Ex Libris 02.2026

A book roundup.

Hello and welcome to ex libris (“from the library”), my periodic roundup of book discussion and recommendations. This work will be better with your contributions, so please feel free to chime in below if you’d like!

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Titles I’ve read recently:

Love in the Ruins, Walker Percy. I am not in the habit of reading apocalyptic literature, and I definitely enjoyed this one more than I expected. My book club read it together and discussed it on Valentine’s Eve; it is not romantic by any stretch of the imagination, so don’t imitate us. Ultimately, it is an examination of people’s desires, right and wrong, and the transitory nature of life. I was on the fence about it until the last chapter, which sold me.

“Don’t tell me the U.S.A. went down the drain because of Leftism, Knotheadism, apostasy, pornography, polarization, etcetera etcetera. All these things may have happened, but what finally tore it was that things stopped working and nobody wanted to be a repairman.”

Everything is Tuberculosis, John Green. It’s a bit odd to me that the author of The Fault in Our Stars went on to write and publish a book on the pervasiveness of a disease, but here we are. (I know. He does other stuff too.) He is a good storyteller, and his explanation of the disease's history tells of poverty, health policy, and weird stereotypes, among other things. It is also the story of a young man named Henry.

“Nothing is so privileged as thinking history belongs to the past.”

I’m also currently rereading The Chronicles of Narnia, and I’m using Malcolm Guite’s The Word in the Wilderness as a devotional through Lent. I recommend it!

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A note on purchase links: I’m a happy supporter of independent bookshops, so the links I provide will almost always go to my affiliate link at bookshop.org. For my local readers, I heartily recommend you buy them through our favorite, Goldberry Books, but you might have a shop closer to you. Of course, you can always find these selections on That Big Website That Ships Quickly, But Not As Quickly as It Used To, and Remember How They Sucked Us All In By Being a Bookstore to Begin With? I’m also a big fan of saving money and patronizing your local library. Happy reading!