The May Reading Letter: What I Read, What I Recommend, What Is Coming

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May 2026 — for members only

This month I have been thinking about endings. Not the endings of books — though we will get to those — but the specific feeling of finishing a series you have lived inside for months or years. The grief of it. The way the world feels slightly less furnished afterwards, like a room where someone has moved out.

I finished the Winternight trilogy this month for the third time. Katherine Arden ends it in a way that is almost unbearably right — not happy exactly, but true, which is better. Vasya gets what she actually wanted, which turns out to be different from what she thought she wanted, which is the most honest thing a fantasy novel can do.