From dynamite debuts to must-read memoirs and magical children’s fiction, here’s our selection of this year’s hottest holiday reads

70 brilliant books for the summer

Leading authors Mark Haddon, Samantha Harvey, Zadie Smith select their favourites

Justine Jordan, David Shariatmadari, Imogen Russell Williams and Guardian staff 

Sat 13 Jun 2026

Fiction

Transcription

Ben Lerner

A middle-aged writer returns to his college townto record the final interview with his 90-year-old intellectual mentor. But he’s broken his phone, and doesn’t seem able to confess that it’s not recording … this anxiety dream of a beginning leads us into a series of sharp insights into family, memory, inheritance and storytelling – all that it means to be human, and how smartphones are changing our sense of the world at every level.

My top 10 by Ali Smith

 

My top 10

Ali Smith

Author

 See the full list

1 Beloved (#2)

by Toni Morrison

2 Loitering With Intent

by Muriel Spark

3 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (#31)

by Muriel Spark

4 Invitation to a Beheading

by Vladimir Nabokov

5 After Midnight

by Irmgard Keun

6 Lanark

by Alasdair Gray

7 David Copperfield (#33)

by Charles Dickens

8 Michael Kohlhaas

by Heinrich von Kleist

9 Emma (#13)

by Jane Austen

10 The Summer Book

by Tove Jansson

THE GUARDIAN

Books to look out for in 2026 – fiction

 

Books to look out for in 2026 – fiction

This article is more than 4 months old

Maggie O’Farrell, Yann Martel and Julian Barnes are among the authors publishing new novels this year

Justin Jordan

Saturday 27 December 2025

The beginning of the books calendar is usually dominated by debuts, but January 2026 sees releases from some of the year’s biggest authors. Known for his surreally bittersweet short stories, George Saunders has written only one novel so far – but that one won the Booker prize. The follow-up to 2017’s Lincoln in the Bardo, Vigil (Bloomsbury) focuses on an unquiet spirit called Jill who helps others pass over from life to whatever comes next. She is called to the deathbed of an oil tycoon who is rapidly running out of time to face up to his ecological crimes, in a rallying cry for human connection and environmental action. Ali Smith’s Glyph (Hamish Hamilton) is a companion to 2024’s Gliff, and promises to tell a story initially hidden in that previous novel. Expect fables, siblings, phantoms and horses in a typically playful shout of resistance against war, genocide and the increasingly hostile social discourse. And in Departure(s) (Jonathan Cape), Julian Barnes announces his own – this blend of memoir and fiction, exploring memory, illness, mortality and love across the decades, will be his last book. “Your presence has delighted me,” he assures the reader. “Indeed, I would be nothing without you.”

My perfect holiday reading, by Bernardine Evaristo, David Nicholls, Zadie Smith and more

 

From left: Nussaibah Younis, Zadie Smith, Bernardine Evaristo and Colm Tóibín.

REVIEW

My perfect holiday reading, by Bernardine Evaristo, David Nicholls, Zadie Smith and more

This article is more than 9 months old

Authors including Anne Enright, Michael Rosen, Samantha Harvey and Rutger Bregman reveal their books of the summer

Bernardine Evaristo, Michael Rosen, Katherine Rundell, Olivia Laing, Jonathan Coe, Colm Tóibín, Ali Smith, Mick Herron, Curtis Sittenfeld, Rutger Bregman, Sarah Perry, Nussaibah Younis, Florence Knapp, Peter Frankopan, Zadie Smith

21 Jun 2025