Three Books I'm Reading Now, 2/16/26 Edition

The Books I'm Reading Now

I'm reading Allegra Goodman's newest novel, which follows members of an extended Jewish-American family through life dramas large and small, This Is Not About Us; I'm listening to Paula Lafferty's first novel in a series about a modern-day young woman told she is actually Queen Guinevere and asked to return to Camelot to save magic, The Once and Future Queen; and I'm reading Yume Kitasei's climate fiction featuring two sisters determined to save their oldest sibling, Saltcrop.

What are you reading, bookworms?

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01 This Is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman

Allegra Goodman's This Is Not About Us is a story of an extended Jewish-American family. The three family matriarchs are split by a death and a feud that promptly takes place between the two remaining, elderly sisters and threatens to stretch on until their own deaths.

The story is told through multiple points of view as the various Rubinstein family members--grown children, grandchildren, exes, and partners--navigate the dramas large and small that make up their individual and collective lives.

I received a prepublication edition of This Is Not About Us, which was published February 10, courtesy of NetGalley and Random House (The Dial Press).

I first read Allegra Goodman's work 25 years ago, when I enjoyed her novel Kaaterskill Falls. Since then she has published many more novels, including Sam. Her novel Isola was one of my favorite reads of 2025.

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02 The Once and Future Queen (Lives of Guinevere #1) by Paula Lafferty

Twenty-two-year-old Vera is the beloved only child of two dear parents, but the rest of her life is a shambles. Her love Vincent died in an accident, her father is very ill, she's waiting tables, and she feels generally aimless and unseen.

Then a strange man comes to town, telling Vera an unbelievable story of her true origins and her destiny. He says that she is actually from Camelot, in King Arthur's time, and that he himself is Merlin. Oh, and her name is Guinevere, as in "Queen."

He says that the kingdom and magic itself are reliant upon Vera's time-travel back to Arthur's world, and that only she can save them.

This is the first in a series from Lafferty about Vera/Guinevere. The second installment is not yet published.

For more books I've read with medieval settings, please check out the titles at this link, and feel free to check out these Bossy reads about knights.

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03 Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei

In a near-future world reeling from environmental catastrophe, oceans have risen and destroyed the cities along the world's coasts.

Skipper and Carmen are sisters getting by selling scavenged plastic from the water so they can care for their ailing grandmother. Their oldest sister, Nora, left home years earlier to try to help develop crops to sustain the world.

But when Carmen and Skipper receive a desperate, cryptic plea for help from Nora, they must set out across the sea and into the unknown to try to save her.

Yume Kitasei is also the author of The Deep Sky and The Stardust Grail.