Here are my favorites books and movies for the first half of 2026! (I can't believe we're already here; I keep accidentally writing April as the date)
BOOKS
1.Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. I've been meaning to read this one for years and I finally got around to it thanks to GoodReads reading challenges. It's nowhere near as long as her last book that I read at a fevered pace due to strict library rules, so I knocked it out in just a few days. Notice how I'm not saying what it's about? It's best to go into this one blind. Just read it, it's really good
2. I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle. It makes an interesting companion piece to his most famous work, The Last Unicorn. You get all the heart and humor and complex emotions you get from Beagle's work. This one follows a downtrodden kingdom and within it, a young man who works as a dragon exterminator who actually truly loves the creatures and has a sort of understanding of them. Highly recommend.
3. The Husbands by Holly Gramazio. Lauren comes home from her best friend's hen-do to find her husband waiting for her. Problem: Lauren doesn't have a husband. No, he's not some weirdo who broke in and pretends to be her husband. She checks her phone and she has tons of pictures with this dude and when she calls her friends to ask if she's married they all go "um, yeah?" Eventually she discovers that her attic generates husbands for her. If the current husband goes up in it, someone else comes down. As you can imagine, this is kind of a lot. It was really funny and crazy and I've recommended it to everyone I know.
4. The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by H.G. Parry. I discovered Parry last year and just fell in love with her writing. This one takes place in New Zealand, about a man with a child genius younger brother with the ability to bring fictional characters out of books and into the real world. Like the last Parry book I read, this one is based on lots of Dickens so if you've read any of him, you're in for a treat.
5. The Sinners All Bow by Kate Winkler Dawson. 19th century true crime that inspired Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. It was both heartening and heartbreaking to see how far we've come and how far we still have to go as a society.
6. Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett. I absolutely adored Fawcett's Emily Wilde series so I went into this one with high hopes that thankfully were not disappointed. This takes place in 1920's Montreal where dark magic is outlawed. Unfortunately, our protagonist Agnes just had her shelter destroyed in the middle of a wizard battle and the only place she can find is actually a front for a failed dark lord. This one was every bit as charming and lovely as Emily Wilde and I was really sad to find out this was only a one-off and we won't be getting anymore Agnes and the kitties.
7. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab. Historical sapphic vampire fiction. I really liked it and didn't even mind the modern day protagonist since they're usually the weak link in these types of books that cover multiple timelines. (I stopped reading Addy Laroux when the modern day guy protagonist was introduced haha)
8. Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe. True crime taking place during the Troubles in Ireland. This actually made me understand that conflict a lot more and retroactively made me understand The Crying Game, lol. It was very engrossing and I sat up way too late reading it many nights in a row.
9. All of Us Murderers by K.J. Charles. A truly putrid family gathers at the home of a moneybags relative who has gathered them there to announce that has just changed his will. Our protag is less awful than the others but he's in an even more awkward position because his ex boyfriend who he accidentally got fired from his job now works as the moneybags relative's assistant. And hates our protagonist's guts. I'm a sucker for the whole Agatha Christie shtick so I ate this up with a spoon.
10. This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews. Portal fantasy with our protagonist Maggie "the Undying" Haley just wakes up naked in a ditch in a grimdark fantasy world like Game of Thrones. Luckily, Maggie knew this world inside and out and can use her knowledge to her advantage with a few missteps. Remember how I called her "the Undying?" Yeah, she doesn't die but coming back hurts like a bitch so she'd rather skip the whole dying thing. I really enjoyed this mostly because of Maggie herself. She didn't do annoying anachronistic shit and use tons of gen-z slang or make pop culture references so thank you to the husband and wife team that make up Ilona Andrews for saving me from gritting my teeth during those kinds of forced humor.
MOVIES
The Thin Man (1934). I watched this on New Year's Eve and it's a delight. The blissfully married Nick and Nora Charles solve a mystery while drinking and partying with friends and just generally being charming and fun.
2.
The Ugly Stepsister (2025). I described this to a coworker as Sofia Coppola by way of David Cronenberg. This is beautiful to look at and the body horror is brutal. Fairy tale horror is underrated and we need more of it.
3.
Alien (1979). I've seen this in bits and pieces over the years but never all together in one sitting. I decided to attempt it since I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get wigged out by the chest burster scene like I did when I was a kid and turn it off. Sigourney Weaver is a badass.
4.
Drowning by Numbers (1988). Three women named Cissy drown their husbands. There's lots of numbers and rules for made-up games. It's just really weird but fun to watch. I think Wes Anderson cribbed a lot from Peter Greenaway for his style but I feel like Greenaway does it better.
5.
The Third Man (1949). A really excellent noir but man, does the zither music get really annoying. Poor Joseph Cotten shows up in post-war Vienna to work for his friend, Harry, but finds out on arrival that Harry's dead. And his death doesn't really add up. And the god damn zither follows him everywhere.
6.
Train Dreams (2025). Just beautiful. About the life of a quiet man who works logging the Pacific Northwest during the turn of the last century.
7.
Oddity (2024.) A woman is murdered in her isolated home and her clairvoyant twin sister is determined to find out what actually happened. So wonderfully creepy and there's a few effective jump scares in this. You'll probably figure out the who and the why pretty easily but you just need to see this play out because it's so good.
8. Special Bulletin (1983). Couldn't find a gif for this, lol. This was a tv movie that plays out like a newscast about a band of anti-nuclear terrorists who take hostages and demand all the detonators for the nuclear weaponry so they can be destroyed. It takes place off the coast of Charleston which contributes to its realism. People watching this on tv at the time got pretty freaked out even though there were warnings before and after every commercial break telling them this was fake. It really does feel real, though.
9.
The Sheep Detectives (2026). A shepherd is murdered and his flock set out to find the culprit. Be prepared to cry your eyes out because I did.
