Mid-Year Reading Roundup

All the books I read (well, listened to) in the first half of 2026

In chronological order! And yes, I’m an audiobook guy, in case you didn’t know. All of these were borrowed from the public library through the Libby app. Thank you, libraries! I love you!

April May June July, Alison B. Hart

I’d wrapped up 2025 reading Hart’s first novel, The Work Wife, after hearing her interviewed on The Shit About Writing Team podcast. That was a great read while I was working on a novel that’s currently on hiatus, about a difficult woman in a high-pressure Hollywood environment. I recommended it to all my friends from the entertainment advocacy nonprofit world, telling them they had to read it. April May June July, about four siblings in the wake of their father’s disappearance, was totally different. But I was equally drawn to its characters’ personal dramas unfolding against a backdrop that subtly comments on our world.

Ghosts, Dolly Alderton

I wasn’t super interested in the main storyline, following a thirtysomething Londoner navigating dating apps and commitment-phobes who disappear without a trace. The secondary parts of the protagonist’s journey, about managing her parents while her father’s dementia worsens, and finding purpose in her work as a food writer who can bridge cuisine with memory… that all was so rich and I wanted much more of it!

Commonwealth, Ann Patchett

This is the year I really discovered Ann Patchett. I borrowed Tom Lake from the library last year and didn’t give myself much of a chance to get into it before it was due back. But I’d heard that Ann came from a family background eerily similar to mine, and this is the book in which she explores that origin story from a fictional vantage point. I loved it. I even wrote her fan mail, describing how we shared a hometown and details that linked our parents. And she wrote back!

“Your letter is a stunner,” she said. “I get a lot of mail but yours is a first…”

Swoon! Our correspondence really encouraged me, as I’m hoping to one day write a story about my family like the one Patchett wrote about hers. As her mother said, of Commonwealth: “None of it happened and all of it is true.”

Find a deeper exploration of this mining of family drama for fiction in this post:

Is Writing About Real Events... Vampirism?

Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld

Last year I read and loved Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy, and I’m still eager to dive into more of her work. Prep had been recommended to me by a literary agent at a party, who was impressed by my close-knit group of friends from girls’ school. While I was working on a coming-of-age story, this was a perfect book to read for research. I appreciated the perspective of a teenage girl, making mistakes, decisions caused by self-consciousness. The voice struck a great balance, and didn’t read as “too young” to me; a great read for all ages.

Truth & Beauty: A Friendship, Ann Patchett

Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face was required reading in my high school English class, but I didn’t know anything about the author’s life after the publication of that book. Patchett’s portrait of her best friend, as they grew and changed through the decades since they met at Sarah Lawrence, is breathtaking. It made me wish I knew Lucy, and sharpened my love for the women I’ve kept close over the years. It also contains a passage I haven’t stopped thinking about every time I sit down to write:

“I walked on the beach in the morning in the freezing wind and rain, cultivating a kind of insanity wherein people who do not actually exist start talking to you. For the first time in my life, I thought about dying and thought that it would be an awful thing, to step accidentally off a curb and into a speeding car, because if I were to go I would take the entire cast with me. Half a manuscript for a first novel that has no author to finish it is always thrown away. The thought of all of them lost panicked me in a way that thoughts of my own death never had before. I had come to believe in these people, and they deserved their ending.”

Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid

Not only are the voices of these characters so sharply written and distinct, but the book pulls off an impressive feat. It’s a near-recent period piece, painting a picture of interpersonal politics driven by race and class in the 2010s. It also has such great Philly vs. New York (vs. Allentown) texture!

These Precious Days, Ann Patchett

I can’t remember the last time I read a book of essays, but this was like being in a one-sided conversation where, after each anecdote, I wanted so badly to chime in with how deeply I could relate. Once again, there were eerie overlaps between Patchett’s experiences and some of my own. Just as she beautifully wrote about her friendship with Lucy Grealy in Truth & Beauty, her piece about Sooki Raphael—whose artwork graces the collection’s cover—is incredibly moving. What a gift it would be if we all had people in our lives who see us the way Ann writes about those she’s cherished most.

Honey, Isabel Banta

Excellent pairing with Prep, for anyone who experienced over-sexualized adolescence at the turn of the millennium. Most of us will never know what it’s like to come of age on an international stage as a tabloid-fodder pop star, but somehow Banta has the specifics nailed. The story’s also dependably hot, with love and desire woven expertly throughout.

Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage, Belle Burden

I probably could have gotten everything I needed out of this story if I had just read Burden’s initial Modern Love essay, and it didn’t need to be a whole book. But it was a quick and riveting listen with a truly audacious villain. Can’t wait for the movie.

Recommended reading if you’re keeping up on the Strangers discourse:

What's Missing from The New Yorker Piece

Down with the System: A Memoir (of Sorts), Serj Tankian

A few weeks ago I wrote a travelogue about my recent trip to Denver. Something happened on that trip that felt cosmic somehow. I met a woman, clicked with her instantly, and at the end of our conversation she gave me this book. I’m from the same town as Tankian’s influential rock band System of a Down, but had never known much of anything about him or his music. The memoir is guided by the legacy of the Armenian genocide and the country’s more recent conflicts, both internal and with its neighbors. Tankian’s passion and political consciousness completely won me over, and I’ve since queued up several YouTube playlists of his music to soundtrack my newfound fandom. [In particular: this one, where an opera singer reacts to Serj’s traditional-folk-tinged, powerful vocals.]

Famesick: A Memoir, Lena Dunham

The voice of a generation, god help us. For years I didn’t want to be reflected in Hannah Horvath on Girls, resisting it even as it felt too true. Reading this, I yearned to not see myself in her portrayal of chronic illness, even as I struggle with every single doctor to get answers about what, exactly, is wrong with me. But at the end of her expertly-spun nostalgia, I just felt grateful to have so many of my experiences shared with as clever and keen a voice as hers. I mean, come on:

What Now?, Ann Patchett

A swift and moving commencement address given at Sarah Lawrence College, it’s a good read or listen for anyone on the brink of change. Now that I work at a college, I’ve gotten to attend graduations the last few years. It’s really an interesting lens to take in these speeches with the benefit of life experience. Especially touching was one given by Cheryl Strayed, who’s guided so many of us through Wild and Dear Sugar. Now, moreso than when I was twenty and donning my own cap and gown, do I better know how much I don’t know.

The Ground That Devours Us, Kalla Harris

While this book wasn’t really for me, it felt very instructional in how to pace and navigate this particular type of dystopian storytelling. It reminded me a bit of the Divergent series, with its worldbuilding of a near-future version of our own reality. And the action was solid! If you’ve got a YA reader in your life who’s not afraid of a hefty amount of blood and guts, this would be a good one to get them.

One Yellow Eye, Leigh Radford

This book took me by complete surprise at every turn. A scientific thriller and a drama about grief all rolled into one truly devastating zombie story. Radford’s lyrical body horror underscores a very simple story about a woman lost at the end of the world. I loved it, and I was especially moved by her acknowledgments. She included a note that the loss of her vibrant father to the monster of cancer inspired this book, and that couldn’t resonate with me more.

Zomromcom, Olivia Dade

I’m about a quarter of the way into this one and having so much fun! I rarely read rom coms, and always think the ones with cartoons on the cover are going to be YA. Imagine my surprise when we’re treated to detailed descriptions of the male love interest’s muscular butt cheeks in like, chapter two! These characters have such strong voices and chemistry in an action-packed world. It’s a real lesson in strengthening the protagonist’s personality everywhere possible.

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And that's a wrap on my reading, January through May! Do you have any recommendations for what should be on my TBR for the second half of the year? I’m probably going to read more creature features, as I’m working on something in that vein (🩸) myself. I definitely need to challenge my vast overrepresentation of white lady authors. I’ve placed library holds on Muñeca by Cynthia Gómez and The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim, and have the following titles waiting for me in Libby: There’s No Way I’d Die First by Lisa Springer, Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle, and Fledgling by Octavia Butler.

Have you read any of the books on my list?