2026—the year in books

This year’s book count was a staggering (for me) 177.

I’ve definitely upped my total reading count by both becoming an empty nester & adopting the Libby app for a lot of my genre fiction reading (which means I’m constantly returning library books & taking a new one out at 2 am, which is way more convenient in my jammies on my iPad than having to do it the old-fashioned way—but of course, I did not cross the virtual picket line, during the DC 33 strike!).

Here are the best books of my year, in chronological order (of my having read them, not publishing):

• The Name of War Jill Lepore

• The Blazing World Siri Hustvedt

• All Systems Red Martha Wells

• Tasting Freedom Daniel Biddle & Murray Dubin

• Welfare Warriors Premilla Nadasen

• Liquid Mariam Rahmani

• Union Jack Scott Mintzer

• An Absolutely Remarkable Thing Hank Green

• A People’s Art History of the United States Nicolas Lambert

• Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Marketing & the Erosion of Integrity Anne Elizabeth Moore

• Good Dirt Charmaine Wilkerson

• The Mountains Wild Sarah Stewart Taylor

• Rivers of Rhythm: African Americans and the Making of American Music

• Spent Alison Bechdel

• A Botanist’s Guide to Flowers & Fatality Kate Khavari

• Wild Dark Shore Charlotte McConaghy

• Marsha Tourmaline

• Let the Record Show Sarah Schulman

• Black Ice Lorene Cary