We are a few days past the halfway point of 2026 (we made it!) and I am asking an important, difficult question.
What is your favorite book you’ve read so far this year?
Rules: you may name 1 fiction and 1 nonfiction.
That is the limit.
Yes, I’m know. I’m terrible.
Also: the book does not have to be a 2026 book! Any book you haven’t read before is a new book.
Sarah: I’m the one asking, and here I am thinking, Oof, that’s a tough one, because I’ve read some really, really good books and I’m very happy about it.
My favorite fiction that I’ve read so far this year: Romantic Hero by Kirsty Greenwood. I read this book on vacation in May, and it still gives me warm, fizzy feelings, probably because of the perfect combination of being a book that made me laugh and cry, and a book that I read in a swimming pool. Kirsty was my podcast guest last week talking about this book, too.
My favorite nonfiction, hands down, is Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online by Fortesa Latifi, because I am not going to stop thinking about the things I learned in this book for ages. I have been thinking about the children of the original mommy bloggers and influencer families for literal decades, and this book confirmed many of my suspicions about exploitation. It also forced me to confront some of my own conclusions and reevaluate them. (Fortesa Latifi was also my guest on the podcast earlier this year.)
Lara: I have read a handful of truly excellent books this year. If I were cheating, I would choose an author, rather than a book. My introduction to CS Harris/Candice Proctor this year has been glorious. But if you were to really turn the thumbscrews, I would choose Star Shipped by Cat Sebastian. That book had me cheering and breathless with joy for the duration! But if the criteria were which book had the strongest impact on me personally, then I’d say Vera Stein is Fine by Julie Murphy, as Vera and I both have big life changes happening.
Sarah, how badly did I cheat? Oopsy.
Sarah: I’ll allow it.
Amanda: I’ve only had one five star read so far this year and that honor goes to Against a Wall by Cate C. Wells.
Shout out to Katie for the recommendation. She had previously signed up for After Dark recs and we had a convo via email about Cate Wells and where I should start. She recommended this one with the caveat that it’s kind of an enemies to lovers, bully romance if that is or isn’t my bag.
I also want to mention DiscoDollyDeb’s really great description of Wells’s heroes:
As I frequently assert, her heroes tend to be men who want to do better but often lack the emotional bandwidth to do so without blunders. Wells’s style isn’t for everyone, but, if she hits your sweet spot, she’ll undoubtedly become an auto buy.
I really appreciated seeing a hero repeatedly try to get the heroine’s attention or try to understand her and her interests. I also thought it had an interesting take on small towns we don’t often see in romance and certainly, though briefly, touched on the socioeconomic issues and racism that lies at the foundation of these communities.
Elyse: My favorite book of the year so far really surprised me: Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton. This is a non-fiction book that recounts a period of time during COVID lockdown when Dalton raised a baby hare she found abandoned in her garden.
Dalton raises the hare with the intention that it returns to the wild (it does), but it also repeatedly returns to her home as well. It’s a beautiful memoir of appreciating wild things and allowing them to be wild, but also about her budding awareness of the natural world outside her home. It’s just an incredibly soothing and intimate read that was wonderfully relaxing for my brain.
What about you? What is your favorite book you’ve read this year?
Remember: you can name up to 1 fiction and 1 nonfiction, and it does not have to be a 2026 book!
Update! Y’all have so many good recommendations that we have some shopping options, should you wish to add these titles to your library or TBR.
First, an an Amazon storefront with your picks (in progress, since you’re still commenting).
And, a Bookshop.org list – don’t forget to pick the store that will benefit from your purchases, from local indie bookshops to friends of the library organizations!
For published this year, I join the This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me bandwagon. Love it. And that’s also hard to limit because this has been a really great year with very few rereads in it. About a third of my reading every year is comfort rereads and except for what I’m about to mention below, I’ve had virtually none.
Highly Honorable Mention to Julie Anne Long’s Game of Rogues, too. And C.S. Harris. And Deanna Raybourn. And I really will stop. BUT…
I have to really cheat because finally reading Beth Brower’s Emma M. Lion books happened when I needed it most and I have already reread the entire series in two months. First ebook and then audio while I continue my TBR stack on my ereader with other authors. Those books are a gift for me personally. But I have raved so much about them that many people in my life from my father to my niece are also reading them. And several friends. Rarely do books build so many bonds in my personal life, too.
When I looked at this text from my 80 year old father early one Sunday morning:
I am lol about the funeral.
I had a short mental break that he used lol and was talking about some unknown funeral. What? Huh? Who died? Who has Dad’s phone? Then I thought “The sweet pea!” And laughed and laughed. Glorious.
My favorite book of 2026 so far, by far, is THE UNICORN HUNTERS by Katherine Arden. I love Arden in general, but this book — medieval Brittany plus magical forest plus romance — is particularly in my wheelhouse.
Favorite fiction of the YTD: Emily Tesh’s THE INCANDESCENT. A finish it, reread the last two chapters, look up that early stuff, reread the last two chapters read. The protagonist is a teacher at a magical school, which is a genius move. (For the fans of THE EVERLASTING, that’s my second-favorite read of the year not written by Jane Austen, so maybe give Tesh a try.)
Favorite NF: Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist. Good and thoughtful and helpful in thinking about my relationship to music and how to change aspects I don’t like in the streaming era.
John of John by Douglas Stuart
The Missing Pages by Alyson Richman
Fiction: Our Sister’s Keeper by Jasmine Holmes. It’s a Stepford wives style story about misogynoir and a magical form of emotional labor. Heartbreaking read but also beautifully written and lots of nuance.
Nonfiction: A Flower Traveled in my Blood by Haley Cohen Gilliland about the Argentinian grandmothers that fought to find out the truth about their missing children and grandchildren. A really moving discussion of how important it is to keep showing up.
@ella, Love Winter Solstice! My favorite Pilcher.
@HAT, I binged the Emma M Lions last year. So good.
Fiction: Villains by Natalie zina walschots. As soon as I finished the first book, Hench, I was dying to read the next. It took a few years but Villains was awesome.
Non fiction: The Six Loves of James I by Gareth Russell. I’m a British history nerd and read this one because I didn’t really know much about James I. Most of what I knew was superficial and this book opened my eyes to what an interesting monarch James I was.
I’m reading a lot less these days – my tastes are changing, I’ve dramatically reduced screen time and IDK what, if anything, I want to read anymore. That said, I’ve still read 23 books and I even liked some of them.
Favorite fiction was a re-read that I suggested to a book club
The Unbalancing by R.B. Lemberg
This beautiful, immersive queer fantasy novel is like an explicitly LGBTQ+ version of Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea and is also completely it’s own thing.
The plot centers around two messy, complicated people falling in love while attempting to save their land from natural and magical disaster – it’s intense and devastating and ultimately hopeful (but not easy or fluffy).
I remembered really enjoying it the first time I read it but wasn’t prepared for how on-the-nose it felt about this moment – especially the trying to solve a problem that many people don’t think is a problem.
Favorite non-fiction was for a different book club
Autocracy Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World by Anne Applebaum
It’s very sobering but the epilogue is at least a little hopeful. And I’m glad I read it.
She has a couple lines that have been living rent free in my head about how, in the 90s, everyone assumed that as the world became more connected and open, the autocratic states would become more democratic. No one expected the liberal democracies would become more autocratic.
I inhaled The Fatal Unpleasantness at Netherfield (2026) by Claudia Gray. Got it on Saturday, finished it on Monday, and as I am a slow reader, this says volumes. Especially as I had been struggling with a new(-to-me) cozy mystery series from an author I usually like.
I’m torn about this,, but choose this one because besides being excellent it also broke my heart: Shen Tao’s fantasy, THE POET EMPRESS.
Kennedy Ryan’s SCORE is the one with went back & forth on when trying to decide.
THE EVERLASTING would be up there, but I read it last year.
Fiction: This one is tough because I read the entire Whyborne and Griffin series and the most recent few books of Julie Anne Long’s Palace of Rogues (minus the one that released recently). But I think The Beast Takes a Bride (Long) will be my pick.
Nonfiction: The Barn: the Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi by Wright Thompson. On the one hand it is a very dry accounting of a parcel of land and how a barn came to be built on it. On the other it is a sympathetic and well – researched account of how Emmett Till came to be murdered in that barn. It was not an easy read, but it was the best.
My favorite fiction book so far this year is T. Kingfisher’s (reissued) Nine Goblins. It was such a delight (and such a contrast to Wolf Worm, which I haven’t managed to finish).
My favorite non-fiction book so far is one I’m still reading, Secret Voices, A Year of Women’s Diaries, edited by Sarah Gristwood. There are three or four excerpts for each day, drawn from a good variety of sources across the centuries. So many women dying of TB gets a bit grim, though.
I’m going to see if our library system has Raising Hare.
Fiction: GAME OF ROGUES by Julie Anne Long, because the Palace of Rogues series is my favorite thing ever.
Non-fiction: I’m not even done with the audiobook of I’M A LOT by Alison Leiby yet, but I already love it for her storytelling ability, her wry asides, and her clever insights about health, humor, and the patriarchy.
Can I just squee for a moment that SB Amanda loved my rec???
I think Cate C Wells might be the most brilliant write in romance today – if not, she has to be near the top. She mixes men who sincerely want to do better, but screw up along the way with some scathing social commentary that she weaves into the story so tightly, she is just amazing! And most of her main characters are not anywhere close to wealthy – a lot of them aren’t middle class either – and they stay that way from beginning to end. There is no one like her in romance.
My favorite fiction of the year so far is Demon with Benefits by Aurora Ascher – a cursed witch and a brooding artistic demon fight a common enemy.
My favorite nonfiction this year is Being Mortal by Atul Gawande about how aging and dying in America is now and how it could be different if we have the courage to have hard conversations.
Ooh, this is difficult! I was going to say Turns of Fate (Isle of Wyrd Book 1) by Anne Bishop but checked and see that I read it in mid December. While I quite enjoyed This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, I will choose For Whom the Belle Tolls by Jaysea Lynn which made me laugh a great deal.
@Katie: It was a very good rec!
For fiction, Ilona Andrews’ THIS KINGDOM WILL NOT KILL ME. For nonfiction, Virginia Postrel’s THE FABRIC OF CIVILISATION. Much has been said about the former here; the latter is a history of textiles, drawing on economics, archeology, and science.
Another cheater here, but I’d like to point out the through-line in both fiction loves — they’re about strong middle-age women trying to figure out their paths even though they’re good at what they do. But circumstances and evil and machinations!
Fiction: THE INCANDESCENT by Emily Tesh — magic school but from the administrators’ point of view. How to keep these peskily talented and intelligent teenage wizards with FEELINGS safe with all their dangerous magical homework and deadly magical school environment? The characters were so real and engaging.
THE LAST CONTRACT OF ISAKO by Fonda Lee — a famous samurai in a post-apocalyptic world where you need to be useful or they want you to “retire” yourself so you stop using limited air and water and food supplies. She and her longknife are sent on one last mission and she has to uncover secrets. I liked both her excellence at her job and her wobbliness in personal relationships with her child, ex, co-workers.
Nonfiction: OUR MOON by Rebecca Boyle — on how the moon has been part of our cultural, as well as biological, evolution. I read it just as the Artemis mission was happening and it was just a lot of fun for this science nerd.
Best Fiction: LIVE, LOVE, LEVEL by M.C.A. Hogarth. Its women’s fiction (cosy family fiction? Teen fiction?) – not sure what to classify it. It is about a mother and teen son who play an experimental litprg game together. I’ve already re-read it once.
On the romance side, the paranormal regency series FAE & HUMAN RELATIONS by Sarah Wallace (especially Breeze Spells and Bridegrooms & Fire Spells Between Friends) was lovely.
Best Non-fiction: OTHER ANCIENT CIVILISATIONS by Raven Todd Dasilva. Each short chapter covered a different ancient civilization, and not the usual Romans, Greeks… This book, free in Kobo Plus, was perfect for my scattered brain.
This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me has been my favorite so far!
Samantha Harvey’s “Orbital” – not anything I would normally pick to read, but with all the hype at the time when it became available on Libby I gave it a try. And it was the craziest reading experience I can remember: I heard music in my head the entire time I read it. It was astonishing.
No non-fiction to report.
Tough pick, since there was a new Murderbot AND a new Dungeon Crawler Carl this year, plus I discovered the Emma Lion books. However, for fiction I’m going to say “…And Ladies of the Club” by Helen Hooven Santmyer, which was published in the 1980s. A book that takes place entirely in small-town Ohio between the 1860s and 1920s, with a great deal of attention paid to the Republican politics of the era, should not work at all. And yet I kept picking it up…
For nonfiction, I will say “Looking for Trouble” which I got from the Lost Ladies of Lit podcast. It’s a memoir that war reporter Virginia Cowles wrote about Europe in the 1930s, published not long before the US entered WWII. It was really prescient.
Ooh this is a tough one! I’m having fun reading the replies
Fiction: The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes
This book made Ennes an autobuy author for me…they play with structure in such fun ways. The worldbuilding is really dense – intense, too. The summary makes the beast out to be the centerpiece but I think it’s more about the relationships between the cast as they fight to make a life in/survive in a decaying, decadent society that thinks it is the only place to live as it slowly poisons itself from the inside out (sound familiar?). The setting is shot through with these dire themes but Ennes is not at all cynical about their characters, they are written with their full humanity and I think that sounds familiar, too.
Nonfiction: One Aladdin Two Lamps by Jeanette Winterson
I think the back and forth of this book makes more sense if you’ve read a Winterson book before. She likes to play around with time a lot and let the colors run together to form a super-picture. This one is her thoughts on storytelling – what we are doing, what we mean, how we go about it, storytelling as life, etc. I was a little dismayed with her optimism about AI; her point is we have to imagine better in order to control the outcome but I’m pretty sure we’re 15 years too late for that. Still, it’s a validating read in other ways, written by a wise person who has lived a full life and is decades into her craft.