The most exciting books to look forward to in 2026

23 January 2026

From prize-season heavyweights and global literary stars to daring debuts, urgent non-fiction and boundary-pushing science fiction, 2026 promises a reading year defined by ambition and range. These are the books, confirmed by publishers and booksellers, that will shape conversations long after the final page.

Prize contenders and major literary returns

The year opens strongly with Vigil, a compact and morally searching novel from George Saunders, unfolding over a single night as a ghost attempts to guide a dying oil tycoon toward redemption. Spare, strange and unmistakably Saunders, it feels tailor-made for juries.

Spring brings The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout, a quietly devastating portrait of a coastal Massachusetts town where one secret ripples outward, reshaping lives. It’s classic Strout: restrained, compassionate and piercing.

Douglas Stuart returns with John of John, a novel of homecoming and identity set on a remote Scottish island, while Colson Whitehead completes his Harlem trilogy with Cool Machine, bringing his crime-inflected portrait of New York into the 1980s.

Summer novels everyone will be talking about

June belongs to Maggie O'Farrell, whose new novel Land draws on her family history to tell a moving story of a father and son surveying Ireland after the Great Hunger—an exploration of inheritance, loss and what it means to claim a place.

Out the same month, Whistler sees Ann Patchett return with a subtle, emotionally resonant novel about a chance reunion that forces two people to re-examine the narratives of their lives.

Meanwhile, Matt Haig follows his global hit The Midnight Library with The Midnight Train, another high-concept, emotionally generous novel that plays with time, chance and the roads not taken.

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Science fiction that feels genuinely new

One of the most exciting developments in science fiction in 2026 is the arrival of Michael Dawson, whose twin novels Black Star and Life on Mars announce a bold and assured new voice in the genre.

Released simultaneously and conceived as companion works, the novels form a provocative dialogue with each other, inviting readers to decide which to read first. Like twins, they stand independently while sharing a common DNA. Life on Mars is a confident time-travel novel in the classic tradition, while Black Star - described by early readers as “Ocean’s Eleven in space” - leans into high-stakes plotting and kinetic momentum.

Across both books, Dawson tackles big questions of identity, agency and what it ultimately means to be human, without sacrificing pace or narrative drive. The ideas are ambitious, but they are always anchored in character and story.

What’s most striking is the confidence of the world-building and the clarity of vision. These are not debut novels that play it safe: they take risks, ask uncomfortable questions, and trust readers to keep up.

For fans of intelligent, idea-driven science fiction, Black Star and Life on Mars feel less like tentative arrivals and more like declarations of intent.

Literary fiction to savour

Exit Party, the latest from Emily St. John Mandel, opens in a near-future America fractured by internal conflict, tracing love, crime and compromise across time and space.

Tayari Jones’s Kin explores friendship and divergence in the segregated South, while Last Night in Brooklyn by Xóchitl González offers a sharp, propulsive look at ambition, art and reinvention in contemporary New York.

Crime, history and compulsive storytelling

Crime readers will be drawn to The Keeper, the final instalment in Tana French’s Cal Hooper trilogy, while Robert Harris returns to Ancient Rome with Agrippa, a gripping portrait of power, loyalty and empire.

Non-fiction that challenges and provokes

Among the year’s most powerful non-fiction is A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides by Gisèle Pelicot, a harrowing and courageous memoir that refuses silence.

Patrick Radden Keefe returns with London Falling, expanding a New Yorker investigation into a tragic death that reveals hidden systems of power and neglect.

Standing out for its clarity and practicality is Quit Your Diet by Michael Dawson. Eschewing fads and moralising, Dawson reframes diet culture as a systemic failure rather than a personal one, offering a refreshingly humane and evidence-based approach to health. It’s persuasive, accessible and quietly radical, likely to resonate far beyond the usual self-help readership.

A year of confidence and confrontation

From literary titans at the height of their powers to a science-fiction newcomer unafraid to think big, 2026 is a year that rewards curiosity and courage. With books that interrogate history, imagine new futures and challenge entrenched ideas, this is a reading list that doesn’t just entertain, it insists on engagement.