I switched away from Goodreads over to Storygraph this year. I’ve been meaning to make the move for a few years, but it was tough to give up a platform that I’ve been using since 2011!! But after giving up social media this past fall, and realizing that was not as difficult as I had anticipated, I decided it was time. So I started 2026 on Storygraph, an independent, Black woman-owned company! It felt good to move away from one of the billionaire-owned platforms (fuck Bezos and the rest of them!) and I looooove the data that Storygraph provides. I mean, check out my 2025 reading wrapup!!! So cool.
I also really like that it prioritizes data about a book instead of stars and reviews (you have to click twice to get to the actual reviews), and that it uses an AI to provide a personalized description of the book to help you decide if you want to read it. The more books you read, the more data you input into the platform, the better these personalized recs become. And the more interesting your graphs become!
Anyway, if you’re on Storygraph, let’s be friends! And if you’re still on Goodreads, I encourage you to check out Storygraph. Let’s support more indie sites and stop giving the billionaires all of our time, attention, data, and letting them earn money off of us! Power to the people!!
Now, without further ado, here are my monthly reading recaps for your pleasure. If you read any of these books, let me know in the comments! I love chatting books with fellow book nerds! (And just FYI, I wont stand for any comments suggesting that listening to books doesn’t count as reading. Read this and this and this and watch this. Plus, fwiw, humans have been telling stories orally for a longer than we’ve been writing them down.)
Monthly Reading Recaps
I am a multi-reader, meaning that I read MANY books at one time. Some books I get hooked on and can’t stop reading, others I take my time with. Some I read for book clubs, reading a few chapters every month, and some I read straight through in a few sittings.
For that reason, each month I will only share the books that I *finished* during that month. I will also specify if I read with my eyeballs or listened to the audibook with an icon by each book cover.
January
This is my new religion. In all seriousness, The Simple Path to Wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life by JL Collins is the first book I recommend to anyone interested in improving their relationship with money or understanding the principles of Financial Independence. I actually read the sequel first (Pathfinders) and went back to this after devouring everything on his website. JL Collins has such a down to earth, approachable style, he has demystified complex subjects that used to intimidate me. I have been following his blog for a couple years, as well as reading other FI/FIRE related books, but this man is the OG. I will def be revisiting this and spreading this gospel.
How Not to Travel the World: Adventures of a Disaster-Prone Backpacker by Lauren Juliff exceeded expectations! I went in with low expectations on this one and was pleasantly surprised! She’s such a great writer, I couldn’t stop turning the pages. I read it over the course of two travel days. I won’t critique someone’s own story but I did relate to much of anxiety and was impressed by how she pushed herself to overcome it all. While I dont share the same anxieties, I find her story inspirational. I also thought a lot of it was fun and funny enough to now follow her blog!
The Joy of Connections: 100 Ways to Beat Loneliness and Live a Happier and More Meaningful Life by Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer was delightful. Short and sweet, packed full with practical advice. Would recommend this to anyone living alone in a place where they feel they are lacking community.
February
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong was FASCINATING. I started listening to it hoping for a boring read to fall asleep to but it ended up being tooooo interesting that I saved it for daylight hours haha. I learned so much and had such fun while doing so! Highly recommend this to anyone interested in our relationship with the natural world and what we can learn from the animals and trees.
Lord of Blade and Bone by Erica Ivy Rogers was a beautiful conclusion to a duology by a dear friend. This is not my usual cup of tea — historical fantasy! — but I loved it. I was impressed by how she pulled off a few things in the end, notably making the central romance feel earned. I love love loved the lore and mythology around the world, and felt that it was a strong ensemble.
I did not expect to love Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman. This is also not my usual cup of tea and belongs to a new genre of books I had never heard of — LitRPG. But yeah, Im hooked. Gonna just keep listening to these. Absolutely absurd premise. Feels like the hunger games, squid games, and the running man (in terms of brutal plot) mixed up with Hitchhiker’s Guide and What We Do in the Shadows (in terms of humor/tone). Technically sci fi but full of fantasy elements (due to specific plot points). Funny, relatable MC. And LONG LIVE PRINCESS DONUT!!!!!!! The audibook is superb. Jeff Hayes is a voice genius. (Search YouTube for some of his cold read clips. Amazing work by a narrator with incredible range.)
March
The Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer was delightful! I loved the use of second person, preparing the reader for their upcoming time travel trip back to the time period. It made it very relatable and immersive. Super fun. I wish there were more of these books for history!
Carl’s Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman, the second in the series, was just as unhinged and fun as the first. Im having a blast with this series. This one was even more batshit crazy and absurd and funny than the first one! I did not expect to care this much about a VELOCIRAPTOR. But long live Mongo!!!! If anyone wants to get me Princess Donut and Mongo stickers, I’ll DM you my address lol.
Have I already read Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir? Yes. I will probably read this book every year. It’s in my top five books of all time (alongside Hitchhikers Guide, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Lamb). We saw the movie opening night, and I immediately started relistening to it post movie. A perfect book. This audiobook is one of the best (long live Ray Porter!!!!!!). Might have to relisten again this year. Comforting, cozy, wholesome, funny, fun reads like this are my jam!!!!!!! You can read my previous reviews of the book here.
April
Um, somehow I totally missed my friend’s book being released, so when I passed it on a shelf in the library, I gasped and immediately checked it out. Luminous Beings by David Arnold is beautiful and creative. So cinematic that I’m convinced this began as a screenplay and later became a graphic novel; it read like a film and could easily work as storyboards. Fun, fast, funny, weird, sweet. Read it in one sitting.
Everyone in This Bank Is a Thief by Benjamin Stevenson is part of one of my faaaaaavorite mystery series ever. I had put myself on the waitlist the DAY it entered our library system and I tore through this book fast. (And it was a literal, physical book! Not a kindle copy haha.) Looooooved this roller coaster. This hit me exactly when I needed it so my rating and review are prob skewed a bit because this served me exactly the meal I wanted. It was twisty, it was funny, it was meta and self aware. It made me laugh and cringe and turn the pages very quickly. It also made me gasp a couple times — there’s a big moment about halfway through that really shocked me and made me gasp audibly — unexpected! And somewhere near the last 40 pages a real rollercoaster began. It was a missing persons case, multiple murder mysteries, and several robbery and heist stories all rolled into one. SO FUN!!!! BRING ME MORE ERNEST CUNNINGHAM!!!!! When does the TV series launch?!
So I finally got around to reading this book that everyone has been raving about since it came out, Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. The reason? The trailer for the Netflix adaptaion just dropped haha. The movie looks great! So I figured, time to read it now. What a beautiful, lovely story. Excellent audiobook narrators. Im so glad I listened to this before the movie comes out (funny though that the narrator’s voice for Tova sounds weirdly like Sally Field!). Im going to miss Michel Urie’s performance of Marcellus, but Alfred Molina will bring an older, wiser energy, less snarky, which can also work for the character. Anyway, now I kind of wanna hang out with an octopus.
Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence by Joe Dominguez, Vicki Robin is another great entry in the FI book library. Nothing new here for me (all of the FI books essentially say the same things, explaining the principles and strategies in different ways) but I enjoyed her tone and style. If this had been my first exposure to the FI principles, I think it would have been an easy sell! If you are curious about how to do more with the money you have and how to change your relationship with money, I would always recommend JL Collins “Simple Path to Wealth” first, but this would also be a great starting point.
Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America by Jeff Ryan was SOOOOOOOO interesting. I started listening to it simply because Ray Porter narrates it and it was free in the Audible library, but then I got totally hooked and sucked into the history and cultural impact of Nintendo. It completely reshaped my view of the Mario universe and makes me really glad that my kid loves playing the old school games that defined not only a generation but a whole new way of gaming. I did not want this book to end, and now I need to find something that speaks to the last 15 years (since this was from 2011). This was a super fun microhistory!!!!
May
Coming in June! I’m a bit behind on my reading goal for the year, but since I’m convalescing post-surgery for several more weeks, I’m sure I’ll blast through a few more 😉
What are YOUUUUUUUU reading right now???????
Discover more from No Place Like Anywhere
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.