APRIL 2026: Best and Worst Books of the Month

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Bibliophilia Book Reviews. Today, I’ll be ranking the books I read in April from worst to best book of the month. As before, the list will enumerate the books I didn’t finish first. Also, this month was a little all over the place as I tried to catch up with books that I didn’t get to read in March but was still interested in, most of them nonfiction. So, there’s a lot more of those this month. However, I did read some fiction books too and I include those in a second list of worst to best novels I read in April.

NONFICTION

6. The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe by Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry (DNF)

The medieval period in history spans over a millennium, from the fall of Rome in the 5^th century to approximately the lifetime of Dante Alighieri in the 14^th century. And this period is commonly known as “the Dark Ages” due to “scarcity of historical records and the apparent loss of classical knowledge; it is a phrase used to describe a perceived decline in cultural, intellectual, and scientific advancement in Western Europe following the collapse of the Roman Empire” (Medievalists.net). The Bright Ages by Matthew Gabriele and David Perry is an attempt to challenge any misrepresentations of the European Middle Ages that the phrase “the Dark Ages” might construe and it starts by saying that the Middle Ages were not dark, but bright.

I picked this up because I was curious how the authors wove the concept of brightness and light into the history of the Middle Ages and defied the conception of it as a period of no cultural, intellectual, and scientific advancement, but that is not what we get. We get, instead, a long-winded explanation, with white women at the forefront, of why the concept of whiteness has dominated and shaped the world. I didn’t read very much into this book, but once I caught the tone in which it is written, albeit a very accessible one, I DNF’d it. I did not like where it was going.

5. Assyria by Eckart Frahm

This book is a history of the Assyrian Empire, from the Old Assyrian Period (c.a. 2020 BC) to the empire’s collapse following the Neo-Assyrian Period (c.a. 934 BC). Based on archaeological evidence and written by one of the most highly respected Assyriologists in the field, this book is one of the most comprehensive studies of Assyria that has been published in the last three decades. But going back in time (ca. 2020 BC) in a book is hard for me. And that is why this book is in the lowest ranked spot of my read nonfiction booklist. However, this is a work of scholarship worth reading. Despite the hard time that I have in transporting myself 2020 years BC, I will keep trying because I will not stop reading about ancient civilizations.

4. The Seven Wonders of the World by Bettany Hughes

This book is a journey through Antiquity to visit the Seven Wonders of the World. These seven wonders are the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylonia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria. In each chapter, the author addresses how each one of these Wonders was built, why they were deemed Wonders, where they (once) stood, how they withstood (and in most cases didn’t) the ravages of time, natural disasters, and war, and, in the case of each one except the Great Pyramid of Giza, what caused them to come down or what destroyed them.

I really enjoyed this book.

3. The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean by Susan Casey

This book takes us to the abyssal and hadal (the name says it all) zones of the ocean to discover what lives in the deepest recesses of the world. Once thought to be deserts and completely devoid of life, marine biologists, geologists, oceanographers and ocean explorers are all slowly discovering that this is indeed not the case. Life in the deepest parts of the ocean does exist, and it is unlike anything we have ever seen before. However, we know less about the ocean than we do about other planets. The world under the waves is a big unknown.

The writer is a journalist but you can tell how much she loves the ocean. The world needs more people who love the ocean and want to protect it at all costs.

2. The Last Emperor of Mexico by Edward Shawcross

There are so many things that you don’t learn in your elementary history classes. The image of Maximilian I, the last emperor of Mexico, in those classes is that of the outsider. The man who came with the invading French and wanted to subjugate and rule the people of an independent country. A man who was killed for all he represented.

But that is just the image of the man, not the man himself. Maximilian was born the second son of an emperor, and this was his curse. He wanted to do much, but he couldn’t. And in Mexico, though he tried, his monarchical background doomed him from the start. He was also the brother of Franz Joseph, the infamous emperor of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, and that also shaped both his life and death.

Had life dealt him a different card, history would’ve been written a little bit different too.

1. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

This book was my favorite nonfiction read of the month. Written by a botanist who is part of the Potawanami Nation, she blends her scientific knowledge and training with the teachings of her People about Nature to highlight the importance of paying attention to Mother Earth and what it can teach us about life and surviving.  It is indeed a “hymn of love to the world.”

FICTION

5. Sistersong by Lucy Holland (DNF)

Unfortunately, this book was miss for me. I picked it up because I love books about the relationship between sisters (as I have two of them). I wanted to love it, but I didn’t and no one was more saddened by this than me. This book had been on my shelves for quite a while and it had two things that could potentially make it one of my favorite reads of the year: a strong bond between three sisters and history, particularly history of Britain. But unfortunately, I did not like the writing style and though I knew that it is a book that portrays diversity, this storyline did nothing for me. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against LGBT and Queer literature, but I have learned that it is not one of my preferred genres.

4. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (DNF)

This too was a disappointment. I tried with this one, but it was just so boring. I read ten chapters before I stopped. It did teach me a lesson though. Not all classics are for me. And that is okay.

3. The Iron King by Maurice Druon (DNF)

This one was my monthly pick for my Fantasy Reads 2026 book club, but I could not get into it. I didn’t get too far into it before I called it quits, but I knew early on that it wasn’t for me. Unfortunately, because I had such high hopes for it. But it wasn’t meant to be.

2. The Crypt Thief by Mark Pryor

This was a surprising read for me. I enjoyed it more than I had expected, and I look forward to picking up another book by this author later.

1. La amortajada (The Shrouded Woman) por María Luisa Bombal

If you’ve read my reviews for a while, you know that I love this book. This is the third time I read this short novel, and every time has been a different reading experience. The protagonist is a dead woman who is conscious of the people that visit her coffin to say goodbye to her during the wake. She, however, is also saying goodbye and letting go of her memories of them to finally become one with the earth again.

I enjoyed this novel again a lot.