all I want to do
is turn pages and get lost
in a mystery
to read poetry
biography and memoir
fiction, non-fiction
I’ll take all of it,
add it to my TBR
pile, curl up, and read
Come sit right here by me if you’re a reader. Settle in, pour a cup of coffee, and let’s have a book chat. I want to hear what stories have kept you reading this year, and how your reading has inspired new adventures.
I’ll go first. Right now, I’m reading Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson, which will be the January 2026 pick for our Kindred Spirits book club. It has me on the edge of my seat at every new twist and turn. I especially like that the setting is taking me back to our trip to Woodstock, Vermont in November of 2024, where we had one of the best breakfasts I’ve ever had in my life, complete with Vermont maple syrup that was made from the trees on the property where we were staying. A friend and member of the Kindred Spirits book club recommended Woodstock as a stop on our trip after NCTE last year, and we used her exact trip itinerary from a trip she’d taken with her daughter in planning our own. While my husband and I were in Woodstock, we took some time to go exploring a few back roads while we were there, and I have some of the setting assigned to places we saw, such as the famous bridge. It’s hard to imagine that a crime like the one in this book could happen there, but where there are humans, there will be crime. This book inspired me to wrap up in a blanket I bought from the Vermont Flannel Company while I was there and to pull up the photos from that amazing trip and add them to the new digital photo frame my daughter sent us for Christmas. Oh, to go back there!
The Kindred Spirits dive into exciting fiction, and this group tends to gravitate toward thrillers. Once we’ve finished reading a book, we plan some sort of adventure to go along with what we have read so that we allow our reading to inspire new discoveries. You can see our reading choices and adventures from 2025 here. We’ll be meeting December 19 to put the first six months of our 2026 list together. I’d like to ask for your favorite book recommendations. Please help us out ~ which books have you read recently that you savored, and what made you fall in love with them? Also, have you ever been part of a reading retreat where everyone reads a few books and then drives an hour or two to a mountain lodge for a weekend to talk about those books, read more books, sit by the fire, eat delicious food, visit a spa, and shop in the stores on the town square? We’ve heard of those retreats and are thinking of trying one sometime this year, so we’re all ears for your most exciting book experiences as we plan a few slices of life.
Common Threads 
This is such a warm slice! I am so ready to hire you as my travel agent! My husband would love to retire and run a place like the one you describe where people come to discuss reading and/or write together. If we ever take the plunge, I’ll let you know!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Kim,
Thanks for this cozy invitation to revisit this year’s reading.
I think you and I have chatted about some of these during slice commenting and at Ethical ELA.
My absolute favorite: Ocean Vuong’s Emperor of Gladness. A beautiful book of unlikely, intergenerational friendships.
Murakami’s The City and Its Uncertain Walls. Hits many of the usual and pleasing Murakami notes and explores loneliness, reality, the border between reality and magic realism. I liked the slow pace, the characters, the sense of wonder, mystery and deeper meaning / allegory coexisting with the surface plot.
Elizabeth Strout’s Tell Me Everything. Loved getting to revisit Strout’s characters from the Lucy Barton books, the Burgess books and the Olive Kitteredge books. She’s such an empathetic writer. Showing how people can be difficult because of loneliness or difficult past relationships and how simple acts of kindness can mean so much. If you haven’t read the Lucy Barton books or the books with Olive Kitteredge, I’d recommend starting with the first ones. This book stands alone, but knowing the characters from the other books adds meaning.
Samantha Harvey’s Orbiral is beautiful and meditative. Astronauts and cosmonauts orbiting the earth in a cross cultural space station provided a unique setting for looking at both the small and large details that add meaning to our lives.
Guy Delisle’s Muybridge is an interesting graphic novel about Muybridge, the guy who made the photographic discovery of how horses run. An interesting history of his life and of the the advances in photography and moving pictures that he brought about while being sponsored by the wealthy founder of Stanford University.
Carla Fernandez’ Renegade Grief: A Guide to the Wild Ride of Life after Loss helped me to better understand what is happening in our brains as we grief, why Western society has a limiting relationship with grief and many creative ways that people deal with grief. I found the book helpful and put some of the practices discussed into practice.
Hmmm. I got a little carried away and I could keep going and going. This might become next week’s slice…
So many good books!
Happy reading!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You really gave a great list of books! Wow! I can’t wait to share these with my group. Yes, I believe it would be great for a slice next week. Thank you so much for your suggestions.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I know I have mentioned it before- I am so jealous of your cozy book club! I would love that reading retreat!
LikeLiked by 1 person