2026 Spring Picks

The daffodils are blooming, the birds are singing, here's three things to enjoy during the April showers.

Spring has sprung, and on the drizzly days and wonderfully long evenings (hooray for more than seven hours of daylight a day!) I have enjoyed a surfeit of delicious morsels, the choicest of which I’d love to share with you.

I’ll be avoiding spoilers and such where appropriate, but note these pieces touch on topics such as death, suicide, and depression.

Book - The Raven Scholar, Antonia Hodgson (2025, fantasy)

First up, the book that made me do nothing but read for a week. Hodgson cut her teeth in crime/mystery writing, and it shows. I can stomach plenty of fantasy/sci-fi terms in my literature - a book by Reynolds I recently read used “quoins” as their currency, and I still can’t tell if it’s brilliant or terrible - but Hodgson sticks far closer to character writing, keeping everything low on jargon and easily digestible.

And my, what characters. Neema in particular is a delightful POV, being a pedantic bookworm who can’t help but always correct someone on whatever titbit they’re mistaken about, no matter how big or small. The former childhood friend is similarly delightful, being a bisexual disaster thief who is the perfect foil for the scholar. (Also many, many bonus points for diverse characters in their 30’s. Yes please, more of this thank you.)

The mythology is plain and straightforward - Ravens are smart, Foxes are cunning, Oxes are strong, etc. etc. You can guess the others. You’re rarely left piecing together the lore of the world, leaving more room for the various mysteries unfolding at a solid pace. It reminded me more than a little of Apothecary Diaries at times, with an “Emperor’s Royal Palace” setting and being ordered around to solve crimes.

The pacing really does deserve a special call out - there’s little in the way of wasted scenes, with plenty of fleshing out of characters taking place. The characters have distinct voices, goals, and desires, making it a very pleasant time tearing through it. As one threat wraps up, another comes loose, and it is such a joy pulling at them.

So yeah, do yourself a favour and check The Raven Scholar out at your local library. And then curse me because the next book isn’t out yet.

Similar recommendation - The Will of the Many by James Islington (more Roman, less murder mystery)

Album - Pink Moon, Nick Drake (1972)

I was listening to the Flee Foxes one Spring night when a faintly familiar song popped up on my playlist - Nick Drake’s Things Behind the Sun, a song I haven’t heard since I was a small child on the West Coast of Scotland staying in a cottage with my parents.

What a bare, mournful, exposing album Pink Moon is. Largely consisting of Drake on acoustic guitar with his superlative, fragile voice accompanying it, there’s nothing to hide behind. It’s just a tiny window into one brilliant, troubled man’s life. I can’t think of a lonelier, more isolating album.

Pink Moon was a complete commercial failure, as were his other two albums. He also detested playing live, and took his own life at the age of twenty six. In the decades following his death, he would gain a much larger following than he had in life.

Usually I’d pick out the best tracks to give a taste of what an album is like, but Pink Moon is only 28 minutes long and none are filler. I highly recommend putting it on one night while you sit with your drink of choice (honeybush and rooibos for me) and just soak in it (the music not the tea).

Similar recommendation - Fairport Convention’s Unhalfbricking (or anything with Richard/Linda Thompson)

Show - Ikoku Nikki/Journal with Witch (2026)

Anime, as a medium, tends to have a focus on the teenage boy demographic. And don’t get me wrong, I love a giant sword smashing through a building as much as anyone, but it’s rare to see something with nuance.

Enter Journal with Witch, adapted from Tomoko Yamashita’s 2017 manga. Makio is a 35 year old neurodivergent fiction writer who takes in her sixteen year old niece (Asa) after a tragic accident leaves her orphaned.

Journal with Witch is a deep, mature, effective look at how people process grief, troubled family relationships, and loneliness. It doesn’t have flashy effects, or screaming neon-haired teens, but it leverages understatement, and an incredibly natural VA cast.

Makio and Asa are wonderfully written. They have their complexities, the ability to sabotage themselves, and over time a deepening bond that cracks the foundation of their loneliness. It is an exceptionally delightful watch, an excellent blend of levity and despair that feels so much more true to life than other, more miserable series.

The side characters also have their own arcs, exploring topics close to them - the pressures of toxic masculinity, existing as a woman in an oppressive patriarchal society, the slow blooming of a hidden side as you accept your sexuality. It’s a light touch. Some media feels like a manifesto, this is a lot more willing to just explore some of the many facets of life.

It does end around two thirds of the way through the manga, being an incomplete translation. I’ve already ordered copies of it, to tie up the ends, but the stopping point is an agreeable one.

After each episode, I’d sit and listen to Pink Moon and reflect on it. There’s a lot of good grist for the mill in this one.

Similar Recommendations - March Comes in Like a Lion is probably the closest. If you want a more hallucinatory look at depression and feeling ill-equipped for Society, Welcome to the NHK.

And that’s all for this. I still have a half written post about 2025 books kicking about unfinished, hopefully I’ll get that out before Summer!