This article discusses sexual violence and may be distressing for some readers.
As 2026 begins, making more space and time for reading’s a great resolution. But curling up with a mug of tea and a blanket to binge-read for hours requires the right book.
The right read can be hard to find, but I’m here to help. Last year, I read over 75 novels, and I’ve compiled a list of some of my favourites to prove reading more doesn’t have to be a pipe dream, as each of these books are capable of shaking a reader out of a slump.
“Madonna in a Fur Coat”
Sabahattin Ali’s Madonna in a Fur Coat (1943) is a bestselling Turkish novel that centers around a lost young man named Raif, who moves to Berlin in the ’20s and falls in love with a woman in a fur coat whose portrait he sees in a local art exhibition. Raif is isolated, lonely, and sick with love which Ali impressively manages to convey so tangibly in such a short story.
The novel is ultimately a tragic story. Love does exist. Happiness does exist. But it’s fleeting and it’s painful and it’s scary, packed with uncertainty and yearning. As a reader, or rather as a human, there’s nothing scarier than the idea that it’s too late, forced to confront the understanding that beauty like that exists out there—but it’s not yours. Madonna in a Fur Coat pushes the reader into a liminal space of hope and hopelessness, exercising the heart, and brain.
“Bad Behaviour”
American novelist and essayist Mary Gaitskill’s debut publication Bad Behaviour (1988) is a short-story collection, each with a unique plot. Gaitskill’s writing is gritty, disturbing, and blunt. She doesn’t shy away from the dark side of the human experience with short stories revolving sex work, affairs, toxic friendships, masochism, drug addiction, and more. She’s openly spoken about her negative experiences with rape and sexual abuse, as she worked as a call girl and stripper at a young age. These stories repurpose themselves in her fiction.
Bad Behaviour stares into the face of human complexity and ugliness without flinching or looking away. The result is writing that’s incredibly honest, insightful, and true to life. However, what makes Bad Behaviour a must-read is “Heaven”, a short story that follows a wife and mother, Virginia, who reflects on her life in relation to her children and broader family. In my whole life, I’ve never read something that so accurately captured the passing of time. It’s heart-breaking, relatable, nostalgic, nuanced, and above all, shocking that Gaitskill wrote it at 23 years old, which only speaks to her intellect and perception.
“The Buffalo Hunter Hunter”
The Only Good Indian’s author, Stephen Graham Jones, a West Texas author of Blackfeet Native American descent, returns with a new horror fiction, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter (2025): a historical horror set in the early 20th century. The heart of the story is of injustice and genocide towards Indigneous peoples, but with a vampiric, Tarantino-esque twist. The massacre in the novel is based on the real Marias Massacre in Montana in 1870, when U.S. soldiers attacked and killed the sleeping camp of Piegan Blackfeet Native people.
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter centres a Lutheran priest who transcribes the life of a Blackfeet vampire confessing his sins and slowly revealing his narrative of revenge. It’s violent, gory, and horrific while simultaneously tragic and complex. It’s packed with many twists that keep the reader constantly engaged, even while the vampire spends years traipsing and killing around the same mountains in the American West. Every time you think you know where the story is going, Jones reminds you of your own ignorance.
Happy new year and happy reading!
Tags
book recommendations, books, Column, Literature, new year, Reads
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