What We're Reading, Listening to, and Watching This Week (4/12/2026)
Linda-Marie Barrett / Executive Director:
Reading: About to finish Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel. Another brilliant slipstreamish novel that is currently tying up all loose ends. Preparing to be wowed. For my book club, I'm about to start Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, winner of SIBA’s 2026 Southern Book Prize for Fiction and the current one book, one read selection for our county.
Listening: Alternately to the bang, bang, bang sounds of a roof being replaced across the street and gentle zephyrs sounding the chimes in a weeping cherry outside my office.
Watching: The Big C, Nautilus, and Brokenwood. Sometimes we opt for Poirot. Waiting for a few favorite series to launch their newest seasons.
Candice Huber / Membership:
Reading: Just picked up The Black Panther Party: Service to the People Programs edited by David Hilliard. I'm excited to read about the Black Panther Party's survival programs and mutual aid efforts to see what I may be able to do in my own community.
Listening: The sounds of nature outside of my window. Although it vacillates between warm and cold, I'm happy for the Spring!
Watching: Just finished DTF St. Louis, and it was weird, absurd, funny at moments, but mostly just very sad.
Nicki Leone / Communications:
Reading: Autobiography of Cotton by Cristina Rivera Garza, which is lovely. The Company of Owls by Polly Atkin.
Listening: Kin by Tayari Jones, and Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes, which I actually read a couple of years ago, but I think my book club might pick it and my copy is buried in one of the moving boxes I haven't unpacked yet.
Watching: Not much on TV if you don't count baseball. I am thinking of going on a Isabella Rossellini movie binge though.
SP Rankin / Website Administrator:
Reading: I just pre-ordered Radiant Star, Ann Leckie's new novel set in the same universe as her Imperial Radch series. I love her vision of a space opera, which is gender-bendy, sharp, and exciting.
Listening: "Venus in the Zinnia," a new song from Aldous Harding, and looking forward to her new album on May 8.
Watching: My standing lunchtime date lately with my TV girlfriend Joanna Lumley as the eternal and ineffably awful Patsy Stone in Absolutely Fabulous.
Andrea Richardson / Sales:
Reading: The incredibly cute and cozy Impossible Garden of Clara Thorne, a sapphic romance that just came out by Summer N England. I've also started my third-time loop book for 2026, Kill Slay Replay by Rachel Harrison, which is really good.
Listening: To the big loud purrs of my big loud Bandit cuddled up next to me. He's trying to make up for screaming the song of his people at 4 am.
Watching: I loved the new season of Love on the Spectrum! There were some new cast members along with the returning favorites this season.