Top Ten Books on My Spring 2026 To-Read List

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Today’s prompt is: Books on My Spring 2026 To-Read List

I already shared a post about what books I have on my spring hopeful list, so today I am narrowing the list down to the top ten from that list that I definitely want to read, even though I know other books will probably catch my attention along the way.

A note for this post: it does contain affiliate links.  Clicking the link does not mean that you will pay more for the item, only that I make a tiny commission if you make a purchase from that link.

  1. Thrush Green by Miss Read

I’ve read other Miss Read books and enjoyed them so wanted to try this one.

Discover the little English village that neighbors Fairacre, in a novel that’s “enchanting, lovely, gentle, pointed, and charming” (Minneapolis Sunday Tribune).
Miss Read’s charming chronicles of English small-town life have achieved legendary popularity, providing a welcome return to a gentler time with “wit, humor, and wisdom in equal measure” (The Plain Dealer).
Welcome to Thrush Green, the neighboring village to Fairacre, with its blackthorn bushes, thatch-roofed cottages, enchanting landscape, and jumble sales. Readers will enjoy meeting a new cast of characters and also spotting familiar faces as they become immersed in the village’s turn of events over the course of one pivotal day: May Day. All year, the residents of Thrush Green have looked forward to the celebration. Before the day is over, life and love, and perhaps eternity, will touch the immemorial peace of the village.

2. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

I keep saying I am going to read this one and just never do it! This spring I want to actually read it!

Our moral consciousness and moral judgements are proof to the human race that a moral being exists—God.

Mere Christianity explores the core beliefs of Christianity by providing an unequaled opportunity for believers and nonbelievers alike to hear a powerful, rational case for the Christian faith. A brilliant collection, Mere Christianity remains strikingly fresh for the modern reader and at the same time confirms C. S. Lewis’s reputation as one of the leading writer and thinkers of our age.

The book brings together Lewis’ legendary broadcast talks during World War II. Lewis discusses that everyone is curious about: right and wrong, human nature, morality, marriage, sins, forgiveness, faith, hope, generosity, and kindness.

3. Murder, She Wrote: Aloha Betrayed by Donald Bain  

These are always fun reads so I need at least one per season if not one per month!

Description: Jessica is on the Hawaiian island of Maui, giving a lecture on community involvement in police investigations. Her co-lecturer is legendary retired detective Mike Kane, who shares his love of Hawaiian lore, legends, and culture with Jessica. But the talking stops when the body of a colleague is found at the rocky foot of a cliff.

Mala Kapule, a botanist and popular professor at Maui College, was known for her activism and efforts on behalf of the volcanic crater Haleakala. Plans to place the world’s largest solar telescope there split the locals, with Mala arguing fiercely to preserve the delicate ecology of the area.

Now it’s up to Jessica and Mike to uncover who was driven to silence the scientist…and betray the spirit of aloha.

4. Crooked House by Agatha Christie

I am currently reading this one and enjoying it.

Description Described by the queen of mystery herself as one of her favorites of her published work, Crooked House is a classic Agatha Christie thriller revolving around a devastating family mystery.

The Leonides are one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. That is until the head of the household, Aristide, is murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection.

Suspicion naturally falls on the old man’s young widow, fifty years his junior. But the murderer has reckoned without the tenacity of Charles Hayward, fiancé of the late millionaire’s granddaughter.

5. A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie

This is my April read for the Read Christie 2026 Challenge.

Description: As Miss Marple sat basking in the Caribbean sunshine, she felt mildly discontented with life. True, the warmth eased her rheumatism, but here in paradise nothing ever happened.

Eventually, her interest was aroused by an old soldier’s yarn about a murderer he had known. Infuriatingly, just as he was about to show her a snapshot of this acquaintance, the Major was suddenly interrupted. A diversion that was to prove fatal.

6. Heidi by Johanna Spyri

I am reading this one with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.

Description: At the age of six, little orphan Heidi is sent to live with her grandfather in the Alps. Everyone in the village is afraid of him, but Heidi – fascinated by his long beard and bushy grey eyebrows – takes to him immediately and soon earns his love in return. She adores her life in the mountains, playing in the sunshine and growing up among the goats and birds, but one terrible day Heidi is collected by her aunt and forced to live with a new family in town. Heartbroken by the loss of her Alpine life, she must do everything she can to return to her grandfather.

7. Nancy’s Mysterious Letter by Carolyn Keene

Because I haven’t read a Nancy Drew in a bit.

Version 1.0.0

Description: By mistake, Nancy Drew receives a letter from England intended for an heiress, also named Nancy Drew. When Nancy undertakes a search for the missing young woman, it becomes obvious that a ruthless, dangerous man is determined to prevent her from finding the heiress or himself. Clues that Nancy unearths lead her to believe that the villainous Edgar Nixon plans to marry the heiress and then steal her inheritance.

8. Rascal by Sterling North

Little Miss and I will be reading this for school.

Description: Rascal is a beloved, autobiographical children’s book by Sterling North, published in 1963, that tells the heartwarming story of a boy’s year-long friendship with a pet raccoon in 1918 Wisconsin. The book, a Newbery Honor winner, chronicles the adventures of young Sterling and his mischievous companion, exploring themes of nature, family, and a changing world as the boy navigates life with his father after his mother’s death. 

9. A Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse

I’ve really enjoyed his Jeeves series so we will see about this one.

Description: P. G. Wodehouse’s charming tale of a taxi driver who falls in love with a wealthy woman who rides in his cab. Hilarity and antics ensue when he arrives at her rural estate.

10. An Biography by Agatha Christie

This one may take me a bit as it does seem long, but I am very interested in it.

Version 1.0.0

Description:

Back in print in the exclusive authorized edition, is the engaging and illuminating chronicle of the life of the “Queen of Mystery.” Fans of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple and readers of John Curran’s fascinating biographies Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks and Murder in the Making will be spellbound by the compelling, authoritative account of one of the world’s most influential and fascinating novelists, told in her own words and inimitable style. The New York Times Book Review calls Christie’s autobiography a “joyful adventure,” saying, “she brings the sense of wonder…to her extraordinary career.”

Have you read any of these?


If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.


Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Book review: The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

“I made up my mind that I would pop back and do the strong, manly thing by lying low in my flat and telling Jeeves to inform everybody who called that I wasn’t at home.”

The Inimitable Jeeves was my first P.G. Wodehouse book and I enjoyed it so much I’m already reading another one in the Jeeves series.

This book was originally presented as a collection of short stories which appeared in The Strand magazine in the U.K. The stories were later compiled into a novel. The first collection of short stories was Carry On, Jeeves, which I am reading now.

A little background on this series of short stories/books first.

Bertie Wooster is a “English gentleman” who is considered one of the “idle rich.” He doesn’t have a job. He mainly lives off his rich aunt Agatha and, probably, a trust fund.

Jeeves is Bertie’s valet or male attendant, if you don’t know what valet means. I wasn’t totally sure of the meaning of the word “valet” myself when I first heard the term years ago.

Jeeves gets Bertie out of the many predicaments Bertie gets himself into by being too nice or too arrogant by thinking he can fix a situation. In this book Bertie gets himself in trouble in a variety of ways, including helping his old school chum Bingo who is in love with a new woman every other month.

He also has to try to dodge his Aunt Agatha who is always trying to marry him off because she feels he is simply too lazy.

 “It is young men like you, Bertie, who make the person with the future of the race at heart despair,” she says at one point. “Cursed with too much money, you fritter away in idle selfishness a life which might have been made useful, helpful and profitable. You do nothing but waste your time on frivolous pleasures. You are simply an anti-social animal, a drone. Bertie, it is imperative that you marry!”


The tongue-in-cheek and sarcastic humor in this book was exactly what I needed right now. Honestly, it is a type of humor that I feel like I am going to need consistently from now on.  Because the chapters are short stories all their own it makes it easy to read a chapter here or there, put it down for a bit, and then pick it back up and still know what is going on

I love how Jeeves not only always solves the problems that Bertie has but how he also gets away with lowkey (and sometimes not so lowkey) insulting Bertie throughout.

Speaking to a valet who was going to fill in for him when he was on vacation, Jeeves says of Bertie, “You will find Mr. Wooster an exceedingly pleasant and amiable young gentleman but not intelligent. By no means intelligent. Mentally he is negligible — quite negligible.”

Bertie is, of course, offended.

“I suppose, strictly speaking, I ought to have charged in and ticked the blighter off properly in no uncertain voice. But I doubt whether it’s humanly possible to tick Jeeves off. Personally, I didn’t even have a dash at it. I merely called for my hat and stick in a marked manner and legged it. But the memory rankled, if you know what I mean. We Woosters do not lightly forget. At least, we do somethings — appointments and people’s birthdays, and letters to post and all that, but not an absolute bally insult like the above. I brooded like the dickens.”

Insults or not, Jeeves is always there for Bertie, especially when he thinks Bertie is wearing the wrong outfit or the wrong piece of clothing for specific outfits.

“The cummerbund?” I said in a careless, debonair way, passing it off. “Oh, rather!”

“I should not advise it, sir, really I shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“The effect, sir, is loud in the extreme.”

I tackled the blighter squarely. I mean to say, nobody knows better than I do that Jeeves is a master mind and all that, but dash it, a fellow must call his soul his own. You can’t be a serf to your valet. Besides, I was feeling pretty low and the cummerbund was the only thing which could cheer me up.

“You know, the trouble with you, Jeeves,” I said. “is that you’re too — what’s the word I want? Too bally insular. You can’t realise that you aren’t in Piccadilly all the time. In a place like this a bit of colour and touch of the poetic is expected of you. Why, I’ve just seen a fellow downstairs in a morning suit of yellow velvet.”

“Nevertheless, sir —”

“Jeeves,” I said firmly, “my mind is made up. I am feeling a little low spirited and need cheering. Besides, what’s wrong with it? This cummerbund seems to me to be called for. I consider that it has a rather Spanish effect. A touch of the hidalgo. Sort of Vicente y Blasco What’s-his-name stuff. The jolly old hidalgo off to the bull fight.”

“Very good, sir,” said Jeeves coldly.

Oh gosh, I love their banter and how Bertie calls everyone “the blighter.” I now go around saying this to myself when thinking about certain people in my life.

I love Bertie’s struggle to be a proper English gentleman while also trying to have fun and rebel against the upper crust he is a part of. There is a lot of satirical commentary and digs on the rich of England in these stories.

I have been told there was a television show in the 1990s based on the stories, starring Hugh Laurie, but I’m not ready to watch it yet. I prefer to hold on to the versions of Bertie and Jeeves I have formed in my imagination for now.

As I mentioned earlier, I am currently reading Carry On, Jeeves and plan to read more of the stories and books in the series in the future.

According to the web site Fantastic Fiction, there are 15 books in the series:

 My Man Jeeves (1919)
 The Inimitable Jeeves (1923)
 Carry on, Jeeves (1925)
 Very Good, Jeeves (1930)
 Thank You, Jeeves (1934)
 Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)
   The Code of the Woosters (1938)
 Joy in the Morning (1946)
     aka Jeeves in the Morning
 The Mating Season (1949)
 Ring for Jeeves (1953)
     aka The Return of Jeeves
 Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954)
 Jeeves in the Offing (1960)
     aka How Right You Are, Jeeves
 Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963)
 Much Obliged, Jeeves (1971)
     aka Jeeves and the Tie That Binds
Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen (1974)
     aka The Cat-Nappers

Have you ever read this book or any of the Jeeves books? How about any of Wodehouse’s other books?


Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.