What We’re Reading: Spring 2026 Edition

Carys Vickers

This year I am determined to revive my wilting reading habit. I’ve started strong with NK Jemisin’s post-apocalyptic fantasy The Fifth Season, filled with the most gorgeous and characterful prose and the kind of intricate world-building that is a real exercise in trusting the author to put the right pieces together at the right time. Its characters are wonderfully diverse, and its world speaks loudly to our own social and environmental issues. I’m up to the last book in the trilogy, and I can’t wait to see how it all wraps up.

I also just finished the Gordon Burn Prize 2026 winner Endling by Maria Reva (completely gripping, clever and witty, and made me care more about endangered snails than I thought possible) and I have started a reread of Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir in high anticipation of the Ryan Gosling movie coming out this month (sci-fi that is incredibly high stakes and existential, yet grounded in reality and surprisingly warm-hearted – one of my all-time faves). 

Rebecca Wilkie

I’ve just raced through a proof of Tana French’s forthcoming thriller, The Keeper. This is a character-driven, suspenseful novel that completes a trilogy set in the rural Irish village of Ardnakelty and features retired Chicago cop Cal Hooper. No-one creates tension and menace like French and for me the crimes at the heart of her novels are secondary to her vivid descriptions of place, community and the inner lives of the people within. 

I’m now reading Louise Powell’s Underdogs which is published this summer. It is set around a County Durham dog track in 1998 and brilliantly captures the voices of the community who surround it. Louise is a Northern writer to watch and I’m thrilled that her writing will now reach a bigger audience.  

Next, I will read Louisa Young’s forthcoming The Golden Hours, a surprise new instalment in the late Elizabeth Jane Howard’s beloved Cazalet Chronicles. These books, which detail the lives and relationships of an upper middle-class family throughout the first half of the twentieth century, are very important to me and I’m approaching this new novel, set in the 1960s, with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Young is Howard’s niece and loves the books and their characters. Indeed, many of the characters were inspired by their own family members. I’m looking forward to being amongst the Cazalet family once more – I didn’t think I’d meet them again. 

Claire Malcolm 

A book that I picked up by chance in the Oxfam Bookshop in Jesmond has become my new year companion and a great solace. In Ronald Blythe’s Next to Nature, a year of his reflections on countryside life are collected with monthly introductions from writers and artists who knew him well. From cows called Kevin, to the rhythm of church life, to a myriad of beautiful reflections on walking and nature, this book is an absolute treasure trove of ideas, reflections, and insights. I’m mapping the year with it, reading it month by month, and it’s a joy. So good to be reminded that nature endures, that life goes on, that flowers arrive in spring, and that whatever else is going on in the world you can choose a different way of thinking and connecting to the world. Look closely and you will see cows frolicking, snow falling, birds calling and maybe even a hare (if you’re lucky). 

Anna Disley

I am very excited about a new novel by Gwendoline Riley, after the discomforting triumph of her last book My Phantoms. The Palm House is about an enduring friendship. I love the pin sharp observations and wry humour in her writing – her previous novel took my breath away.

I also want to read The Wardrobe Department by Elaine Garvey. Set backstage in a West End Theatre, it tells the story of a young woman who has moved from Ireland to the glittering West End. She becomes become homesick for the Ireland she was desperate to escape, as she’s faced with mending shoes, fixing zips, washing underwear and dealing with misogynistic bullying producers. This sounds like such a great setting for a novel about belonging.

And as featured in Northern Bookshelf. coming this spring is Shaun Wilson’s Malc’s Boy, a study of toxic masculinity in a northern town. He uses a range of forms and techniques to serve its accessible and darkly funny narrative. It’s strong on the way class, education and ‘small town-ness’ intersect with ideas of masculinity.

Roxy Mckenna

I’m currently reading Lynchian: The Spell of David Lynch by John Higgs. Released late last year, it in a very accessible and fascinating way manages to untangle and deepen our understanding of Lynch’s unconventional creative processes and explores what it is about his work that connects with some people in such a powerful way. The book has short chapters, about the length of time it takes to smoke a cigarette and drink a coffee, so I think Lynch would approve.

Going forward I’m looking forward to dipping into the new Scriptnotes book by Craig Mazin and John August, which distils the best bits from over 1000 hours of interviews with screenwriters and industry banter from their respected podcast series.

Sarah France

I’ve been on a bit of a detective fiction run lately – I read Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy, a classic of postmodern detective fiction consisting of three intersecting mysteries set across New York. I also recently read Louise Hegarty’s Fair Play, which thoughtfully uses the structure of detective fiction to explore grief and loss. I love how both novels play with form and genre in interesting ways.

I enjoyed reading Tobi Coventry’s He’s the Devil, a queer horror novel that follows protagonist Simon as he discovers that his new roommate might be possessed by the devil. Dark, funny, suspenseful, and beautifully written.

I’m currently reading Maya Jordan’s brilliant memoir Chopsy: The Resistance Tales of a Working-Class Woman, and looking forward to attending her online launch event hosted by the Bee magazine on Wednesday 25 March. I’m also very much looking forward to reading Shaun Wilson’s Malc’s Boy, releasing with Conduit Books in April.

Helena Davidson

I’ve been so absorbed by Tasha Suri’s gorgeous sapphic medieval romantasy novel The Isle in the Silver Sea. Tasha has crafted such an intricate and sweeping tale that celebrates stories in all their forms, weaving in ancient fairytales that feel so familiar, like something from The Canterbury Tales, or Brothers Grimm, while creating an entirely fresh world where magic comes from ink and ordinary people are chosen to be incarnations of characters from these tales in order to keep the Isle alive. We know how the story is going to play out from the beginning because, as the characters in the novel keep asserting: Tales have rules. Knights go on quests to save the land, and witches enthral good men with their dark magic. The fact that we know this already makes it even more heartbreaking that the Knight and the Witch cannot escape their fate, and even more satisfying as we hit every beat in the tale. 

Another book I’ve been really looking forward to reading is Blank Canvas, Grace Murray’s debut novel, written while she was still at university. Grace’s protagonist Charlotte starts her final year at a small art school in upstate New York with the lie that her father died over the summer, but in reality he is still alive back in Staffordshire in England. Her commentary on art school life is ironic and scathing, as is her attitude to her fellow classmates, until her relationship with one classmate, Katarina, begins to develop from precarious friendship based on pity into something more romantic. I really enjoy an unreliable narrator, as difficult as they can be to connect with, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the repercussions of Charlotte’s lie play out.