The Briar Club by Kate Quinn
I cannot remember reading anything else set in the McCarthy era and it was intriguiging to see the effect of the Red Scare. I heard of it in history classes, but it made it more real to get to know people living in it and affected by it. As I think back on the book, I realize, too, that Quinn did a good job of making it feel true to the time.
Solito | A Memoir by Javier Zamora
Incredible story! Javier Zamora, nine years old, goes from El Salvador to the US. I loved this book!
Indivisible by Fanny Howe
In “The Tune of Things” in Harper Magazine, Christian Wiman says, “I can’t overstate how important a presence [Fanny Howe has] been in my life, though we’ve probably spent a total of fifty hours together.” He calls Indivisible her masterpiece.
Inhabit the Poem | Last Essays by Helen Vendler
For each of these poems, I hope to cast light on its imaginative originality, its escapes from cliche, intellectual mediocrity, and linguistic intertia; and its ambitious adventures in linguistic play as it searches out, for its own era, the passionate and permanent feelings of the human race.
Doesn’t that sound fascinating? Ha-ha. I know it does not to many of you, but it did to me.
James: A Novel by Percival Everett
James is a great book. Great writing, incredible creativity to imagine the story of Huck Finn from Jim’s perspective, wonderful writing. As I read it, I felt immersed in James’ world. For me, that was a problem…
Books I Read in 2026
The list, my star rating, and some notes. In 2018 I started trying to keep a count and list of all the books I read in a year, in addition to the longer entries about particular books.
