Hello PBees 🐝

Since we had some fun casting predictions for the 2026 Summer Readalong (see 🔗previous post), I thought we could do it again for the Fall one!

So the main question is: If you were to read all the books, what do you think your top for the 2026 Fall Readalong would be?

I don't think I'll go for the sparkly badge this time, but we never know, prepping for this post made me more interested! So here is my prediction:

1. 🪄 The Incandescent
2. ✍️ Death of the Author
3. 🐦 The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love
4. 🐺 How to be Eaten

• You can cast your prediction even if you don't plan on aiming for the sparkles! In fact, don't push yourself too much for it, the goal is to enjoy reading and having fun discussions first of all!
• You can also participate if you've already read them all (I see you speedy peeps 👀🏃‍➡️) Just retroactively list what you thought it could have been going in!
• If you have already read a book, add a ✅green check at the end of the line. That way, we can see if you are going in blind or already have a good idea of whether you've liked some!

We will be doing a retrospective at the end of the Readalong to compare what we thought vs what was actually our final top! (The Summer one is coming next week! Just waiting for the last rush to pass, for people like me who procrastinate until the last minute 🫣)

Hello Peeps!

To prepare for the 2026 Summer Readalong, I thought I'd let you know that there is a very special edition you might be interested in!

Back in the 1950's when audiobooks weren't a thing yet, people were tuning in on the radio. The French national public broadcaster organization (the premises of the ORTF) had a night show on which you could listen to books being read 🤯 And it so happened that Albert Camus came on this show to read The Stranger/L'étranger himself 🤯🤯🤯 You have to imagine people tuning in each night at the same time to get the next part of the story! Just like series before Netflix 😏

The recording has been preserved and you can now find it on Spotify and Audible (and probably others too) 😊

Camus reads slowly enough, and it's so interesting to hear his unbothered voice, very telling of the time, it's a little nugget of history! I listened to it a few months back and it made the experience so special, I would highly recommend it! (The book in itself is another story...)

I hope this can interest natives to make the jump (especially if you aren't usually into audiobooks), but also French learners who would like to try it out for a first read or a reread!