Publishers Weekly Best Books: reading list

Editors’ selections across adult, children’s and young adult books.

Included: All 150 selections in the 2026 Best Books edition.

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Publishers Weekly Best Books

Original list ↗︎

  • The Abyss of Oblivion — Paco Roca and Rodrigo Terrasa (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Abyss — Jeyamohan (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Case of the Pilfered Pearls — Margi Preus (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • And Then We Saw the Bag...: Trash to Them, Treasure to Us — Emma AdBåge (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • As I Dream of You — Jennifer Lee (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • 99 Ways to Die: And How to Avoid Them — Ashely Alker (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Amateur — Chris Bohjalian (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • 1873: The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, and the Making of the Modern World — Liaquat Ahamed (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Be Easy: New and Selected Poems — Adrian Matejka (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Braving the Truth: Essential Essays for Reckoning with and Reimagining Faith — Rachel Held Evans (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Bad Words — Ríoghnach Robinson (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • As You Wake, Break the Shell — Becky Chambers (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The AGI Chronicles: The Inside Story of the Race to Create an Artificial Superintelligence — Kevin Roose (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Castle: Adventures in a World of Unraveling Men — Jon Ronson (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Bury Me Already (It’s Nice Down Here): Comics on Pregnancy and Parenthood — Julia Wertz (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Acid Green Velvet — Grace Krilanovich (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Chernobyl, Life, and Other Disasters — Yevgenia Nayberg (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Dad — Christian Robinson (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Beth Is Dead — Katie Bernet (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Eat (Like) the Rich: A Cookbook — Olivia Tiedemann (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Backwater — James Sallis (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Country of Lords: Neo-Aristocrats, Social Darwinists, Tech Utopians, and the Long Fight Against Equality in America — Kim Phillips-Fein (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Intifadas — Edward Salem (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Enemies to Lovers — Alisha Rai (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Defy the Dusk — Danielle L. Jensen (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Final Solution to the Jewish Question: A Love Story for the Living — Dara Horn (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Cool Machine — Colson Whitehead (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Case of David Zimmerman — Lucas Harari and Arthur Harari (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Aside from My Heart, All Is Well — Héctor Abad (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Hometown — Shaun Tan (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Goodbye, Koi — Jack Wong (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Call of the Dragon — Natasha Bowen (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • My Jamaican Table: Vibrant Recipes from a Sun-Drenched Island — Andre Fowles (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Die Famous — Michael Koryta (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World — Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Still House in the Desert: An Eco-Contemplation — Brenda Hillman (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Pretend You Believe: How to Enter Religion — Noa Kushner (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • How to Kill a Guy in 10 Dates — Shailee Thompson (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Honeysuckle — Bar Fridman-Tell (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Danger to Be Sane: Creativity and the Eccentric Mind — Rosa Montero (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Charity and Sylvia — Tillie Walden (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Country People — Daniel Mason (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • La Bandera: Poems of Resistance and Pride — Anika Aldamuy Denise (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Celestial Seas — T.A. Chan (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Padma’s All American: Tales, Travels, and Recipes from Taste the Nation and Beyond — Padma Lakshmi (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Fervent Whites — De’Shawn Charles Winslow (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Frenchmen: Or, My Life in Theory — Emily Eakin (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Swirl & Vortex — Larry Levis (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Jezebel List — Alisa Dean (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Mazywood — Tananarive Due (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The House with Nobody in It — Jon Klassen (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • We Mend with Gold: An Immigrant Daughter’s Reckoning with American Christianity — Kristin T. Lee (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Nightingales — Emil Wilson (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Desperate Bodies — Lydia Mathis (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Licorice — Kara LaReau (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • I Am Here — Kim Hyo-eun (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Children of Owl — Darcie Little Badger (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Perfect Birth Myth: Pushing Back Against a Broken Industry — Avital Norman Nathman, with Deborah Wage (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Fruit Fly — Josh Silver (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund — Molly Crabapple (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • We — Layli Long Soldier (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Score — Kennedy Ryan (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Palaces of the Crow — Ray Nayler (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Disappearers — Marlon James (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Palm House — Gwendoline Riley (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Dèy — Edwidge Danticat (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Listen to the Girls — Chrystal D. Giles (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • An Expanse of Blue — Kauakanilehua Māhoe Adams (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Furious Violet — Sarai Walker (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Holding Lightning: The Life, Loves, and Art of Whitney Houston — Emily Lordi (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • You & Me and You & Me and You & Me — Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Persona — Aoife Josie Clements (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • I Am the Mountain — Steven Weinberg (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Public Access Afterworld — Jane Schoenbrun (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Dooneen — Keith Ridgway (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Lost in Peach Blossom Paradise — Xiong Liang (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • I Will Eat You in the End — David Duff (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Few Blue Skies — Carolina Ixta (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Midnight Taxi — Yosha Gunasekera (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World — Sarah Wilson (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Poet Empress — Shen Tao (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State — Jill Lepore (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Frenzy — Joyce Carol Oates (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Moon Without Stars — Chanel Miller (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Loops — Jashar Awan (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • My Name Was Gerry Sass — Tiffany Hanssen (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • In Trees: An Exploration — Robert Moor (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • To Bewitch a Hunter — Luciano Lamberti (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Fight of Our Lives: AIDS in America — Gabriel Duckels and David Levithan (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark — Craig Fehrman (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • It Will Come Back to You — Sigrid Nunez (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Queen’s Granddaughter — Diane Zahler (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Muéganos — Jaque Jours (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Queen of Faces — Petra Lord (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Paper Cut — Rachel Taff (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America — Howard Bryant (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Left and the Lucky — Willy Vlautin (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Raise the Bar — Fernanda Frick H. (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Navigating Night — Julie Leung (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • A Scar Like a River — Lisa Graff (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • A Past Without Pictures — Jonathan Ames (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Leaving Home: A Memoir in Full Colour — Mark Haddon (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Life of M — Rachel Cusk (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Second Life of Snap — Erin Entrada Kelly (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Night Ride — Christopher Myers (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Thornbird — E. Kennedy (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • A Violent Masterpiece — Jordan Harper (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Man in the Mirror: Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City — Anand Giridharadas (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Lovers XXX — Allie Rowbottom (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Sisters Alone — Shifa Saltagi Safadi (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Ones Who Came Before — Kevin Maillard (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Traitors’ Nest — Frances Hardinge (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us — Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Windowman — Christopher Goffard (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Nebraska — Monica Datta (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • This Is a Door — Daniel Nayeri (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Open: Every Seed Has Its Moment — Robert Agis (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Wake Now in the Fire — Jarrett Dapier (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and the People’s Team — A.M. Gittlitz (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Occidental Book of the Dead — T. Geronimo Johnson (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Where the Wild Horses Are — Amy Alznauer (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • A Riddle of Eels — Nicholas Day (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Where You’ll Find Us — Jen St. Jude (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Nothing Random: Bennett Cerf and the Publishing House He Built — Gayle Feldman (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • One Leg on Earth — ’Pemi Aguda (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • You Are Now Old Enough to Hear This — Aaron Starmer (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Story Rug — Sophie Blackall (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Words Spoken True — Anne Broyles (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • On Morrison — Namwali Serpell (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Paradiso 17 — Hannah Lillith Assadi (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Sweetest of Lemons — Daniel Nayeri (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Our Arab: On Longing, Belonging, and Hope — Zaina Arafat (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The School of Night — Karl Ove Knausgaård (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Troubled Waters: A River’s Journey Toward Justice — Carole Boston Weatherford (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Proof in the Code: How a Truth Machine Is Transforming Math and AI — Kevin Hartnett (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Transcription — Ben Lerner (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Sisters in Yellow — Mieko Kawakami (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Q: The Hidden Power of Questions in a World That Wants Answers — Lani Watson (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • A Very Good Parade — Eleanor Davis (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Song of Stork and Dromedary — Anjet Daanje (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • While We’re Here — Anne Wynter (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World — Nathaniel Philbrick (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Wise Pickle — Sarah Howden (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game — C. Thi Nguyen (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • A Tender Age — Chang-rae Lee (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Small Town Girls: A Writer’s Memoir — Jayne Anne Phillips (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • Spawning Season: An Experiment in Queer Parenthood — Joseph Osmundson (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • When the World Sleeps: Stories, Words, and Wounds of Palestine — Francesca Albanese (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria’s Romance Scammers — Carlos Barragán (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source
  • A Year with Gilbert White: The First Great Nature Writer — Jenny Uglow (2026) · Best Books · selection · Source