New Year, New TBR | Bibliophage Book Club

Welcome the first official Bibliophage Book Club.

We've selected twelves books to read together through 2026.

We argued about this for weeks. And we’re petty so we got down to name calling about it. Passive aggressive shit. And then we made the book list petty too. Instead of agreeing on books to read together, we’re forcing the other to read books we want them to. The qualifications - They already existed in 2025 when we made the list. That’s all the qualifications.

We've labeled each book according to who picked it. The links lead to our Bookshop.Org shop and if you purchase from the link, you're supporting the author, Bibliophage, and an independent bookstore.

January - How to Be A Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler (G)

Groundhog Day meets Guardians of the Galaxy in Django Wexler’s laugh-out-loud fantasy tale about a young woman who, tired of defending humanity from the Dark Lord, decides to become the Dark Lord herself.

Davi has done this all before. She’s tried to be the hero and take down the all-powerful Dark Lord. A hundred times she’s rallied humanity and made the final charge. But the time loop always gets her in the end. Sometimes she’s killed quickly. Sometimes it takes a while. But she’s been defeated every time.

This time? She’s done being the hero and done being stuck in this endless time loop. If the Dark Lord always wins, then maybe that’s who she needs to be. It’s Davi’s turn to play on the winning side.

February - Officer Clemmons by Francois Clemmons (J)

Details the incredible life story of François Clemmons, beginning with his early years in Alabama and Ohio, marked by family trauma and loss, through his studies as a music major at Oberlin College, where Clemmons began to investigate and embrace his homosexuality, to a chance encounter with Fred Rogers which changed the whole course of both men’s lives, leading to a deep, spiritual friendship and mentorship spanning nearly forty years.

When he earned the role as “Officer Clemmons” on the award-winning television series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Clemmons made history as the first African American actor to have a recurring role on a children’s program. A new, wide world opened for Francois — but one which also required him to make painful personal choices, and sacrifices.

From New York to the Soviet Union, Berlin to California, Clemmons has performed for audiences around the world, and remains a beloved figure. Evocative and intimate, and buoyed by its author’s own vivacious, inimitable energy, Officer Clemmons chronicles a historical and enlightening life and career of a man who has brought joy to millions of adults and children, across generations and borders.

March - The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd (G)

Nell Young’s whole life and greatest passion is cartography. Her father, Dr. Daniel Young, is a legend in the field and Nell’s personal hero. But she hasn’t seen or spoken to him ever since he cruelly fired her and destroyed her reputation after an argument over an old, cheap gas station highway map.

But when Dr. Young is found dead in his office at the New York Public Library, with the very same seemingly worthless map hidden in his desk, Nell can’t resist investigating. To her surprise, she soon discovers that the map is incredibly valuable and exceedingly rare. In fact, she may now have the only copy left in existence... because a mysterious collector has been hunting down and destroying every last one—along with anyone who gets in the way.

But why?

To answer that question, Nell embarks on a dangerous journey to reveal a dark family secret and discovers the true power that lies in maps...

From the critically acclaimed author of The Book of M, a highly imaginative thriller about a young woman who discovers that a strange map in her deceased father’s belongings holds an incredible, deadly secret—one that will lead her on an extraordinary adventure and to the truth about her family’s dark history.

April - Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult (J)

Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than twenty years' experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she's been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don't want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders or does she intervene?

Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy's counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family—especially her teenage son—as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other's trust, and come to see that what they've been taught their whole lives about others—and themselves—might be wrong.

With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion—and doesn't offer easy answers. Small Great Things is a remarkable achievement from a writer at the top of her game.

May - Thinky Thoughts by Gwenna Laithland (J)

Before I was a mom who cusses, I was a millennial. Before I was that, I was just a kid with a brain that moved too fast. I've spent more time than I'm proud of getting lost in my Thinky Thoughts. They go a little something like

How has my childhood shaped my motherhood? I might have lost my phone again. Is it that big a deal if the kids call me cringe? I haven't left the house today. Is it a problem that I don't leave the house for days? Why does my daughter hate rollercoasters but love adzuki beans? Cranberry bog spiders. What if they rearrange the grocery store again?

Thinky Thoughts walks the line between memoir, storytelling, guided meditation, and self-help. It’s a little bit of explanation, a lot a bit of exploration, and a tiny bit of still not knowing what’s I’m supposed to be doing as an adult. It’s also being okay with not knowing.

Thinky Thoughts won’t answer life’s great questions. But it will make you feel a little better knowing you’re not alone in asking them.

June - Princesses Behaving Badly by Linda McRobbie (J)

You think you know her story. You've read the Brothers Grimm, you've watched the Disney cartoons, and you cheered as these virtuous women lived happily ever after. But real princesses didn't always get happy endings. Sure, plenty were graceful and benevolent leaders, but just as many were ruthless in their quest for power and all of them had skeletons rattling in their royal closets. Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe was a Nazi spy. Empress Elisabeth of the Austro-Hungarian empire slept wearing a mask of raw veal. Princess Olga of Kiev slaughtered her way to sainthood while Princess Lakshmibai waged war on the battlefield, charging into combat with her toddler son strapped to her back. Princesses Behaving Badly offers true tales of all these princesses and dozens more in a fascinating read that's perfect for history buffs, feminists, and anyone seeking a different kind of bedtime story.

July - When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi (G)

From the New York Times bestselling author of Starter Villain comes an entirely serious take on a distinctly unserious subject: what would really happen if suddenly the moon were replaced by a giant wheel of cheese.

It's a whole new moooooon.

One day soon, suddenly and without explanation, the moon as we know it is replaced with an orb of cheese with the exact same mass. Through the length of an entire lunar cycle, from new moon to a spectacular and possibly final solar eclipse, we follow multiple characters -- schoolkids and scientists, billionaires and workers, preachers and politicians -- as they confront the strange new world they live in, and the absurd, impossible moon that now hangs above all their lives.

August - All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood (J)

A beautiful and provocative love story between two unlikely people and the hard-won relationship that elevates them above the Midwestern meth lab backdrop of their lives.

As the daughter of a drug dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. It's safer to keep her mouth shut and stay out of sight. Struggling to raise her little brother, Donal, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind her house, until one night her star gazing causes an accident. After witnessing his motorcycle wreck, she forms an unusual friendship with one of her father's thugs, Kellen, a tattooed ex-con with a heart of gold.

By the time Wavy is a teenager, her relationship with Kellen is the only tender thing in a brutal world of addicts and debauchery. When tragedy rips Wavy's family apart, a well-meaning aunt steps in, and what is beautiful to Wavy looks ugly under the scrutiny of the outside world. A powerful novel you wont soon forget, Bryn Greenwood's All the Ugly and Wonderful Things challenges all we know and believe about love.

September - Witch of Wild Things by Raquel Gililand (J)

Legend goes that long ago a Flores woman offended the old gods, and their family was cursed as a result. Now, every woman born to the family has a touch of magic.

Sage Flores has been running from her family—and their “gifts”—ever since her younger sister Sky died. Eight years later, Sage reluctantly returns to her hometown. Like slipping into an old, comforting sweater, Sage takes back her job at Cranberry Rose Company and uses her ability to communicate with plants to discover unusual heritage specimens in the surrounding lands.

What should be a simple task is complicated by her partner in botany sleuthing: Tennessee Reyes. He broke her heart in high school, and she never fully recovered. Working together is reminding her of all their past tender, genuine moments—and new feelings for this mature sexy man are starting to take root in her heart.

With rare plants to find, a dead sister who keeps bringing her coffee, and another sister whose anger fills the sky with lightning, Sage doesn’t have time for romance. But being with Tenn is like standing in the middle of a field on the cusp of a summer thunderstorm—supercharged and inevitable.

October - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (G)

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her enslaved ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia — a land of wooden quarters for enslaved people, faith healings, and voodoo — to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.

Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family — past and present — is inextricably connected to the history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother’s cells. She was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance?

Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.

November -  Wildwood by Colin Meloy (G)

For fans of the Chronicles of Narnia comes the first book in the Wildwood Chronicles, the New York Times bestselling fantasy adventure series by Colin Meloy, lead singer of the Decemberists, and Carson Ellis, acclaimed illustrator of The Mysterious Benedict Society.

Wildwood captivates readers with the wonder and thrill of a secret world within the landscape of a modern city. It feels at once firmly steeped in the classics of children's literature and completely fresh. The story is told from multiple points of view, and the book features more than eighty illustrations, including six full-color plates, making this an absolutely gorgeous object.

In Wildwood, Prue and her friend Curtis uncover a secret world in the midst of violent upheaval—a world full of warring creatures, peaceable mystics, and powerful figures with the darkest intentions. And what begins as a rescue mission becomes something much greater as the two friends find themselves entwined in a struggle for the very freedom of this wilderness. A wilderness the locals call Wildwood.

The bestselling trilogy from Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis consists of Wildwood, Under Wildwood, and Wildwood Imperium.

December - The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams (G)

In 1901, the word ‘Bondmaid’ was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it.

Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the ‘Scriptorium’, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word ‘bondmaid’ flutters to the floor. Esme rescues the slip and stashes it in an old wooden case that belongs to her friend, Lizzie, a young servant in the big house. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men. They help her make sense of the world.

Over time, Esme realises that some words are considered more important than others, and that words and meanings relating to women’s experiences often go unrecorded. While she dedicates her life to the Oxford English Dictionary, secretly, she begins to collect words for another dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words.

Set when the women’s suffrage movement was at its height and the Great War loomed, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. It’s a delightful, lyrical and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words, and the power of language to shape the world and our experience of it.

Upcoming Releases We’re Anticipating

An Arcane Inheritance (technically it comes out Dec 30, 2025 bu Gwenna won’t read it this year so I’m dropping it in next year’s so excited list) by Kamillah Cole

The Ballad of Falling Dragons by Sarah Parker

Adversary to the Villain Hannah Nicole Maehrer

The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightly

The Knave and The Moon by Rachel Gillig

I Told You So!: Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled and Imprisoned for Being Right by Matt Kaplan

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett author of The Help

Lady X by Molly Fader

Young Reader Recs

Don't worry. We didn't forget the younger readers. Here's a book list that matches up thematically to what the grown ups are reading.

Read to Me & Read with Me

J: No! David by David Shannon

F: We Belong by Laura Purdie Salas

M: From Here to There by Vivian French

A: The Sandwich Swap by Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan L2.9 P.5

M: What Do You Do With an Idea by Kobi Yamada L 2.6 P .5

J: The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch

J: A Tale of Moon Cheese by J Eileen Arness

A: The Invisible String By Patrice Karst

S: The Magic Hat by Mem Fox L 2.8 P .5

O: Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Baty L 4.8 P .5

N: Amazing & True Animal Heroes by Leonardo Mazzeo

D: The Dictionary Story by Oliver Jeffers L 4.0 P .5

Middle Grade

J: I Am A Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President by Josh Lieb*

L 5.1 P 7

F: The Watsons Go To Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis L 5.0 P 8

M: The Map Trap by Andrew Clements L 5.3 P 3

A:Out of my Mind by Sharon M Draper L 4.3 P 8

M: Flying Lessons & Other Stories: An Anthology L5 P 6

J: Warrior Queen by Vicky Shecter

J: The Girl Who Drank The Moon by Kelly Barnhill L 4.8 P 12

A: The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin L 5.0 P 7

S: The Witch Boy by Molly Knox L 3.4 P 1

O: Vaccines: A Graphic History by Dante Ginevra

N: Wildwood by Colin Meloy**L 6.3 P 19

D: Saving Wonder by Mary Knight L 5.5 P 9

*This book was not available on Bookshop.Org so the link provided points to our Amazon Affiliate. Sorry.

** The saavy reader might notice this is the same as the Adult List. Because yeah, we're reading a middle grade book together.

High School/YA

For the most part we recommend most of the books on the Adult List for High School and YA readers however there are a few that might feature more mature topics than appropriate. In this case, we've offered alternatives. Please practice discretion if your younger reader is joining us for the Bibliophage Book Club.

January: How to be A Dark Lord and Die Trying features heavy talk of death, murder, crime, criminal activity shown on page, suicide shown on page, sexual relations referenced on page, protracted descriptions of human and creature anatomy on page. If this isn't an appropriate book for your reader we recommend -

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

May: Thinky Thoughts describes domestic violence lightly, abandonment, death, dying, and has one whole essay that's just a giant Santa Claus spoiler. If this isn't an appropriate book for your reader we recommend -

Turtles All The Way Down by John Greene