Reading List 2026

 I have a ritual - every year at New Year's eve I select 35 books to read during the year. Some I've read and loved and want to read again, others are ones I've (shamefully) not got round to but should have. Sometimes I read more, sometimes I don't make it so the missed books go on next year's list.

Last year I completed so this is a fresh list. 

So these are the books on my metaphorical nightstand this year. In this order. Will most likely review as I go.

  1. A Month in the Country (J.L. Carr)
  2. Heaven (Mieko Kawakami)
  3. Wise Blood (Flannery O'Connor 1952)
  4. The Violent Bear It Away (Flannery O'Connor 1960)
  5. In Memory of Memory (Maria Stepanova)
  6. The Years (Erneaux)
  7. My Lesbian Novel (Renee Gladman 2024)
  8. Be Brief and Tell Them Everything (Brad Listi)
  9. Death in the Family (Knausgaard)
  10. The Book of Disquiet (Fernando Pessoa)
  11. Pachinko (Min Jin Lee)
  12. Lincoln in the Bardo (George Saunders)
  13. The Wall (Haushofer)
  14. Trust (Hernan Diaz)
  15. The Overstory (Richard Powers)
  16. The Price of Salt (Patricia Highsmith 1952)
  17. Gilead (Marilynne Robinson)
  18. The Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood, 1985)
  19. The Testaments(Atwood)
  20. Outline (Rachel Cusk)
  21. Transit (Rachel Cusk)
  22. Kudos (Rachel Cusk)
  23. The Master and Margarita (Bulgakov, 1967)
  24. Wolf Hall (Mantel)
  25. Bring Up the Bodies (Mantel)
  26. The Mirror and the Light (Mantel)
  27. The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
  28. My Name Is Red (Orhan Pamuk)
  29. Pale Fire (Nabokov)
  30. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (Olga Tokarczuk)
  31. My Brilliant Friend (Elena Ferrante 2012)
  32. The Story of a New Name (Elena Ferrante 2013)
  33. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (Elena Ferrante 2014)
  34. The Story of the Lost Child (Elena Ferrante 2015)
  35. Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages (Manuel Puig 1982)