overlooked & under-discussed books i want to read in 2026

(a winter letter) — secondhand books, overshadowed book recommendations, and a book club for the slow philosophers.

preface — a sea change

i went to barnes & noble two nights ago and found myself recoiling at the sight of the books in my hands. they were much too crisp and factory-fresh, like bleached laundry. much too new — much like the recoil i felt at the sight of books in my hands.

my love affair with books is longstanding. the emotion i normally associate with book and bookish paraphernalia is one of tender sweetness. so walking out of that bookstore with my bag full — for the thousandth time in my life — regretful, came as a shock. i had no idea that the impact of my recent and repeated and addictive and twice-weekly visits to the last bookstore, studio city — where all the books are used and worn and frayed, btw — reshaped my taste. enough now that i find myself slightly irritated at the idea of going to barnes and noble at all.

i pause, because that’s a phrase i never thought i’d be caught dead saying.

but there’s no point denying it. i love used books. i love rare books. especially the ones with words like “how could she?” and “here the mother realizes she hates her daughter” and “means grouchy” scribbled in the marginalia by past owners and bookworms.

i wonder if they ever wonder who might inherit their books. i would. i hope one day i’ll donate some of my own books and annotations for someone else to find. (preferably to the last bookstore, studio city.)

i emphasize “, studio city,” because the last bookstore, downtown is a swampland run by swamp creatures more apt for selling secondhand perfume. not my splendid, buoyant secondhand books.

i love them. i love a cracked spine. i love an ambered page. i love a looseness and a crease. i love that books can be carried forward from bookworm to bookworm — like a game of telephone with an unspoken rule to keep the conversations going. it’s a club. i’m a proud member.

i still have my barnes & noble membership, and always will. i live across the street from one — part of why i pay what i do for my teensy apartment. but for now, my love affair with new books is starting to fade a slow fade — perhaps signaling another phase of life. exploring newness refines taste. used books tend to be older books and from my recent excursions, secondhand classics are often under-popular, overlooked, yet deeply powerful. they’re now my obsession. i’m a forager now.

which is exactly what you will find in the list that follows. i hope these titles resonate with you. they’re beautiful, each one. rare and not always spoken of. i began by curating writers as i have grown to care less about plot, characters, even prose. what i care about now is a powerful voice. the names below have some of the strongest.

without further ado, here is my reading hopefuls for the new year.

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intertext — book recommendations

novels (modern classics)

thomas hardy – far from the madding crowd
ever the melodramatist, hardy more or less abandoned the novel after sustained critical hostility, turning instead to poetry, where his fatalism and pessimism could be more freely expressed. but his novels are worthy reads. often overshadowed by tess, this book follows a fiercely independent woman who inherits a farm and must navigate three very different men who love her: one loyal, one reckless, and one dangerous. the book i wrote my high school freshman paper on — one that i no doubt will have a different lens for now.l

jane austen – persuasion
unlike her most popular earlier novels, this one is sadder and her most mature. follows a thoughtful woman persuaded years ago to give up the man she loved for his lack of status and fortune who then returns with success but still wounded.

john o’hara – appointment in samarra
one of my favorite novels — i’ve been meaning to reread it ever since i found myself reciting scenes from it aloud to a friend, which reminded me how startlingly ahead of its time it was in portraying psychological self-destruction, masculinity, marital jealousy, and societal pressure. a book about a wealthy but restless man who ruins his life over three days through impulsive cruelty.

rabindranath tagore – ghore baire (the home and the world)
the first non-european nobel laureate in literature and a bengali polymath, tagore was a gifted poet and humanist too often sidelined in western literature. ghore baire is a psychological love story about a married woman who learns how dangerous fanaticism can be as she’s torn between her ethical, restrained husband and a charismatic nationalist political leader who pulls her toward him.

f. scott fitzgerald - tender is the night
overshadowed by but far more emotionally honest than gatsby, this is about a charming and glamorous american couple living among wealthy expats on the french riviera whose marriage starts to crack under the pressure of mental illness and purposelessness. on how privilege can hide deep unhappiness and the slow erosion of life.

joseph conrad - victory
an underrated conrad about a wealthy, intelligent man who lives alone on a remote island believing that detachment will keep him safe from harm — until he rescues a woman in danger of being exploited and becomes emotionally attached to and responsible for her. on the evil side of innocence, silence, and withdrawal.

essays, criticism & philosophy

virginia woolf – a room of one’s own
this book is widely cited but less often read attentively. woolf is one of my favorite essayists and this is a holy essay arguing that for women to write, they need literal and intellectual independence — space, income, and permission to think without interruption. part literary criticism, part manifesto, part fury.

joan didion – slouching toward bethlehem
didion is my heart and soul — a name that will appear every year, and so will this book. a collection of essays about disintegration of culture, ideals, and the self. on california, counterculture, and moral drift — this is still a canonical work but far less discussed now than historically.

umberto eco – inventing the enemy
a very underrated series of essays on why societies need enemies in order to define themselves, exploring fear, ideology, language, and mass culture and showing how “the enemy” is often a psychological construction rather than a real threat — and easily weaponized.

simone de beauvoir – the ethics of ambiguity
de beauvoir won me over after the second sex. here, she argues that ambiguity is unavoidable and that ethical life means acting anyway, without guarantees. on the rejection of moral absolutes and passive detachment.

mary wollstonecraft – a vindication of the rights of woman
our mother — and mary shelley’s too — wollstonecraft is one of the reasons i have any rights whatsoever as a woman. on women’s education, independence, and moral equality, she rejects rousseau’s idiotic idea that women are naturally inferior, insisting instead that society makes them so.

george saunders – a swim in the pond in the rain
saunders is a national gem — as a human being, professor, and short story writer. part reading guide, part craft book, he walks through four classic russian short stories to show how fiction works — generous, funny, and deeply attentive to what reading slowly can teach us.

plato – the symposium
after rereading more popular republic this year, this feels like a natural segue. a philosophical dialogue about love, desire, beauty, and truth, staged as a dinner party where each guest gives a speech on eros. less about romance than about a more soulful form of love.

letters, memoir & reflection

i was indoctrinated into the world of letters by my favorite girl & twin chicgirlmoment, and i will forever love her as it’s given me some of the most beautiful reading experiences ever.

franz kafka – letters to milena
these unfathomably gorgeous letters of longing, anxiety, devotion, and self-loathing all tangled together were written for a married woman that he never actually got together with, and isn’t even the only woman he loved — but the letters live on.

dmitri nabokov - letters to vera
written to the great love of nabokov’s life. playful, affectionate, and intellectually alive — and deeply intertwined with work. unlike kafka, nabokov did marry vera, who will later save lolita from being burned by nabokov.

rainer maria rilke – letters to a young poet
a slim, life-altering book. rilke urges “a young poet” not to seek answers too quickly, but to live the questions instead. endlessly rereadable.

ernest hemingway – a moveable feast
after not being mature enough to understand a farewell to arms or the old man and the sea in school, i saw the light this year when one of my favorite people said he was her favorite and i should try again. what he’s doing behind those simple words is pure brilliance. often overlooked in favor of his novels, a moveable feast is a love letter to paris, youth, hunger, and becoming a writer.

patti smith – devotion
a tiny, intimate book about writing, dreaming, and paying attention. smith reflects on creativity, memory, and ritual and gets deeply personal.

short fiction

raymond carver – what we talk about when we talk about love
carver is one of my favorite short story writers. these stories are about love, failure, silence, and what people can’t quite say to one another. spare on the surface but devastating underneath.

tillie olsen – tell me a riddle
another favorite who also stays spare on the surface. these stories focus on women, aging, marriage, unfinished lives, and unrealized potential — everything literature too often overlooks.

the penguin book of the modern american short story
a collection full of hidden gems, and one i’m especially excited to annotate and looking forward to gifting myself this holiday (i mean, i’m going to gift myself all of these this holiday).

poetry & drama

emily dickinson – selected poems & letters
i’m hoping this is the year i read less-discussed dickinson — instead of endlessly returning to the same familiar favorites. “i can wade grief,” “we like the look of agony,” “it was not death, for i stood up” — all tend to get skipped and might be emotionally restrained but they’re still strong.

t.s. eliot – selected poems
i have never liked t. s. eliot — so this one has remained under-discussed in my life as a diehard frostian. out of loyalty to frost’s feelings toward him — i more or less decided to paint eliot as irredeemable. but after coming around to hemingway, i’m trying to undo some old dogmas so i’m willing to give it an honest try.

alice oswald - falling awake
a contemporary listing, her work is super attentive and feels closer to listening than reading.

william shakespeare – othello
still a canonical shakespeare, but feels far less discussed in practice. every year, i reread a shakespeare and the last time i read othello was in sixth grade so it’s time to return to it properly and revisit my mother’s favorite shakespeare and probably my most hated literary villain. a tragedy about jealousy, manipulation, and how easily trust can be destroyed.

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postscript

full list here. hosted by dear jane books to help support independent bookstores.

i’d love to hear from you. which titles have you read, or would like to?

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epilogue

introducing: book club. for january, we discussed opening a small reading group for the slow philosophers to read one short book over the month. the aim is to refine taste and rediscover awe in the hidden corners of literature.

space is limited by design to preserve intimacy. no cost. self-paced. capped enrollment. request to join below:

note: this is a standalone edition. additional sessions will be announced selectively, as they arise.

the slow philosophers club

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that’s all for today! g’bye for now.

best,
tulipe

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