Land by Maggie O'Farrell
A theme of my reading list in the past two years has been a deeper dive into Irish history and culture since I am, if you couldn't already tell by my surname, am Irish by descent. Maggie O'Farrell serves as one of the most prominent writers of Irish literary fiction today especially since Hamnet's publication and subsequent adaptation into film in 2025.
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
My 2026 reading mood includes a lot of fairy tale-esque fantasy. I tend to assume that this has come as the result of repeatedly dissociating at the sight of the term "magic system" on places like Reddit, and wanting stories that carried a different energy than a lot of the big epics of the genre I've seen dominate the 2010s.
Listed further down below: A couple of the books that kickstarted this trend were The Subtle Knife, the second book in the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, and The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, which I tore through pretty voraciously.
The Why Is Everything by Michael Silver
I love football. Reading a 450-page chronicle of some of the most stalwart leaders in the NFL today is sometimes fun for the historical insights into now infamous moments in the league's modern era (e.g. 28-3). However, to get to those interesting moments, you have to read a few dozen quotes and bios on these leaders that carry the same depth as their post-game interviews: A lot of instances of "Coach was just really different" and "The way he looks at the game, like, who is this guy?"
There was one point that I was reading in bed next to my partner and felt it crucial to share with her a quote from current Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LeFleur, speaking in reference to eventual bygone Atlanta Falcons head coach Raheem Morris:
"It was awesome... [He] lived right down the street from me, so we were always hanging out. Just the energy he brought every day was crazy; it was next-level. He's got a wealth of knowledge, and he's got a lot of confidence, too. We'd always go back and forth. It was a great learning experience. He was the first guy that I met that, within five minutes of meeting him, he was bagging on me about my eyebrows. That was the first time someone called me out like that—just commenting on how nice my eyebrows were—and I was like, 'Holy shit—who is this guy?'"
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty
