Chelsey's March 2026 Reads | 15 Books

Everything I read in March 2026, as well as books I bought and books I abandoned!

We’re a quarter of the way through the year, and while I read fewer books this month than I did in January and February, I hit my 50th book on March 31st, which means I’m on track to read 200 books by the end of the year.

Who is forcing you to read that many books, Chelsey? The answer is—no one! I love to read and it’s really fun for me to have a big goal. Last year, my goal was 200 and I read almost 180. It didn’t bother me that I didn’t hit 200. I still read dozens of incredible books and was exposed to so many stories and ideas and so much knowledge. Trying to read that many books is what helps me come up with carefully curated lists on a wide variety of topics. It brings me great joy.

This month I read a mixture of fiction (4 books), nonfiction (6 books), and spiritual (5 books). About half were print (7 books) and half were audiobooks (8 books). No Kindle books this month!

📗 FICTION | The Names by Florence Knapp

I flew through this book. That narration was wonderful, the basis of the book was unique, and the depiction of domestic abuse was heartwrenching. The premise of the book is that a mother goes to register her baby’s name, but the book looks at three different names she might give her baby and the consequences of choosing each name. There is a chapter for each name every seven years, rotating between the three of them. This is a heavy book and might be too much for some people, but it will probably end up being one of my favorite books of the year.

📗 NONFICTION | Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

I bought a print copy of this book because I’d heard such great things about it and figured I’d do a lot of highlighting. This was by far the funniest book I’ve read in a long time, which I did not expect from a book on writing. While I haven’t really ventured into trying to write fiction, which is what she mostly talks about, the principles in this book were still relevant. I know this is a book I’ll be revisiting in the future.

📗 SPIRITUAL | Faithful God: The Wisdom of God’s Sovereignty in the Book of Ruth by Sinclair Ferguson

I’m slowly working my way through every book Dr. Sinclair Ferguson has ever read. If you are a Christian who wants to grow in your knowledge of Scripture and how to apply it to your life, I cannot commend his books enough. This is a chapter by chapter study on the book of Ruth, and I found it hugely encouraging.

📗 NONFICTION | Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer

This book covers a culture of serial rape at a college in Montana. The background of this book is horrific and the failures of the justice system are horrific. The fact that the female defense lawyer who helped multiple guilty male college students avoid punishment served as the county attorney for more than a decade after these trials is beyond me.

📗 NONFICTION | One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

This book might be controversial to some, but it was one I kept seeing referenced and the audiobook was only 5 hours long. It is basically an extended essay on the aftermath of the Palestinian attack on Israel several years ago. Regardless of your politics and your opinion on the Palestine/Israel situation, the author has some really compelling things to say about the humanitarian crisis in Palestine. I always find it good for me to read books by people who are very different from me and with whom I may end up disagreeing. It has only helped me be able to put myself in someone else’s shoes.

📗 SPIRITUAL | Deserted by God: Understanding the Ways of God Through the Experiences of the Psalmists by Sinclair Ferguson

I’ve read this book before, but it remains one of my top recommendations for any Christian who is struggling with any kind of suffering.

📗 SPIRITUAL | Is It Abuse?: A Biblical Guide to Identifying Domestic Abuse and Helping Victims by Darby Strickland

This was my final read of the month. I finished it up on March 31st. I have been privileged to be a helper to more than one woman who was experiencing domestic abuse, and because of its prevalence, I anticipate I will experience that more in the future. This book is a compassionate, thorough, and informative guide to any Christian who truly wants to help suffering women and children. It is also an excellent resource for a church that wants to grow in how to help victims.

📗 FICTION | Heart the Lover by Lily King

This book has been all over Substack, and I’d never read anything by the author, so decided to give her most recent book a try. I enjoyed this book. It did not blow my mind.

📗 FICTION | The Long Walk by Stephen King

No relation to Lily King, Stephen King is one of my favorite authors. I think I might have read this book a decade ago but did not remember how it ended, so I decided to read it again in case we decided to watch the new movie. This might be one of the most gratuitously violent of King’s books, and I have read many of them. While the concept is interesting, it would be tough for me to recommend it.

📗 NONFICTION | Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice by Virginia Roberts Giuffre

I mentioned in my March Dispatches from the Dopamine Den that I watched the Jeffrey Epstein documentary after reading this book. I went into this book not knowing who Virginia was or that she was connected at all to Epstein. The story of her childhood and her experiences with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell are truly some of the most disturbing things I’ve ever heard. One of my close friends also read it and we agreed we were glad we read it, although there were parts of the story related to her marriage that we had questions about.

📗 SPIRITUAL | Created to Care: God’s Truth for Anxious Moms by Sara Wallace

This book would be perfect for any Christian mom of young kids. I wish it had been around when my kids were younger. When I was finished, I passed it on to another mom at church!

📗 SPIRITUAL | Consider Your Counsel: Addressing Ten Mistakes in Our Biblical Counseling by Bob Kellemen

I’m always looking for ways to improve how I can encourage and counsel the women in my life, and this was a short book with a lot of great tips.

📗 FICTION | Audition by Katie Kitamura

This book falls into the genre of experimental fiction, and I think I am learning that I don’t enjoy experimental fiction. I still don’t really know what this book was about.

📗 NONFICTION | That’s a Great Question, I’d Love to Tell You: A Funny, Awkward, and Deeply Human Collection of Stories About Love, Anxiety, and Self-Acceptance by Elyse Myers

I really wanted to like this one. I have been aware of Elyse Myers for years, and I often find her takes on things to be really funny. However, a whole book of Elyse Myers was too much for me. Her absurd sense of humor started to grate on me, and her usually endearing self-deprecation started to feel self-serving.

📗 NONFICTION | Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America by Bridget Read

This could have been a 4-star read, as it was fascinating to hear about the history of multi-level marketing. For example, I had no idea that the father of former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was the co-founder of Amway. The reason it got knocked a star is because there were several times when I felt the author misrepresented certain ideas.

Books Abandoned

This was a risky month for audiobooks. I abandoned seven. I haven’t been keeping track of this for long, but it felt like much more than usual.

📙 Exiles by Mason Coile | This book was about space. I need to remember that I don’t usually like books set in space.

📙 Orbital by Samantha Harvey | Space again.

📙 Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor | I restarted this audiobook three times before I gave up. It is a story about an author, and a book she is writing is part of the book (very meta), and the going back and forth between the two stories was just too much on audio.

📙 You With the Sad Eyes by Christina Applegate | A bunch of people were talking about this, and I love memoirs, but I got turned off pretty quickly with the amount of expletives and obscene language. Growing up, we weren’t even allowed to use the word fart, so when I am continually hearing the actual F-word being used repeatedly, it gives me continuous nervous twitches.

📙 Razorblade Tears by S.A. Crosby | I didn’t know what this was about until after I started it. As I have said before, while I do read vary widely, I don’t usually stick with books where LGBTQ+ issues are the main plot point.

📙 Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser | In an alternate timeline I think I’d have enjoyed this.

📙 A Very Punchable Face: A Memoir by Colin Jost | Once again, I usually love memoirs. Someone told me this book was hilarious. It was funny, but not as funny as I had hoped, and since I’m not a huge SNL fan, it didn’t feel worth it.

Books Purchased

I have tried to set a moratorium on buying books, even great Kindle deals, because I already have so many books I want to read. Alas, I did still purchase two Kindle books. But next month I definitely WON’T.

📘 Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia by Steven Stoll | My husband grew up in Appalachia, so I gravitate toward books that can help me understand Appalachian culture better.

📘 The Creaking on the Stairs: Finding Faith in God Through Childhood Abuse by Mez McConnell | My husband greatly respects McConnell and his ministry, so I’m eager to read this memoir.

Books Continuing

This is the third month many of these books have been on this list. I’ll say it again this month: I want to finish The Wingfeather Saga book in April!

📖 52 Weeks in the Word: A Companion for Reading Through the Bible in a Year by Trillia Newbell (using to stay accountable to Scripture reading)

📖 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (long-term classic)

📖 How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren (personal development)

📖 On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness (The Wingfeather Saga #1) by Andrew Peterson (reading out loud to my kids)—We will finish this in April if it’s the last thing we do!

2026 Reading Goals Check-In

This year, I set a list of goals I wanted to try to meet each month. So far I’m hitting about 50-60%. I’m not sure having these goals is actually motivating me to try to meet them. The ones I am meeting, I’m not doing because they’re my goals. I may ditch this for the rest of the year.

• 🎯 3 spiritual books (I read 5!)

• ❌ a classic

• 🎯 a book published before 1986 (The Long Walk)

• 🎯 a physical TBR book (Is It Abuse?, Bird by Bird, and Consider Your Counsel)

• ❌ a Kindle TBR book

• 🎯 book by a BIPOC author (Audition)

• ❌ 17 books total

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That’s it for March. I’m just starting two books and I have four books checked out from the library, as well as at least three audiobooks on deck on Libby. Not to mention the stack next to my reading chair and the 20+ books I have on my Kindle. I heard that there were more than 4 million books published in 2025. We’re never going to catch up. We just have to keep reading what we can. Happy reading, friends!