It is interesting to me how much my reading life so often reflects my actual life.

As I hear young parents lament that they ‘never read anymore’, I assure them that reading will return someday. If you truly love it, it will wax and wane, but it will return during seasons that are not so busy.

For the past decade I have enjoyed an extended time for reading. I don’t have one specific genre that I draw from, but like many other readers, I do have a few genres I don’t necessarily gravitate toward. I am a big fan of audio reading. It allows me to get many things done at once and sometimes I just don’t want to concentrate that hard on mundane things like cleaning sinks but prefer to get lost in another person’s world or adventure.

2026 has been a busy year for us. Some of the busyness has been with actual projects and wedding preparations and yet at other times, the busyness has been inside my head: details and worries and deadlines and planning. To look at my Books Read List for this year, instead of biographies and enrichment reads, you would find many, many crime thrillers. I have leaned heavily into David Balcacci (particularly the Amos Decker series) and lately the William Kent Krueger series, Cork O’Connor.

I fell in love with Krueger’s book, This Tender Land, when it came out in 2019 and I still count it one of my favorite books. It is a stand alone book. This year was the first time I picked up one of his mysteries. And just like the first book, I have become deeply engrossed in Cork O’Connor’s life. And Isn’t it a fantastic feeling when you start a series knowing there are many more books in the series ahead to read?! Love!

My local library has patiently loaded up my section on the HOLDS shelf as I keep reading back-to-back novels that require nothing of me but to escape and enjoy. In a year of many decisions and projects to complete, escapism reading (thrillers, mysteries, and crime novels) have been my reading of choice. (Does this mean solving a murder is easier than wedding planning??! -ha)

Krueger’s writing is best described as engaging storytelling. Within a few pages I am quickly swept up and placed directly into the center of his narratives. The O’Connor series is built around Cork O’Connor, a former sheriff of mixed Irish and Ojibwe heritage, living in Minnesota. The series explores topics of community, family, and the tensions between indigenous and non-indigenous cultures. Krueger’s writing reflects his respect for Ojibwe culture and the landscapes of Minnesota, where the author currently lives.

I suppose the synopsis of this post is to encourage you to never let anyone intellectualize reading to you. People love to post pictures of their books of classic literature but sometimes our reading looks like John Grisham or fantasy or romance – whatever your heart desires. Reading the classics is important. Memoirs and biographies have a special place on my bookshelves. But this year, my reading has been easy and enjoyable. I’m not trying to break records or fill my mind with too much extra thought.

Simple reading is simply reading. Collecting words can happen in many forms.

And sometimes, solving a literary murder feels like accomplishment enough for one day. One year. One season.

Happy reading, my friends!