In this episode, we talk about upcoming releases we’re excited for, and then share some longer reading plans for the year ahead, including big novels, rereads, and ongoing projects we’re hoping to live with slowly. We talk about why reading, conversation and community matter. @mookse.bsky.social

Happy Thursday! For our new episode, @bibliopaul.bsky.social and I talk about our reading hopes for 2026 and look at a few upcoming releases that have us excited. Have a listen and let us know your 2026 reading intentions! open.substack.com/pub/mookse/p...

Lovely to be reminded of one of my favorite writers!

How many books did I read? Male/female authors? Best, worst, and most confusing title? Strange things that happened in the books I read? You'll find it all in my 2025 reading stats! www.stuckinabook.com/2025-some-re...

2025 was an uneven reading year, but its highlights were very high indeed. Thank you to everyone who read, commented, or chatted with me here about books, and to all the other bloggers who keep on posting. ❤️ 📚

Published today by the University of Nebraska Press. Virginia Faulkner: A Life in Two Acts My first book. Why should anyone read a book by an unknown writer about an unknown woman? This video attempts to answer that question.

Shawn’s Most-Anticipated Releases: Winter 2026 youtu.be/6zOrFSO3MHo [Image Description: a graphic featuring a photo of Shawn, and the words Shawn’s Most-Anticipated Releases: Winter 2026]

Three friends, each very knowledgeable about the Criterion Collection, share their thoughts about their favorite releases by that label from the past year. criterioncast.com/podcast/crit...

And my Favorite First-Time Watches of 2025:

Criterion Cast – Episode 218 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2025 criterioncast.com/podcast/crit...

LOLLY WILLOWES is celebrating its 100th birthday(!!) & this STW classic will be our first book for #NYRBWomen26, starting January 3! Details here: www.joiedevivre9.com/nyrbwomen26....

Y’all, I am so excited to bring you my new translation of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain soon. After years of work (beginning in 2019!), I have finally completed the translation, written my preface, and even finished translating the French dialogues for the appendix. 1/2

An absolutely wonderful, versatile, powerful and powerfully funny actor who enlivened everything he was in, and a huge loss. I'm not going to say the word, but we're all thinking it in his honor. RIP Isiah Whitlock. deadline.com/2025/12/isia...

Next year I’m going to make my way through more of the big @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social that have come out. This is my first! #NYRBBigBookYear

My thoughts about a couple of wintery novellas by Susan Hill and Paul Gallico www.stuckinabook.com/two-wintery-...

Absolutely wonderful long poem, left me stunned this morning, one I will reread a few times. I’ve been reading Cavafy and other Greek poets this year, and Lewis captures perfectly the cadence of their verse and the tropes of their affective and historical explorations.

The whole team here at One Bright Books sends our best wishes for a healthy and happy 2026. May it be filled with good reading, at least. Thanks to all of you for listening to our little podcast. Means the world!

In today’s print Observer, just in time for a leisurely post-Xmas read 👇

A special edition of #NYRBWomen25 on my blog today in which I've written about (and ranked) twelve wonderful books I read during the year. A big thank you to @joiedevivre9.bsky.social for another fantastic selection of books. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/12/28/n...

So for anyone else looking to purchase, go to asterismbooks.com/product/pilg....

Translating Mathias Énard's MÉLANCOLIE DES CONFINS

Every 5-6 months, I drive 30 miles west from Missoula to visit the legendary Montana Valley Book Store, open 365 days a year. Mostly I head for the basement, which is stuffed with mass market paperbacks, an increasingly rare breed. Here are a few from this week's trip. +

Keith Ridgway’s ‘Dooneen’ is an engrossing queer-in-all-ways thriller, an insurgent near-future haunting of our present, a vivid reimagining of Dublin, and a love and a loss story. Published @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social and @ndbooks.bsky.social June 2026.

Two of my favorite books. Everyone should at least dip into them and see what they have to offer. For those who prefer to have great books read to them, there are superb audiobooks of both. Here's something about David Rintoul's reading of 'The Magic Mountain': www.diehoren.com/2022/10/welc...

@mookse.bsky.social and I bring our year-end tradition to a close by counting down our top five books of 2025. Settle in with us for a reflective conversation about the books that defined 2025 . . . and the anticipation of new reading adventures waiting in 2026!

I’ve been the only one up for a while on this quiet morning after Christmas. Brief Lives by Anita Brookner is keeping me company. Just finished Chapter 3, so it’s still early days, but already that unmistakable Brookner precision. She’s so, so good!

It was a happy coincidence that I finished this within a few days of finishing In Search of Lost Time. Both novels are deeply concerned with time, intellect, love, illness, and the shadow of war, and both ask what it means to live attentively within a human life shaped by forces larger than oneself.

On Christmas Day, @bibliopaul.bsky.social and I bring our year-end tradition to a close by counting down our top five books of 2025. Happy Christmas everyone! open.substack.com/pub/mookse/p...

The Backlisted Christmas special will be delivered overnight (see below). And there will be a Christmas Day instalment of INVENTORY available free to all subscribers tomorrow afternoon. Sign up now, then gather around your phone or laptop at 3pm. @backlisted.bsky.social www.patreon.com/backlisted

Whether you like bookshelves, home renovation stories, or both, this post is for you. bit.ly/4pbwmGy

“For a long time…” And then suddenly I found myself reading the final words of Time Regained. This was a monumental reading experience, both more profound and more troubling than I ever anticipated. I wrote some of my thoughts on the occasion over on IG www.instagram.com/p/DSorIsUDoG...

I urge everyone who hasn't seen this to watch it--it's in five parts totaling 14:00.

My friend/travel partner who is going with me to Patagonia asked me to supply reading material for our trip. Find out why I chose what I chose. bit.ly/3L87fXb

Here are my favourite books of 2025. It was another wonderful year or reading! readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/12/17/m...

I’m reading the forthcoming NYRB/Poets release, Emmanuel Hocquard’s Elegies, tr. Cole Swenson. They are absolutely beautiful and I cannot wrap my head around them. Has anyone any tips that can help me get a foot on the ground? If not, I’m still thoroughly entranced. @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social

When Virginia Faulkner wrote her first novel, Friends and Romans, she was 21. Though her family insisted she live with a chaperone, she managed to write convincingly with the voice of 37-year-old woman of world fame and many affairs. neglectedbooks.com/?...

I’m starting Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal’s Closely Watched Trains this evening. It’s cool to have these UK Penguin Archive editions available in Canada! Cc @mookse.bsky.social @bibliopaul.bsky.social @stuckinabook.bsky.social

I'm one of the contributors on this excellent episode, talking about my favourite book from a Czech author🙈 Thank you @mookse.bsky.social and @bibliopaul.bsky.social for having me.

In this first part of our annual year-end wrap-up, @mookse.bsky.social and I dive into our top 10 reads of 2025, counting down numbers ten through six. We’re joined by several friends who drop in to share the titles that meant the most to them in 2025. Enjoy the first part of our favorite tradition!

In the latest @thetls.bsky.social I review Lily King's Heart the Lover

Our new episode is up! And of course it’s that time of year! Here is part one of our top ten reads of 2025. Thanks so much to friends who called in to share their favorites too! @bibliopaul.bsky.social and I will be recording part two soon! open.substack.com/pub/mookse/p...

Criterion holiday cheer: Powell & Pressburger in 4K! Couldn’t ask for a cozier surprise. I love I Know Where I’m Going! so much; Roger Livesey and Wendy Hiller are amazing. I’m so excited to pop this in tonight! Out from @criterion.bsky.social next Tuesday!

Sad to hear of the passing of Daniel Woodrell who wrote so many great books; Winter's Bone, Tomato Red, The Death of Sweet Mister, the three that I've read.

Our first snow of the season!

Enjoying this episode on a snowy work morning. Definitely thankful for the bookish communities I have found online.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! Today @bibliopaul.bsky.social and I are giving thanks for the bookish communities that enrich our solitary reading lives. Then we share our holiday reading plans and all the books we hope to finish before 2025 slips away. open.substack.com/pub/mookse/p...

The Eclipse Viewer podcast is live again! @peutetre.bsky.social and I recorded the first of our episode covering the newest Eclipse series from @criterion.bsky.social: Abbas Kiarostami—Early Shorts and Features. open.substack.com/pub/eclipsev...

I’m really enjoying this episode, and not just because of all the @onebrightbook.bsky.social mentions — what a fascinating topic book collection culling/pruning is! It’s something I’m thinking about a lot as books pour in and available space is disappearing in my house.

How exciting to see a Blu-ray upgrade for one of my favorite Eclipse sets from @criterion.bsky.social: Lubitsch Musicals! This comes in February. www.criterion.com/boxsets/517-...

This is an interesting listen for anyone who has agonised over pruning or culling their book collection at some point. #BookSky 💙📚