Heyyy book bestie!
Happy New Year!
…Or is it too late to say that? Should I instead say, “Haboori Yoko?” (Please Murife, don’t run! 😂).
Do you remember back in primary school how we’d start the year strong? New socks, new shoes, new uniform, and determination that could power up a whole city. Do you remember the colour-coded pens and notes that looked like a unicorn had thrown up rainbow confetti in your book? The fancy rubbers and sharpeners you’d be told are from America. And losing them? Your whole life flashed before your eyes. (Group of schools cannot relate. Sorry!)
Do you remember how we used to carefully cover our books so the English or Kiswahili teacher wouldn’t throw them across the room with that disgusted look, saying, “I don’t mark uncovered books!” Like, woman, please chill. These are earthly things! How we’d create our own study timetables that we proudly followed… for about three weeks before abandoning the concept entirely?
Good old times.
Do you still have that kind of January determination?
I’ve always loved the New Year highs. The breath of fresh air (Rongai and Kitengela people cannot relate. Sorry!). Sort of like a clean slate to start over, dream big, and make crazy resolutions. It is always like Alice stepping through the looking glass, and suddenly, the world feels limitless.
At The Reading Circle 254, we fully embrace the New Year, New Me spirit. We like to dream boldly and imagine all possibilities, and 2026 is no exception.
Here’s what you can expect from our monthly reads this year:
January came in hot, and we started the year strong with memoirs. The voting was intense. Some members (they know themselves 👀) switched their votes at the very last minute. A few were bribed with a glass of juice, others played the long-haul strategy: confuse your enemies, then strike, and some later confessed that they simply wanted to begin the year with laughter instead of tears. The losers were left in pain and in need of breath to become air to heal (I hope they’ve healed). Those who felt betrayed solemnly swore the North Shall Remember. And honestly… I fear for anyone who crossed the North that day.
Ah, February. The month of love. The month where your boyfriend or girlfriend disappears on 13th evening and resurrects on the 15th, like, “Babe, my power went off… the network was bad… I needed some me-time to find myself…I was testing your patience”. But we at TRC254 will never treat you like that. We are loyal. We don’t ghost. We don’t disappear. We show up with a solution: a perfect book boyfriend or girlfriend. Whether you’re a hopeless romantic, a love skeptic, or healing from a heartbreak, we’ll whisk you into a world that will get you smiling, daydreaming, and falling in love once again, especially if you’re team audiobooks. Wink! Wink!*
March is the month we boldly go where no man has gone before. A place where we witness the real meaning of Neil Armstrong’s famous words, “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” We’re talking future worlds, other galaxies, wormholes, black holes, time travel loops, sentient beings, parallel universes, augmented humans, aliens, self-conscious robots and AI with bad attitudes, and spaceships. Honestly, I am excited for this month, where our imaginations will run wild. I meeeeeann… It's sci-fi! If we don’t explore worlds beyond our Earth, Dimension C-137, did we even do it right? So, as Buzz Lightyear says, “To infinity and beyond!”
Remember your childhood innocence? The books you loved to read? How, according to Willy Wonka’s analogy, they ushered you into a world full of imagination, where anything became possible if you let your mind explore. Where you experienced endless possibilities and limits disappeared.
Life was simple, full of rainbows, flowers, butterflies, and sunshine, before adulthood slapped us on the face and gave us trauma (How’s therapy btw?). We want those days and those feelings back. In April, we will revisit that magical world where dreams can take shape, and the ordinary becomes extraordinary.
Ever imagined how philosophers like Confucius, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle walked, talked, and processed their thoughts? Well… this month, we get to feel exactly like that. May ushers us into character-driven stories blending emotional depth with sharp social insight. We’ll feel, reflect, and think deeply. By the end, we will be the wahengas of our generation.
They say the most powerful tool that exists in the world is the mind, which incubates all ideas that have ever been implemented. And at TRC, we fully support the chaos and creativity of your imagination. June gives you the perfect playground: fantasy. We mean portals, enchanted forests, suspicious talking animals, magical kingdoms, and spells with rules that even the authors sometimes forget. This month, we’re permitting you to escape reality completely (But please remember to pay your bills). See, we care about your mental health since nothing says relaxation more than dragons, vampires, witches, and demidogs.
Africa is a land woven with some of the richest cultural tapestries that are diverse, vibrant, dramatic, hilarious, and deeply human. And since they say, East or West, home is best, July is the month we return home to our continent. We want stories with characters who look like us, speak like us, and laugh like us. We want stories that make us wonder whether the author was secretly spying on us when we were not looking.
August is the month of Trauma. We will read with one eye open, sleep with lights on, and gasp loudly in public without shame. We’ll read while walking, waiting for a bus, or even seated in the matatu. Expect suspense, plot twists, unreliable narrators, and villains whose names make us shudder in terror (Hello Digger and Earl Sheridan from Bad Signs). This month, we trust no one, not even the author.
Kenyan books are always suspiciously relatable, and we are here for it. We love the description of scenes or characters that we are familiar with and can vividly imagine. This month, we celebrate homegrown brilliance through stories filled with familiar scenes, familiar struggles and victories, familiar laughter, and familiar madness. We absolutely can’t wait for the plot twists to finish us.
Shakespeare, innit. October is the month we become British scholars who speak dramatic Old English, sip tea, and judge people from the bridge of our noses while standing on our balconies. “Poor, disgusting peasants!” We will dive into the land of timeless stories, questionable Old English, dramatic characters, and sentences long enough to be full paragraphs. But like the scholars we are, we shall survive.
We close the year with more depth and feelings. By November, our very own philosophies, we shall have. Unsolicited insights, poetically, we shall deliver. And like great philosophers, we shall become!
So buckle up, book bestie! Let’s turn pages, share laughs, and create memories that last long after the last chapter. Here’s to a year full of imagination, discovery, and endless adventures.
Happy reading, always!
We're diving into Children of Blood and Bone. Here's everything you need before Saturday's discussion.
