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Hello everyone, here are some books I plan on reading throughout 2026. Hope y'all find some stuff that interests you in hereAll links below are Paid Affiliate Links

Play it as it lays by Joan Didion

Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword by Jack Parsons

Winter Light by Douglas Penick

Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño

Loitering by Charles D'Ambrosio

Dispatches by Michael Herr

Exemplary Departures by Gabrielle Wittkop

Death and the Dervish by Meša Selimović

The Golem by Gustav Meyrink

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Today I Wrote Nothing by Daniil Kharms

The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy

(Extra Credit) Chaos by Tom O'Neill

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TBR 2026

BUY BOOK HERE TO SUPPORT THE SHOW (Paid Link): 1. Play it as it lays by Joan Didion: https://amzn.to/49xCkxa 2. Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword by Jack Parsons: https://amzn.to/4r22mhM 2. Winter Light by Douglas Penick: https://amzn.to/4qZN9h0 3. Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño: https://amzn.to/49xCpAY 4. Loitering by Charles D'Ambrosio: https://amzn.to/4pMdyOA 5. Dispatches by Michael Herr: https://amzn.to/4a3tXcD 6. Exemplary Departures by Gabrielle Wittkop: https://amzn.to/4616l5Y 7. Death and the Dervish by Meša Selimović: https://amzn.to/3LyH0tn 8. The Golem by Gustav Meyrink: https://amzn.to/4r5nDav 9. East of Eden by John Steinbeck: https://amzn.to/4pLn44g 10. Today I Wrote Nothing by Daniil Kharms: https://amzn.to/49GjvX9 11. The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy: https://amzn.to/4a3wLqb 13. (Extra Credit) Chaos by Tom O'Neill: https://amzn.to/4pNPJ94 BUY BOOKS FROM HERE TO SUPPORT THE SHOW! (Paid Links) https://amzn.to/3NWvPsx SUPPORT / PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/booksarebetterthanfood BTF WISHLIST (If you send me a book from this list I'll Thank You by name when I review it!): https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/SLCQ3T2OIQ99?ref_=wl_share INSTAGRAM: @booksarebetterthanfood https://www.instagram.com/booksarebetterthanfood MUG: https://www.zazzle.com/better_than_food_coffee_mug-168249045611119837 ----------------------- PATREON INFO: For $5+ per video Patrons you'll get : Patron-Only Reviews All Reviews Ad-Free Discord Channel Access Better Than Friday Newsletter (5 things I'm interested in sent to you every Friday) ------------------------------- PATRON ONLY REVIEWS: Black Sun: The Brief Transit and Violent Eclipse of Harry Crosby - Geoffrey Wolff https://www.patreon.com/posts/black-sun-brief-98677685 TBR 2024 https://www.patreon.com/posts/tbr-2024-patron-96728816 Death in Venice - Thomas Mann https://www.patreon.com/posts/death-in-venice-88575877 The Myth of Sisyphus - Albert Camus https://www.patreon.com/posts/myth-of-sisyphus-80534135 H.P. Lovecraft - The Call of Cthulhu (Halloween Special) https://www.patreon.com/posts/call-of-cthulhu-74055549 Hamlet: Poem Unlimited by Harold Bloom https://www.patreon.com/posts/66203438 10 Books to Be Read 2022: https://www.patreon.com/posts/63010254 Train Dreams by Denis Johnson https://www.patreon.com/posts/60574022 The Necrophiliac by Gabrielle Wittkop - Halloween 2021 https://www.patreon.com/posts/58073911 Death in Midsummer by Yukio Mishima https://www.patreon.com/posts/55759685 Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard https://www.patreon.com/posts/53139833 The Key by Junichiro Tanizaki https://www.patreon.com/posts/51134117 Platforms by Nina Power https://www.patreon.com/posts/48914140 Consider This by Chuck Palahniuk https://www.patreon.com/posts/45465524 Bookshelf Tour 2020: Part 1: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41287302 Part 2: https://www.patreon.com/posts/42817306 Part 3: https://www.patreon.com/posts/43783138 The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat https://www.patreon.com/posts/38823138 Margery Kempe by Robert Glück https://www.patreon.com/posts/38645694 Transparent Things by Vladimir Nabokov https://www.patreon.com/posts/37527267 The Lover by Marguerite Duras https://www.patreon.com/posts/35574016 11 Books to be read in 2020: https://www.patreon.com/posts/33921584 Atomic Habits by James Clear https://www.patreon.com/posts/32697977 Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal https://www.patreon.com/posts/30969884 The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene https://www.patreon.com/posts/29515320 Reading is Expensive (A Rant) https://www.patreon.com/posts/29065141 White by Bret Easton Ellis https://www.patreon.com/posts/26771749 A Room on the Garden Side by Ernest Hemingway https://www.patreon.com/posts/21573550 The Return by Roberto Bolaño https://www.patreon.com/posts/21019229 Darkness Visible by William Styron https://www.patreon.com/posts/20276630 "Blindness", an essay by Jorge Luis Borges https://www.patreon.com/posts/19529985 The Alligators by John Updike https://www.patreon.com/posts/18428537 The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain https://www.patreon.com/posts/17281418 Animal Crackers in My Soup by Charles Bukowski https://www.patreon.com/posts/16924023 A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez https://www.patreon.com/posts/16133547

Comments

Grant Waara

Dispatches by Herr is a flat out classic. Herr co-authored Full Metal Jacket. I have a first printing.

Jacques

Great list! Thanks for the shoutout re: Chaos! That's one that stuck with me for quite a while. Nazi Literature in the Americas is also an amazing read. My 2026 TBR (that I will no doubt stray from and not finish): Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay, Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks, The Maniac by Benjamín Labatut, The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy, Cities on the Plain by Cormac McCarthy, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young, Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino, A Childhood by Harry Crews, A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising by Miron Białoszewski, & City of God by Saint Augustine.

Marek Polacek

I've (finally) started The Brothers Karamazov and I'm looking forward to reading Dispatches and re-reading The Crossing with you this year.

Usmnt442

Should be a great year for reading, at least.

G J Sykes

Thanks Cliff, great list. East of Eden is on my tbr along with Middlemarch, some Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and a re-read of Moby Dick among others. Currently reading (slowly) Don Delillo's Underworld and also J G Ballard's final novel Kingdom Come which is eerily prescient, especially in light of recent events here in the UK. Not bad for a novel written 20 years ago.

Luca Goroshevsky

Kharms is outstanding! He is a big fixture in my family (who are Russian-Jews from formerly Leningrad) and he was held up as something of an ideal almost, of where your imagination can take you. In my adolesence, as I was writing terribly oversentimental wishy-washy poetry, they would always tell me: "Forget this stuff, read Kharms!" It's a real shame you don't hear about him more outside of Russian circles, and so I was naturally quite excited when you mentioned him. Hope you get 'round to reading him this year and that you enjoy his stuff. Cheers

Stephen

What an awesome list and exercise. Now you’ve got me pondering what I need to jump into. In 2026 I’ll be reading: 1) The Palace of Dreams by Ismail Kadaré, 2) The Cossacks by Tolstoy, 3) The Trial by Kafka, 4) More Borges… because it’s Borges, and we’ll see about the rest. Cheers and happy reading!