If this list is any evidence, the array of nonfiction hitting shelves in 2026 is as full of promise as a new year. Whether you’re looking for celebrity biographies, lyrical memoirs or sharp and sober histories, there will be plenty to chew on, including books on Toni Morrison and the Rolling Stones; provocative takes on cinema and sports betting; and new titles by Jesmyn Ward, Michael Pollan and Claudia Rankine.
This is a running list, and publication dates may change. Check back for updates as the year goes on.
January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October
January
current events
Firestorm
by Jacob Soboroff
An MS NOW correspondent who grew up in the Palisades presents his journalistic perspective on environmental catastrophe and Los Angeles’s 2025 fire season alongside a more personal one
February
Memoir
A Hymn to Life
by Gisèle Pelicot
In a sexual assault case that shocked the world, one woman made the stunning decision to shed her anonymity when accusing her ex-husband of drugging and raping her, and of arranging for dozens of men to rape her. In her own words, translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer and Ruth Diver, Pelicot delivers a defiant retelling of her life story — not as a victim, but as a crusader.
Literary Criticism
On Morrison
by Namwali Serpell
If you’re looking for a primer on Toni Morrison, you’re in capable hands with Serpell, who normally reserves such scholarship for her students at Harvard. In this survey, she walks readers through Morrison’s robust oeuvre, from the fiction that made her famous to her less well known criticism, plays and poetry.
cultural history
The People Can Fly
by Joshua Bennett
What does it mean to be a gifted Black child in a country that treats them as an anomaly? A poet and M.I.T. literature professor seeks answers in the early archives of figures like James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni and Stevie Wonder — and in his own experiences as an academic.
Science
A World Appears
by Michael Pollan
Pollan, who explored “the hard problem” of human consciousness through experiments with psychedelic drugs in “How to Change Your Mind,” returns with this dive into the depths of the brain as seen by the neuroscientists, psychologists, artists, philosophers and others trying to make sense of it all.
Politics
Young Man in a Hurry
by Gavin Newsom
The governor of California, a Democrat, is believed to be readying a run for the presidency in 2028. His memoir is all but certain to add grist to the rumor mill.
March
Cultural history
The Beginning Comes After the End
by Rebecca Solnit
Solnit takes the long view on the past 65 years of social progress. In her telling, the current rise of authoritarianism is the dying gasp of an old world order, and we are on the precipice of living in a multicultural and interconnected world.
TRUE CRIME
Cave Mountain
By Benjamin Hale
What begins as a day hike gone wrong quickly veers into ghost story territory. The disappearance of a 6-year-old girl — Hale’s cousin — may be only the latest twist in this stranger-than-fiction tale of a doomsday cult deep in the Arkansas Ozarks.
Cultural history
Chain of Ideas
by Ibram X. Kendi
Building upon his National Book Award-winning history of racism in America, “Stamped From the Beginning,” Kendi narrows his scope to the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, and then broadens it by tracing the theory’s ties to authoritarianism worldwide.
field guide to Planet Earth
The Glorians
by Terry Tempest Williams
Beauty is all around us, or so the cliché goes. Williams, the environmental activist and Harvard Divinity School writer-in-residence, takes it a step further in these reflections on aging, relationships and more: Each ordinary little beauty is connected to each other, and to us.
memoir
In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man
by Tom Junod
The veteran magazine writer has been trying to understand his swaggering, womanizing father since he was 16. Decades later, the family secrets Junod uncovers form the backbone of this detective story turned masculinity memoir.
Sports
Metropolitans
by A.M. Gittlitz
For fans who’d prefer not to relive the Mets’ epic September meltdown — all the more painful when you consider the team’s gargantuan 2025 payroll — Gittlitz delivers a wide-ranging history of New York baseball’s “working-class-coded” underdogs, whose outsize role in the civil rights, antiwar and labor movements might dwarf its checkered performance on the field.
Memoir
No New York
by Adele Bertei
On the heels of the New Wave movement, a cohort of artists and musicians in downtown Manhattan conceived the rough-edged avant-garde sound and style they called “no wave.” Here, a veteran of the scene pays homage to the women in it, including the photographer Nan Goldin and the visual artist Kiki Smith.
April
Literary Criticism
Against Breaking
by Ada Limón
The popular 24th Poet Laureate of the United States offers a slim, approachable meditation on poetry as a lens through which readers can view themselves and the world.
current events
The Future Is Peace
by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon
Two authors, one Palestinian and one Israeli, set off on a weeklong expedition across their conflict-stricken homelands in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack, advocating for nonviolence and reconciliation.
True Crime
London Falling
by Patrick Radden Keefe
Consider this a real-life Harlan Coben novel. After 19-year-old Zac Brettler plunges to his death in the river Thames, his grieving family discovers his secret life posing as the heir of a phony Russian oligarch. From there, Keefe reconstructs the seedy underbelly of London that the Brettlers delve into as they attempt to pinpoint what — or who — killed their son.
MEMOIR
Small Town Girls
by Jayne Anne Phillips
The celebrated novelist’s memoir in essays is a nostalgia-steeped ode to Appalachia with pieces ranging from a history of the feuding Hatfields and McCoys to sketches of small-town beauty salons and more.
It’s only rock ’n’ roll
The Rolling Stones
by Bob Spitz
Spitz, who has written books about The Beatles, Julia Child, Ronald Reagan and the 1969-70 Knicks, reports on one of the most documented groups in rock history.
May
travelogue
American Rambler
by Isaac Fitzgerald
The author of “Dirtbag, Massachusetts” seeks “to separate legend from story from memory from fact” as he traces the path of the American gardener and folk hero Johnny Appleseed from Massachusetts to Indiana.
Travelogue
Big Fan
by Mike Schur and Joe Posnanski
Swifties, Kopites and yet-to-be-nicknamed chess enthusiasts abound in this sprawling survey of the world of fandom from the sitcom maven Schur — whose shows have spawned plenty of fans themselves — and the sports journalist Posnanski, who host a sports podcast together.
essays
The Land and Its People
by David Sedaris
The prolific humorist recounts his travels and travails in Guatemala, Kenya, Vatican City and elsewhere in an essay collection sprinkled with his characteristic wit.
essays
On Witness and Respair
by Jesmyn Ward
The two-time National Book Award winner collects a decade’s worth of nonfiction, from reflections on Black literary giants to personal essays on the death of her husband and raising her son in a fractured America.
Memoir
Renaissance of a Boss
by Rick Ross
In his third book, Ross, the Southern rapper known for his husky baritone, pulls out of a creative rut through travel to far-flung places, detailing his creative process and offering advice on how to “bounce back from flops.”
June
memoir
Cancel Me if You Can
by Dave Portnoy
Since he founded Barstool Sports in 2004, the digital media mogul’s reputation has shifted from scrappy upstart to disruptive visionary and, most recently, unapologetic contrarian. Here, he tells his side of the story.
Politics and faith
The Crooked Places Made Straight
by Raphael G. Warnock
Warnock, the Baptist pastor who has represented Georgia in the U.S. Senate since 2021, shares what he calls his “moral topography” in writings on six issues: voting rights, mass incarceration, gun violence, climate change, income inequality and dark money in politics.
Sports
Over/Under
by David Bockino
Since 2018, sports betting in the U.S. has gone from a maligned hobby to a booming business. After digging into decades of data, and following fans, speculators and grifters across the country, Bockino makes the case that gambling isn’t just entangled with the history of American sports culture — it’s practically responsible for it.
memoir
Transcendent
by Laverne Cox
The Emmy-nominated transgender actress and L.G.B.T.Q. rights activist was on the verge of giving up her Hollywood dream when she landed a life-changing role in “Orange is the New Black.” In her memoir, Cox recounts what it took to get her there.
memoir
Trash!
by Simon Pare-Poupart
Working on a garbage truck may sound like a rough gig, but for this Montreal trash collector, it’s become a decades-long passion. This account, translated from the French by Pablo Strauss, scrutinizes overconsumption, the politics of refuse and the sanitation profession’s Sisyphean nature from the perspective of a veteran garbageman — with a sociology degree, that is.
Politics
What Conservatives Believe
by Mike Pence
The former vice president of the United States outlines his vision for the future of American conservatism in this account disavowing “the temptations of big-government populism.”
History
The Wreck of the Mentor
by Eric Jay Dolin
The author of “Black Flags, Blue Waters” turns to the tale of an American whaling ship whose 11 shipwrecked survivors were held captive by a Micronesian tribe in the 1830s.
July
True Crime
Catch the Devil
by Pamela Colloff
The dubious testimonies of a con man help put several men behind bars and one on death row for a crime another man admitted to committing in this book from Colloff, an investigative journalist for ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine.
Pop culture
A Sudden Flicker of Light
by David Thomson
In this polemic, a venerable film critic and historian contends that cinema has, by and large, contributed to the disconnection and isolation of our society.
August
Genre-Bender
Triage
by Claudia Rankine
The ever genre-fluid Rankine braids criticism, memoir and more in this illustrated story of two women whose lives diverge and reconverge over decades.
September
Memoir
The Steps
by Sylvester Stallone
The Hollywood heavyweight reflects on his early career — especially the eight years between his move to New York City and “Rocky” winning best picture at the 1977 Academy Awards.
October
epistolary biography
Borges
by Adolfo Bioy Casares
Casares, an Argentine writer and journalist, kept meticulous notes of his conversations with Jorge Luis Borges over half a century of friendship and literary collaboration. His diaries, edited by Daniel Martino and translated from Spanish by Valerie Miles, double as an intellectual biography of a giant of letters.
Also coming in 2026
Checkmate: Genius, Lies, Ambition, and the Biggest Scandal in Chess, by Ben Mezrich; Ghost Stories, by Siri Hustvedt; Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!, by Liza Minnelli; Famesick, by Lena Dunham; Beyond Life and Death by Jet Li; Bad Boy for Life: The Rise and Fall of Sean Combs, by Cheyenne Roundtree; The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, by Jill Lepore; The Rush by Nathaniel Philbrick; American Scoundrel by Kai Bird; Man in the Mirror: A Death in the Undercity and a Country on Edge, by Anand Giridharadas; The Vanishing Family, by Robert Kolker; Cher: The Memoir, Part Two, by Cher.
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