Book clubs 2026-06: A birthday buffet too rich to finish
Ah, the fresh scent of June and my birthday month. There are lots of interesting books for me to consider reading on my birthday. First, though, there are some gifts from last month that weren’t posted in time for my roll-up, even though I said no to all of them!
| Book Club | Title & Author | Genre | Description | Me |
| BBC Radio 2 | Dissection of a Murder, Jo Murray | Thriller | Young barrister defends accused killer against prosecutor husband | NO |
| John of John, Douglas Stuart | Literary Fiction | Art-school dropout returns to Hebridean croft, faces devout father | NO | |
| Oprah 2.0 | John of John, Douglas Stuart | Literary Fiction | Art-school dropout returns to Hebridean croft, faces devout father | NO |
I’ve also been wondering about having more of a Sci-Fi input from SOMEWHERE, so I was pleasantly surprised to find out the video star Elle Cordova (The Grammarian) has her own sci-fi book club. I added all 18 of her choices to my tracker, although I didn’t say yes to QUITE all of them (8 yes although I’ve already read 2 of them + 2 maybe).
| Book Club | Title & Author | Genre | Pick | Description | Me |
| Elle Cordova | Contact, Carl Sagan | Science Fiction | November 2025 | Radio astronomer detects alien intelligence and fights to build a machine to meet them. | YES |
| Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick | Science Fiction | June 2025 | Bounty hunter pursues rogue androids in post-apocalyptic Earth, basis for Blade Runner | YES | |
| Exhalation, Ted Chiang | Short Stories | April 2026 | Nine science fiction stories probing free will, memory, time, and consciousness. | NO | |
| Hyperion, Dan Simmons | Science Fiction | June 2026 | Seven pilgrims travel to face the mysterious Shrike on a doomed world called Hyperion. | NO | |
| I, Robot, Isaac Asimov | Short Stories | March 2025 | Nine stories exploring robot ethics through psychologist Susan Calvin’s career | YES | |
| If the Dead Belong Here, Carson Faust | Literary Fiction | January 2025 | Indigenous girl goes missing; sister unravels family trauma, ghosts, and colonial legacy | MAYBE | |
| Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro | Science Fiction | August 2025 | Solar-powered android watches humans from a store, yearns to be chosen | YES | |
| Neuromancer, William Gibson | Science Fiction | March 2026 | Burned-out hacker recruited for a last-chance cyberspace heist by a rogue AI. | YES | |
| Parable of the Sower, Octavia E. Butler | Science Fiction | May 2025 | Young Black woman survives societal collapse, founds new religion Earthseed | NO | |
| Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir | Science Fiction | February 2026 | Save the world by finding aliens | YES | |
| Sea of Tranquility, Emily St. John Mandel | Science Fiction | May 2026 | Time-travel detective uncovers a shared anomaly linking lives across five centuries. | YES | |
| Service Model, Adrian Tchaikovsky | Science Fiction | February 2025 | Robot valet accidentally kills his master, wanders post-apocalyptic world seeking purpose | NO | |
| Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. | Science Fiction | December 2025 | POW witness to Dresden firebombing comes “unstuck in time” | NO | |
| Solaris, Stanislaw Lem | Science Fiction | October 2025 | Scientists studying an ocean-planet find it projecting their repressed memories as living people. | NO | |
| The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin | Science Fiction | September 2025 | In a world of world-ending seasons, a woman hunts for her kidnapped daughter across a dying land. | NO | |
| The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams | Science Fiction | July 2025 | Earthman hitchhikes across the galaxy after Earth is demolished | YES | |
| The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin | Science Fiction | April 2025 | Human envoy navigates gender-fluid alien society on ice world to negotiate alliance | NO | |
| The Power, Naomi Alderman | Dystopian | January 2026 | Women develop the ability to electrocute at will; global power structures collapse and invert. | MAYBE |
For the remaining book clubs, I’ve generated 107 titles. Combined with the above, that gives another 125 in total for the database, with 27 yes, 22 maybe, and 76 no. Still way too many, and it is time to start weeding clubs too. Not that such moves will help — I’m mostly just dumping ones that don’t generate any YES picks anyway. And I haven’t even posted about the larger best-seller lists I included this month to see what kind of data they would give me. I’ll cover all of that in other posts.
Of the too-many yes votes, I am most looking forward to:
- aliens (Contact, from Elle Cordova’s Sci-Fi list, the Carl Sagan book on which the movie with Jodie Foster was made);
- a fake-dating romance (called Dolly all the Time by Annabel Monaghan and, no, I don’t know why about eight different fake dating romances showed up on my yes or maybe list after I watched the Off-Campus series);
- portals into books (the Astral Library by Kate Quinn);
- a podcaster suspected of murdering their cohost (This Story Might Save Your Life, Tiffany Crum);
- an involuntary time-traveller jumping forward in time (like Kes from Voyager except she jumped backward, this one is the book, The Traveler by Joseph Eckert); and,
- a Greek mythology boarding academy, and I don’t care if it is for middle grade (The Aftermyth, Tracy Wolff).
Of my maybe list, I would consider upgrading these three to YES if there is time:
- PI investigating father’s hidden life (The Safe Room, Lisa Unger);
- Dead husband left confession of youthful crime (What Remains of You, Kimberly Hensle Lowrance); or,
- A detective helping a client find a missed connection on a plane (The Missed Connection, Tia Williams).
Are there any books you’re looking forward to this month? If you are, DON’T TELL ME! I have too many already 🙂
Until the next book…
| Book Club | Title & Author | Genre | Description | Me |
| Amazon First Reads | A Single Captive Spark, Emberly Ash | Fantasy | Human servant and changeling enemy forced together; magic, betrayal, dark romance. | NO |
| A Voice in the Dark, Barbara Nickless | Thriller | FBI profilers hunt an online radicalization predator linked to two family massacres. | NO | |
| Happier Here With You, Amy Gail Hansen | Contemporary Fiction | Widow discovers WWII family history at Wisconsin farm; food and second chances. | NO | |
| The Date, T.H. Murdock | Thriller | Acquitted actor joins friends’ road trip; murder follows, echoing his original charge. | MAYBE | |
| The Delivery, Gregg Hurwitz | Thriller | AI humanoid helper delivered to struggling family turns menacing and dangerous. | NO | |
| The Museum of Second Chances, Jo Leevers | Contemporary Fiction | Cornwall beachcomber runs quirky museum; lost objects unlock community secrets and her origins. | MAYBE | |
| The Safe Room, Lisa Unger | Thriller | PI investigates her dying father’s hidden life — surveillance room, weapons, mob cash | MAYBE | |
| The Sky Beneath Her, Mary Ellen Taylor | Contemporary Fiction | Returns to Outer Banks; WWII shipwreck secrets tied to her drowned mother. | NO | |
| The Tomorrow Tree, Carolyn Brown | Romance | Woman returns to Texas hometown; second-chance romance beneath a childhood oak tree. | NO | |
| What Remains of You, Kimberly Hensle Lowrance | Thriller | Widow opens time capsule; dead husband’s youthful crime confession upends her grief. | MAYBE | |
| Audacious | John of John, Douglas Stuart | Literary Fiction | Art-school dropout returns to Hebridean croft, faces devout father | NO |
| Barnes & Noble | Valley of the Moms, Hannah Selinger | Thriller | PTO mom snaps at queen bee, turns up dead; husband becomes suspect | NO |
| Belletrist | Hunger and Thirst, Claire Fuller | Horror | Teenage outcast commits violent act to belong; decades later her past resurfaces | NO |
| Black Men Read | Razorblade Tears, S.A. Cosby | Thriller | Two ex-con fathers — one Black, one white — avenge their murdered married sons | NO |
| Book of the Month | Main Characters, Bobby Palmer | Romance | London couple’s love story told entirely through friends, flatmates, exes, and strangers | NO |
| Nymph, Sofia Montrone | Literary Fiction | Italian girl working at grandmother’s mountain hotel falls for an American woman | NO | |
| Summer’s Never Over, Darby Bozeman | Thriller | Camp heiress returns to confront a suspicious death and two ex-boyfriends | NO | |
| The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger | Literary Fiction | Disaffected teenager Holden Caulfield wanders New York after expulsion, railing against phonies | YES | |
| The Children, Melissa Albert | Fantasy | Children written into mother’s fantasy series confront its dark reality | NO | |
| The Lowe Job, Grace Alexander | Contemporary Fiction | Lowe family parlays one woman’s political affair into fame, fortune, and chaos | NO | |
| The Missed Connection, Tia Williams | Romance | Casting agent enlists a detective to find her mysterious seatmate from Paris | MAYBE | |
| The Shrouded Queen, Ashley Tropea | Fantasy | Slave and princess swap fates during an attack in an ancient-Egypt-inspired world | MAYBE | |
| Worry Doll, Laura McPhee-Browne | Literary Fiction | Melbourne train encounter ignites an obsessive, mismatched sapphic affair | NO | |
| Everyday Reading | Swim Team, Johnnie Christmas | Middle Grade | Bree conquers fear of water, joins school swim team, uncovers pool-segregation history | NO |
| Good Housekeeping | Whistler, Ann Patchett | Literary Fiction | Woman reunites with ex-stepfather after decades; both haunted by shared long-buried memory | NO |
| Good Morning America – Adult | Dolly All the Time, Annabel Monaghan | Romance | Single mom fake-dates wealthy scion in seaside Rhode Island; feelings become real | YES |
| GoodReads Mystery | It’s Not Her, Mary Kubica | Thriller | Murder in a cabin, missing kid | YES |
| We Used to Live Here, Marcus Kliewer | Horror | House-flippers let in a stranger claiming the home; his family won’t leave | NO | |
| Jack Carr | The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel, Douglas Brunt | Narrative Nonfiction | Alfred Nobel’s nephew built Russia’s petroleum empire; the Revolution erased it | NO |
| Jeselnik | A Children’s Bible, Lydia Millet | Literary Fiction | Twelve contemptuous children flee their drunken vacationing parents into apocalyptic climate chaos | NO |
| Jewish Book Council – Fiction | Like Wafers in Honey, Leah Eskin | Historical Fiction | Italian-Jewish family flees 1943 Pitigliano; Holocaust survival, recipes across timelines | MAYBE |
| Jewish Book Council – Nonfiction | Milena and Margarete, Gwen Strauss | Narrative Nonfiction | Forbidden love between two women in Ravensbrück concentration camp | NO |
| Main Street Reads – Banter | The Mountains We Call Home, Kim Michele Richardson | Historical Fiction | Packhorse Librarian Cussy Lovett unjustly imprisoned, finds new calling in Kentucky prison | MAYBE |
| Main Street Reads – Fantasy | The Astral Library, Kate Quinn | Fantasy | Library with portals into beloved novels | YES |
| Main Street Reads – Kids | Harper Sharp: Kid Detective, Jarrett Williams | Middle Grade | Fifth-grade detective Harper unravels plot threatening his school’s Inventors’ Fair | NO |
| Main Street Reads – Romance | Seek the Traitor’s Son, Veronica Roth | Dystopian | Enemy soldiers Elegy and Rava share prophecy of one’s victory | NO |
| Main Street Reads – Thriller | This Story Might Save Your Life, Tiffany Crum | Thriller | Survival podcaster goes missing, cohost is suspect. | YES |
| Mindy’s Book Studio | Two Lives with You, Lauren Ho | Contemporary Fiction | A chance for a do-over to see life without partner | MAYBE |
| Mocha Girls Read | These Ghosts Are Family, Maisy Card | Historical Fiction | A man’s stolen identity ripples through a Jamaican family across three centuries | NO |
| Poisoned Pen – British | I, Spy, L.M. Kemp | Thriller | Ex-spy mother is dragged back into espionage with her four-year-old in tow | MAYBE |
| Poisoned Pen – Cozy | Murder Most Delicious, Danielle Postel-Vinay | Mystery | American sommelier’s Paris reboot ends when her celebrity chef boss is poisoned | NO |
| Poisoned Pen – Crime | Storm Warning, James Byrne | Thriller | Dez Limerick must crack a locked-down Arctic facility to rescue a friend | NO |
| Poisoned Pen – Historical | A Perfect Hand, Ayelet Waldman | Historical Fiction | Scheming lady’s maid falls for the valet next door in 1880s England | NO |
| Butterfly Games, Kelly Scarborough | Historical Fiction | Fourteen-year-old Swedish countess falls for the crown prince amid palace intrigue | NO | |
| Poisoned Pen – Mystery | Daughters of the Sun and Moon, Lisa See | Historical Fiction | Three Chinese women survive anti-Chinese violence in post-Civil War Los Angeles | NO |
| My Name Was Gerry Sass, Tiffany Hanssen | Thriller | Dead Iowa hitman narrates from purgatory while his daughter hunts his killers | MAYBE | |
| The Traveler, Joseph Eckert | Science Fiction | Man begins involuntarily leaping forward in time in ever-doubling intervals | YES | |
| Poisoned Pen – Romance | The Summer Share, Jenn McKinlay | Romance | Two strangers discover they’ve co-inherited the same Outer Banks beach house | MAYBE |
| PolyWogg | City of Intellect, Nicholas B. Dirks | Narrative Nonfiction | Berkeley’s ex-chancellor recounts crises, argues for reforming the university | NO |
| Empire of AI, Karen Hao | Nonfiction | Investigative exposé of OpenAI’s rise and AI’s hidden costs | NO | |
| Flesh, David Szalay | Literary Fiction | Detached Hungarian István’s life from housing estate to London elite | NO | |
| Global Higher Education in Times of Upheaval, Simon Marginson | Nonfiction | Scholar analyzes global higher education amid geopolitics and decolonization | NO | |
| Higher Education in China, Gerard A. Postiglione | Nonfiction | Surveys China’s vast state-directed higher education system and 2035 ambitions | NO | |
| Higher Education, State and Society, Lili Yang | Nonfiction | Compares Chinese and Anglo-American higher-education traditions and the public good | NO | |
| Oblivious, Elaine Dewar | Narrative Nonfiction | Investigates Canada’s segregated Indian hospitals and settler obliviousness | NO | |
| Peak Higher Ed, Bryan Alexander | Nonfiction | Futurist forecasts decline and possible futures for US higher education | MAYBE | |
| Perfection, Vincenzo Latronico | Literary Fiction | Millennial expat couple chase a perfect Berlin life, find ennui | NO | |
| Success Factors of Innovative Universities, Dara Melnyk | Nonfiction | Doctoral study of success factors at three innovative universities | NO | |
| The Pivot, Robert J. Bliwise | Narrative Nonfiction | Journalist traces Duke University’s pandemic response through campus-wide interviews | NO | |
| The Synthetic University, James L. Shulman | Nonfiction | Argues shared cross-institutional services can curb higher education’s rising costs | YES | |
| PolyWogg – To be read | A Far-Flung Life, M.L. Stedman | Historical Fiction | 1958 outback Australia: a truck accident shatters a sheep-station family across generations. | NO |
| A Montreal Cook, Lesley Chesterman | Cookbook | Award-winning Montreal chef shares 90+ recipes celebrating the city’s food culture. | YES | |
| All’s Well, Mona Awad | Horror | Chronic-pain theater professor staging Shakespeare makes a Faustian bargain with strange men. | YES | |
| Apple, David Pogue | Nonfiction | Illustrated 50-year history of Apple: origins, near-death, Jobs’s return, and Tim Cook’s empire. | YES | |
| Cut to Black, Rod Black; Jim Lang | Nonfiction | Canadian sportscaster Rod Black’s 40-year memoir: Blue Jays, figure skating, and 9/11 live. | NO | |
| Fever Dream, Elsie Silver | Romance | Bull rider joins a reality dating show to save his ranch; falls for the location consultant. | NO | |
| Girls Just Wanna Have Sun, Rachel Lacey | Romance | Woman at lakefront vacation risks rekindling a sapphic romance with the one that got away. | YES | |
| I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Iain Reid | Thriller | Woman on road trip to meet boyfriend’s parents secretly plans to break up with him. | NO | |
| Keeper of Lost Children, Sadeqa Johnson | Historical Fiction | Post-WWII Germany: three interconnected lives tied to real Brown Baby Plan | NO | |
| Lights Out, Jenni Fletcher | Young-Adult | Broke university student agrees to fake-date an F1 bad boy to fix his reputation. | MAYBE | |
| Oh My Affogato!, Donna Ghorbanpoor; Daphne Ang | Young-Adult | Teen plans an Italy trip to win back her situationship; friendship secrets complicate everything. | NO | |
| One Hot Summer Wedding, Falon Ballard | Romance | Woman attends estranged friend’s Costa Rica wedding; forced proximity with the bride’s brother. | YES | |
| Recursion, Blake Crouch | Science Fiction | Detective and neuroscientist race to stop a memory-distorting epidemic unraveling reality. | YES | |
| S’more of You, Tessa Bailey | Romance | Camp counselors nurse an eight-year mutual crush through pranks and rivalry. | YES | |
| Save a Horse, Keep the Cowboy, Jessica Peterson | Romance | Country music star returns home; faces the cowboy who chose his ranch over her. | YES | |
| Summer Staycation, Sarah Grunder Ruiz | Romance | Neurodivergent woman in Florida finds grounding with a travel blogger over one weekend. | YES | |
| Summer Thaw, Rebecca Jenshak | Romance | Woman thaws toward a charming hockey player over one summer encounter. | YES | |
| The Aftermyth, Tracy Wolff | Middle Grade | Girl sorted into the wrong house at a Greek mythology boarding academy; fate has other plans. | YES | |
| The Caretaker, Marcus Kliewer | Horror | Broke woman accepts a Craigslist caretaking job at a strange house; rites must be followed. | NO | |
| The Chambermaid’s Key, Genevieve Graham | Historical Mystery | 1929 Toronto hotel chambermaid uncovers a gangster’s murder on the eve of the Crash. | NO | |
| The Hike, Drew Magary | Fantasy | Businessman stranded in a surreal, deadly wilderness hunts the mysterious “Producer” to escape. | MAYBE | |
| The Last House on Needless Street, Catriona Ward | Horror | Boarded-up house, unreliable narrators — man, girl, and cat — hide a stolen child’s truth. | NO | |
| The Rainshadow Orphans, Naomi Ishiguro | Fantasy | Misfit outcasts in a corrupt city unite around a stolen dragon pearl to defy an emperor. | NO | |
| The Underwearwolf, Gideon Sterer | Middle Grade | Boy ignores the warning on magic underwear, transforms into a werewolf under the full moon. | NO | |
| Unsettling Salad!, Aaron Reynolds | Middle Grade | Two junk-food-loving critters forced to eat a salad; the broccoli bites back. | NO | |
| Villain, Natalie Zina Walschots | Science Fiction | The Auditor escalates her campaign to dismantle the superhero industry from within. | MAYBE | |
| Read with Jenna | The Children, Melissa Albert | Fantasy | Children written into mother’s fantasy series confront its dark reality | NO |
| Reader’s Digest | Good Joy, Bad Joy, Mikki Brammer | Contemporary Fiction | Eighty-something Joy breaks rules with terminally-ill best friend Hazel | NO |
| Reddit – Discovery | Gilead, Marilynne Robinson | Literary Fiction | Dying preacher writes his son about faith, grace, and an old wound | YES |
| Reddit – Evergreen | The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky | Literary Fiction | Three brothers clash over murder, money, and God in 19th-century Russia | MAYBE |
| George Eliot: The Last Victorian, Kathryn Hughes | Biography | How George Eliot’s scandalous private life shaped Victorian England’s greatest female novelist | NO | |
| Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng | Contemporary Fiction | Secrets collide in planned suburban Shaker Heights when a free-spirited artist arrives | NO | |
| No Name, Wilkie Collins | Literary Fiction | Illegitimate sisters stripped of their inheritance; Magdalen schemes obsessively to reclaim it | MAYBE | |
| The Devils, Joe Abercrombie | Fantasy | Friar conscripts monsters and mercenaries to stop a warlord threatening the empire | MAYBE | |
| The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai | Historical Fiction | AIDS devastates 1980s Chicago; a survivor searches Paris for her estranged daughter | NO | |
| The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot | Literary Fiction | Brilliant Maggie Tulliver chafes against the narrow bounds of Victorian provincial life | NO | |
| Reddit – World | I’m Not Going Anywhere, Rumena Buzarovska | Short Stories | Macedonian women flee poverty abroad, finding new forms of desolation | NO |
| Reese | A Pair of Aces, Marie Benedict; Victoria Christopher Murray | Historical Fiction | Black prosecutor and Manhattan madam unite to bring down Lucky Luciano | NO |
| Service 95 | Having Spent Life Seeking, Kae Tempest | Literary Fiction | Ex-prisoner Rothko returns to hometown, reckoning with their past | NO |
| Stacks | The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho | Literary Fiction | Andalusian shepherd crosses the Sahara chasing prophetic dream of buried treasure | NO |
| Sunriver – Fiction | Inland, Tea Obreht | Historical Fiction | Frontierswoman and ghost-haunted outlaw converge in drought-ridden 1893 Arizona | NO |
| Sunriver – Mystery | The Fallen Man, Tony Hillerman | Mystery | Leaphorn and Chee link decade-old Ship Rock skeleton to fresh sniper killing | MAYBE |
| TeaTime | Mare, Emily Haworth-Booth | Literary Fiction | Childfree woman facing early menopause finds unexpected obsession caring for another’s horse | NO |
| Zibby’s | The Burning Side, Sarah Damoff | Contemporary Fiction | Family saga from alternating views after devastating house fire | NO |