The best books of 2026

This list is part of the best books of 2026.

Join 237 readers and share your 3 favorite reads of the year.

My favorite read in 2026

Book cover of A Canticle for Leibowitz

❤️ loved this book because...

With today's head long rush to expand AI as fast as possible regardless of potential impacts, I found this book from the dawn of the Atomic Age to be both a quality and enjoyable read, but also terrifyingly relevant.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Thoughts 🥈 Originality
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Walter M. Miller, Jr. ,

Why should I read it?

14 authors picked A Canticle for Leibowitz as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the depths of the Utah desert, long after the Flame Deluge has scoured the earth clean, a monk of the Order of Saint Leibowitz has made a miraculous discovery: holy relics from the life of the great saint himself, including the blessed blueprint, the sacred shopping list, and the hallowed shrine of the Fallout Shelter.

In a terrifying age of darkness and decay, these artifacts could be the keys to mankind's salvation. But as the mystery at the core of this groundbreaking novel unfolds, it is the search itself—for meaning, for truth, for love—that offers hope for humanity's rebirth…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2026

Book cover of The Tainted Cup

❤️ loved this book because...

I love good mystery and I especially love a mystery set and a brand new imagined world that seems well lived in. Where the greatest mystery might be where the leviathans come from and why the leviathans come. While this is not answered, the backdrop creates a very engaging fantasy world where there's not magic just strange creatures that yield even stranger properties.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Immersion 🥈 Story/Plot
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Robert Jackson Bennett ,

Why should I read it?

21 authors picked The Tainted Cup as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From Edgar-winning, multiple Hugo-nominated novelist Robert Jackson Bennett—an unforgettable new Holmes and Watson–style detective duo take the stage in this fantasy with an irresistible mystery twist.

In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying and impossible.

Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all…


My 3rd favorite read in 2026

Book cover of Lonesome Dove

❤️ loved this book because...

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Character(s) 🥈 Writing
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Larry McMurtry ,

Why should I read it?

29 authors picked Lonesome Dove as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize winning novel is a powerful, triumphant portrayal of the American West as it really was. From Texas to Montana, it follows cowboys on a grueling cattle drive through the wilderness.

It begins in the office of The Hat Creek Cattle Company of the Rio Grande.
It ends as a journey into the heart of every adventurer who ever lived . . .

More than a love story, more than an adventure, Lonesome Dove is an epic: a monumental novel which embraces the spirit of the last defiant wilderness of America.

Legend and fact, heroes and outlaws,…


Book cover of A Canticle for Leibowitz
Book cover of The Tainted Cup
Book cover of Lonesome Dove

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