Ten 2026 Releases I'm Looking Forward To

You might know Min Jin Lee as the author of Pachinko. Just that alone makes her upcoming release one of the most anticipated books of 2026, roughly ten years after she published Pachinko.

In South Korea, a Hagwon is a for profit private educational institution. The majority of grade school students in South Korea attend these for extra tutoring in order to score well in their highly competitive university entrace exams. I recently came across this term and understanding while watching a K-Drama called 'Teach you a Lesson' about the Ministry of Education dealing with student and teacher victim's of abuse rights'.

American Hagwon is a story following a displaced Korean family that is pursuing success via education, and the pressures of achieving success in America.

Exit Party is being described as 'speculative fiction', which is something I've been interested in defining, perhaps deserving a post of its own one day.

This book is described as puzzle and mystery surrounding a disappearance in a future America that is fracutred (Los Angeles is now known as the Republic of Los Angeles). Exploring the theme of parallel worlds, surveillance, and spans a global scale.

My first introduction to Ann Patchett was The Dutch House and likely I need to read some of her other work, apart from her set of essays These Precious Days. The plot follows a couple (Daphne and Eddie) visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art here in New York City. During that visit Daphne runs into her former stepfather, who she hasn't seen in 40 years, and the story unfolds from there.

Glyph is the follow up companion piece to Gliff. Both can be run standalone, and apparently 'echo' eachother in various ways. I don't know much else, but becaues I enjoyed Gliff I feel as if I likely need to read this and get more depth.

No shocker here, if you enjoy deep investigative true crime documentary type of novels, then Patrick Radden Keefe has something worthwhile and interesting to read. This one follows a young boy who jumped off a famous tower in London, and his parents quest to find answers as to what happened to their son to drive him to what was apparently a suicide. Their investigation leads to ties to the underworld, Russian oligarches, and into the beast of London with surprising revelations.

This one has been popping up in my feed and for good reason. What happens when one day you're a famous tradwife influencer with millions of followers and then the next you wake up in the 1800s and actually are in that role. This just seems like a fun debut novel to read exploring a what if that some of us would likely enjoy seeing play out.

Son of Nobody is about a man studying at Oxford discovering the fragments of Greek epic about the Trojan war: the Psoad.

I think I just want to read this because I sometimes dream that someone will uncover more ancient Greek epics for us all to read, looking at you Heracleia (written ~600 BC by Pesander of Rhodes and only surviving today in fragmented quotes by other later writers)

If you're familiar, there are some mysterious 'Unicorn Tapestries' that experts today still not accurately place, but speculate were commissioned by Anne of Brittany.

Anne of Brittany stages a hunt in a magical forest to divert her political and marital rivals. In real life Anne ended up getting married in secret. Some element of the plot and set up are historical fiction, and from what I understand Katherine Arden introduces a world of magic that bleeds into the history we know.

This seemed to me like a little tinge of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell, and a few other people I know mentioned this piqued there interest. It certainly did mine.

Magical Realism in Czechoslovakia during the Cold War. I felt that was something I haven't seen much of. I've not read much set there, and feel like this might be an interesting one!

I've enjoyed reading Dave Eggers, even if his novels aren't always the best in my mind. Not the highest on my list, but a novel with the title Contrapposto piques your brain - it means 'counterpose' and is generally the term for a figure standing with their weight shifted to one leg, as seen with Michaelangelo or with how Mr. Blonde posing with a cool lean. Ultimately, the book is about artists trying to figure out life.