Hi and welcome to this week’s Top Ten Tuesday post! Whereas I looked back on my favorite books of 2025 last week, it’s time to look ahead now to my 2026 plans. The actual topic for this week is Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the First Half of 2026, but as one of my goals for 2026 is to not anticipate books too much in order to protect myself from being disappointed too often (yes, that happened a lot in the past few years), I will be looking into the backlist books I want to read this year. I do this every year since 2023 and it gives me the opportunity to highlight the older books that are overlooked after all these new releases being published. Furthermore, this holds me accountable to indeed read these books that have been on my reading list for forever. So, what backlist books do I hope to pick up this year?
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
- A Song To Drown Rivers by Ann Liang – I bought this book last year with the intention to read it pretty soon after. Guess what? I haven’t picked it up. I hear so many good things about this which makes me quite nervous, as I have been disappointed so often lately.
- This Time It’s Real by Ann Liang – Yes, I have another Ann Liang book on my backlist. I also bought this last year, but that’s because I have the Dutch version which only got published last year. So technically it’s a backlist book, but not that far on the backlist if this makes any sense. This is such a beloved author, I really have to give these books a try.
- The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic – Not truly a backlist title for me as, again, this book got published in Dutch last year. However, it’s originally from 2012 or 2013, so definitely on the backlist!
- Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin – This book has been on my TBR for several years, so I really have to give this one a try. It’s originally published in 2009, but the Dutch version much later, in 2023.
- All the Feels by Olivia Dade – I kind of enjoyed Spoiler Alert, but still wanted to give this author another chance. So, this is truly hit or miss for me.
- Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez – Yes, I’ve been saying it multiple times by now, but I still have to read this book. Putting it on this list of backlist titles definitely means that I need to held myself accountable and finally read it.
- Binding 13 by Chloe Walsh – Another book I meant to read years ago, but didn’t. So, 2026 should be the year, shouldn’t it?
- Shiny Broken Pieces by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton – This year marks five years since I read Tiny Pretty Things, the first book in this duology. I really enjoyed it back then, but never picked up the sequel. It’s YA and I hardly read those books these days, so this will be interesting…
- The Ravens by Kass Morgan and Danielle Paige – It has been years since I tried and DNF’ed The 100 by the first author, and I never read anything by the second one. However, Kass Morgan came to YALFest either in 2018 or 2019, can’t really remember. However, this book piqued my interest all those years ago, but ended up on my never ending TBR like many others. I wonder whether it will still hold my interest or that I should let it go. It has flown under the radar though. So much so that the final book in this duology isn’t even translated to Dutch.
- The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston – Do you also keep mistaking this title for The New Romantics? You know, that song by Taylor Swift on the 1989 album? No? Just me? Okay… Anyway, I bought this book sometime last year as it was translated to Dutch before The Seven Year Slip was. However, I picked up that one first and forgot about this one. I wonder if it’s able to equal or top that book, because it was one of my most surprising reads of 2025. I really should find out, shouldn’t I?
Okay, this was my deep dive into my backlist for 2026. Do you want to focus on your backlist this year as well?
