Books I’m Reading in 2026 — A Running List

For more than five years, I’ve published a retrospective each January listing all the books I read during the previous year. For 2026, I decided to try something different. Instead of waiting until the end of the year, I’m keeping a running list that I update as I finish each book.

Rather than simply listing titles, I’m including a sentence or two about each one. My hope is that these brief notes will be helpful to anyone looking for something good to read.

If you have books to suggest, please leave them in the comments. I’m always looking for ideas—especially ones that lead me to books I might not have discovered on my own.

1. The Power of One, Bryce Courtenay

   A coming of age story of a South African boy intent on becoming a boxing champion and the major influences and mentors in his life. A must read!

2. Educated, Tara Westover

   Memoir of a backwoods Mormon who left home for an education. Focuses on her complicated relationship with her family. Fascinating!

3. King of Ashes, S. A. Cosby

   A screwed up man lets a drug deal go south. Financially savvy brother swoops in to save him. Sister runs the family crematorium because gang put the Dad in a coma. They all get tied up in gang violence and murder. Violent, but engaging.

4. Speaking from Among the Bones, Alan Bradley

   Book five in the Flavia de Luce mystery series. The precosious 11-year-old solves the murder of the local Church organist, whose body was found when they unearthed the remains of the Church patron, Saint Tancred. This series is one of my guilty pleasures.

5. Slow Horses, by Mick Herron

   For various indiscretions—real or manufactured—spies from the Service are exiled to Slough House, a dumping ground for damaged careers. There they are relegated to boring, humiliating work and quietly forgotten. In the first book, Slough House finds itself maneuvered into taking the blame for a kidnapping engineered from within the Service. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, but given there are follow-on novels the investment of time will pay off.

6. Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman, Patrick Hutchison

   The author chronicles his adventures fixing up a cabin in the Pacific Northwest. With friends, perseverance, and many missteps he gradually transforms from completely clueless to competent craftsman. I love reading books set in the Pacific Northwest where I lived for many years.

7. Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books, by Aaron Lansky.

   An amazing, fascinating, and sometimes humorous story of how one man’s passion led to the creation of the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA. My book club chose this one. I thought it might be boring but I couldn't put it down! I want to learn Yiddish.

8. In the Bleak Midwinter, by Julia Spencer-Fleming.

   The first in a murder mystery series where a female Episcopal priest teams up with a local police detective to solve two related murders. It takes place in upstate New York, which is what attracted me to the story because I was raised in Albany. I look forward to reading another in this series. The priest is an ex-army helicopter pilot, so she has survival skills that come in handy.