The Millions’ Great Spring 2026 Book Preview

As we slowly recover from one belligerent winter, we can look to spring as a time of growth, renewal, abundance, and nothing could be more abundant than the season’s noteworthy books. Below, you’ll find 140 titles out this spring that we’re excited about here at The Millions. Some we’ve already read in galley form; others we’re simply eager to dive into based on their authors or subjects. We leaned on our friends at Publishers Weekly to help blurb some of the many, many titles that we’re eager to put on your radar.

, Sophia Stewart, editor

*

April

Transcription by Ben Lerner (FSG)

In the beautiful and resonant latest from Lerner, a middle-aged man constructs an elaborate farewell to his mentor. Read more.

One Leg on Earth by ‘Pemi Aguda (Norton)

The marvelous debut novel from National Book Award finalist Aguda follows a young woman whose arrival in Lagos for an exciting career opportunity coincides with a series of harrowing suicides by pregnant women. Read more.

Work to Do by Jules Wernersbach (University of Iowa Press)

Wernersbach’s debut follows a queer-owned Austin co-op as it prepares to unionize amid Texas hurricane season.

The Ritz of the Bayou by Nancy Lemann (Hub City)

The 1985-86 trials of Louisiana’s flamboyant Gov. Edwin Edwards on charges of crooked hospital deals and other racketeering is compellingly reported by Lemann, a New Orleans, born author with a New York City perspective. Read more.

Gather by Ashanté M. Reese (Norton)

In this phenomenal meditation on food’s role in Black history and culture, anthropologist Reese shares guiding principles gleaned from Black social gatherings that can help combat hunger and food insecurity. Read more.

Ghost Town by Tom Perrotta (Scribner)

A middle-aged man makes peace with his childhood trauma in Perrotta’s stellar latest. Read more.

Inheritance by Jane Park (Pegasus)

Upon returning to Canada for her father’s funeral, a young woman must confront her childhood and the legacy of guilt, sacrifice, and resilience that accompanies the immigrant experience.

London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Doubleday)

“The truth is, everybody lies,” observes New Yorker staff writer and National Book Critics Circle award winner Keefe in this gripping investigation into a young man’s mysterious death in 2019 London. Read more.

Last Night in Brooklyn by Xochitl Gonzalez (Flatiron)

In her third novel, the author reimagines The Great Gatsby as a story of 2007 Fort Greene, with women in the male roles and vice versa. Read more.

Fourteen Ways of Looking by Erin Vincent (Deep Vellum)

Vincent parses and probes the death of her parents in a traffic accident when she was 14 years old through artfully arranged fragments, most of which contain the number 14.

My Dear You by Rachel Khong (Knopf)

In these provocative stories, Khong offers well-wrought and intricate depictions of Asian American and Asian life, often with a fantastical or speculative twist. Read more.

Empire of Skulls by Paul Stob (Counterpoint)

Stob, a professor of American studies and communication studies at Vanderbilt, casts a light on one family’s outsize role in the rise of phrenology. Read more.

Like This, But Funnier by Hallie Cantor (S&S)

When the reader meets Caroline Neumann, the TV comedy writer at the center of Cantor’s hilarious and propulsive debut, her life is in shambles. Read more.

After Oscar by Merlin Holland (Europa)

In this unique biography, Holland, Oscar Wilde’s grandson, explores the long-lasting impact of Wilde’s criminal conviction for homosexuality in London in 1895 and seeks to clear up misconceptions related to the incident. Read more.

Witches by Steven Veerapen (Pegasus)

Veerapen offers a stirring account of witches across the ages, from the witchcraft trials under King James VI to the ultimate decline of witch-hunting in the early 1700s.

The Oyster Diaries by Nancy Lemann (NYRB)

Lemann takes readers back to the world of her 1985 cult classic Lives of the Saints with an easygoing and lovely novel of late middle-age. Read more.

Picture of Nobody by Philip Owens (McNally Editions)

The forgotten modernist reimagines Shakespeare as a young writer in 1930s London in this strange, sharp satire.

Fidelty by Susan Glaspell (Belt)

First published in 1915, Glaspell’s feminist novel chronicles an affair between a woman and a married man, and how its ramifications echo across their small hometown in Iowa.

If This Be Magic by Daniel Hahn (Knopf)

Translator Hahn shows how Shakespeare’s intricate wordplay is preserved and transformed into other languages in this lively exploration. Read more.

Afternoon Hours of a Hermit by Patrick Cottrell (Ecco)

In this noir-tinged novel, a trans author returns to his childhood home after receiving a mysterious envelope in the mail with a photo of his deceased brother. Read more.

Body Double by Hanna Johansson, tr. Kira Josefsson (Catapult)

Johansson explores themes of doppelgängers, loneliness, and selfhood in her sly latest. Read more.

Wifehouse by Sonya Walger (Union Square)

Through shifting perspectives, Walger offers a nuanced portrait of a woman who embarks on an affair with her much-younger French tutor.

Starstruck by Christopher McDougall (Vintage)

McDougall delivers a propulsive, horrifying account of the sexual abuse scandal involving Mexican pop singer Gloria Trevi and her manager, Sergio Andrade, which he previously covered in 2001’s Girl Trouble. Read more.

Visitations by Julia Alvarez (Knopf)

In her prismatic fourth collection, novelist, memoirist, and poet Alvarez spins richly detailed micro-narratives of her childhood in the Dominican Republic in the 1950s, her young adulthood in New York City, and beyond. Read more.

A Private Man by Stephanie Sy-Quia (Grove)

A vivacious woman falls in love with a priest in 1950s England in the emotive and revelatory debut novel from poet Sy-Quia. Read more.

The Madness of Believing by Josh Owens (Grand Central)

Owens, who dropped out of film school at 24 to accept a job offer from Infowars, reflects on his fall into a world of conspiracy theories, propaganda, and disinformation, and what it means for the rest of us.

Leave Your Mess at Home by Tolani Akinola (Pamela Dorman)

Akinola’s debut takes a closer look at the American Dream through four siblings who reunite at their Nigerian immigrant parents’ Thanksgiving table after a decade apart.

How Black Music Took Over the World by Melvin Gibbs (Basic)

The intricate rhythms and protean harmonies of Africa lie at the heart of most modern music, according to this exuberant debut study. Read more.

The Witch by Marie NDiaye, tr. Jordan Stump (Knopf)

Witchcraft and family strife animate this 1996 novel by NDiaye, winner of the Prix Goncourt for Three Strong Women. Read more.

Midnight, at the War by Devi S. Laskar (Mariner)

Combining the drama of newsrooms, global conflicts, and personal strife, Laskar’s novel follows a foreign correspondent as she is dispatched to the war-torn Middle East in the aftermath of 9/11.

Famesick by Lena Dunham (Random House)

In her latest memoir, the writer and director contends with her swift, and often turbulent, rise to fame across three acts.

Ultranatural by Candice Wuehle (University of Iowa Press)

Wuehle’s latest sees a pop idol forced to confront her small-town past in Appalachia, and the friendship that first threatened her rise to stardom years before.

The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley (NYRB)

From the author of My Phantoms and First Love comes a slender, subtle meditation on friendships and how they endure during times of strife.

Surrender by Jennifer Acker (Delphinium)

Unfolding across the bountiful fields of New England, this bildungsroman follows a 47-year-old goat farmer as she reunites with her high school best friend, and realizes she wants more from her than just friendship. Read more.

Dear Monica Lewinsky by Julia Langbein (Doubleday)

For Jean Dornan, the protagonist of Langbein’s incandescent sophomore novel whose life is still in shambles following a toxic relationship with her college professor almost two decades earlier, it feels like “#MeToo had come and gone like a parade two streets over.” Read more.

American Spirits by Anna Dorn (S&S)

Dorn spins an enjoyable if chaotic satire of celebrity culture and the dark side of fandom. Just like its characters, this is messy and appealing in equal measure. Read more.

Talking Classics by Mary Beard (UChicago Press)

In her newest book, the renowned classicist considers our ongoing fascination with the ancient world and the role of antiquity in the popular imagination.

The First Emancipation by Jeremy D. Popkin (Princeton University Press)

Popkin expertly traces the influence of race on the French Revolution, charting how France became the first western country to abolish slavery throughout its empire, only to return many formerly enslaved people to bondage years later.

How It Feels to Be Alive by Megan O’Grady (FSG)

Critic and essayist O’Grady looks closely at five artworks and the circumstances of their creation, testing Barbara Kruger’s assertion that art offers the “ability to show and tell … how it feels to be alive.”

The Memory Museum by M Lin (Graywolf)

Lin debuts with a perceptive story collection about the unsettled lives of characters who were born in China and are now scattered around the world. Read more.

Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, tr. Helen Stevenson (Mariner)

A French coast guard officer confronts the existential dilemma of her job in the thought-provoking English-language debut by novelist and philosopher Delecroix. Read more.

Tosquelles: Healing Institutions by Francesc Tosquelles, tr. Robert Hurley and Mara Faye Lethem (Semiotext(e))

This rigorous anthology, the first of its kind, gathers the Catalan psychiatrist’s intellectual, clinical, and political writings, many of which have yet to appear in English.

Concert Black by Michael O’Donnell (Blackstone)

In this twisty novel, a biographer doggedly pursues a legendary but elusive conductor who is determined to thwart her efforts, setting them on a dramatic collision course.

Israel: What Went Wrong? by Omer Bartov (FSG)

American-Israeli Holocaust scholar Bartov offers a powerful meditation on his birth country’s turn toward violence. Read more.

Small Town Girls by Jayne Anne Phillips (Knopf)

Pulitzer-winning novelist Phillips takes a lyrical look at her West Virginia upbringing in this wonderful memoir-in-essays. Read more.

Exemplary Humans by Juliana Leite, tr. Zoë Perry (Two Lines)

In Leite’s ambitious English-language debut, a 100-year-old woman revisits her past, all while believing that a spy is watching her through her window.

American Men by Jordan Ritter Conn (Grand Central)

This immersive account from Ringer senior staff writer Conn profiles four American men whose lives uniquely tangle with an “inherited masculine ideal.” Read more.

Muskism by Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff (Harper)

In this searing analysis of Elon Musk, historian Slobodian and tech journalist Tarnoff argue that, just as Fordism “was the operating system” of the 20th century, “Muskism” is that of the 21st. Read more.

Middlemen by Laura B. McGrath (Princeton University Press)

McGrath, an English professor at Temple University, debuts with an enlightening study of how agents have shaped the American literary landscape. Read more.

When the World Sleeps by Francesca Albanese (Other Press)

“I am writing these words at a strange moment in my life: I have just been sanctioned by the United States…. for the absurd ‘crime’ of allegedly working with the International Criminal Court,” begins this incisive, heart-wrenching account from UN special rapporteur Albanese. Read more.

Questions 27 & 28 by Karen Tei Yamashita (Graywolf)

In this innovative polyphonic novel, Yamashita blends archival documents with fictional flourishes to chronicle the detention, forced removal, and conscription of Japanese Americans during WWII. Read more.

All Flesh by Ananda Devi (FSG)

At the beginning of this sensual and provocative novel by Mauritian writer Devi, the unnamed but unforgettable narrator announces she’s about to livestream her own “sacrifice.” Read more.

Mrs. Benedict Arnold by Emma Parry (Zando)

Parry debuts with a reimagining of the life of Peggy Shippen, wife of that infamous turncoat, as she navigates the political currents of the American Revolution and conspires to commit treason.

Fat Swim by Emma Copley Eisenberg (Hogarth)

The protagonists of this glittering story collection from Eisenberg grapple with the messiness of desire and their relationship to their bodies as queer and fat people. Read more.

Presence by Erin Maglaque (Astra House)

Maglaque’s sweeping history of women’s bodies braids personal experience with scholarship to probe the ways the female form has been politicized through sex, abortion, pregnancy, caregiving, and labor.

Aside from My Heart, All is Well by Héctor Abad, tr. Anne McLean (Archipelago)

Colombian author Abad follows The Farm with a mesmerizing chronicle of Luis Cordóba, an opera-loving priest and film critic, based loosely on the life of Luis Alberto Alvarez (1945, 1996). Read more.

The Book That Taught the World to Orgasm and Then Disappeared by Rosa Campbell (Melville House)

Historian Campbell debuts with a revelatory biography of sex researcher Shere Hite (1942, 2020), best known for her 1976 publication, The Hite Report. Read more.

*

May

Keeper of My Kin by Ada Ferrer (Scribner)

Pulitzer winner Ferrer traces the impact of her family’s migration in this wrenching account. Read more.

Patient, Female by Julie Schumacher (Milkweed)

This shrewd short story collection explores the messy, mundane realities of both girl- and womanhood from every possible angle.

Honey by Imani Thompson (Random House)

Thompson debuts with the scintillating tale of a disillusioned Cambridge University PhD student who goes on a killing spree. Read more.

Abundance by Hafeez Lakhani (Counterpoint)

Lakhani’s perceptive debut follows the fates and fortunes of an Indian American family facing an impending loss. Read more.

A Little Bit Bad by Cassandra Neyenesch (Summit)

Neyenesch’s darkly funny debut splices a murder mystery with a torrid extramarital affair between a sleep-deprived new mother and her roofer. Read more.

Ugly: A Letter to My Daughter by Stephanie Fairyington (Pantheon)

Journalist Fairyington examines beauty standards and reflects on her meandering road to self-acceptance in her bold debut. Read more.

Five Weeks in the Country by Francine Prose (Harper)

Hans Christian Andersen visits Charles Dickens and his family in this revealing novel from Prose. Read more.

Violent Phenomena, ed. Kavita Bhanot and Jeremy Tiang (HarperVia)

Across 22 essays by established and emerging translators alike, this captivating anthology proposes radical alternatives to the act of literary translation, all while grappling with its imperial legacies.

The Hill by Harriet Clark (FSG)

Clark blends vivid Kafkaesque motifs with a whimsical coming-of-age narrative in her beautiful debut. Read more.

The Fifth Year by Marlen Haushofer, tr. Shaun Whiteside (New Directions)

Four-year-old Marili learns about life and death and discovers the beauty of the natural world in this deeply perceptive and sensuous 1951 novella from Austrian writer Haushofer. Read more.

John of John by Douglas Stuart (Grove)

Booker Prize winner Stuart showcases his impressive gift for characterization in this perceptive and propulsive story of a tight-knit community of Gaelic-speaking sheep farmers and weavers on the remote Scottish isle of Harris. Read more.

Take a Picture, It Will Last Longer by Brooke DiDonato (Thames & Hudson)

This monograph collects the photographer’s surrealist images, which distort and reimagine familiar and domestic spaces.

Ghost Stories by Siri Hustvedt (S&S)

“I am alive. My husband, Paul Auster, is dead,” writes Hustvedt in the opening sentences of this tender tribute to Baumgartner author Auster, who died of lung cancer in 2024. Read more.

Adrift in the South by Xiao Hai (Granta)

Xai’s memoir lays bare the realities of migrant labor in 21st-century China, from the alienation of the factory floor to the hope found in telling one’s story.

A Siege of Owls by Uchenna Awoke (Catapult)

Nigerian author Awoke offers a captivating and magic-fueled adventure set in contemporary Africa. Read more.

The Lost Soldiers by Andrey Kurkov, tr. Boris Dralyuk (HarperVia)

The difficulty of solving crimes in a war-ravaged city is at the core of Ukrainian novelist Kurkov’s excellent third mystery featuring novice police investigator Samson Kolechko. Read more.

The Foursome by Christina Baker Kline (Mariner)

Orphan Train author Kline offers a daring and deeply empathetic tale of the sisters who married conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker (1811, 1874). Read more.

Seek Immediate Shelter by Vincent Yu (Flatiron)

Residents of an Asian American community in Western Massachusetts respond in consequential ways to a false alert of a “ballistic missile threat” in Yu’s resonant debut. Read more.

Memory House by Elaine Kraf (Modern Library)

In this arresting posthumous novel from Kraf, who died in 2013, washed-up writer Marlane Frack attends a mysterious retreat for former artists. Read more.

The Lost Book of Lancelot by John Glynn (Grand Central)

The entertaining debut novel from memoirist Glynn puts a queer spin on Arthurian legend. Read more.

American Rambler by Isaac Fitzgerald (Knopf)

In this lyrical travelogue, memoirist Fitzgerald recounts a yearlong journey he took from Massachusetts to Indiana that was inspired by his childhood love of Johnny Appleseed. Read more.

Night Train by Xu Zechen, tr. Jeremy Tiang (Two Lines)

Hoping for a vacation before beginning his PhD program, an erratic student concocts a story about killing someone and needing to flee in Xu’s latest novel.

America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (Crown)

Bestseller Glaude offers a forceful counternarrative to the official commemoration of America’s 250th anniversary by surveying the horrors attendant to some of the nation’s previous anniversaries. Read more.

Kitchen Venom by Philip Hensher (McNally Editions)

First published three decades ago, this inventive novel unravels the scandals that wracked Margaret Thatcher’s government through the eyes of the Iron Lady herself.

Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun by Mónica Ojeda, tr. Sarah Booker (Coffee House)

Ojeda delivers an intense and remarkable polyphonic hymn to the consoling and destructive power of music. Read more.

What’s So Great About Great Books? by Naomi Kanakia (Princeton University Press)

The novelist and literary blogger makes the case that, despite their frequent difficulty and contentiousness, reading the “Great Books” is not only beneficial but necessary.

Attention-Seeking Behavior by Aea Varfis-van Warmelo (Graywolf)

In this genre-defying novel, an self-identified liar spins tales of love and betrayal, while we readers attempt to parse whether she’s telling the truth, or just looking for attention.

On Witness and Respair by Jesmyn Ward (Scribner)

The two-time National Book Award winner’s creative nonfiction is collected here, from her most beloved essays to never-before-published speeches.

The Danger to Be Sane by Rosa Montero, tr. Lindsey Ford (Europa)

In this unique exploration, Spanish journalist and novelist Montero unpacks the relationship between creativity and madness. Read more.

How to Rule the World by Theo Baker (Penguin)

In this incendiary account, debut author Baker details how a tip he received as a freshman student journalist at Stanford University led to the resignation of university president Marc Tessier-Lavigne. Read more.

Memory Rehearsal by Eleni Sikelianos (City Lights)

Mixing poetry, prose, and archival materials, this hybrid text excavates the legacy of the author’s great-grandmother, classical Greek revivalist Eva Palmer.

The Land and Its People by David Sedaris (Little, Brown)

Humorist Sedaris returns with a funny and heartfelt essay collection on friendship, family, and aging. These essays are among the best of his career. Read more.

Glyph by Ali Smith (Pantheon)

Booker finalist Smith offers a clever and enjoyable companion piece to her 2025 novel, Gliff. Read more.

Artifacts by Natalie Lemle (S&S)

A repatriation case against a New York City museum forces a lawyer to revisit troubling memories from her college summer abroad in Lemle’s suspenseful debut. Read more.

I Would Die If I Were You by Emily Rapp Black (Counterpoint)

In her latest memoir, Rapp Black draws on two decades of teaching to meditate on disability, grief, and empathy across art.

Binary Star by Sarah Gerard (Seven Stories)

A teacher in training struggles with anorexia and a troubled relationship throughout this new paperback edition of Gerard’s 2015 debut novel in verse. Read more.

Lost Worlds by Patrick Wyman (Harper)

Historian Wyman upends myths about the rise of civilization in this profound and enchanting study. Read more.

Tarantula by Eduardo Halfon, trans. by Daniel Hahn (Bellevue Literary)

Guatemalan writer Halfon reflects on his time at a nightmarish summer camp in this resonant autofiction. Read more.

Mare by Emily Haworth-Booth (FSG)

A woman develops an all-consuming infatuation with the mare she leases part-time in Haworth-Booth’s alluring first novel.

It’s Hard to be an Animal by Robert Isaacs (Grand Central)

Riffing on Doctor Doolittle, the exciting and hilarious debut from Isaacs follows a 28-year-old New Yorker who suddenly develops the ability to hear what animals are saying. Read more.

Helen Levitt by Joshua Chuang (Thames & Hudson)

This groundbreaking survey catalogs the work of American photographer Helen Levitt (1913-2009), who, across six decades, captured the streets of her native New York City with startling intimacy.

Hope House by Joe Bond (Hub City)

Bond’s gut-punch of a debut centers on Hope House, a Kentucky group home for a motley crew of boys who, in the 1980s, don’t have much of a future ahead of them, most likely prison, living on the streets, or worse. Read more.

Pretend You’re Dead and I’ll Carry You by Julián Delgado Lopera (Norton)

Delgado Lopera dives into Colombia’s taboo queer culture in this scintillating narrative of a man torn between belonging and self-expression. Read more.

The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams (MCD)

In the hypnotic sophomore outing from Williams, a professor’s personal assistant gets drawn into a strange triangle with her boss and a male student. Read more.

The Story of Marie Powell, Wife to John Milton by Robert Graves (Seven Stories)

This reissue of Graves’s 1943 classic delves into the life of Marie Powell, who, at 16 years old, was pushed into marrying one of England’s greatest epic poets.

Spawning Season by Joseph Osmundson (Bloomsbury)

Biophysicist Osmundson blends memoir and science writing in this moving meditation on queer family, the climate crisis, and 21st-century child-rearing. Read more.

No God But Us by Bobuq Sayed (Harper)

Sayed’s impressive debut tells the parallel stories of two gay men who meet in 2015 Istanbul. Read more.

The Disease of Boredom by Josefa Ros Velasco, tr. Kyle Rosen (Princeton University Press)

In this thought-provoking historical account, Ros Velasco, a professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, demystifies a misunderstood emotion.

Prophecies by Chrisopher Dell (Thames & Hudson)

Across nine richly illustrated chapters, art historian Dell reveals how we’ve grappled with the future and its attendant uncertainties through the divine, the occult, and the supernatural.

And, How Have You Been by Maria Judite de Carvalho, tr. Margaret Jull Costa (Two Lines)

This collection gathers the late stories of the Portuguese author (1921-1998), known for her incisive prose and finely-tuned portraits of women, translated into English for the first time.

*

June

Whistler by Anne Patchett (Harper)

Patchett follows 2023’s Tom Lake with another perfectly executed and quietly profound family drama. Read more.

The Children by Melissa Albert (Morrow)

The 30-something daughter of a famous novelist looks back on her traumatic Vermont childhood in the eerie and assured adult debut from YA author Albert. Read more.

The Hidden History of Conspiracy Theory by Andrew McKenzie-McHarg (Princeton University Press)

From Machiavelli to QAnon, this incisive account charts how the conspiracy theories have evolved, and remained the same, throughout the centuries.

My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein by Deborah Levy (FSG)

A transplanted Londoner in contemporary Paris struggles to write an essay on Gertrude Stein in this arch novel from Levy. Read more.

Meeting New People by Daniel M. Lavery (HarperVia)

Following Women’s Hotel, Lavery returns with a novel about a 50-something, twice-divorced woman looking back on the dissolution of the nine best friendships of her life.

Cut Out by Fiona Rogers (Thames & Hudson)

Complete with 200 color illustrations, this comprehensive volume explores the relationship between photography, feminist art, and collage through the collection of the V&A.

Good-Bye by Osamu Dazai, tr. Ralph McCarthy (New Directions)

This new collection of eleven short stories and vignettes, many never before translated into English, is sure to appeal to the rabid fanbase of the Japanese writer (1909, 1948), best known for his portraits of despair.

1873 by Liaquat Ahamed (Penguin)

The latest from the Pulitzer Prize, winning financial historian reckons with the fraught legacy of the Rothschilds and the famous banking family’s role in one of the world’s worst economic collapses.

It’s All River by Carla Madeira, tr. Alison Entrekin (Liveright)

In this taut narrative, the Brazilian writer offers the story of a prostitute caught in a twisted love triangle, and the destruction it leaves in its wake.

Like a Cat Loves a Bird by James Bailey (Princeton University Press)

Bailey’s stylish biography traces the arc of Spark’s life and literary career, both of which spanned nearly the entire 20th century.

Bone Horn by Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain (Soft Skull)

Picasso once quipped that Alice B. Toklas’s bangs hid the stump of a horn, and in Bussey-Chamberlain’s queer detective novel, a newly registered private investigator attempts to track it down.

Freedom by Zinzi Clemmons (Viking)

The electrifying nonfiction debut from novelist Clemmons muses on the thorny concept of freedom in “a world buckling from the consequences of centuries of interlocking injustices.” Read more.

A Sense of Occasion by Brodie Crellin (Riverhead)

The British novelist’s debut sees a dysfunctional family reunite in a small English village for their matriarch’s funeral over a sweltering summer weekend.

Quake by Kitty Mrosovky (McNally Editions)

Mrosovsky, who died in 1995, weaves a sensuous tale of female desire, unpublished in her life time, in which a woman grows increasingly enamored with her younger Italian lover.

Rasputin Swims the Potomac by Ben Fountain (Flatiron)

Fountain’s satire imagines an alternate reality not that far from our own, complete with a mysterious pandemic, a desperate president, and a pro wrestler thrust into the political limelight.

Two Ships by David S. Reynolds (Penguin)

Reynolds maps the how the arrival of two ships, The White Lion, which brought the first enslaved Africans to Jamestown in 1619, and the Mayflower, which brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth Rock in 1620, set the stage for centuries of American polarization.

Pool House by Mary H.K. Choi (Flatiron)

At the heart of Choic’s adult debut is the tense relationship between a mother and daughter, both of whom live in their backyard pool house while renting out their main home to pay the bills.

Empire of Ink by Alex Wright (Basic)

Wright’s history traces the rise of the American newspaper from the Revolutionary War through to the 20th century, and the radical spirit behind its inception.

On the Other Side Is March by Sólrún Michelsen, tr. Marita Thomsen (Transit)

A middle-aged woman adjusts to being a grandmother and caretaker for her own mother in the wake of her father’s death, in the poignant English-language debut from Michelsen, the first female Faroese writer to ever appear in the language. Read more.

Dodsworth by Sinclair Lewis (S&T Classics)

Lewis’s 1929 satire, about millionaire auto manufacturer whose marriage is imperiled by his wife’s European vacation, returns in a new edition with insights from scholars Nissa Ren Cannon and Sheila Liming.

There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood by Rasheed Newson (Flatiron)

The My Government means to Kill Me author returns with a novel set in 1950s Hollywood and propelled by the untimely death of a young Black movie star.

The Summer of the Serpent by Cecilia Eudave, tr. Robin Meyers (Soho Press)

Set during a sweltering summer in 1977, this fragmented novel takes a surrealist tack to excavate the secrets of a quiet, residential neighborhood in Guadalajara.

The Perfect Moment by Isaac Butler (Bloomsbury)

The National Book Critics Circle Award, Winner returns with a smart cultural history of today’s culture wars, arguing that their origins lie in a 1988 attempt by Pat Buchanan and other conservatives to stir up moral panic about contemporary artists like Robert Mapplethorpe.

The Narrow Road of Oku by Bashō, tr. Meredith McKinney (New Directions)

McKinney’s translation breathes new life the Edo-era poet’s now-famous travelogue chronicling his pilgrimage from Tokyo to Lake Biwa.

Cleanup on Aisle Five by Ann Larson (One Signal)

This illuminating debut chronicle turns Larson’s pandemic-era stint as a grocery worker into a rallying cry against corporate greed. Read more.

Without Terminus by Chaun Webster (Graywolf)

In his first work of nonfiction, the poet braids together memoir, archival research, visual poetics, and cultural criticism to explore anti-Black violence, inheritance, and memory, as well as his own grandfather’s experience as a Pullman porter.

I’ll Take the Fire by Leila Slimani (Penguin)

Slimani’s autobiographical coming-of-age novel follows a woman who, after growing up in socially conservative Morocco, embarks on a quest for political and sexual freedom.

The Cruelty of Nice Folks by Justin Ellis (Harper)

In this penetrating and moving debut, journalist Ellis examines past and present African American life in his hometown of Minneapolis. Read more.

Shakespeare’s Margaret by Charles O’Malley and Scott W. Stern (Norton)

Theater critic O’Malley and lawyer Stern assemble an enthralling history of Shakespeare’s portrayal of Margaret of Anjou, who married Henry VI at 14 and ruled during the War of Roses. Read more.

Trash! A Garbageman’s Story by Simon Pare-Poupart, tr. Pablo Strauss (Melville House)

“The garbageman is the Sisyphus of our consumer society, condemned to go from house to house picking up bags, swept along day after day in the never-ending flow of refuse we produce,” writes Montréal sanitation worker Pare-Poupart in his bewitching debut memoir. Read more.

The Sixth Nik by Daniel Kraus (Saga)

This galaxy-spanning adventure follows a nine-year-old cultist with a tech-enhanced brain as boards a mysterious spaceship to investigate an even more mysterious planet.

Weimar by Katja Hoyer (Basic)

Following her history of East Germany, the historian and journalist returns with a sprawling chronicle of interwar Germany, as told through the town of Weimar, which, Hoyer notes, was both the site of the country’s first democracy and the first place Nazis were welcomed into local government.

The post The Millions’ Great Spring 2026 Book Preview appeared first on The Millions.