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January 2026

January's Books on Screen roundup includes the films People We Meet on Vacation on Netflix and H Is for Hawk in theaters; the series premieres of "Harlan Coben's Run Away," "His & Hers" and "Agatha Christie’s Sevel Dials" on Netflix, along with "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" on HBO Max; the season premieres of ABC's "Will Trent," Hallmark Channel's "When Calls the Heart," Netflix's "Bridgerton," Prime Video's "The Night Manager" and Hulu's "Tell Me Lies"; the season finales of "Sanctuary: A Witch’s Tale" on AMC+ and "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" on Disney+ and Hulu; and the DVD/Blu-ray releases of Wicked: For Good, One Battle After Another and Afterburn.

Winter Preview 2026 Evening Program Signup

Winter Preview 2026 Evening Program Signup

December 20, 2025

My book group had our last meeting of the year on Monday night. It’s become a tradition that our final get-together of the year is an appetizers and dessert evening. We barely talk about who is bringing what in advance, so there is no rhyme or reason to the menu, except that we were discussing LAST CALL AT THE SAVOY by Brisa Carleton. Since the book is set at the American Bar in the Savoy Hotel, cocktails were in order. 

Andrew Miller, author of The Land in Winter

December 1962: In a village deep in the English countryside, two neighboring couples begin the day. Local doctor Eric Parry commences his rounds in the village, while his pregnant wife, Irene, wanders the rooms of their old house, mulling over the space that has grown between the two of them. On the farm nearby lives witty but troubled Rita Simmons, who is also expecting. She spends her days trying on the idea of being a farmer’s wife, but her head still swims with images of a raucous past that her husband, Bill, prefers to forget. When Rita and Irene meet across the bare field between their houses, a clock starts. When the ordinary cold of December gives way --- ushering in violent blizzards of the harshest winter in living memory --- so do the secret resentments harbored in all four lives.

Marisa Kashino, author of Best Offer Wins

Eighteen months and 11 lost bidding wars into house-hunting in the overheated Washington, DC suburbs, 37-year-old publicist Margo Miyake gets a tip about the perfect house, in the perfect neighborhood, slated to come up for sale in one month. Desperate to escape the cramped apartment she shares with her husband, Ian, Margo becomes obsessed with buying the house before it’s publicly listed and the masses descend. A little stalking? Harmless. A bit of trespassing? Necessary. As Margo infiltrates the homeowners’ lives, her tactics grow increasingly unhinged. But just when she thinks she’s won them over, she hits a snag in her plan. Undeterred, Margo will prove again and again that there’s no boundary she won’t cross to seize the dream life she’s been chasing.

Ace Atkins, author of Everybody Wants to Rule the World

It’s 1985, and 14-year-old Peter Bennett is convinced that his mom’s new boyfriend is a Russian agent. He thinks Gary only wants to get close to his mom because she works at Scientific Atlanta, a lab with big government contracts. After another woman who works at the lab is killed, Peter recruits a has-been pulp writer and muckraker, along with his drag performer buddy, Jackie Demure. Both soon become the target of an unhinged Russian hitman. Meanwhile, Sylvia Weaver, a young, Black FBI agent, investigates Scientific Atlanta in the wake of the employee’s murder and discovers a nest of Russian spies in the city. Little does she know that her investigation is being thwarted by a seriously compromised colleague in Washington, D.C., who is in league with a lovesick, hypochondriac KGB defector who is playing both sides of the Cold War to his benefit.

Editorial Content for Silent Bones: A Karen Pirie Novel

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

Not many writers can stand toe to toe with Val McDermid. For decades, she has put forth a catalogue of outstanding and cleverly plotted mysteries and thrillers that have been the force behind both bestselling novels and successful streaming series and films. Read More

Teaser

Scotland, 2025. When torrential winter rain causes a landslide on a motorway, it dislodges more than mud and asphalt --- it reveals a skeleton, concealed when the road was built 11 years prior. Sam Nimmo, an investigative journalist who’d been poking his nose into the murky politics of the Scottish independence referendum, had become the prime suspect in the brutal murder of his girlfriend when he vanished. Now he’s reappeared, buried under the motorway. It’s the perfect cold case for DCI Karen Pirie, chief of Police Scotland’s Historic Cases Unit. What was Nimmo investigating that was worth killing over? Or was it revenge for murdering his girlfriend? Meanwhile, an allegation of murder has surfaced over the supposedly accidental death of a hotel manager. It may have links to another accident on a remote Highland road.

Promo

Scotland, 2025. When torrential winter rain causes a landslide on a motorway, it dislodges more than mud and asphalt --- it reveals a skeleton, concealed when the road was built 11 years prior. Sam Nimmo, an investigative journalist who’d been poking his nose into the murky politics of the Scottish independence referendum, had become the prime suspect in the brutal murder of his girlfriend when he vanished. Now he’s reappeared, buried under the motorway. It’s the perfect cold case for DCI Karen Pirie, chief of Police Scotland’s Historic Cases Unit. What was Nimmo investigating that was worth killing over? Or was it revenge for murdering his girlfriend? Meanwhile, an allegation of murder has surfaced over the supposedly accidental death of a hotel manager. It may have links to another accident on a remote Highland road.

About the Book

The new installment in the “relentlessly engrossing series” (Wall Street Journal) finds Karen Pirie and her team investigating the murder of a journalist paved under a motorway. But was it his work or his private life that put him there?

Scotland, 2025. When torrential winter rain causes a landslide on a motorway, it dislodges more than mud and asphalt --- it reveals a skeleton, concealed when the road was built 11 years prior.

Sam Nimmo, an investigative journalist who’d been poking his nose into the murky politics of the Scottish independence referendum, had become the prime suspect in the brutal murder of his girlfriend when he vanished. Now he’s reappeared, buried under the motorway. It’s the perfect cold case for DCI Karen Pirie, chief of Police Scotland’s Historic Cases Unit. What was Nimmo investigating that was worth killing over? Or was it revenge for murdering his girlfriend?

Meanwhile, an allegation of murder has surfaced over the supposedly accidental death of a hotel manager. It may have links to another accident on a remote Highland road. It’s a series of puzzles that tests Karen and her team to their limits. And possibly beyond.

A darkly propulsive thriller of secrets hidden at the core of a Scottish Highlands town, SILENT BONES reaffirms Val McDermid as a crime writer of inimitable power.

Audiobook available, read by Cathleen McCarron

Editorial Content for Every Day I Read: 53 Ways to Get Closer to Books

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Harvey Freedenberg

It might seem superfluous to most visitors of this website to recommend a book intended to encourage more reading. But regardless of how avid a book lover you may be, don’t pass on Hwang Bo-reum’s charming EVERY DAY I READ: 53 Ways to Get Closer to Books. In addition to scores of practical tips to keep one’s reading fresh, it’s a subtle exploration of all the ways books can bring more meaning to our lives. Read More

Teaser

Why do we read? What is it that we hope to take away from the intimate, personal experience of reading for pleasure? How often do we ask these profound, expansive questions of ourselves and of our relationship to the joy of reading? In each of the essays in EVERY DAY I READ, Hwang Bo-reum contemplates what living a life immersed in reading means. She goes beyond the usual questions of what to read and how often, exploring the relationship between reading and writing, when to turn to a bestseller vs. browse the corners of a bookstore, the value of reading outside of your favorite genre, falling in love with book characters, and more.

Promo

Why do we read? What is it that we hope to take away from the intimate, personal experience of reading for pleasure? How often do we ask these profound, expansive questions of ourselves and of our relationship to the joy of reading? In each of the essays in EVERY DAY I READ, Hwang Bo-reum contemplates what living a life immersed in reading means. She goes beyond the usual questions of what to read and how often, exploring the relationship between reading and writing, when to turn to a bestseller vs. browse the corners of a bookstore, the value of reading outside of your favorite genre, falling in love with book characters, and more.

About the Book

From the author of the international bestseller WELCOME TO THE HYUNAM-DONG BOOKSHOP, a heartfelt invitation to reflect on your relationship with reading and celebrate the joys of books.

Why do we read? What is it that we hope to take away from the intimate, personal experience of reading for pleasure?

How often do we ask these profound, expansive questions of ourselves and of our relationship to the joy of reading? In each of the essays in EVERY DAY I READ, Hwang Bo-reum contemplates what living a life immersed in reading means. She goes beyond the usual questions of what to read and how often, exploring the relationship between reading and writing, when to turn to a bestseller vs. browse the corners of a bookstore, the value of reading outside of your favorite genre, falling in love with book characters, and more.

EVERY DAY I READ provides many quiet moments for introspection and reflection, encouraging book-lovers to explore what reading means to each of us. While this is a book about books, at its heart is an attitude to life, one outside capitalism and climbing the corporate ladder. Lifelong and new readers will take inspiration from it, including a treasure trove of book recommendations blended seamlessly within.

Audiobook available, read by Rosa Escoda

Editorial Content for Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear: A. A. Milne and the Creation of "Winnie-the-Pooh"

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

One of the most recognizable and important characters in both fiction and popular culture, Winnie-the-Pooh came solely from the inventive mind of English author A. A. Milne, who was inspired by the stuffed bear he gave his son, Christopher, on the boy’s first birthday. Read More

Teaser

SOMEWHERE, A BOY AND A BEAR tells the remarkable story of A. A. Milne, a playwright, a bestselling crime writer, a poet, a polemicist, a humorist, and the man who created Winnie-the-Pooh. Gyles Brandreth explores Winnie-the-Pooh, a bear beloved by millions: his genesis, his life across a hundred years, his special philosophy, and the reasons for his worldwide popularity. Brandreth’s book is also the intimate biography of three generations of the fascinating and troubled Milne family, which knew fame and fortune, despising both for a time, but a family that ultimately found a profound reason to be grateful for the riches Pooh brought them.

Promo

SOMEWHERE, A BOY AND A BEAR tells the remarkable story of A. A. Milne, a playwright, a bestselling crime writer, a poet, a polemicist, a humorist, and the man who created Winnie-the-Pooh. Gyles Brandreth explores Winnie-the-Pooh, a bear beloved by millions: his genesis, his life across a hundred years, his special philosophy, and the reasons for his worldwide popularity. Brandreth’s book is also the intimate biography of three generations of the fascinating and troubled Milne family, which knew fame and fortune, despising both for a time, but a family that ultimately found a profound reason to be grateful for the riches Pooh brought them.

About the Book

For the 100th anniversary of the publication of WINNIE-THE-POOH, Gyles Brandreth chronicles the writing of this beloved classic and the life of its creator, A. A. Milne.

SOMEWHERE, A BOY AND A BEAR tells the remarkable story of A. A. Milne, a playwright, a bestselling crime writer, a poet, a polemicist, a humorist, and the man who created Winnie-the-Pooh.

Gyles Brandreth explores Winnie-the-Pooh, a bear beloved by millions: his genesis, his life across a hundred years, his special philosophy, and the reasons for his worldwide popularity. Brandreth’s book is also the intimate biography of three generations of the fascinating and troubled Milne family, which knew fame and fortune, despising both for a time, but a family that ultimately found a profound reason to be grateful for the riches Pooh brought them.

With an extraordinary cast list that includes Elizabeth II and Walt Disney, SOMEWHERE, A BOY AND A BEAR moves from idyllic childhood games in the English countryside to New York in the 1930s and the love affairs, litigation and heartrending family rifts that touched the life of one of Britain's most brilliant writers and his most famous creation.

Audiobook available, read by Gyles Brandreth