Book clubs 2026-08: Getting back on track in August
You might have noticed I’m a bit late again this month — I’m working on a big project related to my Calibre database, which has slowed me down; I was hoping to finish it quickly and get back to my book clubs. I didn’t, and it’s still going, but I wanted to get my lists out. I feel like I’m in a better position for September though! 🙂
For August, I monitored 39 active clubs, having retired the Natalie Portman book club. I also killed off the NYT Hardcover Non-Fiction bestseller list — 0 for 18, never once a pick. The remaining clubs gave me 58 rows for consideration, representing 47 new books for the database. Of the 47, I said Yes to 5, Maybe to 5, and No to 37. There were an additional 7 books from July that were catch-ups (late picks not yet revealed at the previous month’s post) — 1 Yes and 6 No.
I also considered Bestseller lists, which generated 150 other titles for possible consideration. Of those, I said Yes to 23, Maybe to 14, and No to 113.
This brings the year-to-date totals for 2026 to 1,096 books tracked, with me saying Yes to 20.5%, Maybe to 15.6%, and No to 63.9%. This compares with 2025, where Yes was 28.8%, Maybe 15.2%, and No 56.0%. I’m getting slightly more picky, but nowhere near the numbers I hope to get down to eventually.
Previous month’s catch-up
| Book Club | Title & Author | Genre | Pick | Description | Me |
| BBC Radio 2 | The Leveret, Anna Goldreich | Literary Fiction | July 2026 | Grieving couple’s rural fresh start unravels; a wild hare fills the void | NO |
| Time to Burn, Ellery Lloyd | Thriller | July 2026 | Filmmaker documents time-travel tourism and chases a rogue traveler through history | YES | |
| Good Morning America | Country People, Daniel Mason | Literary Fiction | July 2026 | A doting father with a truffle-hunting dog in truffle-less land | NO |
| Jewish Book Council | Judy Blume: A Life, Mark Oppenheimer | Biography | July 2026 | Biography of Judy Blume, champion of free speech in children’s literature | NO |
| The Very Unremarkable Life of Mrs. Etty Bloom, Talya Jankovits | Historical Fiction | July 2026 | A Hasidic woman finds unexpected meaning in an unremarkable life | NO | |
| Service 95 | Free, Lea Ypi | Memoir | July 2026 | Growing up in Stalinist Albania before and after communism’s collapse | NO |
| Zibby’s | Forty Love, Jane Costello | Romance | July 2026 | Widowed single mom joins tennis club, chasing an old crush | NO |
Current month — Book Clubs
| Book Club | Title & Author | Genre | Description | Me |
| Amazon First Reads | Dreams of Earth and Sky, Shirley Perez West | Historical Fiction | 1845 California ranchero’s daughter fights to save her family’s rancho | NO |
| I’ve Got a New Complaint, Laurie Notaro | Essays | Brutally, hilariously unfiltered essays on being middle-aged-plus today | YES | |
| In the Killer’s Sight, Mike Omer | Thriller | K-9 officer hunts a serial killer who took her niece | NO | |
| Philippa Flynn’s Year of Panic and Piracy, Jacqueline Firkins | Contemporary Fiction | Burned-out professor and ex-cover model write romance in inherited seaside house | NO | |
| The Black Orchid, Loreth Anne White | Thriller | Nine guests on a luxury Aegean cruise with a killer aboard | NO | |
| The Getaway, Kieran Scott | Thriller | Three couples trapped in a Hamptons estate as secrets turn deadly | NO | |
| The Last Harbinger, Jeff Wheeler | Fantasy | Dragoon escorts a princess to save a kingdom from war | NO | |
| The Summer Between Us, Jennifer Probst | Romance | Former surf champion trains single father’s daughter in Hawaii | YES | |
| Audacious | The Simp, Roshan Sethi | Literary Fiction | Unemployed actor lies into a job assisting an absurd Hollywood family | NO |
| Barnes & Noble | Sunlight Finds You, Laura Moriarty | Historical Fiction | 1949 Florida teen’s romance triggers decades of secrets and betrayals | NO |
| BBC Radio 2 | The House That Eats the Dead, Max Doty | Horror | Family’s dream home hides an insatiable hunger devouring the living | NO |
| The Scandalous Ladies Football Club, Frances Quinn | Historical Fiction | 1897 London schoolteacher forms Britain’s first women’s football team | NO | |
| Belletrist | Girl’s Girl, Sonia Feldman | Literary Fiction | Three teenage best friends’ bond unravels after an unexpected kiss | NO |
| Black Men Read | A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest J. Gaines | Historical Fiction | A teacher visits a Black man condemned in 1940s Louisiana | NO |
| Book of the Month | Heart of Glass, Jennifer Hillier | Thriller | Serial killer recants confession; former friends confront the truth | NO |
| Hello, Limerence, Momo Yamaguchi | Contemporary Fiction | Turning twenty-five, Mika chases desire through a Tokyo summer | NO | |
| In Cold Blood, Truman Capote | Nonfiction | True account of the 1959 Clutter family murders in Kansas | NO | |
| Meet Me in the Garden, Nina LaCour | Literary Fiction | A woman makes a shattering choice to save her family | NO | |
| Return to Sender, Stephanie Parente | Romance | Sisters road-trip to deliver an undelivered love letter | MAYBE | |
| The Poison Daughter, Sheila Masterson | Romance | Poison-kissed assassin married to the one man immune to her | MAYBE | |
| The Three Graces of Pearl Street, Elizabeth Wellington Rollins | Literary Fiction | Three generations of one family reckon with its complexities | NO | |
| Elle Cordova | The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick | Science Fiction | Alternate history where the Axis powers won World War II | NO |
| Everyday Reading | No Purchase Necessary, Maria Marianayagam | Middle Grade | Sri Lankan boy wins million-dollar candy-bar prize, faces moral dilemma | NO |
| Good Housekeeping | Alan Opts Out, Courtney Maum | Literary Fiction | Burnt-out ad executive renounces manipulative capitalism after botching a milk pitch | NO |
| Good Morning America | Take What You Can, Naima Coster | Contemporary Fiction | Two best friends navigate motherhood between Brooklyn and southern France | NO |
| The Hardest Ones to Fool, Christina Li | Young-Adult | Girl secretly dating three people investigates her best friend’s murder | MAYBE | |
| GoodReads Mystery | Caller Unknown, Gillian McAllister | Thriller | Texas vacation kidnapping forces mother to commit crime to save daughter | NO |
| The Perfect Son, Freida McFadden | Thriller | Mother fears her charming teenage son harmed a missing classmate | MAYBE | |
| I Care About Books | Theo of Golden, Allen Levi | Literary Fiction | Stranger buys drawings, gives them to citizens | YES |
| Jack Carr | Empire of Ashes, James M. Scott | Nonfiction | Narrative history of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki | NO |
| Jeselnik | Little Eyes, Samanta Schweblin | Literary Fiction | Anonymous users worldwide inhabit robotic pets that spy on strangers’ lives | RETIRED |
| Jewish Book Council | A Time to Gather, Bruce Feiler | Nonfiction | Global exploration of rituals and how gatherings restore human connection | NO |
| Remember to Eat and Other Stories, Meryl Ain | Short Stories | Linked stories of a Jewish mother and daughter across generations | NO | |
| Katie Couric | Night Objects, Eli Raphael | Thriller | Grieving teen at elite boarding school joins secret society; murder follows | NO |
| Library Science | Repetition, Vigdis Hjorth | Literary Fiction | Norwegian novelist revisits a traumatic sixteenth year and family’s terrible sacrifice | RETIRED |
| Main Street Reads | Her Hidden Fire, Cliodhna O’Sullivan | Fantasy | Servant uses her magic to fake her master’s abilities | YES |
| Rules for the Summer, Meghan Quinn | Romance | Candy-shop owner falls for her posh new summer neighbor | NO | |
| Sing Down the Moon, Robert Gwaltney | Literary Fiction | Cursed island girl seeks escape from a tree that sings the dead | NO | |
| The Franchise, Thomas Elrod | Fantasy | Actor challenges a studio’s immersive fantasy-world film franchise | NO | |
| The One Day You Were My Husband, Rosie Walsh | Thriller | Woman’s abducted first husband resurfaces twelve years after their wedding | YES | |
| Mindy’s Book Studio | How to Ruin a Wedding, Elba Luz | Romance | A professional wedding saboteur fake-dates a charming client | MAYBE |
| Mocha Girls Read | The Book of Negroes, Lawrence Hill | Historical Fiction | Abducted African girl endures slavery in the American South | NO |
| Natalie Portman | Silent Spring, Rachel Carson | Nonfiction | Influential environmental classic that spurred tighter environmental regulations | RETIRED |
| PBS Books | Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir | Science Fiction | Save the world by finding aliens | YES |
| Read with Jenna | Sunlight Finds You, Laura Moriarty | Historical Fiction | 1949 Florida teen’s romance triggers decades of secrets and betrayals | NO |
| Reader’s Digest | The God of the Woods, Liz Moore | Mystery | Kids disappear years apart at summer camp | MAYBE |
| A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle | Young-Adult | Children tesser across dimensions to rescue a missing scientist father | YES | |
| Do They Hear You When You Cry?, Fauziya Kassindja | Memoir | Togo teen flees genital mutilation, seeks asylum, jailed in America | NO | |
| Flesh, David Szalay | Literary Fiction | Detached Hungarian István’s life from housing estate to London elite | NO | |
| Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, Nam-joo Cho | Literary Fiction | Korean woman’s life exposes systemic misogyny and institutional gender oppression | NO | |
| London Falling, Patrick Radden Keefe | Narrative Nonfiction | Family investigates teen son’s mysterious death in London’s criminal underworld | NO | |
| The Books of Jacob, Olga Tokarczuk | Historical Fiction | Charismatic 18th-century Jewish messiah figure roams Poland and Europe | NO | |
| Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experienceâ„¢, Rebecca Roanhorse | Science Fiction | Native worker’s virtual-reality Indian Experience job and identity are stolen | NO | |
| Yesteryear, Caro Claire Burke | Historical Fiction | Fake rustic farmhouse influencer wakes up in real farmhouse life | MAYBE | |
| Reese | The Wild Beneath, Kelly Anderson | Literary Fiction | Tsunami destroys her village; sailboat-raised teen navigates grief, love, and magic | NO |
| Service 95 | Lost Lambs, Madeline Cash | Literary Fiction | Dysfunctional family pulled into billionaire criminal conspiracy by paranoid teen | NO |
| Stacks | Fish Tales, Nettie Jones | Literary Fiction | Free-spirited Black woman pursues pleasure across 1970s New York and Detroit | NO |
| Sunriver | Storm Warning, James Byrne | Thriller | Dez Limerick must crack a locked-down Arctic facility to rescue a friend | NO |
| The House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune | Fantasy | Uptight caseworker inspects an orphanage of magical, dangerous children | YES | |
| TeaTime | Beginning Middle End, Valeria Luiselli | Literary Fiction | Mother and daughter journey to Sicily after a marriage collapses | NO |
| Zibby’s | Dad, Love, Me, Matthew Quick | Memoir | Memoir confronting his aging father’s dementia and their fraught bond | NO |
Table lists all 61 current-month club picks. The 3 marked RETIRED (retired clubs) are shown for completeness and are not in the 58 “for consideration” figures in §1.
Bestsellers
| Book Club | Title & Author | Genre | Description | Me |
| Amazon Read NF | Greenlights, Matthew McConaughey | Memoir | Actor’s memoir of life lessons drawn from decades of diaries | NO |
| The Laws of Human Nature, Robert Greene | Self-Help | Guide to decoding human behavior and mastering emotional self-control | NO | |
| Amazon Sales F | Just for the Plot, Meghan Quinn | Romance | Baseball player falls for his sister’s best friend and neighbor | YES |
| Murdle, G. T. Karber | Mystery | One hundred murder-mystery logic puzzles solved by deduction | YES | |
| Threshing Day, Rebecca Yarros | Fantasy | Thirteen companion stories set in the Empyrean dragon-rider world | YES | |
| Amazon Sales Kindle | An Object of Beauty, Steve Martin | Literary Fiction | Ambitious art dealer’s rise and fall in Manhattan’s fine-art market | NO |
| Chasing Hope, Mads Rafferty | Romance | Brother’s best friend helps Evie rebuild while she hides a secret | NO | |
| Circe, Madeline Miller | Fantasy | Banished sorceress Circe forges her power across Greek myth | YES | |
| Claimed, Shona Knight | Romance | Escaped lab survivor finds safety with five protective alphas | MAYBE | |
| Colt, Jessica Peterson | Romance | City girl falls for a widowed Texas ranch foreman | NO | |
| Death Row (Alibis collection), Freida McFadden | Thriller | Death-row wife spots her supposedly dead husband among the visitors | NO | |
| Don’t Say Mafia, C.R. Jane | Romance | Las Vegas cocktail waitress relentlessly pursued by obsessed mafia boss | NO | |
| Haunting Adeline, H. D. Carlton | Romance | Stalked novelist uncovers her family home’s secrets and a trafficking vigilante | NO | |
| Picture This, Devney Perry | Romance | Longtime crush on best friend’s older brother reignites at wedding | NO | |
| Problematic Summer Romance, Ali Hazelwood | Romance | Grad student falls for brother’s older best friend at Sicilian wedding | NO | |
| Somewhere Beyond the Sea, TJ Klune | Fantasy | Arthur defends his island orphanage of magical children and found family | YES | |
| The Art of Almost Losing It, Alina Jacobs | Romance | Fake-dating romcom born from a fabricated boyfriend and a kidnapping | NO | |
| The Biggest Ideas in the Universe, Sean M. Carroll | Nonfiction | Accessible physics of space, time, and motion using real equations | YES | |
| The Fall Affair, Vi Keeland | Romance | Corporate New Yorker inherits a Tuscan vineyard and falls for its winemaker | NO | |
| The Intruder, Freida McFadden | Thriller | Woman alone in a storm-struck cabin finds a girl at the window | NO | |
| The Last to Drown, Noelle W. Ihli | Thriller | Whitewater rafting trip haunted by killings from seven years earlier | NO | |
| The Love Wager, Lynn Painter | Romance | Two dating-app friends bet on who finds love first | YES | |
| The Tenant, Freida McFadden | Thriller | Jobless man’s charming new tenant threatens to expose his secrets | NO | |
| The Wrong Brother, Sierra Voss | Romance | Woman seduces ex’s Bratva billionaire brother for revenge, gets pregnant | NO | |
| Amazon Sales NF | 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, Patricia Schultz | Nonfiction | A traveler’s life list of 1,000 destinations worldwide to visit | YES |
| Hop dans le wok!, Christina Potvin; Quy Tam Vo | Cookbook | Nearly 100 accessible authentic Asian home recipes from YouTube creators | YES | |
| The Day After, Brian Tyler Cohen | Nonfiction | A progressive playbook for wielding power in a post-Trump America | NO | |
| What Happened Yesterday, Matt Sturniolo | Memoir | Sturniolo Triplet YouTuber’s memoir of loss, therapy, and viral fame | NO | |
| Amazon Sales Print | A Court of Forgotten Melody, Sarah J. Maas | Fantasy | Seventh ACOTAR book; crumbling alliances face Koschei the Deathless | YES |
| A Court of Splintered Harmony, Sarah J. Maas | Fantasy | Sixth ACOTAR book; Koschei the Deathless threatens the Fae territories | YES | |
| A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas | Fantasy | Huntress dragged into a lethal faerie court after killing a wolf | YES | |
| A Court of Thorns and Roses Paperback Box Set (5 books), Sarah J. Maas | Fantasy | Complete five-book box set of Feyre’s faerie romantasy saga | NO | |
| Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving, Judi Kingry | Cookbook | 400 tested recipes for safe home canning and preserving | NO | |
| Brain Damage, Freida McFadden | Thriller | Brain-injured doctor reconstructs fragmented memories to name her attacker | NO | |
| Merriam-Webster’s French-English Dictionary, Inc. Merriam-Webster | Nonfiction | Bilingual French-English reference with 80,000+ entries and Canadian French | NO | |
| Pardon My Book, Big Cat | Nonfiction | Tenth-anniversary collection from the Pardon My Take sports podcast | NO | |
| Pokecology An Illustrated Guide to Pokemon Ecology, Pikachu Press | Nonfiction | Illustrated guide analyzing Pokemon ecologies using Pokedex data | NO | |
| The Killer Isn’t June, Sloane Pryce | Mystery | Logic puzzle: eliminate 46,000 cruise-ship suspects to find June’s killer | YES | |
| The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah | Historical Fiction | Two French sisters resist Nazi occupation during World War II | NO | |
| Throne of Glass Paperback Box Set, Sarah J. Maas | Fantasy | Complete eight-book box set of the bestselling assassin fantasy series | NO | |
| G&M Can F | The Matchmaker’s Cottage, Kat Sloane | Romance | B&B owner reunites with childhood sweetheart amid celebrity matchmaking scheme | NO |
| You’ll Love It Here, Natalie Sue | Contemporary Fiction | Woman loses job, becomes reluctant superintendent among nosy neighbours | NO | |
| G&M Can NF | 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act, Bob Joseph | Nonfiction | Guide to the Indian Act’s impact and Indigenous reconciliation in Canada | NO |
| A Nation of Tinkerers, Michael Rancic | Nonfiction | History of Canadian electronic music from 1945 to 1985 | NO | |
| I’m Going to Break Your Heart, Chantal Kreviazuk; Raine Maida | Memoir | Rock musician couple chronicle their marriage, fame, and therapeutic journey | NO | |
| Trash!, Simon Pare-Poupart | Memoir | Montreal garbageman’s two decades in waste, blending memoir and social critique | NO | |
| G&M HC F | Asha in Her Garden, Anita Rau Badami | Literary Fiction | Matriarch uproots India-to-Montreal life, tending a symbolic century-old garden | NO |
| Cool Machine, Colson Whitehead | Literary Fiction | Harlem fence Ray Carney risks one last heist in 1980s New York | MAYBE | |
| My Person, Tea Mutonji | Literary Fiction | Twenty-year friendship fractures when one woman wants to unknow the other | NO | |
| Steelborn, Taylor J. LaRue | Fantasy | Notorious thief and cursed immortal warrior on a curse-breaking quest | NO | |
| The Butcher Legacy, Alaina Urquhart | Thriller | Forensic pathologist Wren Muller hunts a pastor linked to a caged killer | NO | |
| The True Meaning of Love, Danielle Steel | Romance | Ukrainians’ lives upended by Russia’s 2022 invasion | NO | |
| Under the Falls, Richard Russo | Literary Fiction | Ex-musician returns to hometown for benefit concert; a crime exposes betrayals | NO | |
| G&M HC NF | Tell It to the Water, Donna Morrissey | Memoir | Newfoundland family memoir of love, grief, and a father’s return to hope | NO |
| The Little Frog’s Guide to Life, Maybell Eequay | Self-Help | Affirmations and life lessons from the internet’s beloved mushroom frog | MAYBE | |
| The Story of Your Life, Kathryn Jezer-Morton | Nonfiction | How social media reshapes the stories we tell about our lives | NO | |
| What Happened to Liberal Democracy?, Daron Acemoglu | Nonfiction | Nobel economist argues for working-class liberalism to renew shared prosperity | NO | |
| G&M PB F | Getting Away with Murder, Shari Lapena | Thriller | A couple plots to murder a wealthy relative for inheritance | NO |
| Let’s Kiss and Tell, Joss Richard | Romance | Sex columnist and reporter fake-date and catch real feelings | YES | |
| Meet Me in Paris, Kristin Harmel | Contemporary Fiction | Nine Americans’ lives intertwine over one week in Paris | NO | |
| The Secrets We Hide, Karin Slaughter | Thriller | Sisters investigate a brutal small-town Georgia double shooting | NO | |
| You’ll Be Sorry, Lisa Gardner | Thriller | Newlyweds move into a lodge scarred by a vanished family | NO | |
| Indie HC F | A Tender Age, Chang-rae Lee | Literary Fiction | Korean immigrant boy’s 1976 summer-camp reckoning with childhood trauma | NO |
| A Trade of Blood, Robert Jackson Bennett | Fantasy | Detectives investigate a murder that could ignite a canton war | NO | |
| Dreamland, Olivie Blake | Fantasy | Aspiring actress enters a cursed Hollywood dynasty’s blood-soaked estate | NO | |
| Etna, Paul Yoon | Literary Fiction | Ex-military dog journeys homeward across a war-torn country | NO | |
| Ransom, Daniel Silva | Thriller | Retired spy Gabriel Allon hunts a missing billionaire’s vanished wife | NO | |
| Reliquary, Hannah Whitten | Horror | Woman at fiance’s island estate wake uncovers monstrous family secrets | NO | |
| Sea of Charms, Sarah Beth Durst | Fantasy | Sea-faring supply runner strikes a fake-dating deal amid revolution | YES | |
| Sunrise, Tea Obreht | Literary Fiction | Three timelines converge on a mysterious Wyoming ghost town | NO | |
| The Amateur, Chris Bohjalian | Thriller | Golf prodigy’s fatal accident spirals into scandal and courtroom reckoning | MAYBE | |
| The Lion & the Deathless Dark, Carissa Broadbent | Fantasy | Bounty hunter and vampire prince hunt gods in eternal darkness | MAYBE | |
| Indie HC NF | 1929, Andrew Ross Sorkin | Narrative Nonfiction | Narrative history of the 1929 Wall Street crash | NO |
| A Walk in the Wood, Joseph Parent | Self-Help | Mindfulness meditations guided by Winnie the Pooh | NO | |
| Beyond the Prescription, Lucy McBride | Self-Help | A patient’s framework for navigating modern healthcare | MAYBE | |
| Catch the Devil, Pamela Colloff | Narrative Nonfiction | Con artist’s fake jailhouse confessions sent innocent men to death row | NO | |
| Enshittification, Cory Doctorow | Nonfiction | Why digital platforms decay and how to fix them | YES | |
| God Doesn’t Relapse, Matt Grace | Memoir | Memoir of addiction, redemption, and faith after decades of destruction | NO | |
| How Lucky Am I, Christian Watson | Self-Help | Illustrated Mr Skelly explores life’s ups, downs, and quiet meaning | NO | |
| On Courage, Julia Angwin; Ami Fields-Meyer | Nonfiction | How to be a dissident in an age of fear | NO | |
| Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, Samin Nosrat | Cookbook | Mastering good cooking through salt, fat, acid, and heat | MAYBE | |
| Separation of Church and Hate, John Fugelsang | Nonfiction | Comedian reclaims the Bible from fundamentalists, fascists, and religious frauds | NO | |
| The Book of Alchemy, Suleika Jaouad | Self-Help | A guide to journaling as creative practice and life meditation | NO | |
| The Creative Act, Rick Rubin | Self-Help | Creativity reframed as a way of being for everyone | YES | |
| The Cruelest Game, Matthew Futterman | Narrative Nonfiction | Reported access inside today’s pressured professional tennis stars | NO | |
| The Little Frog Sticker Book, Maybell Eequay | Nonfiction | 700+ stickers of the Little Frog and woodland friends | MAYBE | |
| The Little Frog’s Guide to Self-Care, Maybell Eequay | Self-Help | Affirmations and life lessons from the internet’s mushroom frog | MAYBE | |
| The Nerd Reich, Gil Duran | Nonfiction | How Silicon Valley oligarchs wage war on democracy | NO | |
| This Is The Plan, Ben Wikler | Nonfiction | A people-powered plan to defeat MAGA and save democracy | NO | |
| This Land is Your Land, Beverly Gage | Narrative Nonfiction | A road trip through U.S. history | NO | |
| Triage, Claudia Rankine | Nonfiction | Two friends’ decades-long bond amid grief, violence, and collective loss | NO | |
| You Won’t Get Free of It, Rachel Aviv | Essays | Seven reported essays on mothers and daughters | NO | |
| Indie PB F | Butter, Asako Yuzuki | Literary Fiction | Reporter obsessed with a cook suspected of killing lonely men | NO |
| Devil, Sierra Simone | Romance | A man’s obsession becomes a year-long bargain with a ruined woman | NO | |
| Devotions, Mary Oliver | Poetry | Career-spanning selected poems celebrating nature and mindful attention | NO | |
| Devour Me, Emily Rath | Romance | A witch, wraith, and mortal entangle on a New England island | NO | |
| East of Eden, John Steinbeck | Literary Fiction | Two families entwine across generations in California’s Salinas Valley | NO | |
| Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry | Western | Retired Texas Rangers drive cattle 3,000 miles to Montana | NO | |
| North Woods, Daniel Mason | Historical Fiction | Centuries of inhabitants pass through one New England forest house | NO | |
| Piranesi, Susanna Clarke | Fantasy | A man inhabits an infinite labyrinth of tides and statues | NO | |
| Sunburn, Chloe Michelle Howarth | Literary Fiction | Secret first love between two girls in 1989 rural Ireland | NO | |
| Taiwan Travelogue, Shuang-zi Yang | Historical Fiction | Japanese novelist tours 1938 colonial Taiwan with her Taiwanese interpreter | NO | |
| The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones | Horror | Vampire Western reckoning with the 1870 Marias Massacre | NO | |
| The Midnight Library, Matt Haig | Literary Fiction | A library between life and death offers her unlived lives | YES | |
| The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller | Historical Fiction | The Trojan War retold through Patroclus, Achilles’s companion and lover | NO | |
| The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion Volume 1, Beth Brower | Historical Fiction | Emma returns to 1883 London facing eccentric relatives and mysteries | NO | |
| Indie PB NF | A Dumb Birds Field Guide to the Worst Birds Ever, Matt Kracht | Nonfiction | Humorous field guide ranking fifty of the worst bird species | NO |
| A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn | Nonfiction | American history told from ordinary people and grassroots movements | NO | |
| A Philosophy of Walking, Frederic Gros | Nonfiction | Philosophy of walking, from Thoreau and Nietzsche to Rousseau and Kant | NO | |
| Baldwin, Nicholas Boggs | Biography | Biography of James Baldwin told through four formative loving relationships | NO | |
| Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott | Nonfiction | Warm, no-nonsense guide to writing and the writing life | MAYBE | |
| Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner | Memoir | Korean American memoir of food, grief, and losing her mother | NO | |
| Educated, Tara Westover | Memoir | Memoir of escaping a survivalist Idaho family through education | NO | |
| Forest Euphoria, Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian | Nonfiction | Mycologist celebrates queerness and fluidity across the natural world | NO | |
| Hidden Potential, Adam Grant | Self-Help | Science-backed guide to unlocking overlooked potential through character and learning | MAYBE | |
| How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr | Narrative Nonfiction | Narrative history of America’s overseas territories and hidden colonial empire | NO | |
| How to Kill a Witch, Zoe Venditozzi; Claire Mitchell | Nonfiction | Scotland’s 150-year witch hunts and could they happen again | NO | |
| Just Kids, Patti Smith | Memoir | Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe as young artists in New York | NO | |
| King of Kings, Scott Anderson | Narrative Nonfiction | How the U.S. missed the 1979 Iranian Revolution against the Shah | NO | |
| Salt, Mark Kurlansky | Nonfiction | How salt shaped civilization, trade, war, and human history | NO | |
| The Anthropocene Reviewed, John Green | Essays | Essays reviewing facets of the human-centered planet on five-star scale | NO | |
| The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron | Self-Help | Creative-recovery program built on morning pages and artist dates | NO | |
| The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson | Narrative Nonfiction | 1893 Chicago World’s Fair architect and a serial-killer’s murder hotel | NO | |
| The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America, Matt Kracht | Nonfiction | Snarky humorous field guide mocking fifty common North American birds | NO | |
| The Fort Bragg Cartel, Seth Harp | Narrative Nonfiction | Drug deaths, overdoses and murder among Fort Bragg’s Special Forces | NO | |
| The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus | Essays | Philosophical essay on the absurd and living without inherent meaning | NO | |
| The Salt Stones, Helen Whybrow | Memoir | Vermont shepherd’s memoir of Icelandic sheep, farm, and family cycles | NO | |
| The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion | Memoir | Didion’s account of grief after her husband’s sudden death | YES | |
| Upstream, Mary Oliver | Essays | Essays on nature, wonder, and the writing life | NO | |
| World Travel, Anthony Bourdain; Laurie Woolever | Nonfiction | Posthumous travel guide blending Bourdain’s commentary with practical trip logistics | NO | |
| Indie YA | Death Card, Jasmine Smith | Fantasy | New Orleans witch befriends the stranger fated to murder her | YES |
| The Gilded Blade, Jennifer Lynn Barnes | Young-Adult | Hawthornes and players face centuries-old secrets and mind-bending puzzles | MAYBE | |
| The Giver, Lois Lowry | Dystopian | Boy inherits a controlled society’s suppressed memories, then flees | MAYBE | |
| The Iliad, Gareth Hinds | Graphic Novel | Graphic-novel retelling of Homer’s Trojan War epic | NO | |
| NYT Advice | Cooking con Omi, Omi Hopper | Cookbook | Love letter to Puerto Rican home cooking in 100 recipes | YES |
| Everyday Hallelujah, Phil Wickham; Matt Litton | Nonfiction | Finding deep joy through everyday acts of worship in Scripture | NO | |
| Never Worry About Money Again, Jesse Mecham | Self-Help | Spend money well by asking what each dollar is for | NO | |
| The Courage to Be Disliked, Ichiro Kishimi; Fumitake Koga | Self-Help | Adlerian psychology taught through a philosopher and young man’s dialogue | NO | |
| Unbreakable Courage, Max Lucado | Nonfiction | Facing anxiety and chaos with the courage of Elijah | NO | |
| What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking: Make It Fast, Caroline Chambers | Cookbook | 100 complete meals in 30 minutes hands-on time | YES | |
| NYT HC F | Daggermouth, H. M. Wolfe | Dystopian | Enemies-to-lovers dystopian romance in a masked surveillance state | NO |
| The Unknown, Riley Sager | Thriller | Actress on a cursed Vermont island where women vanish | NO | |
| NYT PB F | Adversary to the Villain, Hannah Nicole Maehrer | Fantasy | Villain’s assistant Evie faces a prophecy naming her the threat | NO |
| Bonfire and Bliss Bookstore, Brittanee Nicole | Romance | Bookstore owner and returning author fake-date through a cozy fall | YES | |
| Insatiable, Leigh Rivers | Romance | Obsessive dark romance between Kade and the woman he watches | NO | |
| The Wedding People, Alison Espach | Literary Fiction | Divorced woman crashes a stranger’s wedding at a Newport hotel | MAYBE | |
| NYT YA | Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay, Lex Croucher | Romance | Queer Arthurian sequel following life after happily ever after | NO |
| Rootbound, Margaret Owen | Fantasy | Rapunzel and Eugene uncover political intrigue at a neighboring kingdom’s ceremony | NO | |
| Thornbird, E. Kennedy | Thriller | Serial killer’s daughter becomes a suspect in a small Tennessee town | NO | |
| Wings of Reverie, Anna Bright | Fantasy | Frost fairy and dream-talent sparrow man battle dark magic in Winter Woods | NO |
Every month, I keep thinking the # of bestseller items are going to drop considerably as so many titles stay on the lists for so long, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Until the next book…
Re biographies: Judy Blume was quite academic but did inspire me to reread her adult novels with a new perspective.
I have recently looked at many books on musicians and so far am skimming and returning them, about half way through the titles I found on Cloud library.
Thanks sis…It is a rare celebrity that inspires me to read their biography…musicians would be rare. For TV or movie stars, I have to feel there is somethign worth knowing in the background and that it delivers. Tom Selleck’s book was a good audio book because it was him narrating, and he glossed over a bunch of stuff that he admitted glossing over which was good. On the other hand, I read a showrunner’s biography and everyone he worked with ever was fabulous and there was never any problem in his life. Meh. 🙂