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critics, curmudgeons, celebrities, cautionary tales and stoics

Jul 14, 2026

As the walrus said, the time has come. Not to talk of shoes, ships, cabbages and kings but to talk instead of my favorite books of the year1. I check in with myself every six months to recall the works that really did it for me. They aren’t the ‘best’2, they’re simply the ones that worked well for me personally. The five particular books over the past six months that had an entertaining voice, a unique perspective, a glittering intelligence, an energetic delivery and a long lasting beauty that I just have to share with you all.

Looks like books from a few different genres are receiving this distinction today; a celebrity memoir, a moody ‘coming of age’ tale, a spastic fiction, a literary romance and a short story collection that weaves together the physical and metaphysical. None of these have been featured on a shelf yet, but not to worry! They’ll be placed on their specific shelf soon where I’ll be sure to include a deeper dive into their merits.

Go ahead and play favorites with one of these.

BAD WORDS by Ríoghnach Robinson

I cracked the book open, and she whisked me away, far from the clinks and chatter of the bar, through centuries, into a cabin in Montana in the 1810s. I followed her into the saw grass and up to the edge of the river. I became somebody else. Somebody better. The best books always convinced me of this: that I was in the presence not of greatness but of goodness, something so warm and expansive that it counterbalanced everything else that people were capable of. Nobody wrote that way like Juliette Liao. Nobody made me feel so close to other people, like I could understand everybody, like anyone could understand me.

I paused mid-page at the thought. That had come from somewhere. An article I’d read recently, maybe? Something in a journal?

Parker’s debut novel had exciting, early buzz but one eviscerating review by Selina tanked its sales and his reputation. Four years later he has high hopes for his second book but another pan by Selina results in a very public clash that feeds an online frenzy. As they take their bickering to more private channels, they challenge and cajole each other, eventually finding comfort in a meeting of the minds. and other things.

I throughly enjoyed all the machinations of Big Book here; the ouroboros of online ‘discourse’, the hot takes on the hot takes and all that goes into art as commodity. Parker and Selina’s love story has addictive little frissons of tension that play out mostly over writing with just enough physical interactions to keep things sexy. This is exactly what I want from a romance; clever, mature and nuanced interactions (instead of silly, childish shenanigans) that methodically build character and chemistry creating a cheer-able and believable arc for each character and their relationship. This is the rare time an Emily Henry blurb did not lead me astray.

HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES by Carmen Maria Machado

What is worse: being locked outside of your own mind, or being locked inside of it?

A superb short story collection that juggles genres, focusing mainly on the female experience.

I’ve been working to build up my enthusiasm for short stories and am most often drawn to twists on fairy tales3 and stories with a gothic, weird, otherworldly vibe. This collection had been in my library queue a while but after signing up for a pilgrimage taught by its author I was motivated to check it out. I knew from the epigraph4 that I was in for a treat and was not disappointed. While there was one story5 that I didn’t click with6, I was entertained, challenged and moved by the rest of them as they played right into my current obsession with the ‘madwoman’ archetype. Atmospheric, witchy and vivid I appreciated how CMM focuses on the body as her stories blended the monstrous and the delicate, exploring very human emotions within supra realities.

GO GENTLE by Maria Semple

It’s a thing Stoics do: meditate on worst-case scenarios. Which is not about working yourself into a neurotic doom loop. It’s about preparing for things not to go your way. So when they inevitably don’t, you can say, “I expected that.”

Think of it as inoculation against emotional extremes. Because who needs those?

Adora has: a very cushy job as an in-house philosopher for a billionaire, an ex-husband, a daughter, a found sisterhood and a Stoic outlook on life. After an encounter with a mysterious (and handsome) gentleman her tidy life is thrown into complete disarray. Burrito bombs, hotel hookups, art mysteries, missing colleagues and past secrets severely test her Stoicism, safety and sanity.

Oh boy, this is a fucking ride and a half. After only a few pages I had laughed 10 times and gotten hungry twice.7 Already a fan of Maria Semple8, I expected something intelligent with a dash of zany but this was all the way madcap. Smart with an impish energy, it has elements of Cary Grant screwball comedies9, Agatha Christie, Glass Onion, Carmen Sandiego and even #MeToo. It has A LOT going on and while there are a few major tonal shifts that perhaps could have been cleaner, I had a total blast following Adora’s adventures in this wry, wicked and wonderful rom com? art thriller? family drama? class commentary? feminist farce?

FAMESICK by Lena Dunham

“You’re the goose that lays the golden egg,” my father had once told me during Girls. He didn’t mean it in a nice way. He meant that the goose may be well-fed, well-nourished, coddled, and celebrated. But nobody protects that goose because they love it—they protect the eggs. And if the goose fails to make eggs, it goes from being a coddled pet to having its head chopped off faster than you can say “duck liver pâté.” Never mistake maintenance for care, attention for love, or even love for empathy.

In her memoir, writer, director, actor, producer and pet pig owner Lena Dunham recounts her experiences of getting famous and getting sick.

I’ve been a fan of Lena’s since Girls, which, while often haphazard, had some real gems. Only a couple years older than me, she was the creator, show runner and lead actress for a major HBO TV show at only 24 years old and the consistent amount of vitriol sent her way always baffled me. Over the years I’ve continued to enjoy her writing and directing10, her whole hearted, silly yet sincere voice and how open she has been about about trials, mistakes, lessons and the ways she works on herself. Now sober, married and under competent medical care, Lena shares deeply personal stories about her career, family, friends, relationships and health with skill, wit and insight. While salacious tidbits about Jack, Jenni and Adam abound, it wasn’t the Hollywood stuff that I found most compelling.11 Instead I was struck time and time again by how young, inexperienced and talented she was and the waves of mysterious, intense health issues she battled while still doing so much. Lena can be both extremely self-aware and frustratingly oblivious, a very human combination, and I listened to her read her memoir12 in two days captivated, inspired, amused, disgusted, saddened, shocked and excited the whole time.

O CALEDONIA by Elspeth Barker

Halfway up the great stone staircase which rises from the dim and vaulting hall of Auchnasaugh, there is a tall stained-glass window…

Here it was that Janet was found, oddly attired in her mother’s black lace evening dress, twisted and slumped in bloody, murderous death.

Janet, misunderstood and unappreciated by all who know her, grows up in an old, run- down castle in the Scottish Highlands until she is murdered at the age of 16.

What a gem this was! I’m grateful to my fellow pilgrims who alerted me to its existence, I know I will re-read it multiple times. Despite its morbid opener— Janet is found dead on page one— this was a consistent delight. It has a moody, romantic, gothic-tinged voice along with beautiful descriptions and acerbic asides. Janet is iconic; I love her utterly and saw much of myself in her. A misfit no one gets or even likes, she shores up her creativity and character by reading, imagining, rebelling13, questioning14 and escaping15. There’s not much plot here; after Janet’s death we’re taken back through her life with all its indignities, adventures, schemes, lessons, quandaries and ‘mystic yearnings’. Though under 200 pages I took my time with it, spending four days relishing its language, setting and character work.