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