Top 5 This Week

Anne Carson Wins the Nobel: Which of Her Books Should Your Book Club Read?

The 2026 Nobel laureate writes verse novels, tango essays and boxed elegies. Here is which of Anne Carson's books work best in a group, what to ask about each, and how to run the meeting.

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Broken Rival by Tessa Bailey

Hot chocolate, corn dogs, a prom proposal over the stadium speakers, and then gunfire three miles north. A girl from the future who has learned to smile through everything finally stops, and a dark, generous love story begins.

Victorious by V.E. Schwab

A careful psychiatrist in Merit learns that one patient's nightmares can draw blood, and the discovery reshapes the agency that hunts people like Victor Vale. Schwab's closing Villains novel finds its horror in a gentle voice and its warmth in a makeshift family, though it takes its time getting there.

Adam and Eve by Jeffrey Archer

Two babies are christened together in a Norfolk church in January 1919. Afterwards one family drinks champagne at the Hall and the other eats ham sandwiches at the pub, and only the vicar and the doctor attend both. Archer's last novel is about who gets to cross that line.

Ply by Hernan Diaz

A staircase goes down further than a building should allow, and at the bottom a dying woman switches on a ceiling of light over a laboratory that cost her everything she had. She needs a thief to steal a city's worth of electricity for her.

The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman by Deesha Philyaw

Two people who have spent their lives being watched meet at a creek behind a closed diner, two hours from anyone who would recognise them. What one of them says next undoes forty years of careful construction, and starts the best novel about church respectability in years.

Threshing Day by Rebecca Yarros

She has refused the tug in her chest for hours. Now she walks into the open, spreads her arms wide, and shouts at a dragon to take her. This is the chapter the whole collection is built to hold.

American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee

A woman who has never bought jewellery in her life stands at a strip-mall counter, choosing diamond studs for the daughter-in-law she hopes will visit her. She has been saving for this since her son graduated.

Book List

Feeling stuck in a reading rut? Our curated book lists are here to rescue you from the clutches of reader's block. Explore new genres, discover hidden gems, and find your next literary obsession with our expertly crafted recommendations.

Where to Start With the Booker Prize 2026 Shortlist

Six books, seven weeks until the winner, and one of them runs to six hundred pages. Which of the shortlisted novels to open first, which to save for a group, and which one I think wins.

Where to Start With the Booker Prize 2026 Longlist

Thirteen novels, one shortlist in September, and not enough evenings. Here is what each book on the Booker 2026 longlist actually is, and which one I would open first.

What to Read Before Nolan’s Odyssey

You have a ticket and not much time. Here is what I would actually read before Nolan's Odyssey, sorted by how many free evenings you have between now and the cinema.

Reader's Corner

This is where the real magic happens! Join our lively discussions on every genre under the sun, from high-brow literary fiction to guilty-pleasure beach reads. Share your thoughts, dissect themes, and prepare to have your perspectives challenged (in the best way possible, of course).

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Where Literary Passion Meets Community Connection. Discover captivating reads, engaging discussions, and endless literary inspiration in our cozy online haven.

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A Rebellion of Care by David Gate

David Gate's debut poetry collection, A Rebellion of Care, emerges as a vital voice in contemporary literature, offering readers...

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A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck

Two Americans spent forty days in Stalin's Soviet Union in 1947 having promised each other they would explain nothing. Whether that promise was honesty or cowardice is the argument, and it was being had in 1948 too.

The Long Valley by John Steinbeck

Thirteen pieces of Salinas Valley fiction, of which four are superb, two are indefensible and one is three pages long and better than most novels. A collection nobody should assign whole, and a guide to which parts to assign instead.

The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck

A woman boards a rural bus and gives the other passengers a false name she has just assembled from a cigarette poster and a tree outside the window. She is the most honest person on board, and the novel knows it.

Cup of Gold by John Steinbeck

An old man on a Welsh hilltop tells a boy that the people who never grow up get everything they want and find it worth nothing. The boy sails, becomes the most feared pirate in the Caribbean, and proves him right over two hundred pages.

The Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck

A family moves into a valley and is pleasant to everyone. Within a few years most of their neighbours are dead, institutionalised or gone. Nobody notices, including them, and that is the whole design.