6 in 2026
My first six reads of the year. Four nonfiction, two fiction.
Here we go again . . . if you didn’t see my note, I’m planning to make these quicker and dirtier unless I feel very passionate about what I read.
Book 1: The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America by David Baron
I was familiar with the Orson Welles’ radio show broadcast of of HG Wells’ “The War of the Words” which triggered panic among some listeners, so when this book popped up I knew I had to dive in. David Baron chronicles our obsession with our neighbor, whose vibrant red color casts a spell on amateur and professional astronomers alike. From the late 1800s to the early 1900s, one man in particular (Percival Lowell) causes intense speculation about alien life with his insistence that there are canals on Mars. His claims are repeatedly debunked, but the public’s fascination with Mars does not waver. In fact, it drives interest in a relatively new genre - science fiction. This book is particularly timely as Elon Musk [spit] and others investigate whether the planet could provide a second home to humanity. It’s a fun read and the scientific elements are particularly engaging.
Book 2: What Can We Know: A Novel by Ian McEwan
I love a good post-apocalyptic story, and this novel picks up in the United Kingdom in the 2100s after a devastating flood swallowed up a good portion of the world. As always, I am disappointed when the actual apocalypse doesn’t feature very much into the story. A historian is searching for a lost poem written by a famous artist in 2014. It has only been described, never seen, and he is determined to follow the clues left behind to unearth it and win acclaim. The book is a little dry. Writers love writing about writers the same way Hollywood loves movies/tv shows about Hollywood (I’m looking at you, “The Studio”). The second half of the book flips back to 2014 and the woman to whom the poem is dedicated. I enjoyed that section quite a bit more.
Book 3: Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World by John Blair
Vampires? Yes please! What I didn’t expect was a full on historical treatise about types of vampires and their strange behaviors. Shroud chewing? Check. Pristine corpses? Check. Blood? Check. Haunting the living with absolutely terrifying hallucinations? Check. The “vampire” we think of today is mostly likely Bram Stoker’s Dracula or Anne Rice’s Lestat, but those characters are very recent inventions (and typically much easier on the eyes). This book was not easy to get through because of the ungodly number of footnotes. I eventually gave up on those and stuck to the narrative. It is extremely interesting to learn what the term “vampire” means in different cultures and how the word itself evolves over time. John Blair presents archeological evidence showing that victims of an attack often desecrated graves with the staking, burning, and chaining of limbs to prevent the vampires from rising again. He generally chalks up this behavior to mass hysteria that really derived from the social upheaval happening in each region at the time.
Book 4: Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World by Dorian Lynskey
As someone who is relatively obsessed with the idea of an apocalypse (see Book 2 above) I found this book to be incredibly therapeutic. If you suffer from anxiety, please skip it. Dorian Lynskey discusses doomsday scenarios from film and literature starting with the Book of Revelation, and weaves these examples together with more contemporary fears. Each part of the book focuses on a different calamity, including nuclear war, machines (robotics/AI), pandemic and climate change. “War of the Worlds” pops up here too, as does “The Day After Tomorrow”, my favorite cheesy disaster movie. My favorite chapter is on Y2K, which I distinctly recall people freaking out about when I was 17 (dating myself here). Witty and melancholic, this is the best book I’ve read so far.
Book 5: A Fractured Mind: My Life with Multiple Personality Disorder by Robert Oxnam
I read a decent amount of medical memoirs and I always feel vaguely guilty when I don’t care for one. Robert Oxnam suffers from is now called DID - dissociative identity disorder. The book details his struggles with alcoholism and how he discovers he has DID, which was the primary cause of his blackouts and rage. The book is told from the point of view of his 11 different alters, which is more than a little confusing. Over years of treatment, his psychiatrist helps him to integrate to a point where he has only 3 different alters. Not one I would recommend.
Book 6: The School of Night: A Novel by Karl Ove Knausgaard
This is book four of Knausgaard’s “Morning Star” series, translated from the original Norwegian. This installment is about a 1980s photographer, Kristian, who is initially terrible at his chosen profession. His trajectory changes when he meets a random acquaintance named Hans. Kristian eventually finds critical and commercial success, but an incident from his past threatens to ruin everything he’s built. It’s a remix of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, so some familiarity with that play is a prerequisite. Personally, I imagine a certain scene from the movie “Tombstone.” Now, the truth: I am basically hate-reading at this point. The author never explains anything and leaves you to chew over what you just consumed with impotent rage. Why do I still torture myself? Because I hope at the end, all will be revealed.
Have you read How High We Go in the Dark? It’s an interesting post-apocalyptic story.