The Best Books of 2026

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize; longlisted for the National Book Award for fiction; an Oprah's Book Club Pick; instant New York Times Bestseller

In this spellbinding novel, Marlon James has written a propulsive crime story that is also a deeply human account of connection and acceptance. Full of fascinating characters, biting humor, and unapologetic sex, The Disappearers is both a thrilling page-turner and a finely etched portrait of queer life.

From Newbery Award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The One and Only Ivan and Odder

Wombat Waiting is a stunning middle grade standalone novel-in-verse about compassion, resilience, and surprising friendships, following a dog named Wombat in the aftermath of a catastrophic fire. Fans of modern classics like Because of Winn-Dixie, Pax, and Katherine Applegate's own Crenshaw and Odder, and timeless tales like Charlotte's Web, will find a friend in Wombat and her story.

From the author of The Help; rave reviews from Kirkus, Publisher's Weekly, The New York Times, and The Sunday Times; a Read With Jenna Book Club Pick

Abandoned by her mother one Christmas Eve, eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one. Now one of the unadoptable "big girls" at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, she fights each day to keep her spirit unbowed. The Calamity Club will make you laugh, cry, and cheer--an epic testament to underestimated women who know that calamity can be the spark of new beginnings.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize; finalist for the 2026 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction; finalist for the 2026 Kirkus Prize for Fiction; an Oprah's Book Club Pick; instant New York Times Bestseller; starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, and Shelf Awareness

John of John is a singular novel about duty, passion, and the transformative power of the truth. It is a magnificent literary work that cements Douglas Stuart's reputation as one of our greatest novelists working today.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Demon Copperhead and The Poisonwood Bible; a Read With Jenna Book Club Pick; positive and rave reviews in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Library Journal, Booklist, and Kirkus

Shifting between past and present, Livia's decision to meet or reject a reunion with an old lover means confronting step by step, in memories framed as musical dances, the experiences of childhood loss, abandonment, self-immolating passion, and perilous attachment to a man who broke her belief in love and ruptured the course of her life.

A Katie Couric Book Club Pick; a Good Housekeeping Book Club Pick; starred review in Publisher's Weekly; positive reviews in The New York Tims, Library Journal, and Kirkus Reviews

Whistler is a story about two adults looking back over the choices they made, and the choices that were made for them. It's a story about bravery, memory, the often small yet consequential moments that define our lives, and the endless stream of loss that in time comes for us all. Beautiful in its simplicity, it is ultimately about how love endures, and how the feeling of being known by one other person, even for a short period of time, can change everything.

From the award-winning author of Say Nothing; finalist for the Kirkus Prize; positive reviews from Kirkus, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Sunday Times

A spellbinding account of a family devastated by the sudden death of their nineteen-year-old son, only to discover that he had created a secret life which drew him into the dangerous criminal underworld that lies beneath London's glittering surface. London Falling is a mesmerizing investigation of an inexplicable death and a powerful narrative driven by suspense and staggering revelations. But it is also an intimate and deeply poignant inquiry into the nature of parental love and the challenges of being a parent today, a portrait of a family trying to solve the riddle not just of how their son died, but of who he really was in life.

Starred Kirkus review; #1 New York Times Bestseller; a Good Morning America Book CLub Pick; a New York Times Best Book of the Year; optioned for a film adaptation

A traditional American woman, a "tradwife" influencer, suddenly awakens in the brutal reality of 1855--where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel. A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.

Finalist for the Kirkus prize for fiction; two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author; rave reviews in Kirkus, Harper's Bazaar, The New York Times,

The final novel in his Harlem Trilogy. With his usual pitch-perfect prose, Whitehead paints a portrait of a city in transition, where shimmering skyscrapers rise to the heavens as displaced people huddle in abandoned tunnels below. In a dazzling display of protean imagination, Cool Machine roves all over the city, from Windows on the World to the Meadowlands, to show that in New York, and in the lives of Whitehead's vivid characters, it's what's below the surface that reveals the truth.

Author was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship to support her work on this novel; positive reviews from The New York Times, NPR, Kirkus, starred review in Library Journal, and Booklist

Beginning in the early '90s, this saga follows a family named The Kohs, beginning with their move from Seoul to Sydney. At over 600 pages, this saga promises you an emotional, epic, and deep read that follows the characters and themes deeply across time and space. Min Jin Lee has crafted an unforgettable, panoramic novel where the smallest of gestures can have enormous repercussions, where the bonds of family and of memory twist and fray but rarely break, and where willful self-sacrifice—for the benefit of loved ones and even strangers—is a kind of prayer.

Shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards (winner to be announced December); From the award-winning author of Hamnet; positive reviews from Kirkus and The Boston Globe,

Historical fiction set in Ireland, 1860s, Land is a novel about separation and reunion, tragedy and recovery, colonization and rebellion. It is a story of buried treasure, overlapping lives, ancient woodland, persistent ghosts, a particularly loyal dog, and how, when it comes to both land and history, nothing ever goes away. As spellbinding and varied as the landscape that inspired it, Land is, above all, a story of survival, for our times and for all time.