Monthly Wrap Up April 2026

By Leah's Books on May 2, 2026 • ( Leave a comment )

We’re still having some temperature swings, but they’re heading in the warmer direction for the most part. It’s bananas to think that I have seen climate change alter weather patterns and they keep getting more extreme. As if my brain needed one more thing to worry about, here it is. While I’m limited in what I’m able to do, I also believe that a lot of small actions add up to bigger change. So I’m trying to rely less on plastic and disposable items, and lean towards reusable ones whenever possible. My father was brilliant at finding new uses for old items, and he was adamant that we recycle since before it was the thing to do, so I’ve kept that up to the best of my ability.

April was a pretty laid back month. We had Passover for the first week and a day of the month, which means that every meal had to be made from scratch and adjusted to adhere to the strict requirements that we follow. Right after it ended, my mother headed on a trip to Florida to visit all the family we have out there. She got to see her siblings and their partners, my sisters, two grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren, and was there for a couple of weeks. That gave her plenty of time and she was able to see her the kids playing softball and soccer, spend time with everyone, and attend one of the kids’ birthday parties. It was a bit of time that we both needed apart, and it’s been less rocky now that I’ve been able to recharge a little and she’s ready to relax and enjoy some time home.

I discovered the joy that is Vinted, an app where I can resell a bunch of things—clothes, books, electronics, home goods, purses, shoes, etc—and I decided it is time to do something with the huge amount of stuff I need to get rid of. My items have been selling like hotcakes, and it’s really nice to make a little money off of items I no longer use and get some extra space in my closet. If you want the link to my shop, just let me know.

In April I read a bunch of books set in countries around the world, and one of them was a translated work. I’m glad that I was able to check out all the cool places this month’s books took me to, have enough downtime that I got through a decent amount of books, and a lot of those were ARCs. No matter how many ARCs I read, I always have a couple of library audiobooks on my monthly TBR. I completed a transcription project I volunteered to do through a Jewish genealogy database. A really nice guy sent me a spreadsheet template and a book of names of Jewish soldiers and one of Jewish officers in the Polish Army during WWII. This is going to be incorporated into their database and makes these results searchable. It was a really interesting project, and I even found a family member we didn’t know about listed in one of the books. Obviously this is something that is close to my heart, because of my father’s own experiences and my own experiences with searching for family that was fractured—I’m still finding new relatives that I knew nothing about. While that’s exciting, it’s also heartbreaking to know that we’ve missed out on each other’s lives, and that the Shoah is still having an impact even 81 years later.

Here’s some of my April highlights:

My reading took me to Paris; a fictional town in rural Ireland; Malta; Astoria, Oregon; New Bern, North Carolina; Hvalfjörður, Iceland; Lindisfarne, UK; Austin, Texas; Sevastopol, USSR; Jerusalem, Israel; Melbourne, Australia; The Bahamas; New South Wales, Australia; and Redwood Grove, California.
I’ve gained a few new followers, which is always nice to see.
The month was a relaxing one and I was able to practice more self-care.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, and I may earn a small commission at no cost to you if you purchase through my links.

Here’s my breakdown of monthly totals for April:

April Totals:

Books read: 15
Books DNF’d: 0

Genres Read:

Cozy Mystery: 2
Fantasy: 2
Historical Fiction: 3
Literary Fiction: 1
Memoir: 1
Mystery: 5
War: 1

Backlist vs. New Releases:

Backlist books: 2
2026 releases: 13

Fiction Vs. Nonfiction:

Fiction: 13
Nonfiction: 2

Format Read:

Print: 1
Digital: 8
Audio: 6

Age Range:

Adult: 15
YA: 0
MG: 0

My favorite book of the month was Enormous Wings by Laurie Frankel.

Here’s what I read in April:

The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn | Goodreads | Amazon
When We’re Born We Forget Everything by Alicia Jo Rabins (Publisher ARC) | Goodreads | Amazon
The Book Witch by Meg Shaffer (NG ARC) | Goodreads | Amazon
Enormous Wings by Laurie Frankel (NG ARC) | Goodreads | Amazon

The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru by Olesya Salnikova Gilmore (NG ARC) | Goodreads | Amazon
The Keeper by Tana French (Cal Hooper #3) (NG ARC) | Goodreads | Amazon
Holy Island by LJ Ross (DCI Ryan Mysteries #1) (NG ARC) | Goodreads | Amazon
Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth (NG ARC) | Goodreads | Amazon