52 Book Challenge: january update

This year we're doing a 52 book challenge! We hope you follow along, and join us by taking the challenge yourself. You can borrow from our list or create your own! 

When we first opened the bookstore, I'm not ashamed to admit that I was a little nervous answering questions and holding conversations about books from unfamiliar genres. We all have the books that speak to us, and others that feel like foreign languages. There's nothing wrong with that!

Over the past few months though, I made it a goal to broaden my reading horizons, and I want to continue that resolution into the next year! Therefore, I'm challenging myself to read 52 books in 2026 (I'm counting books read in December of 2025....it's not cheating...okay, maybe it is a little, but we all have lives so get off my back!). To spice up the challenge even more, we'll pull books from all the different genres Birdwhistell Books has to offer.

Here is the list that we will update every month throughout the year. The good thing about this challenge is that once the book is finished, it goes right onto our shelves ready for the next reader! I hope you create your own list to share with us so we can see what we should read next!

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General / Literary Fiction: 2/10

1. ​Audition by Katie Kitamura - Slow-burn look at the roles people play and the narratives we construct. It's not a mystery but you begin the book thinking the story is one thing and then it completely flips. 
2. The Dog Master by W. Bruce Cameron - Historical fiction surrounding the domestication of wolves 30,000 years ago. The ancient history nerd in me couldn't pass it up. The imagining of how the first wolves were tamed was interesting, but the characters lacked depth and there was a little too much soap-opera drama for me.

Mystery/Thriller: _/5
Si-Fi / Fantasy: _/5
Kentucky: 2/5

1. Pauline's by Pauline Tabor - The memoir of the Madam of Clay Street in Bowling Green, KY! If you like the Bluegrass Conspiracy and The Cornbread Mafia then you need to read this one as well, and it's actually really well written too.
2. Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story by Wendell Berry - Wendell Berry's newest edition to the Port William novels. Ostensibly, it's a story about the impact of the tobacco co-op on the Port William Membership, but reads much more like his essays.

Romance: _/3
Poetry & Plays: _/3
Classics: 1/3

1. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse - Can't believe it has taken me this long to read this one. One of those books that took me like five tries to start reading it, but once I got into it I was hooked. See my highlight post for some of my favorite quotes.

Memoir & Biography: _/3
Religion & Philosophy: _/3
History: _/3
Society & Culture: 1/3

1. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad - Writes about crisis in Gaza, but connects it into a much larger and deeper story about who we are and the stories we tell ourselves. Part memoir, part war correspondence, part societal critique...it reads much like Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me.

Science & Nature: _/3
Arts, Culture, and Sports: _/3