Friday Reads — February 13th, 2026

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

This week, LibraryThing staff are reading:

Abby / @ablachly: Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity by Joseph Lee
Kristi / @kristilabrie: A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas
Kate / @katemcangus: Good Material by Dolly Alderton
Lucy / @knerd.knitter: Hardboiled and Hard Luck by Banana Yoshimoto
Zeph / @ZephCraven: Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker

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

I just finished Heated Rivalry (the TV show was better)
Now I'm reading Armistice (the sequel to Amberlough) by Lara Elena Donnelly and Brigands & Breadknives

Via Kindle:
The House of the Spirits Ch 6, p. 200- / Isabel Allende; translation Magda Bogin.
Via Kindle app:
The Gene: an intimate history Pt 3, p 215- / Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Fugitive: In Search of Lost Time, Volume 6 (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) Ch 2 p 200- / Marcel Proust; translation, notes, introduction Peter Collier.

Bedtime reading:
Everyman hardcover:
Lavengro / George Borrow
Trade paperback:
Kristin Lavransdatter: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) / Sigrid Undset; translation & notes Tina Nunnally

No progress on bedtime reading cause I was reading/finishing The Overstory late into the night over the past weekend, an excellent fictional companion to The Burning Earth: an environmental history of the last 500 years finished the week before last. Both recommended! (I believe the publishers changed the subtitle to eliminate "the last 500 years" cause it sounded too apocalyptic). Plus more late night reading w/the Allende novel & Proust in the past week.

I've just started A Deepness in the Sky and a reread of A Stranger in Olondria.

For class, A Wicked War. We are all wishing we had a more expansive and detailed knowledge of this country’s history. This gives only a slice of that; but does it well.

For pleasure, Entangled Life. Did you know that the split gill fungus has more than 23,000 mating types, approximately equivalent to our sexes?

>2 norabelle414:

I just finished Heated Rivalry

I've been reading the whole darn series. I got hooked. Agree with your spoiler, though.

I'm reading The Biographical Dictionary of Literary Failure, by C.D. Rose, which is pretty amusing.

And also The Rose Field, by Philip Pullman, the last of his Book of Dust trilogy. It'll keep me going for a while; it's several hundred pages long.

The Fiends In The Furrows II, David T. Neal, Christine M. Scott editors

>9 jtwilliams65:

Touchstones: Fiends in the Furrows II by Tim Major

I just finished The Turn of Midnight (the sequel to The Last Hours, which I read immediately upon turning the last page of the initial story!) by Minette Walters, and now I'm down a completely different path into Cop Hater by Ed McBain. It is also the first in a series, and while I will probably go onwards, it hasn't got hooks in me yet – however I may be telling a different story at some point this weekend, time will tell. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

>7 lilithcat: I've heard they get better in quality as they go along. Are you finding that to be true?

I just picked up some library books. First up will be It Was Her House First by Cherie Priest.

The other two are gardening books, which I shall probably browse, rather than read.

>10 lilithcat: how are you able to put a link in he reply? i couldn't figure it out

>14 jtwilliams65:

For titles, put single square brackets around it. For authors, use two. For series, three.

Options will come up on the right, and you will sometimes see that one you see is not the one you want. But under it you'll see "others", and if you click on that you should get a list that includes the correct choice.

>12 norabelle414:

I think so. There's more depth to them. Heated Rivalry and The Long Game focus on Ilya and Shane, but the rest of the books focus on other characters.

>15 lilithcat: thanks!

>6 2wonderY: Entangled Life sounds really neat!

I'm about halfway through A Shopkeeper's Millennium and finding it interesting but dated and maybe a bit too eager to generalize limited data into broader analysis. Still, it's giving me a lot of good in my quest for more context to other books I'm reading.

The Best of All-Story Love 1929 continues as well - one story every day or two. I'm really enjoying them! "The Love Master" (the 6th one) is my favorite so far, though i absolutely hated it until about halfway.

I made progress on Anneke, a Little Dame of New Netherlands this week. But my eyes have been too tired for reading on a tablet, so not much.

newly begun: Wooing the Witch Queen by Stephanie Burgis.

Plan to start reading Seduction by M.J. Rose

>18 keristars: There are several versions published. If you get it, make sure it’s the illustrated edition. OMG!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXcSfJ_VnnA

Started The Talisman in preparation for the third in the series hitting in the fall. This and the second, Black House, are pretty thick so I need a head start.

>19 GrammyTammyM:

This is the correct touchstone: Seduction, by M.J. Rose

>20 2wonderY: ooh, I'm taking note! I might have to have it open on both my tablet and paperwhite to really enjoy the illustrations. :)

On the topic of what we're reading, here's a "person on the (D.C.) street" feature from the Washington Post (I've shared the link); former staffer of the Post's eliminated Book World still has sort of a job I can't help but sadly notice:

Nora Krug. WaPo, 02/15/2026: shared link: ‘What are you reading?’ I asked. Here’s what six strangers told me. "Even in the cold, book readers were out in force around town — on trains, waiting for the Metro, at the gym and walking down the street."

PS: don't overlook the WaPo reader comments; 37 when I last checked

>22 lilithcat: thank you, I tried correcting it and it still didn't come out right. What you are showing is what I am currently reading

>22 lilithcat: >25 GrammyTammyM:
I do a lot of touchstones; authors who assign single word titles, especially the same, common, single words already used by hundreds of authors, are a constant headache. They need better advice from their agents or publishers. Why the authorial death-wish? Subconsciously don't want to be discovered? Ego?: my title will obviously be the first one anyone thinks of. General ignorance of the literature?

>26 featherbear: lol