Today's links

• Enshittification and Reverse Centaurs go global: The good globalism.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: Fonz thumps x Linux; CBC v DRM; Aussie mall v photos; English town x CCTVs; Pay no taxes x Big Tech; Games Workshop v gamers; Delta x surveillance pricing.
• Upcoming appearances: Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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Enshittification and Reverse Centaurs go global (permalink)

It's safe to say that the past couple of years have been good ones for me publishing-wise, thanks to a string of international bestsellers, both novels (Picks and Shovels) and nonfiction (Enshittification, Reverse Centaur), as well as plenty of awards and accolades:

https://craphound.com/shop

Over the past two months, I've won the Locus Award (Enshittification), had a NYT bestseller (Reverse Centaur), gotten a word in the OED ("enshittification"), and had the number one bestselling nonfiction paperback in Canada for more than a month running (Reverse Centaur). I also turned 55 – and my radiologist told me I'm now cancer-free, so it's been a good summer all around.

These books have done especially well internationally because they deal with technopolitics, which means that my readers are disproportionately Internet People, and for historical reasons, these are folks who are more likely to speak English, even if they live outside of the Anglosphere.

This post is primarily for those readers, who often write to me to let me know how much they enjoyed the books, so much so that they'd like to share them with their less online, less English-conversant friends, and want to know whether there is a translation coming in their own language.

Good news! Both Reverse Centaur and Enshittification have many foreign editions that are either published or forthcoming in the next year or so. The foreign rights team at Farrar, Straus and Giroux were good enough to prepare a list of all these editions, which I'm about to reproduce below.

If your preferred language isn't on the list, I apologize. Translation deals are primarily "pull," not "push" – that is to say, a foreign publisher contacts my publisher and asks for the rights (though my publisher does market the rights and attends all the book fairs where these deals are often made).

The upshot here is that I am not really in a position to do more than has already been done to get an edition published in your preferred language or territory. If you happen to have a favorite local publisher, you could always ask them if they would like to get in touch with Farrar, Straus and Giroux foreign rights team to secure a license.

I also need to note here that these deals are generally with established publishers who have relationships with national booksellers and distributors (rather than enthusiastic individuals who want to produce a translation and see if they can get it read by other people in their country). The hard part of publishing isn't the translation, the typesetting, the book design or even the writing – the hard part is connecting a text with its readers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/04/self-publishing/

With that all said, here's the master list of editions of Enshittification and The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI:

• USA and Canada : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  Enshittification: hardcover, Oct 2025; paperback, Sep 2026
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

Reverse Centaur: paperback, Jun 2026
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/

• UK and Commonwealth excluding Canada (Australia , New Zealand , India , South Africa , and beyond): Verso Books
  Enshittification: hardcover, Oct 2025; paperback, Sep 2026
  https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/3341-enshittification

Reverse Centaur: hardcover, Jun 2026
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/3584-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai

• Brazil : Grupo Editorial Record
  Enshittification, early 2027

• France : Éditions Eyrolles
  Enshittification: Feb 2027

• Germany : Aufbau
  Enshittification: May 2026
  https://www.aufbau-verlage.de/blumenbar/enshittification/978-3-351-05143-3

• Hungary : Agave Konyvek
  Enshittification (as A Nagy Elszaródás/The Big Mess), Mar 2026
  https://agavekonyvek.hu/konyv/ismeretterjeszto-190/a-nagy-elszarodas-miert-romlott-el-hirtelen-minden-es-mit-tehetunk-ellene

Reverse Centaur (as A Nagy Összemolás/The Big Collapse), not yet scheduled

• Italy : Iperborea
  Enshittification, not yet scheduled

• Japan : Impress Corporation
  Enshittification, Jan 2027

• Poland : Wydawnictwo Otwarte
  Enshittification (as Gównowacenie), Aug 2026
  https://www.znak.com.pl/p/gownowacenie-jak-cyfrowi-giganci-zmieniaja-nasz-swiat-na-gorsze-cory-doctorow-488999?abpid=10388&abpcid=33&bb_coid=231428551&bbclid=cc5f0f24-aa55-4997-95ec-cefead709239

• Portugal : PRH Portugal
  Enshittification, not yet scheduled

• Quebec 󠁣󠁡󠁱󠁣󠁿: Éditions Québec Amérique
  Enshittification: Apr 2027

• Slovenia : Mladinska Knjiga
  Enshittification, not yet scheduled

• South Korea : Next Wave Media
  Enshittification, Jul 2026
  https://product.kyobobook.co.kr/detail/S000220350700

• Spain : Capitán Swing
  Enshittification (as Mierdificación), Mar 2026

Reverse Centaur, not yet scheduled

• Taiwan : Acropolis
  Enshittification, first quarter 2027

• Thailand : Salt Publishing
  Enshittification, Oct 2026

• Türkiye : Okuyanus
  Enshittification, Fall 2026

• Ukraine : Athena Publishing
  Enshittification, not yet scheduled

(These are the confirmed deals. There are lots of other deals in negotiation, especially for Reverse Centaur, which is only a month old.)

I hope some of you found this useful! If not (or if so!), don't worry, I'll be back with more essays in the days to come.

One final note for newsletter readers: I realize that I have violated my "one emoji per edition" rule with the flags above. Rest assured this will not be a regular thing.

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• We used to be able to buy things in this country https://dannykatch.substack.com/p/we-used-to-be-able-to-buy-things

• How to Stop the Enshittification of America https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-how-to-stop-the

• Yes, Trump Will Attempt a Coup https://prospect.org/2026/07/28/trump-attempt-coup-january-6-election-republican-congress/

• Framework Laptop 13 Pro Review: The Best Modular Laptop Ever Made https://gizmodo.com/framework-laptop-13-pro-review-the-best-modular-laptop-ever-made-2000791804

• The $145 Billion Lie? Zuckerberg's Leaked Town Hall Audio Exposes Massive AI Failures After Mass Layoffs https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/zuckerbergs-leaked-audio-meta-ai-struggles-1807607

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Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Linux Thinkpads can be controlled by knocking on them https://web.archive.org/web/20060814065844/http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-knockage.html?ca=dgr-lnxw01Knock-Knock

#20yrsago Why the CBC doesn’t need DRM https://web.archive.org/web/20060820121451/https://www.michaelgeist.ca/component/option,com_content/task,view/id,1342/Itemid,85/nsub,/

#20yrsago Aussie mall defends its photons from terrorists https://web.archive.org/web/20060910224208/http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/07/29/1153816426869.html

#15yrsago Sleepy English town to be entirely surveilled in case criminals forget and drive through it on their way to crimes https://web.archive.org/web/20110731020858/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8670642/Sleepy-market-town-surrounded-by-ring-of-car-cameras.html

#10yrsago Lessons from the DNC: Ronald Reagan, the Southern Strategy, and “abnormal politics” https://crookedtimber.org/2016/07/30/philadelphia-stories-from-reagan-to-trump-to-the-dnc/

#10yrsago How to pay no taxes at all! (if you’re Apple, Google or Facebook) https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/07/video-guide-to-legal-tax-evasion-with-an-apple-boycott.html

#5yrsago Games Workshop declares war on its customers https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/30/space-marines/#fairy-use-tale

#1yrago Delta's AI-based price-gouging https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/30/efficiency-washing/#medallion-clubbed

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Virtual: EFFecting Change: Who the Machine Serves, Aug 12
  https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-who-machine-serves

• Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17
  https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales

• Sydney: The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Aug 23-24
  https://festivalofdangerousideas.com/program/

• Melbourne: Enshittification at the Wheeler Centre, Aug 25
  https://www.wheelercentre.com/events-tickets/season-2026/cory-doctorow-enshittification

• Brighton: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Carole Cadwalladr (Brighton Dome), Sep 8
  https://brightondome.org/whats-on/LSC-cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/

• London: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Riley Quinn (Foyle's Picadilly), Sep 9
  https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/enshittification-cory-doctorow-riley-quinn

• South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6
  https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/

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Recent appearances (permalink)

• AI is not inevitable (Betakit)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbiTVkq1WHo

• A Conversation with Lina Khan (Law and Economy Student Network)
  https://www.youtube.com/live/7Ak5LZllqwE

• Will AI ever come alive, and what happens if it does? (BBC News)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzk4o3fPZZE

• Waarom jij straks het hulpje van AI bent (VPRO)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOnvR2fs8CA

• Talk Tech Bock (Vera Linß)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PFjGvQoBgc

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Latest books (permalink)

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce

• "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).

• "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

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Upcoming books (permalink)

• "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027

• "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2027

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Fourth draft completed. Submitted to editor.

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

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Aragon, Jesse: The Demon Star (The Broken Binding 978-0756420536, $29.00, 448pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/28/2026)

Science fantasy novel. Ysira Natkis escaped death and brought back something that could change the fate of her civilization, and now she must battle aliens, cultists, and gods to prevent the apocalypse. A first novel.

 

Blackwell, Juliet: The Séance Garden (Penguin Random House/Berkley 978-0593638262, $18.99, 400pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/28/2026)

Ghost mystery novel. Professor Harper Grae is a non-believer in the supernatural, but that’s put to the test when a mysterious murder happens at the “haunted” mansion of the Perles family.

 

Chan, Eliza: Harbour of Hungry Ghosts (Orbit US 978-0316589710, $19.99, 400pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/28/2026)

Fantasy novel inspired by Asian lore. When Kiamling’s grandmother is taken by a strange monster during the Hungry Ghosts festival, she must find out what happened and lead a search to save her grandmother. Simultaneous with the Orbit UK edition.

 

 

Davidson, Cesi: Laterals (Aqueduct Press 978-1619762923, $12.00, N/App, formats: paperback, ebook, 08/01/2026)

Collection of short plays. Part of the Conversation Pieces series.

 

Durst, Sarah Beth: Sea of Charms (Tor/Bramble 978-1250400673, $29.99, 384pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/28/2026)

Cozy fantasy romance novel. Marin sails from island to island working as a supply runner. When she visits the capital during a revolution she makes a deal with her friend Dax, but starts to discover her underlying feelings towards him.

 

Eames, Andrea: A Tangled Magic (Kensington/Erewhon 978-1645661894, $28.00, 464pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/28/2026)

Dark fantasy novel. Netta has lived in a tower her entire life, with only her hair that moves on its own, and a telepathic raven to accompany her. When her mother vanishes, she goes on a quest to save her.

 

Hannan, Sophia: We Were Never Here (Simon & Schuster 978-1665958332, $19.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/28/2026)

Young-adult horror novel. When Georgia’s girlfriend mysteriously dies visiting a haunted house, her life falls apart. Months later, she’s forced to return to her old life as a thief, but when she tries to steal a painting, something horrifying happens A first novel.

 

Henning, Sarah: Such a Witch (Little, Brown 978-0316584371, $19.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/28/2026)

Young-adult magic school rom-com. Embry Woodcross, a witch and senior at Raven’s Head School for the Magically Gifted, takes a new student, Oakley Riddle, under her wing, but after a murder, she becomes the main suspect.

 

James, Calvin: Affairs of State (Titan Books UK ‎ 978-1835416211, $19.99, 496pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 07/28/2026)

SF novel. Levar Boylan, a junior supply officer, finds himself as a diplomat discussing peace treaties with the empire, all because his ex is the reigning demon emperor. After they reconnect, they discover the spark is still there. A first novel.

 

Johnson, Lora Beth: Hell to Pay (Penguin Random House/Putnam 978-0593856529, $20.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/28/2026)

Young-adult fantasy novel. After the death of her brother, and disappearance of her parents, Elle feels lost, until one day, she’s offered a job to steal a soul from the afterlife, a task that’s much easier said than done.

 

Lim, Elizabeth: Fishbone Cinderella (Penguin Random House/Del Rey 979-8217092987, $30.00, 448pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/28/2026)

Fantasy novel inspired by Chinese folklore and Western fairy tales. A book that explores the family dynamics of mothers and daughters across decades and cultures.

 

Omar, Sara: The Harpy Knight (Titan Books UK 978-1835412848, $18.99, 432pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/28/2026)

Fantasy novel second in the Chaos Constellation trilogy. After conquering the kingdom of Dumakra, Bataar Rhah focuses attention on Aglea in the north, a land of monster infested marshes, and pagan berserkers.

 

René, Leslie: Maggie and Arthur’s Magic Moment (Ace 978-0593956182, $20.00, 432pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/28/2026)

Fantasy romance novel. Maggie Linden, an Incantations Translation professor, becomes forced to share her basement office with Arthur Taliesin, an alchemist with an insufferable attitude, but she starts to realize he’s putting on an act. A first novel.

 

Roux, Madeleine: Star Wars: Legacy (Penguin Random House/Random House Worlds 978-0593982662, $30.00, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/28/2026)

Star Wars tie-in novel set between episodes VIII and IX. Leia Organa does everything she can to train Rey, but her knowledge of the force is extremely limited, so they choose to journey to an old Jedi temple on Tython together. Simultaneous with the Penguin Random House UK edition.

 

Sierra, Caleb: The Wetworks Miracle (Stelliform Press 978-1738316571, $15.00, 108pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 07/30/2026)

Dark fantasy novella. After the ecological collapse of society, humans fled their world to a place called the Wetworks, and the only plant there is something called the “Root.” People call it a miracle despite how it alters their bodies. A first novel.

 

Spires, D.A. Xiaolin: Ellipses (AudioText/Infinivox N/A, $16.00, 100pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 08/01/2026)

SF novella. Koharu is looking for a landing spot on exoplanet Kepler-62f, when she comes in contact with seemingly friendly aliens. She does everything she can to communicate with them, while at the same time trying to contact her boyfriend.

 

Thorne, Scarlett J.: Lord of the Heights (Arc Manor/Caezik SF & Fantasy 978-1647102074, $19.99, 316pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/28/2026)

Fantasy romance novel. Dark gothic romantasy reimagining of Wuthering Heights. James Lockwood moves to Yorkshire for peace, but his car gets destroyed, and the road vanishes, so his only option is to go to Wuthering Heights.

 

West, Jacqueline: Black Point (Simon & Schuster/Atheneum 978-1665981859, $19.99, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/28/2026)

Young-adult dark fantasy novel set in a small town steeped in Norse traditions. When the supposedly haunted Black Point Hotel is bought by outsiders, the town is taken aback.

 

Zanetti, Rebecca: One Shattered Crown (Kensington 978-1035417964, $32.00, 380pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/28/2026)

Erotic fantasy romance novel, the third in the Grimm Bargains series. Justice Beathach and Ella Rendale have a long lasting feud, but when Justice is forced to protect her from people who want her dead, he becomes obsessed.

 

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Sri Lankan poet-turned-author Michael Ondaatje’s 1992 novel “The English Patient” is a lyrical, highly detailed exploration of love across the decades and how its sacred qualities overcome time and geography. Written in a fragmented, poetic style by Ondaatje, the novel tells the story of a World War II nurse named Hana (Juliette Binoche in the movie) caring for a severely burned man (played by Ralph Fiennes in the adaptation) suffering from amnesia. With the help of a thief named Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe) who has lost his thumbs, and a Sikh bomb expert (Naveen Andrews), the trio learn about the burned man, dubbed “the English patient,” and his past, which includes an affair with the beautiful and wealthy Katharine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas).

Because of Ondaatje’s specific writing style, director Anthony Minghella found the task of adapting the novel daunting: “Its gifts, in a way, are very elusive and are very much connected with the beauty of language, which is probably the thing that the film is least good at conveying.” Ondaatje worked on the script with Minghella, sharing the belief that most people seeing the movie never read the book in the first place. The book’s events happen over several years, and rather than focus on complex themes of national identity and the fluid connections between time and history, it made more sense for the movie to situate the love story between the English patient and Katharine as the primary narrative, with a parallel romance between nurse Hana and bomb expert Kip.

The film (which turns 30 this year) parcels out the mystery of the English patient’s identity over a near three-hour run time, whereas the book has no chronological structure and alternates between the past and the present, telling the patient’s story backward. The reader is an outside observer and learns about things in a realistic manner. No one can predict when a life-changing moment will happen in their lives and the same goes for Hana, the patient, and everyone else. Information is given to them and it takes several chapters for the reader, and the character, to understand the significance of that information.

Ondaatje, a Sri Lankan man living in Canada, makes multi­culturalism and the history of exoticizing the desert key themes in “The English Patient.” This is evident in the depiction of Kip, a Sikh man finding his way in the English world of colonialism. In the book, Kip loves the English and the West — so much so that he sings their songs and wears their clothes. The movie touches on these themes here and there, but in the book Kip is, at times, more important than the English patient himself.

Unlike the movie, where Kip meets Hana as he tries to defuse a minefield on the road she’s traveling, the novel shows him accidentally stumble upon her playing the piano at the villa where she’s been holed up since the novel’s first page. As the two grow closer, he tells her about his family and how he was expected to become a doctor but instead decided to enter the army and, through the mentorship of Lord Suffolk (a real-life person), became a bomb expert.

Several chapters are devoted to Kip’s stories of defusing bombs and saving English lives, all aided by Lord Suffolk’s encouragement. As Kip says, Lord Suffolk is the first person to treat him like a fellow Englishman and not a foreigner. However, when the atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima—illustrating how much time passes in the book compared to the movie— Kip becomes so wild with rage that he plans to shoot the patient, believing the unnamed man represents every evil the English and the West have committed against Asia. Kip feels that if Japan were a white country, those in charge would not have been so hasty to drop the bomb. The patient welcomes death, but Kip can’t pull the trigger. With the explosion of the atomic bomb, Kip’s belief system is literally shattered, leaving him to find a new path in life that, sadly, doesn’t include Hana.

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Kip is such a large part of the narrative that the novel even ends on his character. The movie ends with Hana and Kip parting because his job takes him to other areas of the country. They agree to meet again, but Kip completely discards his Western life. Years pass and Kip becomes the doctor his family wanted him to be. He is married and has two children. He says he received letters from Hana for a year, but never responded to them.

This bittersweet ending is paralleled alongside the story of the patient and Katharine. The love affair between the English patient, revealed as Hungarian cartographer László Almásy, and Katharine Clifton is told on-screen similarly to how it presents on the page, albeit in chronological order and as the overarching story. The pair meet and engage in a powerfully charged romance despite Katharine being married. Almásy and Katharine have a highly sexual affair with moments of extreme toxicity, trying to repel each other because of their awareness that outside forces are pulling them apart. Katharine takes her frustration out on Almásy in the novel by not only hitting him (also seen on screen), but throwing plates and stabbing him with forks. When people notice his plentiful bruises, Almásy makes up excuses, leading them to think he’s a klutz.

The couple’s affair is eventually discovered by Katharine’s jealous husband, Geoffrey (Colin Firth), who has been spying on her. Geoffrey, accompanied by his wife in a biplane, travels to Cairo in order to kill his competition and commit a murder/ suicide by crashing the airplane into the desert sand where Almásy, preparing to leave, is waiting. The crash kills Geoffrey and leaves Katharine severely wounded. Almásy shelters Katharine in a cave and goes off to get help, eventually evading arrest and stealing an airplane to rescue her.

Geoffrey is British Intelligence in the book and works as an aerial photographer. Because the intelligence agency knows of Almásy’s affair with Katharine, they assume Geoffrey’s death is suspicious and imprison Almásy as he tries to get help. His story then jumps ahead three months as he returns to the cave and finds Katharine dead. The movie shows this discovery as a tender moment, with only a few days passing and Almásy lying next to Katharine’s recently deceased body, stroking her hair. The book is more macabre, with Almásy making love to Katharine’s body, a final blending of life and death, love and sex, body and mind.

“The English Patient” was nominated for twelve Academy Awards and won nine, including Best Picture. The movie’s sweeping visuals and romantic love story evoked a sentiment similar to 1940s war romances. It was highly praised upon release, though contemporary audiences today place the moment in the “when Oscar gets it wrong” category due to a perceived lack of staying power and quality compared to fellow nominee “Fargo” (1996). Regardless, Minghella’s film is an utterly beautiful and roman­tic story, a daunting feat considering how equally beautiful, though different, its source material is.

Excerpted from “But Have You Read the Book? Romance Edition: 40 Love Stories That Inspired Our Favorite Films” by Kristen Lopez. Copyright © 2026. Available from Running Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The post The colonial reckoning “The English Patient” adaptation couldn’t capture appeared first on Salon.com.

“The Renoir Girls,” “Little Blue Dot,” “Air,” and “I Want You to Be Happy.”

Somewhere in the halcyon years of internet writing, I read — or, at least, I remember reading — a piece titled “Holden Caulfield was the first millennial dipsh*t.” I’m almost positive this piece existed, and the fact that I couldn’t find any mention of it in the sad, hollowed-out husk of the 2026 internet offers no proof that it didn’t. What did turn up are a newer generation’s takes on Holden, many of them unexpectedly harsh: He’s “the most insufferable character ever written,” “an entitled brat,” the “original ‘needs to touch grass’ guy,” a “clueless rich kid who’s never had to try,” a “self-important, spoiled and worthless little sh*t,” and “an emo narcissist with an inflated sense of his own self-worth.” 

Millennials were the first generation to anoint old Holden as “problematic” — a 2009 New York Times piece titled “Get a life, Holden Caulfield,” quoted educators who still taught “The Catcher in the Rye,” a book that turns 75 this year, and was once a standard in the English curriculum for grades 9–11. One educator said that, when she taught at a public charter school, “I had a lot of students comment, ‘I can’t really feel bad for this rich kid with a weekend free in New York City.’” A teacher who taught the book over 3 decades noted that “Holden’s passivity is especially galling and perplexing to many present-day students . . . “[T]hey do not have much sympathy for alienated antiheroes.” And one recalled a boy telling her, “We just wanted to tell him, ‘Shut up and take your Prozac.’”

Reddit threads and Goodreads reviews suggest that Gen Z has similar smoke for Holden, which makes sense when you consider that for these kids, active-shooter drills are as much a part of grade school as multiplication tables, and creepy full-grown adults are sliding into their DMs asking for nudes. You can’t really blame them if their response to the self-absorbed internal monologues of an unreliable narrator is, Oh, boo hoo. Get some real problems. 

But they’ve got another bone to pick with Holden Caulfield: He is being used as a prop by performative men to impress those around him. “Among Gen Z, books have become a symbol not of intelligence but of ‘hotness,’ an accessory to be worn with a good outfit, wedged in the bottom of a designer bag or pretentious tote,” wrote one young woman in a piece for the Times of London. And she has some pitiless words for the callow young men toting “The Catcher in the Rye” pretentiously around: The book, she writes, “has become a go-to summer read for incel types who overly identify with the petulant protagonist Holden Caulfield . . . [W]henever [my friend] sees a man with J. D. Salinger in hand, she assumes he must still be at school: ‘It screams English literature A-level.’” Another piece, this one written by two Gen-Z women, posits that Holden himself is “the ultimate performative male.” 

This take is ungenerous but not surprising, given that one of the timeworn accusations against Holden Caulfield is hypocrisy: This guy calls everyone else phony, but he’s just as phony! It did make me wonder, though, whether Gen-Z readers who are assigned “The Catcher in the Rye” still get the same decontextualized introduction to the book as I and the rest of Gen X did. I don’t remember how old I was the first time I read the book, but each time I’ve returned to it as an adult, and there have been a few, I reach the end thoroughly baffled. Are students still introduced to “Catcher” as a novel about disaffection and anomie rather than one about grief, trauma and other things that were absolutely not talked about in Salinger’s day and rarely talked about in mine? And if so, why? 

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The idea that the art can be separated from the artist has never made sense to me — and the way it was foregrounded within the cultural discourse of #MeToo too often felt like a disingenuous avoidance of the clear reality that great art has been made by people who cause profound harm to others. “The Catcher in the Rye” is a text that is flatly impossible to decouple from its author: A book about trauma written in the midst of trauma by a traumatized man. This doesn’t mean that anyone reading the book needs to know Salinger’s whole deal, but both its creation (much of it was written during World War II, when Salinger served as a counterintelligence agent and was one of the first G.I.s to see the human toll at Dachau) and its wild commercial success (which repelled the author and led to his withdrawal from public life.)

As Mikki Halpin noted in these virtual pages following his death in 2010 at the age of 91, Salinger’s quasi-hermithood, among other things, gave cover to his relationships with inappropriately young women; his desire for privacy was inflated into mythology by a “literary establishment,” Halpin wrote, whose collective investment “in the fictional, reclusive Salinger . . . is a convenient cudgel with which to silence any discussion of Salinger’s personal life, particularly any revelation of unsavory truths.”

I would add that the Salinger myth also delayed a reckoning with his most famous character’s mental health. Gen Z men are not the first to use “The Catcher in the Rye” as a prop, after all: Years before I read it, I knew it only as the book Mark David Chapman was carrying when he assassinated John Lennon in 1980 and that, in 1981, was left in the hotel room of John Hinckley Jr. shortly before he attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan. (In 1989, it resurfaced in another high-profile shooting when Robert John Bardo murdered actor Rebecca Schaeffer, dropping his copy as he fled her Hollywood home.) There’s been plenty of skepticism about whether the latter two were Chapman copycats rather than murders actually inspired by the book. Either way, reluctance to associate either Salinger or his most indelible creation with crazed murderers meant keeping their own wounds at arms’ length. 

This is, in part, why I’m surprised at Gen Z’s dismissal of Holden Caulfield as a whiny white rich-kid hypocrite. This cohort has come of age having open conversations about mental health that were unthinkable as recently as 4 decades ago; they understand the way formative traumas burrow into the minds and bodies of those affected and eventually grow unmanageable. I can definitely understand why there might not be, let’s say, a surplus of empathy for a privileged young man carelessly and repeatedly squandering his expensive education. But brushing by consequential facts of Holden’s life — parents who treat him as an out-of-sight-out-of-mind problem, the death of his brother, the suicide of his classmate, a history of being molested by older men — to call him performative feels awfully heartless for a generation this conversant with how trauma works. 

Listen, I don’t know anyone who liked Holden Caulfield the first time they read the book, probably because he is not supposed to be particularly likable; Salinger wrote the book for adults, not teens. But reading “The Catcher in the Rye” as an adult, and again as the parent of a Holden-aged boy, has made me realize that if the circumstances in which young readers meet the character have been slow to change, and the lens on him informed largely by a calcified reputation of youth in revolt, that’s on the adults in the room who, like the adults in his life, can’t hear everything he’s telling us.   

The post How Holden Caulfield became a performative male appeared first on Salon.com.

Visit our bookshop.org page to purchase this week’s new books and support your local bookstore. And us!

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Bontrager, Megan: The Sea Hides Its Dead (Orbit US/Run For It 978-0316588010, $19.99, 368pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/14/2026)

Horror novel. Grad student Caro joins a sea-cave expedition to find the ancient Cult of the Leviathan, only for the entrance to collapse and trap them inside the site. Simultaneous with the Orbit UK/Run For It UK edition.

 

Carrick, M.A.: The Eye of Leviathan (Orbit US 978-0316584845, $19.99, 512pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/14/2026)

Fantasy novel, first in The Sea Beyond series. In an alternate Spanish Golden Age, a human in the otherworldly Sea Beyond and a fae disguised as a human must take down the empire. Simultaneous with the Orbit UK edition.

 

Goodman, A.B.: House of Atreus: Agamemnon Falling (Planetary Books 979-8183814347, $19.99, 162pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/01/2026)

SF novel, second in the House of Atreus series. As Agamemnon returns home after war, Trojan prophetess Cassandra tells him that the “goddess” he sacrificed his daughter to was actually an ancient machine.

 

Grist, Rhiannon: Home Sick (Rebellion/Solaris UK 978-1837867639, $16.99, 288pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/16/2026)

Horror novel. Tamsin, after a traumatic incident, moves to a cottage with only a thin wall separating her from an unnerving woman.

 

Hachemi, Munir & Sanches, Julia: The Mulai (Coach House Books 978-1552455197, $18.95, 176pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 07/14/2026)

SF novel. An archaeologist travels to a remote planet to study the Mulai, descendants of a lost space mission with unrecognizable customs who live in domes. Translated from the Spanish by Julia Sanches. Simultaneous with the UK Fitzcarraldo edition.

 

Hunter, Faith: Unpredictable Magic (Ace 979-8217187621, $20.00, 560pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/14/2026)

Urban fantasy novel. Siblings (and private investigators) Angelina and Evan Everhart-Trueblood are drawn into a disappearance case that seems to involve Angie’s aunt and vampire ex-husband.

 

Kwok, Jean: Dominion (Penguin Random House/Putnam 979-8217044368, $32.00, 448pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/14/2026)

Romantic fantasy novel, the first in the Silk and Iron trilogy. In a world of four rival factions and tyger-bonded riders, Rubi enters a deadly competition and encounters a frustratingly handsome leader.

 

Lambert, Jennifer K.: Among the Thorns (Macmillan/Tor Bramble UK 978-1250360373, $32.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, audiobook, 07/14/2026)

Fantasy romance novel, second in the Never the Roses series. Dream sorceress Rose is acclaimed and sought after by the prince, while isolated dream sorceress Thorn wants everything she has. This author also writes as Jeffe Kennedy; copyrighted by Jennifer M. Kennedy.

 

Marie, I.V.: Ruinous Ends (Penguin Random House/Delacorte 978-0593898840, $21.99, 480pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/14/2026)

Young-adult dark academia fantasy novel, second in the series The Souls of Blackwood Academy series. After the Decennial competition, six former pupils discover new secrets about Blackwood.

 

Marillier, Juliet: The Amber Owl (Rebellion/Solaris UK 978-1763662513, $29.35, 416pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 07/16/2026)

Fantasy novel in the Heartwood series. Stasya lives by the Heartwood Forest, where she uses her gift with animals, but is relocated to court when she protests soldiers trying to hack through the woods.

 

Niven, Larry & Barnes, Steven: Ice Vegas (Blackstone Publishing 979-8228329577, $29.99, 272pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/14/2026)

SF thriller novel. Carver, a security operative, and Spider, world’s deadliest assassin, team up to stop saboteurs from damaging BALDR, a nuclear facility that powers half of Europe.

 

Oh, Temi: Not With a Bang (Simon & Schuster/Saga Press 978-1668203460, $18.99, 352pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/14/2026)

SF novel. The Minton family, from prepper father Marcus to Briar, drawn into a UFO cult, are confronted with an extinction-level event. Copyrighted by Temitoyen Ochuboju Douglas-Scott. First US edition (Simon & Schuster UK 5/26).

 

Olsson, Lindsey: To Drown a Witch (Penguin Random House/Putnam 979-8217004799, $20.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/14/2026)

Young-adult fantasy romance novel, first in a duology. When the deadly entity “the Witch” shows signs of being reborn, thief Nes, who can detect magic, is drawn into the hunt by Toran of the King’s Guard.

 

Parker, Natalie C.: The Assassin’s Guide to Dating (Candlewick Press 978-1536243291, $12.99, 256pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 07/14/2026)

Young-adult superhero romance, sequel to The Assassin’s Guide to Babysitting. At an academy for those with powers, Lila finds her “bombshell” powers are subject to increasing surveillance, hindering her growing relationship with Tru.

 

Rivers, Erynne: Wench (HarperCollins UK/Avon UK 978-0008798246, £16.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/16/2026)

Fantasy romance novel. Maid Marian, unhappily betrothed to the Sheriff of Nottingham, is kidnapped in the forest by the notorious fae Merry Men and Robin Hood. A first novel.

 

Rowland, Alexandra: Yield Under Great Persuasion (Macmillan/Tor Bramble UK 978-1035087556, £22.00, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/16/2026)

Fantasy romance novel. Tam sets out on a quest to find himself, finally fed up with his lover Lord Lyford, who smashed his prize-fair vegetables when they were children and is favored by the goddess Tam feels betrayed by.

 

Shunmugam, Megam: The Mortal Trials (Angry Robot UK 978-1836730156, $19.99, 304pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/14/2026)

Fantasy novel. Mistaken for someone else, Lirah enters a deadly competition and encounters a frustratingly handsome trainer.

 

Tierney, Joan: Misery’s Wife (Macmillan/Flatiron 978-1250421791, $28.99, 272pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/14/2026)

SF novel. In this retelling of a Portuguese folktale, trans woman Elixane receives a message from a toad to rescue her sister, who is married to the King of Misery.

 

Wellington, David: Erebus-13 (Orbit US 978-0316569361, $19.99, 496pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/14/2026)

SF novel, third in the Red Space series. Petrova and her crew must unite the solar system’s factions to stop Erebus, a dark entity hurtling towards Earth. Simultaneous with the Orbit UK edition.

 

Wiswell, John: The Dragon Has Some Complaints (Astra House/DAW 978-0756420499, $29.00, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/14/2026)

Fantasy novel. A three-headed (formerly four-headed) dragon with bickering heads tries to sneak into a dragon-riding academy for food, and bonds with rider Rania, who’s desperate for a dragon of her own.

 

Woodroe, Alex: Brave New Weird: The Best New Weird Horror, Volume Four (Tenebrous Press 978-1959790655, $19.99, 230pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 07/14/2026)

Year’s best anthology of 23 weird stories from 2025, selected as winners of the Brave New Weird Award. Authors include Corrie Haldane, Alistair Rey, Ashley Stokes, and Audrey Zhou. Edited by Woodroe with Matt Blairstone.

 

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The post New Book Releases: Jul 14, 2026 appeared first on Locus.

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is about to surf the wine-dark sea into theaters everywhere, and between its star-studded cast and ecstatic early reviews, it’s likely to be a blockbuster. Readers are taking note. According to Circana Bookscan, unit sales across all editions of The Odyssey are up 76 percent year-to-date. This 2,800-year-old poem has never been hotter.

So if you’ve never read The Odyssey — or you skimmed it in the 10th grade and haven’t thought about it since — is this the time for you to get in on the hot Odyssey summer?

There’s a strong argument to be made that the answer is yes, because The Odyssey is an absolute blast to read. It’s funny, gripping, and sexy, an epic adventure with a human heart. If you’re willing to deal with the fundamental strangeness that comes with reading a text so old, you’ll come away from The Odyssey with a new understanding of how and why the West tells its stories. 

How The Odyssey invented the asshole trickster hero

The genius of The Odyssey is that it’s both a family story and an adventure. Clever Odysseus is trying to make his way back to his wife and kid after 10 years at war, but at every turn, he’s beset by angry gods, jealous nymphs, or world-shaking storms. What we see of Odysseus’s home life is tender and sweet, and the voyage is thrilling, but Odysseus is the real secret weapon here.

Odysseus is one of those guys who’s super smart but, unfortunately, knows it, so as soon as he’s talked his way out of one jam, he can’t help but talk himself right into another. He defeats a Cyclops by using the admittedly very funny gambit of giving his name as No Man, so that the Cyclops’s pained shrieks of “No Man is killing me!” fail to summon any of his fellow one-eyed monsters to his aid. But, then, Odysseus is arrogant enough to yell his real name at the fiend he just maimed so he can get proper credit for his feat — and is shocked that doing so comes back to haunt him. It’s hard not to root for Odysseus to get home, but you also have to admit that he bears a lot of responsibility for his own problems.

That storytelling tool — someone clever and charming enough to get out of every sticky situation but hubristic enough to keep making it worse for themselves, too — is so satisfying to read that it birthed an archetype. You see Odysseus in Ferris Bueller, in Bugs Bunny, in Don Draper, in Marty Mauser. Trickster heroes who infuriate allies and antagonists alike all owe a debt to Odysseus, who showed the West what a powerful narrative engine such figures are.

Just as powerful is Odysseus’s quest to find his way home, which is so human and relatable that it’s become the basis for many of our go-to adventure stories. Dorothy wants to get back to Kansas, Robinson Crusoe wants to get back to England, and even E.T. wants to phone home. Who hasn’t felt at one time or another like though they’re stranded in a big scary world and longed to find a way back to the safety and comfort of their family? The Odyssey is the earliest story we have that put that feeling into words and blew it up larger than life. 

That’s the thing about The Odyssey: It’s been around so long and is so influential that it’s the source for a lot of story structures. Reading it will help you understand the obvious culprits like Ulysses and O Brother Where Art Thou, sure — but it will also unlock a lot of old favorites that you wouldn’t have thought could connect so neatly to the ancients and make you experience them in new ways. If you care about storytelling, that’s an experience worth having.

Reasons to skip The Odyssey

If you decide to read The Odyssey, and you aren’t used to dealing with ancient texts, you have to go in knowing that it’s going to be a weird experience. This is an oral poem, first composed in a dead language, likely developed by a lot of different people over generations, that’s now been translated into modern written English. It’s structured around repetitions, like the famously recurring phrases “wine-dark sea” and “rosy-fingered dawn,” to help bards deliver the poem from memory. It can be confusing and even boring to navigate if you’re not prepared.

The Odyssey is also a story from an ancient culture with its own moral system. Greek heroes love a little unprovoked murder and theft, and Odysseus is always bragging about the cities he’s conquered and all the treasure he stole from them. Almost all the characters, even the ones we are supposed to admire, behave in misogynistic and deplorable ways. That can be jarring.

If any of these oddities are a deal breaker for you, it’s fine to leave The Odyssey alone. But if you’re willing to put in the work to look past them, The Odyssey will reward you for it. As alien as its source culture is to us, the story it tells is so gripping, and funny, and human that we keep raiding it, Odysseus-like, looking for new tropes.

How to pick an Odyssey translation

There are a lot of different English translations of The Odyssey on the market, and the experience of reading each one is different — and will affect your perception of the text and the core story. Here are the four I would recommend for four highly specific circumstances.

If you like your classics accessible and self-aware

Emily Wilson’s 2017 edition, which generated a ton of buzz when it came out, is the first English translation of The Odyssey written by a woman. Her language is plain, terse, and unadorned — at times winkingly ironic, at times severe, always refreshingly direct and to the point. What’s most impressive is her ability to make plain the misogyny of the characters without asking the reader to be a misogynist along with them. “Earlier translators are not as uncomfortable with the text as I am,” she told Vox in 2017, “and I like that I’m uncomfortable.”

Read the first line: “Tell me about a complicated man.”

If you like your poetry lyrical and sensual

Robert Fitzgerald’s 1961 translation has some of the most ravishing language of all the Odyssey translations. Every translator has to choose what to prioritize and what to discard. Fitzgerald prioritizes the beauty of his own words, and he doesn’t care too much about being faithful to the ancient Greek. He’s also not fond of footnotes and extra material to tell you about historical details you might miss. If you want your Odyssey translation to read like a poem that stands completely on its own, Fitzgerald is your best bet.

Read the first line: “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, that wanderer, harried for years on end, after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy.” 

If you’d like your translation to be as accurate as possible

Richmond Lattimore’s 1965 translation is a favorite among academics, because Lattimore tried to stay as close as possible to the original Greek. While Fitzgerald and Wilson write in English-friendly blank verse (unrhymed lines of five-beat iambic pentameter), Lattimore uses a six-beat line that echoes Homeric rhythms. Given a choice between making a sentence sound beautiful in English and capturing the nuances of the original Greek, he opts for faithfulness every time. 

Read the first line: “Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven far journeys, after he had sacked Troy’s secret citadel.” 

If you’d rather listen to the audiobook

The best audiobook edition of The Odyssey is the one Ian McKellan narrates using Robert Fagles’s 1996 translation. Fagles tries to walk the line between Lattimore’s accuracy and Fitzgerald’s poetry, and he manages nicely. But the best way to experience his version of the story is to have McKellan’s rich, rolling voice read it out for you and bring this poem back into the oral tradition.

Read the first line: “Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy.” (Or, just listen.)

Whichever translation you choose, it will immerse you in Odysseus’s strange, ancient, but very human world. It will show you some of the source code for Western storytelling. And it will give you a chance to experience a wise-ass beat up a one-eyed monster and, then, ruin his own life by bragging about it. What more could a person ask for from one book?

Update, July 15, 10:45 am ET: This piece was originally published on July 10 and has been updated with information about The Odyssey’s book sales.

Visit our bookshop.org page to purchase this week’s new books and support your local bookstore. And us!

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Brooks, Mike: This Is Where the Future Bleeds (Titan Books UK 978-1835417614, $18.99, 400pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Diviner Kitt finds destinies for the rich and powerful, but when one destiny sets off a chain of violence and she sets out with a ragtag group to warn the recipient.

 

Bullen, Chiara: The Inn at the Foot of Mount Vengeance (Penguin Random House/Del Rey 978-0593982693, $29.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Aspiring scholar Ainsworth sets out to write his thesis about Mount Vengeance, an attraction for bold adventurers, and discovers a kind innkeeper and a mystery. Simultaneous with the Penguin Random House UK/Del Rey UK edition.

 

Cassidy, Kalie: In the Wake of the Ruined (Little, Brown 978-0316587587, $19.99, 432pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Romantic fantasy novel, second in the Siren Mage series. Imogen has claimed her crown and powers, and faces a war while trying to end her bond with the deity Eusia. Simultaneous with the Orion UK/Gollancz edition.

 

Chien, Florence: The Revenant of Surolifia (Rising Action 978-1998672349, $18.99, 416pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 07/07/2026)

Political fantasy novel. After the Empire slaughters thousands of Lucas’s people, he infiltrates the imperial forces, while Prince Faye joins violent revolutionaries to reclaim his throne.

 

Cleeton, Chanel: An Infinite Love Story (Penguin Random House/Berkley 978-0593816950, $30.00, 352pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Science fiction romance novel. During the space race, astronaut Joe loses contact with earth — a mishap written off as an error, while his wife Vivian tries to unravel what really happened.

 

Connolly, Amanda: The Lure of Wolves and Whispers (Simon & Schuster 978-1665989510, $21.99, 464pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Young-adult fantasy novel, first in the Martyred Isle series. To save her sibling, Maeve enters a deadly competition and encounters a frustratingly handsome leader.

 

Cross, Charlotte: The Brides (Macmillan/Tor Nightfire UK 978-1335000965, $30.00, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Horror novel about the brides of Dracula. Mafalda, her lover Lucy, chaperone Eliza, and maid Alice seek out a cure for wasting illness at a castle in Transylvania.

 

Ernshaw, Shea: Habits of the Sea (Simon & Schuster/Atria 978-1668097731, $28.00, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Magical realist novel. Clay’s wife dies, and a violent storm tears their home property away from Scotland, and now it exists as an island out of time where Clay hasn’t aged.

 

Foxfield, Kathryn: Our Wicked Gifts (Penguin Random House/Random House 979-8217122080, $20.99, 432pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

YA fantasy novel. Cecily is the overlooked daughter of the Winter family, who made a deal with the devil for riches and magic; she investigates Soren, a boy they banished to the underworld.

 

Goff, Ellen Pauley: The Farewitch of Foxe Holler (Simon & Schuster/Saga Press 978-1668099179, $19.00, 480pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Contemporary fantasy romance. Honey — a farewitch who can heal ailments with the right baking recipe — deals with a moody warlock who asks her to heal his mysterious illness.

 

Hinkley, Sara: The Red Sacrament (Titan Books UK 978-1835410820, $19.99, 512pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Horror novel. In 1869 Paris, ageless actors led by the vampire Arnault perform at midnight for those with elusive entry slips. A first novel.

 

Holness, Nevin: King of Lost Dreams (Simon & Schuster/Atheneum 978-1665946940, $19.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Young-adult fantasy novel, sequel to King of Dead Things. After defeating the daughter of Death, Malcolm, Eli, and Sunny grapple with their magic and origins and set out to find a key.

 

Hotston, Stewart: The Next Enemy Shall Be the Last (NewCon Press UK 978-1917735308, £26.99, 278pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, 07/07/2026)

SF novel. A father and son’s narratives intertwine as a paranormal artefact lands on a beach in Devon, bestowing nearby humans with psychic powers, and a similar one may have surfaced in Russia decades later.

 

Kagawa, Julie: Deathless (HarperCollins 978-1335008466, $19.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Young-adult fantasy novel, second in the Fateless series. Sparrow and her companions must slay the Deathless King, and must journey to the Loom of the goddess of Fate to be granted her powers.

 

Knightley, Brigitte: The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy (Ace 978-0593819487, $31.00, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Fantasy romance novel, second in the Dearly Beloathed duology. Osric the assassin and Aurienne the healer confront their growing attraction as well as a deadly Pox that may have been unleashed by a mysterious Order. Simultaneous with the Orbit UK edition.

 

Lambridis, Scott: St. Ulphia’s Dead (Regal House 978-1646037506, $19.95, 210pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Folkloric horror novel. Disgraced researcher Mirs and his supervisor Jo investigate the island of St. Ulphia, where locals claim they’re being possessed by a cannibalistic Wendigo. A first novel.

 

Lanzen, Meredith: Formula Zero (Penguin Random House/Berkley Romance 978-0593956694, $20.00, 448pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Science fiction romance novel. Madeline earns competes in the dangerous, male-dominated, zero-gravity racing sport Formula Zero, and is rescued from an accident by her former situationship Julian.

 

Markov, Haralambi: The Language of Knives: Stories (Mythic Delirium Books 978-1956522051, $17.95, 218pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 07/07/2026)

Collection of 13 horror stories blending Slavic mythology, body horror, sexuality, and queerness. Introduction by Ann VanderMeer.

 

McCarthy, Wil: Thieves’ Sky (Baen 978-1668073322, $28.00, 288pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 07/07/2026)

SF novel, fourth in the Rich Man’s Sky series. When pirates steal an alien technology with dangerous powers, the crew of the CV Defender must find them before it destroys the Solar System.

 

McCaughrain, Kelly: Just Another Dead Boy (Candlewick Press 978-1536251739, $19.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Fantasy romance novel. In a world where everyone knows when they’ll die, Regan works as a “Juliet” at a luxury resort, offering sensational end-of-life romances to rich guys until her relationship with client Jude becomes something more.

 

Miles, Jo: The Final Chronicle of Yeneh (Horned Lark 978-1998390182, $24.99, 136pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 07/07/2026)

Science fantasy novella. Lady Ada Quintrall wants to terraform her family’s new planet and restore their fortune — but xenobiologist Dr. Zamora and some troubling revelations about the native wildlife give her second thoughts.

 

Olthoff, Melissa: Tempered By Fire (Baen 978-1668073339, $17.99, 496pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 07/07/2026)

Fantasy novel, second in the Griffin Corps series. After bonding with her griffin and graduating the Training Academy, Harper is sent out from Tennessan to find out what’s happening to rival Savinia’s griffins.

 

Rowan, Leah: Marion (Titan Books UK 978-1835418949, £9.99, 368pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Horror novel, a feminist retelling of Psycho. When Norman attempts to murder Marion in his motel, she turns the knife on him and goes on the run. First UK edition (Nightfire 6/26).

 

Roy, Lucinda: The Bird Tribe (Tor 978-1250816887, $32.99, 512pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, 07/07/2026)

Futuristic fantasy novel, third in the Dreambird Chronicles trilogy. Ji-ji sets out on a transatlantic quest to discover the truth about the Flying Africans, their origins, and whether they’re a myth or genetic experiment.

 

Sampson, Freya: Most Ardently Yours (Sourcebooks Landmark 978-1464277894, $32.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Contemporary fantasy romance. A struggling romance writer swears off men, then accidentally summons Mr. Darcy from an abandoned copy of Pride and Prejudice she finds in a London bookshop.

 

Sims, Jonathan: The Burn Line (Orion UK/Gollancz 978-1399620703, £25.00, 368pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/09/2026)

Horror novel. During the hottest summer on record, passengers on the London Underground witness a terrible event that messes with their memories, and bond together to confront the force responsible.

 

Song, Yu-jeong: The Memory Bookshop (HarperCollins/Morrow 978-0063475120, $17.99, 192pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Fantasy novel. Jiwon, mourning her mother, and stumbling into a bookstore, is offered an hourglass that can let her relive the past — in exchange for giving up time in her future. Translated from the Korean by Shanna Tan.

 

Suh, Yejin: The Last Soldier of Nava (HarperCollins UK/Magpie 978-0008683474, $18.99, 384pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Fantasy novel. Shadow, having escaped her power-hungry father, is pulled back into court life as magical dead zones consume the world and her father’s new protege seeks revenge. A first novel.

 

Tingle, Chuck: Fabulous Bodies (Tor/Nightfire 978-1250398567, $27.99, 240pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/07/2026)

Horror novel. Poppy, influencer by day and grave-robber by night, steals the body of her idol, flamboyant pianist Eddie Michaels, only for him to wake up. Simultaneous with the Titan Books UK edition.

 

 

The post New Book Releases: Jul 7, 2026 appeared first on Locus.

Three debuts, Danielle J. Jensen’s The Inadequate Heir (Del Rey), K.M. Moronova’s Once Upon a Demon’s Heart (Bloom), and Jaymin Eve’s Night Witch (Mira), each debuts on both the USA Today and Publishers Weekly lists.

Title	Debut / #wks on any list	NYT 07.12	LAT 07.05	USAT 06.28	PW 07.06	Amz (07.06)	UK: Amz UK (07.06)	Canada: Amz.ca (07.06)
Items on list -x- number of lists surveyed		10×3	10×2	150	15×3	100	100	100
Hardcovers
Aster, Starside	04.13.26 / 13	xxx..		x	15 -2			xxx..
Brown, Red Rising (Deluxe Slipcase Edition)	10.27.25 / 36	xxx..		64 -21	xxx..
Buehlman, Between Two Fires	03.16.26 / 12	xxx..			xxx..	xxx..		85 ++
Burke, Yesteryear	04.20.26 / 12	1 =	2 =	3 -1	1 =	3 =	5 -2	1 +4
Collins, Sunrise on the Reaping	06.10.24 / 85			xxx..	22 +1	xxx..	xxx..	93 +
Dinniman, A Parade of Horribles	04.27.26 / 11	12 -5	xxx..	128 +	8 =	70 +		xx
Dinniman, Carl’s Doomsday Scenario	01.12.26 / 26	7 -2	8 ++	27 -2		16 +19		10 +15
Dinniman, Dungeon Crawler Carl	05.26.25 / 47	xxx..	xxx..	xxx..	xxx..	19 +43		xx
Dinniman, The Butcher’s Masquerade	04.21.25 / 22	x		65 -21	xxx..	95 +
Dinniman, The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook	02.02.26 / 22	8 +2		33 =		18 +33		12 +
Dinniman, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride	05.26.25 / 20	x		134 -74	xxx..	53 +40
Dinniman, The Gate of the Feral Gods	03.24.25 / 24	13 -2		54 -12	xxx..	33 +47		91 ++
Dinniman, This Inevitable Ruin	10.06.25 / 17	xxx..	xxx..	xxx..	10 =	58 +40
Gillig, The Knight and the Moth	06.02.25 / 17	xxx..	xxx..	xxx..	xxx..		82 ++
Haig, The Midnight Train	05.18.26 / 8	15 +	7 +	92 -38	16 -2	xxx..	92 -3	xxx..
Jensen, The Inadequate Heir	07.06.26 / 1			22 ++	20 ++
Moronova, Once Upon a Demon’s Heart	07.06.26 / 1			19 ++	13 ++
Parker, The Ballad of Falling Dragons	05.25.26 / 7	xxx		82 -32	12 =		xxx..	xxx
Pham, The Secret World of Briar Rose	06.15.26 / 4	6 =		xxx	xxx
Roberts, Powerless	11.20.23 / 100	xxx..		xxx..	9 =	xxx..	xxx..	xxx..
Spann, A Stage Set for Villains	02.16.26 / 13	10 -3			xxx..
Tingle, Camp Damascus	07.31.23 / 4			148 +	xxx..
Yarros, Fourth Wing	05.15.23 / 118	xxx..	xxx..	131 +	xxx..	xxx..	xxx..	xxx..
Yarros, Onyx Storm	04.01.24 / 115	xxx..	xxx..	xxx..	xxx..	xxx..	10 +1	xxx..
Yarros, Untitled Empyrean (Not Book Four)	04.20.26 / 10					88 -9	x	xxx..
Title	Debut / #wks on any list	NYT 07.12	LAT 07.05	USAT 06.28	PW 07.06	Amz (07.06)	UK: Amz UK (07.06)	Canada: Amz.ca (07.06)
Paperbacks [tpb=trade]
Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451	07.20.03 / 495		xxx..	x	xxx..	72 +	xxx..	xxx..
Brown, Red Rising [tpb]	05.02.16 / 36	xxx..	xx	xxx..		xxx..		40 +
Buehlman, Between Two Fires [tpb]	09.09.24 / 19			50 +7
Dinniman, Dungeon Crawler Carl [tpb]	01.12.26 / 26	3 +2	3 =	4 =	2 +1	31 -7		7 =
Dinniman, Dungeon Crawler Carl, Vol. 1 (Graphic Novel) [tpb]	06.01.26 / 6			35 +21	13 +2
Durst, The Faraway Inn [tpb]	04.13.26 / 12			xxx..	21 -4			xxx..
Eve, Night Witch [tpb]	07.06.26 / 1			24 ++	7 ++
Gillig, The Knight and the Moth [tpb]	06.01.26 / 6	xxx..	xxx..	110 -39	x		xxx..
Haig, The Midnight Library [tpb]	05.22.23 / 85	xxx..	xx	51 +	xxx..	96 -59	xxx..	x
Kraus, Angel Down [tpb]	05.18.26 / 8		7 -5	93 -30	xxx..	xxx..		xxx..
Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses [tpb]	05.16.16 / 273	xxx..	xxx..	58 +17	xxx..	xxx..	62 -29	x
Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses Paperback Box Set	06.19.23 / 148			xxx..		xxx..	xxx..	74 +22
Maas, A Court of Wings and Ruin [tpb]	05.14.18 / 193	xxx..	xxx..	xxx..	xxx..	xxx..	72 -2	xxx..
Rowling, Harry Potter Box Set: The Complete Collection (UK) [tpb]	03.23.15 / 457						xxx..	67 -21
Weir, Project Hail Mary [tpb]	10.03.22 / 85	2 =	6 -2	6 -3	xxx	4 +5	19 +20	4 =
Yarros, Fourth Wing [tpb]	09.16.24 / 93	xxx..	xxx..	xxx..	xxx..	xxx..	13 =	xxx..
Yarros, Iron Flame [tpb]	06.02.25 / 54	xxx..		xxx..	xxx..		9 +5	xxx..
Title	Debut / #wks on any list	NYT 07.12	LAT 07.05	USAT 06.28	PW 07.06	Amz (07.06)	UK: Amz UK (07.06)	Canada: Amz.ca (07.06)
This cell color indicates rankings on children’s bestsellers lists		This cell color indicates rankings of books based on pre-publication sales				[Italics and brackets, and/or this cell color, indicate stale data — rankings from one or more weeks before — and do not contribute to the cumulative weeks on any list totals]

The table shows the current rank of each book and the change since last week, where:

= same as last week

+/- change since last week

+ back on list

++ new on list

x no longer on list (number of x’s: weeks off list)

All lists rank hardcovers and paperbacks separately, except for the USA Today list, which is a single list combining fiction and nonfiction in all formats. Dates shown are posted dates, except those in parentheses, which are dates compiled. New York Times posts its list one week in advance of print publication.

Note that some sources do not compile paperback bestsellers, and some exclude YA books (like the Harry Potter series) from their hardcover and paperback fiction lists.

The post Weekly Bestsellers, 6 July 2026 appeared first on Locus.

This story was originally published in The Highlight. To get access to member-exclusive stories like this every month, become a Vox Member today.

Some countries built their identities on their land. Some countries built their identities on a shared ethnic heritage. America, however, began with an idea on a piece of paper. 

“America was an enlightenment experiment, and so that means we have to make our own identity,” said Mark Graybill, a professor of English at Widener University who specializes in American literature. To do so, we need books: novels that articulate what it’s like to live in this strange new land. 

Lawrence Buell, the Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature Emeritus at Harvard, wrote a definitive study on this problem called The Dream of the Great American Novel. Buell said that the calls to produce and recognize a national literature began in 1776, but they intensified throughout the 19th century. That was especially the case after the War of 1812, when America reaffirmed its independence from England. The widespread belief, said Buell, was that “now we are a mighty political entity, we should be a cultural force as well.” 

In 1868, the novelist John William DeForest coined the phrase “great American novel” in an essay that feared the genuine article had not yet been written. 

Over time, readers, critics, scholars, and the people who build school curricula have developed a loose consensus on some of the books that might aspire to the title — books that are certainly great, certainly interested in America, and certainly novels, but which may or may not be the great American novel. Buell has identified a collection of “recipes” that they all tend to follow. Among the key ingredients for one of the recipes, he said, are a “democratic collective that’s in distress in one way or another. A collectivity of people that are operating under great pressure, great anguish often. And in that collective crucible, you see national themes of one sort or another played out.” 

I talked to literary scholars and critics about five major contenders for the great American novel, all of which follow Buell’s recipe. I wanted to understand what it was about these books that spoke to so many people, who decided that they were so important, and what their vision of the United States is. 

Taken together, the national portrait these novels offer is darker than you might expect or than the people who helped canonize these books might have wanted. If they’re united on one thing, it’s the idea that America is not an innocent country. 

The Scarlet Letter (1850): An American origin story

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter has long been a mainstay on school syllabi and is a perennial pick for the great American novel. “It first became acclaimed, almost overnight, as the first serious topnotch piece of long fiction yet written by an American,” said Buell. 

The Scarlet Letter tells the tale of virtuous adulteress Hester Prynne, forced by her 17th-century Puritan neighbors to wear a red “A” forever to mark her for her crime, even as she insists on her own dignity and integrity. It is endlessly useful as a metaphor for talking about American tendencies toward mob-mindedness and our prudishness around sex, a censorious impulse that keeps recurring — and, on the other hand, for talking about Hester’s very American independence and self-determination. With its early colonial setting in the first days of Puritan Boston, it speaks to an America that had not yet become modern, and it functions as a kind of origin story. 

What the novel seems to insist upon most strongly, though, is the gloomy, dour Puritanism that began the American experiment. “The founders of a new colony,” Hawthorne wrote in the opening paragraphs, “whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.” In The Scarlet Letter, that is the United States: a utopian idea, a prison, and a graveyard.

To say that The Scarlet Letter is the great American novel, then, is to fear that our Puritan roots are inescapable, that we can never transcend the tomb and the penitentiary — and to hope that we can still, like Hester Prynne, redeem ourselves from our sins.

Moby-Dick (1851): A democracy at sea 

Herman Melville was close friends with Hawthorne, whom he considered a mentor and to whom he dedicated his 1851 opus, Moby-Dick, the story of a sea captain obsessed with the titular white whale. Yet, Melville, unlike Hawthorne, was not revered in his own lifetime. 

Moby-Dick wouldn’t have its revival until the 1920s and ’30s, when critics at Columbia University took it up. “Melville emerges as this voice speaking to the middle of the 20th century like a prophet,” said Jennifer Greiman, a professor of English at Wake Forest University and editor of Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies. With its swirling, perplexing structure of digressions and asides — some chapters rendered as theatrical scripts and others as encyclopedia entries full of whale facts — Moby-Dick hadn’t made much sense as a 19th-century realistic novel. But it made a lot of sense to ambitious, boundary-pushing modernists. 

Greiman argued that Moby-Dick’s late adoption speaks to what is so American about it: the way it seems to have been written for a time that hasn’t yet arrived. “It’s that sense of it as a book that is speaking to something that’s going to come in the future,” Greiman said. 

Also distinctively American is Moby-Dick’s crew, made up of white and Black Americans, Native Americans, Africans, Indians, and Pacific Islanders. They make their collective fatal mistake early on in the novel, when Captain Ahab informs the men that he has no plans to fulfill the ship’s mission to harvest oil from whales. Instead, Ahab said, he wants to enact vengeance against Moby-Dick, the great white whale that took his leg — and the crew willingly signs on to his monomaniacal quest.

“It’s often read as a democratic tragedy,” said Greiman. “Because you have this multi-racial crew, and one of the first things they do together is hand over all of their power to Ahab and doom themselves.” 

In the crucible of Moby-Dick, we see the weakness of democracy under the sway of a charismatic despot. We see the enormous and chaotic forward-seeking ambition of America, and the possibility that it may yet find that its great experiment is impossible, and its quest will end in tragedy.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884): Taking on America’s original sin

Like The Scarlet Letter, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was an immediate hit. Twain was a literary celebrity, and his books were widely popular. But Huck Finn, the tale of troublemaking 13-year-old Huck rafting down the Mississippi with a runaway enslaved man named Jim, wasn’t considered especially important. “It’s not singled out until after his death,” said Matt Seybold, scholar in residence at the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College.

It would be Ernest Hemingway who enshrined it in the canon, writing in 1935 that “all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” By the 1970s, said Seybold, it had become “probably the single most assigned work of literature in American classrooms.” 

Today, Huck Finn is assigned less often, especially at younger grade levels, Seybold said, in large part due to Twain’s frequent use of the n-word. Yet, it remains active and alive in the American imagination, enough so that Percival Everett won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer for his 2024 novel James, which re-imagined Huck Finn from Jim’s point of view.

Huck’s relationship with Jim is, for most readers, the heart of the novel. Huck believes it to be his duty to return Jim to the elderly woman who enslaved him, but he also loves Jim and wants him to be free. In the novel’s most celebrated passage, Huck decides to go against what the world has taught him is right and help Jim escape, announcing boldly, “All right then, I’ll go to hell.” 

Seybold said this scene is frequently read as “America overcoming the sins of its inception;” Huck’s redemptive love for Jim is enough to help him transcend the hypocritical moralism of the slave-owning south where he grew up. But, Seybold notes, Huck Finn doesn’t end with that glorious moment. It goes on for another 50 pages and features a lengthy episode in which Huck toys with Jim’s freedom as though playing a game, while Jim is re-enslaved and dehumanized. 

Seybold agreed with Toni Morrison’s read of the ending as a metaphor for Reconstruction — the promise of freedom abruptly reduced and turned into something contingent. Twain, Seybold said, was radicalized by a Frederick Douglass speech in which Douglass describes sharecropping as being nearly as bad as slavery. 

In this context, Huck Finn is a bold statement on one of America’s great failures. “Twain takes us back into the cruelty, the absurdity of antebellum America,” said Seybold. “That’s also America, right?”

The Great Gatsby (1925): A bleak look at the American dream

Like Hawthorne and Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald was a literary celebrity. When he published Great Gatsby in 1925, it was a critical success, but its sales were modest. “I always tell my students, if you want to be a writer, just think about the fact that Fitzgerald’s last royalty check was for $13.13,” said Maureen Corrigan, book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air, Georgetown professor of literary criticism, and author of So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures.

It took steady campaigning from Fitzgerald’s friends and publisher for Gatsby to be remembered. It started to become an institution during World War II, when the US army shipped copies of the book out to soldiers for morale and, then, was further bolstered by its widespread adoption as a high school text. Now, generations of American school children have grown up reading about Jay Gatsby, the poor boy who became a millionaire by mysterious means, all to win the love of the untouchable Daisy Buchanan.

This was around the same time that academics stopped talking about the idea of the great American novel singular, but it remained an effective marketing tool for publishers and an aspiration for authors, said Buell. Gatsby benefitted greatly from that marketing tool, in large part thanks to its status as a book that took seriously America’s class divides. 

In The Dream of the Great American Novel, Buell writes that the idea of the American bootstrapper stretches back to the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Gatsby makes that ideal sinister through Gatsby’s mysterious and ill-gotten gains and hollow as untouchable Daisy proves unable to live up to Gatsby’s image of her. Yet, Fitzgerald’s writing is at its most lyrical and lovely when he describes Gatsby’s longing. One of the indelible images of the novel is that of Gatsby standing alone at the end of his dock, stretching out his hands toward the green light of Daisy’s house. You know the things Gatsby is working for aren’t worth it, but Fitzgerald makes it beautiful to watch him try.

“It’s that idea of aspiration, of yearning, of trying even in the face of knowing that sometimes the game is rigged,” said Corrigan. “This is a novel that deeply questions the idea of an American meritocracy.” 

To say Gatsby is the great American novel is to say that America is a place of capitalist striving and that the dream of striving is beautiful. It’s also to posit that there is no clean way to make money, and whatever redemptive power you think you’ll claim at the end of your hard work will disappoint you.

Beloved (1987): The haunting of America

Starting in the 1960s, rebellions from within the academy started to break the canon apart. Feminist scholars were pushing for recognition of books by women; scholars of African-American culture were pushing for recognition of works by Black people. “That theory of a canonicity being bogus really gets rolled out in the 1980s,” said Buell.

Into this atmosphere came Toni Morrison, a Black woman who made it impossible to interpret her writing as an apologia for America. 

In Morrison’s books, it is clear that America has never overcome its sins. Never is that more the case than in her 1987 novel Beloved, about a formerly enslaved woman who is haunted by the ghost of the baby she killed to save from slavery. 

Beloved was published to enormous acclaim, but it did not win that year’s National Book Award, despite being a finalist. The Black literary scene rallied around Morrison in response, with 48 critics, writers, and activists publishing an open letter in the New York Times in praise of Morrison’s accomplishment and registering their disappointment with the National Book Foundation. Later that year, Morrison would win the Pulitzer.

“For a lot of novels that become these cultural touchstones, there has to be a campaign behind them. There have to be people who are making cultural arguments for why it matters,” said Jeffrey Lawrence, an American literature scholar at Rutgers University. “And in Morrison’s case, this happened relatively quickly.” In 1993, five years after Beloved was published, Morrison won the Nobel Prize for literature. That, said Lawrence, is when Beloved “starts to be considered the classic work of the late 20th century.” 

In Beloved, Morrison was able to “unpack the difficulties of slavery…in so many different ways,” said Dana A. Williams, a professor of African American Literature at Howard University.  “It showed the history of the institution, yes, but it showed it from so many different perspectives.” Morrison depicted the way slavery left scars on both Sethe, her heroine; on Sethe’s entire family; and even on Sethe’s enslavers. Even the land seems haunted. There is not a part of America that isn’t damaged by the horrors of both slavery and by the effort to disavow, deny, and forget it ever happened.

“Ultimately, I think it also forced us to think very seriously about how we have articulated humanity in this country,” added Williams. “Like who’s alive, who’s dead.” Sethe is based on a real woman named Margaret Garner, whose case involved a debate over whether to charge her with murder or destruction of property for the killing of her baby. “It really did question: What is humanity and who has the right to it? Who has access to it?” said Williams. “Is it really an unalienable right?”

Part of Morrison’s project is to show that slavery has haunted America’s legacy from the beginning — that no matter what we say about ourselves, we are not an innocent country. In Beloved, that becomes painfully, inarguably clear. 

Closing the book

Let’s return to Buell’s idea that the great American novel is often about a democratic collective in peril. In the books we’ve talked about here, the threat is always a problem embedded in America’s national character: a mob-minded censoriousness; a weakness in the face of a charismatic leader; the sin, trauma, and whitewashing of slavery; the emptiness of capitalist striving. These are texts that tell us that America is a nation of ideas — beautiful ideas — and that it constantly struggles and fails to live up to those ideas. 

“The novel as a genre really exists to critique the society that it is writing about, in a way that allows us to ask questions and to answer questions that only fiction can allow us to do,” Williams said.

But what’s sort of lovely is that, as critical and merciless as they can be, and as imperfect as America still is, these books are still the ones we have enshrined and celebrated and cherished over the past 250 years. We teach them in schools and turn them into movies. We make sure that our people know about them, are warned at an early age that America’s innocence is a farce.

So, perhaps, the great American value that these novels enshrine is clear-eyed self-knowledge. Every country is prone to self-propagandizing and empty puffery, especially around an occasion like the 250th anniversary of one of its founding documents. But it’s comforting to know that the centuries-long American quest to define our national identity through texts has led to a canon of novels that tell us the ugly truth about who we are. 

Visit our bookshop.org page to purchase this week’s new books and support your local bookstore. And us!

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Beiko, S.M.: The Sleuth of Ferren City (ECW Press 978-1770416970, $17.95, 376pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/30/2026)

Young-adult fantasy novel, third in the Brindlewatch Quintet. Monstros have emerged in various places, looking for acceptance, but Camillite Sable is suspicious as she tries to find her missing friend.

 

Berman, Steve: Witchcraft in Your Lips (Lethe Press 978-1590215524, $20.00, 284pp, formats: paperback, 07/01/2026)

Anthology of six novellas (one reprint) about witches and queer love, ranging from bog spirits to Bloody Mary. Authors are Steve Berman, Mia Dalia, L.A. Fields, Joachim Heijndermans, Audrey R. Hollis, and Ivy L. James.

 

Bianco, Julia: Witch Season (St. Martin’s 978-1250384393, $30.00, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)

Urban fantasy romance novel, first in the Broken Coven series. Katherine, enforcer for the LA Aestas coven, is forced to put up with Silas, the rich heir to the Noctis coven who tries to interfere with her methods.

 

Bourne, Brianna: Meet Me at Midnight (Penguin Random House/Delacorte 979-8217225552, $19.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)

YA fantasy romance. Aria keeps meeting the same boy in her midnight dreams, meeting him in beautiful locations every midnight.

 

Broaddus, Maurice: A City Dreaming (Tor 978-1250265166, $32.99, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 06/30/2026)

SF novel, third in the Astra Black trilogy. A new empire approaches the Muungano empire, a collection of city-states that spans the solar system.

 

Castle, Jayne: Enter the Nightmare (Penguin Random House/Berkley 979-8217187379, $30.00, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)

Science fiction thriller, part of the Harmony series. After staying at the Hotel of Dreams, Alice’s life is falling apart again, with a dead body in the shower and a mysterious man rescuing her. Castle is a pen name for Jayne Ann Krentz, who also writes as Amanda Quick.

 

Codega, Linda H.: Pasha the Storm (Kensington/Erewhon 978-1645661825, $27.34, 560pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)

Fantasy novel. Exiled pirate queen Pasha is guarded hostage by nobleman Atle, but as the ambitions of Atle’s necromantic queen turn dangerous, Atle draws Pasha into his own treasonous plans.

 

Eudave, Cecilia & Myers, Robin: The Summer of the Serpent (Soho Press 978-1641295826, $27.00, 144pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)

Supernatural novel. In 1977 Guadalajara, children start seeing bizarre apparitions, while listless adults wander through the summer.

 

Hathaway, Amber: Hallowed Deadly Seeds (Deadly Seeds Press 978-1967381043, $16.99, 306pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/30/2026)

Horror novel, second in the Little White Flowers series. Alice Drayton and her brother get trapped in isolated Evanston, Maine, where the twisted religious community is determined to assimilate them.

 

Hofstatter, Eric: Pain Is a Chain. Move, and I’ll Hear You (Aqueduct Press N/A, $5.95, 109pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 07/01/2026)

Prose-poetry book with fantasy and horror elements. Part of the Conversation Pieces series.

 

Hur, Angela Mi Young: The Loom Tree (Kensington/Erewhon 978-1645660880, $27.48, 464pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)

Dark academia fantasy novel. Korean American teenager V crawls into a tree trunk whose powers unlock the diary of her mother, Sharon, who attended the terrifying magical boarding school Alvsdahl.

 

Hurwitz, Gregg: The Delivery (Amazon/Thomas & Mercer 978-1662539343, $19.99, 251pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 07/01/2026)

SF novella. Struggling parents Rebecca and Mark accept “Mr. Man,” an AI companion, into their home to help, but violent incidents start to plague the neighborhood.

 

James, V.V.: Redhaven (Orion UK/Gollancz 978-1399635547, £12.99, 384pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 07/02/2026)

Fantasy novel, part of the Sanctuary universe. Sarah and her daughter Harper flee a government crackdown targeting witches in America. Author also writes as Vic James.

 

Kim, Sophie: The Winged Game (Penguin Random House/Del Rey 978-0593983362, $32.99, 544pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)

Sports fantasy romance novel. Taissa, a former player of magical airborne sport Carriwitchet, is offered a chance to return to the game by Kion, the rival who destroyed her career. Simultaneous with the UK (Hodderscape) edition.

 

Laben, Carrie-Edmund: Smoke Season (Word Horde 978-1956252125, $22.99, 326pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/30/2026)

Cosmic horror novel. Searching for his estranged sister Helen, now a worshipped figure in a remote Montana commune, Justin ends up contending with a government agency set on wiping her out.

 

Mason, Ruthy: Death Do Us (Hachette/Union Square & Co. 978-1454965152, $18.99, 368pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)

Body horror novel. Young archaeologist Bea, feeling increasingly constrained by her imminent marriage, and notices her skin and hair falling off. A first novel.

 

McGuire, Seanan: Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions (Subterranean Press 978-1645243069, $95.00, 608pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 06/30/2026)

Collection of 33 stories featuring the superheroine, including 16 never-before-published. There is a signed limited edition of 1000.

 

Modesitt, L.E.: Last of the First (Tor 978-1250349057, $32.99, 448pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)

Fantasy novel, 26th in the Sage of Recluce series. Mirror Lancer Alyiakal is promoted to Subcommander, though high command on Cyador is full of treachery.

 

Newton, Ruth: The Carrier (Penguin Random House UK/Bantam UK 978-0857508126, £18.99, 448pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 07/02/2026)

SF thriller novel. People can avoid emotional pain by paying to give it to others — but those Carriers end up dead. A first novel.

 

Paxman, Emily: All We Have Left (Titan Books UK 978-1835417591, $18.99, 384pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)

Post-apocalyptic romance novel. Survivor Kayla brings her ailing sister to an exclusive community with a functioning hospital, where she’s courted by local politician Sid, whose marriage would help her chances of entry.

 

Rirdan, Daniel: The Woman Who Touched the Sun (Corino Press 979-8992609073, $13.99, 24pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, 06/30/2026)

SF novel. A woman from Nebraska with a samurai bloodline builds herself a spaceship in her barn, traveling to distant fiery reaches of space.

 

Shipton, Liz: Mother & Slaughter (Tyrannosaurus Yes 979-8295553233, $15.99, 380pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 07/01/2026)

Fantasy novel. In Draconia, where women must choose between being mothers and gladiators, star combatant Eleanor finds herself pregnant and takes a risky journey to find a witch outside the kingdom. Illustrated by Daniel Lorca.

 

Simmons, David: Fetty on the Switches (Clash Books 978-1968043117, $18.95, 198pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/30/2026)

Collection of 21 crime, horror, and love stories. In an alternate Baltimore where the dead rise, citizens struggle with phantasmagoric situations like biology-class vivisections and serial-killing monsters. A first collection.

 

Swift, Dana: When Dealing with Dragons (St. Martin’s/Wednesday Books 978-1250402431, $20.99, 339pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)

Young-adult romantic fantasy novel. Farren Walsh is determined to become a dragon veterinarian like her father, but her arrogant rival James Murphy interns at her family’s sanctuary.

 

Szal, Jeremy: Wolfskin (Orion UK/Gollancz 978-1473227521, $32.00, 672pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)

SF novel, book 3 of The Common series. Vakov is a Reaper, an elite soldier injected with alien DNA that makes him stronger and faster — and has to fight a cult and the Shenoi, the genocidal race who gives him his powers.

 

Thorne, Rebecca: Moss’d in Space (Tor/Bramble 978-1250414144, $17.70, 368pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)

Cozy SF novel, first in the Moss’d in Space series. Torian buys an abandoned alien starship, and discovers that it houses an organic computer entity named Moss, abandoned inside by its former owner. Simultaneous with the Bramble UK edition.

 

Tremblay, Paul: Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep (HarperCollins/Morrow 978-0063398467, $30.00, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)

Near-future SF horror novel. Gamer Julia gets a temp job “remote-controlling” a comatose man across the country for the company that owns the AI tech in his brain, and he starts to wake up.

 

Varga, Emily: The River She Became (St. Martin’s/Wednesday Books 978-1250878694, $22.00, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)

YA romantic fantasy novel. Scholar Yaseema archives fae relics by day, and tries to unlock their magic at night, and finds an ancient key to the fae realm where she can save her land.

 

Verne, Jules: From the Earth to the Moon: Annotated for Our Spacefaring Age (MIT Press 978-0-262553865, $30.00, 334pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/30/2026)

Reprint of the classic 1865 SF novel, with detailed annotations. Translated by William James Miller. With essays by Samit Basu, Jordan Bimm, Erika Nesvold, Adam Oyebanji, Malka Older, Adam Roberts, and Asif Siddiqi.

 

Walton, Jo: Everybody’s Perfect (Tor 978-1250314055, $29.99, 272pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/30/2026)

Fantasy novel. In a fantasy mirror city to Venice, laborer Tiry is one of many citizens who has a dream that his city Serenissima will have a doge and marry the sea.

 

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Barrow, Rebecca: Doe (Penguin Random House/Nancy Paulsen 979-8217006335, $20.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 06/23/2026)

Horror novel in verse. Being captain of the cheer team helps Maris forget about her absent father, and girlfriend that doesn’t love her. While sleepwalking, Maris meets an enormous decaying beast named Doe, who takes the form of a deer, but she doesn’t realize Doe is actually real.

 

Blackwell, Amelia: The Haunting of a Bronte (Macmillan UK 978-1035054145, $25.46, 424pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/25/2026)

Speculative novel. Georgiana uses her time travel device to visit her lover in 1995, but she ends up inside the Thorp Green Hall in the year 1845, where she meets Branwell and Anne Brontë. Georgiana must save the Brontë siblings from a killer.

 

Carey, M.R.: The Tinder Box (Orbit US 978-0316595490, $19.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/23/2026)

Dark fantasy novel. Former Solider Mag Tresti works for a widow, Jannae Mirchella, who’s a witch. One day, Mag Tresti discovers a tinderbox on the body of a demon that fell out of the sky, and this Tinderbox grants Mag any wish he desires. Simultaneous with the Orbit UK edition.

 

Dedroog, Lauren: A Dance of Serpents (Orion UK/Gollancz 978-1399616157, $18.99, 528pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/25/2026)

Fantasy novel. Diana is the princess of hell, but she won’t forget the way that the gods wronged her, her family, and her friends. Diana, along with her allies, search for justice, but the line between justice and revenge is unclear, and she has to keep herself from becoming the very thing she hates.

 

Doctorow, Cory: The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence — Before It’s Too Late (Macmillan/Farrar, Straus, Giroux/MCD 978-0374621568, $18.00, 240pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/23/2026)

Associational non-fiction about artificial intelligence. This book discusses why AI is valued at above $16 trillion dollars, a number so large that the only way for it to reach that value is by replacing huge amounts of the human workforce, despite it’s underwhelming performance.

 

Elison, Meg: Foundling Fathers (Tachyon Publications 978-1616964580, $16.95, 192pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/23/2026)

Satirical SF novella. A group of right wing billionaires doesn’t like how the country is being run so they clone the founding fathers, and raise them in secrecy, in order to bring back America’s “Former Glory.”

 

Evans, Malayna: The Isis of Egypt: Goddess of Thrones (The Quick Brown Fox/Alcove 979-8892424189, $29.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, 06/23/2026)

Historical fantasy novel of ancient Egypt. The goddess of thrones and magic, Isis, along with her husband, Osiris, are living a great life until the god of chaos comes in and traps Osiris in a box. Osiris does everything in her power to find him.

 

Everett, Sarah: The Romance Rewind (Penguin Random House/Putnam 979-8217002986, $12.99, 304pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/23/2026)

Young-adult fantasy time-loop romance novel. After Zadie’s breakup with Jason, she doesn’t know what to do, and is left wondering about the breakup. All of a sudden, she’s launched back to the day of their first date, and no one else remembers besides Jason’s cousin Marcus.

 

Haynes, Clarence A.: The Broken Hearts Agency (Grand Central/Legacy Lit 978-1538783603, $20.99, 398pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/23/2026)

Urban fantasy novel in the Our Mystical World series. Evelyn Kendricks just got dumped by her toxic boyfriend, all the while, she’s trying to cope with the ghosts that invaded the world.

 

Katouh, Zoulfa: The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue (Little, Brown 978-0316351942, $25.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/23/2026)

Young-adult fantasy/magical realism novel. Every woman in Jihad Dabbagh’s family receives a magical gift, and Jihad’s is a heightened sense for colors that changes based on her mood, so when her mother dies the world becomes permanently gray.

 

Kim, Suji: Under the Oak Tree, Volume 3 (Penguin Random House/Inklore 978-0593871256, $32.00, 528pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/23/2026)

Tie-in fantasy novel, third in the series based on the webnovel. Maxi fears that as she continues her studies of magic, her husband, Riftan Calypse, will discover that she’s not the proper noblewoman she claims to be.

 

Kiser, S.E.: Hunt the Ever Wild (Angry Robot UK 978-1836730071, $19.99, 336pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/23/2026)

Fantasy novel. The wizard Sy jumps at the chance to go on a hunt for a phoenix in Lichtenwald forest because the prize is enough for him to pay off the debt he owes to the king, but he needs help navigating the forest, so he teams up with Anya, a huntress, and claims that he’ll split the prize. A first novel.

 

Riesen, Lila: Rainsong (Penguin Random House/Knopf 978-0593810286, $19.99, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/23/2026)

Horror novel. Zayn just moved to Mendocino, and the town seems to have a dark past; when she arrives there are missing posters of a girl everywhere, and off the coast is an island called Rainsong, which rumors say is haunted.

 

Tchaikovsky, Adrian: Green City Wars (Tor 978-1250290335, $28.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/23/2026)

SF noir novel. A raccoon private investigator named Skotch is willing to take whatever job you pay him for, as long as it isn’t too illegal. When he’s offered a job to search for a missing mouse that seems to have something everyone wants, he has trouble turning it down. Simultaneous with the Tor UK edition.

 

Tremblay, Rachel: Lavender Spike (ECW Press 978-1770418417, $19.95, 384pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/23/2026)

Dystopian SF novel. Izzy, the last working artist in the Old Holy Order, lives a live of poverty covertly selling her illegal paintings to the last followers of the Order, but a run-in with the government forces her to turn to rebels, and a new kind of art.

 

Voleur, Cat: Queer Tastes: Unconventional Representation in Horror Film (From Beyond 979-8-9925941-4-0, $15.99, 170pp, formats: paperback, 06/23/2026)

Associational non-fiction. This book takes a critical look at queer representation in horror films, and guides readers through 20 different horror films that span over 80 years of cinema. The author includes her personal experiences with the LGBTQ+ community as she takes you through these films.

 

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While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and would like to keep the site paywall free, but WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT to continue quality coverage of the science fiction and fantasy field.

The post New Book Releases: June 23, 2026 appeared first on Locus.

Visit our bookshop.org page to purchase this week’s new books and support your local bookstore. And us!

 

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Alexander, Jessica: Agnes, We’re Not Murderers! (Clash Books 978-1968043087, $22.87, 236pp, formats: paperback, 06/16/2026)

Gothic vampire horror novel. Agnes, and Mary, lesbian vixens from another world must survive despite Agnes wasting away. Their curse is spreading, and it seeks to purify the world. A first novel.

 

Berry, Jedediah: Kill All Wizards (Tordotcom 978-1250908056, $24.99, 144pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Fantasy novella, the first book in the Barbaric Ledgers series. A barbarian’s strength was exploited, and sword was stolen by a group of far away wizards. Now, he seeks revenge on every single one of them.

 

Curtis, Grace: Heaven’s Graveyard (Astra House/DAW 978-0756419844, $22.00, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Fantasy novel. Cod is an archaeologist determined to prove that her hero actually existed. When her former teacher tells her about an enchanted city found beneath the soil, Cod wonders if some things should be left untouched.

 

Eximeno, Santiago & Alonso, Alicia L.: Alicia Is in the Basement (Tenebrous Press 978-1959790631, $14.99, 114pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/16/2026)

Horror novella. Santi and Maria’s daughter disappears one day without a trace, tearing the whole family apart. Months later, Santi discovers a clue that reveals a new horror to the father.

 

Ghosh, Amitav: Ghost-Eye (Macmillan/Farrar, Straus, Giroux 978-0374298395, $29.00, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Reincarnation fantasy. Varsha, a three year old, claims that she remembers another life, so her parents take her to a psychologist, and their understanding of the world is forever changed. 50 years later, activists begin a search for Varsha.

 

Hamilton, Peter F.: Exodus: The Helium Sea (Penguin Random House/Random House Worlds 978-0593357699, $32.00, 752pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Gaming tie-in novel, the second based on the new SF roleplaying game. The Crown Dominion is facing a crisis, as a group of exiles return for revenge. Finn, and his allies must team up to earn independence from the Crown Dominion. Simultaneous with the Tor UK edition.

 

Pennza, Amy: Dhampira (Ace 978-0593956045, $20.00, 496pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Fantasy vampire romance novel, the first in a trilogy. When Corinthe is discovered to be half-vampire, half-human, she is captured. She is sold to the vampire king’s knight, and is forced to become a pawn for the king’s court.

 

Stitch, Guillermo: The Coast of Everything (Sagging Meniscus Press 978-1963846386, $37.99, 760pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Genre-shifting novel of stories-within-stories mixing SF, mystery, noir, and fantasy. This novel has no ending, and many beginnings, and serves as a reminder to persist through everything.

 

Tavares, Nathan: The Disco at the End of the World (Titan Books UK 978-1835414194, $18.99, 400pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

SF romance novel. Mitch, and Gloria move to LA as the world’s ending, but when an old friend approaches them about a utopian society that can protect them, and their friends in the queer community, they decide to stand up for what’s right. A first novel.

 

Tchaikovsky, Adrian & Collins, Mike: The Final Architecture: Salvation’s Child (Cosmic Lighthouse N/A, $6.99, 110pp, formats: ebook, 05/26/2026)

Graphic novel, a prologue to Tchaikovsky’s series The Final Architecture. Aliens the size of planets, the Architects, have destroyed Earth. Marta does everything she can to protect her daughter Xavienne, but Xavi may know the secret to saving humanity.

 

James, Cassandra: Libertad (HarperCollins/Quill Tree 978-0063345669, $19.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Young-adult fantasy novel. Gasparilla and her crew hit the high seas again after a recent betrayal. The empire is closing in on this crew of pirates, so Ximena must do everything she can to protect those she cares about.

 

Lariviere, Sarah: Live From the Afterlife (Penguin Random House/Knopf 978-0593479995, $19.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Young-adult SF romance novel. Gigi’s ghost is forever in the consciousness of her old love, Axl Fischer. Axl leads a troupe that plans to use satire and art to defeat the police state that’s controlling America.

 

Cornell, Paul: The Lychford Collection Book 2 (Tordotcom 978-1250394026, $28.99, 352pp, formats: paperback, 06/16/2026)

Collection of the fourth through sixth fantasy novellas in the Lychford series. A group of witches is working to save Lychford, and the entire world from the supernatural forces that are gunning for its destruction.

 

Gammon, Jendia & Powell, Gareth L.: Of Dread, Decay, and Doom (Stars and Sabers 979-8990705579, $32.99, 362pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 06/16/2026)

Original horror anthology with 38 contributing authors including Eugen Bacon, Ai Jiang, and Eden Royce.

 

Linde, K.A.: The Raven at the Ash Door (Entangled/Red Tower 978-1682816714, $32.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Fantasy romance novel, third in the Oak & Holly Cycle series. Kierce McKenna’s magic is tied to a man she hates. Graves, the man she loves, will do everything he can to stop this, so he goes on a quest to find a missing stone that can lift any curse. Simultaneous with the Tor Bramble UK edition.

 

Carter, Aimée: Royal Vengeance (Penguin Random House/Delacorte 978-0593485972, $19.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Young-adult alternate-world mystery novel, third in the Royal Blood series. Evangeline Bright must kill the attempted assassin of the king of England in order to prove that she herself isn’t a traitor.

 

Gratton, Tessa: The Shape of Monsters (Orbit US 978-0316578813, $19.99, 560pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Queer fantasy novel, the second book in the Moon Heresies trilogy. Iriset freed the Moon-Eater God from prison, which landed her in a city full of monsters, where the only one she can trust is the emperor Lyric, who she’s betrayed before.

 

Tropea, Ashley: The Shrouded Queen (Simon & Schuster/Gallery 978-1668096215, $20.00, 448pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Romantic fantasy novel, the first in a series mixing elements of Ancient Egypt and Vikings. When Samira is captured by a shape-shifter, she needs to impersonate the princess, and go through trials meant to awaken divine powers.

 

Race, Holly: Six Savage Thrones (Orbit US 978-0316572897, $30.00, 400pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, 06/16/2026)

Fantasy novel, second in the Queens of Elben series. The kingdom of Elben is falling apart. All of the Queens must realize that they need to come together in order to cut ties with King Henry, as he’s using stranger and stranger magics. Simultaneous with the Orbit UK edition.

 

Poston, Ashley: The Someday Garden (Penguin Random House/Berkley Romance 978-0593952757, $20.00, 400pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Fantasy romance novel. Sophie is working a temp job fixing up the Lilymoore House. She discovers a door that’s never in the same place twice, that leads to a garden that highlights the instability of the future of Lilymoore.

 

Sanderson, Brandon & Orullian, Peter: Songs of the Dead (Simon & Schuster/Saga Press 978-1668068144, $30.00, 464pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Contemporary fantasy novel, first in the Strata Wars trilogy. Jack Solomon wakes up in a new reality after being killed, a reality where light and music are used to make magic, and where the history of London spreads beneath its surface.

 

Heard, Wendy: Such a Lucky Girl (Little, Brown/Ottaviano 978-0316610742, $25.99, 574pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Young-adult horror novel. Bella abandoned her best friend Kerry in order to pursue her dreams of becoming an influencer, and it worked. Kerry discovers a book on shadow work, and decides to get back at Bella.

 

DiLouie, Craig: The Summer Fun Massacre (Orbit US/Run For It 978-0316578240, $19.99, 304pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Slasher horror novel. Deputy Tom Bailey is always on edge this time of year when camp Summer Fun is wrapping up, because in the 80s there was a massacre that left a single survivor. Tom gets a call reporting screams coming from the camp once again.

 

Ruvane, Eileen M.: Tell Me My Future (Abrams/Amulet 978-1419785580, $19.99, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Contemporary fantasy novel. Kess Turner is used to her mother making them move every few months, but their new home is very strange. Kess pretends to be a psychic in order to discover the truth, but she begins to actually have visions of the future. A first novel.

 

Tidhar, Lavie: The Three Coffin Problem (JAB Books 978-1625677983, $18.99, 290pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/16/2026)

Collection of nine humorous medieval dark fantasy mystery stories about Judge Dee. Judge Dee’s assistant, Johnathan, joins him on solving many mysteries, but he prefers to just lay around and eat cheese with bread.

 

Jenkinson, Becky: Wildflower (Penguin Random House/Del Rey 979-8217095216, $29.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/16/2026)

Cosy fantasy romance novel. Felicity, a magical florist, is cursed to always tell the truth, so she chooses her words extremely carefully in order to stay out of trouble, but one day she gets an anonymous message that puts her directly in harm’s way. A first novel. Simultaneous with the Zaffre UK edition.

 

Harrison, M. John: The End of Everything (Serpent’s Tail UK 978-1800812949, £16.99, 208pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/18/2026)

Satirical post-apocalyptic SF novel. Philip Tennet makes his living collecting artefacts that wash up on shore. The world has been changed after a crisis with unknown origins, and when Philip fishes up a creature that keeps changing, he must bring it inland before it destroys everything.

 

Billias, Stephen: The Zen Time Traveler: A Pilgrim’s Journey Through the Koans (Discovery Publisher 978-1788946896, $44.90, 257pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, 06/21/2026)

Fantasy time-travel novel. Stephen Maine uses poetry as a way to create a portal to thirteenth-century China, where myths he had heard his whole life are a reality, but when he forms a bond with a sword master, he becomes torn between his present day marriage, and his love affair of the past.

 

Scott, Megan: A Masterpiece in Blood (HarperCollins UK/Magpie 978-1335015266, $19.99, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/18/2026)

Young-adult fantasy novel, second in the Empyreal trilogy. Nicole is on the run from The Wake, and Kyan is supposed to be hunting her down, despite his feelings for her. They must go on a quest that takes them all over the world, but The Wake sees everything.

 

Kaster, Allan: The Year’s Top Hard Science Fiction Stories 10 (AudioText/Infinivox N/A, $8.99, 443pp, formats: ebook, 06/19/2026)

Collection highlighting the best hard science-fiction stories published in 2025. Includes stories about the daughter daughter of a scientist launching a mission to Europa, astronauts caught in a galactic aurora storm, and borane life-forms discovering carbon life-forms.

 

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While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and would like to keep the site paywall free, but WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT to continue quality coverage of the science fiction and fantasy field.

The post New Book Releases: June 16, 2026 appeared first on Locus.

Visit our bookshop.org page to purchase this week’s new books and support your local bookstore. And us!

 

---

 

Anderson, Taylor: Fleet of Ghosts (Ace 978-0593641606, $31.95, 464 pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 6/09/26)
Alternate history military SF novel, the first in the Destroyermen series. Courtney Bradford, along with other war veterans, sets out to explore a spot in the Pacific where ships keep going missing, and they find a fleet of strange lost ships.

 

Briar, Shiloh: Hopeless Necromantic (Orbit US 978-0316602105, $19.99, 368pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/02/2026)

Fantasy romance novel. Helspira must escort Sikras as he attempts to prevent an undead army from entering the kingdom. Even Sikras doesn’t believe in himself, but as they grow closer they’re able to imagine a future where they succeed. A first novel. Simultaneous with the Orbit UK edition.

 

English, Shannon K.: Endless Blue Beneath (Orbit US 978-0316592574, $19.99, 464pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

Fantasy novel, the first in the Daughters of Atlantea duology. On land, Eppie is nothing special, but underwater she is a powerful and ravenous mermaid. She quickly falls for another mermaid, Marie, and the two must survive the mermaid hunters.

 

Holmes, Jasmine: Our Sister’s Keeper (Bindery Books/Mareas 978-1967967100, $19.95, 336pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

Historical horror novel. In 1927, the all-Black Free Town of East Cobb seems perfect, but the town houses nightmares that only women can see. Marah has the ability to remove traumatic memories from men, but a sudden death teaches her more about her power. A first novel.

 

Koenig, Kate: Her Sharp Embrace (St. Martin’s/Wednesday Books 978-1250321244, $21.00, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

Young-adult fantasy novel. A group of outlaws called The Nightshades steal from the corrupt elite, and provide for the forgotten. Noa Toussiant left her wealthy life to join the nightshades, but her family puts all of The Nightshades in danger. A first novel.

 

Kritzer, Naomi: Obstetrix (Tordotcom 978-1250423375, $24.99, 208pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

SF novella. Doctor Liz is kidnapped by a fundamentalist cult because they’re desperate for an OB/GYN. Because she’s the only doctor there, she’s treated well, but she knows she needs to escape and free the girls trapped on the compound.

 

Leede, CJ: Headlights (Tor/Nightfire 978-1250857958, $27.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

Horror novel. Daniel, an FBI agent about to quit, is called to Denver because innocent people are waking up wearing the skin of victims they’ve never met. Daniel is forced to confront his childhood in order to keep him and his family from being the next victims.

 

McGuire, Seanan: Inkpot Gods (Tor 978-1250339324, $29.99, 448pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

Fantasy novel, fourth in the Alchemical Journeys series. Asphodel Baker created life in a way no one else had ever been able to, and she built the Impossible City on top of the ruins of Olympus. Her descendants are forced to confront the hellscape that she created.

 

Miller, Darcy: I Am Not a Vampire (Anymore) (Penguin Random House/Random House 978-0593903162, $19.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

YA fantasy romance novel. A girl hopes that she’ll get a chance at normal life after finally being turned human, but that changes when she’s forced to fight off her immortal ex-boyfriend, and raise a newborn vampire named Ezra.

 

Morín, Tomás Q.: Cat Love (Penguin Random House/Pantheon 978-0593702055, $24.00, 207pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

Near-future SF novel. A cat is kidnapped and put on display in a Schrödinger’s box, so students can learn how to be better Emotional Support Humans. The cat finds out the truth of her kidnapping, and must find a way out of the box. A first novel.

 

Thompson, L.T.: Devils We Know (Bloomsbury USA 978-1547615230, $22.99, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

YA fantasy novel, sequel to Devils Like Us. A secret society wants to capture Death so that only the “unworthy” will face it. Cas, Remy, and Finn need to stop this because it will destroy the Mori, the only place where they can openly be themselves.

 

Unferth, Deb Olin: Earth 7 (Graywolf 978-1644453940, $27.00, 248pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

SF romance novel. Earth is reduced to rubble, but on a beach of artificial sand, two women meet. Some people are chasing eternal life through digital code, but others are creating a molecular collection in hopes that a future person can create a new earth.

 

Johnson, Jaleigh: The Reimagining of Thornwood House (Ace 979-8217188819, $30.00, 391pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

Cozy fantasy novel. Evelyn Sharpe, a witch, moves to the sentient Thornwood House, but it’s not what she expected. Evie must form a bond with the house before being let in.

 

Slayton, David R.: The Silent Paths of Night (Blackstone Publishing 979-8228000780, $29.99, 338pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

Fantasy novel, the second book in the Gods of Night and Day series. Raef hoped that the world would be okay once the moon goddess Phoebe returned, but Phoebe brought back a great evil with her.

 

Bennett, Ashley: Tentacles & Triathlons (Penguin Random House/Berkley Romance 978-0593956991, $18.99, 352pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

Fantasy romance novel, the second in the Leviathan Fitness series. Reece Collins gets help from Cyrus, a kraken, in training for his triathlon. Feelings start to develop between the two, but will they be able to fall in love?

 

Saint, Jennifer: This Immortal Heart (Penguin Random House/Ballantine 979-8217092307, $30.00, 368pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

Fantasy novel. Aphrodite hold ancient power, and has influence over every living thing. When her love affair with Ares lasts lifetimes. she must question her devotion to her divine purpose.

 

Eckert, Joseph: The Traveler (Tor 978-1250428554, $28.99, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

SF novel. Scott Treder jumps forward through time each day, with each jump getting larger and larger. His son, Lyle, is determined to figure out how to save him, so he begins to study quantum physics. A first novel.

 

Croucher, Lex: The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones (Orion UK/Gollancz 978-0063460218, $32.00, 464pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

Young-adult dark fantasy novel. Briar Jones’ best friend, Seb, gets an acceptance letter to Briar’s dream school, the Temple School of Thaumaturgy, and Briar doesn’t. Seven years later, Briar discovers that Seb is no longer a sweet kid, and has instead become an arrogant villain.

 

Samotin, Laura R.: The Way It Haunted Him (Titan Books UK 978-1835412312, $18.99, 288pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

Horror novel. Michael Stein blames himself for the death of his boyfriend, and chooses to continue his research of demons in honor of him. Michael becomes forced to confront the truth about his boyfriend’s death, while becoming obsessed with someone new. A first novel.

 

Seeley, Mollyhall: We Hexed the Moon (Simon & Schuster/Saga Press 978-1668099230, $17.99, 224pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

Contemporary fantasy novel. Four newly graduated highschoolers are about to be separated from each other by their plans for the future, and instead of processing their emotions they perform a ritual to get rid of the moon, and to their surprise, it works. A first novel.

 

Kate, Lauren: White Lights (Grand Central 978-1538781326, $33.00, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

Dark academia fantasy novel, the first in a trilogy. Desdemona is recruited to the elite film school, Acheron, and she decides to finally pursue her lifelong dream of making movies, but the school isn’t as perfect as it seems.

 

Goodman, A.B.: House of Atreus: Agamemnon Rising (Planetary Books 979-8295701412, $19.99, 156pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 06/15/2026)

SF novel, the first in the House of Atreus duology. Set in a world where the Greek gods were actually artificial intelligence. Apollo, Artemis, and the oracles of Delphi are manipulating humanity, and Artemis forces king Agamemnon to kill his daughter.

 

Worthen, Johnny: Fresh Start (Flame Tree Press US 978-1787589636, $26.95, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 06/09/2026)

SF novel. The empire sends the worst of the worst to the planet Fresh Start, where the most forgiving sentence is exile to five-generations. On this planet, Qays Mendoza searches for his old captain as the empire collapses, and Fresh Start is being abandoned. Simultaneous with the Flame Tree Press UK edition.

 

Schneider, Rachel: Light Wielder (St. Martin’s/Saturday Books 978-1250419101, $31.00, 448pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/09/2026)

Fantasy romance novel, second in the Fire & Metal series. Jovie started a war after sparing King Edmond’s life, per Acker’s request. Jovie wants to keep the Maile people protected from this conflict. Simultaneous with the Orion UK edition.

 

Simpson, W.A.: Steelbound (Flame Tree Press US 978-1787589827, $26.95, 288pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 06/09/2026)

Fantasy novel, fourth in the Riven Isles series. Ursa, and Lucea must work together to stop the rot. As they go on a journey through the Riven Isles, they discover secrets that could decide the fate of their world. Simultaneous with the Flame Tree Press UK edition.

 

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Today's links

• Naomi Kritzer's "Obstetrix": When forced birth cultists become forced obstetrics militants.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: DD-WRT; iTunes DRM is illegal; Fingertip magnet; Sony passwords v Gawker passwords; RIAA recants on 3 strikes; Parachute wedding dress; Roald Dahl (jerk); "Level Up"; The rent's too damned high; RIAA v "Search by artist"; "Robopocalypse"; You are not a wallet; The man who created the religious right; NY x voting; NY x antitrust; Media companies fund Heritage Minister's campaign; Richard Dreyfuss x iTunes EULA; 3-way street; RIAA lawyer becomes Solicitor General; Brock Allen's wrist-slap; Ad-tech interop; Apple's manorial security; Billionaires aren't taxed, "Rabbits."
• Upcoming appearances: Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh, South Bend.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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Naomi Kritzer's "Obstetrix" (permalink)

Naomi Kritzer's Obstetrix is a new, tense thriller in the mode of Atwood's Handmaid's Tale and Alderman's The Power; it's a beautifully turned, claustrophobic horror novel about an obstetrician who's been kidnapped by a Christian cult obsessed with fertility:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250423375/obstetrix/

Kritzer is a master of building scenarios that require her characters to express and resolve a wide variety of complex and contradictory emotions. Her breakout novel, Catfishing on CatNet is a charming and deceptively goofy story about an AI trained on the impeccable vibes in a really solid groupchat becoming sentient and demanding…cat pictures. This is the setup for a warm (but intense) novel of internet-mediated friendship and IRL mutual aid:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/11/19/naomi-kritzers-catfishing-on-the-catnet-an-ai-caper-about-the-true-nature-of-online-friendship/

Then there's her incredibly prescient 2015 story "So Much Cooking," about people in lockdown during a pandemic. For obvious reasons, it enjoyed an revival in 2020, with Kritzer penning an excellent essay reflecting on what it means to have thought through the implications of a disaster that is now upon us:

https://reactormag.com/didnt-i-write-this-story-already-when-your-fictional-pandemic-becomes-reality/

In 2023, Kritzer published one of the most memorable YA novels I've read, Liberty's Daughter, which is set on a libertarian seastead and told from the point of view of the daughter of the cult's founder:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/21/podkaynes-dad-was-a-dick/#age-of-consent

Liberty's Daughter is basically what you'd get if you rewrote a Heinlein YA novel from the perspective of one of the kids, who had to live with a Heinlein-type dad (Heinlein was childless and had some of the most batshit child-rearing ideas, which he managed to make sound bizarrely plausible). There's a lot of sf that is "in dialogue" with Heinlein (including some of mine), but no one nailed RAH like Kritzer.

Then there's Obstetrix; it's got one of those admirably propulsive setups. Doctor Elizabeth Gwynn is an obstetrician who performed an abortion to save her patient's life, only to be dragged into the culture wars by North Dakota's crusading attorney general, who charged her with felony murder and offered to let her plead out if she would admit that she was wrong to do it, as an example to other OBs who might be tempted. Now, Dr Liz lives in Minneapolis, where her savings are running out and no one wants to hire an obstetrician who's done time.

Then, Dr Liz gets a cold-call from a midwifing service that wants to hire her as an on-call doc. It's a weird offer from out of the blue, but Dr Liz can't afford to pass up a chance at steady work. She finds herself in a residence that the midwives work out of, and the nice woman there offers her a cup of tea. That's when the world fades to black, as the drugs in the tea take hold.

Liz sporadically regains consciousness in a van during a multi-day drive, and already she is thinking about her escape – even as she is becoming increasingly aware of how truly terrible her situation is. When she finally arrives at the cult's remote compound, frozen and isolated, she learns that she has been kidnapped because the fertility-obsessed cult needs an OB, especially since the daughter of the cult's founder, the "pastor," is carrying a high-risk pregnancy.

All that is in the first few pages, which leaves plenty of room for an expertly spun second act in which we get Kritzer's trademark interpersonal work, where carefully chosen and smartly wrought small details flesh out a picture of the complex dynamics of life inside a "high-demand" cult, from the way that members are manipulated into policing each other's compliance to the internal processes that keep members cowed even when they're unobserved by others. It's a brilliant work of sociological speculation and the engine that drives it is a series of maneuvers and gambits whereby Dr Liz hopes to make her way to safety.

I won't spoil the end, except to say that it is exciting, satisfying, and has a sweet denouement that does real justice to the whole book. All told, this is a read-in-one-sitting thriller that does as much to illuminate the workings and dynamics of patriarchy and religion as any gender studies class. It's peak Kritzer (so far), and that's saying something.

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• The mayor of Shelbyville, Indiana, says only people who live in ‘shitty houses’ oppose data center https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/944984/shelbyville-indiana-mayor-shitty-houses-data-center

• Last Idea Factory https://starlogic.itch.io/last-idea-factory

• ‘Her silence was more powerful than words’: how I interviewed a Facebook whistleblower who wasn’t allowed to speak https://www.thenerve.news/p/carole-cadwalladr-sarah-wynn-williams-tim-wu-hay-festival-careless-people-gagging

• She won a religious exemption from using AI at work. The Pope's remarks could fuel similar appeals. https://www.businessinsider.com/worker-got-religious-exemption-using-ai-at-work-2026-6

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Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago HOWTO turn a $60 Linksys router into a $600 super-router https://web.archive.org/web/20060610003137/http://assets.lifehacker.com/software/router/hack-attack-turn-your-60-router-into-a-600-router-178132.php

#20yrsago Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: 1811 slang dictionary https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5402

#20yrsago Ex-RIAA head Hilary Rosen rethinks lawsuits and DRM https://web.archive.org/web/20060609030533/https://www.p2pnet.net/story/8979

#20yrsago Norwegian ombudsman says Apple’s iTunes DRM is illegal https://web.archive.org/web/20060611194556/http://forbrukerportalen.no/Artikler/2006/1149587055.44

#20yrsago Implanting a magnet in your fingertip adds a sixth sense https://web.archive.org/web/20060613072724/https://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71087-0.html?tw=rss.index

#20yrsago Recording industry: Search-by-artist is “too interactive” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5055744.stm

#20yrsago US branch of “Pirate Party” launches https://web.archive.org/web/20060613041144/http://www.pirate-party.us/

#20yrsago Pranksters give fake McDonald’s anti-global-warming presentation https://web.archive.org/web/20060614011522/http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=9621

#20yrsago Can. Heritage Minister’s election was funded by entertainment co’s https://web.archive.org/web/20060612224646/https://www.michaelgeist.ca/component/option,com_content/task,view/id,1289/Itemid,85/nsub,/

#20yrsago High-def DRM licenses cost $15k https://web.archive.org/web/20060612202129/https://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32273

#15yrsago Richard Dreyfuss reads the iTunes EULA https://web.archive.org/web/20110611012317/http://www.cnet.com/8301-30976_1-20068778-10348864.html

#15yrsago Top universities a ‘breeding ground’ for Tories, warn Islamic groups https://newsthump.com/2011/06/07/top-universities-a-breeding-ground-for-tories-warn-islamic-groups/

#15yrsago 3-Way Street: visualization of the uneasy dance of pedestrians, bikes and cars at a busy intersection https://web.archive.org/web/20110610123449/http://blog.ronconcocacola.com/2011/06/02/nyc-goes-three-ways.aspx

#15yrsago Copyright extremist RIAA lawyer confirmed as America’s Solicitor General https://web.archive.org/web/20110610134934/http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/senate-confirms-verrilli/

#15yrsago Scot-free millionaire playboy’s lawyer was judge’s depute campaign treasurer https://web.archive.org/web/20110610123824/http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-06-06/news/fl-levin-sentence-mayocol-b060711-20110606_1_house-arrest-dui-manslaughter-case-kenneth-watkinson

#15yrsago Bubble-in forms betray individual, traceable “handwriting” https://web.archive.org/web/20110609164727/http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/wclarkso/new-research-result-bubble-forms-not-so-anonymous

#15yrsago Inbox Influence: plugin reveals corporate money behind the emails in your inbox https://web.archive.org/web/20110816105954/https://inbox.influenceexplorer.com/

#15yrsago Macedonia erupts after young man beaten to death by special police in public square https://web.archive.org/web/20110610132108/http://www.a1.com.mk/vesti/default.aspx?VestID=139049

#15yrsago Robopocalypse: rigorous, terrifying novel about a robotic campaign to exterminate humanity https://memex.craphound.com/2011/06/07/robopocalypse-rigorous-terrifying-novel-about-a-robotic-campaign-to-exterminate-humanity/

#15yrsago Using clickfraud on Google ads to amass shares of Google https://gwei.org/index.php

#15yrsago Comparative analysis of leaked Sony and Gawker passwords https://www.troyhunt.com/brief-sony-password-analysis/

#15yrsago China’s Politburo warns Google not to be “political” https://web.archive.org/web/20110610165205/http://www.transparencyrevolution.com/2011/06/china-warns-google-not-to-be-evil/

#15yrsago Guerrilla camper re-opens shuttered Michigan public campsite https://web.archive.org/web/20110609184456/http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/563100/Campground-closed-in-2009-illegally-reopened.html?nav=5006

#15yrsago Record industry lobby says it no longer supports 3-strikes copyright termination laws https://torrentfreak.com/recording-industry-steps-back-from-piracy-disconnections-110606/

#15yrsago Death threats for Aussie climate scientists https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jun/06/australia-climate-scientists-death-threats

#15yrsago Wedding-dress made from life-saving parachute https://www.si.edu/collections/snapshot/parachute-wedding-dress

#15yrsago Level Up: Gene Yang’s comic about destiny, games, and filial piety https://memex.craphound.com/2011/06/06/level-up-gene-yangs-comic-about-destiny-games-and-filial-piety/

#15yrago Roald Dahl: Jerk https://web.archive.org/web/20110602195454/http://thisrecording.com/today/2011/6/1/in-which-we-consider-the-macabre-unpleasantness-of-roald-dah.html

#15yrsago Rotting Gulliver’s Travels themepark in Japan https://web.archive.org/web/20110609235431/http://www.sleepycity.net/posts/40/Gullivers_Kingdom__Sea_of_Trees

#15yrsago Ticketed for being childless and eating doughnuts in a playground https://gothamist.com/food/two-women-ticketed-for-eating-doughnuts-in-a-brooklyn-playground

#15yrsago Internet Archive becomes archive of physical books, too https://blog.archive.org/2011/06/06/why-preserve-books-the-new-physical-archive-of-the-internet-archive/

#10yrsago Swedish traditional costume made from Ikea bags https://ikeahackers.net/2016/06/swedish-folk-costume-5-ikea-bags.html

#10yrsago NSA dumps docs about its Snowden response, reveals that Snowden repeatedly raised alarms about spying https://web.archive.org/web/20160604213547/https://news.vice.com/article/edward-snowden-leaks-tried-to-tell-nsa-about-surveillance-concerns-exclusive

#10yrsago John Oliver buys and forgives $15M in medical debt, illustrates horrors of America’s debt-collectors https://web.archive.org/web/20160606234823/https://consumerist.com/2016/06/06/john-oliver-buys-15m-in-medical-debt-then-forgives-it/

#10yrsago David Byrne wants you to register to vote, and wants everyone else to, too https://web.archive.org/web/20160609060810/http://davidbyrne.com/were-better-than-this-vote

#10yrsago You are not a wallet: complaining considered helpful https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/07/its-your-duty-to-complain-thats-how-companies-improve

#10yrsago Web Sheriff’s legal scare strategy: throw everything at the wall, hope something sticks https://www.techdirt.com/2016/06/07/web-sheriff-accuses-us-breaking-basically-every-possible-law-pointing-out-that-abusing-dmca-takedowns/

#10yrsago Lin-Manuel Miranda declares war on bots https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/07/opinion/stop-the-bots-from-killing-broadway.html

#10yrsago Uber loves competition, when it’s the one doing the competing https://www.boston.com/news/technology/2016/06/05/uber-app-urbanhail-startup-ride-prices/

#10yrsago MI5 warning: we’re gathering more than we can analyse, and will miss terrorist attacks https://theintercept.com/document/2016/06/07/preston-study/

#10yrsago Samantha Bee interviews Frank Schaeffer, who helped create the religious right https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhLY0JqXP-s

#10yrsago Why defense attorneys aren’t cheering Brock Allan Turner’s wrist-slap https://web.archive.org/web/20160611024154/http://mimesislaw.com/fault-lines/brock-turner-the-sort-of-defendant-who-is-spared-severe-impact/10288

#10yrsago Password hashing demystified https://www.wired.com/2016/06/hacker-lexicon-password-hashing/

#5yrsago Google and France agree on ad-tech interop https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#monkeys-paw

#5yrsago Billionaires don't pay tax https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#eat-the-rich

#5yrsago Apple's manorial security https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#manorialism

#5yrsago Rabbits: PK Dick meets Qanon https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#rabbits

#5yrsago Competition tames ISPs https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/07/fire-on-one-end-fool-on-the-other/#muni-fiber-now

#5yrsago New York to revolutionize voting https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/07/fire-on-one-end-fool-on-the-other/#sb309a

#5yrsago New York to revolutionize antitrust https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/07/fire-on-one-end-fool-on-the-other/#sb933

#5yrsago The Rent’s Too Damned High https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10
  https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow

• LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19
  https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant

• Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21
  https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026

• Toronto: TBA, Jun 23

• NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24
  https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html

• Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559

• Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26
  https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628

• Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17
  https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales

• South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6
  https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/

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Recent appearances (permalink)

• The Enshittification of Life, the Universe, and Everything
  https://www.lukewsavage.com/p/the-enshittification-of-life-the

• Cory Doctorow's digital jail-break (DW In Focus)
  https://www.dw.com/en/cory-doctorows-digital-jail-break/audio-77414035

• Why the Internet Got Worse and What to Do About It (Jim Rutt) (RIP)
  https://www.jimruttshow.com/cory-doctorow-3/

• On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI

• EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu)
  https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification

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Latest books (permalink)

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce

• "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).

• "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

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Upcoming books (permalink)

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/)

• "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

• "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor.

• "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

• "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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Albert, Melissa: The Children (HarperCollins 978-0063497856, $32.00, 416pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/02/2026)

Fantasy/Horror novel. As an adult, Guinevere Sharpe lived off of the success of her mother who mysteriously died in a fire. When her estranged brother returns with an art piece titled “Mother,” Guinevere starts to piece together what really happened the night of the fire. A first novel.

 

Archer, Amy: Nemesis Mine (Harper Voyager US 978-0063459403, $19.99, 428pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/02/2026)

Historical fantasy novel. Cyrus used to be the biggest villain in Agatha, but no one’s been paying attention to him recently. The hero of the land, Maximillian, creates a plan to start a fake rivalry with Cyrus, but it becomes harder to perform when they start to fall for each other. A first novel.

 

Arden, Katherine: The Unicorn Hunters (Penguin Random House/Del Rey 978-0593128282, $30.00, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/02/2026)

Fantasy Novel. As Anne, the duchess of Brittany, is set to be married off to the king of France, she devises a plan to stop it. Anne plans a unicorn hunt in the forest of Brocéliande so that she can marry someone else and escape this arranged marriage. Simultaneous with the Penguin Random House UK edition.

 

Bandreddi, S.C.: The Game of Oaths (Candlewick Press 978-1536252637, $19.99, 432pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/02/2026)

Young-adult dark fantasy novel. Falan Sunkara, a 17 year old trapeze artist, is seeking revenge after her sister died in the game of oaths, a game where 12 are selected to compete, but only one will survive. A first novel.

 

Cambias, James L.: The Ishtar Deception (Baen 978-1668073308, $18.00, 288pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/02/2026)

Science fiction novel, book four in the Billion Worlds series. In the far-future solar system, Sabbath and Daslakh of Deimos travel to the city of Ishtar on Venus to find out the truth about the death of an undercover agent.

 

Crocker, Ed: Moonfall (St. Martin’s 978-1250287755, $30.00, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 06/02/2026)

Fantasy novel, second in the Everlands trilogy. Sam has a plan to destroy the vampire city of First Light, but she’ll need the help of the city’s former ruler in order for it to succeed. The most dangerous sorcerer in history, Neuras Sinassion, is finally telling the truth about humanity.

 

DuQuette, Lon Milo & Bratkowsky, James M.: Young Aleister Crowley and the Magicians’ Revolt (Red Wheel/Weiser 978-1578639151, $16.95, 176pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/06/2026)

Fantasy novel. Aleister Crowley steps foot into Edwardian London where there’s a power struggle between magicians of the Golden Dawn, and the leaders of the Golden Dawn. The leaders’ power is fading, and Crowley finds himself in the middle of this war.

 

Gómez, Cynthia: Muñeca (Penguin Random House/Putnam 979-8217047581, $29.00, 171pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/02/2026)

Gothic fantasy romance novel. Violeta, the heiress to Spanish colonial wealth is paralyzed, and Natalia Fuentes thinks dark magic caused it. Nati becomes Violeta’s caretaker in hopes of receiving a reward, but as feelings start to form between the two, Nati is forced to confront her past. A first novel.

 

Jane, Emily: Mr. Yay (Disney/Hyperion Avenue 978-1368116046, $18.99, 488pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/02/2026)

Novel in Disney’s line of adult books. Mr. Yay (Who’s real name is Fatty Bratty), has a blossoming rap career, but his therapist, Miriam, has memories of a TV show named Mr. Yay, yet no one else does, and there’s no record of it on the internet. Miriam watches Mr. Yay continue to grow as her life starts to fall apart.

 

Kim, Isabel J.: Sublimation (Tor 978-1250376794, $28.99, 357pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/02/2026)

Science Fiction novel. Immigration splits you into two copies of yourself, one stays in their original country, and one travels to their new country. Some stay in touch with each other, while others never speak to each other again. A first novel.

 

Lacrampe, J.P.: Valet (Simon & Schuster/Saga Press 978-1668216439, $28.00, 272pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/02/2026)

Science fiction novel. Grayson panics as his sister plans to sell the family’s robotics company to a tech giant. Grayson, Cy (Grayson’s robot helper), and their dog, Sasha III, run away until they can figure out what to do. A first novel.

 

Leighton, Georgia: Maiden (Penguin Random House UK/Bantam UK 978-0857505934, £16.99, 432pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/04/2026)

Fantasy novel. Every year after the snow is melted, a young woman is selected to be sacrificed to the dragon. The three women in charge hold the power to stop the ritual, but doing so comes with a price.

 

Noni, Lynette: Shadow Reaper (Penguin Random House/Knopf 979-8217033454, $21.99, 496pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/02/2026)

YA fantasy romance novel. The streets of Aravell are swarmed with reapers, and they’re led by the Reaper Priest. When his most loyal follower is captured, he makes a deal with a person whose parents he murdered.

 

Pacton, Jamie: The Hyacinth Labyrinth (Peachtree Teen 978-1682638194, $19.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/02/2026)

Young-adult fantasy romance novel. The fae Hyacinth, her friend Chloe, and a dragon travel through a labyrinth to find a library. Hyacinth and Chloe discover bandits, magical creatures, and their feelings for each other.

 

Pham, Cindy: The Secret World of Briar Rose (Penguin Random House/Kokila 979-8217113026, $21.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/02/2026)

Fantasy romance novel. Corin finds her sister Elly after jumping into a portal that leads to Princess Amelia’s dreams. There they meet the dream version of Amelia, but suspect that she’s hiding some things that can’t be kept secret forever. A first novel.

 

Samorano, Désirée: Amarisa’s Cooking Pot (University of Nevada Press 978-1647792428, $26.95, 229pp, formats: paperback, ebook, 06/02/2026)

Collection of 21 stories. These stories draw on Mexican American culture, and possess a wide range of emotions that are all deeply human. It explores what it means to be alive in a world that’s so unpredictable.

 

Sim, Tara: The Dawn Throne (Orbit US 978-0316458962, $19.99, 448pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 06/02/2026)

Fantasy novel, the third in the Dark Gods series. When the god of light, Phos, decides to attack the heirs for control of the cosmos, the heirs decide to bring the battle to Phos’s home realm. Simultaneous with the Hodder & Stoughton UK edition.

 

St. Jude, Jen: Where You’ll Find Us (Bloomsbury USA 978-1547611409, $20.99, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/02/2026)

Young-adult fantasy novel. Calla’s parents disowned her because she was gay, but she’s trying to figure out if she’s even a girl. She finds a farmhouse that’s frozen in time, and houses queer teens from the past. Simultaneous with the Penguin Random House UK edition.

 

Tubb, Kristin O’Donnell: The Spiritualists (Simon & Schuster 978-1665985734, $19.99, 416pp, formats: ebook, 06/02/2026)

Young-adult fantasy novel. Stella, a psychic, gets an invitation to join a group of mystics, and in return they’ll get revenge on her sister’s killer. The only problem is, she’s the reason her sister is dead in the first place. A first novel.

 

Valldeperas, R.J.: Their Will Undone (HarperCollins/Quill Tree 978-0063388765, $19.99, 367pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/02/2026)

Young-adult fantasy novel. Kasik must retrieve Nina and bring her to the emperor, however the path back brings them to dangerous places. Kasik questions her loyalty when desire starts to take over. A first novel.

 

Yang, Tessa: The Jellyfish Problem (Penguin Random House/Berkley 978-0593955826, $30.00, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/02/2026)

Magical realism novel. Dr. Jo Ness gets a call from Nadia who tells her of a giant jellyfish terrorizing her island. Jo decides to fly over to the island where she meets Clementine, a jellyfish that changes everyone who sees it. A first novel.

 

Young-do, Lee: The Heart of the Nhaga (Harper Voyager US 978-0063349896, $32.00, 448pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 06/02/2026)

Fantasy novel, book one of the Bird That Drinks Tears series. The world is divided in two, the Tokebbi to the north, and the Nhaga to the south. No one has crossed the border in centuries, but that’s about to change.

 

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The post New Book Releases: June 2, 2026 appeared first on Locus.

The Locus Selected Books by Author list has been updated on our Forthcoming Books page, with information from the June 2026 issue covering upcoming titles from genre houses slated through December 2026. Find out about your favorite authors’ upcoming books!

For the complete list of books by publisher, subscribe to our print magazine or purchase the June issue in print or digital editions, available June 1, 2026.

The post Forthcoming Books Through December 2026 appeared first on Locus.

Today's links

• Molly Crabapple's 'Here Where We Live Is Our Country': An essential book for this moment and for the moments that led to it.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: Home chemistry sets in danger; Every pirate wants to be an admiral; Painful computer workarounds; JPEG patent invalidated; UBS whistleblower v USA (x USA); David Foster Wallace x tennis; Who cares about "bandwidth hogs?"
• Upcoming appearances: London, Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh, South Bend.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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Molly Crabapple's 'Here Where We Live Is Our Country' (permalink)

Molly Crabapple's Here Where We Live Is Our Country is one of the most important, timely and salient works of history I've ever read. It's a history of the Jewish Labor Bund, a socialist, internationalist organization that once dominated Jewish political identity:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/646320/here-where-we-live-is-our-country-by-molly-crabapple/

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were hundreds of thousands of Bund members, both in the Pale of Settlement (the rural regions of the Russian empire that the Tsar confined most Jews to) and in diasporic centers like New York City. The Bund played an important role in the Russian Revolution and in the resistance to the rise of European fascism, and fought valiantly in the antifascist underground guerrilla bands in Nazi-occupied territories.

Despite this faded prominence, the Bund is all but unknown today. I was only vaguely aware of it, even though I attended seven years' worth of Yiddish classes at the Workmen's Circle, a Bund-originated socialist fraternal organization, and was bar-mitzvahed at a Workmen's Circle hall. It wasn't until I read about the Bund in Naomi Klein's essential 2023 book Doppelganger that I first caught a glimmer of its significance:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

The thesis of Doppelganger is that the world is full of "mirror world" pairs with opposite political valences. For example, the mirror world version of the health justice movement is MAHA. Both MAHA and health justice share many commonalities (such as a skepticism of Big Pharma and its captured regulators), but arrive at totally different conclusions. Health justice demands universal access to medical care, compulsory licenses and patent reform for life-saving medicines, and systemic interventions to address discrimination against gender minorities, women, and racialized people. MAHA starts from the same diagnosis, but arrives at a totally different prescription: "eating clean," buying unregulated supplements from grifters, rejecting vaccines, attributing chronic health problems to personal moral failings, along with a conspiratorial rejection of life-saving medication.

Mirror worlds are everywhere. One chapter of Klein's work deals with the "mirror worlds" of Jewish identity and what radical Jews once called "the Jewish question":

https://ernestmandel.org/english/works/Jewish-Question-Since-World-War-II

In the 19th century, antisemitism was often described as "the socialism of fools." In the real world, we observe the dominance of parasitic finance capital over productive labor and embark upon a great class struggle to seize the means of production. In the mirror world, antisemites observe this same fact, combine it with the fact that some of these bankers are Jewish, and embark on a genocidal program of antisemitic violence.

But antisemites weren't the only mirror-world pairing with a view on "the Jewish question." Early 20th century Jews also lived on either side of the political looking-glass. On one side, you had the Bundists, whose motto (and the title of Crabapple's book) was "Here, where we live, is our country." For Bundists, Jews belonged everywhere Jews were. As the Jewish socialist Meyer London wrote, "Thousands of Jewish boys and girls pray to God not to lead them again out of Egypt, but to help them free Egypt."

The Bund saw its struggle as just one aspect of the universal struggle for liberation. They understood that persecuted minorities everywhere labored under the double bind of racist and class oppression (and further, that women labored under gender oppression), but they also understood that these identity markers were tactical facts about how these workers should set about freeing themselves.

They didn't mistake identity for a strategic difference: the goal was always universal liberation, and the reason to consider identity-based oppression was to ensure that every comrade was brought along in the struggle. As Crabapple writes, the Bund more-or-less invented intersectional analysis, and they practiced it with an eye to all the struggles of the world. Bund newspapers (even those published by the Bund underground in the Warsaw Ghetto) closely tracked the struggles of Black workers in the Jim Crow south, just as the Black radical press of the day reported closely on antisemitic lynchings in Europe. The Bund underground even managed to send telegrams of support to Gandhi from Nazi-occupied Poland.

On the other side of the Jewish mirror was (of course) Zionism. Zionism and the Bund were founded in the same year, in response to the same events. The Bund was founded in secret by exiled radical Jews in Vilna whom the Tsar had banished for their resistance activities. Zionism was founded in Geneva by Theodor Herzl, who sheltered Jews who had fled Tsarist Russia to escape antisemitic violence.

Where the Bund called for universalism and solidarity with all workers to keep Jews safe in every place where Jews lived, Zionists dreamed of a Jewish homeland, a stronghold to which Jews could retreat from the world. Where the Bund fought antisemites who would banish or exterminate Jews, Zionist leaders were willing to align themselves with antisemites, finding common cause in the idea that European Jewry should abandon Europe in favor of Palestine.

Indeed, the Balfour Declaration – which established a plan for the UK handing over its occupied territories in Palestine to create a Jewish homeland – was fomented by vicious antisemites as part of a plan to ethnically cleanse the UK of all Jews:

https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/232119

As Crabapple documents in detail, in the ensuing decades of struggle that followed, Zionist leaders repeatedly entered into alliances with antisemitic politicians, even those who presided over (and sometimes directed) campaigns of racist terror against Jews. Despite their mutual hatred, they shared a common goal: terrorizing Europe's Jews out of Europe and into Palestine.

Meanwhile, Bundists never wavered from their rejection of antisemites. In the Bundists' socialist, internationalist program, the pursuit of a Jewish homeland merely dangled the possibility of Jewish liberation – at the expense of Palestinians, and without having anything to offer to all the other oppressed peoples of the world.

While I discovered the Bund through reading Naomi Klein, many others learned about it from Crabapple's widely circulated 2018 New York Review of Books article, "My Great-Grandfather the Bundist":

https://archive.is/20260518010455/https://www.nybooks.com/online/2018/10/06/my-great-grandfather-the-bundist/

Predictably, Crabapple's article provoked attacks from Zionists who told Crabapple they blamed the Bund for its own extermination. In their telling, the Bund's stubborn refusal to confront antisemitism as "history's oldest hatred" was a suicidal delusion that led their members into the Nazis' mass graves.

But for many Jews, Crabapple's article was a revelation about a different way to be Jewish, an identity that rejected the Apartheid state of Israel (South African Apartheid and the state of Israel share a birth year, and Apartheid South Africa and Israel carried on a robust program of mutual trade in arms and surveillance tools):

https://imeu.org/resources/key-issues/fact-sheet-an-overview-apartheid-south-africa-israel/275

This revelation only gained salience and prominence after October 7, 2023, when Israel responded to a massacre perpetrated by Hamas by embarking on a years-long program of genocide and extraterritorial aggression. Zionists have defended these crimes against humanity as inseparable from Jewish identity and the only plausible answer to "the Jewish question."

Israel's defenders insist that even naming the genocide in Palestine (let alone opposing it) is inherently antisemitic. Ironically, Israel's loudest cheerleaders are the millions of antisemitic evangelical Christian Zionists who vastly outnumber Jewish Zionists, who support Israel in hopes of bringing about a Biblical prophecy in which Christ returns and every Jew is cast down to Hell.

In the years since, Crabapple's work to revive the Bund has only gained adherents, especially among Jews who refuse to accept that their safety can only be secured through mass slaughter and imperial conquest. Crabapple's response to this burgeoning movement is this book, a massive, heroic, brilliant, and pitiless history of the Bund that proposes its own answer to "the Jewish question."

Beyond its political importance, Here Where We Live Is Our Country is a remarkable scholarly and artistic achievement. Crabapple taught herself to speak and read Yiddish so that she could consume primary sources, and she crisscrossed the globe to see and research the key sites of Jewish oppression and the Jewish liberation struggle.

It's a monumental book. Thanks to Crabapple's voluminous research, Here Where We Live delivers a blow-by-blow look at the Bund's rise and its triumphs, but even more importantly, the tactical disagreements, factional disputes, and personal animus that too often snatched defeat from the jaws of victory for these committed revolutionaries.

At times, Crabapple's tick-tock of these fights seems to embody the wry maxim: "Two Jews, three arguments." But the point of all this nuanced, textured detail isn't to rehash the tittle-tattle of the previous century, nor is it to show off Crabapple's prowess as a researcher. Rather, in rehearsing these fights, Crabapple shows how reasonable these disputes seemed at the time, and how terrible the consequences were for all concerned.

In this mode, Crabapple manages the admirable achievement of being both sympathetic and pitiless. Crabapple, after all, is a veteran political activist who has traveled extensively to active war-zones to document atrocities and offer mutual aid to those fighting for justice. She's endured every failure that radical politics can manifest, sat through every kind of bad meeting, and she recognizes in these disputes the same personalities and personal failings that have broken her heart a hundred times. She understands why these people are this way – but she can also see, with perfect hindsight, the ghastly horrors that followed, which swamp any matter of principle these people might have stood on.

There's plenty of this sympathetic pitilessness to go around, and it's not just the Bund or Jews who come in for it. Every factionalist blunder in pre-Revolutionary Russia, in the Soviet Union, in interwar Poland, and in occupied Poland comes in for examination – as do every imprisonment, maiming, rape and death that these blunders opened the door to. Crabapple's heroes are principled, but they are imperfect, and sometimes foolish, and sometimes self-deluding (for example, the Palestinian leader who insists that his rank-and-file fighters want to establish a multi-ethnic democracy, despite the undeniable presence in their number of people who want to banish all Jews from Palestine).

The twentieth century was a charnel house, and so the cost of these mistakes is high. Often, these mistakes lead to mass graves, with these mistake-makers tangled among the bodies. They never had the chance to learn from their mistakes. But, through Crabapple's work, we might.

It is in the postscript to this book that its true message lands. After 480 pages, we arrive at Crabapple's conclusion. In reflecting on these people, who died in their millions and whose memory was all but erased, she asks, "Did the Bund fail?"

Her answer is a resounding no. The Bund lost, but it did not fail. The Bund was failed, as were the Zionists, the Roma, European socialists, disabled and queer people – everyone the Nazis burned, gassed, or buried alive. These people cried out to the rest of the world – to America, to Canada, to the UK, to all the places that were not under Nazi occupation – and begged for help, for safe passage, for rescue.

The world slammed its doors. Even after they joined the war, they refused to admit Jews and other victims of Nazi genocide. They refused visas, closed borders, turned back boats of escapees, sometimes sending them back to occupied Europe to be slaughtered.

In his review in the New York Review of Books, historian Adam Hochschild writes:

Imagine that the United States had not passed the Immigration Act of 1924, which essentially slammed the door on almost all newcomers for more than forty years. Without it, Jewish immigration to the US would surely have soared during the 1920s and 1930s. Some 2.5 million Jews, most of them hoping for a better life than they had in tsarist Russia, had already come here between 1880 and 1924. Then, even in the decade before Hitler took power, Jews still had many reasons to leave Europe. Poland, whose Jewish population of 2.8 million was the continent’s largest, was a cauldron of antisemitism between the wars, with outbreaks of deadly violence, segregated seating and de facto quotas in many universities, and numerous other humiliations.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2026/05/28/a-dream-of-a-socialist-commonwealth-the-jewish-bund/

No one who's paid attention during this century's xenophobic policies and attacks on refugees can fail to see the parallels. And no one who's paid attention to the genocide in Gaza and the official response in the "free" world to Palestinian solidarity movements can fail to see those parallels, either.

For the Jews who are told – by Zionists, including the millions of American gentile Zionists who outnumber Jewish Zionists 30:1 – that all this is being done for us, that our continued existence requires it, Crabapple's history of the Bund shows us what's on the other side of the mirror. As NYT editor Max Strasser writes in his review of Here Where We Live:

[The Bund was] the kind of movement leftists today dream about — political party, social movement, mutual aid group — with tens of thousands of members. The Bund published newspapers and ran soup kitchens and summer camps; its athletes competed in a socialist version of the Olympics. Bund activists organized across Eastern Europe and beyond — they helped elect a congressman on the Lower East Side.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/06/books/review/here-where-we-live-is-our-country-molly-crabapple.html

The politics we dream of isn't a fantasy. It's the politics our grandparents lived – a politics that wasn't lost, but rather, erased. Erased by Nazis and Stalinists, who committed wholesale slaughter of Bundists. But that politics was also erased by Zionists, who swept through the Displaced Persons' camps of post-war Europe, imposing a draft on the Jews who'd been penned in those stinking camps by a world that refused to welcome Jews, even after the horrors of the death-camps were widely known. Zionists bullied and coerced these Jews – including Bundists who rejected their cause – to serve as foot-soldiers in the Israeli army, even beating elderly parents until their sons and daughters agreed to fight.

Bundists always rejected all forms of ethno-nationalism. As Jews, they had lived in the violence and oppression that always attended every ethno-nationalist program. They never imagined that Israel would escape this fate. As the Bundist leader Henryk Erlich wrote in 1933: "We are not a chosen people. Our nationalism is just as ugly, just as harmful as the nationalisms of all the other nations."

Crabapple has done heroic and important work in excavating this history. She has vindicated the sacrifices made by the Bundist archivists who smuggled their papers out of Nazi occupation and gave their lives to ensure that some day their story could be told.

In so doing, she has also vindicated her own great-grandfather, Sam Rothbort, a Bundist who fled the Pale of Settlement for New York City, whose art-practice traveled to Crabapple through her mother, who is also a painter. It wasn't just the art-practices that traveled – it was also the art, and it was one of Rothbort's paintings ("Itka, the Bundist," depicting a girl throwing a rock through a window) that set her on this journey.

This volume is also graced by Crabapple's own art, stark monochrome ink-washes in her characteristic style, which bring these long-dead people to vivid life. They're a reminder of the role that culture plays in every radical movement, of the ways that the Bund welcomed its members to live a radical life through sport and song and picnics, and not just meetings and street-demonstrations.

Even before this book, Crabapple had made a mark through her paintings and writings. But with Here Where We Live Is Our Country, Crabapple has given us a magnum opus, a book that might help us turn the tide of history.

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• What Is a Dickover? https://daringfireball.net/2026/05/what_is_a_dickover

• Inventing ELIZA: How the First Chatbot Shaped the Future of AI https://sites.google.com/view/elizaarchaeology/book

• Inside Graham Platner’s Plan To Wield Power https://www.levernews.com/graham-platners-power/

• mcmodernslopcore https://www.tumblr.com/mcmansionhell/817896092499869696/mcmodernslopcore

• Locus Award for Best Non-fiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_Award_for_Best_Non-fiction

---

Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Sign a letter supporting the BBC’s online archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060704182401/http://www.freeculture.org.uk/letters/CreativeArchiveLetter

#20yrsago Home chemistry under assault https://web.archive.org/web/20060603021709/http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/chemistry_pr.html

#20yrsago Cliches to avoid when writing about women and video-games https://web.archive.org/web/20060704223941/http://www.richardcobbett.co.uk/codex/clicktoread/filingcabinet/writing_a_girls_in_games_article/

#20yrsago JPEG patent invalidated https://web.archive.org/web/20060613015757/http://www.pubpat.org/Chen672Rejected.htm

#20yrsago SF story about AI-human love https://www.salon.com/2006/05/30/perfect_man/

#15yrsago Sensation: Acerbic novel about pop culture and popular madness as functions of parasitic manipulation https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/30/sensation-acerbic-novel-about-pop-culture-and-popular-madness-as-functions-of-parasitic-manipulation/

#15yrsago Every Pirate Wants to Be an Admiral: why less copyright gets you more culture https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2011/may/30/internet-piracy-cory-doctorow

#15yrsago Social incentives vs economic incentives in crowdsourced work https://web.archive.org/web/20110602184500/https://blog.crowdflower.com/2011/05/designing-incentives-for-crowdsourcing-workers/

#15yrsago Painful workarounds from computer novices https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/hmlmd/what_is_the_most_painful_way_you_have_seen_your/

#10yrsago To imagine the ocean of the future: picture a writhing mass of unkillable tentacles, forever https://web.archive.org/web/20160530145354/https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/05/octopuses-may-indeed-be-your-new-overlords/

#10yrsago When Brad Birkenfeld blew the whistle on UBS, the US government paid him $104M and sent him to jail https://web.archive.org/web/20160602152611/http://fullmeasure.news/news/politics/the-whistleblower-05-23-2016

#10yrsago The last time there were this many unsold $100M+ homes on the market, the world economy imploded https://web.archive.org/web/20160529040314/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/business/a-worrisome-pileup-of-100-million-homes.html

#10yrsago David Foster Wallace’s essays on tennis, finally collected between one set of covers https://www.csmonitor.com/Arts-Culture/Books/2016/0530/String-Theory-gathers-the-brainy-witty-tennis-writing-of-David-Foster-Wallace

#10yrsago United Arab Emirates hacked UK journalist https://citizenlab.ca/research/stealth-falcon/

#10yrsago Internet economics 101: “bandwidth hogs” considered harmless https://web.archive.org/web/20160530155601/https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/should-broadband-data-hogs-pay-more-isp-economics-say-no/

#20yrsago JPEG patent invalidated https://web.archive.org/web/20060613015757/http://www.pubpat.org/Chen672Rejected.htm

#20yrsago SF story about AI-human love https://www.salon.com/2006/05/30/perfect_man/

#15yrsago Sensation: Acerbic novel about pop culture and popular madness as functions of parasitic manipulation https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/30/sensation-acerbic-novel-about-pop-culture-and-popular-madness-as-functions-of-parasitic-manipulation/

#10yrsago To imagine the ocean of the future: picture a writhing mass of unkillable tentacles, forever https://web.archive.org/web/20160530145354/https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/05/octopuses-may-indeed-be-your-new-overlords/

#10yrsago When Brad Birkenfeld blew the whistle on UBS, the US government paid him $104M and sent him to jail https://web.archive.org/web/20160602152611/http://fullmeasure.news/news/politics/the-whistleblower-05-23-2016

#10yrsago The last time there were this many unsold $100M+ homes on the market, the world economy imploded https://web.archive.org/web/20160529040314/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/business/a-worrisome-pileup-of-100-million-homes.html

#10yrsago David Foster Wallace’s essays on tennis, finally collected between one set of covers https://www.csmonitor.com/Arts-Culture/Books/2016/0530/String-Theory-gathers-the-brainy-witty-tennis-writing-of-David-Foster-Wallace

#10yrsago United Arab Emirates hacked UK journalist https://citizenlab.ca/research/stealth-falcon/

#10yrsago Internet economics 101: “bandwidth hogs” considered harmless https://web.archive.org/web/20160530155601/https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/should-broadband-data-hogs-pay-more-isp-economics-say-no/

---

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• SXSW London, Jun 2
  https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901

• Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10
  https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow

• LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19
  https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant

• Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21
  https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026

• Toronto: TBA, Jun 23

• NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24
  https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html

• Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559

• Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26
  https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628

• Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17
  https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales

• South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6
  https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/

---

Recent appearances (permalink)

• On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI

• EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu)
  https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification

• The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers)
  https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/

• Enshittification (99% Invisible)
  https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/

• Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas)
  https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor

---

Latest books (permalink)

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce

• "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).

• "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

---

Upcoming books (permalink)

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/)

• "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

• "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027

---

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor.

• "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

• "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

---

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

---

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Visit our bookshop.org page to purchase this week’s new books and support your local bookstore. And us!

---

 

Banerjee, Anindita & Vint, Sherryl: Reactionary Worldbuilding (MIT Press 978-0262053679, $90.00, 434pp, formats: paperback, 5/26/2026)

Non-fiction collection with in-depth examination of the process of worldbuilding, and its connection to ideology. Includes apocalyptic reenactments, alternative histories, conspiracy theories, and more.

 

Frost, Jeaniene: A Curse of Beasts and Magic (Tor/Bramble 978-1250395993, $20.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Fantasy romance novel. Ever since Raine Stones family was killed, a beast that survives off of violence has lived inside of her. She stops the beasts energy until one night she uses it to save an elderly man, and finds a new realm of danger. Simultaneous with the Tor UK edition.

 

Haig, Matt: The Midnight Train (Penguin Random House/Viking 978-0593833377, $30.00, 304pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Time-travel fantasy novel. The Midnight Train can take you back to moments from the past. Wilbur wishes to use it to revisit his honeymoon with his ex-wife Maggie, but doing so is a big risk.

 

Hairston, Andrea: The Redemption Center Is Closed on Sundays (Tor 978-1250807311, $32.99, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Science fiction novel. After the murder of a local celebrity, Oona the Saint Berdoodle teams up with a group of misfits to solve the case. Oona secretly knows who the killer is, but the killer knows she knows, and is trying to keep her silent forever.

 

Ishiguro, Naomi: The Rainshadow Orphans (Simon & Schuster/Saga Press 978-3751791564, $27.00, 641pp, formats: ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Fantasy novel, the first in a trilogy inspired by Japanese folklore. The Lucky Crows—a criminal organization—is terrorizing Rainshadow City. A family is seeking revenge against the Lucky Crows after the murder of their aunt. A first novel. Simultaneous with the Simon & Schuster UK edition.

 

Knútsdóttir, Hildur & Kowal, Mary Robinette: Dead Weight (Tor/Nightfire 978-1250329295, $24.96, 160pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Horror novella. Unnur befriends Ásta after finding her lost cat. They form a quick bond, but when things become violent, their friendship is truly put to the test. Translated from Icelandic by Mary Robinette Kowal.

 

Lourey, Jess: The Blackthorn Women (Amazon/Thomas & Mercer 978-1662535260, $16.99, 320pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Fantasy novel. With Katrine Blackthorn’s return to her family’s mansion in Faith Falls, Minnesota, all of her family’s fears start manifesting. Katrine needs to confront the dark secret of her family’s lineage if her family is to survive.

 

Lukens, F.T.: The Last Best Quest Ever (Simon & Schuster/McElderry 978-1665950978, $19.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Young-adult humorous fantasy romance novel. Ellinore has one final quest to slay a mythical beast, but the problem is all of her quests were lies. On this quest she must decide whether she wants to continue the lie, or become someone new.

 

McBride, Hazel: A Queen Crowned in Flames (Penguin Random House/Delacorte 978-0593972977, $30.00, 480pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Fantasy romance novel, the second in a duology inspired by Celtic mythology. A queen named Aemyra Daercathian is fleeing. She must decide whether or not to make a great sacrifice in order to save her people.

 

Oh, Ellen: Jin Young, In Between (Penguin Random House/Crown 978-0593125984, $19.99, 272pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Young-adult fantasy romance novel about lovers in parallel worlds. Jin Young teleports to Mina’s world inside of a webcomic, but each time he does so, catastrophic weather nearly destroys his world.

 

Randall, Breanne: Curses, Keys, and Secret Societies (Penguin Random House/Dell 978-0593875025, $20.00, 384pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Fantasy novel, second in the Sisters of Light and Shadow series. Eléa Deniz returns home to discover the estate is now home to the Shadowcraft Academy. Eléa must find her power, and resist the prophecy involving her magic. Simultaneous with the Bloomsbury UK edition.

 

Roche, Máire: Bromantasy (Penguin Random House/Putnam 979-8217180707, $20.00, 352pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Humorous fantasy romance novel. Juniper O’Reilly and Mo Elmthorn set on a quest to slay a monster, only to discover the “monster” is a little girl. On the quest they may be forced to confront the truth of their “platonic” friendship. A first novel.

 

Tsamaase, Tlotlo: House of Margins (Kensington/Erewhon 978-1-64566-104-7, $28.00, 432pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Horror novel. Anaya, an up-and-coming African author disappears during a writing residency. Her sister Ranewa is determined to find out the truth on her disappearance, and realizes it’s more horrifying than she could have thought. A first novel.

 

Varghese, Anuja: A Kiss of Crimson Ash (Orbit US 978-0316591959, $19.99, 396pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Fantasy romance novel, the first in the Games of the Goddess trilogy. An ancient goddess teams up with a newly crowned queen, a heartsick prince, a common thief, and a courtesan with magic in her blood to stop the corrupt king of Nandapore. A first novel. Simultaneous with the Orbit UK edition.

 

Viel, Neena: I’ll Watch Your Baby (St. Martin’s Griffin 978-1250906342, $18.99, 336pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Supernatural horror/thriller novel. In 1994, Bless finally found the family she needed, but someone had unfinished business with her. She’s forced to face horrors from her past and her present, and there’s only one way out. A first novel. Simultaneous with the Titan Books UK edition.

 

Yeeun, Cho & Ryu, Sung: Teddy Bears Never Die (Orbit US/Run For It 978-0316601245, $19.99, 304pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Genre-bending novel with horror elements. Hwayoung, who lost her mother in a mass-poisoning attack, teams with Doha, whose mind is trapped in a teddy bear, to get revenge. Translated from Korean by Sung Ryu.

 

Kendall, Keala: That Which Feeds Us (Penguin Random House/Random House 979-8217117963, $20.99, 352pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Young-adult Hawaiian Gothic horror/supernatural thriller novel involving the horrors of colonialism. Native Hawaiian teen Lehua goes to a luxury resort in search of her missing twin, and is haunted by dreams. A first novel.

 

Hudson, Lexy: Wonders Never Cease (Titan Books UK 978-1835416174, £10.99, 384pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Fantasy novel. Trix and Sander are ballerinas and their company’s star attraction. Trix falls for Sander, but finds herself questioning his past, and at the peak of their popularity, he goes missing. A first novel.

 

Lem, Darkly: Transmentation | Transgression (Blackstone Publishing 979-8228648807, $24.29, 452pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Science fiction multiverse novel, the second in the Formation Saga series. Malculm starts to question the motives of the society he works for. Prieme Dhalgram is doing whatever she can to expand Burel Hird’s territory across the multiverse.

 

Lemon, Sarah Nicole: A Dark and Wild Wood (Harper Voyager 978-0063441583, $32.00, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Fantasy novel. When Salomé’s sister disappears, she’s determined to find a way to save her. She travels into the wild black forest where she has an encounter with Lord Death, and he takes her in as his apprentice, but is it safe to trust Death? A first novel.

 

Palmer, Suzanne: Ode to the Half-Broken (Astra House/DAW 978-0756419585, $29.00, 442pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 05/26/2026)

Science fiction novel. Be—an old robot—has lived a life of isolation after the world almost ended three decades ago. Be is brought out of solitude by a cyborg dog, and they have to come to terms with who they’ve become.

 

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The post New Book Releases: May 26, 2026 appeared first on Locus.

Visit our bookshop.org page to purchase this week’s new books and support your local bookstore. And us!

---

Allen, Violet: Plastic, Prism, Void (LittlePuss Press 978-1964322025, $19.95, 336pp, formats: paperback, 05/19/2026)

Trans fantasy romance novel. Acrasia, a trans intergalactic moth goddess, has a love-hate relationship with a trans mech pilot from another universe, and is determiend to keep him in her dimension. A first novel.

 

Anonymous: A Breath of Time (Flame Tree Collections UK 978-1835627822, $30.00, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 05/19/2026)

Fantasy romance anthology. Stories involve time-bending, time traveling, different timelines, and alternate history. Part of Flame Tree’s Romantic Fantasy series.

 

Barker, RJ: Mortedant’s Peril (Tor 978-1250398802, $28.99, 432pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 05/19/2026)

Fantasy novel, first in the Trials of Irody Hasp series. Irody is a low-level Mortedant — a thankless job that involves reading the last thoughts of the dead — and has to clear his name when he’s implicated in his own apprentice’s murder. Simultaneous with the Macmillan/Tor UK edition.

 

Bruce, Camilla: The Temptation of Charlotte North (Penguin Random House/Del Rey 978-0593724972, $18.99, 448pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/19/2026)

Gothic supernatural novel. Rebellious young woman Charlotte sees potential in a spirit on a remote island, but must overcome the wishes of a priest and schoolteacher to banish it.

 

Chefchaouni, Loretta: The Lustrous Dark (Peachtree Teen 978-1682638378, $19.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 05/19/2026)

Dark fantasy novel. Midwife’s apprentice Shay discovers tries to save her long-lost mother, only to be abandoned in a deadly, ghoul-inhabited forest.

 

Coverly, S.D.: The Arcane Arts (Penguin Random House/Del Rey 978-0593974223, $29.00, 400pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 05/19/2026)

Dark academia romance novel. Ellsbeth is drawn to arcane Newlyn University, meets Professor Thaddeus Rawlins, and falls into a romance with him as he supervises her thesis in illegal mind-control magic. This is a pen name for Dan Frey & Dana Schwartz.

 

Fitzgerald, Patrick: Navigators You Can Trust (Podium Publishing 979-8347007738, $19.99, 420pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/19/2026)

Fantasy adventure novel, first in the Navigators trilogy. The Navigational Brotherhood use their magical abilities as peacekeepers in the Perpetual War; fresh recruits get sent on a mission to retrieve a powerful talisman.

 

Isaacs, Robert: It’s Hard to Be an Animal (Grand Central 978-1538773284, $18.99, 288pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/19/2026)

Magical realism/fantasy novel. On a blind date, Henry suddenly gains the ability to understand animals, and overhears three rats discussing a corpse in the New York subway, prompting him and his date to investigate.

 

King, Rachael: Song of the Saltings (Simon & Schuster/McElderry 978-1665984331, $19.99, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 05/19/2026)

Young-adult folk horror novel. On Lotta’s island, a fearsome creature called the Glimm demands yearly sacrifices, but it rejected Lotta as a child. Now the sacrificial horses don’t seem to appease it, and a blight is harming the island.

 

Mare, Annie: A Star-Cursed Heart (Ace 978-0593817506, $18.99, 352pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/19/2026)

Fantasy romance novel. In modern-day Salem, Lucy Prynne and Ashes Steadfast are descended from the town’s original families and made to fight each with conflicting curses, but the two women are also friends in love. Mare has co-authored mystery and romance novels with Ruthie Knox (some under the name Mae Marvel), along with new-adult romance as Robin York.

 

Moore, Alan: I Hear a New World (Bloomsbury UK/Archer 978-1-526643292, £20.00, 336pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 05/21/2026)

Fantasy novel, second in the Long London quintet. In 1958, Dennis Knuckleyard discovers that a key from the Great When that he gave away years ago has unleashed occult creatures on London.

 

Nayler, Ray: Palaces of the Crow (Macmillan/Farrar, Straus, Giroux/MCD 978-0374620752, $28.07, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 05/19/2026)

Speculative novel. A group of four survives the German blitzkrieg in 1941; as they cross forested borderland, an intelligent flock of crows befriends by Neriya, a Jewish girl dreaming of becoming a biologist. Simultaneous with the Orion UK/Weidenfeld & Nicolson edition.

 

Raasch, Sara: The Fake Divination Offense (Tor/Bramble 978-1250428790, $19.99, 336pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/19/2026)

Fantasy sports romance novel, second in the Magic and Romance duology. Rawball star half-giant Orok is forced into a PR relationship with fan-favorite cheerleader Alexo Warden.

 

Rex, T.K.: The Wildcraft Drones (Stelliform Press 978-1998466030, $15.99, 202pp, formats: paperback, 05/21/2026)

Collection of fourteen sci-fi tales. In the future, humans grapple with AI intelligence alongside climate crisis. Scientists make contact with a wild dolphin, and a drone is depressed after his human companion dies.

 

Rozakis, Caitlin: Startup Hell (Titan Books UK 978-1835415863, $19.99, 432pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/19/2026)

Satirical fantasy novel. Morgan, junior salesperson at a tech startup, is sucked into the infernal plane. after she discovers her dead boss tried to trade his soul for profits.

 

Sawyer, Robert J.: The Downloaded 2: Ghosts in the Machine (Shadowpaw Press 978-1998273560, $16.99, 260pp, formats: paperback, audiobook, 05/19/2026)

Science Fiction Novel. Ex-convict Roscoe Koudoulian re-uploads his consciousness into cyberspace, where he’s confronted with someone he left for dead centuries ago.

 

Smith, Ali: Glyph (Penguin Random House/Pantheon 978-0593701584, $28.00, 288pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/19/2026)

Speculative literary novel, a companion to Gliff. Sisters Petra and Patch, now grown and estranged, reunite after Patch finds a phantom horse destroying her bedroom furniture. First US edition (Hamish Hamilton 1/26).

 

Summers, Georgia: Trollheim: Tale of Systir (Titan Books UK 978-1835416648, $28.99, 288pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 05/19/2026)

Fantasy novel. A Nordic girl, Sýstir, runs for her life when her mother is executed for witchcraft. She finds sanctuary among the mythical beings of Trollheim, but seeks to find out what happened to her missing sister Ada.

 

Tanzer, Molly: And Side By Side They Wander (Tordotcom 978-1250382054, $24.99, 112pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 05/19/2026)

SF novella. Fennel Tycho works with ragtag team to pull off an interstellar heist from an alien museum refusing to return humankind’s greatest art to Earth.

 

Villaire, Alyssa: The Neon Sky (Little, Brown 978-0316574983, $19.99, 400pp, formats: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/19/2026)

Young-adult fantasy novel, sequel to The Glittering Edge. Penny and her witch boyfriend Alonso try to help their friend Corey undo the bloody magical bargain that made his family rich — but the cost of breaking it is taking a life.

 

Yeeun, Cho: Teddy Bears Never Die (Headline UK/Wildfire 978-1035431250, £14.99, 304pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 05/21/2026)

Genre-bending novel with horror elements. Hwayoung, who lost her mother in a mass-poisoning attack, teams with Doha, whose mind is trapped in a teddy bear, to get revenge. Translated from the Korean by Sung Ryu.

 

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