Books

Books

2026 is the year of the book club, and there's never been a better time to explore a new city based on your favorite read. In fact, according to a recent study from Skyscanner, 55% of travelers have booked or would book a trip based on literature. Whether you're looking to get between the pages of your favorite tome by spending time on a reading retreat

the prose is rich, precise, disciplined and meticulously detailed; the many characters are so vividly rendered that none appears two-dimensional; each experiences and processes reality in a way that feels distinct and unmistakably individual; and the pacing of events feels perfectly judged. Although the novel is threaded with philosophical reflections on goodness and love, these never feel laboured or artificially imposed. Rather, they emerge naturally as an integral part of the novel's dense and intricate tapestry.

What is available is the daydream-a limitless realm of freedom. In this other world, one might be famous or rich, finally catch the attention of their beloved, or simply sit on a beach as a waiter brings them cocktails. They might fly or speak to animals, heroically save a child, tell off their boss with no consequences, win the Super Bowl at the whistle, or travel to another continent, planet, or time period. No one can stop them; no one can even object.

"I have been reading your book The Lonely City: The Art of Being Alone and I wanted to write and say how very good it is," "I discovered Henry Darger's work about 15 years ago. I am so interested in how you write about him and [Edward] Hopper, [Andy] Warhol and [David] Wojnarowicz."

Joel Miller opens his new book, The Idea Machine, with this famous scene from The Confessions because it sparked his own epiphany. Not a spiritual conversion, mind. What struck Miller during his recent reread was how Augustine marked his place with his finger. This seemingly unremarkable detail - a move any reader has made countless times - forced Miller to reevaluate books as not simply a vessel for ideas, but as history's most successful "information technology."

In a packed room in Sydney, an excited crowd riffles through stacks of stickers and bookmarks searching for their favourite characters. Another group flicks through racks of clothing, pulling out T-shirts that say romance readers club and probably reading about fairies. A poster on the wall, with tear-off tabs, invites visitors to take what they need: a love triangle, a love confession mid-dragon battle, a morally grey man or a cowboy. Half of the tabs have already been taken.

Joanne Wilkens, beloved wife, mother and grandmother, passed away peacefully on Nov. 27, 2025, at the age of 84, surrounded by her loving family. Her lifelong connection to her family and to her cherished Gilmanton farmhouse was there to the very end; she was tending her wood stove and making breakfast in her warm kitchen when she suffered a severe stroke.

Tom Layward, the narrator and main character of Ben Markovits' new novel, The Rest of Our Lives, introduces himself in a curious way: On the very first page of the book, he talks, matter-of-factly, about the affair his wife, Amy, had 12 years ago, when their two kids were young. Amy, who's Jewish, got involved at a local synagogue in Westchester; Tom, who was raised Catholic and is clearly not a joiner, remained on the sidelines.

In 1921, Anderson was prosecuted by the U.S. government-the novel was thought "obscene"-and though Morgan focusses much of his attention on her trial, he also takes in her childhood, in Indianapolis; her years in Chicago, New York, and Paris; and her association with prominent figures of her time, such as Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and the anarchist Emma Goldman.

When I was 8 or 9 years old, my uncle and aunt gave me a copy of D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, a standard-bearer for children's folklore that was originally published in 1962. I was immediately dazzled by the book: D'Aulaires' was my first exposure to Greek mythology, and I marveled at its vibrant cosmology, its richly illustrated tales of deities whose omnipotence was matched only by their strikingly human, self-indulgent caprice.

Tolkien begins with a pas­sage that first describes the crea­ture Gol­lum; lis­ten­ing to this descrip­tion again, I am struck by how much dif­fer­ent­ly I imag­ined him when I first read the book. The Gol­lum of The Hob­bit seems some­how hoari­er and more mon­strous than many lat­er visu­al inter­pre­ta­tions. This is a minor point and not a crit­i­cism, but per­haps a com­ment on how nec­es­sary it is to return to the source of a myth­ic world as rich as Tolkien's,

This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.

I reassured her that in some respects, making your way through the world's great literature is a numbers game: Someone twice your age has simply spent more time on the planet-and has therefore had more time to turn pages. But no number of hours can fill every gap in the knowledge of a mortal reader, even one who's a professional critic.

The books on your bedside table? I just counted and there are 17 books in the pile. On the top is John Milton's Paradise Lost. I am a member of an online shared reading group who each week read a couple of hundred lines together. It's a long-term commitment but immensely rewarding and far easier than reading it alone.

My earliest reading memory Sitting on the sofa with my mum reading Mabel the Whale by Patricia King, with beautiful colour illustrations by Katherine Evans. I think it was pre-school. My mother was not always a patient teacher, and I was often a slow learner, but the scene, the tableaux, in memory, has the serenity of an icon. My favourite book growing up Rosemary Sutcliff's The Eagle of the Ninth.

Any romance reader knows that not all romance novels are created equally: Some leave you swooning, others leave you shrugging, and the worst ones leave you shutting the book and never picking it back up. Emily Henry, a fantasy-YA author turned romance queen, is easily one of the most beloved romance novelists of the last five years. All six of her romances caused quite a stir on BookTok, and all but one have been optioned for on-screen adaptations.

Lies offend our sense of justice: generally, we want to see the liar unmasked and punished. But when the deception brings no material gain, we might also be curious about what purpose the lie serves what particular need of their own the liar is attempting to meet. This is precisely what Grace Murray's witty, assured debut explores: not just the consequences of a lie but the ways in which it can, paradoxically, reveal certain truths.

While researching for my Ph.D., I decided to delve into Greek mythology to determine whether I could find a story that could illuminate my understanding of mothering and my interest in maternal ambivalence. I discovered the myth of Demeter and Persephone, which, while thousands of years old, demonstrates how a mythical mother, Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, weathers changes and obstacles

Why start reading for fun? Among its numerous benefits, studies have found that reading fiction specifically can make people more empathetic, less stressed and protect cognitive function in later life. Three tips to get started: Figure out what you enjoy by checking out a variety of books from the library, but don't force it. If you're not enjoying a volume, put it down and move on to the next. Start with short books and whichever medium physical books, ebooks or audiobooks works best for you.

Andalucia is famous for its variety: high alpine mountains and snow-capped peaks, river plains and rolling olive groves, sun-baked coastlines and arid deserts. It is the perfect setting for Neil Rollinson's debut novel, which is its own kind of spectacular mosaic. Built from short, seemingly discrete chapters that take us between Spain in 2003 and the coalfields of Northumberland in the 70s and 80s, The Dead Don't Bleed coheres into an extraordinarily tense and tender portrait of two brothers trying to escape their father's gangland past.

With what stillness at lastso this is the sound of youhere and now whether or notanyone hears it this is where we have come with our ageour knowledge such as it isand our hopes such as they areinvisible before us untouched and still possible you appear in the valleyyour first sunlight reaching down to touch the tips of a fewhigh leaves that do not stir as though they had not noticedand

Morten Hi Jensen's approachable and informative study of The Magic Mountain positions Mann as a writer who was contradictory to his core: an artist who dressed and behaved like a businessman; a homosexual in a conventional marriage with six children; an upstanding burgher obsessed with death and corruption. Very much the kind of man who would send someone a book and tell them not to read it.

History used to be about wars and dates, but to the architecture writer and TV presenter Dan Cruickshank, it's more about floors and grates. In his new book, he takes a keen-eyed tour of eight English houses, from Northumberland to Sussex, dating from the early 1700s to exactly 100 years ago, and ranging from an outlandish gothic pile to one of the first council flats.

The man in the wind who keeps us awake tonight is not the black monk of the wind cowering in corners and crevices, or the white face under the streetlight stricken with the guilt of his noise, or the great slapping hand of the wind beating and beating the rainy alleyways while the torturer proceeds with the interrogation and the prisoner's risen voice bleeds over cymbals and timpani.

Seven decades after Tareq Baconi's grandmother fled in terror from the port city of Haifa, carrying a Bible, a crucifix and a week's worth of clothes, he followed her directions to the family home a few blocks from the sea. The building was still standing, almost as she had left it in 1948, instantly familiar from childhood stories. Standing beside his husband, Baconi could not bring himself to ring the bell,

Earthquakes, volcanic eruption, eclipses, meteor showers, and many other natural phenomena have always been part of life on Earth. In ancient cultures that predated science, such events were often memorialized in myths and legends. There is a growing body of research that strives to connect those ancient stories with the real natural events that inspired them. Folklorist and historian Adrienne Mayor has put together a fascinating short compendium of such insights with Mythopedia: A Brief Compendium of Natural History Lore,

Yes, we had our travails. As in much of the country, libraries faced hurdles both fiscal and philosophical in the form of budget shortfalls and book challenges. A flagging economy hurt bookstores, including the monolithic Powell's Books, which suffered a series of staff cuts. Orders by the Trump Administration that cut grants and fellowships affected local writers. But generally, in the words of a former state slogan, things look different here.

The award-winning Australian writer's third adult novel begins with a lone woman, Rowan, washed up on a remote island between Tasmania and Antarctica. Shearwater is a research outpost, home to the global seed vault created as a bulwark against climate catastrophe and to colonies of seals, penguins and birds. For eight years, Dominic Salt and his children have lived there, but dangerously rising sea levels mean that they, and the vault, will shortly be evacuated.

Mysteries and thrillers are enjoyable no matter the season, but there's something extra satisfying about curling up in the winter with a warm drink and an all-engrossing read. The 13 (spooked already?) books in this list, recommended by NPR staff and critics, fit the bill: stalkers, witchcraft, missing persons, suburban horror there's something here for every thrill-seeker. And for more nail-biters, check out Books We Love, our annual year-end reading guide.