End-of-year 2025 Roundtable Books & Media Discussion

Enjoy our special end-of-year roundtable discussing our favorite (and least favorite) books and media of 2025 and what we're looking forward to in 2026.

List of books/media discussed:

• Atmosphere, Taylor Jenkins Reid
• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid
• The Summer Hikaru Died, Mokumokuren
• Alchemised, SenLinYu
• The Black Wolf (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #20) & The Gray Wolf (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #19), Louise Penny
• The Office of Historical Corrections, Danielle Evans
• Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
• Dungeon Crawler Carl (Dungeon Crawler Carl #1), Matt Dinniman
• Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver
• Atavists: Stories, Lydia Millet
• The Hacienda, Isabel Cañas
• Babel, R.F. Kuang
• The Framed Women of Ardemore House (Ardemore House #1) & The Dead Came To Stay (Aredemore House #2), Brandy Schillace
• Read Between the Lines (Ms. Right #1) & No Rings Attached (Ms. Right #2), Rachel Lacey
• Sky Full of Elephants, Cebo Campbell
• The Spellshop (Spellshop #1) & The Enchanted Greenhouse (Spellshop #2), Sarah Beth Durst
• Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde #1), Heather Fawcett
• The Grace of Wild Things, Heather Fawcett
• A Court of Thorns and Roses (book series), Sarah J. Maas
• Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
• Sunrise on the Reaping, Susan Collins
• People We Meet on Vacation, Emily Henry
• Off-Campus (upcoming TV series based on the book series by Elle Kennedy)
• Percy Jackson & the Olympians (TV series, based on the book series by Rick Riordan)
• Bridgerton (TV series based on the book series by Julia Quinn)
• Vagabond, Tim Curry
• A Monsoon Rising (The Hurricane Wars #2) & The Shattered Tempest (The Hurricane Wars #3), Thea Guanzon
• The Ninth House (Alex Stern #1) & Dead Beat (Alex Stern #3), Leigh Bardugo
• Silo (TV series based on the books Wool, Shift & Dust by Hugh Howey)
• American Girl & Dear America series
• Welcome to St. Hell: My Trans Teen Misadventure, Lewis Hancox
• Transitions: A Mother's Journey, Élodie Durand
• Hypercapitalism: The Modern Economy, Its Values, and How to Change Them, Larry Gonick & Tim Kasser
• Wish Monster: A Middle Grade Halloween Horror Tale About a Wish-Granting Creature and the Price of Bringing the Dead Back, J. A. White
• Fourth Wing (Empyrean #1) & Iron Flame (Empyrean #2), Rebecca Yarros
• Don’t Trust Fish, Neil Sharpson & Dan Santat
• Flotsam, David Wiesner
• Roxaboxen: A Picture Book About Childhood Imagination and the Transforming Magic of Boxes, Sticks, and Sand for Children, Alice McLerran & Barbara Cooney
• The Wedding People, Alison Espach
• Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby van Pelt
• Untypical, Pete Wharmby
• Silver Elite, Dani Francis
• Three Days in June, Anne Tyler
• Lessons in Magic and Disaster, Charlie Jane Anders
• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, V. E. Schwab
• Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, V. E. Schwab

Transcript

 Michael Pierry: Hello and welcome to the Hamden Library Podcast. I am your host, Michael Pierry, and in this episode, the podcast team got together for a special year end round table to talk about our favorite and least favorite books and media from 2025, as well as what we are looking forward to in 2026. We talk about a lot of books in this episode. 
 
 

They will all be listed in the show notes for your convenience so you can look up anything that strikes your fancy. Now, without further ado, here's our discussion. I hope you enjoy it. 
 
 

Hello and welcome to our 2025 Roundup and 2026 preview round table discussion with me, Mike.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: I'm Eliza.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: I'm Hannah.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Kacie  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: and Rebecca.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Alright, so we've been talking about 2025 and struggles with trying to finish our reading list for this year. I know that I definitely didn't read as much. I guess I've been reading other things, a lot of articles online and things like that. 
 
 

What about everybody else?  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: Lots of podcasts for me. There's this history one I started called Founded. The host's name is Tori Phantom, and it's about the revolution before the Revolutionary War. Other than that, just a lot of fiction, a lot of leaving news to current events and not reading so much nonfiction in the second half of the year. 
 
 

Michael Pierry: Mm-hmm. How about you, Kacie?  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Well, this year I was on one of the Nutmeg committees for the Nutmeg Book Award, and so, the vast majority of my reading was middle grade books. 
 
 

Michael Pierry: Mm-hmm.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Which is unusual. Normally I read very adult things. 
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Yeah, my screen time was up this year, and not for reading apps, so I didn't get as much reading done. I did read more articles as well, or magazines over the summer, but not books so much.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Yeah. Eliza?  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Same, unfortunately. I also learned this year that if I start a book, I don't have to finish it. 
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Mm.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: And unfortunately, I started a lot of books and did not finish them this year. Yeah. It was a hard... I had a huge to-read pile. I always had a huge stack on my bedside table, but for some reason I did a lot of doom scrolling, and yeah. I'm working to change that in 2026.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Mm-hmm.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: But also props for DNF. That is a life skill. You don't have to read a book if it's not hitting for you right now.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Yes.  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: Oh, yeah.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: What was it like, the 40 page, 50 page rule? Read the first 50 pages and then if you're not into it, you can put it down. I was like, "oh my gosh, I'm allowed to put it down. Sweet!" 
 
 

Hannah Tyce: One time. One time I got to the 49th page. 
 
 

I said, all right, we're almost there. And then there was a slight plot twist on the 50th, and I said, okay. And then the next morning I could not remember the plot twist, so I returned it. Sorry.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: But also you're allowed to stop even if you're at 80 or 90%. Because I'm a hundred percent on that. 
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Yes.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: It's fine.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Just needed some permission.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: I borrowed a lot of books this year, but I do a lot of non-fiction borrowing where I get a book for a certain chapter alone, and then I don't have to read the entire book just to get the information I need. 
 
 

Kacie Meixell: That's a good strategy. 
 
 

Hannah Tyce: It's a library. It's all free. 
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Does it count towards your reading goal, if you only read one chapter?  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: I guess I could...maybe I'll start tracking it.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Is there a percentage where you count it? I don't know if that's like a standard.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Yeah, maybe we should. I don't know. How rigid do we wanna be? 
 
 

Kacie Meixell: I mean, these are all self-imposed rules.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Right. Right.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: No one's gonna be like, "excuse me, Michael?"  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Yeah. I mean,  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: "Your Goodreads is incorrect."  
 
 

Michael Pierry: No one cares if you read a book at all. It's just for you. So it's whatever you want.  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: Right. Or if you check out a cookbook for one recipe or one category of recipes.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: If I can count all the books I read the Amazon Kindle samples of, and not the actual book, then I read a lot more this year.  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: That's fair.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Is that where maybe counting the pages read instead of the books read would be a good strategy for... 
 
 

Michael Pierry: It might, yeah. It might. 
 
 

Eliza Moyer: How do you figure in large print though? Is there an equation then for large print to regular print?  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Time spent, maybe? 
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Again, this is all... 
 
 

Michael Pierry: It's like summer reads, right? Like when we do the summer reading, it's minutes. Right?  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: That's true.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Yeah. 
 
 

Kacie Meixell: It is minutes.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: So, and all reading counts.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: It's also true. 
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Extend that to ourselves.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: So I don't know how you would do a page count if you were listening to an audiobook.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Mm. I'm really fascinated by this now. 'cause I'm like, if you're listening to an audiobook, I always listen to them on two times speed. So then would I get less credit? Because it's less time than if I sat down and read the, okay. 
 
 

This is a whole different... 
 
 

Rebecca Coates: Yeah. This is a good question, a good discussion. But we're on a tangent.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Yeah. So, struggles aside, what books were you excited to read in 2025? And, did they live up to the hype or your expectations, or did they become another DNF? Eliza? Yeah.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Yeah. For me it was Atmosphere. There was a lot of hype around it. 
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Mm-hmm.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Taylor Jenkins Reid, and I loved Evelyn Hugo. I did not finish some other books that I started of hers, so I was unsure where this was gonna go, and I actually really enjoyed it. Some people I know don't love the back and forth between the timeline jumps, but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the ending. For me, that was like a 4.75 star read, and I don't give out a lot of fives, so I was pretty happy with that.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Wow.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Yeah. Mm.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Hannah.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Yeah, I also really enjoyed Atmosphere. I did like the back and forth. The pace was really good. I was also reading a manga series, The Summer Hikaru Died. 
 
 

It [has a] Netflix adaptation. So then I borrowed the manga from another library, and I... it's only the second series I've read, a manga series. So that was fun to go into that medium.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: What did you think was better? The manga or the anime? 
 
 

Hannah Tyce: The anime was really... I like the way that they adapt it. It's a supernatural story and I think they adapted it in a really cool way. 
 
 

Michael Pierry: Kacie.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: So one of the books I was most looking forward to this year is called Alchemized, and it's by SenLinYu. it's a dark fantasy dystopian... it was billed as a romance and there is a romantic storyline, but it was more like a commentary on war and trauma and the fact that the victors write history. SenLinYu is a fan fiction writer and so the source material was a fan fiction. I think a lot of people were nervous about how this story would stand alone without the fandom component, and I think it was incredibly well written. 
 
 

I don't think you need to understand the fandom or the fan fiction at all to enjoy it. It was super heart wrenching and distressing, but an amazing book. So it was one of my most anticipated reads. It was a read I was really nervous about. It's a really long book, but it wasn't disappointing and I felt like I couldn't put it down. 
 
 

And that was a really rare feeling this year. Even despite all the amazing middle grade books I read, that feeling of a book I chose, and was excited about, and didn't wanna put it down...I was really excited about that one.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Hmm.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Cool. How about you, Rebecca?  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: I said in our last round table that I was looking forward to The Black Wolf by Louise Penny, and it absolutely lived up to expectations. 
 
 

It's rare for her Three Pines, Gamache series that I wouldn't recommend starting with The Black Wolf because it picks up in the middle of things, where things were almost resolved at the end of The Gray Wolf, but not quite. 
 
 

Something that surprised me and made me really happy was that Yvette Nichol is back. She's this really unlikeable secondary character. She's been there since Still Life... I don't know. I just love her. I love to check in and see how she's doing and see how Penny writes her differently. Like how much of it is evolution of the character, how much of it is evolution of the author? 
 
 

I don't know, but I was happy to see her again. And this one is more of a political thriller sort of a thing than a detective story, like some of the other Three Pines novels. But I loved following the characters through the second interconnected mystery, and Rosa the Duck.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Yeah. I guess the one that I was most excited to read was probably, a book that was recommended to me--not to me specifically, but I read about in a newsletter that I subscribed to and it sounded really good. It's called The Office of Historical Corrections. I think it's from 2023 or something like that, by Danielle Evans. And, it's a bunch of short stories and a novella. The short stories are all really good, but the novella is really, really good. It's an alternate history kind of thing, but taking place in more or less modern day where there's literally an office of where they go around basically making corrections when people make historical errors on things. And they literally put a little note on things and people have different reactions to it and everything. And then it ends up, working its way into a murder mystery plot after a while and, it's really well done.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: I can't believe you didn't say Infinite Jest. 
 
 

Hannah Tyce: What page are you on?  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Well,  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: sorry, my, [laughter] 
 
 

Michael Pierry: well, when speaking of DNF. [laughter] 
 
 

I felt like my time reading Infinite Jest came to a, conclusion sometime in the fall, and I needed to read other things for a while because it was just taking up too much of my time. I didn't have a really, a particular reason that... it didn't get to the point in the book where I was like, "Oh, I don't like this" or anything like that. 
 
 

I was just like, "okay. I remember enough of this book. I get what we're doing here. I need to hear another voice for a while". And so I may pick it up again. I may not, I don't know, but I think I made it to a little less than halfway through, so... 
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Okay.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Not too bad. 
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Yeah.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: More than 50 pages.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: I'm counting it. I'm counting it as a read for this year.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Right. Nice.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: So what books surprised you in a good or bad way this year and why?  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Oh my gosh. I have the best series for this question.  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: Yeah.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Okay. Have you guys heard of Dungeon Crawler Carl?  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Yes, because you told me about it. 
 
 

Rebecca Coates: Maybe know them in passing. I think I processed them.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Okay. So this was a book that I saw mentioned on Instagram, and it was a Bookstagrammer I trust. It was kind of out of the realm of what he normally recommends, and the fact that he was recommending it so wholeheartedly made me pick it up. Also, it was on Kindle Unlimited. It was a no brainer. If you have a subscription, it's like free. Read it. 
 
 

It's basically lit RPG for people who don't play role-play games. 
 
 

I've never played a role playing game, but I really enjoyed this book. It's basically like, "aliens take over the earth". It's super dystopian. They're gonna destroy everything unless you go in the dungeon and play their weird reality TV show game. 
 
 

And so it's about this guy, Carl. 
 
 

This happens in the middle of the night. So he's in his underwear. He has no shoes--this is a huge important part of the plot--and his cat. And they're the team battling through the dungeon, trying to get to all the different levels of this weird dystopian reality TV show that they have found themselves on. 
 
 

It's super funny. I think the author does a really good job of making like this extremely... leaning into how unhinged the plot line is.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Mm.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: And it's really addicting and bingeable. I think there's seven or eight books in the series right now, and I read them all right in a row. I had me and my Kindle just like do, do, do. 
 
 

And every single person I've recommended it to who has read it has said the same thing, that they couldn't put it down. It's super weird. Not what they usually read, but it's for some reason just does it for us.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: All right. I had it. I have it on my to be read list, but I'm moving it up.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Yes.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Hannah.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: I started reading Demon Copperhead 'cause I'll be doing the January book discussion for that. 
 
 

I was doing the audio book and I thought it was a great narrator. Sounds like he's from the Appalachian region, so it really adds to it. Sometimes I have to rewind and say, what did he say? And so it adds to it and I understand how it won a Pulitzer for it. It's a great social commentary, critique. 
 
 

The details. It's incredible how many details are put in a storytelling narrative like this, and I did not expect to like it so much, and I'm really excited for the book discussion.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Eliza.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: So working in Borrower Services, I like to watch what people are taking out and what's popular. So, at the beginning of the year, closer to the beginning of the year, Atavists: Stories by Lydia Millet was going out a lot. 
 
 

I kept looking at it going, "ah, I don't know if it's my thing". I am not great with words, so I'm gonna read to you what the description was: "sharp, satirical, literary fiction that dissects modern malaise through darkly comic vignettes of privilege and delusion." I could not have said that myself, but that's what it was about. 
 
 

It was all these little mini bites and it was just, I don't know. It just hit something really well for me. I have a terrible memory and I can't remember the exact reasons why I loved it so much, but again, this was a five star read for me.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Mm-hmm.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: So it was a really interesting, different viewpoint kind of thing for me. 
 
 

Kacie Meixell: I wonder if that format, as we all feel like we have no attention span, was helpful.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: It was, because you could read a chapter and feel satiated by a chapter because the whole chapter was its own little story.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: They kind of stand alone.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Yeah.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Cool.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: They all kind of tied a little bit, but it was just a nice little bite sized. 
 
 

Michael Pierry: Yeah, see?  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: It was a short read.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: This is why I think we should all be reading more short stories.  
 
 

Novels get all the lauds, laudits...What, is the word?  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: The love.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: The love. Novels get all the love, but short stories really... a lot of authors write them and they get short shrift, but we really should be reading more short stories because, really, as much work goes into them pound for pound as novels in a good short story. 
 
 

So... 
 
 

Hannah Tyce: There's that quote. I don't remember who said it. "I don't have time to write a short letter. So you're getting a long letter." And I know how that is.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Yeah.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Yeah.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: It's true, because sometimes in novels it's superfluous and there's so much, and there's like... in my brain... I am also ADHD, so I'm like, "you could have cut that out. You could have cut that out. That wasn't necessary. That wasn't necessary." 
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Yeah.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: So when you get those bite-sized chunks, I'm always like, "Ooh."  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Everything has to serve the plot.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Yes.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Everything has to move it forward. 
 
 

Eliza Moyer: There is nothing super extra.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Right?  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: I'm like... 
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Right.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: What about you, Rebecca? 
 
 

Rebecca Coates: I checked out The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas. Usually I don't go for horror, at least not for horror that's book first, that's literary and atmospheric. I'm only partway through the book right now, but I'm really savoring it. It surprised me how much I liked it since it's not the sort of thing I usually go for. 
 
 

Michael Pierry: That's awesome. I, think the book that surprised me the most this year, 'cause I just didn't really know much about it, is Babel by R.F. Kuang. All I knew about it was that it was fantasy and had a unique magic system in it. I was blown away by it. Didn't really... even as I kind of figured out what the story was and everything going through and it's very much a story about colonialism. 
 
 

I didn't think it was gonna go where it goes in the second part of the book and it blew me away. So that's also my favorite book of the year. Yeah, I was very impressed by that book and the things that it says about how to forment social change and revolution and really having that conversation about, like, how do you change the world, basically. 
 
 

It's really something. Did you discover any new authors?  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: For me it was Brandy Schillache. I mentioned her in our last episode, but I think I pronounced her last name wrong. Sorry. 
 
 

Her series actually started with The Framed Women of Ardemore House, and the second one, that came out this year, is The Dead Came to Stay or Come to Stay. Can't read my own writing. 
 
 

I like the series because it's about this amateur sleuth, who inherited this house, this property in England, and there's a mystery of who killed this person in her space. But there's also this whole mystery about her family that unfolds through the two books, and by the end, she found out that her uncle's dead, but also his partner is also her uncle. And how that unfolds is really beautiful. 
 
 

And just, for me, I'm neurodivergent and Schillache's an Own Voices author for me and it just feels really funny, really familiar. Other people might have a different experience, but coming from something where it's like... it feels like Schillache's coming from a perspective that's similar to my own, which I never exactly experienced in that way before this year. 
 
 

Michael Pierry: That's great.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: It's cool.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Who's going next?  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: So for me, I was looking for some light, floofy, cozy sapphic reads. So somebody had recommended Rachel Lace and I ended up reading Read Between the Lines, which is Ms. Right #1, and the other one was No Rings Attached, Ms. Right #2. They're just cozy, predictable. 
 
 

The first one's based in a bookstore. You always have me... if it's in a library, a bookstore, I'm game. Like, I'm very basic in that way. I just love [stories] based in bookstores and libraries.  
 
 

So yeah, it was just a nice, comfortable, cozy read. I recommend her if you're just looking for like a sapphic queer kind of easy read. 
 
 

The other one is--I hope I say this right--Cebo Campbell, and it was Sky Full of Elephants. I also was trying to pick up more BIPOC authors this year. I saw this one go out a couple times. It's about a world where there's no white people, science fiction based. It was, I thought, a really good read, really fascinating, just a very... 
 
 

How do I say it? Like, beautiful perspective for me. So, it did make me look into him a little bit more and wanna read some of his other things as well. So that's kind of my... 
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: My discoveries.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Kacie.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Well, speaking of cozy reads, I read The Spell Shop this year by Sarah Beth Durst, and it was like totally picked up on a whim in a bookstore. 
 
 

and it was so lovely and soft and nice. It starts in a library, you know, and I haven't read, there's another book that's like kind of interconnected with this one. Enchanted Greenhouse, I think it's called, but I haven't read that yet. It's on my list. the other author that was interesting to me, so Heather Fawcett wrote the, Emily Wilde 
 
 

books, The Encyclopedia of Fairies.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Mm-hmm.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: And which have also been on my TBR for like a year and I haven't read them yet, but when I was reading for Nutmeg, we read her middle grade book The Grace of Wild Things, which is like a loosely Ann of Green Gables with magic, and it was so lovely that it made me move The Encyclopedia of Fairies up on my list. 
 
 

Michael Pierry: I have a question about The Encyclopedia of Fairies. Sorry, is it an encyclopedia of fairies?  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: I think she's writing it in the book.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: I didn't think it would be, I was just secretly hoping it was like literally. And it's, that has to, because I love stuff like that.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Is that a good segue for me to say, I really hope Sarah J. Maas publishes the sixth ACOTAR book this week. 
 
 

Speaking of fairies.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Yes.  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: As we're recording this, there's only a month left [in the year], but like 26? Yes, please.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: She said she finished the draft and that was like months ago. So come on, Sarah. It's been years. What are we doing?  
 
 

What are we doing?  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Since we're on that topic, what else is everyone looking forward to for 2026? 
 
 

Hannah Tyce: The Wuthering Heights movie is coming out, so I'm excited for that. I'll probably read the book again, and I plan to branch a bit into the Bronte Sisters in 2026. I don't think I ever did the required reading for that in English class, but I'm really finding the value in audio books as well. 
 
 

'cause, you know, I can be at soccer practice listening, do dishes, listening in the car. Getting the books done. So that's probably my game plan for 2026. Maybe some classics.  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: Speaking of movie adaptations, I'm looking forward to Sunrise on the Reaping. I read that one this year, and as usual, Suzanne Collins did not disappoint. 
 
 

But as far as reading books next year, I don't know. I'm going for the mood reader and just checking out books based on vibes and curiosity.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Sure.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: There's some really good book adaptations coming up. Or currently running right now. The People We Meet on Vacation movie, the Emily Henry book, that comes out in January and I think they just released the full trailer. 
 
 

It looks really cute. There's the Off-Campus series by Elle Kennedy, the New Adult hockey romance that show's coming to Amazon Prime. There's a new season of Percy Jackson coming out, which my kids are super pumped about. It's the second book, so it should be really good. And then the new season of Bridgerton comes out next February too, I think. 
 
 

So for my historical romance folks, it is Benedict. Benedict is next. Yeah.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Okay.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Eliza, do you have anything you're looking forward to for 2026?  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Not specifically. 
 
 

Honestly, It's funny, we're talking about more of the classics because, selfless plug for the Shelf Care Book Club here at the Hamden Miller Library, but we've been talking about reading classics and reading them in graphic novels, and that's something I just started getting into this past year in 2025. 
 
 

They've never really appealed to me. I was never a comic book reader, but for some reason somebody had recommended one and. After I read it, I was like, "oh, okay, this is kind of cool". So I'm actually looking forward to maybe reading some more classics in graphic novel form.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Mm-hmm.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: I'm thinking maybe things that I couldn't get myself to pick up otherwise are a little bit more appealing in that way. 
 
 

And as a quick, that quicker kind of read format for me. So nothing specific right now. I'm gonna play it by ear and see what comes along. I did pick up Tim Curry's memoir Vagabond, and I'm just starting that. So technically that's gonna be a 2026 read for me at this point, I think. But so far so good on that too, and I'm really enjoying that one. 
 
 

Michael Pierry: That's great. I love Tim Curry.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Mm, me too.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: There's also a couple sequels or series continuations that are definitely coming out in 2026 that I am looking forward to. The third book in The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon is coming out. It's not...the title hasn't been announced yet, but it says that it's publishing in 2026. 
 
 

I think the second Hurricane War... 
 
 

So basically the series is about... It's enemies to lovers, but it's this science fiction/fantasy type setting, and they hate each other, but they have to get married to become this political alliance, and the second Hurricane Wars book was one of my favorite books. I think it came out in early this year. It was so good. So I'm really looking forward to the third one. 
 
 

The other series that I'm looking forward to and it's also the third installment is the new Alex Stern book by Leigh Bardugo. It. That series starts with The Ninth House.  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: Wait, the next one's coming out next year? Tell me more.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Yeah, it's coming out in September or October I think.  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: Okay. 'cause seconded. It's so good.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: It's so good. And it's set in New Haven, at Yale, which is so fun for people who are local to our library. It's really cool to read and actually know the places or be able to visit the places that they're talking about. The third book is gonna be called Deadbeat, and it comes out that September 2026, Deadbeat, third book in the Alex Stern series by Leigh Bardugo.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: And I thought of something, I'm looking forward to: the new season of Silo. I didn't know the books. Then I finished, when season two aired, after that, I read the books and I was like, "oh man, I can't wait to see how they do the rest of this." 
 
 

'cause things get so different after the first book. It's gonna be crazy. So that's one thing I'm looking forward to in 2026.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Yes. 
 
 

Michael Pierry: Anybody branch out into any new genres recently?  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: I branched into fiction. Yeah. I know, I know. 
 
 

I read a lot of nonfiction in 2024. I think I kind of burned out my steam for that. I don't know if it's an attention span issue as well, or I just read all I had to read in 2024, and so I did fiction this year. 
 
 

Talked to one of my new coworkers and we both liked the Dear America and American Girl series as kids, so I reread some of those. And then realized that's probably why I like historical fiction as an adult. So I was nice to revisit some of those.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Who was your favorite American girl?  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Oh, Kit. Kit.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Okay. 1930s.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Yeah. I got my hair cut like her. I got the outfit.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: I love that for you.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Yep. Thank you. Thank you.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: as I mentioned earlier, graphic novels. That was just a whole new opening for me. I read Welcome to St. Hell by Lewis Hancox, which is a coming of age story about a trans female. 
 
 

And that was a really good read. Trying to think what else I read. I read Transition: a Mother's Journey, which is another story about a mom coming to terms with her child being trans as well. This is relevant for me in my own personal life. That was not as great. That was a harder read. 
 
 

There was a lot of misgendering and different things through that story that I wasn't super comfortable with.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Mm.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: But again, I am not a...I hate to say this out loud and I apologize to anybody that loves memoirs, but I really do have a hard time with a memoir unless it's somebody I'm super interested in: Tim Curry. 
 
 

So this was a really nice way to read a memoir for me that I really enjoyed, and I just picked up Hypercapitalism in a graphic novel. Again, I'm trying to read serious topics and I like when serious topics are broken down in a more digestible way for myself. So graphic novels is kind of my thing for this past year. 
 
 

Anybody else?  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: So something that was interesting for me being on the Nutmeg Committee this year is that you have to read a lot of different genres because when I choose my books for myself, like, I like an escapist read. I don't want any reality. And also like I'm reading at bedtime, so I don't necessarily wanna be scared. 
 
 

So what was interesting was that for the Nutmeg list, some of my favorite books were like juvenile horror or even thriller mystery, and I think that having it written for kids made it less scary for me, but it also still got your heart rate going. I really enjoyed Wish Monster by JA White. 
 
 

It was scary, guys scary and it was, but it was like so good. I didn't wanna stop reading it. So that was really interesting. And maybe that means that next year I will grow up a little bit. Be scared and adult literature as well.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Why? You don't have to. Nobody's forcing you to 
 
 

Kacie Meixell: I know, but like,  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: read what you enjoy. 
 
 

Kacie Meixell: What am I missing out on? By saying Nightmares. I don't read this.  
 
 

Nightmares. Nightmares. That's what you're missing. Nightmare Nightmares.  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: It's like, okay. Something about the books and nightmares.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: tread carefully.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: But yeah, that it was cool to do that. And I think that the Page Turners' kids have really appreciated it. 
 
 

Some of them have said like, "where do you come up with these ideas?" And I was like, "well, guys, you can thank the Nutmeg Committee".  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Not this year, but last year I started reading romantasy and other romance sub genres.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Oh.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Come to the fun side. 
 
 

Michael Pierry: And, it was very interesting. 
 
 

Hannah Tyce: How so? 
 
 

Michael Pierry: I... mainly the book that I got into was Fourth Wing, which I know is hugely popular. 
 
 

Then I read the second book, or like part of the second book and it lost its luster. It got too intense for me or something, and I haven't picked it back up again. But it was really interesting. You know, it's not the type of thing that I gravitate toward naturally. 
 
 

So I just wanted to know what that stuff was like. And now I know.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: So wait, Michael, I have a question.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Yeah.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Because I consider Fourth Wing to be a gateway book or a book that like if someone hasn't read in a while and they pick up Fourth Wing and then suddenly they can't stop reading. 
 
 

So did you feel like when you read Fourth Wing that you were excited to keep reading, like, any other books?  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Mm-hmm.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Did it jumpstart maybe any reading for you or No, because you were already a reader.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Well, I'm already a reader, but it was very page turny. 'cause there's a lot going on at all times. 
 
 

The stakes are always incredibly high throughout that whole book. There's never a point where it's like you can relax and things are chill.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: The fourth wing fandoms really fun guys. I went to the. Fourth wing night at Fenway. And can I just tell you like being in a stadium's worth of crowd of people who all like the same things as you and were fangirling over, like they had like little stuff out. 
 
 

They changed the snack menu to go with the book. It was super fun. So find your people, go to events where they're at because it would, I don't know, it was really life giving. It was one of the best things I did this year.  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: Love that. Great.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Can't believe you missed it, Michael.  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: Yeah. 10 outta 10 fan events are, you know, completely the antidote to the stuff that like makes you sad about the world right now, in the past, in the future. 
 
 

Kacie Meixell: The mascots were wearing flight jackets. It was so cute. Oh my God. Come on guys.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: I need to read it, I guess.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: I guess so. Yeah. All right. I'll write it down too.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Maybe that Shelf Care can do a fantasy.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Yeah.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Or romantasy, and then  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Absolutely.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: There's an excuse.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: That'll be my time.  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: Oh, yeah. Yeah. But another shout out to Shelf Care because I got into audiobooks-only recently, but when you're sitting around a whole bunch of other people who are also reading in public, oh gosh. It makes it so much easier to get through something that you want to read, but you can't motivate yourself to keep going.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Body doubling is real. 
 
 

Rebecca Coates: Hey,  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: and next to somebody doing the same activity, it helps.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Does anybody have a favorite thing or best thing that they read this year?  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: Don't Trust the Fish.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Okay,  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: Don't Trust the Fish. It's this really hilarious picture book. And it came across my desk behind the scenes and I'm like, what the heck? 
 
 

It's just really quick read. You know, one that I would absolutely love to share with younger readers, and you don't get to know who the narrator is until the end, and it's a really fun, like, twist, surprise. I recommend reading it, even if you are a grownup, and sharing it with young readers in your life who like that twist ending. 
 
 

Kacie Meixell: But this is also an interesting thing that we were chatting about earlier, is that there's no age limit to sections in the library or in the bookstore. So Rebecca just recommended a picture book and said like, feel free to share it with a young reader, but also you can read it yourself even if you don't have a young reader to share it with. 
 
 

That's no one's judging you.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Yeah.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Yeah.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: And as Hannah mentioned before, a lot of times when she wants to learn about a topic, she actually pulls out one of the books from our junior nonfiction section because it's concise, it's easy, it's a simple, it's not this big wordy loan thing.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: It's everything I need to know... 
 
 

Eliza Moyer: yeah.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: In 32-ish pages, not 300. And there's pictures.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Yes. Yes. We all like pictures.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Yeah. And same with the Teen section. YA Books are not only for young adults, it just means that the protagonist in the book is of that age, that teenagery age. It doesn't mean that only teenagers can read the book.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: You can read whatever you want, however you want. 
 
 

Hannah Tyce: As I said in the last episode, the November podcast episode, it was so, so enjoyable to go back to picture books, so I had a really great time reading those picture books. I was, I really surprised myself how much I enjoyed the picture books.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Did you have a favorite?  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Well, Flotsam and Jetsam was interesting because it was wordless and that really all depended on the pictures. 
 
 

And I was surprised how much you could fit into a picture. And it's kind of back to the short story versus a long, full length novel. Like, you have to fit so much when there's no words.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Mm-hmm. Did you read Roxaboxen?  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: I did.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: I love Roxaboxen.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: I loved that as a kid too.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Yeah. That's one of my favorites. 
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Yeah.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Like as an adult to read.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Mm-hmm.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: What is that about?  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: It's about, a group of kids and they find... Like, across the street there's this empty lot.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Mm-hmm.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: One of the kids who's good at naming things calls it Roxaboxen, and it's like their world. So they talk about the games they played and how they made a village and how so-and-so was always speeding and got put in jail. 
 
 

Yes. It's just like a very childhood imagination, like you read it. You read it as an adult and you remember being a kid.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Mm-hmm.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: And you read it to a kid and you can see it like capture that part of them that is always imagining a different situation where they are.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Anybody else have favorites of the year? 
 
 

Eliza Moyer: I loved The Wedding People by Allison Esbach. It's, let me say this, I am midlife, Xennial, perimenopausal deconstructing so many things. So this book resonated with me. It was very much this woman, her life gets turned like upside down and she, I don't wanna give it away. It's so good. It was just so good the way it's written. 
 
 

Has anybody else read this one? No. Okay. 
 
 

I'll tell you the beginning 'cause it's very obvious. She is actually going somewhere to end her life because something traumatic happened to her, and she ends up booking this hotel where a wedding is going on, and she's the only person at this hotel that is not a guest at this wedding. 
 
 

Long story short, she gets wrapped up in all of this. She changes their lives. They change her life. It's based in Rhode Island. It was just such a good read. I could not put it down. That was one of my favorites. The other one, was Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. That was super popular. 
 
 

That went out so much this year. That was just another kind of beautiful relationship story coming of age, and it has, it's based around octopus and anytime there's an animal involved, I get emotionally attached. So that helped too. So those were my two favorite reads this year. 
 
 

Michael Pierry: For me it was... I already talked about Babel. I also wanted to mention a book I just started reading, but I really like. It's called Untypical by Pete Warmby, and, it is basically a book trying to educate about the autistic experience from someone who was diagnosed late in life and coming to terms with that. 
 
 

He very much writes from the perspective of trying to explain what it is. Like if you're a neurotypical person or you're not autistic, he tries to kind of explain why certain things that are not difficult for you as a neurotypical person would be more difficult for a neurodivergent person. 
 
 

It's extremely well written. I'm actually listening to the audio book. I believe he reads it and he's very, very good. I would definitely recommend it. I think we need, at this point, we need people to understand each other more and more, to have a good and somewhat pleasant society to live in. And the more people who understand what it is like to be neurodivergent, which encompasses a wide swath of different conditions, not just autism, but the better. 
 
 

We will be to each other and the more patient and considerate we'll be of each other. And, that's something I am very much trying to push for going forward personally and professionally. So that, that's a big one for me right now, Untypical.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Beautifully said. 
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Yeah. Thank you.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Thank you.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Anybody read anything they didn't like this year? 
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Guys, we have to talk about Silver Elite.  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: I don't even know what that is. Tell me more. Tell us about it.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: Okay, so Silver Elite is by Danny Francis. Danny Francis doesn't exist. It's a pen name, but like discovering who Danny Francis actually is has not, hasn't happened. Silver Elite was chosen as a Book of the Month pick. 
 
 

It was, like, widely hyped. The blurbing for the book indicated that the pen name is someone is that of a bestselling author. However, it's also speculated that the book is written by AI.  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: Oh.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: And 
 
 

Michael Pierry: I thought that's where we were going with this actually.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: And I read it to sort of defend it because I was like, "how dare you? They would never." 
 
 

And I'm not sure that I can defend it guys. It was not good. It was not good. And I mean it, did I read the whole thing? Yes. It hit like a lot of really good notes for me. Like it was a dystopian, it kind of felt like when you read The Hunger Games for the first time, it securely placed itself in that like romantasy, like enemies to lovers, like in a school battleground thing. 
 
 

But it was not good, and I. I was really disappointed that I couldn't defend it and also that I own it, so.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: I have so many questions about this. 
 
 

Kacie Meixell: I don't know. So does everyone, Michael.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Just your, in your experience, so you, it's not good. Was it like the writing itself that wasn't good? 
 
 

Like  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: There was, it was definitely, it was not good. and also, like I read a lot of books that are... I like, but they're not good. This book was not good, and also it felt really different from those other books that are not good. It felt really formulaic. Some of the metaphors or like writing structures felt really weird. 
 
 

There was just like random comments about things that like maybe weren't necessary to the story that was like maybe just in there for shock value. I finished it and said, well, I can't defend this from the AI allegations. Like if the author came out and was like, "no, this is my pen name." 
 
 

Like, we don't wanna dox authors, right? Like they use pen names for a reason, but there was so much speculation and never any like concrete evidence that they're a real person. Mm-hmm. And then the following month, the. The next month's Book of the Month selection, the author admitted to using AI in their writing process. 
 
 

So then I, it was like, just like doubled down like, Book of the Month doesn't know what they're doing anymore. Or they don't care. Or they're like, this is a valuable tool for writers and like, that's a slippery slope guys. I don't know how I feel about that.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Anybody else come across anything that, they didn't end up liking? 
 
 

Yeah, Eliza.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: I always try and find the good in everything I need. I really do. there was one that was meh that was kind of for me, Three Days in June by Ann Tyler. Again, I'm, going off of things I watch go out and go, "oh, a lot of people are taking this out. Lemme check this out." 
 
 

It was a quick little beach read. There was like no character development. There was no like aha moment. It was quick, and that's about all I can say for it unfortunately. So it was just meh.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Yeah.  
 
 

Rebecca Coates: Something that I picked up because I wanted to like it, but I ended up not liking it was Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders wanted to like it because it was, like, recommended to me as something kind of like Hoffman. 
 
 

I couldn't get past the second, chapter. I like unlikeable characters, but there's something about Charlie Jane's narrator, Jamie, that is just insufferable and I could not, the writing itself was all right. I'm willing to try other books by Charlie Jane Anders, just to see whether it's the author or the book for me. 
 
 

But that one's staying on my DNF for all time.  
 
 

Kacie Meixell: There was one other book that I was so disappointed by this year, and it's V.E Schwab's new book. So, I loved The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Their new book was billed as "Toxic Lesbian Vampires". And I was like, yes, sure. So good. And it really wasn't. I had so much trouble getting through it and like there were multiple points of view, which I normally really like, but I felt like it derailed the progress in the book for this one. 
 
 

Like having to like suddenly switch. And it was also like going back and forth in different time periods. So such a bummer Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil just didn't live up to Addie LaRue for me. 
 
 

Michael Pierry: Oh. 
 
 

Rebecca Coates: To every book it's reader. But there are plenty of times when like the author, the trope, and it's just like, no, not this time. 
 
 

Michael Pierry: Okay, well thanks everybody. This was a good one. I literally have to wrap up 'cause it's like 1137 and we've been recording for almost an hour and a half. But thank you. This was really fun. we're gonna do it again, hopefully sometime in the spring.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: All right.  
 
 

Eliza Moyer: Ooh. Sounds good.  
 
 

Hannah Tyce: Thank you.  
 
 

Michael Pierry: Thank you. 
 
 

That's all the time we have on this episode. Thanks for listening. See you next time.