2026 reading 🧵 “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Finally got round to this absolute gothic classic. Mrs Danvers, Manderley, a haunting with no ghost. One of those books it feels like one has read long before one actually does. Worth the wait.

2026 reading 🧵 The book that made Adrian Tchaikovsky’s reputation I think and having finally read it I can see why. An absolute triumph of worldbuilding. First contact between a desperate human colony ship and a planet of intelligent spiders their ancestors accidentally created. Compelling hard SF.

2026 reading 🧵 Bit hard to describe, this one. It’s a Nicola Barker novel, I think that’s the best description. Smart, modern, playful, very funny. Too long since I last read her and this was a welcome return. Plus it’s short! Only Ali Smith is as inventive.

2026 reading 🧵 Fascinating multi-generation sf novel on the impact of changing technologies and attitudes on reproduction and women’s lives. Some lovely observations and portrayal of changing mores and expectations. Goes from just a few years hence to a century on.

2026 reading 🧵 A return to Garnier with his incredibly dark and disconcertingly comedic noirs. Here a hitman takes on a young driver and finds himself drawn unwillingly into the messiness of life. Well done and amusing but there is something astonishingly bleak in Garnier’s worldview.

2026 reading 🧵 A fascinating slice of stream of consciousness from one of my favourite authors. Ebook only sadly. Bertha, three years a widow and but 30 years old, makes contact with her youthful love who is now an acclaimed violinist. But can the past be recaptured? Was it even as she recalls?

It’s on iPlayer! I mean honestly I’m not sure it’s you, but check out this brilliant review:

2026 reading 🧵 Classic grand hotel novel, archetypal really given the title! Fun but a bit too melodramatic for me. I can see why it was a hit in its day and why it was adapted for film, but doubt it’s one I’d personally return to. That said, many others have absolutely loved it.

@eofftv.bsky.social Kevin, hope it’s ok to ask a question. I’m at a film festival and one of the films in their promo reel is a Vincent Price but I’m not sure which. Can you place this image? Btw, love the Hammer podcasts. Several to come I’m really looking forward to.

2026 reading 🧵 I really liked Madeleine Watts’ debut novel The Inland Sea, but this is simply a level above. It’s a novel about loss and grief (and therefore about love). A doomed marriage, the US southwest landscape, water issues (see Chinatown…). This is bound straight for my end of year list.

2026 reading 🧵 In a former Soviet bloc country a televised show trial is held of a deposed communist ruler. He is to be held to account for his many crimes, but can the chief prosecutor keep control once this veteran politician is in front of the cameras? Julian Barnes once again on excellent form.

2026 reading 🧵 This one was a bedtime read and a fun one at that. In future Bangladesh people are disappearing from the AI-run city of Chittagong. Famous artist Kundo looks for his missing wife with the help of his new found family, but has she any interest in being found? A clever SF/fantasy blend.

2026 reading 🧵 First read post being unwell. It’s from the author of The Forgery, which I loved. This is a tale of architecture, ghosts, male gaze, female desire, sex and obsession. Dark and strange with explicit Bluebeard references. It’s a heady brew. Charco continue to be a publisher to watch.

2026 reading 🧵 Less a novel than three linked novellas, this is a satire of Soviet science and bureaucracy by the authors of Roadside Picnic (I.e. Stalker) set in a magical research institute. Took a while for me to connect with its humour but once I did I really enjoyed it.

2026 reading 🧵 Absolute stone cold classic this, landmark manhunt thriller, so shame I didn’t like it. Admittedly thrillers aren’t my genre and to be fair the exploration of motive is well done, but the story felt highly unlikely and the tone very boys-own. I should have read it as a teenager.

2026 reading 🧵 Bit of comfort reading as I’m under the weather presently - Richard Stark’s Parker novels. Here Parker takes on ‘The Outfit’ a corporate-style organised crime syndicate, hitting them in the money where it hurts. Taut and propulsive as you’d expect. Not best Stark but still very good.

2026 reading 🧵 Last of Alastair Reynold’s Revenger trilogy (Pirates! Still! In! Spaaace!). Wraps things up well while happily leaving a few mysteries unsolved. I do think in big screen sf you don’t want to be too neat which he avoids. Solid fare and fun setting though for me not Reynolds’ best.

2026 reading 🧵 Apparently a recognised classic of a massively popular Japanese genre of Samurai novels, few of which have been translated. I bought it as something of a curio but it was fascinating and well paced and I ended up loving it. Another winner from Honford Press. Lovely cover too.

2026 reading 🧵 This continues to be a hugely intelligent SF series. Where I thought the first volume explored among other things living with someone with dementia, this one explores depression and loss of purpose. Genuinely clever. I’m looking forward to the third.

This did not look like a Happy Terrace…

2026 reading 🧵 Kurkov’s Kyiv mysteries turn away from the comforts of crime in volume 2, becoming something much more unsettling. Is the crime being investigated even a crime? Have the guilty done anything wrong? Under Soviet rule little is certain. I liked the first but this takes it up a notch.

2026 reading 🧵 Second in Reynold’s Revenger series (pirates! In! Spaaaaace!). Solid because Reynolds and in some ways better than the first as it’s much less YA in tone, but definite sense too of second in a trilogy. Plot progress made but big mysteries remain unsolved. Fun though.

2026 reading 🧵 An Evelyn Waugh character wanders into a setting from Hardy or Lawrence and sets it aright. Funny, well written, so much an instant classic it overshadowed everything shoe wrote thereafter. Delightful, amusing and highly improbable in the best way. And, commendably, never cruel.

2026 reading 🧵 Pushkin Press’s great rediscovery Stefan Zweig, this time with a very Zweigian tale of two lovers who have to separate and on meeting again after nine years try to pick up as if nothing has changed. Novella-length and packed as you’d expect with psychological insight.

I can’t drive so I can reply!

2026 reading 🧵 A classic for change of pace, Nella Larsen’s famous Passing. Fascinating in its depiction of Black experience in 1920s America (“this hellish place” as one character has it) but also a psychological thriller, which aspect is key but less discussed. Slim but powerful. (Clever cover.)

2026 reading 🧵 Superb noir/alt-history detective novel, my first by Francis Spufford. Well crafted, rich in sense of place (his imaginary Cahokia), strong both as an alt history novel and as a crime novel. Tremendous fun even though often quite dark. Very impressive.

One negative with the Brookners is they’re not that well put together as physical objects. Paper is a bit grey and feels coarse, slightly fuzzy print and lots of bleed through. Nice covers but overall production feels a bit cheap.

2026 reading 🧵 Brookner’s second. Kitty Maule is clever, professional, pretty, sensible. She would rather be wild and unreasonable. She loves handsome fellow academic Maurice Bishop but does he feel the same? Beautifully observed and written. Like a Barbara Pym novel save sad rather than funny.

2026 reading 🧵 Chen Sheng is owed money but the rich businessman who owes denies it, so Chen gets an associate to hold the man and his family hostage until they pay. What could go wrong? Fascinating mix of thriller and psychological study let down for me by an incredibly abrupt ending. Ebook only.