An Assortment of Books to Read

You may have noticed that my last post was a frightening TWO WEEKS ago - that's right, I took a big break. This was partly to give myself more time for writing my beautiful and lucrative YouTube videos, but also because I was getting a bit tired out by writing posts every day (or almost every day). A woman must rest, after all.

But now I must present you with my beautiful reading plans. I just reached the exciting milestone of 31 books read so far in 2026, which makes this year my second biggest reading year of all time (after 2016's incredible 53), and this only makes me more excited about all the books I'm going to read in the second half of the year.

A woman holds a tall stack of books.
A beautiful book stack by clumsy.words on Instagram.

I keep thinking about categories of books I want to read more of, topics I want to read about more extensively, and so here are some of the book groupings I've come up with for future reads. Each category contains four enticing books.

1. SEAFARING / NASTY AWFUL TERRIBLE SEA

An illustration of a whale chomping on a boat. Text caption reads, "Both jaws, like enormous shears, bit the craft completely in twain."
Scary!

Right now I'm reading a non-fiction book about a crazy shipwreck called 'The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder' by David Grann. This is my second recent horrible 1700s sea type book, after the incredible 'The Zorg' by Siddarth Kara. I think I might be becoming a sea freak (or indeed, very interested in the worst and most perilous human nasties - The Zorg was a chilling slavery story).  

In any case, I'd like to read more sea-adjacent stories. In 'The Wager', David Grann offers lots of interesting linguistic connections - 'under the weather' came from the practice of putting sick sailors below deck. Literally under, and away from, the weather. Cool. Here are my coveted sea reads:

  • Moby Dick - Hermann Melville
  • Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas - Jules Verne
  • The Odyssey - Homer
  • Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard - Joseph Conrad

2. BLACK AUTHORS

Octavia Butler stands behind a 'Science Fiction' display - filled with her own work.
I love this picture of Octavia Butler.

I've been really wanting to focus on black authors, but in particular there are a few notable black authors I'm really excited to read (or, in the case of James Baldwin, read more of). These are very famous picks, which goes to show that I'm not well-read when it comes to work from black writers. It'll be great to change that.

  • Parable of the Sower - Octavia Butler
  • Jazz - Toni Morrison
  • Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin 
  • White Teeth - Zadie Smith

3. ROMANTASY

Five Sarah J. Maas books from the 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' series lay on cream fabric.
Oh God... oh fuck.

This crunchy new genre smash has intrigued me for a while. I've heard so much talk about it, so much weird and nasty dismissal of it as a low genre for idiot women, and indeed some sort of disgusting hideous perversion (always funny to hear this coming from men, the world's primo consumers of the seedy, violent productions of the global human trafficking industry). I suspect that romantasy books broadly won't be for me, but I'd like to gain a certain amount of familiarity with them.

So these are a few to read:

  • A Court of Thorns and Roses - Sarah J. Maas
  • Bride - Ali Hazelwood
  • Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros 
  • The Knight and the Moth - Rachel Gillig 
     

4. POETRY

A black and white photo of Walt Whitman looking off to the side, big white beard obscuring much of his face.
Whitman, looking sexy.

Finally, I'd like to expand my knowledge of some classic poets, so:

  • Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
  • The Waste Land and other Poems - T.S. Eliot
  • Songs of Innocence and of Experience - William Blake
  • The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

***

Please wish me great luck and pleasure. Perhaps I shall, one day, rank the books on this list. 

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