Annie's 2026 Reading Diary

After a really weird 2025 reading year (I stopped reading in April almost completely for some reason), I am back for another (better?) year. Let's see if I am able to stick around the club for the whole year this time around.

As usual, if you decide to stick around, you will never know what I read next - I am mostly a genre reader (speculative, crime, mystery, thriller) but I veer into "literature" occasionally (especially with stories). I read a lot of stories, some poetry and plays, some comics and graphic novels, some non-fiction, an alarming number of magazines and journals (or at least I try - does not work every year).

I leave all the planning to the people who can stick to a plan (hey, Dan!) and just follow my own weird logic on what to read next (sometimes it is as easy as "I tripped on this book so time to read it").

I hope to finally get my home library cataloged this year (stay tuned) and to read more books from the said library (last year I managed a grand total of 7).

Translators (because they never get enough love):

(s) = story; (p) = poem

Brian Bergstrom (Japanese-> English)
     The Dilemmas of Working Women by Fumio Yamamoto including:
          (s)Naked
          (s)Planarian
          (s)Here, Which Is Nowhere
          (s)The Dilemmas of Working Women
          (s)A Tomorrow Full of Love
Carmen Yiling Yan (Chinese-> English)
     (s)Tomorrow's Beautiful Dream by Ju Chu (in Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 232, January 2026)
Christina MacSweeney (Spanish -> English)
     The Dance and the Fire by Daniel Saldaña París
Daniel Hahn (Spanish -> English)
     Only Smoke by Juan José Millás (co-translator Thomas Bunstead)
David Coward (French -> English)
     The Grand Banks Café by Georges Simenon
Frank Wynne (French -> English)
     Sleeping Children by Anthony Passeron
Jamie Chang (Korean -> English)
     Saha by Cho Nam-Joo
Martin Aitken (Danish -> English)
     The Wax Child by Olga Ravn
Oonagh Stransky (Italian -> English)
     The Old Man by the Sea by Domenico Starnone
Rahul Bery (Portuguese -> English)
     Nothing Can Hurt You Now by Simone Campos
Sheila Faria Glaser (Portuguese -> English)
     The Last Will and Testament of Senhor da Silva Araújo by Germano Almeida
Thomas Bunstead (Spanish -> English)
     Only Smoke by Juan José Millás (co-translator Daniel Hahn)

Books

==== JANUARY ====
1. Esperance by Adam Oyebanji
2. The Last Will and Testament of Senhor da Silva Araújo by Germano Almeida, translated from Portuguese by Sheila Faria Glaser
3. Nothing Can Hurt You Now by Simone Campos, translated from Portuguese by Rahul Bery
4. An Inside Job by Daniel Silva -- Gabriel Allon (25)
5. Archive of Unknown Universes by Ruben Reyes Jr.
6. The Grand Banks Café by Georges Simenon, translated from French by David Coward -- Penguin Inspector Maigret Series (8)
7. Bonded in Death by J. D. Robb -- In Death (60)
8. The Wax Child by Olga Ravn, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken
9. Might As Well Be Dead by Rex Stout -- Nero Wolfe (27)
10. The Old Man by the Sea by Domenico Starnone , translated from Italian by Oonagh Stransky
11. Burmese Days by George Orwell
12. Sleeping Children by Anthony Passeron, translated from French by Frank Wynne

==== FEBRUARY ====
13. Robert B. Parker's Showdown by Mike Lupica -- Spenser (53)
14. The Dance and the Fire by Daniel Saldaña París, translated from Spanish by Christina MacSweeney
15. Three for the Chair by Rex Stout -- Nero Wolfe (28) -- 3 stories
16. The Dilemmas of Working Women by Fumio Yamamoto, translated from Japanese by Brian Bergstrom -- 5 stories
17. Only Smoke by Juan José Millás, translated from Spanish by Thomas Bunstead and Daniel Hahn
18. History Matters by David McCullough
19. Saha by Cho Nam-Joo, translated from Korean by Jamie Chang

Magazines, Journals and so on

==== JANUARY ====
1. Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 232, January 2026, edited by Neil Clarke (7 stories)
2. Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 188, January 2026, edited by John Joseph Adams (8 stories)
---
Total: 2 magazines, 15 stories

==== FEBRUARY ====
3. Flash Fiction Online, Issue 148, January 2026, edited by Ai Jiang (8 stories)
4. Nightmare Magazine, Issue 160, January 2026, edited by Wendy N. Wagner (3 stories)

Orphan stories (online, parts of magazines I do not plan to read completely or catalog in >3 AnnieMod: and >4 AnnieMod: , random books I do not plan on finishing and any other places stories lurk).

==== JANUARY ====
1s. "Deal-Breaker" by Allegra Goodman (The New Yorker, January 12, 2026)
2s. "Kim's Game" by Sadia Shepard (The New Yorker, January 19, 2026)
3s. "The Welfare State" by Nell Zink (The New Yorker, December 25 2025 & January 5, 2026)
4s. "Risk, Discipline" by Andrew Martin (The New Yorker, December 22, 2025)
5s. "Understanding the Science" by Camille Bordas (The New Yorker, December 15, 2025)
6s. "Safety" by Joan Silber (The New Yorker, December 8, 2025)
7s. "Light Secrets" by Joseph O'Neill (The New Yorker, January 26, 2026)
8s. "The Quiet House" by Tessa Hadley (The New Yorker, February 2, 2026)

==== FEBRUARY ====
9s. "The Seed Dropper" by simóne j banks, Imagine 2200, May 20, 2025
10s. "The Hunger and the Hunger" by Danilo Heitor, Imagine 2200, Jul 15, 2025
11s. "The Sunflower Covenant" by Lyrra Isanberg, Imagine 2200, Sep 04, 2025
12s. "The Case of the Missing Lake" by Colby Devitt, Imagine 2200, Nov 06, 2025
13s. "The Very Important Case of Rami and the Rainbow Bird" by Marlene Jo Baquiran, Imagine 2200, Jan 15, 2026

I'm glad you're back, Annie. I missed your eclectic musings.

>1 AnnieMod: waving from plan world. We over-planners have our issues. 🙂 It’s nice to see your thread. Welcome. I hope you enjoy whatever you end up reading this. And I you wish a wonderful year, regardless, in every way.

>1 AnnieMod: I would argue that if I stick around, I will learn exactly what you read next. ;) And I am looking forward to the discovery.

Yay - welcome back, Annie. Hope your reading mojo keeps the distance in 2025.

Hey, I have visitors :)

>6 labfs39: Thanks, eclectic always sounds better than random :)

>7 dchaikin: Thanks!

>8 ELiz_M: Well, you will know what I had read, what is next is sometimes unknown even to me :)

>9 AlisonY: Dunno about 2025 (no time machine) but hopefully it works in 2026 (I know it was a typo but could not resist)

Meanwhile, I finished a book. Later than usual for my first book of the year but considering the last 8 months, I call it a success.

1. Esperance by Adam Oyebanji
Read: 2026-01-01 - 2026-01-05
Novel, science fiction/police procedural
DAW, hardcover

A new author for me but this is his 4th novel and I plan to read more from him (and in the spirit of the new Annie who does not just leave things in the "I will like it so it can wait for when I need something I like" bucket, I already ordered his debut novel from the library. Which means that I will probably get to it in the next few months. Maybe :)

Running stats:
Owned: 0
Borrowed: 1

>10 AnnieMod: Oops! Haven't got into the swing of remembering it's 2026 yet...

>11 AnnieMod: Enjoyed your review of Esperance Science Fiction and police procedurals can work really well together.

>11 AnnieMod: You had me with this one, until the warning about creepie crawlies.

>13 baswood: Agree - although they are usually tilted towards one of them and here they run on their own (in a good way) for awhile.

>14 labfs39: They are all mechanical if that helps at all. But they feel real in Ethan's viewpoint (and even in some of Abi's) and some are... creepy. So there is that. :)

2. The Last Will and Testament of Senhor da Silva Araújo by Germano Almeida, translated from Portuguese by Sheila Faria Glaser
Read: 2026-01-06 - 2026-01-07
Novel, contemporary, Cabo Verde
New Directions, paperback

I picked this one when I was looking for a book from each country for my Around the World (which went nowhere) so it had been sitting on my shelves for a couple of years. As it looked short (152 pages), I figured it should be a quick read. Spoiler alert: not really. I am not sorry that I read it but it was a frustrating book. But it was a book off my shelves :)

Running stats:
Owned: 1
Borrowed: 1

>16 AnnieMod: Nice review, Annie. I also gave Senhor da Silva Araújo 3½ stars and my comments about it closely mirrored yours.

>17 kidzdoc: Thanks Darryl! I saw that there is a review by you and made a point not to read it before I read the book and wrote the review :) Looking over yours now, I probably should have mentioned his background a bit more and how was a "self-made" man but on the other hand, that sounded almost too cliched (of course he is, people born people do not write that kind of wills)... It is sometimes interesting to see what someone decide to include in or leave out of a review, isn't it? :)

I also suspect that a more literary reader than me may like the style a lot better than I did...

>11 AnnieMod: Intriguing review of Esperance! Sounds like something I might like. I was going to add it to my list but found it was already there, though I have no memory of it. I might give >16 AnnieMod: a miss however.

>19 valkyrdeath: Locus? Another review? Who knows. I grabbed it because it was staring at me at the library (and was the only non-series SF book on the "new" shelf). So it was a happy discovery. Too bad the author is not very prolific - in addition to this one, there are 2 crime novels, 1 SF one and from the looks of it a grand total of 2 short stories (that I had managed to track so far).

>16 AnnieMod: certainly sounds intriguing

Hello Annie, I wish you a better reading year than last year, but above all, I hope you enjoy reading.
I know that I have always followed your threads because you have read many series that I also like. But I think your New Year's resolution is great: just read whatever you feel like reading.
With this in mind, Happy New Year.

>22 Ameise1: Happy New Year! Oh, the series will make an appearance - part of the resolution is to read the authors and series I like (and not to leave them for later because I know I will like them and I like keeping something like that in reserve). So we shall see how that goes. :)

>21 dchaikin: That's one word for it.

3. Nothing Can Hurt You Now by Simone Campos, translated from Portuguese by Rahul Bery
Read: 2026-01-08 - 2026-01-10
Pushkin Vertigo, paperback

I was looking around my library to decide what to read next and spotted a stack of Pushkin Vertigo books (the crime imprint of Pushkin Press) so picked the first one of them. It had its moments but... just as with the previous book, it is the setting that is a better selling point for me than the story itself.

Running stats:
Owned: 2
Borrowed: 1

>24 AnnieMod: Nice review, Annie. This book sounds like it had a lot of promise but failed to deliver on it.

>25 kidzdoc: I think that it was trying too hard to fit the social commentary (about race and gender in Brazil) and the crime story into a single package. It did not feel too on the nose so in that the author succeeded but it kinda drowned the crime story she was trying to write and in order to make her point, she had to go to the cliches often (and to rush the ending - it is a short novel).

>26 AnnieMod: That makes sense.

>11 AnnieMod: Happy New Year! I'm still slowly getting around to people's threads - enjoyed your review of Oyebanji's latest. I read his first book and thought it was quite raw and unfinished, but this seems like it is better developed. Looking forward to checking it out.

>28 rasdhar: I am not surprised - from what I can find he has a single published story before the first novel (and that a long time ago) and even this one has a few places where a more seasoned writer would have kept a better control of his story but Esperance is enjoyable and I really liked it. I plan to read his earlier ones as well - I mostly except raw writing from first time novelists :) And yeah - this one have a very definitive ending (albeit slightly annoyingly handled towards the end - I really really dislike villains telling the story at the end outside of silver age comics).

Meanwhile I've been reading and not posting so some reviews today starting with:

4. An Inside Job by Daniel Silva
Read: 2026-01-12 - 2026-01-14
Hardcover, Harper
Series: Gabriel Allon (25)

5. Archive of Unknown Universes by Ruben Reyes Jr.
Read: 2026-01-15 - 2026-01-16
Hardcover, Mariner Books

I discovered Ruben Reyes Jr. last year with his collection There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven (review in the work if you missed it in my thread last year) and really liked his style and his Salvadorian and Salvadorian American stories. So I had been keeping an eye on his name and when this novel popped up, I had to grab it. And a good thing I was looking for it or I would not have found it in the Romance section of the library (I kinda can see why but... I think it is a really bad classification for this novel).

First novels can be raw and weird in places and this one is not an exception but it was enjoyable and worked for me.

6. The Grand Banks Café by Georges Simenon, translated from French by David Coward
Read: 2026-01-16 - 2026-01-17
Paperback, Penguin
Penguin Inspector Maigret Series (8)

And back to Maigret where I am slowly making my way through the Penguin Inspector Maigret series (the new Penguin translations). If you know what to expect, these are very enjoyable.

And that's me all current on my books reading. Magazines are a different matter... stay tuned :)

>30 AnnieMod: My library has this one, so I'm going to take a look.

>32 markon: Hope you like it (warts and all).

1M. Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 232, January 2026 by Neil Clarke

And first magazine of the year.

As usual the whole issue is online: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prior/issue_232/ (this link will work even after next issue becomes the current one).

>30 AnnieMod: Interesting book and review. Nice to see you back on LT.

>34 labfs39: It is a bit raw (first novel and all that) but I'd still recommend it :)

And I finished another book last night:

7. Bonded in Death by J. D. Robb
Read: 2026-01-18 - 2026-01-20
Hardcover, St. Martin's Press
Series: In Death (60)

This is the book that told me that something is really wrong with my reading last summer - I bounced after 20 pages and that never happens with an Eve Dallas book - even the weakest in the series is comforting enough to work for me. And yet, when I tried to read it last summer, it just did not work and I did not care to continue.

No such issues this time around. Solid installment in a long running series. :)

>33 AnnieMod: You tempt me into reading this again. It's a magazine I like, but I have to remember to download/subscribe (or read it online.) Maybe bedtime reading - a story a night?

>36 markon: It had turned into one of my favorite genre magazines - I may not like every story but there are always a few I really like.

I tend to read my regular books after dinner (or whatever I am reading as "regular book" anyway - may as well be a magazine) so I tend to read online stories and magazines in the mornings, before I open the laptop to start my day, while waking up with my first cup of tea (or coffee - depends on the day). Seems to work for me :)

>35 AnnieMod: 60 books in a series - thats some series

>31 AnnieMod: always enjoyable to read a review of a Maigret novel.

>38 baswood: There are also about a dozen novellas in addition to these 60 (and #61 is already out and #62 is out next month). She had been publishing them since 1995 at the rate of about 2 per year (the linear story inside of the books does not move nearly as fast though - the first novel is set in February 2058 and the 60th is barely in September 2061).

Maigret ran for 75 novels and 28 short stories and Perry Mason to 82 novels and a handful of stories. So long series seem to agree with me. :) Although both Perry Mason and Maigret can be read out of order while In Death is linear and harder to bounce around (plus extremely spoilery for earlier books).

PS: There should be a lot more Maigret reviews this year (she said hopefully...)

8. The Wax Child by Olga Ravn, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken
Read: 2026-01-21 - 2026-01-21
Hardcover, New Directions

I discovered Ravn with her The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century a few years ago which was quirky and funny. This one cannot be more different. Oh, the quirkiness is there (I am not sure she can write a straight novel) but it is much darker and solemn than The Employees. Part of it is the topic, part of it is the time it is set in. An just look at that cover!

I like authors who get their research right and spend the time to learn about what they are writing about when they go for historical themes. Ravn did her homework (and she is talking about that in her note). She could have created a much more straight forward narrative and it probably would have appealed to different readers. But Ravn is Ravn - and what she managed to do in a short novel (I am not even sure it is long enough to qualify as a novel) is remarkable. A very dark story about a very dark time in history but a story that needs to be told. And these women need to be remembered.

>40 AnnieMod: enjoyed your fascinating review of The Wax Child

>40 AnnieMod: I never geled with the employees, but i do look forward to this one, especially after reading your review!

>41 baswood: Thanks :)

>42 stretch: The Employees was really weird - almost pushing it into "Nope, that does not work" for me and yet it somehow worked. This one has quirks but it is a lot smoother than it (and spoiler alert - if you decide to skip the pages with spells, you won't really loose anything - they add to the ambiance and serve to break the story but... they are not really needed for the story. But they are also short).

>40 AnnieMod: This sounds like an unusual one. Your review has me intrigued. I was actually looking at The Employees earlier today since it's been on my list to get to for ages. Ravn seems to be an interesting author.

>44 valkyrdeath: Both are very different in style in tone but both are quirky. So yeah - she is worth keeping an eye on I think.

Meanwhile, I finished 2 books over the weekend. :)

9. Might As Well Be Dead by Rex Stout
Read: 2026-01-22 - 2026-01-24
Hardcover (technically a paperback but the library make it a hardcover), Bantam Crime
Series: Nero Wolfe (27)

Back to another series I want to make some more progress in this year.

10. The Old Man by the Sea by Domenico Starnone , translated from Italian by Oonagh Stransky
Read: 2026-01-24 - 2026-01-25
Paperback, Europa Editions
Original: Il vecchio al mare (2024)

One of those "Oh, this looks interesting" from my last library visit. An almost slide of life novel but not exactly. My first from the author - may check some of his older works.

Wow, you've read so many good books already this year. And to think you stopped reading last year.

>47 Nickelini: I seem to have two modes only - read a lot or don’t read at all. Reading in moderation had always been an impossible expression in my life…

Admittedly though, I had not had such a long period of not reading since my twenties probably.

>14 labfs39: Me too, except I managed to read (and enjoy) Children Of Time so I figure I should be okay-ish with this. On to the wishlist it goes!

>35 AnnieMod: The In Death series is also a comfort read for me. When I was going through my reading slump last year I would skim re-read these.

>50 rhian_of_oz: Yeah - it usually helps me as well - but it somehow did not work (neither with a new one or an old one).

11. Burmese Days by George Orwell
Read: 2026-01-25 - 2026-01-29
E-book, Mariner Books Classics

With Orwell being the author of the month for January, I was considering rereading 1984 or Animal Farm. Then decided to check some of his other fiction and I am happy that I did. Now I want to read the 3 novels by him I had not read before (and probably some of his non-fiction...)

12. Sleeping Children by Anthony Passeron, translated from French by Frank Wynne
Read: 2026-01-29 - 2026-01-30
Hardcover, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Original title: Les Enfants endormis (2022)

And the last book for January (I still have a magazine and a few stories to talk about). One of those novels that I would have never found if the library did not have it on their new shelf. Heartbreaking in more than one way.

And the cover, with its blurriness, fits the novel perfectly.

>52 AnnieMod:
I also very much enjoyed this book and have since read a lot more nonfiction about Burma which makes me want to reread the Orwell now that I have an even better historical perspective.

2M. Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 188, January 2026 by John Joseph Adams

And the second magazine read in January.
The whole magazine is online: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/issues/jan-2026-issue-188/ (through the month, they get published in a staggered manner - 1 SF and one Fantasy story per week or you can buy the magazine and get them at the start of the month). Once the last set of stories is out, the whole magazine is there and available.

That leaves just a bunch of orphan stories to post about and then I can move to February. ;)

>54 lilisin: It is dense enough to invite a reread - although I am not sure I want to deal with Elizabeth and her empty-headed calculating aunt again (but then with time, maybe)... :)

When I read your excellent review of Burmeses Days, I thought I had read it fairly recently, but it turns out that I had read Anthony Burgesses Malayan Trilogy. Somewhat similar perhaps, although Burgesses satire easily morphs into comedy.

>57 baswood: Burgess is one of the authors I always think I have to read and never quite get around to. This is going on my list though - not immediately but I'd certainly like to get to it and see how he handles the same time and space.

The Wax Child and Burmese Days are now both on my list!

And orphan stories from January (curiously all of them from the stack of The New Yorker on my desk. I have a love/hate relationship with this magazine - I like reading it so when I get a good deal I will grab it but then it takes too long to read the things that interest me so they pile up...)

The stories:
1s. "Deal-Breaker" by Allegra Goodman (The New Yorker, January 12, 2026)
A Jewish woman in her fifties had been hiding her new relationship with a divorced man until she realizes that the relationship is not as stable as she thought. It is a quiet story about love and priorities and how hard it is to find love when you have your own history.

The story is part from her new collection This Is Not About Us which is coming later this month.

The author reads her own story here: https://www.wnyc.org/story/allegra-goodman-reads-dealbreaker/

2s. "Kim's Game" by Sadia Shepard (The New Yorker, January 19, 2026)

Years ago Helen and her brother moved from rural America to Brazil and made their life there farming. After the brother dies, she sells more of her land but remains in Brazil. As she has a stable postal address, a researcher who is in the country to work with the native population uses her address to receive his mail. I did not expect the ending - the story led to it but it was still surprising and heartbreaking.

3s. "The Welfare State" by Nell Zink (The New Yorker, December 25 2025 & January 5, 2026)
Two friends go on a hike in the mountains and remember their past and consider their future. I am not sure how the story ended up where it did but then I was just bored by this story.

Author reading her own story: https://www.wnyc.org/story/nell-zink-reads-the-welfare-state/

4s. "Risk, Discipline" by Andrew Martin (The New Yorker, December 22, 2025)
A man and a woman decide to get married in the middle of the COVID pandemics and the complexity of the task while New York is essentially locked down turns out to be less of a problem than the cracks in the relationship. The story got into some shocking details (almost graphical) and I wondered for a bit if that was the whole point.

5s. "Understanding the Science" by Camille Bordas (The New Yorker, December 15, 2025)

A group of friends meet again after a long period and deals with cancer, their differences and new partners. And then the story switches to one of these new partners (now an ex). I am not sure I got the point of the story - it is a slice of life and it is readable but...

Author reading her own story: https://www.wnyc.org/story/camille-bordas-reads-understanding-the-science/

6s. "Safety" by Joan Silber (The New Yorker, December 8, 2025)

A Muslim and a Jewish girl grew together in New York with family memories of fleeing dictators. They loose track of each other for awhile and reconnect again just when the new administration is starting to crack down on immigration. Everyone is legal except the spouse of one of them had lied on his paperwork (or at least did not disclose what he was supposed to)... and things go predictably badly.

When I was going through my own immigration process, the thing that was repeated over and over was that you do not lie on these forms and you do not omit things because you believe that they are forgotten or unimportant or because you want to read a question in a certain way that makes sense outside of immigration - the questions are literal and need to be treated that way. The story is very of the moment (it ties with the current administration handling of immigration matters) but it is also about consequences and choices. I wish it had leaned more in the latter direction but then we live in interesting times.

7s. "Light Secrets" by Joseph O'Neill (The New Yorker, January 26, 2026)

Another very "The New Yorker" story. Friends eating lunch and walking around New York while talking about secrets and amends and who knows what else. I am still not sure what the point was (if there was one).

8s. "The Quiet House" by Tessa Hadley (The New Yorker, February 2, 2026)

Geraldine and Jane, now in their 70s, had known each other since they were girls and had reconnected again after some time. These days they are best friends again so when Geraldine has a dream about an old flame of both of them, there is noone else she rather talk about him to but Jane. Except that their memories of the past seem to be different - or as Geraldine tells us, Jane seems to be redacting her own past. The story weaves between the past and the current time and manages to capture that weird feeling we all had had when we try to discuss shared memories with someone else - things never really match.

===
And that's it stories-wise for January. I think I am taking a break from The New Yorker stories for a bit - they often run too literary for my taste and despite a few gems here, I think I need a break from them.

And then it was February and I spent most of Sunday morning catching up with the stories from a site I keep forgetting to check.

If you were around last year, you may remember me talking about the Imagine 2200 climate fiction yearly contest (and Grist's climate fiction initiative as a whole). (if you do not or were not around the post is here with reviews of the stories in it. For some reason there are no results for this year (had not checked if there wasn't a contest or if they had not posted them yet or if it is later) but the site had managed to post a few new stories through last year (and early this year). I still want to go back and read the stories from before last year's contest :) Onto some stories I did read :)

9s. "The Seed Dropper" by simóne j banks, Imagine 2200, May 20, 2025, available online here

20 years ago the rain came and somehow never stopped. Everyone who used to live in Welcome, Louisiana had to move away - between the rain and the overflowing Mississippi River, the area was uninhabitable. The heavy industry which had caused most of the damage that led to that did not help either and the previously lively bank of the river is now a dead patch of water.

June used to live with his grandmother and was one of the people who fled when the area became uninhabitable. He never came back - there was nothing left to but then when a project looks for volunteers to be seed droppers in the lands where his family used to live, he cannot resist.

The story weaves together his memories of his grandmother and the land before the collapse and his current life and memories and does it well. The feeling of loss is palpable but so is also the hope. And the author sets the story in 2050, putting the disaster very close to us. The scary part is that it is believable....

10s. "The Hunger and the Hunger" by Danilo Heitor, Imagine 2200, Jul 15, 2025, available online here

At some point São Paulo had ended up separated after an event which is remembered as the Great Famine - on one side of the bridge are the wealthy and well-to-dos, living under domes where food could be cultivated and noone goes to bed hungry; on the other side people are left to fend for themselves with "Human Ration" their only means of sustenance and these barely scratch one's hunger. A guerrilla war soon breaks out and when we meet our protagonist he is a refugee from that war. The place he ends up in is a group of agro-colonies which had managed to build a type of utopia. So what do you do with someone who has a lot of experiences that noone knows anything about? You send him to talk to your children in school of course. And that's where our protagonists realizes just how different this new place is - because the children want to know what hunger is - a feeling that he had grown with.

Most of the story is an exploration of the colony (via the eyes of the outsider) and rumination on the topics of hunger, need and want. It is a utopian tale - with enough darkness to be almost believable and with some interesting ideas of what is interesting. The ending is full of hope - open ended in the best possible way but yet completing the story.

11s. "The Sunflower Covenant" by Lyrra Isanberg, Imagine 2200, Sep 04, 2025, available online here

If you disagree with the big corporations and their machines which destroy the land, you disappear. Dee's parents disappeared 10 days ago and noone knows where (except everyone does of course), leaving her alone with her two very young siblings. 3 days later a letter came - offering Dee a place in one of the private schools which they had been working so hard to get into. If it was not for the timing, they would have been ecstatic. As it is, it feels like the two are connected.

For awhile I was wondering if the disappearance was a price for the admittance - parents sell themselves somehow to give their children a chance. That would have been horrific enough but the real answer soon emerges when Dee meets another student in the school, Ashwiyaa Peschel, and it soon becomes clear that the letter had been highly irregular (especially for someone from her part of the city) and the truth is even worse - the state believes that the best way to deal with the kids of dissidents is to reeducate them but instead of the usual totalitarian way, they go for the carrot - enroll them in the best schools to show them how much better they can become.

If Dee was on her own, it may even have worked. With Ashwiyaa by her site, things go a little differently. It is a nice tale of resistance and if you read carefully, you know that the narrator lived long enough for this to be a memory for them - although we never learn if their plans achieve anything. It is a complete story but these glimpses into the future made me want to know what happens next.

12s. "The Case of the Missing Lake" by Colby Devitt, Imagine 2200, Nov 06, 2025, available online here

"On the morning of April 8, 2200, Lake Ballona went missing." This is the opening line of the story and the exact date in it tells you that we are not dealing with the usual story of drought or worse. The lake was there the previous evening, now it is gone. And everyone needs to know why - Los Angeles is about to be rezoned again and a missing lake changes the balance between liminal zones which belong to the wilderness and the habitable areas. And this rezoning is not the only things that make this future different from where we are now - at some point in their past (and our future), humanity had finally realized that they are not alone on Earth. Before long everyone realizes that if someone can help here, it is the fungi so the Mushroom Translator is called to investigate.

The story may appear almost absurd on its face but disappearing lakes, talking fungi and politics somehow mix into a tale that just works. The setting and the world are the real story - the crime that started it all (and its solution) allow the author to explore the cooperation (and lack of) between humanity and the rest of the organisms in the area. Spoiler alert (or not): humanity does not really come out looking very nice. Shocking, I know! The political squabbles are amusing though - scarily believable but amusing.

13s. "The Very Important Case of Rami and the Rainbow Bird" by Marlene Jo Baquiran, Imagine 2200, Jan 15, 2026, available online here

When the bush fires reached their house, Rami's mother did not manage to escape fast enough so these days she spends a lot of time in the hospital. As part of a program to help the children who were emotionally scarred by the fires, Rami is enrolled in a school away from the area. He is not adjusting very well - 6 years old kind rarely do. And when one day a porcelain bird which his mother gave him gets shattered in the yard, things get even worse.

There are some elements in this story that work very well - the almost subtle way in which the fires are tied to birds on the verge of disappearing point to a escalation of processes that had already started. But the overall did not exactly work for me - the kids trying to help Rami get back his bird, the principal who is questioning if his school should be the one to help Rami, the teacher who is tasked with helping the boy (and does a good job of it) - the individual parts of the story almost work on their own. But the bigger story that is supposed to actually put everything together end up crumbling. I cannot put my finger on what exactly what is not working - it felt naive and the children's court and the teacher's agreement to participate fell more like a play that actors are playing than like an actual story.

And a first magazine for February:

3. Flash Fiction Online, Issue 148, January 2026, edited by Ai Jiang

As usual, all of the stories are online by the end of the month (just like Lightspeed, Flash Fiction Online publishes the stories online through the month for free but you can also just buy the whole issue at any time).

https://www.flashfictiononline.com/issues/ is the link to all the issues of the magazine online with the links to each individual story included (the direct link to an issue lead to the page where you can buy it and they do not contain links for the individual stories).

Ha - found the actual issue link: https://www.flashfictiononline.com/issues/january-2026/ (not sure how I missed it before...) :) Will leave the big link as well though.

13. Robert B. Parker's Showdown by Mike Lupica
Read: 2026-01-31 - 2026-02-02
Hardcover, G.P. Putnam's Sons
Series: Spenser (53), 3rd by Lupica in the series

And another of my long running series - this one survived its creator's death after 39 books and an author change after the second author in the series added 10 more (plus one co-written/finished by someone else book in there somewhere). Such changes rarely work well and the continuations are often awful but here it seems to work so I am sticking with the series...

Solid series book if you had been reading all along and know what to expect. Probably not a good place to start with the series.

>35 AnnieMod: I used to enjoy the heck out of the Dallas series, but it increasingly felt repetitive and a bit out of touch (after 60 odd novels, not a surprise). I think the one that turned me off was when she turned her back and let her billionaire husband beat the daylights out of a man in handcuffs that she had already arrested, because of some past grudge. The first few novels depicted her as someone with an iron moral code, and Robb/Nora Roberts gave us a long-ranging arc of moral decline and corruption. I would have been fine with that, but I think it wasn't intentional. I might pick up this one, though, if it focuses more on the historical context as I do enjoy Summerset. I am generally delighted that one of the most popular romance writers plays around frequently in this sci-fic/crime universe so well.

>40 AnnieMod: Great reviews of The Wax Child and The Old Man by the Sea. I've enjoyed catching up on your thread and I'm bookmarking all these short stories to read!

>64 rasdhar: And the Eve Dallas of the first books would have never allowed it. 3 years later, both of them had changed. It did not really bother me when it happened - she had her reasons and even if I morally disagree, flawed characters are always more interesting to read. If Roberts was going do that is a different question but I suspect that she may have. It fit the situation and the people they had become or so it felt to me at the time.

One thing I enjoy in modern police procedural series is the change in the detective. I love old series but Nero Wolfe or Poirot are interchangeable from one book to another. Makes it easier to read them out of order which was probably the only way to be successful pre internet but I much rather the modern approach of clear sequences. And I like my detectives to be human (well, even the non human ones - I like the warts and the grey areas and them not being perfect).

14. The Dance and the Fire by Daniel Saldaña París, translated from Spanish by Christina MacSweeney
Read: 2026-02-03 - 2026-02-07
Hardcover, Catapult
Original title: El baile y el incendio (2021)

And another book that came home with me from the library because it looked somewhat interesting (and was a translation). Still not sure if I want to explore the writer's other works - I enjoyed some of the novel but overall it seemed to be a bit too incomplete and strange (and not in a good way for me). It does build a believable atmosphere and the physical and non-physical parallels are well done but it still did not manage to work for me at the end (and I had to make myself pick it up again - I really did not care what happened to anyone by the end).

15. Three for the Chair by Rex Stout
Read: 2026-02-07 - 2026-02-08
Mass market paperback, Bantam Crime Line, The Rex Stout Library edition
Series: Nero Wolfe (28)

And back to Nero Wolfe where the next book in the series is a collection of 3 stories. 2 good stories, 1 that simply felt flat and overall a good addition to the series. The last story is a lot more connected to real life events than the series usually gets (or at least I never saw it as connected - maybe if you were reading them when they were published, they tied to contemporary news which are now mostly forgotten).

>67 AnnieMod: Are you reading through the whole series? Great fun to read your reviews.

>68 baswood: That's the plan. How fast it will happen is a different matter. :)

I am a serial series reader - unless an author really pisses me off, I am usually into it for the long run (and even then, chances are that I will give them a chance a few more times especially if that was not the first book in the series). With the old detective series - there is very little that can make me stop reading the series once I start. Eventually anyway - may take a bit to get back to them :)

So many books your reviews make me want to read! I read Burmese Days years ago, but barely remember it. I've wanted to reread it for a while, and your review prompts me to do that sooner rather than later.
Re The Old Man by the Sea (I can't get the touchstone to come up--only Hemingway's classic shows), I read another book by Starnone that I like, so I was on the lookout for other books by him. Unfortunately, my library doesn't have this one, and I'm not willing to purchase it at this point (2000+ on the TBR shelf), so it will have to wait on the wishlist. My library DID have Sleeping Children, and it was available for checkout, so I should be reading it soon.

>70 arubabookwoman: I am not sure if I should say sorry or you are welcome.
The Old Man by the Sea (click on others under the Hemingway title in the Toushstones list and it will open a page where the Starnone should show up as the 4th entry hiding in between Hemingway's different collections and what's not. I just use browser search on that window to spot the author in cases like that where the title is truly hidden) - it is a new book so maybe they will get it later? It was my first by him so not sure how it compares but I liked the writing.

Meanwhile, another magazine:
4M. Nightmare Magazine, Issue 160, January 2026, edited by Wendy N. Wagner

The sister magazine to Lightspeed which publishes horror and very dark fantasy. I need to be in the proper mood for it - its stories tend to get gory (both supernatural and not) and the first issue for 2026 is not an exception. Horror tends to bore me very often so I am a lot less likely to read it than the rest of the speculative genres but Nightmare has some interesting stories sometimes so it will make an appearance here sometimes.

The issue is available online: https://www.nightmare-magazine.com/issues/jan-2026-issue-160/ (it is another staggered release through the month unless you want to buy it but once the month is over, the complete magazine is available for free).

16. The Dilemmas of Working Women by Fumio Yamamoto, translated from Japanese by Brian Bergstrom
Read: 2026-02-09 - 2026-02-11
HarperVia, Hardcover, 2025
Collection, 5 stories
Original: プラナリア (2000)

Now this was lovely. Another book from the New shelf in the library (and showing the reason why I keep getting books that way even if I do not like all of them).

PS: My owned: borrowed books ratio is really bad so... I am just going to ignore it for now.

17. Only Smoke by Juan José Millás, translated from Spanish by Thomas Bunstead and Daniel Hahn
Read: 2026-02-12
Bellevue Literary Press, paperback, 2025
Original: Solo humo (2023, Spain)

Another one from the new shelf in the library. I am still not sure if I liked it or not - it was short and a quick read and there were parts I enjoyed but I am still not sure that I figured out what the author wanted to do with the book.

18. History Matters by David McCullough
Read: 2026-02-07 - 2026-02-13
Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 2025

One of those cases where a book probably should not have been published. Not because it is all bad - but combing through the papers of a dead author to publish some more of his work is always going to be a risk. In this case, not worth it - the few pieces that are worth reading had been published before and the rest should have remained as speeches or as unpublished notes. Still, there are a few pieces if someone wants to use it as a sampler for his writing style.

19. Saha by Cho Nam-Joo, translated from Korean by Jamie Chang
Read: 2026-02-13 - 2026-02-14
Liveright, hardcover, 2022
Original: 사하맨션 (2019)

I really dislike novels who mangle their endings. Maybe this was always the author's plan but as a reader, this ending just messed up a perfectly decent novel.

>73 AnnieMod: We don't always need a resolution. (I watch so many french films that seem to purposely not have a resolution)
>75 AnnieMod: you have read a book where the ending sounded contrived. You win some and lose some and so wishing you better reads next time.

>76 baswood: And I am usually fine with no resolution endings when they make sense. These two just rubbed me the wrong way - one of them with a contrived ending and one where a more resolute ending would have been nice.

They were not all bad though - despite not liking where they left off, I enjoyed them. Especially Saha. So I am not regretting reading them.

>72 AnnieMod: I really enjoyed this review and have put this book onto my TBR. Thank you, Annie..

>78 kjuliff: It should work on audio pretty well I think so I hope you like it if you ever get to it :)

>74 AnnieMod: Oh, that's a little annoying. I picked this one up recently on something of a whim, and I hadn't realized it was one of those posthumous collections. Which, I agree, often isn't something that goes very well. Oh, well, I'm sure I'll read it eventually anyway, but I might bump it down the priority list. I should probably get around to reading his John Adams biography first, honestly. It's been sitting on my TBR shelves for a distressingly long time.

>80 bragan: Yeah - I did not realize either - I saw it, I grabbed it from the library. :) They don't really advertise it that way (of course not) and I had not realized that he had died. Which is why I started both the review and the notes with that.

Still - the Paris Review interview is worth reading if you had not read it in the original magazine. And it can be used as a sampler - if you pick and chose...

I'm tempted by Only Smoke despite your lukewarm rating. Your reviews are enticing.

>82 labfs39: You’ve seen enough of my reviews to know that lukewarm is not bad in general. If it appeals, give it a chance - it has its moments. As I still think that I missed some of what the author meant to do anyway. :) Plus it is short.

Catching up on your thread after a while and I am bookmarking The Dilemmas of Working Women by Fumio Yamamoto which sounds interesting. Great review!

>84 rasdhar: Waving back :) I really enjoyed this one.

Quick update: I finished 2 more books after my last update and then hit a reading slump again combined with crazy work schedule. Hopefully this one will be shorter than the previous one (and I really should post about the two books).