Friday Reads — February 6th, 2026

It's Friday again, and time for Friday Reads!

This week, LibraryThing staff are reading:

Abby / @ablachly: The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce AND The Last Party by Clare Mackintosh
Kristi / @kristilabrie: A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas
Lucy / @knerd.knitter: The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa
Zeph / @ZephCraven: Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire by Don Martin

What about all of you? What are you reading this Friday?

Via Kindle:
The Overstory p. 75- / Richard Powers.
The House of the Spirits Ch 2- / Isabel Allende; translation Magda Bogin.
Via Kindle app:
The Fugitive: In Search of Lost Time, Volume 6 (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) Ch 2, p 153- / Marcel Proust, translation, notes, introduction Peter Collier.
The Gene: an intimate history pt 2, p 172- / Siddhartha Mukherjee.

Bedtime reading:
Everyman hardcover:
Lavengro Ch XXXV- / George Borrow.
Trade paperback (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition):
Kristin Lavransdatter Bk 1, pt 2- / Sigrid Undset; translation & notes Tina Nunnally.

Finished The Burning Earth earlier this week; highly recommended; troubling that there were so few reviews in the press.

In the middle of Kalpa Imperial, Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die, and a combo read/listen of Worn by Sofi Thanhauser.

I've started A Shopkeeper's Millennium, the second of my SantaThing picks. Read the intro to the revised edition (2004), which talks about the changes in historian practice over the 25 years since the book was first published and acknowledges where he'd do things differently.

I found that really interesting! and informative, as someone who did Eng Lit in college back in the day, not history.

I'm still reading The Best of All-Story Love 1929, a little at a time. The third story, "Fate!", is deliciously pulpy - I wouldn't say it's a soap opera thing, but I was chortling at the resolution and happy ever after.

and my Library Books By Mail came in this week, so I'm reading American Girl Rebecca. Partly nostalgia for the series, partly I keep dreaming about searching for the books in the library, very vivid recurring dreams, and maybe reading the books that came out after my time will make the dreams stop???

Just finished Jesus and the Powers, by N.T. Wright.
Continuing with Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Walker’s Appeal in Four Articles. Paper due Tuesday on these two.

>2 featherbear: I loved House of Spirits. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I'm in the middle of something else but it's not grabbing me so I think I'll put it aside while I read We Will Rise Again: Speculative Stories and Essays on Protest, Resistance, and Hope. I just picked it up from the library and the lure of the shiny new book always beats the tired old TBR pile selection LOL.

I'm currently reading an arc of Aliens Attack! by Dave Housley

Reading through The Inheritance of Rome by Chris Wickham. It explores the influence of the Roman Empire on Europe, particularly Western Europe, during the Dark Ages.
I'm also reading through John Adams Under Fire by Dan Abrams and David Fisher. It examines the role of John Adams in defending the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre.

>7 tardis: LOL, Jane! WHY is that??? I spent 2025 doing a Read What You Own and STILL I couldn't resist digital reads (which I allowed myself if they cost nothing, like online through my library). Probably half of what I read was RWYO, the other half digital.

I've started Creation by Gore Vidal (a small group read). I would have loved History in school if it had been like this.

Also group reading Simon Armitage's Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

And always got gobs of short stories and poems I read each week with other groups.

I slipped in a short independent read this week Being There. Yes, it's the novel that the Peter Sellers movie was based on. The movie was more comical. The novel more though-provoking.

>11 DebiCates: I read Creation many years ago & greatly enjoyed it. Also enjoyed Vidal's Lincoln: a novel which I suspect influenced the Spielberg film, & Palimpsest: a memoir, which was wonderfully gossipy

>12 featherbear: "Gossipy" that is the exact word I used to describe the 75 year old narrator in Creation--grumpy, gossipy. ha