Well, the first half of 2026 is almost in the books (pun intended) and I thought I would provide an update on what I’ve been reading since I wrote Part 1. Part 1 only covers the first 7 books of this year and I’m up to almost 50, so there is some ground to cover. My intention for this year was to read some of the “classics”, which I started right after that Part 1 post. So far, I’ve read the following (in order):
- Wuthering Heights
- Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland
- Frankenstein
- No Country for Old Men
- The Catcher in the Rye
- The Road
- Dracula
I have many more on my list for this year, so we’ll see where this goes. The only one I truly didn’t like was The Catcher in the Rye. Brutal. The book that surprised me the most was Frankenstein, not what I expected. Mind-blowing that Mary Shelley wrote it when she was just 18. My favorite so far, No Country for Old Men.
I reread Project Hail Mary in preparation for going to see the movie. I had forgotten how great the book was, so much fun to read again. And the movie was outstanding, better than The Martian, so endearing while maintaining enough of the science to keep us hard science types happy. Unbelievably well done. I highly recommend listening to this book, Ray Porter’s narration is fantastic and then please do see the movie.
I reread the first 3 Bobiverse books, which I didn’t do all of last year. That was the first time I’ve gone an entire year without reading them since I first discovered the world of the Bobs. I expect to reread all 5 late this year in prep for book 6, which I believe is coming out in December.
In trying to keep my nonfiction focus alive, I read Finding the Mother Tree, What is Real?, James Gleick’s biography of Isaac Newton, and A Brief History of Intelligence. When someone puts “brief” in the title, you know you are in trouble, because it never is. I followed these with The Four Horseman and Origin Story. Of these, I probably liked What is Real? best, mostly because it aligns my own opinion of the development of Quantum Mechanics and the unsatisfactory nature of the Copenhagen Interpretation. I’m contemplating reading some of the individual books by each of the “horsemen”, most likely something from Dawkings or Dennett.
I read the final book in Tana French’s Cal Hooper trilogy, The Keeper. While I’ve loved the characters throughout this series, this book was so dark I found it difficult to read. I found myself having to pause several times in the hope that when I went back to it, things would get better. It echoes many of the terrible things going on currently and I just needed a break a various moments.
During my book hunting, I came across 4 books that were either sci-fi “winners” or nominees. I have finally finished all four:
- Saturn Run
- Pushing Ice
- The Lathe of Heaven
- Tusks of Extinction
I enjoyed all 4, with Saturn Run probably my favorite followed by Pushing Ice. Pushing Ice started off a little slow and was a pretty long read but ended up being well worth it, I highly recommend it. The Lathe of Heaven was my first Ursula K Le Guin; not sure I’ll be going back, we’ll see.
Finally, I just finished reading The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. While I absolutely loved My Friends, The Correspondent is my new favorite so far this year. Wow! I know everyone is talking about it and with good reason. It’s my second epistolary novel this year and Evans does a masterful job weaving such an interesting and endearing story using this style.
That’s all for now, we’ll see what the second half of the year holds.
Just finished Wild Dark Shore. Loved the book, didn’t love the ending.
Quick note to self as I’m just about to finish The Talon Gambit by Jason Kasper, which is book 6 of The Spider Heist series, don’t read anymore in these. The first couple of books were good but it’s worn pretty thin now, no need to go any further.
A quick update as we approach 60 books. I’m continuing my focus on classics and award winners. I read all three books in The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin. All 3 of these books won the Hugo award with the final book, The Stone Sky, winning the Nebula award as well. The Stone Sky is probably the best book of the three, simply because it completes a lot of the story that had been missing up until then. I felt like The Obelisk Gate was your classic “bridge” book being the second one in the series and The Fifth Season, while good, was a little hard to follow early on, as you don’t really know what’s going on.
On the classics side, I read The Great Gatsby and The Snow Queen. Not really impressed with either.
I read Sync by Steven Strogatz and while I was assured by Claude that he’s the real deal in terms of a scientist/mathematician, I found the premise of the book a little difficult to swallow. All of the individual examples are cool and I enjoyed learning about them but Strogatz suggests there is the underlying meaning to it all and I’m just not there.
I read book 36!!! of the Prey series, Revenge Prey, by John Sanford. You’d think I would be totally done by now but having not read one of these in a while, I was shocked at how much I enjoyed it, which probably explains why I’ve read the entire series. This continues to be a formula I really like. So few others have been able to do that.
While A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman is probably worth reading, I really struggled with it. I think it is worth it in the end but I didn’t love it, which is odd because I loved My Friends. Well, it’s a very different story. I think what really put me off right at the beginning is that Ove and I are the same age, yet Backman writes Ove as if he’s 20 years older (in a lot of respects). That just bugged me throughout the entire book.
My most recent read was Flowers for Algernon, which started out as a short story (and won the Hugo in that category) but was then expanded to a novel, and won the Nebula for that. I want to say I really liked this book and I’m very close to that. The only reason I backed away from “really liked” to just maybe “liked” was the ending. For me, it was very predictable. You pretty much knew how the second half of the book was going to go. Maybe they should have left it as a short story 😳