3 Books to read + your invite to write (this Sunday!)
Ready for some powerful writing?
Happy goalsetting week!
Hope you’re getting back into the swing of things…like I am, slowly but surely. Some of my resolution highlights for 2026:
Dry January
Climb 2x per week
Host TWS writing group 2x per month (see below)
Plus all my own writing goals, but I won’t get into that here…
📖 Standout reads from 2025
Each year I set out to read 50 books and wind up finishing 30-40, which I dub a success. My reading list (find me on Goodreads) includes a fair share of perennial favorites, along with plenty of new hits and near misses in my ongoing search for excellent writing.
Friends often ask me for novel recommendations (and I love getting into it)…so here are 3 of my first-time reads that bowled me over this year:
The Dutch House – Ann Patchett
A wrenching and love-woven epic of inheritance and loss, enriched by enchanting imagery and character-driven narrative. Fueled by the trauma bond between brother & sister through the decades, as they try to flee the rubberband anchor of their past…almost like a grimly funny Hansel & Gretel in reverse.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith
I knew about this coming-of-age classic but never read it til now. She pulls you right into the tenement poverty of pre-WWI Brooklyn, floating along on American hopes & dreams. Vividly voiced and vibrantly sensitive, it’s fluid and trim and present in a way not many novels from this era can touch.
Chucklesome highlights include an unexpected (and somewhat unwilling) new perspective on the Tree in question; the tenacious and fast-growing Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima), insidious nemesis of any urban homeowner. But of course the young narrator is very much not a homeowner, and for her it’s a symbol of relentless hope in the cracked concrete crowded expanse she hopes to both capture and escape through her budding writing talent.
Bewilderment – Richard Powers
Definitely not a light & airy beach read, but absolutely worth getting into when you have the head/heart space. You’ll want to focus and sit deep with its narrative rhythms…feel the love and frustration of a father finding wonder trying to see through the eyes of his autistic son in a cruel and tumultuous world.
Be ready to laugh and sob in the same paragraph breath, as your hopes and fears swing out among the stars and reflect back into your innermost corners. Optional pro tip: Revisit Flowers For Algernon first.
*Buying? Support non-Amazon vendors via the Bookshop.org links above 🙏
Come write with us! 📝 Join this Sunday 1/11 at 1:11pm MTN
We’ll meet on Zoom for ~1 hour and write based on a series of timed prompts (preferably in a notebook, so you can’t revise mid-flow). Camera on or off, mute or musing aloud—totally up to you.