Alison Espach’s “The Wedding People”, Plus: New Monthly Pick Nominations for April and May

Monthly Pick (Long Read) nominations for April 2026

Here is a quick overview of what we have been dealing with in March and April, and what is to come in May.

Alison Espach’s The Wedding People: Outstanding Entertainment

Alison Espach has surprised us with a novel (The Wedding People) as funny and witty as a dinner party where every guest is hiding a secret and the host is serving truth with a side of sarcasm. And that is quite a feat given that its central theme is suicide. The unanimous verdict for our February/March read is in: 4.6 stars out of five, based on seven reviews — a remarkable result for a remarkable work of fiction.

In our March and April meetups, we have discussed the novel at length and are confident that it will come up time and again in future discussions. But now it’s time to move on… enter our April/May Monthly Pick nominations.

New Monthly Pick nominations (Short Read) for May

The nomination phase is over for our next two Monthly Pick rounds. In the category “Short Read” (i.e. short story, article, essay), our members have nominated the following titles:

  • Speaking/Not Speaking, an essay by Emilie Pine on the important social issue of speaking up (when and how we do it, or rather not); it is part of a larger collection of essays entitled Notes to Self.
  • Signs and Symbols, a short story by Vladimir Nabokov, on mental health, family relations, and isolation.
  • The Selfish Giant, a classic (shortest) short story by Oscar Wilde. A tale about a giant who owns a beautiful garden but tries to keep children out of it, with surprising and moving consequences.
  • The Office of Historical Corrections, a not-so-short short story by Danielle Evans (from an anthology of stories with the same name); it explores the topics of truth and misinformation among the issues of race, culture, and history.

Voting will conclude on May 10, 2026 and we will let you know about the outcome then.

New Monthly Pick nominations (Long Read) for April

Yeah, we know: it’s already May and we’re a little behind on our one-long-read-every-two-months schedule. But that’s okay, we’ll try to catch up soon. The category “Long Read” (i.e. books, novels) boasts these nominations (all novels):

  • Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. A lonely widow forges an unexpected and magical friendship with a very intelligent octopus at the small‑town aquarium where she works at night.
  • Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. A lone astronaut on a distant spaceship with no recollection of who he is, must piece together the mission and his past to save humanity from a cosmic threat.
  • What We Can Know by Ian McEwan. A 22nd‑century literary scholar becomes obsessed with tracking down a lost poem from a party in 2014, leading him into a haunting meditation on memory, truth, and the fragility of the past.
  • Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors. Three sisters gather in their childhood apartment a year after their younger sibling’s sudden death, each reckoning with grief, family loyalty, and the different paths they have chosen.
  • All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Alternating between occupied France and the life of a German boy with a gift for radio technology, the novel traces two young lives drawn together by circumstance and choice during World War II.

If that doesn’t make for an outstanding spring reading experience, I don’t know what will. Voting is on until May 6. We’ll keep you posted on the outcome.