“The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library” – Albert Einstein

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid was my book club’s January pick, chosen by a voracious reader who consistently delivers solid books. I’m happy to report she did not break with that tradition in 2026. Atmosphere is the story of Joan Goodwin, a self contained professor of physics and astronomy selected as one of the first female astronauts for the NASA space shuttle program in the 1980’s. Joan eventually finds her way to the stars, and at the same time, navigates a beautiful star-crossed love story here at home on planet Earth. Jenkins’ book is an insightful meditation on the nature of God and the observable universe, and also an intimate portrayal of forbidden love. The story is based on the ill fated 1984 NASA space mission that ends in tragedy, one every little old lady in waiting will remember watching on tv with our families. The book’s ending was a source of vigorous debate within our club, half our number admitting to sobbing uncontrollably, and others deeply disapointed and disdainful of Jenkin’s denouement… I’ll leave you to guess which category I fell into. 7/10

Merry Christmas to me. Reading the Thursday Murder Club series is like carving away at a velvety cake, each slice more delightful than the last. I read this last instalment, Book 5 in the series, in one sitting. Osman’s characters are as dear to me as any friend and I cannot recommend these books highly enough. The small screen Netflix adaptation, despite its excellent cast, was, shockingly, a huge dissapointment in contrast, so I would caution readers to stick to the books. I’m not sure how Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie, all favourites, could fall so far short of the charmingly crafted books but my guess is that the author was not involved in the screenplay adaptation, which stays close to the plot action and ruthlessly red-pens the incomparable interior narration of the four geriatic sleuths who solve murders like so many crosswords, all while portraying the ups and downs of ageing out. Elizabeth, a former spy was originally my favourite character but I must confess that Joyce, the Columboesque nurse and her dog Alan, captured center stage for me a few books back now. The therapist and the revolutionary who round out the quartet of central characters make excellent copy as well. Osman has a lot to say between the action sequences, and one can only hope that any further small screen cinema captures the depth of the books’ philosphical architecture and the charm of the characters often inarticulated interior narration. 9/10

Wartime Britain during the Blitz, a bookstore, and a young innovative woman discovering the joy of reading is yet another Christmas pudding of a book. Martin’s story is laced with historical anecdotes and details that lend her story authenticty, set in a romantic landscape the book is a beautiful portrait of love and loss, where bomb shelters are transformed into makeshift reading rooms, and where strangers find comfort in the classics and sanctuary from their chaotic and often tragic wartime lives. Grace Bennett begins with The Count of Monte Cristo before moving on to the Austens and Dickens as she comes of age and finds her voice in a dusty bookshop on Primrose Hill, in the heart of London during the Blitz. Martin’s book is a testament to the power of story, and the sanctuary of literature in the darkest days of war. Pretty much porn for a LOLIW who loves to read. 7/10

The Snow Child has been in my TBR pile for an over a year, a gift from a friend at work. It is not my usual fare, magical realism. But when the book title showed up on a Winter’s fare reading list, I decided to pull it from my library and sample this lauded fable/fairy tale. Set in inhospitable Alaska in 1920, two aging, childless homesteaders build a snow girl who seemingly comes to life the next day… a miracle, a mirage, an answer to their prayers, a comfort to assuage all their troubles. Reminiscent of a Russian fairy tale read to her in her youth, Mabel, the would be mother, convinces herself that the girl is their child, conceived in snow. While Jack, the father fugure, is convinced the Faina, their snow daughter has a more orthodox lineage, the daughter of a dead trapper. Ivey’s book was a finalist for the Pulitzer prize in 2013 but I found it slow moving and lacking in the kind of magic I hoped it would hold. While the setting was beautiful and harsh and a near perfect place for some wisdom born of isolation and yearning, for me the book failed to crystalize the promise of the fairy tale and reveals real life as a story more unbelivable and fantastical than any tale told to children. 6/10

Richard Rohr’s The Tears of Things aims at cultivating global empathy, “the opposite of judgment”, calling for an end to the polarization of opinion that divides us, and the collective greed currently fueling suffering around the world. Rohr asks us to embrace a deep clarifying sadness as a kind of salvation or doorway to true understanding. He advises us to consider our cultural contradictions: that killing is morally wrong but necessary in war, that greed is evil, but capitalism is lauded. He calls on us to adopt a “view from the bottom” where societies most vulnerable survive, and to act accordingly.

The Tears of Things is an academic work with extensive biblical references detailing the Prophetic way to pass through disorder to a new and evolved consciousness. Rohr’s thesis is intended as a cultural change agent. The Prophets, he tells us, are realists and truth tellers, alchemists taking on contrary agents and conjuring a spiritual transformation towards wholeness, individually and collectively. Rohr is calling us to adopt a state of forgiveness and grace.”You must listen and listen again, and not understand, see and see again, but not perceive….until you understand with your heart.”(Isaiah)

Rohr’s book is a timely and powerful reminder to examine and ultimately abandon our “us verses them” assumptions, and relinquish our cult of innocence to become “the light of the world.” 7/10

This hugely popular page turner is a bullet train that delivers. The plot is unique enough to capture your interest immediately and McFadden keeps you on a hotseat of nervous tension chapter after chapter. No small feet in a genre that has exploded and saturated the market in the last decade. McFadden maintains pace throughout and more importantly she creates characters you want to explore, to discover more of their back story and ultimately, to understand their motivation. The story has already been made into a blockbuster film and though I havent seen it on the big screen, I am tempted to sample the cinema version if only to see how the story is cast, particularly the devastatingly handsome husband. While the reader is well aware of where the real danger lies in the story, we are unable to look away as the protagonist finds her way through the subtefuge and reveals her own dark history. The book sets the reader up for a sequel and I understand that there are, in fact, three books in the series now available in print. I will no doubt throw them in my TBR pile and pull the next one out when I’m in the mood for a tight rope narrative very late and very alone at home with a character who intrigues and shocks and has you enraptured in the darker side of the fairer sex. 7/10

I picked this mystery up at a book sale last summer having no idea it was part of a larger series. I grabbed the first in the series thank goodness. Sheridan has created a delectable detective in Mirabelle Bevin, ex British intelligence in post WW2 England, a time of Nazi hunting, before the full horror or extent of war crimes are revealed at the Nuremberg trials. Bevin is everything a good detective need be, bright, with a half revealed history that lends her an air of mystery, and of course an essential flaw of some kind, in this case a broken heart and a dead, married, war-hero lover. Set in Brighton, Sheridan’s characters eat fish paste sandwiches and stare out to sea, and put the kettle on and break out tinned biscuits mid afternoon. Sheridan’s book captures an underlooked time in history just after the war’s end when women who were involved in Intelligence work for the war effort were dispursed and forced to find new ways to cultivate a life of the mind in a patriarchal age. The story is peopled with interesting 5th business characters, a patronizing police detective who I suspect wiill develop into a romantic interest and a novice sleuth gal-pal, a black woman in 1950’s Brighton who I hope to see more of in subsequent books. This series promises to deliver a succession of perfect Sunday afternoons. 8/10

This book is an absolute gem I picked up in New York last week at a charming book store called Three Lives and Company, rumored to be the bookstore that inspired The Shop Around the Corner from the film,You’ve Got Mail starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks and written by Nora Ephron. It was the loveliest little book store I have ever been inside. It felt like each book housed there was hand picked after serious vetting as space was at a premium. I could have stood there all day and listened to the lively conversation and book talk within those walls … a short story all its own.

Grytten’s book is the narrative of Nils Vik, an aged ferryman on a Nordic fjord who wakes one morning aware that it’s the last day of his life and sets off on his boat, a day like so many others, to travel his ferry route where he meets people from his past, the dead, including his beloved long dead companionable dog. The book is a tender and beautiful tribite to all the little ways we help our neighbours and friends and how intimately we touch each other’s lives, often unknowingly. The Ferryman and his Wife is a charming tale written in the liminal space that separates this world and the next, a time when our dead will be revealed and we, each of us, have an assignment, an assignment to remember. 8/10