News and Updates
Happy Easter, friends. I’m offline today celebrating with our family—plenty of egg hunts and plenty of reading, too. I hope your day is filled with the people you love and a little rest wherever you can find it.
This week’s lineup is taking us on quite a ride—literally. From a library aboard a train, to our fourteenth president whose life was reshaped by a devastating rail accident, to the mobsters who steered the Teamsters Union and left their mark on the transportation industry, these books cover a surprising amount of ground. I learned so much from each one and can’t wait to share it with you.
This Week
From the boxcar and packhorse librarians of the 1930s to today’s modern bookmobiles, the twentieth century saw an incredible range of traveling librarians bringing stories to readers in every corner of the country. It’s a tradition rich with ingenuity and heart. Which one captures your imagination the most?
Monthly Reading Challenge: Historical Fiction
Weekly Reading Challenge: Traveling Librarians
Alice cherishes the way the mining‑camp children light up when she arrives with new books. But as families begin to leave and she realizes those young readers will soon lose access to stories altogether, she pushes her traveling library deeper into the remote camps—an act that stretches her far beyond her familiar life. Years later, the WPA assigns Millie to town to edit Montana’s travel guide, where she finds Alice now serving as head librarian and a WPA office staffed by a motley crew who may be either the agency’s brightest assets or its most carefully concealed liabilities. The convergence of Alice’s and Millie’s paths reveals a story with far greater reach than either expected.
I’ve read several books over the past few years about traveling librarians, but this 2025 release has been on my TBR shelf for a while now and it did not disappoint!
If you’re looking for other great books for this prompt, try one of these reads recommended by our StoryGraph community:
- The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, Kim Michele Richardson
- The Giver of the Stars, Jojo Moyes
- Hearts in Circulation, Sarah Monzon
- Lending a Paw, Laurie Cass
New This week
It’s a big week with three of our most anticipated releases coming out!
Revenge Prey marks the 36th installment in John Sandford’s long‑running Lucas Davenport series, following our favorite U.S. Marshal as he works to protect high‑value witnesses from a team of Russian mercenaries. With appearances from familiar alphabet‑agency allies and a few compelling new faces, this novel delivers classic Sandford—fast‑paced, sharply plotted, and packed with action and mystery.
You can read our full review of this fantastic book here and grab your copy of the book in our Bookshop.org page!
The Rule whisks readers away on a sun‑drenched Sicilian escape, complete with the charming stranger everyone in town seems to adore. When Aurelia is abruptly dumped mid‑vacation, it’s this enigmatic local who lifts her spirits—and keeps her thoroughly occupied for the rest of her stay. But once they return to everyday life in Rome, Aurelia must confront the truth about the man she’s fallen for: a modern‑day mafia don who keeps the city safe by taking on its most dangerous criminals.
You can read our full review of this steamy romance here and preorder your copy today at our Bookshop store.
The Subtle Art of Folding Space blends science fiction and reality to deliver a story that keeps readers engaged and eager for more. From Ellie’s profound emotional loss to the comedic moments when Daniel conjures food out of thin air while checking system code, the book nudges into technical territory that’s usually outside my comfort zone. Even so, it’s written with such clarity and charm that non‑tech readers like me can still settle in and enjoy every twist.
The full review of this fantastic book is here. Grab your copy today over at the Bookshop.org page.
In Case You Missed It
Last Week’s Prompt
A quiet English village, an engagement that looks perfect on paper, and a new woman who turns everything upside down—this story had all the ingredients I usually love. But as I read, the plot felt dense, the character motivations never quite clicked, and I kept losing the thread.
After ten chapters of trying to push through, I decided to let this one go and accept it as my first DNF of 2026. Not every book is meant for every reader, and sometimes the kindest thing we can do for our reading life is to move on.
How often do you leave a book unfinished?
Last Week’s Articles
As always during the first week of the month, we shared our reading playlist along with a few book suggestions to match April’s theme: Historical Fiction.
I’ll admit, finding songs that fit this month’s theme was more challenging than expected. At the suggestion of a few Threads friends, I turned to Broadway soundtracks—and immediately struck gold. Expect to see some of my favorite shows make an appearance, including Ragtime and Hamilton.
Last Week’s Preview
Renovating your childhood home after a messy divorce sounds hard enough… but what if the walls remember more than you do?
In The Story Keeper by Kelly Rimmer, Fiona returns to the house that’s been sitting empty since her uncle’s death. Strange noises, a locked room, and a stack of novels by a mysterious author no one seems to know slowly pull her back into long‑buried family secrets. The dual timelines and the “story within a story” kept me turning pages, but it’s the complicated, lovable characters that made this one stick.
If you love historical fiction threaded with family drama, mystery, and a dash of the uncanny, add this to your TBR.
You can read the full review here.
Reading Challenge Prompts
Historical fiction has a wide variety of sub-genres that can take you in many different directions. From eras to formats, there’s different ways to attack this month’s prompt. While I typically gravitate toward stories set during World War II or the Civil War, this month’s prompts are nudging me to explore sub‑genres beyond my usual comfort zone—including Victorian‑era fiction and family‑history‑centered narratives.
We’ll also be celebrating both National Library Workers Day and Independent Bookstore Day with themed prompts and a few special posts from some of our favorite local spots. We’d love to see your favorite libraries and indie bookstores, too—feel free to share them with us!
This post contains affiliate links.
What I’m Reading
- Current print book: Last House, Jessica Shattuck
- Current audio book: The Lions of Fifth Avenue, Fiona Davis
- Book I’m most looking forward to: Pretty Dead Things, Kelsey Cox
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