The Best Book I Read This Month: The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff

The best book I read this month is a comedy of errors set in a small town in India. Parini Shroff’s The Bandit Queens tells the story of a group of women who conspire to murder their way out of abusive marriages.

At the center of the story and the group is Geeta, whose husband disappeared years before. Town gossip says she killed him, and the townspeople shun her as a murderess. When women in Geeta’s small loan group decided they want out of their marriages, they turn to Geeta to help them follow her (murderous) example.

Geeta, on the other hand, wants nothing to do with their conspiracies. She just wants to make and sell enough jewelry to afford a refrigerator. As she is pulled deeper and deeper into her friends’ schemes, she turns to the example of Phoolan Devi, India’s historical Bandit Queen, for guidance and inspiration.

Geeta and her friends end up on a hilarious and heartbreaking adventure involving blackmail, gangsters, moonshine, manipulation, and friendship. It was a rollicking ride that I finished in two days. I don’t know if Parini Shroff has more in store for Geeta and her sisters in crime, but I sure hope she does. I enjoyed every moment I spent with them.

The Best Book I Read This Month: Slow Productivity by Cal Newport

The best book I read this month made me very angry. That strong response is why Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout I chose the book as my best read of June 2026.

To be clear, my anger is not directed at the book or its author. It’s anger at how the system exploits and harms workers, treating them like machines instead of human beings.

Newport argues that knowledge workers burn out from the relentless pace they are expected to work at and the amount of work they are expected to do. He points to the rise of what he calls “pseudo-productivity,” or the appearance of busyness, which often interferes with true productivity. Workers are expected to look busy all the time, when in reality, human beings need slow times and down times not just for their health but also to produce their best work. This feeds into another of Newport’s arguments: that the focus has shifted from quality of work to quantity.

Newport offers a plan to counter all of this:

• Do fewer things.

• Work at a natural pace.

• Obsess over quality.

It’s a good plan but not always realistic. Many knowledge workers do not have the power or authority to implement it, in whole or in part. To his credit, Newport does acknowledge this. Still, his book made me want to burn everything down so we could start all over again. Knowledge workers of the world, unite!

The Best Book I Read This Month: Detective Aunty by Uzma Jalaluddin

Five years ago this month, I read a delightful book called Hana Khan Carries On. It was the best book I read that month. I recently picked up another book by the same author (Uzma Jalaluddin), and it became the best book I read this month.

Detective Aunty is, as you might suspect from the title, a mystery. Set in Toronto, the story follows Kausar Khan as she tries to prove her daughter’s innocence after her daughter is accused of murder.

The mystery part of the story is a pretty standard cozy. The milieu in which it occurs is not. Detective Aunty focuses on a South Asian family that lives in a culturally diverse community, a community that is feeling the pressures of gentrification. The story’s big problem and Kausar Khan’s efforts to solve it are complicated by both personal and community issues. The characters, themselves, were also well-drawn. They were sometimes charming, sometimes trying, but always relatable and real.

I loved this book so much that as soon as I finished it, I looked to see if there’s more—and there is! The second Kausar Khan book is already on bookstore shelves. Don’t be surprised if it shows up here too one day. ;-)

The Best Book I Read This Month: Kills Well With Others by Deanna Raybourn

The best book I read this month is a sequel to a previous Best Book I’ve Read. Two and a half years ago, I chose Deanna Raybourn’s Killers of a Certain Age as the best book I read that month. I described it as “a romp featuring four 60-year-old assassins.” Its sequel—Kills Well With Others—is just as much of a romp.

In this second installment, former assassins Billie, Helen, Natalie, and Mary Alice are comfortable in their retirement when they are called back into action. An old nemesis is hunting members of the team from one of their old cases. They are tasked with finding and stopping the hunter. Of course, nothing is what it seems, and their pursuit twists and turns in humorous and dangerous ways.

It was a delight to go on another adventure with these ladies. As I said in my review of the Killers of a Certain Age, it feels wrong to describe a book about murder as fun but fun is exactly what this book is.

The Best Book I Read This Month: The Story of Jane by Laura Kaplan

I struggled with my choice for best book this month. I read a fantastic dark fairy tale by Eowyn Ivey (Black Woods, Blue Sky) that fit the bill. But I also read a compelling work of nonfiction, and ultimately that is the one I have chosen. Laura Kaplan’s The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service does exactly what its title suggests: it tells the story of Chicago’s Jane Collective from its founding in 1969 to its closure in 1973 in the wake of the Roe v. Wade decision.

Because what Jane did was illegal, its organizers made a point of not creating or leaving written records. So Kaplan’s book is based on oral history (interviews) and her own experiences. (Kaplan volunteered with Jane.)

It was a timely read, with reproductive rights being rolled back and the growth of pro-democracy grassroots organizing in the United States. In addition to telling a compelling story about people who were both sympathetic and frustrating, The Story of Jane provides examples and lessons that serve both causes—lessons about leadership, recruitment, and organization, but also about intention, community, and allyship across socioeconomic and racial lines and, most of all, about what success might look like in an underground resistance movement.