Five Books I Will Be Reading in 2027
ยท by Mike
A spaceship crewed by spiders, two pool hustlers, a pigeon, a sleepwalking nurse and a mother on the run. My reading list for the year ahead.
Every year I make a short list. Not twenty books I will never finish, just five I really want to read. I pick them the same way I pick people to spend an evening with: someone who can tell a story and does not waste my time.
All five books below have release dates confirmed by their publishers. Most of their authors have sold millions of copies. One of them is a sea of space, one is a pool hall, one is a pigeon. Here they are in the order they come out.
January: Children of Strife by Adrian Tchaikovsky
On January 26 comes the fourth book of the Children of Time series. If you have not read it, the idea is simple and strange: Earth is gone, and humans share their ships with intelligent spiders and other creatures who learned to think on their own. This time the crew, with a mantis shrimp as captain, finds an old ark and a lost world. Then one human wakes up and almost everyone on board has vanished.
I like stories where you are alone on a ship and something is wrong. This one promises exactly that. The publisher's page is here https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adrian-tchaikovsky/children-of-strife/9780316586757/
March: The Last Days of Vic & Coco by Taylor Jenkins Reid
On March 2 Taylor Jenkins Reid takes us to the summer of 1974. Vic and Coco travel around and hustle pool. Coco makes overconfident men bet against Vic, and Vic never loses. They are best friends who do not even know each other's real names. Prices are rising, money is running out, and they plan one last big score.
I have never met a hustler I trusted, so I want to see if these two can trust each other. The publisher's page https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/469446/the-last-days-of-vic-and-coco-by-reid-taylor-jenkins/9781804964415
March: Blaze by Emma Donoghue
A week later, on March 9, comes the strangest book on my list. It is 2040, the big city is half empty after a disaster, and the story is told by a young pigeon named Blaze. Her flock lives by one rule: no pigeon lives long alone. Then she takes in an old loner who remembers how things were before.
It is a short book, about 160 pages. I expect to read it in one evening and think about it for a week. The publisher's page https://www.simonandschuster.net/books/Blaze/Emma-Donoghue/9781668240427
March: The Sleepwalker by Freida McFadden
On March 23 the queen of fast thrillers is back. Samantha is a nurse who has walked in her sleep since she was a teenager, and she has found a dark use for it. Then bodies appear that she does not remember at all.
McFadden's books are what I take on a long trip: short chapters, a twist at the end of each one, and I always say "one more chapter" at two in the morning. The publisher's page https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-sleepwalker-9798256507237
May: The Fire by Kristin Hannah
On May 4 comes the new novel by Kristin Hannah, and this time it is not history but today. Merritt Locke has always been the one her family relies on. After a betrayal and a public scandal, she breaks the one rule everyone counts on her to keep and takes off on a road trip across the country to find her estranged daughter.
I trust this author with the big feelings. And a road trip story is always a good one: the road changes people more than any conversation. The publisher's page https://www.panmacmillan.com/the-fire
My rule for the year
Five books, five very different worlds: a spaceship, a pool hall, a pigeon's city, a hospital at night and a highway. That is the point. A good year of reading is like a good voyage: you never know which port will be the one you remember.
My rule is simple. If a book does not catch me in fifty pages, I put it down without guilt. Life is too short for bad books, and too long without good ones.