John of John: a Novel (Oprah’s Book Club) by Douglas Stuart (2026)

27 Monday Jul 2026

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“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 . . . Stuart’s deeply humane character work extends beyond father and son to their neighbors, including a sensitive middle-aged bachelor who belongs to John’s book club and cries while discussing Wuthering Heights. Stuart continues his winning streak with this brilliant novel.“—Publishers Weekly (starred review) 

“Douglas Stuart brilliantly weaved a layered, compelling and yet so intimate a story of identity, what it means to belong, and the courage to claim your own truth.”—Oprah Winfrey

“One of 2026’s literary triumphs.”—Boston Globe

“Powerful and surprising . . . [A] moving, suspenseful, completely-worth-your-time new novel . . . John of John is a stick of dynamite waiting to go off in your hand, the steadily intensifying story of a fractured trio . . . Stuart is not just a very good writer but an immensely skilled storyteller . . . one of the many pleasures of John of John—a title that eventually blossoms to reveal about five different meanings, all interesting—is that Stuart doesn’t let on until the very end whether he is writing toward hope or toward tragedy. Until he reveals the answer, he wants you to stay in the room with these difficult people, to try to puzzle them out, to watch them wage impossible struggles, and to wish them well.”—Mark Harris, The New York Times Book Review 

“An immersive experience . . . Seamlessly, relationships are revealed, secrets divulged. As always, Stuart’s prose is a joy to read and get lost in. He conveys both the beauty and the isolation of the Hebridean setting while illuminating the lies we tell ourselves in order to cope.“—Booklist (starred review)

“The central question of the book, facing all the main characters, is whether it’s possible to inhabit the place one calls home as one’s genuine self. Stay or go? Life or death? With his gift for creating vibrantly specific characters and settings, Stuart again taps profound human truth.“—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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Skylark: a Novel by Paula McLain

20 Monday Jul 2026

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I thought I had read every WW II story there is, but I hadn’t ever heard about this one.

“A resounding elegy of love, courage, and defiance. Paula McLain melds two timelines and one city into the kind of story you think about long after you’ve finished reading. Mysterious and haunting and timeless. I loved it.”—Ariel Lawhon, New York Times bestselling author of The Frozen River

“Readers will be enthralled by McLain’s vivid storytelling, engaged with her memorable cast of characters, and enraged at the cruelties humans have exacted on one another throughout history.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“An enthralling plunge into deep layers of Paris history, both beautifully written and breathtakingly suspenseful. I could not put it down.”—Helen Simonson, New York Times bestselling author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand

“Paula McLain is a story alchemist. In Skylark, she saturates our imaginations with the colorful threads of two distinct timelines. Artfully crafted and poetically rendered, this is the kind of historical fiction I live for—stories where the past acts as a mirror for the modern milieu.”—Sarah McCoy, New York Times bestselling author of Whatever Happened to Lori Lovely?

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I See You’ve Called in Dead by John Kenney (2025)

13 Monday Jul 2026

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Just announced – this title has been chosen for the global LIBBY reads. What that means is that from July 9-23 2026 readers worldwide can check out this title with no waitlists or holds in the Libby app?

The author is a longtime contributor to The New Yorker magazine’s Shouts & Murmurs column. “Thurber Prize-winner and New York Times bestselling author John Kenney tells a funny, touching story about life and death, about the search for meaning, about finding and never letting go of the preciousness of life.” – Libby Reads

“I See You’ve Called in Dead is a riotously funny, poignantly introspective novel that dives headfirst into the absurdity of existence. Bud Stanley is an obituary writer who gets everything wrong—including accidentally publishing his own death notice. From botched blind dates to philosophical musings about life and death, Bud grapples with love, legacy, and the existential (and satirical) weight of being alive. —Weike Wang, author of Rental House 

“Kenney’s touching, provocative novel . . . alludes to the idea that life’s richness comes from spending time with people you love, and that those relationships are built on mutual respect, truth, and love. A touching ode to the people who make life worth living.”—Kirkus Reviews 

“A wake up call to embrace and celebrate life, I See You’ve Called in Dead is replete with essential elements that make a work of fiction great: heart, humor, intelligence and emotional depth.”—BookTrib 

“Razor-sharp, darkly comedic, and emotionally piercing. With the satirical bite of Richard Russo’s Straight Man, the introspection of Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove, and the reinvention of Andrew Sean Greer’s Less, Kenney’s vivid prose transforms the mundane into unexpected hilarity.”—Booklist (starred review) 

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The Boy From the Sea by Garrett Carr (2025)

06 Monday Jul 2026

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We three librarians who have read this are so excited to finally discover someone whose writing approximates the fine Niall Williams and his Irish tales. Garrett Carr is from Killybegs, a fishing town in Donegal, Ireland’s northwest coast. He now lives in Belfast and teaches Creative Writing in the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queens University Belfast. A book to renjoy…. so slowly.

“The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr captures the changing feeling of the latter decades of the twentieth century in Ireland better than any other recent novel I could name. Its language and sensibility reflects the sly humour of its Donegal setting, and the reader is riveted by the heroic efforts of its characters to hold on to one another in the face of the gale-force winds of historical change.”—Niamh Mulvey, author of The Amendments 

“The novel does something only art can, which is to show how more than one truth might be held in mind at once, even if together they conflict… Wry, observant, various and thoughtful, a book that gathers momentum like a westerly, the crash of consequences giving way to a late calm, the reader left with a stunned impression of the storm that just blew over.”—The Irish Times 

“Carr’s novel accesses deep strands of truth by embedding magic in the real… In the difficulty of these characters’ lives is a sense of real connection that gives the book a kind of lightness, of what might be possible in a real community: lasting ties, genuine reciprocity. This is not false hope; it’s just hope… This is a surprising, tender and warm-hearted novel about a real place and real people.”—The Guardian

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The Emerson Circle: The Concord Radicals Who Reinvented the World by Bruce Nichols (2026)

22 Monday Jun 2026

Posted by in Biography, History, nature, Non-fiction, United States

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“How did a tiny Massachusetts town explode with such intellectual force—setting off a detonation that, only a decade or so later, would deliver the foundational works of American literature and upend American politics? Bruce Nichols offers the most lucid of answers in this vibrant account of our influential early disrupters.” —Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize–winning author 

“A striking group portrait . . . The charming and expansive result renders the contours of many lives with warmth and breadth, and paints a complete portrait of a man who once declared, ‘I am a fragment.’” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

 
“Wars, a shipwreck, the Underground Railroad, loves, tensions, and above all a thirst to understand the world: this bold venture in group biography brings alive an extraordinary moment and a remarkable circle of people. And it makes the reader feel, as all good history writing does: I wish I had been alive then.” —Adam Hochschild, author of American Midnight

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The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout (2026)

13 Saturday Jun 2026

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“I always know I’m in steady hands when reading Elizabeth Strout, whether it’s a Lucy Barton book, or one from another of her multiverse. . . . Strout is consistent and satisfying: her writing is . . . always delightful, and illuminates the world in new, brighter colors with every book she writes.”—Literary Hub

“Let’s hope that this fine author continues steadily along her path, delivering unto her loyal readers story upon story, gift upon gift.”—The Guardian 

“Strout’s decision to start fresh feels like a promise: new characters to obsess over, new quiet devastations to survive. Here, a high school teacher’s seemingly settled life is upended by a long-kept secret. Strout will always make ordinary lives feel urgent. New territory just raises the stakes.”—Oprah Daily 

“Tantalizingly perceptive and compassionate . . . Strout fans will flock to her latest, thrilled to meet new characters in her always compelling fictional universe.”—Booklist, starred review 

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Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage  by Belle Burden (2026)

05 Friday Jun 2026

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“Burden’s journey speaks to anyone broken by the unimaginable and courageous enough to forge a new beginning.”—Adrienne Brodeur, New York Times bestselling author of Wild Game

“In reclaiming her voice and story, Burden refuses to keep the silence and make the excuses as implicitly expected by society . . . and she remains charitable and gracious even when she does not have to be. A measured, empathetic, and modern response to an enraging callousness.”—Kirkus Reviews 

“In Strangers, Belle Burden writes with piercing honesty about what happens when the life you trusted vanishes overnight—and the deeper reckoning that follows when the story you’ve lived no longer holds. With astounding compassion, she asks us to examine life’s most perplexing questions alongside her: Can we see the invisible fault lines in a marriage or truly know the people closest to us? This is an unforgettable story not just of heartbreak, but of self-recognition—of the quiet courage of learning to live in your own truth.”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone 

“Reads like a love story and a horror story and, in one nail-biting section, like a financial thriller.”—The New York Times (Editors’ Choice)​​

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King: a Life by Jonathan Eig (2023)

29 Friday May 2026

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This recent Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. is an incredibly engaging book. I assumed I had a good understanding of this iconic figure’s life, but each chapter revealed more to me about King’s life, work, family, and place in the Civil Rights movement. 

“Definitive . . . Monumental . . . An extraordinary achievement and an essential life of the iconic warrior for social justice.” ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“[A] sweeping biography. Eig gives a rousing recap of King’s triumphs as a civil rights leader . . . [A] complex, nuanced portrait . . . Eig’s evocative prose ably conveys his bravery, charisma, and spell-binding oratory . . . An enthralling reappraisal that confirms King’s relevance to today’s debates over racial justice.” ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“The most comprehensive MLK biography to date . . . Eig refuses to ‘defang’ King, instead pushing Americans to recognize the radical nature of his demands for justice and his resistance to not only racism but militarism and capitalism.” ―Booklist (starred review)

“Mining a trove of materials―many only recently available―augmented with voluminous archival work and hundreds of interviews for personal insights . . . [Eig] recovers the man, foibles and all, from the too often hollowed-out, sainted symbol that competing ideologies have sanitized for national observance . . . Engrossing . . . A must for readers interested in moving beyond clichéd catchphrases to see a more complete and complex King.” ―Library Journal (starred review)

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Go Gentle: a Novel by Maria Semple (2026)

22 Friday May 2026

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“In her new novel, her fourth, a divorced woman named Adora Hazzard is enjoying life with her teenage daughter and a ‘coven’ of friends on the same floor of her building on New York’s Upper West Side. She is not looking for love, and so Semple gives it to her, sparking events that show off the author’s trademark hilarious chaos.” –The Washington Post 

“Go Gentle is a thoroughly fun and raucous read that richly explores the wisdom that comes with middle age and the tradeoff between being content and taking chances.” –BookPage 

“Maria Semple is a truly American author who sees the pathos, chaos and humor in each episode, in each character’s needs and wants…GO GENTLE is hard to put down — and the final events will stay with readers long after the last page is turned. This is the perfect book for spring, a time for renewal and recharging.” –Bookreporter

“Funny, tender, mysterious, clever…Semple entertains in every moment of this smart story of Greek philosophy and Greek statues; desire, happiness, and their opposites; and priceless midlife peace… Readers will have hearts in their eyes to see her first new novel in a decade.”–Booklist (Starred Review)

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A Far-Flung Life: a Novel by M.L. Stedman (2026)

12 Tuesday May 2026

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From the author of the acclaimed bestseller The Light Between Oceans comes a breathtaking and epic novel set in the vast outback of Australia—about tragedy, family secrets, and the enduring power of love.  

“A big, bold story of tragedy and resilience. I was completely swept away.” —Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry 

“Stedman returns with another epic redolent of Thomas Hardy—fit with realist grit, relentless family calamity, and a remote Western Australian setting that, like Hardy’s brooding English moors, radiates such beauty and hostility, it’s almost a character in its own right.” —NPR

“The beauty and breadth of the landscape stand in counterpoint to the horrors of the human lives playing out upon it. Stedman describes the everyday elements of station life with graceful accuracy…and lands every blow thanks to her patient accumulation of ordinary life…A Far-Flung Life makes the argument that a family is not defined by bloodline or by the catastrophes visited upon it, but by the daily, dogged work of holding itself together.” —The New York Times Book Review

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