Happy 2026! This year the Beyond the PhIrst Page Podcast is breaking up their segments into Chapters. Each Chapter will have a theme giving the second pagers a couple of really good options to read within a specific theme of book. To start of the siblings read 3 different detective novels and are going to discuss them for chapter one. Listen to this episode first to see which of the 3 you would be most interested in reading and then come back later in the chapter to hear the discussion about the books you read!

On the final episode of Season Two of Beyond the PhIrst Page Podcast, the siblings discuss The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. This book is a great New Years book since it is all about following your dreams and achieving your goals. The siblings discuss the religious aspects of this book as well as the overwhelming amount of life lessons packed into the pages of this short novel. As always at the end the siblings give book recommendations and rate this read.

This club meeting the siblings discuss Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These. A short story set in a small Irish town. They discuss how they saw the actions of the main character differently from each other. They also talk about how much they enjoyed Keegan's writing and were happy to read a second book by her for the podcast. As always they closed with their ratings and suggestions if you are looking for more books like this fabulous short story.