December 26, 2025: Lou Berney, Crooks. Been doing a lot of reading for the International Thriller Writers’ First Novel Prize. The prize will probably go to one of the big names, but this was my favorite, about a family of criminals who just can’t stop/won’t stop criming.

December 20, 2025: Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House. Will also break your heart. Such an important book. Author tries so hard to make sense of a relationship that can never make sense.

September 8, 2025: Pagan Kennedy, The Secret History of the Rape Kit. Essential reading for criminology types. Will break your heart.

September 2, 2025: T.C. Boyle, World’s End. Took a vacation in this book, it really was it’s own world.

August 10, 2025: Penelope Lively, one of those writers who makes it look easy, and The Photograph. The envelope said, “Don’t open–destroy.” Good advice, but then we wouldn’t have a book

August 6, 2025: A good haul from the used bookstores of Cape Cod this year. First up was Barry Unsworth’s Morality Play. Medieval theater troupe puts on a play about a local murder, ticking off pretty much everyone. I loved Sacred Hunger, so I was delighted to find this one.

July 31, 2025: French Windows, Antoine Laurain. A French psychologist adopts some unusual techniques to crack open a patient who has witnessed a murder. One of those books where every word counts.

July 20, 2025: A book that could not possibly be more different from the preceding one, The Rat on Fire, by George V. Higgins. I’m a fool for a snappy title.

July 15, 2025: The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. Just loved it. If you grow up in an unusual house, it stays with you.

July 4, 2025: The Heart in Winter, Kevin Barry. Every word is a whipcrack. Also a big fan of his earlier book, Night Boat to Tangier.

June 10, 2025: I’m not over Slow Horses. Got Mick Herron’s Bad Actors going right here.

May 15, 2015: The Water Mark, Sam Mills. I usually avoid time travel books (with the exception of Jack Finney’s Time and Again, IYKYK), but this one slipped in and I’m glad it did. It’s not really time travel, it’s about characters who jump from book to book, at the mercy of the author, and the books take place in different time periods. Also a love story.

April 15, 2025: North Woods by Daniel Mason. Crazy about this book. Reminded me of the film, A Ghost Story.

March 31, 2025: Waterline by Aram Mrjoian. Got to read this for the Center for Fiction’s debut novel prize. Really good, with very real characters.

March 15, 2025: The Writing Class by Jincy Willett. Big-time comfort read. Still makes me laugh out loud.

February 28, 2025: The Drowned, By John Banville. Absolutely no one writes a better sentence. Oddly enough, like The Hunter, it also takes place during a drought in Ireland. One of those weird coincidences that happen sometimes.

February 7, 2025: The Hunter by Tana French, one of those writers I can’t say enough good things about. Sequel to The Searcher.

January 30, 2025: Lev Grossman’s Bright Sword. I first heard of Lev Grossman by overhearing a conversation on the subway about The Magicians, which I also love. In BS, there are Arthurian legends and plenty of them. More magic and miracles than you could fit in an enchanted pouch.

January 8, 2025: Jonathan Lethem’s Brooklyn Crime Novel. Explores the always tangled topic of urban gentrification. I still don’t know if he actually likes Brooklyn.

January 1, 2025: Adam Rapp’s A Wolf at the Table. Explores America’s relationship with violence through the story of one family. Usually when people say that they can’t put a book down, they are exaggerating. Not this time.

December 17, 2024: Percival Everett’s James. With all the press this book has gotten, I’m surprised that people don’t talk about John Clinch’s Finn, an earlier retelling of Huckleberry Finn. Both are good.

December 10, 2024: P.D. James’s The Skull Beneath the Skin. I don’t know how she made these bizarre scenarios work, but she did.

November 30, 2024: Another from the NY Times’s list, Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto. Just beautiful. Knowledge of opera is good, but not required.

November 15, 2024: Stephen King’s You Like It Dark. The author is correct about that.

July 15, 2024: Speaking of Times’s list, today’s read is Laurent Mauvignier’s The Birthday Party. I made my own list of books I’d like to read from the big Times list and this was on it. In an age dedicated to the short, snappy sentence, it’s interesting to read someone unafraid to take the whole page for just one. You process the information differently.

June 15, 2024: Imagine my glee! I was passing Unnameable Books on Vanderbilt Avenue and the newly released Book 2 of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris was right there smack in the middle of the window. I quibble with the New York Times for not including Book 1 in their list of the best books of the century so far (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/books/best-books-21st-century.html).

June 5, 2024: Slow Horses by Mick Herron. Slipped into my bag at ThrillerFest. If this was a clever trick to get me to read the series, that trick worked. Can’t speak for the show on Apple+ (yet), but the books are witty, compulsive, and believable.

May 25, 2024: Blessed Water by Margot Douaihy. A wisecracking nun with a gold tooth solves crimes in New Orleans. I don’t know what else you need, really.

May 15, 2024: Days Without End by Sebastian Barry. I will never shut up about how much I like Sebastian Barry. The only thing better than reading this book about an Irish emigre and his best friend hustled into fighting in the Civil War was realizing that there is another book telling the story of their daughter, A Thousand Moons.

April 28, 2024: The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. Read the opening paragraphs and immediately had to tell everyone I know about this book. Concerns the fateful moment one Irish family’s fortunes irrevocably turned sour.

March 29, 2024: Whalefall by Daniel Kraus. Like The Martian but inside a whale. You will scream out loud and embarrass yourself in the subway (in a good way).

March 18, 2024: Mercury Pictures Presents by Anthony Marra. What a snappy, charming book. Seriously, so charming. Hollywood during World War II and the emigres who wound up there. I was sorry when it was over.

March 4, 2024: Compulsory Games by Robert Aickman. Short stories. Supernaturalish. Bonkers, in the best possible way. Here’s what he said about ghost stories: “The most successful ghost story does not close a door and leave inside it still another definition, a still further solution. On the contrary, it must open a door, preferably where no one had previously noticed a door to exist; and, at the end, leave it open, or, possibly, ajar.”