I’m not fully ready to relaunch, but I’m hoping for at least one a week once I get going again.

Oh! And I have a new signature block too. 🙂

Until the next curtain opens…

Frog writing book review entries into a journal

Leveling up – Book reviews

May 26 2026

Soooo…I have said a few times over the last few years, “NEVER AGAIN WILL I EVER CHANGE MY BOOK REVIEWS FORMAT.”

Why? Because I am generally anal-retentive, and with 300 completed reviews, there is a niggly part of me where, if I change something, I want to go back and change all of them to match. I’ve done that three times. Once around the 100 mark; once again around 150 or so; and once around the 200 mark. I did a different kind of update around 275 or so where I added some code to each review on this site so that I could generate multiple indices without manually adding a file link to all of them.

All in all, I’ve been writing them the same way for 25+ years. A few tweaks here and there, a few major changes in format here and there, but I like my consistent format. So what could I want to change? Not my voice, not my harshness, not my layout, not my content, really. It’s just that…

The visuals are outdated

Let’s start with my featured image. I almost always use this image:

If I’m talking about writing book reviews, or something related to a library, I might use these ones:

Or maybe, on occasion, just me writing.

I liked my clipart, I did. But it is 25-year-old imaging. And having my visuals 25 years out of date does active damage to my brand. It’s time I leap over the millennium hump and enter a new age for my blog. To be honest, I’ve been playing with new visuals to improve things across the entire website, this is the first one I’ve actively blogged about.

Introducing: Book Reviewer Frog

This will be my new Book Reviewer image:

Yeah, I leaned in hard on the frog. It has always been my brand, always lurking softly and gently in the background, and I toy with it from time to time, but now I’ve fully committed. I am all in on the frog.

I have two more archetypal characters for myself: reader frog and warrior frog.

A red-eyed tree frog sitting on a lilypad in a swamp wearing glasses and reading a plain white hard-covered book.

A red-eyed tree frog dressed in brown leather armour on his torso with a sword attached to his hip and a shield resting against one knee, while standing on a rock in a swamp. The shield has a ying-yang symbol on it.

I’m also going to change my ratings frog. For the last ten years at least, I have used a symbol for my ratings, an icon if you will…🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪ meant three polywoggs out of five. I’ve used it in my page headings and in my reviews. And it’s okay, but when I wanted to make something a little more visual for my reviews, maybe a little more social media-friendly, it didn’t really work. Way too emoji-ish — like an ancestor before emojis really existed. Sometimes I used an old GIF:

Annnnnyway, I need a new ratings frog, so here he is. His name is Neo…part real world, part avatar.

A red-eyed tree frog smiling and sitting on a lilypad, looking straight forward at the viewer.

All of which is good. But is it enough? No.

Introducing the Froggification process

As I looked at a bunch of my images and material, much of it does very little to encourage interaction or even reaction. I have the book image, sure, like the one below from my second book review on file:

And I can do an image card that directs people to the site to see the review, include a teaser of the content, all of that…most of the professional sites out there are doing stars or aggregating their logos and # of reviews (Amazon, GoodReads, etc.). That’s not really my thing. What could I use as a “froggy” hook? Well, what if I froggified the existing cover?

I took a book cover and put frogs in the place of the characters. It worked a little too well; they look like an alien species, not really Star Trek-y.

I leaned a little harder on the frog premise, and I got Star Frog! An even more alien species and uniform, perhaps a step too far.

I decided to try a different approach and took the original cover three images back and turned it into this:

I am quite amused by that. Hence, my new approach for cards to go with my reviews. I’m going to “froggify” the covers somehow. Just cuz I can. Let’s see me try that with the old clipart. 🙂

Anyway, that’s what I have so far. And no, I’m not going back to do 300 reviews that way. I don’t think. Maybe I’ll do random ones from time to time, just for fun. But mostly I’ll be doing my new reviews. Alas, this will take longer than the original process which was already long enough. It’s fun, though.

Oh, I almost forgot

I’m also going to change the name of the category to the Lilypad Library. 🙂

Feel free to give me feedback on any of it. It’s a long work in progress. Until the next book,

Book clubs 2026-05: May the rigour be with you (it wasn’t with me)

May 22 2026

Ah, April showers have brought us May books. Wait, that’s not the right saying. I’ll get back to you on that.

Remember last month when I said I was going to show rigour? Well, that didn’t happen. With the larger intake base, I have 119 entries for consideration this month. Of which, I only said yes or maybe to 37 of them! I went from over 32% all the way down to 31%. Hmm…crickets. I hear crickets. But don’t worry, I’m going to fix that! Next month I’ll be weeding some clubs from the future list. That may not help as the ones I’ll be weeding are the ones that normally contribute to the denominator of book math, not the numerator. Sigh.

Total: 119 rows for May 2026. Poly mix: 12 YES, 25 MAYBE, 82 NO.

YES:

Murder by Design, Lee Goldberg — I love Lee, follow him online, read all his stuff, and met him at Bouchercon this past September. Definitely on my automatic yes list.
The Confession Artist, Christine Carbo — This one sounded interesting from Amazon First Reads, and I read it this month already. Quite good. Not 5 stars, but definitely 4 stars.
Down the River Unto the Sea, Walter Mosley — I read this one back in 2020, and quite enjoyed it. The link is to my review where I gave it 4 stars.
The Things We Never Say, Elizabeth Strout
Mad Mabel, Sally Hepworth
The Art of a Lie, Laura Shepherd-Robinson
The Horse and His Boy, C.S. Lewis — I’ve read all of the Narnia series, but haven’t reviewed them yet.
The Magician’s Nephew, C.S. Lewis
The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis
The Queens of Crime, Marie Benedict
Start at the End, Emma Grey
Value(s), Mark Carney

MAYBE:

Two Lives with You, Lauren Ho
The Magic of Us, Beth Merlin; Danielle Modafferi
Almost Life, Kiran Millwood Hargrave
The Last Contract of Isako, Fonda Lee
Change of Plans, Sarah Dessen
Homebound, Portia Elan
The Sex Lives of Cannibals, J. Maarten Troost
The Fourth Option, Jack Carr; M.P. Woodward
This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, Ilona Andrews
The Last Letters of Sally and Walter, Cammie McGovern
Yellowface, R.F. Kuang
2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
This Inevitable Ruin, Matt Dinniman
The Fine Art of Lying, Alexandra Andrews
Joyful, Anyway, Kate Bowler
Scattered Minds, Gabor Mate
Planet Money, Alex Mayyasi
The Let Them Theory, Mel Robbins; Sawyer Robbins
The Meaning of Your Life, Arthur C. Brooks
The Bookshop, Evan Friss
The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk
Mutual Aid, Dean Spade
The Mother-Daughter Book Club, Susan Patterson; James Patterson
The Escape Game, Marissa Meyer; Tamara Moss
The Way Things Work, David Macaulay

Book Club	Book title & author	Brief Description	Yes/no for me
Amazon First Reads	The Replacement, Liv Constantine	Hollywood icon befriends rising costar with secret agenda	NO
	Two Lives with You, Lauren Ho	A chance for a do-over to see life without partner	MAYBE
	Murder by Design, Lee Goldberg	Insurance investigator with TBI decodes crimes enabled by design	YES
	The Promise of Wonder, Katherine Webb	1889 Dorset tragedy reframed after 30 years	NO
	The Confession Artist, Christine Carbo	Serial killer’s sketch lookalikes have six days to confess publicly	YES
	The Magic of Us, Beth Merlin; Danielle Modafferi	Tarot spell rewrites love-skeptic radio host’s past with old fling	MAYBE
	The Girl in the Lake, Lauren Oliver	Rationalist psychologist investigates child’s past-life memory claim	NO
	Westerly, Susan Donovan Bernhard	Generational secrets unravel across postwar Germany Ireland and Maine	NO
	The Quitters Club, Jessica Strawser	Four forty-something friends help each other quit and start over	NO
Audacious	The Violence, Adriana E. Ramirez	Colombia’s la violencia traced through grandmother Esther’s family finca	NO
Barnes & Noble	Good Joy, Bad Joy, Mikki Brammer	Eighty-something Joy breaks rules with terminally-ill best friend Hazel	NO — REPEAT
BBC Radio 2	The Wreck, Lizzy Stewart	Two 1980s couples test commune dream in English countryside	NO
Belletrist	Almost Life, Kiran Millwood Hargrave	Brokeback Mountain, but with women in Paris	MAYBE
Black Men Read	Down the River Unto the Sea, Walter Mosley	NYPD-discredited PI investigates frame-up while solving cop killings	YES
Book of the Month	Good Joy, Bad Joy, Mikki Brammer	Eighty-something Joy breaks rules with terminally-ill best friend Hazel	NO — REPEAT
	Seek the Traitor’s Son, Veronica Roth	Enemy soldiers Elegy and Rava share prophecy of one’s victory	NO
	Dissection of a Murder, Jo Murray	Young barrister defends accused killer against prosecutor husband	NO
	Canon, Paige Lewis	Reluctant teen and ambitious prophet compete on quests appointed by God	NO
	The Last Contract of Isako, Fonda Lee	Aging samurai takes one last contract on corporate-ruled frozen planet	MAYBE
	The Burning Side, Sarah Damoff	Family saga from alternating views after devastating house fire	NO
Everyday Reading	The Unthinkable, Amanda Ripley	Survival psychology: who freezes when disasters strike and why	NO
Globe & Mail	A Woman’s Place, Danielle Steel	Titanic survivor inherits Manchester mill, breaks gender barriers in early 1900s	NO
	Hope Rises, David Baldacci	FBI informant becomes mercenary to take down global crime queen	NO
	Rites of the Starling, Devney Perry	Calandra’s five kingdoms face destruction as Starling magic awakens romance	NO
	Alchemised, SenLinYu	Captive resistance witch finds dark romance with necromancer captor post-war	NO
	Dire Bound, Sable Sorensen	Vengeful queen, bonded direwolf, dangerous Alpha in dark romantasy	NO
	When the Forest Breathes, Suzanne Simard	Forest ecologist on tree intelligence, renewal cycles, and ecosystem threats	NO
	The Hidden Hand, Warren Kinsella	Political strategist analyzes propaganda war fueling rising antisemitism in Canada	NO
	Joyful, Anyway, Kate Bowler	Cancer survivor’s wry, tender search for joy amid pain and longing	MAYBE
	Value(s), Mark Carney	Former central banker on misplaced market values and four global crises	YES
	When the Body Says No, Gabor Mate	Physician’s case for stress, trauma, and unsaid emotions causing chronic illness	NO
	Scattered Minds, Gabor Mate	Physician’s case for ADD as developmental impairment rather than genetic illness	MAYBE
Good Housekeeping	Take Me with You, Steven Rowley	College professor’s husband vanishes into Joshua Tree beam of light	NO
Good Morning America – Adult	Homebound, Portia Elan	Video game connects four characters across centuries from 1983 to space	MAYBE
Good Morning America – Young Adult	Change of Plans, Sarah Dessen	Teen summer at unknown family vacation home, romance, mother’s secrets	MAYBE
GoodReads Mystery	The Family Upstairs, Lisa Jewell	Chelsea mansion inheritance unlocks trauma and three corpses from 1990s	NO
	Don’t Let Him In, Lisa Jewell	Three women linked to charming serial con-man Nick across multiple identities	NO
I Care About Books	The Sex Lives of Cannibals, J. Maarten Troost	Two-year misadventure on remote Tarawa island, far from imagined paradise	MAYBE
Indie Bestsellers	American Fantasy, Emma Straub	Newly-divorced fiftysomething joins nostalgic 90s boy band fan cruise	NO
	Cherry Baby, Rainbow Rowell	Cherry rebuilds her identity after husband caricatures her in viral webcomic	NO
	Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter, Heather Fawcett	Cat shelter manager and disreputable wizard ally in 1920s Montreal	NO
	Everything Is Tuberculosis, John Green	History of tuberculosis told through friendship with a Sierra Leonean patient	NO
	The Serviceberry, Robin Wall Kimmerer	Indigenous scientist’s meditation on gift economies through the serviceberry tree	NO
	Lessons from Cats for Surviving Fascism, Stewart Reynolds	Humorist’s eleven cat-inspired strategies for resisting fascism	NO
	Planet Money, Alex Mayyasi	NPR podcast hosts on economics through real-world stories	MAYBE
	The Let Them Theory, Mel Robbins; Sawyer Robbins	Two-word mantra for releasing your grip on others’ choices	MAYBE
	The Meaning of Your Life, Arthur C. Brooks	Harvard happiness expert on finding purpose in modern emptiness	MAYBE
	The Road to Tender Hearts, Annie Hartnett	Darkly comic cross-country road trip with widower, kids, death-predicting cat	NO
	Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar	Iranian-American poet addict’s existential quest through martyrdom and family secrets	NO
	Dear Debbie, Freida McFadden	Advice columnist’s life unravels into vigilante payback against deserving targets	NO
	Be Ready When the Luck Happens, Ina Garten	Barefoot Contessa’s path from D.C. bureaucrat to Food Network star	NO
	All About Love, bell hooks	bell hooks redefines love as ethical practice, not romantic feeling	NO
	The Bookshop, Evan Friss	Two-century history of American bookstores, from Franklin to Amazon	MAYBE
	The Wager, David Grann	1741 British shipwreck off Patagonia, mutiny, and London court-martial	NO
	The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk	Trauma’s effects on brain and body; somatic and innovative treatment approaches	MAYBE
	Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe	IRA disappearance investigation as window onto Northern Ireland’s Troubles	NO
	Mutual Aid, Dean Spade	Spade’s theory and practical guide to mutual aid as movement infrastructure	MAYBE
Jack Carr	The Fourth Option, Jack Carr; M.P. Woodward	Ex-SEAL pursues vigilante justice for fallen friend’s son lost to opioids	MAYBE
Jeselnik	Stoner, John Williams	Quiet bildungsroman of Missouri farm boy turned English professor	NO
Jewish Book Council – Fiction	Fagin the Thief, Allison Epstein	Dickensian London origin story for Oliver Twist’s Jewish villain Fagin	NO
Jewish Book Council – Nonfiction	The Prosecutor, Jack Fairweather	Jewish judge’s decade-long fight to prosecute Nazis in postwar Germany	NO
Katie Couric	The Things We Never Say, Elizabeth Strout	Massachusetts history teacher’s hidden isolation meets life-upending revelation	YES
Late Show	Ghost Town, Tom Perrotta	Eighth-grader’s grief-stricken summer 1974, Ouija board, dangerous older friends	NO
Main Street Reads – Banter	The Last Letters of Sally and Walter, Cammie McGovern	Retirement-home Scrabble romance between newcomer and intense champion	MAYBE
Main Street Reads – Fantasy	This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, Ilona Andrews	Reader trapped in fantasy novel as immortal heroine preventing kingdom’s war	MAYBE
Main Street Reads – Kids	Mystery on Macaw Mountain, Maria Jose Fitzgerald	Honduran cousins investigate theft of macaws from Mayan-ruins sanctuary	NO
Main Street Reads – Romance	West of Wicked, Nikki St. Crowe	Dark romantasy Wizard of Oz retelling, cursed Oz, mysterious mercenary love	NO
Main Street Reads – Thriller	All the Little Houses, May Cobb	Mid-1980s Texas: ruthless mom and golden-girl daughter face prairie-perfect rivals	NO
Mocha Girls Read	Yellowface, R.F. Kuang	White writer steals dead Chinese-American friend’s manuscript, publishes as her own	MAYBE
Natalie Portman	Famesick, Lena Dunham	Three-act memoir: Dunham’s fame from Girls, chronic illness, drugs, regrets	NO
NYT Bestsellers	Purple State, Dana Perino	Three NYC friends move to Wisconsin swing district in political rom-com	NO
	The Mother-Daughter Book Club, Susan Patterson; James Patterson	College friends and their daughters reunite at Lake Como after tragedy	MAYBE
	Paradox, Douglas Preston; Aletheia Preston	CBI agent and sheriff investigate murders tied to Fermi-paradox cult	NO
	When We See You Again, Rachel Goldberg-Polin; Jon Polin	Mother’s memoir of son Hersh’s hostage ordeal and execution in Gaza	NO
	The Future Is Peace, Aziz Abu Sarah; Maoz Inon	Palestinian and Israeli peace activists journey together across the Holy Land	NO
	This Vast Enterprise, Craig Fehrman	New multi-perspective history of the Lewis and Clark expedition	NO
	For the Love of the Grind, Sara Hall	Distance runner’s memoir of career, faith, marriage, and adoption	NO
	Release Me, Tahereh Mafi	Rosabelle seeks revenge against Ark Island’s surveillance state	NO
	The Escape Game, Marissa Meyer; Tamara Moss	Teens compete on escape-room game show while hunting a murderer	MAYBE
	The Thorn Queen, Sasha Peyton Smith	Queen Ivy plots against faerie husband while loving his brother Emmett	NO
	The Way Things Work, David Macaulay	Illustrated reference explaining how hundreds of machines and technologies work	MAYBE
PBS Books	This Is Not About Us, Allegra Goodman	A family convinced the problem is never them	NO
Poisoned Pen – British	Missing, E. A. Jackson	British detective investigates baby’s disappearance from hotel; past/present timelines	NO
Poisoned Pen – Cozy	The Primrose Murder Society, Stacy Hackney	Mother-daughter cold-case sleuthing in retirement building for $2M reward	NO
Poisoned Pen – Crime	Mad Mabel, Sally Hepworth	Old lady who murders was once a young lady who murdered.	YES
Poisoned Pen – Historical	The Art of a Lie, Laura Shepherd-Robinson	1749 Georgian London: widowed confectioner caught in con-artist game	YES
	The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton, Jennifer N. Brown	Dual-timeline Tudor mystery: academic uncovers prophecies of “Maid of Kent”	NO
Poisoned Pen – Mystery	City on Fire, Simon Elegant	Hong Kong detective investigates murder during 2020 protests, sister-protester	NO
Poisoned Pen – Noir	Wolvers, Taylor Brown	Ruined rancher torn between hunting and protecting wolves in Gila Wilderness	NO
Poisoned Pen – Romance	The Last Lady B, Eloisa James	Regency Bluebeard retelling: married heroine falls for Sir Godric Everly	NO
Read with Jenna	Caller Unknown, Gillian McAllister	Texas vacation kidnapping forces mother to commit crime to save daughter	NO
Reader’s Digest	Keeper of Lost Children, Sadeqa Johnson	Post-WWII Germany: three interconnected lives tied to real Brown Baby Plan	NO
Reddit – Discovery	Everything I Never Told You, Celeste Ng	Chinese-American family unravels after favorite daughter Lydia found dead in lake	NO
Reddit – Evergreen	Beloved, Toni Morrison	Escaped slave in Civil War-era Ohio haunted by murdered daughter’s spirit	NO
Reddit	Perfume, Patrick Suskind	Odorless 18th-century perfumer murders virgins to capture their scent	NO
	The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X; Alex Haley	Civil rights leader’s life from petty crime to Mecca pilgrimage and assassination	NO
	Morning Glory Milking Farm, C.M. Nascosta	Human-monster romance: indebted millennial works at minotaur milking farm	NO
	The City of Brass, S.A. Chakraborty	Cairo con artist summons djinn, discovers Daevabad heritage and court politics	NO
	The Ice, Ryan Cahill	Aeson treks icy Valacia to find dragon egg for the rebellion	NO
	Chapterhouse: Dune, Frank Herbert	Bene Gesserit defend Chapterhouse against invading Honored Matres after spice loss	NO
	The Horse and His Boy, C.S. Lewis	Calormen orphan and talking horse race to warn Narnia of invasion	YES
	The Magician’s Nephew, C.S. Lewis	London children with magic rings witness creation of Narnia by Aslan	YES
	The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis	False Aslan triggers final war and end of Narnian world	YES
	The Secret Commonwealth, Philip Pullman	Adult Lyra investigates Magisterium rose trade conspiracy	NO
	This Inevitable Ruin, Matt Dinniman	Carl and Donut survive Faction Wars on the dungeon’s ninth floor	MAYBE
	Planet of Exile, Ursula K. Le Guin	Earth colonists on Werel ally with natives against approaching barbarians	NO
	Storm of Locusts, Rebecca Roanhorse	Indigenous monster-hunter Maggie chases a locust-summoning cult	NO
Reddit – SciFi	2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke	Astronauts and HAL the AI encounter alien monoliths on Jupiter mission	MAYBE
Reddit – World	Ali and Nino, Kurban Said	Cross-cultural Baku romance amid WWI between Muslim boy and Christian girl	NO
	Days in the Caucasus, Banine	Witty memoir of wealthy Azeri childhood in Baku amid Bolshevik revolution	NO
Reese	The Fine Art of Lying, Alexandra Andrews	NYC art-world wife’s affair tangles into murder and gallery duplicity	MAYBE
Secret Chapter Mystery	While Justice Sleeps, Stacey Abrams	Law clerk guardian to comatose Justice unravels chess-clue Washington conspiracy	NO
Service 95	So Late in the Day, Claire Keegan	Three Keegan stories on misogyny and gender dynamics in heterosexual relationships	NO
Stacks	Lonely Crowds, Stephanie Wambugu	Catholic-school outsiders’ decades-long friendship through NYC’s ’90s art world	NO
Sunnie Reads	That Which Feeds Us, Keala Kendall	Teen searches Hawaiian island resort for missing twin amid colonial horror	NO
Sunriver – Fiction	Table for Two, Amor Towles	Six NYC stories and an LA novella continuing Rules of Civility’s Evelyn	NO
Sunriver – Mystery	The Queens of Crime, Marie Benedict	Sayers, Christie, and three peers investigate a 1930 locked-room murder	YES
TeaTime	My Dear You, Rachel Khong	Ten imaginative stories on love, dating, marriage, afterlife, and being dead	NO
Zibby’s	Start at the End, Emma Grey	Audrey and Fraser’s sliding-doors romance with tragedy and unwritten endings	YES

April showers may bring May flowers (I knew that I knew the right phrase), but January to April brought way too many clubs. They’re sprouting up like weeds! I could just dump all the maybes. 🙂 If, of course, I had any rigour. Which I didn’t. I wonder if any of the non-fiction books next month will offer me ways to be more rigorous in my curation.

Cleaning up book club lists for January to April

May 21 2026

In my last post, I noted that I’m monitoring 40+ book clubs for “new to me” titles to consider putting on my TBR pile. There is an inherent challenge that I’m saying yes or maybe to between 15-20% of the titles, which is WAY MORE BOOKS THAN I CAN READ. I’ll have to trim those down.

In the meantime, I realized that the various book club announcements are not set for the first of the month for every club. Some don’t even announce on a schedule — just randomly, some day during the month. That triggers my OCD and analytical annoyance genes. Which means when I review, say, the books for January, not all the books are out. And then I do February, and might miss late announcements from January when I only review the February announcements. And so on for each subsequent month. I can miss titles.

I say to myself (while rubbing my hands together with an evil laugh), I can use AI to go back and find those gaps so I don’t have to worry about it myself. Here are the books I missed earlier this year.

Backfill: The lost books of the month club

Total: 89 rows across January-April that never appeared on a monthly options post. Poly mix: 9 YES, 20 MAYBE, 60 NO. Oh, look, I’m almost to a full third. Sigh.

January 2026

27 rows

YES:

The Briar Club, Kate Quinn

MAYBE:

Zed Moonstein Makes a Friend, Lance Rubin
Bonded By Thorns, Elizabeth Helen
Anxious People, Fredrik Backman
Crow Mary, Kathleen Grissom

Book Club	Book title & author	Brief Description	Yes/no for me
Audacious	The Hitch, Sara Levine	Aunt babysits nephew claiming dead corgi’s soul possesses him	NO
BBC Radio 2	The Poet Empress, Shen Tao	Famine-village girl wields forbidden poetry magic in Azalea Dynasty palace	NO
Belletrist	Lost Lambs, Madeline Cash	Dysfunctional family pulled into billionaire criminal conspiracy by paranoid teen	NO
Black Men Read	Reel, Kennedy Ryan	Director and rising actress romance during prestige Black history film production	NO
Everyday Reading	The Briar Club, Kate Quinn	Boarding-house women bond around widow during McCarthy-era Washington	YES
Good Housekeeping	Lost Lambs, Madeline Cash	Dysfunctional family pulled into billionaire criminal conspiracy by paranoid teen	NO
Good Morning America – Adult	Skylark, Paula McLain	Dual timeline Paris: 1664 asylum prisoner and 1942 Nazi resister psychiatrist	NO
Good Morning America – Young Adult	The Swan’s Daughter, Roshani Chokshi	Truth-singing swan helps prince judge brides in fairytale court	NO
Jack Carr	The Most Dangerous Game, Richard Connell	Hunter becomes prey on a deranged general’s island	NO
Jeselnik	The Getaway, Jim Thompson	Heist-gone-wrong couple flees law toward mythical Mexican refuge El Rey	NO
Jewish Book Council – Nonfiction	The Art Spy, Michelle Young	French art curator spied on Nazi looting at Jeu de Paume museum	NO
Library Science	Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell	Agnes, Shakespeare’s wife, loses son Hamnet to plague in Elizabethan Stratford	NO
	Make Sure You’re Around After You’ve Gone, David Lowery	Ghost stories anthology curated and introduced by filmmaker David Lowery	NO
Main Street Reads – Banter	Amity, Nathan Harris	Emancipated siblings journey to reunite while pursued through post-Civil War Mexico	NO
Main Street Reads – Kids	Zed Moonstein Makes a Friend, Lance Rubin	Lonely boy creates AI best friend with unintended consequences in MonoTown	MAYBE
Main Street Reads – Romance	Bonded By Thorns, Elizabeth Helen	Bookworm bargains with four cursed fae princes in Beauty-and-the-Beast retelling	MAYBE
Main Street Reads – Thriller	Haven’t Killed in Years, Amy K. Green	Serial killer’s hidden daughter stalked by copycat leaving body parts on doorstep	NO
Mocha Girls Read	Anxious People, Fredrik Backman	Failed bank robber takes apartment-viewing hostages, secrets and lives intertwine	MAYBE
Natalie Portman	Strange Pictures, Uketsu	Nine childlike sketches hold clues to interconnected Japanese murder mysteries	NO
Read with Jenna	Homeschooled, Stefan Merrill Block	Memoir of isolation under unconventional Texas mother’s unregulated homeschool	NO
Reese	The First Time I Saw Him, Laura Dave	Sequel: Hannah and stepdaughter Bailey on the run again as Owen reappears	NO
Service 95	Night People, Mark Ronson	Memoir of Mark Ronson’s ’90s New York DJ years before fame	NO
Stacks	Girl on Girl, Sophie Gilbert	How early-aughts pop culture turned millennial women against themselves and each other	NO
Sunriver – Fiction	Crow Mary, Kathleen Grissom	Inspired by true story of Crow woman who saved Nakota women from massacre	MAYBE
Sunriver – Mystery	Return to Sender, Craig Johnson	Walt Longmire goes undercover as mail carrier to find missing colleague linked to cult	NO
TeaTime	The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath	Esther Greenwood’s mental breakdown and psychiatric treatment in 1950s New York	NO
Zibby’s	The Gallagher Place, Julie Doar	Family-secrets: Marlowe returns to Dutchess County land for old unsolved murder	NO

February 2026

6 rows

YES:

(none)

MAYBE:

Six Days of the Condor, James Grady

Book Club	Book title & author	Brief Description	Yes/no for me
BBC Radio 2	Keeper of Lost Children, Sadeqa Johnson	Post-WWII Germany: three interconnected lives tied to real Brown Baby Plan	NO
	Saoirse, Charleen Hurtubise	American in Donegal hides stolen identity; art-world fame threatens to expose her	NO
	Witch Trial, Harriet Tyce	Edinburgh jury trial of two teen girls claiming witchcraft for classmate’s murder	NO
Jack Carr	Six Days of the Condor, James Grady	CIA analyst survives office massacre, runs from his own agency	MAYBE
Mocha Girls Read	Rhythm and Design, LongTemple	Black romance — architect + gospel musician find love grounded in faith	NO
Reese	In Her Defense, Philippa Malicka	Libel trial — TV star’s daughter, predatory therapist, and the witness who knows	NO

March 2026

4 rows

YES:

Deviant, Callie Hart

MAYBE:

(none)

Book Club	Book title & author	Brief Description	Yes/no for me
Jack Carr	The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth	Anonymous assassin meticulously plans to kill Charles de Gaulle.	NO
Jewish Book Council – Nonfiction	Antisemitism, an American Tradition, Pamela S. Nadell	History from New Amsterdam to present	NO
Main Street Reads – Romance	Deviant, Callie Hart	Low-level mobster draws the line at trafficking in girls, with spice	YES
PBS Books	Salvation of a Forsyte, John Galsworthy	Dying Forsyte recalls his one chance at love	NO

April 2026

Yeah, there were huge gaps in my April list. I don’t know what happened there. Oh, wait, yes, I do. The gaps were about why I started this list. I wanted to see which books people were reading that I hadn’t heard of before. The ones that perhaps didn’t make the bestseller lists. And yet I realized I hadn’t checked whether the lists overlapped. So, I added Globe and Mail, NYT, and Indie bestseller lists. 42 new rows from bestseller lists. A gap of a different sort.

52 rows

YES:

The Summer Guests, Tess Gerritsen
The Astral Library, Kate Quinn
The Night We Met, Abby Jimenez
Between Two Fires, Christopher Buehlman
A World Appears, Michael Pollan
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay, Jenny Lawson
Red Rising, Pierce Brown

MAYBE:

The Names, Florence Knapp
We Are All Guilty Here, Karin Slaughter
Gone Before Goodbye, Reese Witherspoon; Harlan Coben
Saint of Thieves, Dana Haynes
The Simple Guide to ADHD Regulation, Jenna Free
Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, Matt Dinniman
Starside, Alex Aster
The Keeper, Tana French
The Gales of November, John U. Bacon
Dungeon Crawler Carl, Matt Dinniman
The God of the Woods, Liz Moore
A Walk in the Park, Kevin Fedarko
The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, Matt Dinniman
If Only I Had Told Her, Laura Nowlin
The Sun and the Starmaker, Rachel Griffin

Book Club	Book title & author	Brief Description	Yes/no for me
BBC Radio 2	Love Lane, Patrick Gale	Aging Canadian homesteader reconnects with his English family across generations	NO
Book of the Month	Porcupines, Fran Fabriczki	Hungarian single mother + daughter chase American Dream after Berlin Wall fall	NO
PBS Books	Wilding, Isabella Tree	Couple rewilds Sussex farm; native species return in abundance	NO
PolyWogg – To be read	Villette, Charlotte Bronte	Lucy Snowe teaches at French boarding school, confronting love and isolation	NO
Richard & Judy	The Names, Florence Knapp	Three alternating timelines for one boy based on the name his battered mother chose	MAYBE
	We Are All Guilty Here, Karin Slaughter	Two teenage girls vanish in small town; officer faces personal cost	MAYBE
	The Cove, L.J. Ross	Trauma survivor flees to Cornish bookshop, gets pulled into local murder	NO
	The Summer Guests, Tess Gerritsen	Retired CIA agents in Maine investigate missing summer-tourist teenager	YES
	Deadline, Steph McGovern	TV reporter’s family kidnapped mid-live-interview by political conspirators	NO
	Gone Before Goodbye, Reese Witherspoon; Harlan Coben	Disgraced combat surgeon takes secret job, becomes fugitive when patient vanishes	MAYBE
Sunriver – Fiction	Supersonic, Thomas Kohnstamm	History of a Seattle neighbourhood through the years	NO
Sunriver – Mystery	Saint of Thieves, Dana Haynes	Organized vigilante team take on the bad guys	MAYBE
Globe & Mail – Canadian NF	Even the Good Girls Will Cry, Melissa Auf der Maur	Bassist’s rock history	NO
	Lessons From a Lifetime, David Suzuki; Ian Hanington	Suzuki retrospective	NO
	Miracle, Michael Calvin; Naftali Schiff	Kids who survived Auschwitz	NO
	Out of the Sky, Matti Friedman	WWII Jewish parachutists drop into Nazi Europe; Hannah Senesh’s mission	NO
	The Simple Guide to ADHD Regulation, Jenna Free	Tips, tools for ADHD adults	MAYBE
Globe & Mail – Hardcover Fiction	Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, Matt Dinniman	Carl and Donut survive level two of the alien-run dungeon reality show	MAYBE
	Judge Stone, James Patterson; Viola Davis	Alabama judge oversees doctor’s felony trial after abortion on raped teen	NO
	My Husband’s Wife, Alice Feeney	Artist returns home to find another woman claiming her husband and life	NO
	The Astral Library, Kate Quinn	Library with portals into beloved novels	YES
	The Night We Met, Abby Jimenez	Right person, wrong time	YES
Indie Bestsellers – Hardcover Fiction	Between Two Fires, Christopher Buehlman	Black Death France: knight escorts orphan girl through supernatural apocalypse	YES
	Starside, Alex Aster	Magic has to be claimed, not inherited	MAYBE
	The Keeper, Tana French	Old Irish feud and murdered girl	MAYBE
Indie Bestsellers – Hardcover NF	A World Appears, Michael Pollan	The nature of consciousness	YES
	How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay, Jenny Lawson	Lawson’s tips and tricks for mental illness	YES
	One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Omar El Akkad	Rapidly changing world	NO
	The Best Dog in the World, Alice (ed.) Hoffman	Writers and their dogs	NO
	The Gales of November, John U. Bacon	The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald	MAYBE
Indie Bestsellers – Trade PB Fiction	Dungeon Crawler Carl, Matt Dinniman	Coast Guard vet and cat navigate alien-run dungeon reality show	MAYBE
	Game On, Navessa Allen	Enemies to lovers, dark romance	NO
	I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman	Women imprisoned underground	NO
	Red Rising, Pierce Brown	Miner on Mars starts revolution	YES
	The God of the Woods, Liz Moore	Kids disappear years apart at summer camp	MAYBE
Indie Bestsellers – Trade PB NF	A Walk in the Park, Kevin Fedarko	Walk length of Grand Canyon	MAYBE
	Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer	Botany and Indigenous teachings	NO
	I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy	iCarly star’s memoir of overbearing mother and child-actor trauma	NO
	On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder	Resisting authoritarianism	NO
	Raising Hare, Chloe Dalton	Relationship with nature	NO
	The Art Thief, Michael Finkel	Stealing art prolifically	NO
	The Demon of Unrest, Erik Larson	Biography before Civil War	NO
NYT Bestsellers – Hardcover Fiction	The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, Matt Dinniman	Carl and Donut face a subway system packed with monsters	MAYBE
NYT Bestsellers – Hardcover NF	Stand, Cory Booker	Political call to action	NO
	Stripped Down, Bunnie XO	Podcast rags to riches story	NO
	The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt	Smartphones and kids mental health	NO
	You with the Sad Eyes, Christina Applegate	Memoir of acting career and adjusting to multiple sclerosis	NO
NYT Bestsellers – YA Hardcover	A Stage Set for Villains, Shannon J. Spann	Cursed teen infiltrates Playhouse of immortal Players in deadly competition	NO
	Divine Rivals, Rebecca Ross	Rival journalists in magic realm	NO
	If Only I Had Told Her, Laura Nowlin	Road not taken	MAYBE
	The Sun and the Starmaker, Rachel Griffin	Elemental magic with girl lead	MAYBE
	Wings of Starlight, Allison Saft	Enemies to lovers and a forbidden bond	NO

Okay, now it’s time for May. I’m sure I showed WAY more rigour, right? RIGHT????