In the first quarter of 2026, I read as many books as I read in the entirety of 2025!

I’ve found living within walking distance of my library to be fantastically helpful. I can place a hold online and pick it up a day or two later - a speed that easily rivals Amazon but for free!

I also find that due dates really help me buckle down and read, especially when there’s a line of holds behind me. The deadline also helps in an unexpected way - giving up. Instead of spending months barely reading at all because I don’t like my book, the due date is a reminder that maybe I should just bring this book back and try something else.

Here’s what I read in the first quarter of the year:

Nonfiction

G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century

By Beverly Gage

A Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of J. Edgar Hoover, who led the FBI from its creation in 1935 until his death in 1972. As the cornerstone of the Bureau, a biography of Hoover also serves as a history of its first thirty-seven years. This ranges from counterintelligence to handling of a variety of racial issues, as well as the myriad of political wranglings around those issues.

You’re probably wondering if the book addressses whether Hoover was gay. My short answer is that it doesn’t have to. Clyde Tolson, with whom Hoover spent most of his life, is an inescapable part of Hoover’s life and thus of this biography.

Rocket Boys

by Homer H. Hickam, Jr.

A boy from West Virginia coal country is inspired by the Sputnik launch to start a local rocket club There’s ups and downs along the way and in the end, he ends up an aerospace engineer at NASA.

This is the basis of the 1999 film October Sky and was later re-released under that title. I was big into space as a kid and we darn near wore that tape out.

This is a re-read from childhood. I picked up a lot from this book that I certianly did not as a child. There’s a lot of little things but a big recurring element is the labor relations of a coal company town. Also, the movie is a lot more us-against-the-town than the book.

Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV

by Emily Nussbaum

I love some good trash reality TV and figured this would be a fun read. I was astouded. This history begins on radio, before the TV is even commonplace. Each chapter revolves primarily around a single show, used as an example of what was going on at that time and subgenre. The histories include more than just the shows themselves but the people behind them, the deal making to get them made, and the fallout when things didn’t go as expected.

This is the third book I’ve read recently that covers a piece of history that is still ongoing. In each case, the book ends with basically “and then someone made it not fun.” In this case, that’s The Apprentice.

Fiction

5. 02-11: A Wrinkle in Time

Five Decembers

by James Kestrel

December 1941: Honolulu PD Detective Joe McGrady is assigned to investigate a grizzly murder. His investigation takes him across the Pacific and then, well, history happens. McGrady spends five Decembers investigating and trying to get home.

I picked this up because it’s in nearly every recommndation video put out by Man Carrying Thing. This is the first book I’ve read at his recommendation and it certainly won’t be the last.

The Bobiverse Trilogy*

by Dennis E. Taylor

Bob has just sold his software company and his first big purchase is to have himself preserved so that his mind can be brought back whenever we get around to creating that sort of technology. Bob wakes up to find that he’s been enslaved. He’s to command a von Neumann probe to prepare the galaxy for human colonization. With great humor and Andy Weir-esque problem solving, Bob must spread throughout the galaxy, interact with new species, fight an interstellar war, and maybe even save mankind.

These are super quick reads. I read the second book in a single travel day. All the Bob replicants write in the first person, which I found a bit confusing to follow at first, but it’s pretty easy to pick up each replicant’s context.

*While originally a trilogy, there are now five Bobiverse books with six and seven on the way. The first three tell a complete story. While I’ve not yet read beyond that, Reddit suggests that from four onward is a departure from that original story.

A Wrinkle in Time

by Madeleine L’Engle

Meg’s farther was experimenting with interdimmensional travel when he disappeared. Meg, her brother Charles, and schoolmate Calvin meet some strange women who turn out to be supernatural beings. These beings take the children to save their father and ultimately fight a war of good vs evil.

I never had to read this book in school but I think it’s interesting to put grown up eyes on childhood required reading.

I’ll also admit I picked this up partially because of its appearance in Ted Lasso. Trent describes it as “a lovely novel - It’s the story of a young girl’s struggle with the burden of leadership as she journeys through space.” I’m not sure I’d call it that, exactly. The author’s website includes a blog post discussing the books apperance in the show.

Feature image by AKibombo, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

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