As spring days struggle to push through and settle in warmly, i found myself spending time with some great 2026 reads. As it happens, some of my favourite authors have recently released books: Elizabeth Strout, Douglas Stuart, Colm Toibin, David Sedaris, Katherine Applegate< Kate DiCamillo are authors whose books I choose to buy wihout hesitation. (I will have to wait until he fall to acquire John Boyne’s new book, The Weight of Angels,). I was also pleased to come across two recent publications by another two authors whose books i have enjoyed: Nicholas Butler, Rachel Joyce. I was also able to dig into some publications by two great poets whom I admire (Mary Oliver and Michael Rosen). It’s been a great time with great books from great authors. Lucky me!
FICTION
A FORTY YEAR KISS by Nickolas Butler / 2025
Charlie and Vivian split up after just four years of marriage, forty years ago. Now, Charlie, retired from the railroad, with sound finances and still an alcoholic returns to Wisconsin hopefully to rekindle the relationship he once had with Vivian. Vivian living a humble life with her duaghter and 2 granddaughters. Can Vivian and Charlie pick up the pieces? Can people truly change from their past selves? Can love help a person grow and be more responsible, reliable and devoted. Charlie is determined to prove that he is a different person and this second chance love story evolves with romantic gestures and growing commitment. A Forty Year Kiss is an optimistic love story fo the ages, filled with kisses. Every since reading Butler’s debut novel Shotgun Lovesongs I have been a fan of his books (e.g., The Hearts of Men, Little Faith). Without fussy writing, he aptly captures the hearts and minds of macho men and while painting a vivid portrait of citizens of Wisconsin and Minnesota.
THE HOMEMADE GOD by Rachel Joyce / 2025
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry would certainly be one of my desert island books and since reading this debut novel by Rachel Joyce I have enjoyed other titles (Perfect,The Music Shop, Miss Benson’s Beetle, as well as sequels to Harold Fry (The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, Maureen). Rachel Joyce is a great storyteller and her 2025, The Homemade God was an engaging read.. Not long after meeting and marrying a much younger woman, a father, a once famous artist dies (not much of a spoiler alert). His four children head off in the heat of the summer to his Italian villa to find out what exacly happened. Was he murdered? What happened to the last painting he announced that he was working on? What part did Bella-Mae, his new wife, play in his life? in his death? This is a story about grief and legacy but ultimately it is the story of four siblings who, in seeking answers and confronting their wounds, are driven apart. The book unfolds much like a soap opera family, where each member has secrets, dreams, and flaws which are revealed chapter by chapter. Rachel Joyce’s writing is unfussy but she is rather gifted at painting emotional portraits of each of her characters. This was an enjoyable read about art, sibling rivalry and hanging on. Heck, we’re in a villa by a lake in Italy. How bad could that be?
JOHN OF JOHN by Douglas Stuart
i was completely wowed by this Scottish author’s two previous novels (Shuggie Baine(Booker Prize) and Young Mungo and eagerly awaited the release of John of John. On the morning I received my copy of the book, I tuned into CBS Mornings show and lo and behold there was Oprah declaring the book the 123 selection of her Book Club (“a complex and compelling tale that ultimately showcases the transformational power of love.”… “liberating for people who have been suppressing themselves”.) I spent a week reading this novel and found myself immersed in Stuart’s staggering storytelling of a young Scottish man who returns home to his family in the fictional farming and textile town of Falabaw where loneliness and secrecy seem to shape each citizen who lives on the island. John-Calum Macleod (Cal) strives to change his unfulfilled life where he he has yet to find a home inside himself, and certainly not on the family croft where expectations and obligations seem to smother him. (He complete art school in Glasgow only found him self to be jobless). Will Cal find happiness as a sheep farmer.and a weaver? Will he and his father, John, ever come to know each other/ understand each other? How will Cal’s grandmother, Ella, help John and John find peace with the life they’ve been dealt with, the dreams of finding truth in themselves. John, CaL and Ella are the central characters of this novel, but Stuart introduces a cast of characters who seem to be living unfulfilled lives in this close-init island community in eh Outer Hebrides. Spoiler: both father and son are gay. In this bleak island setting where Presbyterian expectations and day to day survival , we are left to wonder whether the two repressed men ever find love with a man, or moreover within their own family? Stuart brilliantly captures the life of the islanders – the church services, the lambing season rituals, the drinking customs, the swirling sea, the grim, damp weather.
I found myself reading the book at a slow and steady pace often re-reading some passages both for clarification of what has been told or often in awe of masterful writing. There is an unfamiliar word to discover on every few pages of the novel (a men’s balmaccan (p.227); the car juddered (p. 228); a slag bing (p. 241); dodgem track(p. 241); and Gaelic language is filtered throughout but this unfamiliar language didn’t bother me but helped to add richness to the culture and setting.. Author Thomas Wolfe told us that “You Can’t Go Home Again.” but it seems that no matter where Cal lives he will be unsettled until he finds a home within himself. If truth be told, I didn’t enjoy this book as much as Stuart’s first two novels. John and John doesn’t particularly unfold in a linear narrative plot-driven novel but partaking in the despair and hope of the host of island characters made for another immersive. heavily researched read from a great British author.
Excerpts
“I have to have something to show at the end of this life. If I’m for hell, then I deserve a love that was worth it.” (p. 233)
“The newborn was lying in its own mucus, its mother, inattentive to its needs, had simply walked away. The seagulls were never far druing the lambing but that morning a white-tailed eagle was circling. Cal was too far from the abandoned lamb as the sea-eagle slided through the sky, spreading its talons wide. It pierced the flesh with its locking jaws and ascended trimphant, dripping blood and amniotic fluid.” (p. 266)
“He passed an abandoned croft that was overrun with wildflowers. He stopped and gathered a fistful of harebell and saxifrage. As he worked, he entertained a juvenile fantasy where Innes would be so ovecome with the fear of losing him that he would confess his hidden feelings and beg hin to stay. He tidied the flowers into a ragged bouquet.” (p. 333)
John let go a sob that startled them both. It sounded like it had torn something inside him and as he fought to master it, it sent him into a fit of gasping. He sipped the air as if in one single cry had knocked the life from him. Then he howled with pain. Cal couldn’t ever recall his father crying over his mother. Thes tears were not how men cried for their friends.” (p. 392)
THE NEWS FROM DUBLIN by Colm Toibin / Short Stories
This short story collection is by an author who’s work I’m drawn to (Brooklyn, Long Island, Nora Webster). I read the stories in the order that they appeared and as is often the case, enjoyed some more than others. They differ in length (from 5 pages to 98 pages), in first perso , second person, and third person voices, in setting (Ireland, San Francisco, New York, Argentina and Spain) and in time periods and with characters sraight and gay. Several stories are centred on family relationships (a mother grieving over her son who has been killed in the war (‘The Journey to Galway’ which is the strongest story in the anthology); (the strongest story), an undocumented father, forced to head back to Ireland who must say goodbye to his daughter (‘Five Bridges’), a brother who seeks a cure for his brother who has tuberculosis (‘The News from Dublin’) and three sisters who have just inherited a property that once belonged to an aunt (‘The Catalan Girls’). There is an overall theme of having characters move on from events of their past, whether it’s a pedophile who has been released from prison who leaves is home to seek freedom in a place where folks don’t know his story (‘A Free Man’) or a boy who must live with the consequences of having stolen money at his boarding school (‘A Sum of Money’). There is a sadness to many stories of love, loss and change. Ultimately, what the nine stories have in common is the fine writing by a gifted Irish writer.
SHOUT OUT!! SHOUT OUT!
THE THINGS WE NEVER SAY by Elizabeth Strout
A masterpiece! Read it!!!
excerpt (p. 19)
“All of us live with a huge blind spot before our eyes, meaning that no matter what we think we know we can never fully understand how we appear to others.”
POETRY
DEVOTIONS by Mary Oliver / 2020
I recently read – and very much enjoyed -the novel One Time by Sharon Creech (2020). Miss Lightstone, a remarkable teacher offers students special free writing ‘experiments’. This novel is introduced with a quotation from poet Mary Oliver “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” and concludes with another Oliver snippet. “I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings.” Though I’ve previously read poems by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, I was inspired to seek out other of her brilliantly crafted verses in other anthologies. Where to begin.? I was grateful to have discovered the collection entitled Devotions which features two hundred poems selected and arranged by Oliver herself before. The works are presented in chronologically backwards order with choices from Felicity (2015) leading the way and finishing off with No Voyage and Other Poems published in 1963. I spent a quiet spring day reading each poem, page by page.
Most poems are single presented on single page pieces, sometimes spilling over to two. Oliver’s free-verse style is boh conversational and mindful, using language that is both vivid and accessible. We see the elements of nature that she depicts. We feel the significance of the subjects she illuminates. Praiseworthy is Oliver’s devotion to the beauty and wonder of flora and fauna . Trees , rivers, stones are common artifacts that she revisits and her attentiveness to the glory of locusts, herons, snow geese, loons, wrens, mockingbirds, owls, roses, goldenrod, poppies, is astonishing. I found myself frequently turning the corners of pages, wowed by the way she seems to easily craft language to help us care about and pay attention to the world around us and I say to myself ‘What a wonderful world.’ And i say to myself, ‘What a wonderful wonderful poet.’
A Sampling:
Instructions for living a life
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
~~~~~
Every day / I see or I hear/ something / that more or less
Kills me / with delight, / that leaves me like a needle
In the haystack/ of light. It is what I was born for – to look and listen.
~~~~~~
Have you ever seen/ anything /in your life / more wonderful
Than the sun, every evening, relaxed and easy, / floats toward the horizon…
~~~~~ (some questions)
How many mysteries have you seen in your lifetime?
What if the mockingbird came into the house with you and became your advisor?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?
THE ADVANTAGES OF NEARLY DYING by Michael Rosen / 2023
At the beginning of 2020, Michael Rosen was hospitalized for 3 months in hospital whcih nearly seven weeks were in an induced coma. Rosen has writen about this ordeal and rehabilitation in two books, Many Different Kinds of Love: a story of life, death and the NHS and Getting Better: lifew lessons on going under, getting over it and getting through it.. The Advantages of Nearly Dying is a collection where he reflects upon and records the trauma of his illness as well as the politics of he pandemic. The poems are astonishing documents of time spent in the hospital, in waiting-rooms, being tested for blood, brain-scans and eye tests. Most poems are only one page in length, some even presented in three or four lines, Each piece offers a punch in the heart – often with wit – true to Michael Rosen’s extraordinary genius of writing poetry. Brilliant!
A Sampling
Today I forgot the word ‘antithesis’
I guess the antithesis of forgetting
Is remembering.
I had microbleeds in my brain
So now I can’t hear with my left eye
I can’t see with my left ear
And I get muddled.
The advantage of nearly dying
Is you get to see ahead of time
Which people will think kindly of you.
I dont’ think they’re too worried about by brain.
My appointment for my scan
Has been postponed from next Thursday to next year.
She asked me
What I had been doing
I said ’Trying not to die.’
I thought later
Actually I tried to die
But they wouldn’t let me.
(About the death of his son Eddie)
The silence after lasts forever
Quieter than a painting
There is nothing as quiet as this.
It is as quiet as nothing.
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SHOUT OUT
ESSAYS
THE LAND OF THE PEOPLE by David Sedaris
I’d say that David Sederasis is one of my very favourites of favourite authors. His books always make me smile. And think. And reflect. I am awed by his genius ability to observe life in all its absurditities. Im awed by his devoted commitment to write write write write and then rewrite and rewrite. I’m awed by the life he lives around the world, his travels and plentiful speaking engagements (where he is committed to stay behind and sign books to each and every audience member who waits). I’m awed by his family life and I’m awed by the special relationship he has with his, (dare I say it), husband, Hugh. For his honesty, his self-awareness, his timing, I am in awe. I confess that that I am more than ‘awed by Sedaris’s life and work. I am perhaps. jealous of the remarkable rich life he leads and the staggering appreciation he has for the unusual, whacky, the ordinary, the quirky, the disturbing, the awe of everyday events of life and behaviours of people. He does, however, inspire me to pay attention to things that go on around me but I am awed/jealous of his talent to appreciate and acknowledge their significance. And jealous of the author’s relentless dedication to work and living life a full life. I have a special shelf of David Sedaris books (I think Im missing one or two that I loaned to folks and never got back but I just re-bought Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk) .Mr. Sedaris, you make me happy, when skies are blue. I sure was exited to add the Land of The People to my DS collection such nuggets as being accosted on the street, going on safari, being bitten by a dog, going to therapy, Duolingo, ticks, AI, and finding he perfect pair of white cotton underpants.
A taste:
I thoguht of a night in San Franciso when a man started walking behind m shouting, “I will make your spinal cord dance, mother fucker! (p. 21)
If I were to manufacture a perfume, it would smell the way that grass being ripped from the ground by elephants sounds – simultaneously soothing and astonishing – and simply everyone would have to have it. The problem is that it wouldn’t go with any of he perfume nmes I’ve come up wih over the years, the best being Obsequious. (p, 59)
Whenever I ran out of my personal material, I asked my therapist questions about herself. I thought tha a person in her position would have to remain opaque. “Let’s stick with you,” I expected her to say. But no. She was more than beerous with personal information. (p. 78)
If you were to say to me, “You can be in a room with either Chris Rock or the pope, I’d say, “Chris Rock, please.” Nothing against the pope, but he’s never made me laugh. (p 83)
Whatever our mother was to us, it’s too complex and momentous to ever fit onto a sweatshirt. A person would need a whole mountain. And then some. (p. 120)
I could hear voices on the ocean-facing porch and could tell my brother was there by looking at a large potato-chip bag propped up on the kitchen couner. No one but him would hva taken to the logo with the Magic Marker, chaging it from UTZ to SLUTZ (p. 150)
“Who’s the one person at this restarunat most capable of murder?” I ask Tommy, spotting my candidate – a hatchet faced grandmother – at the next table and then realizing that, actually, it’s probably me. (p.223)
>>>>>>>>>>>CHILDRENS LITERATURE<<<<<<<<<<<
How could i do a posting featuring favourite authors, without shining a light on acclaimed writers Katherine Applegate and Kate DiCamillo,
ORRIS AND TIMBLE: STAR STORIES by Kate DiCamillo; illus. Carmen Mok / chapter book / 2026
This new release is the third in the trilogy (The Beginning; Lost and Found) . To say that KateDicamillo is a storyteller extraordinaire would be an understatement. The chapter book format provides her with a concise format to a mighty tale. Orris the rat and Tible the owl are friends, and when Timble invites his friend to fly with him and experience the world beyond the barn the rat stubbornly replies “I can see teh sgrs, I can see the moon. I can read sorie, and I can talk with you. “That’s all enough for me.” How will Orris convince Timble to go on and adventure with him? How will Timple find the courage to trust his friend. Loyalty. Trust. Comfort. Conversations. Comfort. Stories, the wonders of flying and the story of stars make for another sublime book for early readers by Kate DiCamillo. Carmen Mok’s lovely illustrations make reader a part of the two creatures’ lives. Perfection! Teachers/parents, please please introduce Orris and Timble to young readers (as well as her Norendy Tales trilogy).
WOMBAT WAITING by Katherine Applegate / verse novel / 2026/ ages 9 to 12
Have you recently read any novels written for young audiences? Have you experienced the joy of reading a novel in verse? Have you met any books by Katherine Applegate? In listing books by some of my favourite authors, I am more than glad to recommend a new release by this special author.
Any new novel by Katherine Applegate is worth celebrating. I’m so fond of her work (Crenshaw, Home of the Brave, Wishtree, Odder, The One and Only Ivan (quartet). I particularly love when her books are written in free verse style. Wombat Waiting is a gem. Wombat is a dog. A nameless dog. An orphan dog, a homeless dog. “Stout and sturdy, stubby-legged with silly ears that look like furry cookies” does in fact make her resemble a wombat. Wombat hear’s voices that hopefully guide the animal to her destiny: “The right way is the wrong way. The wrong way is the right way.” The setting of this story is Souther California and communities are being evacuated because of the danger of threatening fires. Those who have been forced to leave their homes have found some refuge in rescue shelters. Wombat has found salvation on a bench in town but tends to avoid any association with passers-by, that is until he meets young Henry, who just might find a home, at long last, for Wombat (“Someone /Somewhere/ Someplace needed her). Katherine Applegate has told a story about compassion and resilience. The free verse style works beautifully to not only capture the episodes in one stray dog’s life and her outlook on life but to tell a story about dangerous fires that have threatened many communities. This novel is another anthropomorphic gem , another moving story, from Katherine Applegate.
Excerpts
“By late morning the fires seemed / to have changed course again, and the sky changed too. /An ugly ochre sun /struggled to be seen / through sickening / thick brown haze.” (p. 122)
“Barnabas had perfected the / art of waiting,/ Turns out if you don’t think about/ tomorrow or yesterday / if you focus on now / and now alone – /today will take care / of itself.” (P. 242)
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MY FAVOURITE ARTIST
DAVID HOCKNEY
(1937 – 2026)
Like millions of others, David Hockney was a favourite artist. Last summer, I was lucky enough to have visited the Louis Vuitton Museum in Paris to see the most recent exhibit of Hockney’s work. I have been quite keen on finding out more about the life and work of this extraordinary, prolific figure and have sought out a number of resources to augment my understanding of his talent and to help make a bigger splash on the way I look at art. My posting on August 2025, highlights some of the publications about this artistic genius. Here is one item:
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO DAVID HOCKNEY / Thames & Hudson / 2020
By presenting over 200 of the artists’s remarks, this book, small in size, is a treasure not only for its ability to convey Hockney’s views as an artist but for its strength to help us think about how we need to see the world around us but how we understand the world of creating art and viewing art. The book is divided into 9 sections with such titles as ‘Hockney on Life’; ‘Hockney on Inspiration’, ‘Hockney on Making Art’. Throughout the book we are blessed with a number of plates that show Hockney’s work at different stages of his career. But really it is Hockney’s words that shine. Some epigrams are amusing, some profound or pithy, but each statement authentically gives insights into the world according to David Hockney.
Here are a handful of favourite quotations that I found to be inspirational:
“On the chest of drawers at the end of my bed, because that’s the first thing I saw when I woke up, I painted ‘Get up and work immediately’. (p. 20)
“It’s good to rest and read.” (p. 47)
“Pictures have been helping us to see for about thirty thousand years.” (p. 63)
“The Chinese say you need three things for paintings: the hand, the eye, the heart. Two won’t do.” (p. 88)
“Teaching someone to draw is teaching them to look.” (p. 98)
“I love life.” (p. 165)