Autumn is traditionally the Big Season for what we might call Big Fiction. Fall tends to bring a higher relative representation of award-winning authors and serious amounts of literary fiction, be it contemporary, historical or—increasingly—sprinkled with speculative bits.
Thusly we present our guide to fall’s top adult fiction releases. Each of the titles below is slated to publish between August and December of 2026. Some of the season’s more high-profile releases are listed up top, but otherwise the books are stacked in no particular order.
Some places to start:
American Hagwon, the much anticipated new novel from author
Min Jin Lee (
Pachinko), follows the fortunes of a middle-class Korean family after their move from Seoul to Southern California, via Sydney. Meanwhile, Pulitzer Prize winner
Barbara Kingsolver (
Demon Copperhead) returns to shelves in October with
Partita, a dual-timeline character study featuring lost love and the enduring power of music.
If you’re in the market for a wry celebrity parable, consider
Hollywood, Ending, the latest from the astonishingly versatile John Green—author of the YA classic
The Fault in Our Stars and the nonfiction bestseller
Everything Is Tuberculosis. One of the season’s most intriguing novels,
Bonnie Garmus’
Peck & Peck chronicles one man’s experience at New York City’s most entertainingly dysfunctional poetry journal.
Click around below to discover more fascinating fiction coming over the horizon, with stories from
ancient Rome to
America’s future. Click on the book cover images for more details about each title, and use the
Want to Read button to organize your digital bookshelf.
