16 books to have on your radar in 2026

No guarantees, of course, but Annabel Nugent thinks these hot titles will be some of next year’s best

Best of the bunch: The non-fiction and fiction that’ll have everyone talking next year (HarperCollins/Pan Macmillan/Penguin Randomhouse/Faber/Atlantic/iStock)

Another year, another slate of books to look forward to. And another chance to make good on that age-old new years resolution to read more? It’ll be an easier endeavour than ever with a bunch of exciting new titles on the horizon for 2026.

Book catalogues are released seasonally, so admittedly this list is only looking forward to the first quarter of the year (with plenty of last-minute announcements sure to come) but already there’s so much to dig into between thrilling investigative non-fiction, revealing celebrity memoirs, and debuts so buzzy they’re already set for the big screen.

We believe that some of these books will eventually land on every end-of-year, best-of list come next December – but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. For now, here are all the books you should have on your radar for 2026.

Fiction

Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy (Harper Collins)

Jennette McCurdy’s 2022 memoir more than lived up to its daring name. I’m Glad My Mom Died chronicled her time as a child star on Nickelodeon, laying bare her battles with eating disorders, addiction and the abusive mother of her book’s title. If her debut novel, about a 17-year-old in an affair with a married teacher, is anything like her memoir, it’ll be a wild ride told with dark humour and lots of heart. 20 January

Jennette McCurdy’s searing memoir made headlines in 2022. Now the former child star turns her attention to fiction (HarperCollins)

The News from Dublin by Colm Toibin (Picador)

At 70 years old, the Irish author of Long Island and Brooklyn has earned a reputation for conjuring intimacy through restraint. He brings his signature clean-cut prose to a new collection of short stories about living away from home. Here, we witness a woman in Galway honouring the death of her son in the First World War; an Irishman seeking anonymity in Barcelona, haunted by crimes he has committed; a man going to Dublin from Enniscorthy to implore a special favour from the minister for health – and much much more. 26 March

John of John by Douglas Stuart (Picador)

The bestselling author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo is back with John of John, about a young man out of art school and out of money returning to his hometown where he is caught between his father, John, a sheep farmer and pillar of their local church, and his Glaswegian grandmother Ella whose relationship with her son-in-law is precarious at best. If Stuart’s previous books are anything to go by, it’ll be a heartbreaking tale, as brutal as it is tender. 21 May

The acclaimed author of ‘Shuggie Bain’ returns with another family tale that is sure to be as bruising as his last (Pan Macmillan)

Kin by Tayari Jones (Oneworld)

In 2019 Tayari Jones won the Women’s Prize for Fiction with An American Marriage, about the traumatic effect of injustice on a Black family in America. Her first book since then follows two girls, friends with absent mothers as they navigate life in the racially segregated south, traversing university, first loves and a burgeoning civil rights movement that offers a glimpse of hope. Here is a richly told story about friendship. 26 March

A tradwife influencer reckons with the real-life repercussions of her online fantasy in this buzzy debut already optioned for film by Anne Hathaway (Penguin Randomhouse)

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (4th Estate)

As debuts go, Yesteryear is among next year’s buzziest, having already earned the co-sign of Anne Hathaway who is set to star and produce the film adaptation. Natalie is a social media influencer of the tradwife variety, peddling her cute aprons and bread-baking lifestyle to millions of followers. She’s forced to reckon with the reality of what she’s been shelling, though, when she wakes up to find herself stuck seemingly in the past where her choices are not a choice but a mandatory way of life. Expect twists and turns in this propulsive novel. 9 April

I’ll Take the Fire by Leïla Slimani (Faber)

The author of Lullaby – that tense, taut book about a “perfect nanny” everyone was reading in 2018 – is back with I’ll Take the Fire. Her new novel, which takes its title from a Jean Cocteau quote about choosing passion over safety, promises to be every bit as intense as her last, telling the story of two Arab sisters struggling to make a new home in Paris after fleeing Morocco in the politically and socially turbulent 1980s. A family fresco driven by themes of rediscovery and a reclamation of the past. 23 April

Lucy Caldwell’s short story collection asks all the ways that a life can be haunted (Faber)

Devotions by Lucy Caldwell (Faber)

Eight stories of memory and connection make up this transportive new book from Caldwell, the prize-winning author of Multitudes, Intimacies and Openings. The stories are vast in their themes – one is about a woman whose grandfather claimed to have met Jesus, another about a young Belfast theatre troupe bringing their production of Hamlet to New York – but they are bound by a shared interest in the various ways that a life can be haunted. 23 April

Non-Fiction

Even the Good Girls Will Cry: My ’90s Rock Memoir by Melissa der Maur (Atlantic)

Who better to tell the story of the Nineties rock scene than Melissa Auf der Maur, perennial cool girl and bassist of Hole and Smashing Pumpkins? Her memoir will span her life, from growing up in Montreal to the raucous days she spent with Courtney Love as part of Hole. Expect cameos also from Stevie Nicks, Dave Grohl, Rufus Wainwright, Michael Stipe and even Ben Stiller. 19 March

A rollicking ride through rock history courtesy of Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur (Atlantic)

London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador)

From the investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe comes a new deep-dive into the mysterious death of Zac Brettler, the teenager who fell from a luxury apartment building in 2019 – after which his grieving parents had been shocked to learn that he’d been posing as the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch. The book is an extension of Keefe’s thoughtful and thrilling essay on the subject, which was published in The New Yorker last year. The award-winning author of the IRA non-fiction book Say Nothing and the opioid crisis-focused Empire of Pain (both adapted for TV shows), Keefe will surely do this knotty and sensitive subject justice. 7 April

The Street Clinic: 10 Young Lives on the Frontlines of Gang Culture by Dorcas Gwata (Picador)

Nearly a decade after Adam Kay’s This Is Going to Hurt gave readers a searing insight into the life of a junior doctor, the appetite for medical memoirs has never been greater, and Dorcas Gwata’s new book will be a welcome and important addition to that rapidly growing collection. Through 10 intimate stories, Gatwa, a nurse and mental health advocate, situates readers within the traumatic aftermath of London’s youth violence crisis – a look at the people behind the headlines. 12 February

‘Girls’ creator Lena Dunham on how her life in the spotlight intersected with health troubles (HarperCollins)

Famesick: A Memoir by Lena Dunham (4th Estate)

Audiences have already glimpsed a look inside Lena Dunham’s mind with HBO’s Girls, a series she created in her twenties, inspired by that period of her life, and more recently Netflix’s Too Much, which drew from her experience as an expat in London with a British husband and a cute rescue dog. Her new memoir, Famesick, follows on from her 2014 collection of autobiographical essays, Not That Kind Of Girl. Seven years in the making, Famesick is an account of how Dunham’s health troubles intersected with her life in the spotlight. 14 April

We Were Here: A History of Black People and Alternative Music by Stephanie Phillips (Faber)

In her second book, music journalist and punk musician Stephanie Phillips blows up any preconceived notions readers may have of rock’n’roll and alternative music as a white pursuit. Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix, Tina Turner, Betty Davis, Poly Styrene and Bad Brains are among the acts to feature in a wide-ranging book that takes in the music landscape from the 1930s to the present day. “Blackness is inherently punk,” Phillips declares in her thoughtful history of how Black musicians have moved through and helped define spaces that ostracised them. 27 August

Journalist and scientist David Cox slows down his biological clock in ‘The Age Code’ (HarperCollins)

The Age Code by David Cox (Harper Collins)

How to live forever seems to be the question of the moment – at least for the billionaires and tech bros of the world obsessed with cryogenics and personalised pill-popping. The good news for everyone else is that the answer is actually a lot simpler – and cheaper. In his optimistic new book, the health journalist Dr David Cox sets about slowing down his own biological clock, and in the process lays out years of research to show that more important than any fad or gimmick is what you put on your plate. 9 April

Light and Thread by Han Kang, translated by e. yaewon, Maya West and Paige Aniyah Morris (Penguin Random House)

The prolific South Korean author is back with her first book since winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 2025. In Light and Thread, Kang recalls a poem she wrote at eight years old in which she imagined that “gold thread” of connection, language. Here she uses that thread to tie together essays and poems, her life and her work, beginning with “Nobel lecture” in which the author discusses her writing process and the myriad questions that drive her work. 12 March