Read:
So Long, See You Tomorrow – William Maxwell (Vintage International, 1996)
Kin – Tayari Jones (Viking, 2026)
The Distance of a Shout – Michael Ondaatje (McClelland & Stewart, 2026)
The Astronaut Children of Dunbar Street – Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho (Douglas & MacIntyre, 2026)
Chernobyl Prayer – Svetlana Alexievich (Penguin Audio, 2021) (translated from the Russian by Anna Burnin & Arch Tait) (narrated by Andrew Byron & Sasha Alexis)
Fukushima – Adrian Penketh (BBC Audio, 2026)
Hunger & Thirst – Claire Fuller (Tin House, 2026)
The Correspondent – Virginia Evans (Crown, 2025)
A Little Feral – Maria Giesbrecht (Write Bloody Publishing, 2026)
A Far-Flung Life – M.L. Stedman (Scribner, 2026)
The Art of Looking Back – Theresa Kishkan (Thornapple Press, 2026)
The Remembered Soldier – Anjet Daanje (New Vessel Press, 2025) (translated from the Dutch by David McKay)
Currently Reading:
The Return of the King – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Wax Child – Olga Ravn
Who Else in the Dark Headed There – Garth Martens
Son of Nobody – Yann Martel
Go Gentle – Maria Semple
Thoughts:
I was determined to up my numbers a bit in April after my lax reading in March. This was helped along by numerous library holds coming in at once and making me panic a bit. I still have several that are New books (only 2 weeks check-out) so I have needed to stay focused and read. I actually started The Remembered Soldier as an e-book via the Libby app and brought it along on our Hong Kong trip but didn’t make a lot of progress. I wanted to finish it, especially when it showed up on the International Booker List, but knew it would work better for me in a physical format. I also finally finished listening to Chernobyl Prayer. I followed it with Fukushima when that popped up for me as an ALC on Libro.fm. Initially, I had the idea to do a double-barrelled book review about nuclear accidents. But after finishing both I felt vastly unequipped to make any sort of commentary on nuclear accidents. Aside from that, they are two vastly different stories and ways in which those stories are told so it didn’t feel like putting them together made much sense.
What’s Next:
Aside from The Wax Child and Son of Nobody, I also have Mother Mary Comes to Me and Beasts of the Sea and Colm Toibin’s new story collection out from the library. That will bring me mostly up to date with my holds. After those I hope to focus a little more on some of my long-term TBR titles already in my house. I’m also toying with the idea of reading Emily Wilson’s The Odyssey but might save it for the summer.
2026 Reading Goals:
42/100 books (12 in March)
Theological: 0/12
Translated Works: 4/12 (Chernobyl Prayer from Russian and The Remembered Soldier from Dutch in March)
Pre-2025 TBR: 8/25 (So Long, See You Tomorrow since 2018 and Chernobyl Prayer since 2020)
Goliaths: 5/6 (The Remembered Soldier at 562 pages)
Owned: 7/25 (Kin and The Distance of a Shout in March)
Current TBR: 153 (previously 145)
Pearl’s Books (what my 11-year-old read in April)
Jolly Foul Play – Robin Stevens
Princess Academy – Shannon Hale
Mistletoe and Murder – Robin Stevens
The Poisoned King – Katherine Rundell
A Spoonful of Murder – Robin Stevens
Eldest – Christopher Paolini
Karissa Reads Books 