This year’s Book Bingo Unplug category can certainly be used for a physical book read distraction-free, as the board says, but since we like to make categories as broad as possible, here are some other ideas for books that play with the “unplugged” theme: hands-on hobbies, off-the-grid living, and fostering in-person connection and attention.
One of this year’s biggest books is Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear, in which a tradwife influencer gets stuck in the homesteader lifestyle she’s been peddling. Natalie Mills has achieved internet fame for her carefully curated feed full of homemade sourdough, prosperous ranch run by her dashing husband, and brood of well-behaved children. In reality, she has a staff who run the farm, tend the children, and produce her content, while her husband descends into the far-right online manosphere. When Natalie wakes up in an alternate version of her life in 1805, she’s not sure whether she’s time-traveled, is in some sick reality show, or something else entirely. Find it as a Peak Pick!
For another literal interpretation of “unplug,” Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz sees a group of sentient robots fending for themselves after an unexpected shutdown. In near-future San Francisco, four robots reawaken in the takeout shop where they were contracted to work, the sketchy owners having left after fraudulent business. In need of money and a purpose, the robots decide to reopen as a noodle shop which isn’t entirely legal. Both silly and profound, this novella would also work well for Soothing.
Continuing on the food theme, cooking and baking are great hobbies to unplug with, and as easy as it is to pull up a recipe on your phone, physical cookbooks offer a much richer experience for engaging with food. Samin Nosrat’s latest, Good Things, offers recipes and rituals for entertaining, as much a collection of stories, memories, and ideas as step-by-step processes for meals. Like in her first cookbook, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, Nosrat teaches readers how to become comfortable in the kitchen and encourages cooks to learn through doing.
The desire to unplug can often be a pull back towards human connection in an age where so much in conducted on devices. In Love by the Book by Jessica George, friendship is centered as a love story as rich and valuable as a romantic partnership. Novelist Remy is floundering after the success of her first book and the slow growing apart of her core friend group when she meets Simone, a teacher who has convinced herself she’s better off alone than with close relationships. As the two build an unexpected bond, they redefine for themselves and each other what friendship can be.
If you’re accustomed to checking the time by glancing at your phone (guilty!), unplug by reading Cathy Haynes’ The Fullness of Time. Haynes, the Timekeeper in Residence at University College London’s Petrie Museum, chronicles various methods of measuring time, pushing readers to reconnect with the natural world through its inherent cyclical timekeeping. She describes learning what birds sing at different times of the day, what flowers open when, sundials and church bells, all largely ignored in favor of the precise minute or second measuring we are used to. In speaking with people who keep traditional timekeeping practices alive, Haynes furthers these practices and encourages us to engage with them as well.
For more title ideas, check out Book Bingo NW 2026: Unplug.
For more ideas for books to meet your Summer Book Bingo challenge, follow our Shelf Talk BookBingoNW2026 series or check the hashtag #BookBingoNW2026 on social media. Book Bingo is presented in partnership with Seattle Arts & Lectures and the King County Library System.
~written by Jane S.