At Penguin Random House in 2025, revenue rose 1.3%, to €4.981 billion (about $5.76 billion), with organic growth at 3.3%. With the gain in sales, PRH was one of the positive contributors to Bertelsmann results, although PRH had a decline in earnings, "mainly due to growth-related expenses in the U.S. core business, along with negative exchange rate effects." Operating earnings for PRH were €704 million (about $814 million), down from €739 million (about $854 million) the previous year.

At parent company Bertelsmann, revenues in 2025 slipped 0.2%, to €19 billion (about $22 billion), with organic growth up 1.9%, offset by negative currency exchange rates and revenue declines at some parts of the company. Group profit was slightly over €1 billion (about $1.16 billion). Chairman and CEO Thomas Rabe called 2025 "a solid financial year for us. In a challenging environment, our broad business and geographic footprint once again proved its worth."

Bertelsmann said that PRH increased market share in most of its markets, including the U.S., mainly because of a range of bestsellers.

Bertelsmann said that investments at PRH focused on "content, audience reach, and operational excellence that strengthened the company's competitive advantage," with "a core priority" being "the responsible deployment of advanced AI-driven technologies to increase commercial capability and operational efficiency, while rigorously safeguarding authors' copyrights and intellectual property." PRH also invested in "cutting-edge" distribution centers in Spain and Australia.

In a letter to staff, PRH CEO Nihar Malaviya said in part, "We had a solid year, growing revenues in a mixed marketplace. The depth and breadth of our publishing program, along with your incredible work, were instrumental in the success of our books--from maximizing the sales and extending the life of mega out-of-the-gate blockbusters, such as Mel Robbins's The Let Them Theory or Dan Brown's The Secret of Secrets, to championing smaller books that grew over time and became major bestsellers, such as The Correspondent by Virginia Evans or Buckeye by Patrick Ryan. Not to mention the enduring success of our backlist stalwarts like the works of Eric Carle and Dr. Seuss, and Atomic Habits by James Clear. 

"Despite increased revenues, our profitability continued to be impacted by rising costs that all of us are feeling in our day-to-day lives, along with certain currency effects. Even with those factors affecting Penguin Random House, we continue to be a strong pillar of Bertelsmann's overall success and global portfolio."

He added that he is "optimistic about our industry and Penguin Random House," noting that "we have successfully navigated many different disruptions in the past." As an example of "the importance of agility and adaptability," he pointed to "our incredibly fast rights acquisition and publication of KPop Demon Hunters, a book that went from idea to shelf in three months, underscoring our ability to capitalize on this trend and publish a property across multiple PRH markets."

PRH's global footprint also offers "valuable insights and lessons from many different marketplaces, enabling us to adapt, innovate, and lead in a way that no other publisher can match....

"I am confident that the year ahead will be one that brings learnings, growth, and most of all, many different kinds of stories worth celebrating together."

At HarperCollins the sales team has been reorganized into two groups--divisional sales and channel sales--which separates "strategic internal partnership from customer-facing execution," as noted by Liate Stehlik, who was promoted to CEO and publisher, U.S. trade, last month. Divisional sales will be "the key link between sales and publishing, shaping go-to-market strategy and delivering results aligned with corporate goals. Channel sales will now have dedicated channel leaders who will oversee both adult and children's, with a mandate to drive growth and deepen customer support." Both teams will report to Doug Lockhart, interim president of sales.

As a result, several promotions have been made:

• Kelly Roberts has been promoted to senior v-p, deputy director of sales, and will lead the divisional sales teams responsible for connecting sales and publishing.
• Monica Shah, v-p, children's sales, will lead the children's divisional sales team while also taking on an expanded role overseeing the national accounts channel for both adult and children's.
• Jen Wygand has been promoted to senior director, national accounts and brand management.
• Marianna Ricciuto has been promoted to director, online sales, overseeing audio and digital, a new role.
• Jess Abel has been promoted to director, online sales, overseeing Amazon sales of children's print and e-books.

Following its soft opening earlier this month, Hollow and Quill will host a grand opening in Reno, Nev., this Saturday, March 28, KOLO8 reported.

Located at 300 S. Wells Ave. #6, Hollow and Quill focuses on romance, horror, and mystery and thriller titles. Owners Gina Pelland and Ariana Micale plan to host plenty of community events, including book clubs and writing groups. They are running about six book clubs already, and they hope local community groups will come and make use of the space.

Pelland told KOLO they wanted to provide "a space for the community to share their love of books" as well as "space to sit and read and co-work." Micale added that since the Covid-19 pandemic, "People have been craving that connection and that community, especially community that is represented through literature."

The grand opening on Saturday will run from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and include special gifts for the first 50 visitors and hourly raffles.

Evermore Books, a "romance boutique," held a ribbon-cutting ceremony and grand opening this week at 857b Bank St. in Ottawa, Ont., Canada. The Ottawa Citizen reported that owner and lifelong reader Amanda Holmes first read A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas two years ago, after which her interest in the genre would "snowball" into the new romance-exclusive bookstore.

Amanda Holmes

The booktique idea began last year when she took a stress leave from her work as an academic librarian, a job she'd had since 2014. "I jokingly told my husband that I was going to quit my job and open a romance-only bookstore," she said, adding that even after returning to work she was still thinking about the business idea.

She began seriously pursuing the idea after resigning from the "corporate world" in December. Holmes told the Citizen that her vision for the store was to have a space that was whimsical, open and airy, as well as bright and welcoming. "I wanted folks, when they walk by, to be curious and to indulge in that curiosity."

She also wanted to address the stigma that tends to devalue and undervalue women writing about sex in the romance genre: "I think (it) gets dismissed, and this store is very much reclaiming that. Women authors are valued; even if they write sex scenes, it's still valued and valuable."

Holmes added: "It's become more than a healing journey. This is a space for community now. And I'm so excited to open the doors for romance readers in Ottawa to reclaim the space as their own."

Tracy Kidder, "a wide-ranging journalist and author whose deep reporting and novelistic prose illuminated worlds as diverse as home construction, disease prevention and--as portrayed in his prizewinning 1981 breakthrough book, The Soul of a New Machine--the computer industry," died March 24, the New York Times reported. He was 80. Kidder "highlighted people who had mastered their realms, placing them as characters in accounts that rang true because they were based on staggering amounts of research."

Tracy Kidder

For Among Schoolchildren (1989), he spent a school year in a Massachusetts classroom. For Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World (2003), he followed Dr. Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, an organization that provides care to some of the world's poorest people, to his hospital in Haiti as well as to Peru, Cuba, and Russia. House (1985) depicted the process of planning and building a home, focusing on the relationships between owners, architects, and builders. 

The Soul of a New Machine, which won a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, "introduced readers to the physical parts and electronic bits that go into creating a business computer. The book arrived just as the PC revolution was gearing up," the Times wrote, adding that when he took on the project, Kidder told a reporter for the Times that he was not familiar with the field and relied on his subjects at Data General Corporation to teach him.

"Some of them despaired over my lack of technological background," Kidder said, "but most of them were pleased that an outsider was interested in what they were doing." While he worked to get the technology research right, Kidder said he cared most about "the people themselves, their incredible passion for this thing."

At Harvard, Kidder took a creative writing course from the poet and translator Robert Fitzgerald, who, he said, "made me feel that writing could be a high calling, possibly available to me." 

During the Vietnam War, he spent a year monitoring radio transmissions in the rear echelon. "His service, he recalled in an interview for his obituary last year, did not make the impression on him that it had made on writers like Tim O'Brien, who created masterpieces from their war experiences," the Times noted.

On his return he wrote a war novel, Ivory Fields, that was rejected by 33 publishers. He burned the remaining copies of the manuscript, but years later a friend sent him a copy, and Kidder decided to write a memoir about his Vietnam experience, which became My Detachment (2005).

Kidder attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he "was intimidated by his fellow novelists in the program, including Denis Johnson and T.C. Boyle," the Times noted. Struggling to write fiction, he turned to journalism on the advice of Seymour Krim, one of his professors. "I liked it--it was like a relief from the sound of my own mind," Kidder recalled.

Author Stuart Dybek, a friend from that time, said narrative journalism freed Kidder: "Every day we go by people building a house. Tracy goes by people building a house and he sees stories there. He sees characters there. It sounds simple--but try to do it."

Kidder developed a working relationship and friendship with Richard Todd, and when Todd became a book editor in the 1980s, Kidder "stuck with him. In 2013, the two men published a book about writing, Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction," the Times wrote. 

Many of his books focused on heroic virtuousness, including Mountains Beyond Mountains; Strength in What Remains (2010); and Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O'Connell's Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People (2023). The Times noted that Kidder was writing about deep, even intimidating, goodness. "I'm drawn to that," he said. "I don't know why the world is such a miserable place."

Barnes & Noble on Manhattan's Upper West Side hosted Billy Porter for his picture book Songbird in the Light (Abrams Books for Young Readers), written with Chris Clarkson and illustrated by Charly Palmer. Porter (l.) was in conversation with director Jerry Mitchell; the two longtime friends worked together on Kinky Boots. They chatted for 45 minutes and then Porter did a photo op with guests.

Through its AUPresses Digital Digest, the Association of University Presses is offering selected books, journal articles, booklists, and commentary from member presses and their expert authors, offering essential reading to all who seek context for the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran and responses throughout the Middle East. To see the works, click here.

Click here to see the latest Independent Press Top 40, the weekly bestseller list celebrating the bestselling 40 fiction and 40 nonfiction titles from independent publishers, as sold by independent bookstores across the country. The list is sponsored by the Independent Publishers Caucus and the American Booksellers Association.

This week's debut titles are all nonfiction:

 6. Thirty-Two Words for Field: Lost Words of the Irish Landscape by Manchán Magan (Chelsea Green)
19. The End of My Life Is Killing Me: The Unexpected Joys of a Cancer Slacker by Annabelle Gurwitch (Zibby Publishing)
31. Mobilize: How to Reboot the American Industrial Base and Stop World War III by Shyam Sankar and Madeline Hart (Bombardier Books)
35. Stephen Sondheim: Art Isn't Easy (Jewish Lives) by Daniel Okrent (Yale University Press)

Simon & Schuster is now handling worldwide sales and distribution for the core imprints at Advantage | The Authority Company.

Founded in 2005, Advantage | The Authority Company is a global hybrid business book publisher and partners with CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business leaders on "activating and elevating their authority through done-for-you book publishing and ongoing authority-building services beyond the book launch."

Advantage | The Authority Company's services include book publishing under six primary imprints--Forbes Books, Entrepreneur Books, SXSW Books, Advantage Books, Rethink Press, and Rethink Books--public relations, podcasting, personal brand websites, content creation, brand strategy, and more. Advantage Media has offices in Charleston, S.C., and London.

Adam Witty, founder and CEO of Advantage | The Authority Company, said, "As the leading authority-builder, we bring our authors' messages to the world through their books and thought leadership. This is a huge step in that process. Simon & Schuster's globally-known and powerful distribution service will greatly enhance our delivery while helping our CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business leaders reach the widest possible audience."

Dare to Think Differently: How Open-Mindedness Creates Exceptional Decision-Making by Gerald Zaltman (Stanford Business Books).

Today:
Fresh Air: Katrina Manson, author of Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare (W. W. Norton, $31.99, 9781324123316).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Radha Lin Chaddah, author of And the Ancestors Sing (Rising Action, $18.99, 9781998672202).

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 this weekend from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's website.

Saturday, March 28
9:30 a.m. Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash, author of The Presidential Pardon: The Short Clause with a Long, Troubled History (Harvard University Press, $22.95, 9780674303201). (Re-airs Saturday at 9:30 p.m.)

2 p.m. Tim McGrath, author of Three Roads to Gettysburg: Meade, Lee, Lincoln, and the Battle That Changed the War, the Speech That Changed the Nation (Dutton Caliber, $39, 9780593184394).

4:15 p.m. Sylvester Allen, Jr., and Belle Boggs, authors of The Legend of Wyatt Outlaw: From Reconstruction through Black Lives Matter (The University of North Carolina Press, $30, 9781469689999). 

6:35 p.m. Bob Crawford, author of America's Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick (Zando, $28, 9781638932604).

Sunday, March 29
9 a.m. Oliver James, author of Unread: A Memoir of Learning (and Loving) to Read on TikTok (Union Square & Co., $28, 9781454959403), at Copperfield's Books in Petaluma, Calif. (Re-airs Sunday at 9:16 p.m.)

10 a.m. Nicholas Boggs, author of Baldwin: A Love Story (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $36, 9780374178710). (Re-airs Sunday at 10:10 p.m.)

11 a.m. Andrew S. Curran, author of Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson (Other Press, $39.99, 9781635422245), at Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge, Mass. (Re-airs Sunday at 11:08 p.m.)

1:10 p.m. Khameer Kidia, author of Empire of Madness: Reimagining Western Mental Health Care for Everyone (Crown, $32, 9780593594285), at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C.

5:40 p.m. Gavin Newsom, author of Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery (Penguin Press, $30, 9781984881939).

The Women's Prize Trust has released the shortlist for the 2026 Women's Prize for Nonfiction, which "promotes excellence in writing, robust research, original narrative voices and accessibility, showcasing women's expertise across a range of fields," and is a sister prize to the Women's Prize for Fiction. The award is sponsored by Findmypast.

The winner, who will be named on June 11 at the Women's Prize Trust's summer party in London (along with the Women's Prize for Fiction), receives £30,000 (about $40,130) and a limited-edition artwork known as the "Charlotte," both given by the Charlotte Aitken Trust. This year's shortlisted titles are: 

The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People's History of Afghanistan by Lyse Doucet
Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health by Daisy Fancourt 
Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The Lives and Loves of Gwen and Augustus John by Judith Mackrell 
Hotel Exile: Paris in the Shadow of War by Jane Rogoyska 
Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy 
Nation of Strangers: Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century by Ece Temelkuran 

Chair of judges Thangam Debbonaire said: "Whittling our remarkable longlist down to just six titles was by no means an easy task, but after careful consideration, we are proud to present a shortlist that celebrates six exceptional books and six hugely talented writers, and offers readers collectively a timely and timeless interrogation of our world today. Our shortlist shows the power and necessity of women's writing at a time when recent statistics suggest a decline in nonfiction print sales in the U.K.. These books are an urgent antidote to mis- and dis-information, written with high standards of scholarship. They offer rich and original insights, in what often feels like a fragmented and uncertain world. They are six books of authority, told with humanity."

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, March 31:

The News from Dublin: Stories by Colm Tóibín (Scribner, $29, 9781476785141) collects nine short stories set in the U.S., Ireland, and Spain. 

Son of Nobody by Yann Martel (W.W. Norton, $29.99, 9781324118138) is a retelling of the Trojan War from the perspectives of an ancient soldier and a modern scholar.

The Final Storm by Fern Michaels (Kensington, $28, 9781496756596) is a thriller about a photographer whose new relationship brings up past trauma and dark secrets.

How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself by Jenny Lawson (Penguin Life, $29, 9780593833216) shares advice on how to thrive even in the midst of mental health issues and other problems.

Arsenio: A Memoir by Arsenio Hall (Atria/Black Privilege Publishing, $28.99, 9781982191368) is the memoir of the trailblazing TV host.

The Keeper: A Novel by Tana French (Viking, $32, 9780593493465) is the third thriller with Cal Hooper, a retired Chicago detective in an Irish village.

This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews (Tor Books, $29.99, 9781250377265) is romantasy about a woman who wakes up in the setting of her favorite fantasy series.

Danny Go's Volcano Adventure! by Danny Go, illus. by Aleksandar Zolotic (Abrams, $16.99, 9781419786105) is an interactive picture book written by and featuring YouTube star Danny Go.

Devious Prey by Scott Reintgen (McElderry, $19.99, 9781665978934) is a YA fantasy in which a young woman smuggles a deadly mythical creature aboard an airship.

The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness by Arthur C. Brooks (Portfolio, $30, 9780593545423) explores ways to find meaning in the modern world.

When the Forest Breathes: Renewal and Resilience in the Natural World by Suzanne Simard (Knopf, $30, 9780593318683) investigates the cyclical ways in which forests thrive.

True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color--From Azure to Zinc Pink by Kory Stamper (Knopf, $32, 9781524733032) is a history of how hues were defined from the 1930s through the modern day. 

Paperbacks:
Game On by Navessa Allen (Slowburn, $19, 9781638932277).

The Bridge Back to You by Riss M. Neilson (Berkley, $19, 9780593640517).

The Moonshine Women by Michelle Collins Anderson (A John Scognamiglio Book,  $18.95, 9781496748300).

From last week's Indie bestseller lists, available at IndieBound.org, here are the recommended titles, which are also Indie Next Great Reads:

Hardcover
200 Monas: A Novel by Jan Saenz (Little, Brown, $29, 9780316595889). "This book was a trip. Try to keep up with main character Arvy as she desperately tries to find a way to sell 200 pills she discovered in her recently deceased mother's closet. The story is fast paced, raunchy, and sprinkled with notes of humanity." --Kyra Tatlow, Book Love, Plymouth, Mass.

Lake Effect: A Novel by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney (Ecco, $30, 9780063377684). "Fans of The Nest will be thrilled to have Sweeney back with an equally riveting family saga. New readers to Sweeney's rich prose and unforgettable characters will come away with lessons on facing up to and letting go of the past." --James Conrad, The Golden Notebook, Woodstock, N.Y.

Paperback
The Story She Left Behind: A Novel by Patti Callahan Henry (Atria, $19, 9781668011881). "The Story She Left Behind transports us across the Atlantic along with these characters. Patti Callahan Henry's gorgeous writing grips our hearts and won't let go as she weaves a story of mothers and daughters full of mystery and imagination." --Theresa Decker, Book Love the Bookshop of Senoia, Senoia, Ga.

Ages 3-7
Ruthie by Esmé Shapiro (Tundra Books, $18.99, 9781774885659). "This precious picture book is what dreams are made of! If I could jump into these whimsical pages and journey with Prince Ruthie and friends, I would in a heartbeat." --Amali Gordon-Buxbaum, Books Are Magic, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Ages 8-12
Queso, Just in Time by Ernesto Cisneros (Quill Tree Books, $19.99, 9780063092242). "Queso is such a wonderful character who, as he time travels, experiences so many emotions including love and loss and grief. The book includes the importance of friendship and community, culture and diversity, past and present, and libraries as safe places." --Mollie Mitchell, HearthFire Books, Evergreen, Colo.

Ages 12+: Indies Introduce
Her Hidden Fire by Cliodhna O'Sullivan (Viking Books for Young Readers, $22.99, 9798217040506). "A romantasy set in a fantasy-Ireland full of magic, betrayals, and battles for power. A young man set out to save his family from a future that forces them to give up their place and home. Unknown to him, his childhood friend sets out to protect him, but at what cost? I loved this!" --Shannon Alden, Literati Bookstore, Ann Arbor, Mich.

[Many thanks to IndieBound and the ABA!]

John Glynn's first novel, The Lost Book of Lancelot, is a beautiful foray into Arthurian legend from the point of view of one of its most notorious but less explored characters, Lancelot.

Glynn (Out East: Memoir of a Montauk Summer) begins Lancelot's story on the Isle of Women, where he is being raised, nameless, by a mysterious and magical sisterhood. He is the only man or boy allowed to reside there, until the handsome Galehaut is brought to train with him to become knights. Lancelot discovers his name, his family, his true love, and the prophecies about him from the great Merlin--prophecies Lancelot wishes to reject--but fate has other plans.

Despite his best efforts, he finds himself at Camelot, grief-ridden. He is in the service of King Arthur, growing close with Queen Guinevere, and trying to prove himself worthy of knighthood among the Round Table, and of the quest for the grail especially, amid the encroachment on the kingdom and its allies by Roman legionnaires. But little about Camelot, or even about who holds true power in this world, is straightforward. The more Lancelot learns about Camelot, Merlin, and even the isle he once called home, the more complicated matters become. The Lost Book of Lancelot creates space to consider the tensions between love, fate, and control of one's own destiny, and how all of these to an extent require fully knowing and accepting one's self.

Glynn's queering and expansion of the tale is thoroughly researched and knowledgeably done. Glynn finds the opportunities in historical texts such as the Vulgate Cycle and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in order to reinvigorate these stories and characters in a way that feels modern but also fits seamlessly into the wider body of Arthuriana and existing adaptations. Readers will meet characters they think they know well, as well those pulled from historical ephemera, in this exquisitely layered novel that emphasizes the relationships between these people as even more important than their myths. The Lost Book of Lancelot is astounding in its perspective on a legendary time through the lens of various forms of love, including first love and the deepest friendships. Glynn imagines a more multifaceted past underneath the familiar story. --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer

Shelf Talker: John Glynn's debut is a refreshing, enchanting queering of the life of Lancelot, reinventing Camelot in a way that manages to feel both new and familiar.

It's nearly the end of March. How are you doing on those reading resolutions and goals for 2026? Can you feel the lit clock ticking? Did you mourn the hour of reading lost when we time traveled to Daylight Saving Time? 

In January I noted that the Word of the Year for readers should always be "resolutions" or "goals," and I shared Guardian illustrator Tom Gauld's take on "The Five Stages of Grieving for an Overambitious Reading Resolution."

Now here we are, three months in already. As Marc Maron used to say on his WTF podcast, "Are we good, people?!" Take a beat. No pressure, even though it is the National Year of Reading in the U.K. and maybe you do need to pick up the pace just a bit. But who's keeping score?

Jack Edwards

Lots of people, of course. You know some. BookTokers have ramped up the reading goals competition significantly. Last month, "book influencer" Jack Edwards, who has 1.5 million followers across Instagram and TikTok, told the Guardian: "I set reading goals that feel achievable. Last year, my goal was 100 books and I read 137. The point isn't competition; it's noticing how I spend my time. How much did I read last week versus how much time did I spend on my phone? The latter becomes about how you're perceived; it turns toxic.... 

"But, for me, reading has always been something I really enjoy, and you have to make sure you're only competing with yourself rather than doing it for other people. I think of reading like going to the gym: you train endurance and strength. It's not just how long you read, but how long you can sustain focus and critical thought. The brain is a muscle, you build it over time."

Booksellers have always loved the game, and play it in a variety of ways.:

At the Brewster Book Store

Sunshine Book Nook, Urbana, Ohio: "We are looking forward to our reading tracker craft night tomorrow.... For those that didn't get signed up in time, we will have some take home kits available...."

The Brewster Book Store, Brewster, Mass.: "This past year, our booksellers read a wide range of genres. While challenging ourselves to read more than we did the previous year, to read outside our 'comfortable' genres, and, of course, to discover books our community will love, we were reading books published this year. We cannot wait to share them with you all as they are released. It is going to be another good year for readers!"

Word Squirrel Books, Kincardine, Ont., Canada: "Does anyone else have a reading goal in 2026 to read more classics, or is it just me?"

Niche Books, Lakeville, Minn.: "Spring break is coming, and that means it's time to track your reading! If you 1. read every day from March 27-April 5, 2. Track your pages read/minutes listened, and 3. Bring your tracker back to Niche Books with your info on it, you'll be entered to win one of two $10 gift cards! Come get your tracker this week before the challenge kicks off!"

Australians have been under pressure since December to complete their summer beach reads lists, a seasonal shadow that's creeping around to this side of the planet soon enough, folks. 

If it's any consolation, I've always felt a little guilty about the number of books I read in a year, especially because the business I'm in makes other people think I'm a reading machine. I'm not. I don't keep score; I don't have goals. 

Whether that's due to stubbornness or habit (good or bad, you decide) I'm not sure. But I've always been a patient reader and that does not help the numbers game. I tend to linger over pages, paragraphs, sentences. I reread passages. I underline and bracket. 

Naturally, my old bookseller's instinct shows up regularly in my reading life, as I still juggle three, four, or five unfinished books while eyeing others in my TBR stack. The downside to this grazing technique, however, is that I don't finish many of them and it's hard to know what really counts as far as scorekeeping is concerned. Does reading 200 pages of a 300-page book count for anything toward your yearly reading goal? No? How does it compare to reading five picture books to your kids? I guess a win's a win, right? 

To make my reading pace even more measured (in the other, non-scorekeeping sense of the word), this winter (a bitterly cold and snowy one where I live), I've been reading the brilliant Ice, a more than 1,000-page doorstopper of a sci-fi novel by Polish author Jacek Dukaj, translated by Ursula Phillips (Head of Zeus/an AdAstra Book). To be honest, I alternate between reading the book and listening to the audiobook. It's a technique I started doing instinctively with this novel--to keep characters and terms straight--before learning that "hybrid reading" is more of a thing now than I realized. 

At the moment, my reading resolution for 2026 is to finish Ice (just kidding; I'm 700 pages in). Whether you're on track or falling behind with your reading goals for the rest of the year, know that I'm rooting for you. In a country where 40% of U.S. citizens didn't read any books in 2025 (a YouGov survey), and another 40% read one to nine books, I'm just here to say, "You're good!" Hey, we're all reading as fast as we can, man.