This week’s Top Ten Tuesday at That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share bookish discoveries we made last year. I thought I’d focus on writers. Of the 59 authors I read, 39 were new to me. Here are ten of those whose books I gave four stars to:

1. B.K. Borison, Good Spirits (romantasy)
2. Abiola Bello, Love in Winter Wonderland (YA romance)
3. John Scalzi, Starter Villain (sci fi adventure)
4. Kate McKinnon (yes, that one), The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science (kidlit adventure)
5. Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time (sci fi)
6. Emily Henry, Book Lovers (romance)
7. Alexene Farol Follmuth, Twelfth Knight (YA fiction)
8. Sylvie Cathrall, Letters to the Luminous Deep (romantasy)
9. A. Kendra Greene, No Less Strange or Wonderful (nature essays)
10. Sara Raash, The Nightmare Before Kissmas (romantasy)

I’ll definitely be checking out more books by these authors in the future.

How about you? Did you stumble across any authors last year whose books will hit your tbr list?

Before we get to That Artsy Reader Girl’s weekly Top Ten Tuesday topic, our 2026 goals, let’s check in on how I did with last year’s:

1. Read 52 books. 62 titles finished.
2. Read 25 books I own. I managed a piddly four.
3. Read more diversely (15). 18 titles were written by authors who identified as BIPOC or queer.
4. Write at least 6 non-Top Ten Tuesday posts about books this year. I managed six review posts.
5. Read more backlist titles (15 books published outside this half-decade, and at least 7 from before the year 2000). I finished 10 books from before 2020 and only two from the 1900s.
6. Read 3+ books of poetry or novels in verse. Fail, although I did finish two works of prose by poets.
7. Read more nonfiction — at least 5. 10 books.
8. Read a book by an author who lives in Africa and one who lives in Central or South America. Fail.
9. Send the books I’ve bought as gifts to the people they’re meant for. Fail.
10. Give every book I own a permanent home on a shelf. Fail

Okay, so that’s not a great track record. I read more, read more diversely, and read more nonfiction, but still leant toward recent works of fiction from the library.

Let’s see what we can do about it with some goals for this year:

1. Read 52 books. This number works for me as a target.
2. Finish at least 20 books I own.
3. Read 3 works from pre-1900, 5 books from the 20th century, and 10 books (total) published before 2021.
4. Publish reviews for all 12 months DURING 2026 (with a few days’ grace period for December).
5. Finish 1 play, 1 short story collection, and 2 books of poetry.
6. Read works by authors from at least 7 countries, at least 5 of which should be in translation.
7. Read at least 5 books by queer and/or trans writers.
8. Read 5 works of nonfiction, in at least 4 different Dewey Decimal areas.
9. Send the gift books out into the world. (I bought them so friends would get to read them. Silly to hold on to them forever.)
10. Give every book I own its own shelf space. (This should be my ultimate goal for my personal library and if I can’t figure it out, more books should move on to other bibliophiles.

We’re in the midst of annual Top Ten Tuesday topics at That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week’s is the top ten books we’re most anticipating that are being published before the end of June. Here are mine:

1. Jasper Fforde’s Dark Reading Matter
2. Rainbow Rowell’s Cherry Baby
3. Deana Raybourn’s A Ghastly Catastrophe
4. T.J. Klune’s We Burned So Bright
5. Anne of a Different Island by Virginia Kantra
6. E.B. Asher’s This Will Be Interesting
7. The Astral Library by Kate Quinn
8. Kory Stamper’s True Color
9. By The Book by Jessica George
10. Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett

How about you? What’s coming out in the next six months that you’re excited to read?

About halfway through the summer, I stopped tracking my reading in all the places I’d been recording them, save on Goodreads. But I didn’t stop reading. I’d like to get caught up with reviews here in the next week or so and then share my favorite 2025 reads. And, so, here are my thoughts on what I finished back in July and August:

Empire of Shadows by Jacquelyn Benson

This was a fun read for those who like Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, Jungle Cruise, or The Librarian movies/tv series. Ellie — a suffragette arrested during a protest, recently fired museum archivist (see aforementioned activism), and aspiring archaeologist — finds herself in possession of an illicit map that hints that a legendary South American city may exist. The biggest of her problems? A villain knows she has it. So what’s a newly unemployed middle class young woman to do? Get on a boat and go find out, of course! Once she lands in Belize (then British Honduras), she finds it necessary to join forces with an American surveyor and tour guide and hot foot it on her way. They’ll face danger from natural forces, local villagers, and their own mutual distrust, in addition to the unethical people pursuing Ellie in hopes of reaching the mythical city first.

Paper. Library copy. (more…)

This year’s #TBTBSanta was a wonderful success. I sent cards and a box of gifts out into the world and received some in return.

Holiday cards arrived from places as far flung as New Mexico and Alaska:

Thank you Rochelle, Heather, Lark, Denise, and Melissa!

And here is the wonderful package I got, which I took up to Connecticut to open on Christmas itself:

As you can see, Kai spoiled me:

There was a new tshirt, two books I’d really been coveting, bookmarks, stationery, stickers, lip balm, a pin, a bracelet, socks, pens, tea, and tasty treats.

And Kai made sure Ember and Coal were included, too. Ember didn’t even make it down to the floor with her treat. She stopped on the sofa to munch it.

And Coal, in perhaps one of his boldest moments yet, grabbed that feathery toy and bolted with it! This is the best shot I could get. All the rest were blurs!

Thank you so much, Kai! This was such a lovely gift!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl is the perennial favorite top ten planned reads for the upcoming season. As is my wont, I went back to see how I did for the fall, and imagine my surprise to find that I’ve read six and might finish a seventh before autumn officially ends on Sunday!

Now, on to my top ten for this winter:

1. Brigands and Breadknives by Travis Baldree
2. T.J. Klune’s Somewhere Beyond the Sea
3. Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett
4. Rainbow Rowell’s Slow Dance
5. Jasper Fforde’s Red Side Story
6. Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore by Char Adams
7. Guilty by Definition by Susie Dent
8. The Elsewhere Express by Samantha Sotto Yambao
9. Candace, the Universe, and Everything by Sherri L. Smith
10. Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah

Half of these are by beloved writers, and the other half come out early this winter. What do you like to read during the winter months? Re-reads of familiar favorites? Chunksters? Specific genres?