Once again, Saturday is here, and it’s brought Weekend Reading 202! As usual, The Beat Elite will be holding up in Stately Beat Manor and getting lost in a good book.

What are you paging through this weekend? Be sure and let us know, either here in the comment section or over on The Beat’s Bluesky page.


Weekend Reading 202
Weekend Reading 202: Next Stop & Birding to Change the World.

AVERY KAPLAN: This weekend, I’m checking out Next Stop by Debbie Fong. With a fascinating premise and a solid foundation of positive buzz, I’m quite certain I’ll be enjoying this middle grade graphic novel. And then as far as prose goes, I’m dovetailing into nonfiction this weekend with Birding to Change the World: A Memoir by Trish O’Kane. While I’m an amateur birder (at best), a recent Great Horned Owl sighting has my interest on the subject piqued!

Weekend Reading 202
Weekend Reading 202: Ape-Ril Special.

TAIMUR DAR: I’m typically frugal when it comes to picking up physical releases but the new Ape-Ril Special one-shot from DC Comics that came out this week was too good to pass up. The fact the DC Round-Up gave it a glowing review has me even more excited to read it.

Weekend Reading 202
Weekend Reading 202: I Cannot Reach You.

KRISTINA ELYSE BUTKE: I’ve been hoarding a BL series by Mika called I Cannot Reach You. I have collected every volume of this manga (we’re up to seven!) and have not cracked open any of it since I started purchasing it. Time to rectify the situation! I Cannot Reach You is about two high school boys who couldn’t be more different from each other, and one of the boys has loved the other (unrequited) for a very long time. Will they end up together? I’m rooting for them, and I think the relationship will take a sweet, leisurely pace given how many volumes are in the series. I’m looking forward to finally giving this a try!

REBECCA OLIVER KAPLAN: I prefer to get what I can at brick-and-mortar bookstores and comic shops because, for me, the hunt is part of the fun of being a genre nerd. So, this week, I’m really excited to finally read the second volume of the Yen Press manga series So I’m a Spider So What? The Daily Lives of the Kumoko Sisters, original story by Okina Baba, with art by Gratinbird and character design by Tsukasa Kiryu and Asahiro Kakashi. While at Barnes & Noble, I also discovered an illustrated history of lumberjacks. Since I’m currently obsessed with lumberjacks after watching Gravity Falls, I’m really excited to dig in and learn more about the subculture in Lauren Jarvis’s Lumberjack: The History, The Lore, The Life.


You can peruse the 201 previous entries in The Beat’s Weekend Reading archive by clicking here.