REVIEW | Your 2026 Guide To Spring Reading
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The winter months have thawed out, and springtime is upon us, ushering in a season of renewal and new beginnings — or perhaps a new habit? Whether you haven’t touched a book in months or inhale pages like oxygen, you are bound to find something of interest on this list. Reading is one of the most beneficial pastimes that you can do for yourself! It’s a great form of escapism, a way to improve vocabulary, and maybe you can get one step closer to fixing that attention span. Below are just a few great picks to help you fall in love with reading this spring. Happy reading!
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
The Idiot is a semi-autobiographical novel in which Elif Batuman uses her character Selin Karadağ, a Turkish American immigrant, to retell her academic and social journey through her time at Harvard. Selin grapples with identity and self-discovery as she makes her way through university, forming relationships and even experiencing an unrequited infatuation for Ivan, a fellow student. The book is set in 1995, when using email as a form of communication first became popular. Selin wrestles with the concept of language as she mistakes her online exchanges with Ivan for real-life intimacy and grapples with language barriers between Turkish and English. Her struggles still feel relevant in this new dawn of technology and the emergence of AI. Selin’s anxiety is raw and relatable. What I found most striking about the novel is that one of the only characters that maintains a persistent presence throughout the book is Selin herself. The fact that many of the other characters don’t remain present throughout the novel serves as a pertinent reminder that people come and go; change is constant and inevitable, and it shapes us as human beings. Batuman’s dry sense of humour laced through Selin makes it very difficult not to root for her character. The Idiot is an addictive piece of literature.
Dance of Thieves by Mary E. Pearson
Are you craving a perfectly paced, slow-burning fantasy with a world that swallows you whole? Well, crave no more! Dance of Thieves is your next read. This YA enemies-to-lovers fantasy follows Jase, head of the menacing Ballenger outlaw family, and Kazi, a street-thief-turned-guard for the newly-appointed Queen Zezelia of Hell’s Gate. The Ballengers act as an autonomous power, rebuking the queen’s sovereignty and creating a delicious tension between Jase and Kazi. Kazi is sent on a mission to investigate the family’s alleged fraud; however, their paths cross after they are kidnapped by labour traffickers. Their proximity and mutual enemy forces them to fight together for freedom. If you haven’t read anything in a while, I highly recommend Dance of Thieves as it is a great page-turner, and easy to read in a sitting. If this book leaves you wanting more, luckily for you, there is a sequel.
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
Beautiful World, Where Are You follows a complex, multi-layered friendship between two young women, Eileen and Alice. The novel is semi-epistolary and consists of an exchange of emails between Eileen and Alice. Both characters grapple with the idea of existence, let alone finding love in a world so seemingly “bleek” and “unliveable.” Through their friendship and respective “romantic” relationships, they discover how much beauty you can find in the people around you in unexpected places. The quote, “I was sitting half asleep in the back of a taxi, remembering strangely that wherever I go, you are with me, and so is he, and that as long as you both live the world will be beautiful to me,” resonated deeply with me. Beautiful World, Where Are You will make you laugh aloud, scream, and maybe tear up a little — or, at the very least, I guarantee you will close it with a smile on your face.
Morvern Callar by Alan Warner
Following her boyfriend’s abrupt death, 21-year-old Morvern claims his manuscript as her own, publishes it, and uses the money to flee to Spain, seeking a new beginning away from her damp and dreary life in Scotland. Although the novel is set in the stream-of-consciousness style, it feels like Morvern is keeping the reader at arm's length rather than revealing her true emotional state; her thoughts mostly consist of more mundane and ordinary things. She somehow draws a strange boundary around her inner life. Warner is obviously very intentional with this, striking a case of unreliable narration and a sense of numbness and detachment tied to his character. The mere notion you get of her character is based almost entirely on outside perceptions; she is proclaimed a “tragic orphan” by some, a “hedonistic psychopath” by others, and even an "opportunist grifter.” The wide range of how other people perceive her is slightly unsettling. If you are looking to try something new, this psychological, artfully done novel is transcendent of time and sure to be the best use of your time.