Books I've Read: Q1 2026

Image taken from within a bookstore, looking toward the front tables with books on display stands and out the window into an urban street beyond.

Here’s the list of what I read in the first quarter of 2026, roughly in order of date finished:

  1. From One Cell: A Journey into Life’s Origins and the Future of Medicine, by Ben Stanger

  2. Blue Belle, by Andrew Vachss

  3. Blackwater (II): The Levée, by Michael McDowell

  4. Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of 70s and 80s Horror Fiction, by Grady Hendricks

  5. Spread Me, by Sarah Gailey

  6. Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel

  7. Wolf at the Table, by Adam Rapp

  8. The Wilderness, by Angela Flournoy

  9. Itch!, by Gemma Amor

  10. The Family Experiment, by John Marrs

  11. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, by John Carreyrou

  12. Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, by Sarah Wynn-Williams

  13. Thrill Me, by Benjamin Percy

  14. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, by Lori Gottlieb

  15. The Dead Husband Cookbook, by Danielle Valentine

  16. The Hunger We Pass Down, by Jen Sookfong Lee

  17. The Awkward Black Man, by Walter Mosley

  18. Buckeye, by Patrick Ryan

  19. The Deluge, by Stephen Markley

  20. Meltdown: Greed, Scandal, and the Collapse of Credit Suisse, by Duncan Mavin

  21. People Like Us, by Jason Mott

  22. F*ckface, by Leah Hampton

  23. The Horse, by Willy Vlautin

  24. Blackwater (III): The House, by Michael McDowell

  25. Vera, or Faith, by Gary Shteyngart

  26. The Unseen World, by Liz Moore

  27. They Thirst, by Robert McCammon

  28. Man, F*ck this House (and Other Disasters), by Brian Asman

  29. Spectacular Things, by Beck Dorey-Stein

  30. Between Two Fires, by Christopher Buehlman

  31. Fox, by Joyce Carol Oates

  32. Le Jeu du Bonheur a Commencé Comme Ça, by Julien Aime (French language edition)

  33. The Murders of Molly Southborne, by Tade Thompson

  34. Suffer the Children, by Craig DiLouie

  35. Boulder, by Eva Baltasar

  36. Blackwater (IV): The War, by Michael McDowell

  37. The Wolf’s Hour, by Robert McCammon

  38. Luminous, by Sylvia Park

  39. Perfume and Pain, by Anna Dorn

  40. Rejection, by Tony Tulathimutte

  41. The Gone World, by Tom Sweterlitsch

  42. Natural Beauty, by Ling Ling Huang

  43. A Killing in Cannabis: A True Story of Love, Murder, and California Weed, by Scott Eden

  44. The Marriage Act, by John Marrs

  45. Long Island Compromise, by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

I didn’t read as many titles this past quarter as I typically do in a three-month period, but a lot of the books I read were doorstoppers the length of two or even three “regular-sized” books.

If only I could say that the length of most of those books was warranted or made the read worth bolding! (I bold the titles that really stick with me over the course of the reading quarter.)

To check out last year’s quarterly reading lists, you can take a look at my post listing the best of the best books I read in 2025.

JournalLeslie Farnsworthbooks, reading, literatureComment