📚 what we're reading in 2026...
Learn what we're reading together next year + a peek at my TBR shelf!
Hello, reader!
Over the last year, I’ve led our reading group through six novels. (We’re in the middle of our 6th and final read, Parable of the Sower, right now!)
This evening, it’s time to talk about what’s next…and how I’m mixing it up in 2026.
Since I started running our read-a-longs two-ish years ago, I’ve mostly focused on novels I have already read.
In the second-half of 2025, however, we have read two novels — Middlemarch and Parable of the Sower — that I have never studied before. And it’s been an amazing experience.
→ 📖 Browse all of our 2025 reads + deeper recommendations
I was honestly pretty worried about how reading books I didn’t know before reading with you would feel. Would you still want to read with me if I wasn’t an expert on the novel? Would I feel confident enough to lead our group without reading 5 million academic articles and referential texts and scholarship beforehand?!
(You can take the girl out of academia, but not the academic anxiety outta the girl…)
But I have loved reading books for the first time with our community.
It has motivated me to take on classics and longer novels that, to be honest, I haven’t always had the energy for since I graduated. (I never would’ve made it through Middlemarch without you!)
4 novels in 2026
I’m planning four official read-a-longs for 2026, and of course, we have to start the year with the classic everyone is talking about.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
I read Jane Eyre during graduate school with a brilliant Victorianist expert, and my sister read Wuthering Heights with her book club during 2025 (They loved it!). I can’t wait to get back on the moors with new Brontë heroines and antiheroes.
Sue me, I thought the trailer for this movie was super sexy and Jacob Elordi totally won me over in the new Frankenstein movie.
I’m really excited to finally read this classic, which I’ve never read before!
McTeague by Frank Norris
I love McTeague. It is the weirdest, funniest, creepiest and (for me) most perfect example of a little literary movement known as American Naturalism.
I almost pointed my entire doctoral dissertation at American Naturalism, because I find it an endlessly fascinating moment in American history where science, technology, economics, and society all merged in new threads of cultural discourse.
This will be a much-anticipated re-read for me, and I can’t wait to introduce you to this wacky book about San Francisco, greed, loyalty, and a very large dentist. Oh: and crime! There’s a weird amount of crime in this novel.
Please try to keep yourself from knowing about this novel as much as you can; going in with zero context made it a rip-roaring roller coaster for me.
It’s a very long novel, but not as “dense” as Middlemarch. We’ll make it our spring read.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
I was changed as a reader when I decided to read East of Eden as my first post-graduation novel after finishing my PhD. I was stunned I hadn’t spent more time with Steinbeck, especially given how much I love studying American literature, and so I turned to a book beloved by many of my favorite people.
I loved the novel in a deep, heart-changing way.
So, in 2026, I’d like to get to the other giant Steinbeck novel I’ve never studied before, and read it with you. We’ll spend the summer with this novel about the Dust Bowl and 1930s economic turmoil.
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
In the fall, we’re going back to our roots. Back to the very first novel we read together.
And back, yes, back again to my favorite novel of all time.
This novel is the reason I went to graduate school, and continues to be the novel I most long to spend time with.
We’ll read The House of Mirth together in the late fall. Whether you’ll be re-reading with me or joining in for the first time, the experience will be jam-packed with new insights, fresh writing, and beautiful conversation.
I’ll also be preparing and sharing my own academic work on the novel, with a personal goal of submitting an essay by the end of our read-a-long together.
Delving into the unknowns
In 2026, I want to get into my own personal TBR shelf with you and give myself more time between reads to rest and rebuild my energy.
Here’s what’ll feel different next year:
I’m going to introduce slightly looser scheduling with long breaks between guides
I’ll still provide weekly reading schedules for those of us who love assigned chapters each week, and will post weekly guides for every book we read together
For new-to-me reads, our weekly posts will become lighter and more focused on discussion and questions
Weekly guides will include more teaching moments, where I show you how I’m teaching myself novels I’ve never studied before as a lit PhD
I’ll include time to discuss assigned academic readings into every single read-a-long on the schedule!
At the end of each read, I’ll continue to provide a robust wrap-up guide that goes into our signature depth of insight, including recommendations for related reads, academic and JSTOR articles, and more.
All year long, we’ll continue to closely read together.
Prioritizing my TBR 📚
In case you’re the curious type…I’ve put together a list of “hopefuls” I hope to get to in 2026.
→ 📚 Check out my full 2026 TBR over on bookshop.org
There is poetry here. Nonfiction. Classics. Contemporary horror. And lots of American Naturalist texts.
At least one of you has mentioned wanting to read some poetry together — and I’d love to read Bright Dead Things by Ada Límon throughout next year, using poetry as a “palate cleanser” between larger readings.
Part of my hope in spacing out our community reads is making more space and time for “shorter” or quicker reading exercises, like reading a few selected poems together in a week. (If this sounds fun, let me know in the comments!)
→ 📚 Check out my full 2026 TBR over on bookshop.org
Let’s read together! 💌
Will you be joining me for these reads in 2026?
→ The schedule for Wuthering Heights will come out the week after Christmas. Subscribe to get all the info!
🕯️ Make 2026 your year for closely reading
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And I thought you might go a little easier on yourself (and us). Ha! This looks ambitious to me.
You got me over my resistance to Jane Austen with the P&P close read, but you might have a challenge getting me to like the Brontës. As a fifteen year old, I threw Jane Eyre across the room at the finish. I've since reread it as a "revisit a book you didn't like when you were young challenge". I better understand it, but it's still not a favorite. Consequently, I've avoided the rest of the Brontë catalog. So, maybe this will be fun?!
This sounds fantastic! Love the poetry idea.