Review
Published on November 6, 2026

November’s Buzziest Literary Fiction

Selected by Jenni Sidey · via Book Riot
November’s Buzziest Literary Fiction


This month’s buzziest literary fiction is coming out swinging. Modern master Annie Proulx has a short story collection, people contend with grief and generational curses, and women on a sinking island right off the coast of Bangladesh find their voice. I dare you to read a few of these and keep your eyes dry.

The buzziest new literary fiction out this month:

  • Stations by Louise Kennedy: A 1980s Ireland-set journey of the roller coaster of a friendship between Róisín and the trouble-making Red.
  • Uprising by Tahmima Anam: Get ready to cry. Many of the women in Uprising are sex workers whose children witness them enduring the harshest kind of treatment on a sinking Bangladeshi island. But then Kusum arrives from the city, and with her comes hope.
  • Remember the Bees by Zineb Mekouar: A young Moroccan boy tends to an ancient apiary, even as everything changes around him.
  • Annie Proulx Stories by Annie Proulx: Characters contend with loneliness, obsession, and love in a collection of three new stories and a couple of Proulx’s most popular ones.
  • Long Wave by Daisy Johnson: Three generations of women contend with the pressure of motherhood (bit of a spoiler: they kind of fail).
  • Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone by Dana Renee Green: When Renie gets a cancer diagnosis and starts journaling, she realizes she has barely lived for herself and sets out to change that.
  • Sweet Pea by Kit de Waal: St. Kitts-born Paulette (aka Sweet Pea) is 29 when tragedy visits and she’s left grieving. But then she meets a boy the same age as her son and slowly starts to come back to life.
  • Whale Harbor by Mary Beth Keane: Keane’s latest starts in 1960s Ireland when a tragedy splits 11 grieving sons between England and the US to survive. But then one of them goes missing.
  • O Now! By Niall Williams: More Irish tings! This time in the small town of Faha, where Ganga is beloved in the community. When he passes away, it sends Bat, his bestie, on an existential journey.
  • The Man Who Read Books by Rachid Benzine, translated by Sam Taylor: In Palestine, an elderly man tells a young French photographer why he keeps his bookshop open, even during all the bombings.



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