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26 books I want to read in 2026
26
items With a TBR of over 300 books, this was hard to narrow down - but here are the 26 that I'm most excited to read this year.
I aimed for a spread across my favorite genres: literary fiction, memoirs, sociology and politics. Many of the literary fictio...
Sections
6
Literary fiction
Classics / modern classics
Books in translation
Not yet released
Memoirs
Non-fiction
Literary fiction
My favorite genre so, naturally.
Set in a climate-devastated Kolkata, a struggling mother, Ma, and a desperate thief, Boomba, both commit questionable acts of theft to protect their loved ones. The story explores how desperation for family survival blurs morality and forces readers ...
Recommended by @rinceyreads on YouTube as her favorite book of 2025.
Recommended by @rinceyreads on YouTube as her favorite book of 2025.
A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar
Explores the impact of family separations on Latin American families, and how familial bonds can endure in a techno-dystopic near future.
Recommended by @lawrence.debbs on TikTok
Recommended by @lawrence.debbs on TikTok
American Abductions by Mauro Javier Cardenas
Follows a family through a full generation and what goes on beneath the surface.
Recommended by @anawallacejohnson on YouTube.
Recommended by @anawallacejohnson on YouTube.
Light Years by James Salter
“Residents of a fictional island, led by the young Ella, must fight for freedom of speech as their governing Council bans the use of letters of the alphabet one by one, mirroring their disappearance from a public monument.”
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
"Explores the immigrant experience and evolving mother-daughter bond between a young woman attending college in Vermont and her mother back in Brazil, sustained through daily video calls in the blue glow of their computer screens."
Blue Light Hours by Bruna Dantas Lobato
“A speculative historical novel that follows a young woman and her friends in an alternate 1960s India, who create a clandestine independence movement to destroy the British Empire from the inside out.”
Ten Incarnations of Rebellion by Vaishnavi Patel
Classics / modern classics
I tend to be drawn towards newer releases, so I'm being intentional about reading at least 4-5 classics this year!
I've heard so many people say this is their favorite book of all time. I need to see what the hype is about! I love multi-generational stories so I have high hopes.
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
I'm ready to be blown away / devastated.
Sula by Toni Morrison
I've read and loved Baldwin's non-fiction, so I'm very excited to read his arguably most famous novel. His quality of writing is unmatched.
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
All the cool kids are reading Joan Didion!
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
Books in translation
I've discovered so many great books from the International Booker Prize and it's made me want to read many more books from around the world.
2025 was the year I got into Mexican literature and I loved so many books. This was longlisted for the Intl Booker Prize and seems right up my alley.
Blurb:
“Life’s a bitch. That’s why you gotta rattle her cage, even if she’s foaming at the mouth.” In the linked stories of Reservoir Bitches, thirteen Mexican women prod the bitch that is Life and become her. From the all-powerful daughter of a cartel boss...
Blurb:
“Life’s a bitch. That’s why you gotta rattle her cage, even if she’s foaming at the mouth.” In the linked stories of Reservoir Bitches, thirteen Mexican women prod the bitch that is Life and become her. From the all-powerful daughter of a cartel boss...
Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda
This has been on so many “best of” lists I've lost count.
Blurb:
In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by h...
A deeply satisfying thriller cum fairy tale, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead is a provocative exploration of the murky borderland between sanity and madness, justice and tradition, autonomy and fate. Whom do we deem sane? it asks. Who is w...
Blurb:
In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by h...
A deeply satisfying thriller cum fairy tale, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead is a provocative exploration of the murky borderland between sanity and madness, justice and tradition, autonomy and fate. Whom do we deem sane? it asks. Who is w...
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
The only translated work by Melchor I have left to read. Paradais had me hooked so I'm excited to get into this one.
Blurb:
The Witch is dead. And the discovery of her corpse has the whole village investigating the murder. As the novel unfolds in a dazzling linguistic torrent, with each unreliable narrator lingering on new details, new acts of depravity or brutality, Melc...
Like Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 or Faulkner’s novels, Hurricane Season takes place in a world saturated with mythology and violence—real violence, the kind that seeps into the soil, poisoning everything around: it’s a world that becomes more and more terr...
Blurb:
The Witch is dead. And the discovery of her corpse has the whole village investigating the murder. As the novel unfolds in a dazzling linguistic torrent, with each unreliable narrator lingering on new details, new acts of depravity or brutality, Melc...
Like Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 or Faulkner’s novels, Hurricane Season takes place in a world saturated with mythology and violence—real violence, the kind that seeps into the soil, poisoning everything around: it’s a world that becomes more and more terr...
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor
Another very popular one. It's also been a while since I've dove into a series, so I'm excited there are 7 books to look forward to.
Summary:
A minimalist and philosophical series that follows bookseller Tara Selter as she navigates the existential isolation and shifting reality of being the only person trapped in a continuously repeating November 18th.
Summary:
A minimalist and philosophical series that follows bookseller Tara Selter as she navigates the existential isolation and shifting reality of being the only person trapped in a continuously repeating November 18th.
On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle
Named the #1 book of the century by the NYT - I have to read it.
Blurb:
Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Elena Ferrante’s four-volume story spans almost sixty years, as its main characters, the fiery and unforgettable Lila and the bookish narrator, Elena, become women,...
Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between two women.
Blurb:
Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Elena Ferrante’s four-volume story spans almost sixty years, as its main characters, the fiery and unforgettable Lila and the bookish narrator, Elena, become women,...
Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between two women.
My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Novels, #1) by Elena Ferrante
Another book I've heard so much about.
Blurb:
While vacationing in a hunting lodge in the Austrian mountains, a middle-aged woman awakens one morning to find herself separated from the rest of the world by an invisible wall. With a cat, a dog, and a cow as her sole companions, she learns how to ...
Allegorical yet deeply personal and absorbing, The Wall is at once a critique of modern civilization, a nuanced and loving portrait of a relationship between a woman and her animals, a thrilling survival story, a Cold War-era dystopian adventure, and...
Blurb:
While vacationing in a hunting lodge in the Austrian mountains, a middle-aged woman awakens one morning to find herself separated from the rest of the world by an invisible wall. With a cat, a dog, and a cow as her sole companions, she learns how to ...
Allegorical yet deeply personal and absorbing, The Wall is at once a critique of modern civilization, a nuanced and loving portrait of a relationship between a woman and her animals, a thrilling survival story, a Cold War-era dystopian adventure, and...
The Wall by Marlen Haushofer
Not yet released
The ones that keep cropping up on “most anticipated” lists
I was really impressed by McCurdy's memoir, so I'm intrigued to read her debut novel.
“Startlingly perceptive, mordantly funny, and keenly poignant, Half His Age is a rich character study of a yearning seventeen-year-old who disregards all obstacles—or attempts to overcome them—in her effort to be seen, to be desired, to be loved.”
“Startlingly perceptive, mordantly funny, and keenly poignant, Half His Age is a rich character study of a yearning seventeen-year-old who disregards all obstacles—or attempts to overcome them—in her effort to be seen, to be desired, to be loved.”
Half His Age by Jennette Mccurdy
“A witty, emotionally-charged exploration of marriage, family life, and the roads not taken, that ultimately asks: do we really want our fantasies to come true?”
The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers
“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.”
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
Memoirs
More thought-provoking memoirs
Yiyun Li's The Book of Goose is one of my favorite novels so I'm sure her memoir will be beautifully written.
Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
“In eleven bold, electrifying pieces, Gurba mines her own life and the lives of others—some famous, some infamous, some you’ve never heard of but will likely never forget—to unearth the toxic traditions that have long plagued our culture and enabled ...
Creep: Accusations and Confessions by Myriam Gurba
"How do power and beauty join forces to determine who is considered ugly? What role does that ugliness play in fomenting hatred? Moshtari Hilal, an Afghan—born author and artist who lives in Germany, has written a touching, intimate, and highly polit...
She writes about beauty salons in Kabul as a backdrop to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Darwin's theory of evolution, Kim Kardashian, and a utopian place in the shadow of her nose. With a profound mix of essay, poetry, her own drawings, and cultur...
She writes about beauty salons in Kabul as a backdrop to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Darwin's theory of evolution, Kim Kardashian, and a utopian place in the shadow of her nose. With a profound mix of essay, poetry, her own drawings, and cultur...
Ugliness by Moshtari Hilal
Non-fiction
Politics, philosophy, technology
"Palestine is a microcosm of the world: on fire, stubborn, fragmented, dignified. While a settler colonial state continues to inflict devastating violence, fundamental truths are deliberately obscured—the perpetrators are coddled while the victims ar...
Why must Palestinians prove their humanity? And what are the implications of such an infuriatingly impossible task? With fearless prose and lyrical precision, Mohammed El—Kurd refuses a life spent in cross—examination. Rather than asking the oppresse...
Why must Palestinians prove their humanity? And what are the implications of such an infuriatingly impossible task? With fearless prose and lyrical precision, Mohammed El—Kurd refuses a life spent in cross—examination. Rather than asking the oppresse...
Perfect Victims: And the Politics of Appeal by Mohammed El-Kurd
“In How to Think Like a Woman, Regan Penaluna blends memoir, biography, and criticism to tell the stories of these four women, weaving throughout an alternative history of philosophy as well as her own search for love and truth. Funny, honest, and wi...
How to Think Like a Woman by Regan Penaluna
A timely read.
"Redefining the story of the two continents that have been so closely connected throughout centuries, Greg Grandin brings up interesting facts that give rise to questions about the Americas we thought we knew."
"Redefining the story of the two continents that have been so closely connected throughout centuries, Greg Grandin brings up interesting facts that give rise to questions about the Americas we thought we knew."
America, América: A New History of the New World by Greg Grandin
"An investigative exposé that chronicles OpenAI's transformation from an idealistic nonprofit to a profit-driven "empire," detailing the environmental and human costs—such as resource extraction in the Global South and labor exploitation—behind the r...
Empire of AI