Reading in 2026…. – Brown Girl Reading

Happy New Year Y’all! Wishing you all great reading in this new year. Yes I have been MIA for quite a while and I have decided to make some changes this year and to write more here. I really loved writing blog posts before and I’ll have to get back into the groove so please be patient with me.

Since I had an excellent year of reading in 2025 – 54 books and 20,073 pages read, I’ve tried to fill my plans with various reading challenges to keep me reading widely.  My main goal of this year is to read my shelves.  I’ve sadly come to a moment where I can’t fit all of my books on my shelves and that’s a real problem for me. So I’m combing and organising my shelves so that I can begin to choose some books I’ve forgotten about.

I’ve been making lists of books I can choose from and here is one I’ve been looking at today. All the titles that are in bold and have a strikethrough I’ve already read.  I’ll be coming back with other TBR lists I’m in the middle of making to give me lots of ideas from my shelves that could fit prompts, for challenges, or just need to be read because they’ve been lounging on my bookshelves a bit too long. I’d love to have your opinion on what I should definitely push up my TBR list or maybe even omit.🫣 I am not afraid of DNF-ing* books.

1.   The Most Fun We Ever Had – Claire Lombardo
2.   Grant Park Leonard Pitts, Jr. 
3.   Freedom – Leonard Pitts, Jr.
4.   The Last Thing You Surrender – Leonard Pitts, Jr.
5.   54 Miles – Leonard Pitts, Jr.
6.   The Shadow King – Maaza Mengiste
7.   In Dependence – Sarah Ladipo Manyika
8.   Little Family – Ishmael Beah
9.   Segu – Maryse Condé
10.   Putney – Sofka Zinovieff
11.   The Great Believers – Rebecca Makkai
12.   David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
13.   Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
14.   A Different Drummer – William Melvin Kelley
15.   L’Arabe du Futur 4 – Riad Sattouf
16.   L’Arabe du Futur 5 – Riad Sattouf
17.   L’Arabe du Futur 6 – Riad Sattouf
18.   The Rose Petal Beach Dorothy Koomson
19.   A Book of Secrets – Kate Morrison
20.   Pachinko – Min Jin Lee
21.   L’Odysée d’Hakim – Fabien Toulmé
22.   The Yellow House – Sarah M. Broom
23.   Caste – Isabel Wilkerson
24.   Dancers on the Shore – William Melvin Kelley
25.   A Drop of Patience – William Melvin Kelley
26.   Dunfords Travels Everywheres – William Melvin Kelley
27.   Dem – William Melvin Kelley
28.   The Memory Police – Yoko Ogawa
29.   The Diving Pool Yoko Ogawa
30.   Three-Fifths – Joh Vercher
31.   Unsheltered  Barbara Kingsolver 
32.   The Other Americans – Laila Lalami
33. The Dream Hotel – Laila Lalami
34.   Wandering in Strange Lands – Morgan Jerkins
35.   Zeal – Morgan Jerkins
36.   The Gold Diggers – Sue Nyathi
37.    An Angel’s Demise – Sue Nyathi
38.   Real Life – Brandon Taylor
39.   10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World
40.   Fleishman is in Trouble – Taffy Brodesser-Akner
41.   The Hundred Wells of Salaga – Ayesha Harruna Atah
42.   Heads of the Colored People – Nafissa Thompson-Spires
43.   Akin – Emma Donoghue
44.   Just Mercy – Bryan Stevenson
45.   Rainbow Milk – Paul Mendez
46.   The Good House – Tananarive Due  
47.   Project Girl – Janet McDonald 
48.   Powder Necklace – Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond
49.   Manchester Happened – Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
50.   The First Woman – Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
51.   The Darkest Child – Delores Phillips
52.   The Barefoot Woman – Scholastique Mukasonga
53.   Cassandra at the Wedding – Dorothy Baker   

*DNF means Did Not Finish.

If you’d like to pick up a copy of any of my recommendations or just shop for yourself please consider clicking my affiliate link for Blackwell’s.  It would be much appreciated. It will help fund my incessant book buying, reading, and reviewing. Thank you!

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