At the beginning of each year, the "Sound of Ideas" shares book recommendations with the audience. These recommendations come from area book lovers. Everyone from the owners of bookstores, to writers, academics, and librarians.
Here's a list of what you should read in 2026.
Guests:
- Matt Weinkam, Executive Director, Literary Cleveland
- Kate Schlademan, The Learned Owl Book Shop
- Kortney Morrow, Program Director, Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards
- Scot Allyn, Adult Services Librarian, Lorain County Public Library
Guest Recommendations:
- "A Truce That Is Not Peace" by Miriam Toews
- "Sula" by Toni Morrison
- "I See You've Called In Dead" by John Kenney
- "Sandwich" and "Wreck" by Catherine Newman
- "The Obstacle Is The Way" by Ryan Holiday
- "We Do Not Part" by Han Kang
- "State Champ" by Hilary Plum
- "Brigands & Breadknives" by Travis Baldree
- "The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd" by Agatha Christie
- "Something Wicked This Way Comes" by Ray Bradbury
- "Audition" by Katie Kitamura
- "The Dentist" by Tim Sullivan
- "Go Tell It" by Quartez Harris
- "The Natural Order of Things" by Donika Kelly
- "Immediacy: Or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism" by Anna Kornbluh
- "They Call Us Enemy" by George Takei
- "Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America" by Heather Cox
- "Coming Up Short" by Robert Reich
- "Bloom How You Must: A Black Woman's Guide to Self-Care and Generational Healing" by Tara Pringle Jefferson
- "Bad Company" by Megan Greenwell
- "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" by Cory Doctorow
- "Giving Up is Unforgivable" by Joyce Vance
- "We the People" by Jill Lepore
- "Orlando" by Virginia Woolf
- "A Sea of Lemon Trees: The Corrido of Roberto Alvarez" by María Dolores Águila
- "We Look Better Alive" by Ali Black
- "The Silence of the Girls" by Pat Barker
- "52 Words That Will Change Your Life" by Regina Brett
- "Dead and Alive" by Zadie Smith
- "Bluff" by Danez Smith
- "Nobody's Girl" by Virginia Giuffre
- "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas
Ideastream Staff Recommendations:
- "James" by Percival Everett
- "Buckeye" by Patrick Ryan
- "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho
- "The Women" by Kristin Hannah
- "The Long Lost Story" by Meg Shaffer
- "Black Arms to Hold You Up: A History of Black Resistance" by Ben Passmore
- "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" by Samin Nosrat
- "Housemates" by Emma Copley Eisenberg
- "What We Can Know" by Ian McEwan
- "Night" by Elie Wiesel
- "This Is Larry Morrow... My Life On and Off The Air" by Larry Morrow
Listener Recommendations:
"The Evolution of Angels" by Isobel Lynn
"With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa" by Eugene B. Sledge
"Brood" by Jackie Polzin
"The Raven Scholar" by Antonia Hodgson
"More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity" by Adam Becker
"When The Moon Hits Your Eye" by John Scalzi
"The Light Eaters" by Zoë Schlanger
"The Last Dekrepitzer" by Howard Langer
"Mailman: "My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home" by Stephen Starring Grant
"Wyrd Sisters" by Terry Pratchett
"Raising Hare" by Chloe Dalton
"Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn" by Christopher Cox
"Godhunter" by Isobel Lynn
"Prophet Song" by Paul Lynch
"Scaring the Sphinx" by Pierre Van Hauwaert
