Books are rated on a 1-10 scale,
with 8.5 and above being a book
that I solidly recommend.
To start off 2026, I've been on a 4-week Instagram fast. Hopefully I can keep going strong in this new year, because I can tell it has made a difference in my focus, my ability to be present, and it has INCREASED MY AVAILABLE READING TIME. This is a note to my future self from my present (in every sense) self. -Bec, Jan 6, 2026
55. The Rural Life (2026.10.18)
By: Verlyn Klinkenborg
Pages: 213
Published: 2003
Genre: Nonfiction / nature / essays /gardening
Bex rating: 8.5
I really enjoyed this collection of essays, shared in month-order. It was like living an entire year of gardening and housekeeping and holidays. Some great snippets below:
Many seeds require a period of cold, called a stratification, before they’ll germinate. Thanks to this storm, residence of the northeast can consider themselves properly stratified. (8)
In America we’ve learned to locate the meaning of rural life in the past, thereby dismissing it. (22)
I have no illusions of obtaining self-sufficiency. The only sufficiency I want is sufficiency of connectedness, the feeling that horses, pigs, bees, pasture, garden, and woods intertwine. (47)
Memorial day is the porch before the house of Summer, (66)
I understood for the first time that there’s such a thing as defensive gardening, that planting corn and tomatoes and onions is also a way of forestalling the spread of unwanted species. If you don’t plant, the Earth will bear anyhow. (122)
We should stick with our lift tomato cages or till ground for next year’s garlic. Instead we’ll sit in the autumn sunshine and enjoy being bone tired, harvesting our fatigue. (168)
A garden is so full of cheap sermons. (172)
There’s something static about a new house, something terminal. (186)
Overtime Thanksgiving has become the holiday that defines the spare season. By the end of the 11th month, the year is ancient enough to have shown us its wisdom. We know what to be grateful for by now, our gratitude is simply beyond us. (195)
54. The Gate of
the Feral Gods: DCC Book 4
By: Matt
Dinniman
🎧
Narrated by: Jeff Hays
Audiobook
Length: 18:03
Published: 2021
Genre: fantasy
/ science fiction / LitRPG
Bex rating: 9 (super crude language and video game violence)
53. Yes Please
(2026.10.12)
By: Amy Poehler
Pages: 329
Published: 2014
Genre:
nonfiction / memoir / humor
Bex rating: 7.5 (this book would be a 9 except it was way too crude)
Favorite excerpts:
So here we go, you and me. Because what else are we going to do? Say no? Say no to an opportunity that may be slightly out of our comfort zone? Quiet our voice because we are worried it is not perfect? I believe great people do things before they are ready. This is America and I am allowed to have healthy self-esteem. This book comes straight from my feisty and freckled fingers. Know it was a battle. Blood was shed. A war raged between my jokey and protective brain and my squishy and tender heart. (xv)
I love saying "yes" and I love saying "please." Saying "yes" doesn't mean I don't know how to say no, and saying "please" doesn't mean I am waiting for permission. "Yes please" sounds powerful and concise. It's a response and a request. It is not about being a good girl; it is about being a real woman. It's also a title I can tell my kids. I like when they say "Yes please" because most people are rude and nice manners are the secret keys to the universe. (xix)
You are six or twelve or fifteen and you look in the mirror and you hear a voice so awful and mean that it takes your breath away. It tells you that you are fat and ugly and you don't deserve love. And the scary part is the demon is your own voice. But it doesn't sound like you. It sounds like a strangled and seductive version of you.
Think Darth Vader or an angry Lauren Bacall. The good news is there are ways to make it stop talking. The bad news is it never goes away. If you are lucky , you can live a life where the demon is generally forgotten, relegated to a back shelf in a closet next to your old field hockey equipment. You may even have days or years when you think the demon is gone. But it is not. It is sitting very quietly, waiting for you.
This mofo is patient.
It says, "Take your time."
It says, "Go fall in love and exercise and surround yourself with people who make you feel beautiful."
It says, "Don't worry, I'll wait."
And then one day, you go through a breakup or you can't lose your baby weight or you look at your reflection in a soup spoon and that slimy bugger is back. It moves its sour mouth up to your ear and reminds you that you are fat and ugly and don't deserve love.
This demon is some Stephen King from-the-sewer devil-level shiz. (16)
Your brain is not your friend when you need to apologize. Your brain and your ego and your intellect all remind you of the "facts." I kept telling myself that the only thing I was guilty of was not paying attention. Sure, I was being self-absorbed and insensitive, but who isn't? Sure, I should have been more on top of what I was saying, but wasn't that somebody else's job? Didn't everyone know how busy I was? Didn't Marianne and Chris take into consideration what a NICE PERSON I was? My brain shouted these things loud and clear. My heart quietly told a different story.
Shame is difficult. It's a weapon and a signal. It can paralyze or motivate. My friend Louis CK likes to say that "guilt is an intersection." Getting out of it means making a choice and moving forward. (71)
I UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE READ SO MANY BOOKS ON DIVORCE. When you are a person going through a divorce you feel incredibly alone, yet you are constantly reminded by society of how frequently divorce happens and how common it has become. You aren't allowed to feel special, but no one understands the specific ways you are in pain. Imagine spreading everything you care about on a blanket and then tossing the whole thing up in the air. The process of divorce is about loading up that blanket, throwing it up, watching it all spin, and worrying what stuff will break when it lands. It's no wonder we want to find answers and comfort. (87)
Fighting aging is like they were on drugs. It’s expensive, does more harm than good, and has been proven to never end. (98)
There is an unspoken pact that women are supposed to follow.
I am supposed to act like I constantly feel guilty about being away from my kids. (I don't. I love my job.) Mothers who stay at home are supposed to pretend they are bored and wish they were doing more corporate things. (They don't. They love their job.) If we all stick to the plan there will be less blood in the streets. (151)
I guess the Buddhists would call this idea healthy detachment.
Too often we are told to visualize what we want and cut out pictures of it and repeat it like a mantra over and over again. Books and magazines tell us to create vision boards. Late-night commercials remind us that "anything is possible." Positive affirmations are written on our tea bags. I am introducing a new idea. Try to care less. Practice ambivalence. Learn to let go of wanting it. Treat your career like a bad boyfriend.
Here's the thing. Your career won't take care of you. It won't call you back or introduce you to its parents. Your career will openly flirt with other people while you are around. It will forget your birthday and wreck your car. Your career will blow you off if you call it too much..,
Your career will never marry you.
Now, before I extend this metaphor, let me make a distinction between career and creativity. Creativity is connected to your passion, that light inside you that drives you. That joy that comes When you do something you love. That small voice that tells you, like this. Do this again. You are good at it. Keep going" That is the juicy stuff that lubricates our lives and helps us feel less alone in the world. Your creativity is not a bad boyfriend. It is a really warm older Hispanic lady who has a beautiful laugh and loves to hug. If you are even a little bit nice to her she will make you feel great and may you cook you delicious food. (223)
My phone is trying to kill me. It is a battery-charged rectangle of disappointment and possibility. It is a technological pacifier. I keep it beside me to make me feel less alone, unless I feel like making myself feel lonely. It can make me feel connected and unloved, ugly and important, sad and vindicated. So what do we do? Well first, we go back to the Dalai Lama. He says, "I think technology has really increased human ability. But technology cannot produce compassion" Man, that's good. That's why he's the Big Lama. (324)
52. Last of the Mohicans (2026.10.11)
By: James Fenimore Cooper (Great Illustrated Classics version)
Pages: 120
Published: 1992
Genre: historical fiction / adventure / classic
Bex rating: 8
51. Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road
By: Kate Harris
Pages: 320
Published: 2018
Genre: Nonfiction / Travel / Cycling / Adventure
Bex rating: 9.5
I looooved this book! I want more cycling memoirs like this one. Kate is an incredible writer and I had to go to YouTube to find her short video of this trip on the Silk Road after finishing. Just check out this amazing prose:
It was three a.m. and moonless. The night air was cool for July and laced with the sweet breath of poplars and willows that grew in slender wands beside the river. No clean divisions between earth and sky, light and dark, just a lush and total blackness. I couldn't see the mountains but I could sense them around me, sharp curses of rock. The kind of country that consists entirely of edges. Sometimes Mel and I drifted blindly into each other, our bulky panniers acting like bumpers. We navigated by the sound of our wheels, a hushed whirring indicating the pavement, a rasp of gravel the road shoulder and the need for a course correction. Travelling by bicycle is a life of simple things taken seriously: hunger, thirst, friendship, the weather, the stutter of the world beneath you. (2)
A large part of why I love biking is how blissful it is to stop. (28)
Truth be told, the western plateau's bleakness was so other-worldly, so breathtaking, that I could understand why everyone wanted to claim it for themselves. Tibet is often romantically evoked as the roof of the world, as if the plateau served as some kind of elaborate shelter, but it was raw exposure that I craved and found there. What the plateau truly presents is not refuge, but a new frame of reference: from those dizzying heights, you can glimpse the real roof of our world, that faint swaddling of oxygen and nitrogen that holds us back from the heavens, or the heavens back from us. A thin blue rim, barely sixty miles thick that buffers all life on Earth from the bottomless void of space. (39)
I did feel strangely at home on the Tibetan Plateau, a sense of deep arrival that was almost disordering. I don't mean to claim a cheap affiliation with a culture or complicated history that, at the time, I barely knew, and still am only learning. Instead what I felt was an affinity for the land itself, the stark contours and harsh tectonics of the plateau, this territory of uplift and change. As Mel and I biked out of Ali, I couldn't stop thinking about the "pale blue dot" photograph taken by Voyager I before the spacecraft sped out of the solar system forever. The image revealed our home as a tiny speck of blue in the darkness of deep space, "a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam," in the words of astronomer Carl Sagan…Although that casual snapshot offered something far more rare and significant than reams of data: a fundamental change in perspective. Wasn't that the most meaningful outcome of any kind of exploration? To reveal the old world-and ourselves-anew? (41)
Most buildings at MIT are known by numbers, not names, a quirk that struck me as charming when I first arrived and chilling when I left. (70)
I wanted to discuss the ways wilderness brings us alive in every possible sense. Isn’t that the most obvious reason to take care of the planet, the fact that we can’t breathe, drink, eat, or exist without it? (133)
Winter was melting away when we left Tbilisi in early March. Every tree brunch was fisted with buds and the air smelled of freshly chopped pine, earthy and warm, all those rays of sunshine released. Every time I got on my bicycle after a long hiatus it was like riding back to myself, the only way there. The dissipation of life in the city – days of to-do lists, errands, emails, small talk with strangers – generated static in my mind that I didn’t notice was there until I started paddling and realized it was gone, the way you don’t hear the hum of a refrigerator until it stops. Such as the paradoxical freedom of cycling the silk Road. (136)
In restricting the range of directions you can travel, in charging ordinary movement with momentum, a bike trip offers that rarest, most elusive of things in our phonetic world: clarity of purpose. You still responsibility on earth, as long as your legs last each day, is to breathe, pedal, breathe – and look around.(136)
Travel reveals less about the truth of a place in Hansmore at how complicated the world is, how reeling and inscrutable. Perhaps that’s the best thing going for bicycle travel in particular: the way it’s an antidote to straight lines, haste. The danger of growing so short of yourself that you forget you know nothing.(143)
missed opportunity. After all, the Latin root of the word explorer is ex-plorare, with ex meaning "go out" and plorare meaning "to utter a cry." Venturing into the unknown, in other words, is only half the job. The other half, and maybe the most crucial half for exploration to matter beyond the narrow margins of the self, is coming home to share the tale. (183)
Maybe the bicycle is the true pinnacle of all our science and logging to Stoor: one of the rare human interventions that has taken us farther, lifted us higher, without being warped to some sinister purpose. (164)
Everything was falling apart, grinding down. Our clothing was in tatters, our socks poked through holes in our shoes, my watch strap was broken and the battery dead. Mel's bike had been missing a handlebar grip since Kyrgyzstan, a bungee cord was tangled permanently around her rear hub, and my kickstand and mirror had bailed on me several countries ago. Our inner tubes were more patches than rubber by now, and the chains and gears on our bikes protested loudly with every pedal stroke. The tent zippers refused to zip, the bit of wire that fixed the burner to our stove was broken, and our Therm-a-Rest mattresses leaked from pricks so microscopic we couldn't find and plug them, so we woke up hugging the cold, hard ground. After nearly a year on the road, it was a wonder anything still worked, especially our friendship. (282)
50. Allegiance to Winds and Waters (2026.09.26)
By: Anne Winkler-Morey
Pages: 352
Published: 2022
Genre: Nonfiction / Memoir / Travel / Cycling
Bex rating: 7.5
I am down for reading about cycling. I am down for reading about real life problems that exist in times of political upheaval, even when they are not necessarily my own views (though most of these were). I don't mind hearing someone complain about losing their job or being overweight or their worries about America or how hard a day of cycling was or about their Trauma-with-a-capital-T.
But what turns me off to a book, fiction or nonfiction, is the tone. And this one was nonstop whiny, judgmental, angry--with no "therefore, what?" at the end. I wouldn't have minded the disjointed style of narration (just snippets from each town they stayed in on their journey around the perimeter of America) if there was something . . . redeeming about it all. Some message of hope or glimmer of a lesson being learned or some ideas about how to change things for the better.
It was just complaining.
But here are my favorite quotes:
Lake Pepin is not really late, but a widening in the Mississippi river. Sitting on its banks, the view did not make me gasp like a western mountain or eastern sea might. Instead, it’s settled my breath, dissolving nuts I didn’t know were there. (22)
On a sidewalk out of town, a man handed us a leaflet protesting the collusion of the United auto workers and bosses. I expressed the solidarity and a desire to learn more. He shrugged. He was a man without work, paid by the activist to hand out literature he had not read. (45)
ALL MILES ARE NOT equal. The first five can fly by, Sometimes a quar ter mile can be nearly impossible. Bikers call it bonking. No food or drink-DayGlo blue or otherwise—will help. You need to stop. Exhausted by traffic, hills, and curves with no sightlines, I bonked as we entered Hamburg, New York. (59)
“The day after 911,” she said, “I saw a Muslim woman in the grocery store and glared at her. The woman cried. I vowed never to do that again. I saw a man at a gas station, baseball cap jammed over his turban. I said, “God bless you.“ He looked surprised, grateful. I looked past between us: two humans caught and dangerous times.“(112)
I can talk to the game I call rope, reptile, or rubber: is that coil on the roadside a snake, Wayne, or the other piece of a truck tire? (128)
I wanted to understand how nationalism overtakes people, replaces empathy, makes way for hell on earth. (132)
Fear and anchor. One seemed to follow the other in quick succession with me. At the Sylvia Beach Hotel, our dinner mates had asked how the trip had changed us. The assumption – which I shared – was it would be transformative. But it seemed that all the writing did was lay my issues Bear. If anything, I expressed more anger. On the bike, ferocity had no container. The depths of my fury scared me. Distance and wind meant to David did not hear every word, but enough. And then it dawned on me. The road had unleashed a well of emotions, and so far, I had not died. I had allowed myself to feel and no disaster had be following me. My rage turned to giggles, imagining explaining this change to our friends, who wanted to hear I’d learn to live each moment, enjoy God’s beauty, love my fellow human. (272)
Bliss was short-lived. It started to snow. Shivering, wet to the bone with sweat, we pulled on sweatshirts, winter jackets, rain pants, and thick gloves for the gripping brakes for 18 miles of switchbacks. Hands brittle, shoulders hunched. Down 3000 feet. Too scared to sing or swear.(290)
“Love the crust of the Earth on which you dwell more than the sweet crust of any bread or cake.“ Henry David Thoreau, 1858 (336)
“When we practice this kind of radical hospitality… We make room for the possibility that fear does not have to compel our ever response.“ Kristine Valters Painter, 2012 (336)
A river needs no flag. (338)
49. 🎧 We Chase Shadows (2026.09.24)
By: Richard Osman
Narrated by: Nicola Walker
Audiobook Length: 10h 22m
Published: 2026
Genre: Fiction / Mystery / Cozy Mystery / Crime
Bex rating: 9.5
48. 🎧 The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vol. 3 (2026.09.15, re-read)
By: Beth Brower
Narrated by: Genevieve Gaunt
Audiobook Length: 7 hr 39 min
Published: 2021
Genre: Historical Fiction / Epistolary Fiction / Humor / Slice-of-Life
Bex rating: 10
47. 🎧 The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vol. 3 (2026.09.11)
By: Beth Brower
Narrated by: Genevieve Gaunt
Audiobook Length: 6 hr 47 min
Published: 2020
Genre: Historical Fiction / Epistolary Fiction / Humor / Slice-of-Life
Bex rating: 10
46. 🎧 The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vol. 2 (2026.09.09)
By: Beth Brower
Narrated by: Genevieve Gaunt
Audiobook Length: 4 hr 31 min
Published: 2020
Genre: Historical Fiction / Epistolary Fiction / Humor / Slice-of-Life
Bex rating: 10
45. 🎧 The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vol. 1 (2026.09.04, re-read)
By: Beth Brower
Narrated by: Genevieve Gaunt
Audiobook Length: 3 hr
Published: 2019
Genre: Historical Fiction / Epistolary Fiction / Humor / Slice-of-Life
Bex rating: 10
44. Sweet Home Alaska (2026.08.31)
By: Carole Estby Dagg
Pages: 304
Published: 2016
Genre: Historical Fiction / Middle Grade / Alaska / Great Depression
Bex rating: 9.5
43. The Potpourrific Great Big Grab Bag of Get Fuzzy (2026.08.31)
By: Darby Conley
Pages: 256
Published: 2008
Genre: Humor / Comics
Bex rating: 8.5
42. Zits: Crack of Noon (2026.08.25)
By: Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman
Pages: 256
Published: 2006
Genre: Humor / Comics
Bex rating: 9
41. Zits Supersized (2026.08.22)
By: Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman
Pages: 256
Published: 2003
Genre: Humor / Comics
Bex rating: 9
40. 🎧 The Widow (2026.08.20)
By: John Grisham
Narrated by: Michael Beck
Audiobook Length: 14 hr 24 min
Published: 2024
Genre: Thriller / Legal Fiction
Bex rating: 9
39. 🎧 The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (2026.08.12)
By: Alan Bradley
Narrated by: Jayne Entwistle
Audiobook Length: 9 hr 54 min
Published: 2009
Genre: Mystery / Cozy Mystery / Humor / Chemistry / Coming-of-Age / Historical Fiction
Bex rating: 10
38. Humongous Zits (2026.08.09)
By: Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman
Pages: 256
Published: 2000
Genre: Humor / Comics
Bex rating: 9
37. 🎧 The Notorious Scarlett and Browne (2026.08.07)
By: Jonathan Stroud
Narrated by: Sophie Aldred
Audiobook Length: 12 hr 18 min
Published: 2023
Genre: Fantasy / Science Fiction / Young Adult
Bex rating: 9
It was so fun to listen to this with Mollie and Calvin and Allen on our long drive to and from Arkansas. Audiobooks as a family is one of my favorite shared experiences.
36. Random Zits (2026.08.07)
By: Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman
Pages: 248
Published: 2004
Genre: Humor / Comics
Bex rating: 9
Time for some comics. Bought this collection at Dickson Street Bookstore in Fayetteville and it reminded me how much I enjoy Zits. Here are some of my favorites.
35. 🎧 The Dutch House (2026.07.16, re-read)
By: Ann Patchett
Narrated by: Tom Hanks
Audiobook Length: 9 hr 54 min
Published: 2019
Genre: Literary Fiction / Family Saga / Historical Fiction / Character-Driven Fiction / Coming-of-Age
Bex rating: 10
I read this book the first g-round but listened to it this time. It is exactly what I needed to get the taste of the last book out of my mouth. It was fun to hear Tom Hanks read the book, though I'd rather have a professional audiobook narrator who does voices than a "good reader."
I think I understood it better the second time around--it's about what it means to be a mother and to be mothered. Important and thought-provoking stuff.
34. Yesteryear (2026.07.10)
By: Caro Claire Burke
Pages: 352
Published: 2025
Genre: Historical Fiction / Time Travel / Speculative Fiction / Romance / Contemporary Fiction
Bex rating: 2
One of THE VERY WORST BOOKS I have ever read. It prompted me to leave this review on amazon:
I occasionally leave a review about something I think is inspiring or thought-provoking or important.
This was none of those things.
I didn’t know vitriol could be a tone. The pacing was erratic, the ending was confusing and not remotely believable — I felt like I was watching the crudest drivel that reality TV has to offer. I can usually handle crude language without batting an eye but this took it to a gratuitous level that was frankly ridiculous.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to leave my first bad review— normally I can read a book I didn’t like and move on, but I feel compelled to warn people away from this one.
33. 🎧 The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook: Book 3 (2026.07.06)
By: Matt Dinniman
Narrated by: Jeff Hays
Audiobook Length: 16 hr 54 min
Published: 2021
Genre: Science Fantasy / LitRPG / Dark Comedy / Adventure / Post-Apocalyptic Fiction
Bex rating: 9
Still got me rolling on the floor, but I think I'm going to take a break from these books because the swear words and vulgarity are DENSE.
32. The Calamity Club (2026.06.28)
By: Kathryn Stockett
Pages: 656
Published: 2026
Genre: Historical Fiction / Literary Fiction / Southern Fiction / Women’s Fiction / Family Drama
Bex rating: 8.5
I couldn't put it down, but I didn't love it quite as much as The Help
31. Ash’s Cabin (2026.06.20)
By: Jen Wang
Pages: 320
Published: 2024
Genre: Graphic Novel / Young Adult / Contemporary Fiction / Nature
Bex rating: 8
Kind of depressing.
30. The Unicorn Hunters (2026.06.26)
By: Katherine Arden
Pages: 354
Published: 2026
Genre: Fantasy / Folklore / Mythic / Adventure
Bex rating: 8.5
Interesting and beautiful, if a little hard to follow.
29. The Eyes and the Impossible (2026.06.24)
By: Dave Eggers
Pages: 256
Published: 2023
Genre: Children’s Fiction / Literary Fiction / Animal Adventure / Philosophical Fiction
Bex rating: 10!
What a great early birthday present from my dear Melanie! Oh my goodness this book was JOYFUL!
28. The Wood at Midwinter (2026.06.10)
By: Susanna Clarke
Published: 2024
Genre: Fantasy / Fairy Tale / Folklore
Bex rating: 8.5
27. Whistler (2026.06.09)
By: Ann Patchett
Pages: 304
Published: 2026
Genre: Fiction / Literary Fiction
Bex rating: 9.5
Ann Patchett knows how to create compelling characters that are so real and relatable. I loved this story.
26. 🎧 Carl’s Doomsday Scenario: Dungeon Crawler Carl, Book 2 (2026.06.05)
By: Matt Dinniman
Narrated by: Jeff Hays
Published: 2021
Genre: Science Fantasy / LitRPG / Dark Comedy / Adventure / Post-Apocalyptic
Bex rating: 9
25. 🎧 Dungeon Crawler Carl (2026.05.30)
By: Matt Dinniman
Narrated by: Jeff Hays
Audiobook Length: 13 hr 31 min
Published: 2020
Genre: Science Fantasy / LitRPG / Dark Comedy / Adventure / Post-Apocalyptic
Bex rating: 9
Graphic language warning. But so wildly inventive and raucously hilarious. I am listening on Truman's recommendation and I can't get enough.
24. 🎧 Theo of Golden (2026.05.22)
By: Allen Levi
Narrated by: Allen Levi
Audiobook Length: 13 hr 12 min
Published: 2017
Genre: Literary Fiction / Southern Fiction / Character-Driven / Reflective Fiction / Spiritual Fiction
Bex rating: 10
23. The New Yorker Book of Cat Cartoons (2026.05.21)
By: The New Yorker
Pages: 112
Published: 1992
Genre: Humor / Cartoon Collection / Satire / Nonfiction
Bex rating: 8.5
22. The Golem and the Jinni (2026.05.16)
By: Helene Wecker
Pages: 486
Published: 2013
Genre: Fantasy / Historical fantasy / Mythic fantasy / Magical realism / Literary fantasy / NYC
Bex rating: 10
21. Wormwood Abbey (2026.04.22)
By: Christina Baehr
Pages: 200
Published: 2023
Genre: Fantasy / Gothic fantasy / Adventure / young adult
Bex rating: 9
This was a super fun recommendation from my friend Rachelle. It was funny and original, and I am excited to read the next four books in the series! She told me that if I liked the Emma M Lion books, I would like these books. These ones are definitely geared toward a younger audience, but this first volume was quite delightful.
20. The God of the Woods 🎧 (2026.04.22, book club)
By: Liz Moore
Audiobook length: 12 hours 55 minutes
Read by: Saskia Maarleveld
Published: 2024
Genre: Literary fiction / Mystery / Thriller / Psychological fiction / Family drama
Bex rating: 8
Ugh, this book filled me with absolute DREAD the whole time I was listening to it. That said, I kind of couldn't stop listening, because I needed closure . . . it's just not a genre I would choose for myself. It was so atmospheric--and had some pretty rough parts with terrible language, something that's always harder for me on an audiobook than a physical copy.
I will say that the writing was very good, the characters were real, I felt invested. I think a lot of readers did not like the ending, but I thought it was PERFECT.
But overall, a toughie for me.
19. Uprooted (2026.04.17)
By: Naomi Novik
Pages: 438
Published: 2015
Genre: Fantasy / High fantasy / Fairy tale retelling / Mythic fantasy / Historical fantasy
Bex rating: 8.5
I would have given this book a 9 or maybe even a 9.5--but there were two fairly graphich scenes that kind of came out of nowhere and didn't flow with the rest of the story.
18. Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting (2026.04.04)
By: Clare Pooley
Pages: 368
Published: 2022
Genre: Contemporary fiction / Literary fiction / Character-driven / Humor / Social fiction
Bex rating: 8.5
My friend Cori sent his book to me FOR NO REASON JUST BECAUSE SHE IS THE BEST. It was a much-needed escape during a very stressful time.
Iona Iverson is a "magazine therapist" in her late 50s who feels outdated and underappreciated. She looks forward to her morning commute to work on the London underground more than anything, and a chain of events leads to her getting to know her fellow commuting passengers. Soon these handful of people are drawn into each other's lives and they learn to support and help each other in their individual crises. It was funny and warm and feel-good.
- Today was going to be the day, thought Sanjay as he made his way to the New Malden station to catch his usual train. The day he finally plucked up the courage to speak to The Girl On The Train. He’d even worked out what he was going to say. She always carried a book with her. A proper one, not a kindle or an audiobook. (10)
- “What do you think of Mrs. Danvers?” He blurted out. She looked totally confused. She wasn’t even reading that book this morning. She was clutching a copy of Michelle Obama‘s autobiography. (13)
- What would Julie say, or all those people on the train on Monday who thought him some sort of hero, if they knew about his regular and debilitating panic attacks? What if they could see him hiding in the family room, the toilets, or the store cupboard, bent double, head in his hands as he waited until he could breathe normally again? (29)
- Martha was spending a lot of her time feeling like David Attenborough narrating a nature documentary. She was an observer, studying a foreign Species, trying to work out their habits and rituals, so she could move among them without being rejected or picked on. Did other teenagers do this naturally? Or were they all struggling to work out the rules? The rules that always seemed to change just as soon as you had them all figured out. What brands to wear, what music to listen to, words to use, people to follow on social media, actors to idolize. It was a jungle. (31)
- Piers hated feeling beholden. He liked the satisfying simplicity of knowing that everything he was, everything he owned, was down to him, and him alone. (41)
- He clutched his chest with both hands, and gave her his soulful Labrador puppy look, the one he used to employ when he wanted to latest female intern to fetch his dry cleaning or a box of doughnuts, back when that sort of entirely reasonable request didn’t get you hauled into HR. (43)
- When, Iona wondered, had people started reaching out instead of merely calling? Apart from the Americans, obviously, who no doubt been doing it for years, along with circling back and thinking outside the box. (94)
- If you stand on the bridge for long enough, the body of your enemy will come floating by. -Chinese proverb
- soupçon: a very small quantity of something. "a soupçon of mustard" (pronounced soopSON)
- identikit: In the UK, people commonly use identikit to mean a police composite or even a “typical example” of something. In American English, you’re more likely to hear: “composite sketch” or “police sketch”. The term comes from the Identikit system, and while that system was used in the U.S., the word itself stuck much more in British usage.
17. Tosoiba: Sparkling Waters (book club, 2026.04.02)
By: Lula Barnard / Faunda Bybee
Pages: 32
Published: 1994
Genre: Children's nonfiction / Regional history / Indigenous culture / Local history
Bex rating: 7.5
This was a book that was very interesting, even though it was poorly written. My friend Niki chose it for book club because it outlines the history of our town. It was complied by three women in the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers organization, and there was so much interesting history, but sometimes it was pretty unwieldy and hard to understand.
That said, Niki and I had an absolute BLAST doing a little sneaky reconnaissance to find "Mammoth Spring"--one of the sparkling springs that is now on private property and no one in Soda has heard of it. It featured prominently in Tosoiba (which is allegedly a Native American word for "sparkling waters"), and now WE are officially Caribou County afficionados because we have imbibed of said sparkling waters.
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| Niki and I standing in an undisclosed location-- we waded across this stream to get to Mammoth Springs |
- "There are some warm springs that may be used advantageously for bathing, but the most remarkable are the cool soda-fountains, of which there are several. These come bubbling up clear as crystal from the ground in great pools and are delicious to the taste, and full of carbonic-acid gas as the soda drawn from the druggists siphons. Soda, magnesia, and iron are their principal ingredients, and I do not know of an individual having tried them for digestive difficulties who has not been benefited by their use. By and by, they will surely find their way, like Congress water, all over the world, and will meet with equal favor... If any reader can be induced by my experience to take his rebellious liver there for satisfactory repairs, and that by others to have his rheumatic joints made supple, let him not forget his fowling-piece and fishing rod.
- To all travelers along that formidable trail that wound over the Rocky Mountains and across parched desert lands in the heat of summer days, the "soda springs" were not only a source of wonder and amazement, but of refreshment and delight such as one might find in an oasis of the Sahara.
From the very earliest mention of these "sparkling waters," and for many decades afterward, the mineral springs of "Tosoiba" country were tamous near and far for their curative powers. Indeed, even today, patients in the Caribou County hospital often request a drink of "spring water."
And they who believe receive help, just as did the early visitors who, with great faith, drank the bubbling liquid for relief from stomach disorders and other ailments. The Shoshone medicine man" is known to have relied considerably on the cold fire water for the working of his skill and magic (14) - Just a short distance from point of the mountain, and in the upper end of the valley, where Soda Creek Manders quietly along it’s winding way between the hills, only to be lost beneath railroad tracks in a crowded highways, a city has been built – a friendly, progressive town with a Rich historical background. Linked with all the tragedies, hopes, frustrations, and accomplishments encountered in the building of the west, there is woven into the history of Soda Springs the story of its Earley pioneer who, within an exhaustible energy, built a town in the wilderness. (21)
- Poor little birds that had tried to drink from the spring were found dead in large numbers. (22)
- We had not been here long when a party of us young folks discovered an especially good spring not far from our settlement. People who have tasted the famed water of other countries say it is as fine as any. I don’t think anyone had ever tasted it before, for the men took the sod away and opened up the source. They have named it “Ninety Percent”. (58)
- There is one thing unpleasant about this place. It is very cold. (59)
- When the high waters came in the spring, the [railroad] ties were floated down the Bear River to Corinne, Utah (88)
- Ebenezer farnes: “Through my helping to survey the townsite, I got one lot for $125, built a two-room log home and put up a barn. I fenced the lot and the next spring moved the family up there. I planted a nice garden with all kinds of vegetables, the same as we had in Salt Lake. The 3rd of July, Captain Hooper stopped at my place. He told me it was a mistake to say that farming could not be done there as he had never seen a finer garden, but on the 3rd of July, 1871, there came a heavy frost that froze all the vegetation and on the morning of the 4th, when the sun came up, everything turned black.” (94)
- Printed in Deseret News, August 11, 1871: “Feathered game in abundance can be found, while mountain trout can be caught in all the streams that empty into the Bear River. The future of Soda Springs is very flattering at and no distant day, we may expect to see crowds of pleasure-seeking tourists and invalids thronging to the springs. Possible in the future, crowds who today throng Newport, Saratoga, Long Island, will turn westward to Soda Springs and this will be ablaze with wealth and fashion. (98)
- Huge drums were put over the mammoth Spring to trap the escaping gas which was then piped over the mountain in large tubes to the bottling works. Here the bottles were filled with water from Ninety Percent spring and the contents charged with gas from Mammoth Spring. (117)
- germade: a type of hot cereal made from wheat. It’s a brand/trade name for a wheat-based porridge, similar to cream of wheat, Made from finely ground wheat (often the germ part of the grain)
16. Spinning Silver (2026.03.19)
By: Naomi Novik
Pages: 466
Published: 2018
Genre: Fantasy / High fantasy / Fairy tale retelling / Mythic fantasy / Historical fantasy
Bex rating: 10
Wow. this one was a recommendation from ChatGPT. I pasted all my favorite books into Chat and asked it for more recs based on my taste. This was so imaginative and beautiful and satisfying--the end was PERFECT! I immediately ordered another Naomi Novik book as soon as I was done with this one.
- I wasn’t sorry to be leaving them. I loved nothing about the town or any of them, even now when it was at least familiar ground. I wasn’t sorry they didn’t like me, I wasn’t sorry I had been hard to them. I was glad, fiercely glad. They had wanted me to bury my mother and leave my father to die alone. They had wanted me to go be a beggar in my grandfather’s house, and live the rest of my days a quiet mouse in the kitchen. They would have devoured my family and picked their teeth with the bones, and never been sorry at all. Better to be turned to ice like the Staryl, who didn’t pretend to be a neighbor. (103)
- I didn’t really understand what mothers were . . . but I knew they were very good things and you were very angry and sad if you lost them. (158)
- There was cooking to be done and dishes to be washed, tables to be late and cleaned again, children to be fed and crying babies to be held. A crowd of women around me doing the ocean of women’s work that never subsided and never changed and always swallowed whatever time you gave it and wanted more, another hungry body of water. I submerged into it like a ritual bath and let it close over my head gladly. I wanted to stop my ears on my eyes and my mouth with it. I could worry about this, whether there was enough food, whether the bread was rising well, whether the beef had cooked long enough, whether there were enough chairs at the table; I could do something about these things. (378)
- A rubber who steals a knife and cut himself cannot cry out against the woman who kept it sharp. (393)
- I knew there was no use asking him. He would only shrug and look at me expectantly again, waiting for high magic: magic that came only when you made some larger version of yourself with words and promises, and then stepped inside and somehow grew to fill it. (442)
15. Project Hail Mary 🎧 (2026.03.12)
By: Andy Weir
Audiobook length: 16 hours 10 minutes
Read by: Ray Porter
Published: 2021
Genre: Science fiction / Hard science fiction / Space adventure / First-contact fiction / Thriller
Bex rating: 10
Absolutely THE BEST science fiction I have ever read (even though I listened to it). It was so fantastically narrated! I never wanted it to end. Excited to see the movie next week!
14. The New Yorker Book of Kids' Cartoons (2026.03.08)
By: Roz Chast
Pages: 112
Published: 2004
Genre: Humor / Cartoon collection / Satire / Children's humor / Nonfiction
Bex rating: 9
Picked this up at a thrift store and it was just excellent, as per usual for The New Yorker. I loved the forward by Roz Chast, and even more than that, I loved seeing both Mollie and Calvin pick up this book and read it, cover to cover. I am a big proponent for cartoons and cartoon books--it's story telling in the most succinct, powerful ways. Also, I was interested to learn from ChatGPT that cartoons are classified as nonfiction.
Even though the cartoons themselves may be fictional scenarios, the book isn’t telling a narrative story. It’s a curated collection of artwork and humor, similar to: essay collections, photography books, comic strip anthologies
And here was the one that made me laugh the hardest:
13. The Wise Man’s Fear (2026.03.10)
By: Patrick Rothfuss
Pages: 994
Published: 2011
Genre: Fantasy / Epic fantasy / High fantasy / Adventure / Coming-of-age / Literary fantasy
Bex rating: 9
I loved the second book in this series--but not quite as much as the first. The language is uch edgier and it got pretty steamy--something that was absent fromt he first book.
However, I'm waiting with the rest of the world for the last installment in the Kingkiller Chronicles. Everyone else has been waiting 15 years and I hope I don't have to wait that long. I am not the only one who is impatient--in November 2025, Amy Poehler mentioned these books on her podcast, Good Hang with Amy, "I want to mention, again, a fantasy book that I love. It’s called The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Eagerly awaiting the next book, sir, so chop chop.”
12. The Correspondent 🎧 (2026.03.05)
By: Virginia Evans
Audiobook length: 6 hours 37 minutes
Read by: Imogen Church
Published: 2024
Genre: Literary fiction / Epistolary fiction / Contemporary fiction / Psychological fiction
Bex rating: 10
Absolutely fabulous, from beginning to end. I'll be thinking of this one for a long time. The relationships were so real, and the writing was just excellent. Having listened to it on audio--with a full cast for each person who exchanges letters with the protagonist--I can't imagine a better way to experience this book. It was perfect.
11. The Sun Is a Compass (2026.02 )
By: Caroline Van Hemert
Pages: 298
Published: 2019
Genre: Nonfiction / Memoir / Adventure / Nature writing / Travel writing / Survival
Bex rating: 9.5
Oh I loved this book! It is my favorite genre of nonfiction, if not my actual favorite genre--real life adventure! Caroline Van Hemert and her husband traveled 4,000 miles under human power by sea kayak, pack raft, and their own two feet from Bellingham Washington, up the Inside Passage on the Western coast of Canada, down some rivers, over some mountains, across the Arctic Ocean, all the way to Kotzebu, Alaska.
There are no soft edges here. No boardwalks or trails or park rangers. It’s wild, empty, and gritty. (4)
Sometimes I resent my de facto role as the planner in our relationship, the one responsible for schedules, finances, and research. The one who sees clearly just how far we are from being ready. But Pat's response when I gripe about this pattern is hard to refute. "Do you think it would be better if both of us tried to be in charge?" he asks innocently. (64)
Lights from buildings and houses are bright against the gray sky, and I imagine what it feels like to be inside. Warm. Quiet. Safe. For an instant, I escaped to a previous version of myself – a young girl curled up with a book and a cup of tea, reading about someone else’s crazy adventure. But the storm continues to howl and we need to act. They’re tide is falling quickly and the rocky shoreline turns with the breaking surf. When a wave splashes in my lap, cold water seeping between my thighs, I fight the urge to call aloud for help. I pull harder on the orders with each stroke and glance over my shoulder just long enough to confirm that Pat is nearby. There’s nothing we can do for each other right now, except to stay upright in our own boats. (85)
I’m torn between two worlds, two versions of truth. Adventure or family. Wilderness or home. Nature or science. I’m beginning to wonder whether such divisions exist only in my mind. I paddle through a jumble of thoughts that pass like drifting bits of cotton grass, each swirling once above my head before disappearing. (284)
zugunruhe: [German] migratory restlessness
guillemots: an auk (seabird) with a narrow pointed bill, typically nesting on cliff ledges
passerine: relating to or denoting birds of a large order distinguished by feet that are adapted for perching, including all songbirds; a perching bird.
10. The Unmaking of June Farrow (book club, 2026.02.17)
By: Adrienne Young
Pages: 352
Published: 2024
Genre: Adult Fiction / Magical Realism / Mystery / Romance
Bex rating: 8
It was okay. The writing was lovely, the characters were good, the love story was nice--but the time travel was really difficult to follow. It gave me a headache to try to unravel the way the main character found a loophole in her women-only-time-travel-curse.
- I couldn’t stop thinking that where we stood was the center of something, a place that created the kind of gravity that made galaxies. (224)
9. The Name of the Wind (2026.02 )
By: Patrick Rothfuss
Pages: 662
Published: 2007
Genre: Fantasy / Epic fantasy / High fantasy / Adventure / Coming-of-age / Literary fantasy
Bex rating: 10
Ummmmm . . . where has this book been all my life? I pasted all my favorite books into ChatGPT and asked her (My Chat is a girl) to recommend more books based on my favorites. And THIS is one that my library had readily available.
I haven't read any fantasy in a while (unless you count re-reading the Mistborn trilogy a few years ago) and this one absolutely knocks it out of the park.
But ALAS AND ALACK the author is struggling to finish the third book, and people who have been fans way longer than me have been waiting for YEARS.
So at least I can enjoy the second book before I get in line with everyone waiting for the third.
We are strangers everywhere. Many folk view us as vagabonds and beggars, while others see us as little more than thieves, heretics, and horrors. It’s hard to be wrongfully accused, but it’s worse when the people looking down on you are claws who have never read a book or traveled more than 20 miles from the place they were born. (58)
My parents danced together, her head on his chest. Both had their eyes closed. They seem so perfectly content. If you can find someone like that, someone who you can hold and close your eyes to the world with, then you’re lucky. Even if it only lasts for a minute or a day. The image of them gently swaying to the music is how I picture love in my mind, even after all these years. (108)
Even the best dog will bite that has been kicked enough. (158)
A word is nothing but a painting of a fire. A name is the fire itself. (617)
Every Fae child knows this, but you mortals never seem to see. We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be. (657)
8. Sisters (2026.02.02)
By: Reina Telgemeier
Pages: 208
Published: 2014
Genre: Graphic novel / Memoir / Middle grade / Realistic fiction / Family story
Bex rating: 8
I picked this up at a thrift store this week and it was hot on the heels of the graphic novel (Rollergirl) that Mollie brought home from the library so the time was right. Plus, I loved Reina's first graphic novel, Smile. I think this might have been even better--the story was more nuances and grown up that Smile. And the issues were very real--it would be a great graphic novel to share with a young adult who's navigating their parents' divorce or hard sibling relationships.
7. Roller Girl (2026.01.29)
By: Victoria Jamieson
Pages: 240
Published: 2015
Genre: young adult / graphic novel / middle grade / friendship / sports
Bex rating: 9
Wow this was so fun--a graphic novel that Mollie brought home from the library and we both read it and laughed out loud. I included my favorite pictures below.
6. The Snow Walker (2026.01.27)
By: Farley Mowat
Pages: 210
Published: 1975
Genre: fiction / short stories / adventure / arctic life
Bex rating: 9
These were great! And I haven't read short stories for a long time. My favorite of the entire collection was "Walk Well, my Brother" which was adapted into the 2003 film entitled the Snow Walker. I watched the movie after reading this collection--I hadn't seen it for twenty years and it is so well done. It's free on Prime TV as of this year and I really recommend it.
5. So Far Gone (2026.01.21)
By: Jess Walter
Pages: 272
Published: 2025
Genre: contemporary fiction / social commentary / post-truth America
Bex rating: 8
Okay, even though I gave this book an 8, I think I am done with Jess Walters. Both of his books I have read have seemed like they would be EXACTLY my style (the last one was the Cold Millions), but there is just something missing. I think that I don't care about his characters--they aren't likeable or relatable. And he gets a little too politically contentious, despite the fact that our political views are probably mostly aligned.
A warning, my father can be rather acerbic—
"Acerbic?" He let the letter fall to his side. "Seriously, who asks for help this way?" Still, in a flash of pride, he admired the rich language— recluse, squalor, acerbic -- Bethany still had a way with words. (4)
- He glanced back at Shane, all self satisfaction and mudflap mustache (7)
It was also when she was a teenager that Bethany began to sense Rhys Kinnick’s profound disappointment in her – his face betraying it, as if he hated every single choice she’d ever made. He badmouth the guys she brought home, especially Doug and Shane (both of whom reminded her of her father), and he scoffed and rolled his eyes at the car she drove in the classes she took in the apartment she lived in, as if she were constantly letting him down with her bad judgment, as if she had failed to live up to her 12-year-old promise.(163)
risible: having the faculty or power of laughing; inclined to laugh.
4. The Dog Stars (2026.01.19)
By: Peter Heller
Pages: 336
Published: 2012
Genre: Post‑apocalyptic / Literary fiction
Bex rating: 9
Warning: this book had a LOT of swearing, gun violence, and a sex scene (but I still loved the book).
It's the story of Hig, a 40-year-old survivor of a pandemic that has wiped out most of humanity. He and an angry, vengeful old man named Bangley live in a compound they made near an airport hangar north of Denver, where they stockpile food and guns and watch out for scavenging groups. Hig has a dog named Jasper who accompanies him everywhere, even on his patrol flights around the area, scouting for food and signs of life.
You quickly learn that Hig is a man not suited for violence. He reads poetry, loves to cook, and misses his wife Melissa fiercely. But a radio broadcast he picked up near Colorado Junction has been haunting him for three years, and he wants to risk flying there (he'd have to find fuel for the return flight) to see if there are any survivors.
The story is compelling, but the writing is what makes this book so good. And I just love the main theme of the book: what is it like to love in a world that has turned to hate?
3. Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country (2026.01.17)
By: Pam Houston
Pages: 299
Published: 2019
Genre: Memoir / Nature writing
Bex Rating: 8
I did like this book, especially the first half. But it waxed a little didactic toward the end. Which is fine, because it's a memoir--but I admit it got a little off-putting.
That said, the writing was exquisite and heartbreaking. I should warn the three people who read my blog that the author doesn't shy away from sharing details of childhood physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her father. This book is really about how Pam overcame very real childhood trauma, abuse, and neglect, and found healing on a piece of land in Colorado--by trusting other human beings the way she could always trust Nature and animals.
2. Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales: book 3 in the Emily Wilde series (2026.01.14)
By: Heather Fawcett
Pages: 384
Published: 2024
Genre: Fantasy / Folklore / Historical fantasy / academia
Bex rating: 9
The first book was the best. But I think I liked this one better than the second. It's a fun series I got for Mollie but with the added bonus that I enjoy them too--sort of an academia/fantasy mashup genre. Also, I had ChatGPT make some fan art for me, because I love Emily and Wendell.
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| I had Chat make this art with the prompt: Can you make a painting in the style of Edmund Leighton of Emily Wilde and Wendell Bambleby about open a faerie door? |
1. Journal of a Trapper: Hunter’s Rambles among the Wild Regions of the Rocky Mountains, 1834–1843 (2026.01.06)
By: Osborne Russell
Pages: 200
Published: 1914 (posthumously)
Genre: Memoir / Western frontier history
Bex rating: 8.5
This was little difficult to read because Osborne Russell did not care too much about punctuation or paragraphs--so the entire book was like one long, run-on sentence.
But it was also pretty incredible to read an account of THE PLACE I LIVE written way back in the 1830s. I mean, almost every map in his memoir is of places I know so well--Sheep Rock, the Bear River, the Portneuf River, the Blackfoot River (before the Blackfoot Reservoir), The Narrows, the Salt River, Jackson's Hole, Pierre's Hole (Driggs), and lots of areas in and around Yellowstone and the Tetons. Plus this hilarious description of my own town, Soda Springs:
On the right hand or east side of the river about 2 miles above the rock is five or six mineral Springs some of which have precisely the taste of soda water when taking up and drink immediately others have a sour, sulfurous taste: none of them have any outlet but boiling bubble and small holes a few inches from the surface of the ground. This place which now looks so lonely, visited only by the rambling trapper or solitary savage will doubt us that no distant day be a resort for thousands of the gay and fashionable world, as well as invalids and spectators. (4)
Osborne spends many winters hunkered down at Fort Hall, then rambles outward from there every Spring, trapping beaver and hunting. It was so interesting and really caused a shift in my thinking--it made history more alive to me than almost any other book I have read.
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| First books of 2026! |
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