#xenophonvos2026tbr — Public Fediverse posts

I just finished The Ending Writes Itself, my 14th book of 2026! This was book number 11 off my physical TBR, leaving 24 to go!

The Ending Writes Itself, by Evelyn Clarke, is a gruesome, thrilling story of the horrors of publishing--where the only way to break out is to kill. For me, it was a 4.5 star book.

Ever since reading Yellowface (R.F. Kuang) I've loved reading books about authors, and this takes that idea and turns it up. The cast shows you such a wide variety of problems, it's hard to ever say who you're rooting for. And Clarke plays every moment amazingly.

The only disappointment for me was my own problem--I read this book a little too much looking for V.E. Schwab in it, and the voice blends so well with Cat Clarke that it's hard to really see that. Otherwise, I loved this.

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I just finished Katabasis, my 13th book of 2026! This was book number 10 off my physical TBR, leaving 24 to go!

Katabasis, by R.F. Kuang, is the story of two graduate students' journey into hell while they rediscover who everyone they know truly is. For me, it was a 4.5 star book.

While Kuang references so many complicated texts and logical paradoxes, she does a very good job here of explaining in a way that simultaneously feels right for experts in their field to be discussing in this manner, but also easy to understand, especially when very few of the mentioned concepts were ones I knew already.

The way the story is revealed is also very nice for me, especially coming out of Hail Mary which had a similar timeline, if for a different reason. It doesn't feel like you're having to hold on to a small detail for very long before it's relevant at any point.

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Last Wednesday I finished Project Hail Mary, my 12th book of 2026! This was book number 9 off my physical TBR, leaving 25 to go!

Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir, is a thrilling story of humanity's strength in the face of near peril. For me, it was a 4.5 star book.

This book does a really good job of having extremely emotional points. There are twists and turns that hit extremely hard, and it wraps up in such a nice way. It also goes really well with the Artemis II mission recently.

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Last Friday I finished Babel, my 11th book of 2026! This was book number 8 off my physical TBR, leaving 28 to go!

Babel, by R.F. Kuang, is a surprisingly accurate Historical Fantasy about colonialism, violent resistance, and national identities. For me, it was a 5 star book.

I don't know much about history, so when I read the foreword of this book and saw that it was talking about the few minor changes Kuang made to the dates of events for this story, I was surprised at how accurate it ended up being.

It's also amazing to me how applicable it is to the modern world. Like Down and Out in Paris and London, everything it talks about is so present in our world today, even if it's not in exactly the same ways.

This goes right next to Down and Out in Paris in London on my "read politically" shelf.

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I also finished Down and Out in Paris and London today, my 10th book of 2026! This was book number 7 off my physical TBR, leaving 28 to go!

Down and Out in Paris and London, by George Orwell, is a surprising partially-true account of Orwell's time with little money in the titular cities. For me, it was a 3 star book.

While Orwell tells some interesting stories, the nature of the book just doesn't bring the entire story together enough to be extremely intriguing to me.

Despite this, I found it interesting to look at both how different being poor is in modern America to how the book describes it, but also how similar. The homeless of this novel and of today are forced to be mobile, their existence in certain areas are illegal, which means they can't hold down a job because they can't stop moving, and they can't stop moving because they can't hold down a job.

As Orwell proposes, there are simple solutions to some of the problems we see with poverty, but people who have never been poor think of the homeless as monsters, think of begging as a sin, think of the unemployed as lazy, when the root of these problems is more those thoughts than anything else.

It's a great book, just not a great one for me. If you're interested in social change, I would absolutely recommend.

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I just finished Automatic Noodle, my 7th book of 2026!

Automatic Noodle, by Annalee Newitz, is a sci-fi dystopic cozy story about a great restaurant built out of the remains of a horrible one by robots. For me, it was a 3.5 star book.

While the story was fun, there were points where it felt like the author restated certain things just a few too many times, and it made me feel like the book was trying to play down. It was also a very formatting-intensive book, with moments of text chats and spelling changes which complicated it a bit for me, who was listening to the audiobook.

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Last night, I finished The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, my 6th book of 2026! This was book number 5 off my physical TBR, leaving 29 to go!

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Stephen Graham Jones, is a thrilling tale of a Blackfeet Indian turned into something more and his path for revenge. For me, it was a 5 star book.

I loved the way Jones tells this story, through three different medians of natural language in a way that makes it feel like I'm being told this story by the real MC, and the story perfectly captivated my throughout. I would recommend it for anyone who loved Historical Fiction and mild Horror.

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