January and February of 2026 have proven to be extremely fulfulling and I've read more, so far, this year than in the same timespan in years past. As of the end of February, I've finished 11 books. From 2016 to 2024, there have been many years were 11 books is more than half of what I read in an entire year! I'm definitely far ahead of my usual reading pace, even for my most prolific years. Of course, please don't judge your own reading spead or number of books against mine--we all read at our own paces and with our own preferences and habits; and, many of you don't have as much free time to read as I happen to enjoy.
Out of the 11 books I've read thus far in 2026, my favorites have been:
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
I Who Have Never Known Men is a piece of speculative, post-apocalyptic science fiction written in 1995 and translated from Belgian into English. It is haunting, heartbreaking, and beautiful. It is also deeply philosophical.
The novel centers on a young woman who was captured as a young girl, along with 39 adult women, and kept for years in a cage overseen by male guards. An unexplained event takes place that causes the guards to abandon their posts and disappear at precisely the right moment, allowing the women to escape. By this point, the young girl has become a young woman. She is also the only one who has no memory of the world before waking up in this cage which allows her to be emboldened into taking chances the other women are too afraid to take on their own.
The book spans several decades, despite how slim the volume is, as this group of women roams the world they emerge into as they search for other survivors and find ways to live and build a new type of community. This is a novel I will think about for the rest of my life.
Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson
Harbor Me is a a middle-grades chapter book set in Brooklyn and focused on a small group of Special Education students who are allowed time every Friday afternoon, before the end of the school day, to talk and share with one another without any adults present.
The story is from the point of view of a girl who lives with her uncle while her father is away in prison. Her mother died when she is young and she aches for a mother-figure and lives with shame that her father is incarcerated. This is a beautiful story about personal shames, fears, and pain and how we can form close bonds with those around us--even when they seem so different and unlikely as allies. It is as much about found family as it is about healing. I have loved everything I've read by Woodson, but Harbor Me is easily my favorite of her books.
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
At first, I was unsure about The Frozen River due to its length. it's quite a bit longer than much of what I typically read, but the further I got into the story, the more I was hooked!
This is a piece of historical fiction based on very real people, taking place shortly after the Revolutionary War in the New England area of the United States. It is told from the perspective of a very real midwife: Martha Ballard. While the author takes many liberties and embellishes and fills in many details, there are real threads of history throughout the book; however, it was the fictional story Lawhon created that I loved. This novel is a mystery focused on rape, murder, power, and rivalry. Ballard--both in real life and in the novel--hold an unusual amount of power as a midwife in the late 1700s and uses her skills and smarts to not only help pregnant women, but also to solve the several layers of mysteries throughout the book.
Perhaps what I loved most about this novel though, is that the fictional husband--also based on Ballard's real husband--is so in love with, supportive of, and respectful of our narrator in pretty much every way. The romantic in me definitely fell in love both with him and with one of the couple's fictional sons. This was a long novel, but I had a hard time putting it down to go do other things and read it quickly!
How About Now by Kate Baer
This poetry collection is a beautiful look at motherhood and being middle aged as a woman. Many of the poems were thought provoking, many were comforting, and some made me nod my head and think, "Yes, I recognize this. I feel understood by this."
I could easily have raced through this poetry collection, but I was enjoying each and every poem to such a degree that I forced myself to slow down and savor every word. If you enjoy the poetry of Marie Howe, you'll love the work of Kate Baer!
The Sea in Winter by Christine Day
I firmly believe that adults should be allowed to read books meant for children, and this novel is no exception! The Sea in Winter is a middle-grades novel and winner of the American Indian Youth Literature Award Middle Grade Honor.
The novel centers on a young girl who dreams of a life on stage as a ballerina. Her dreams are upended by a devestating injury, a trip with her family, and re-injury. This is a coming of age novel as well as a novel about connecting with your roots, finding new paths through life, and much more. It is set in the Pacific Northwest (my favorite part of the world) and ties both the Indigenous history of the land with modern daily life. This novel spoke to me both as a parent and to my inner child who had to deal with heart breaks and shattered dreams growing up. I found this to be a comforting read in many ways and identified with both the children and the adults in the novel.
The other books I've finished, so far, in 2026 are:
- Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh (also spelled TH1RT3EN)
- Darkhearts by James L. Sutter
- Reasons to Look at the Night Sky by Danielle Daniel
- Thieve's Gambit by Kayvion Lewis
- Black Ice by Hans Werner Kettenbach
- Goldenrod: Poems by Maggie Smith
Of these, the only one I would NOT recommend is Black Ice. For most of the book, I was enjoying how deliciously awful the main character (and most of the other characters) is, but at some point, the constant awfulness started to grate on my nerves and it became harder and harder to enjoy the novel. There was no release from the horrid nature of the characters in the midst of a murder mystery. The one character that could have been the counter-balance wasn't well enough developed and didn't have enough of a presence to be of any relief. I got far enough into the novel that I decided to go ahead and finish it, despite my belief that it's ok to put down a book if you aren't enjoying it, and I wish I'd just quit the book instead! The end was ridiculous and left too many loose threads. It wasn't a cliffhanger and it wasn't a prelude to a follow up novel. It just . . . ended.
What have you read so far in 2026?
