mid-year superlatives
This week we’ll reach the halfway point of 2026 — which is hard to believe — so I wanted to do a mid-year reading check-in. But I didn’t want to do the same thing I’ll do at the end of the year, so I decided on something different than my top 10 and analytics: book superlatives. So here are some fun ones I thought of, featuring books that I highly recommend.
Most Annotated: The Someday Garden by Ashley Poston
As I was reading Ashley Poston’s latest magical romance novel, I made notes at the beginning of each chapter, defining the untranslatable words that headed each one — like goya, an Urdu word that means the feeling that a fantasy novel can be real, and kilig, a Filipino word for the heart-fluttering feeling of a romantic moment. When I finished the book and turned the page, I had to laugh at myself: There was a glossary at the back with every word defined. But I had fun looking up each word and picking the variation of translation that I liked the best.
What’s the Occasion? Award: All the Gold Stars by Rainesford Stauffer
The answer to what’s the occasion: anything! As the subtitle explains, this nonfiction book — the second by Kentucky journalist Rainesford Stauffer — is about “Reimagining Ambition and the Ways We Strive.” With a gorgeous cover full of gold stars, this book is great for the perfectionist in your life (maybe the perfectionist in your own body and heart). As a person who loves to celebrate a win of any size and host birthday parties for my cats and send thank you cards for everything, I have continually thought about this line from the book: “Why should we only celebrate the occasions that are predetermined? Making our own occasions is ambitious.”
Most Comforting: A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna
This was one of my top reads last year, and I’ve already returned to it in 2026. I find it so calming and uplifting — another balm to my perfectionism.
Least Comforting: A Guardian and a Thief by Meghan Majumdar
I joined a book club through the Carnegie Center in which I’m the youngest woman by a few decades, which is wonderful. This was my first read with the group, an excellent but grim novel about a near-future in which climate disasters have made daily life much more difficult. This book asks the question of how we will treat our fellow humans under those circumstances. The answer, I hope: better than the characters in this book did.
Same Name: They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib and They Can’t Kill Us All by Wesley Lowery
I keep a running playlist on Spotify of songs that have the same name — not different artists covering the same song, but distinct songs with the same (or almost the same) name, like “Jolene” by Dolly Parton and “Jolene” by The Weepies, or “Olivia” by One Direction and “Olivia” by The 502s and “Olivia” by Rayland Baxter and “Something Like Olivia” by John Mayer. And many others that aren’t women’s names.
These two nonfiction books get their similar titles from very similar circumstances: memorials of Black men killed by police. Hanif Abdurraqib, who is maybe my current favorite nonfiction writer, got his title from a paper sign at the Michael Brown memorial that read, “THEY CAN’T KILL US UNTIL THEY KILL US.” Wesley Lowery cited a sign at Antonio Brown’s memorial: “YOU CAN’T KILL US ALL.”
Both books are great reads. Lowery’s is a more straightforward, featuring reporting from several cities that saw racial justice protests in the mid-2010s. The essays in Abdurraqib’s collection are about music but also about the United States and culture and his family and justice.
Most Haunting: North Woods by Daniel Mason
In short, this novel is about how a piece of land can hold all its history and all its past inhabitants — certainly a kind of haunting. I’m rather haunted by two characters from this book, sisters who are so particular and scary and fascinating.
Longest Shelf Life: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos or Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
All year I’ve been trying to read books that I already own, including some that have waited a long, long time to be read. I read (and really enjoyed) both of these novels this year, but I’m not sure which I’ve had the longest. I know my grandmother gave me Cold Mountain sometime after she read it, which, according to her initials inside the front cover, was in 2016. And I purchased Gentlemen Prefer Blondes because it was on a college course syllabus, but we didn’t end up reading it in the class.
Most Sensational: The Sand-Catcher by Omar Khalifah
This caught my eye at the library because its cover is yellow and features a newspaper. This short novel about the Palestinian Nakba is astounding. It’s both increasingly absurd and quietly devastating.
The Meryl Streep Award: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
I really struggle with audiobooks, but when I saw that Meryl Streep was the narrator for Tom Lake, I decided to try it. It was, obviously, amazing — because both Meryl Streep and Ann Patchett are amazing. Tom Lake is a wonderful novel about family relationships and past loves and the pandemic, in a way that didn’t make me hate reading about the pandemic. The honorable mention here goes to Ancient History Between Us, Kaitlyn Hill’s latest romance novel, which was excellent and has strong Mamma Mia! vibes.
Most Recently Acquired and Most Anticipated: This Is Also a Love Story by Sally Hayden
This book caught my eye while I was at Joseph-Beth Booksellers this week for Kaitlyn Hill’s book launch. I was trying to resist picking up yet another book, but the pink-and-green cover first caught my eye, followed by the title and subtitle: “A Reporter’s Search for Goodness in a Cruel World.” I love reporting and I love romance, so I am very excited to read this book.
This holds the honor of my most recently picked out and purchased book…until my order from Thrift Books arrives tomorrow. Happy reading!