Books I Got This Week

I've been relatively light on book-buying this year because of the economy. Still, books are the category in which I purchase the most, so my version of "not much" is still significant. This is pretty much the only shopping I've done this fall.

Then, I subscribe to Book of the Month but don't use my credits each month. Some batches don't land for me. So usually, when I have a book I specifically want, I stock up on all my BOTM at once—like this month, when I wanted multiple selections.

From Book of the Month

1. Bad Words by Ríoghnach Robinson

This book is everywhere right now. It sold in a 7-figure advance from an author who's previously published YA, and every blurb I've seen is raving. I'm not one for the slew of "books about books and author" titles lately, but I have the gut feeling that I'll seriously love it like everyone else. I sure hope so! I've loved the author's thoughts on the love and attention of a three-star review because I've talked about that a lot myself in the frustration of five-star culture. A healthy critical ecosystem is good, actually!

1. Beloved by Toni Morrison

I felt very lucky seeing this one before it sold out. BOTM has been releasing these iconic hit-or-miss 100th anniversary editions of classics, and I've been meaning to reread Beloved.

1. Hollywood, Ending by John Green

I recently reviewed Looking for Alaska, my favorite of John Green's works, and still haven't made my way through the entirety of his works. I still need to read Turtles All the Way Down and Everything Is Tuberculosis and The Anthropocene Reviewed, but one aspect I've picked up on in his last two press runs is his fascination with our cultural fascination with despair. A note from myself:

“I really appreciate how much John Green talks about our cultural fascination with despair. I still think about a line from an interview he did in 2025 about how we often default to despair because it resolves things for us and we don’t like sitting with the unresolved (for his tuberculosis book), but he’s talking about it again now for his latest release Hollywood, Ending!”

I missed seeing that Bel Banta's The Court of Venus—her adult fantasy debut—was available as an add-on or else I'd have scooped that too.

From Barnes & Noble

1. Cormac McCarthy: A Legacy Revisited by Toni Morrison

I reference both Cormac and his lovers (disciples) so frequently that I owe it to myself to pick up this one. I've gotten more into biographies over the last two or so years, and Peter Matthiessen's version—True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen—was one of my favorite books of 2025.

1. Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines by Sherry Turkle

I like to read about digital culture and how it infects—excuse me, affects—our in-person interactions. I just read an excellent article by T.M. Brown, a journalist whose work I enjoyed so much I later befriended him, on a similar subject: about how people still should be careful about any language they input to AI models because it affects how we speak to each other in reality. This had been on my wishlist even before, but I'm psyched to read it and afraid of what it might say. I've liked and referenced Sherry Turkle plenty for Alone Together.

Buying Soon—

There are so many excellent books coming out in this span of a few weeks, and I have some others I'm planning to order as soon as I can. Although I read plenty from the library, I like to purchase favorites when I'm able so they join my shelves: to reread, to lend out, to support an author who moved me. So, also on my list to buy, some read and some unread:

• The Disappearers by Marlon James
• Paradise Lost by John Milton
• Powder Days by Heather Hansman
• Flesh by David Szalay
• The Sixth Faction by Veronica Roth
• Deep Creek by Pam Houston
• A Heart in a Body in the World by Deb Caletti

And more soon.