What We've Been Reading: April 2026

Welcome to our monthly reading-round-up for April 2026! This is the place where we gather highlights from what the Lighthouse team have been reading each month.

Prepare for a packed edition as the Lighthouse crew have been even busier in their reading than usual. We have a spread of fiction (eco-fiction, thrillers, queer classics...) as well as non-fiction with special emphasis on solidarity. We welcome you to dive in!

You can check out round-ups from previous months and years amongst our book lists.

Zozan

I keep reading about hope and solidarity this month, not just in these books but also in some academic articles.

Kurdish Women's Movement by Dilar Dirik - It is about the political struggle, understanding of freedom, and social transformation of the Kurdish women's movement. This was our Reimagining Colonised Landscapes’ April read.

The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity by Sarah Schulman - Why is solidarity difficult but necessary through relationships and social struggles?

Philosophy and Social Hope by Richard Rorty - It focuses on the role of philosophy in imagining a better society and generating hope

Jim

Valis by Philip K Dick - A heartbreaking and surprisingly funny novel about mental illness, grief, self-destruction and - possibly - the ultimate secrets of the universe.

Christina

Overnight by Dan Richards

Is a River Alive by Robert Macfarlane

Middlemarch again!

Beautiful Distance by Nao-Cola Yamazaki

The Inn at the Foot of Mount Vengeance by Chiara Bullen

Nic

Contingency, Irony & Solidarity by Richard Rorty

Radical New Enlightenment: Philosophy for a Common World by Marina Garcés

The Practical Origins of Ideas: Genealogy as Conceptual Reverse-Engineering by Matthew Queloz

Freedom Is A Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis

Pao

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte Mcoconaghy - a climate fiction AND a thriller, all in one book? What a treat! Really enjoyed this even though the ending was an unexpected shock.

The Names by Florence Knapp - what a beautiful stunner of a book.

Minority Rule by Ash Sarkar - 10/10, highly recommend to anyone looking to change their mind about something!

Teddy

Lote by Shola von Reinhold - a gorgeous book exploring hidden and buried black queer archives, through a perspective of luxury, decadence and obsession. Absolutely propulsive, unforgettable.

Wave of Blood by Ariana Reines - writing as a Jewish American poet, Ariana Reines compulsively examines the experience of watching the genocide in Gaza, and feeling powerless to stop it, even as you protest and donate and fundraise and argue with those around you. A documentation of watching the most live-streamed, photographed and videoed genocide in history, while governments refuse to acknowledge it is happening.

The Milkman's on His Way by David Rees - first published in 1982, this is a coming-of-age novel about growing up gay in Cornwall in the 80s. One of the first of its kind, this constantly affirms that queerness is okay, that queer people could be happy, long before this was an accepted belief.

The Rose by Ariana Reines - a queer and feminist collection about the power that comes with being a woman in love. Drawing on mythology and medieval stories, Reines reflects on her body, her mother, her passion.

The Leather Boys by Gillian Freeman - to working-class London boys, clad in leather and a little in love with their motorcycles, find love with each other. A lost queer classic, recently resurrected by Dead Ink.

The Future of the Novel by Simon Okotie - reflecting on his own process as a novelist, Okotie examines the history and development of the novel (which is often written about as a dying form), to write compellingly about the forms future.

Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges - Borges creates entire worlds in short stories only numbering several pages. Obscure, original, Borges takes every idea to its extreme but logical end.

As if by Isabel Waidner - the newest novel by avant-garde and fantastic Waidner, As If follows two men who look almost identical, as they slowly overtake one another's lives. Full of possibility, poised with hope for transformation - Waidner never misses.

Weeding by Jess McKinney - inspired by gardens, queer literature, the cinema of Derek Jarman, McKinney writes beautiful queer poetry about stillness, reflection.