Even in a traditionally slower month for publishing, there are still more exciting new books than anyone can keep up with. Here’s a collection of most-anticipated lists to stock your TBR and stoke your enthusiasm.

• Barnes & Noble’s Best Books of November and December 2026
• Indie Next List for November 2026
• Goodreads Readers’ Most Anticipated Books for November
• Amazon Editors‘ Best Books of 2026
• 19 Books Coming in November, The New York Times
• 20 Best Books to Read in November, Kirkus

Among the most popular titles for the month:

• Annie Proulx Stories: New and Selected by Annie Proulx
• Take My Word for It by LeVar Burton
• Amazons by Cleo Birdwell (aka literary legend Don DeLillo)
• Peculiar Stars by Rebecca Yarros
• Uprising by Tahmima Anam
• Stations by Louise Kennedy
• Ten Lives by Mona Chalabi

The end of the year is within sight, and with it comes an opportunity to reflect on how you want to feel in 2027.

• Establish a new ritual with Tiago Forte’s Life in Perspective, which offers a framework for clarifying your goals and values and translating them into steps toward the future you want.
• Press the pause button on productivity and planning and learn to focus on the present with Priyank Mattoo’s wise and funny self-help/memoir combo, How to Be Less Useful.

Also hitting shelves:

• Cheese recipes from around the world
• A history of Broadway collaborations between Black and white artists
• An oral history of Elf just in time for the holidays
• Cozy fiction set in a Tokyo bookstore
• A gorgeous new collector’s edition of The Hunger Games

Find more of the month’s best new books.

Dystopian science fiction and how the general public reacts to it is so interesting. I was a teenager and then a literal young adult when dystopian fiction hit its peak popularity for the YA category, so I was a big consumer of it.

• I remember staying up for like two nights in a row one weekend in college to finish all the Hunger Games books that were out—there were only three at the time, all of which are on this list.

I connected with the books and appreciated their anti-authoritarianism and anti-classist message. So I was super surprised when it came time for the books to be adapted into films, and people were upset that a character described as having brown skin was going to be played by a biracial Black actress (who, funnily enough, is actually lighter-skinned in real life than the character is described as being in the book).

This is just one instance of many that I’ve noticed as a long-time fan of science fiction and fantasy media where other so-called fans seemed to miss the entire point of the stories they were consuming.

• There really feels like there is a disconnect when you look at the popularity of genres like dystopian fiction and the public’s general attitude towards community, racism, classism, ableism, sexism, and other -isms. I can’t help but ask what is going on?

Just look at the three most popular dystopian science fiction books on Libby:

1. Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
2. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
3. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Thousands of people are reading these books, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like the ideas presented in them are being absorbed, so like, what gives? The genre is heavily consumed, but is it just because it’s entertaining to read, or because it resonates with people? I need answers. —EE

“Never before in the entire history of the American theater has so much of the truth of Black people’s lives been seen on stage.”

Those are the words James Baldwin used to describe A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry’s groundbreaking play.

• Set between the end of WWII and 1958, the play follows a working-class Black family on the South Side of Chicago as they await a $10,000 life insurance payout they hope will change their lives.

Hansberry was only 28 when the play debuted in 1959 and immediately made history. In addition to being nominated for four Tony Awards, including Best Play and Best Direction, it racked up a litany of firsts:

• It became the first play by a Black woman, and the first play with a Black director (Lloyd Richards), to be performed on Broadway.
• Hansberry was both the first Black playwright and the youngest to win the New York Drama Critics Circle Award

Join us on Zero to Well-Read for a conversation about A Raisin in the Sun and its continuing impact on American theater. Find it on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find podcasts.

Jane Austen lovers rejoice! A new six-part adaptation of one of the author’s most popular novels is coming out on Netflix.

• The cast is stacked, with Emma Corrin as Elizabeth Bennet, Jack Lowden as Mr. Darcy, and Olivia Colman as Mrs. Bennet.
• Not only that, but the creator and writer of the period series is Dolly Alderton, author of bestselling romances including Good Material and Ghosts.

In the trailer, Olivia Colman’s Mrs. Bennet follows a joyous scene of the Bennet sisters having a pillow fight with one of the most shared Austen quotes, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

What follows is all the deliciously tense dialogue, sisterly celebration, and romance that has made the original book an everlasting favorite.

You can watch as the Bennets navigate social convention to find love in the classic romance on Netflix starting December 3.

Kennedy Cole is the author of There Used to Be People Here, out today from Berkley. Below, she recommends three of her favorite paranormal thrillers.

I’d agree with readers who’ve said that my debut is as much of a thriller novel as it is horror. Taking place in a single week, this story follows an unlikely pair of detectives as they investigate a strange murder starting in a gay bar in 1978 Mississippi. It’s gruesome, uncanny, and may have a toe or ten dipped in sci-fi. So, with that being said, here are three paranormal thrillers I suggest for readers hoping to dive into the subgenre.

As a reader who’s been recommended books by Tananarive Due for years, I’d be remiss if I didn’t pass the torch and endorse her latest novel, Mazywood. A historical horror novel set in a mountain cabin and following a famous Black actress’ generations-long legacy, this book is perfect for readers seeking thrillers rich with place and a lurking monster with a story of its own. Plus, really, really good writing.

S.A. Cosby pitched The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones to me when we met for our conversation during his recent tour, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. Southern vampires that transform into the very thing they feed on? Hell yeah! I’d recommend this book for readers looking for an imaginative twist on a popular trope, eager for a bloody revenge story soaked in death, or in search of a damn good author.

I read We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer in a single sitting, trapped in a coffee shop booth with no choice but to turn the page. It was utterly captivating, so well written, and God, one of the scariest books I’ve ever read. Following a queer couple who’ve recently purchased a new home and are in the process of moving in, things shift quicker than expected in this terrifying, lightning-paced novel. I highly recommend it for thriller fans looking to dig their way out of a slump.

And, if you’re intrigued, give There Used to Be People Here a read, too.

Did you know? Reservoir Square was renamed for him in 1884. Bryant Park is now the home of the New York Public Library.

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Written by Rebecca Schinsky, Erica Ezeifedi, Jeff O’Neal, Vanessa Diaz, and Danika Ellis. Thanks to Vanessa Diaz for copy editing.

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