Our neighbors across the pond have named 2026 the National Year of Reading with Go All In, a campaign that encourages citizens to "reconnecting reading with the things that already inspire us - from playlists and football matches to films, food and family time." 

Reading for pleasure is on the decline in the UK, as it is here in the US.

• Recent research shows 50% of UK adults read for pleasure, down from 58% in 2015
• The numbers here in the US are even more worrisome: reporting last year indicated that just 16% of Americans are reading for fun, a 40% decrease from our peak of 28% in 2004.

The UK’s Department of Education partnered with more than 60 organizations to create Go All In out of the recognition that "everyone knows reading expands worlds, sharpens minds, and fuels creativity. But fewer of us are making time for it."

• Rather than trying to move people toward reading, Go All In "brings reading to them, through their passions."
• A year-long calendar of events aims to help citizens connect to their existing interests through books, with everything from book sales to trivia competitions to the world’s largest rap lesson.
• The campaign hopes to mobilize 100,000 volunteers and get one million more people actively using libraries.

Books alone won’t save us, as my colleague Sharifah Williams reminds us in this piece, but they can be part of the solution. I’ll be watching Go All In with great interest and envy. May their efforts succeed. -RJS

It’s a good day to be a literary fiction fan.

Tayari Jones’s Kin—her first novel since 2018’s An American Marriage —is already set to be one of my favorite books of the year. It’s a masterfully crafted work, as big-hearted as it is beautifully written, and I expect we’ll see it everywhere from book club picks to Best Of lists to award nominations before 2026 is out.

Lauren Groff is also back this week. Brawler is her first short story collection since 2018, and while her novels are always major events for good reason, it’s her short fiction that really blows my skirt up. No one does sharp-and-weird better than Groff when she’s in her bag, and I can’t wait to pick this one up.

Other highlights:

• 📱 A BookTok star’s memoir about how the clock app taught him to love reading
• 💞 A contemporary romance inspired by When Harry Met Sally
• 🔪 A slasher story about a teen prank gone wrong
• 🧠 An exploration of consciousness and humanity in the age of AI

📫 Subscribe to the New Books newsletter for detailed weekly updates. - RJS

#GetYourPagesIn

A decade ago, Americans read nearly 500 billion pages a year. Then something shifted. We’re now reading 200 billion fewer pages. The ThriftBooks 500 Billion Page Challenge is here to change that.

🙋‍♀️ Join the challenge and make every page count.

George Orwell’s 1949 novel about life under totalitarian rule is back in the news because of, well, you’ve seen the news. Whether you’ve read 1984 or not, you probably have a sense of what it’s about.

• It’s one of those books whose cultural aura exceeds readers’ actual knowledge of it.

You’ve likely encountered quotes from 1984 circulating on social media lately. The Trump-Vance administration’s attempts at fascism regularly invite comparison to The Party of Orwell’s invention, but what you’ll find when you take a close look at the book is a lot more consistent, complicated, and (frighteningly) impressive than anything they’ve managed to pull off.

1984 was immediately recognized as a masterpiece, and it has influenced language and culture more than maybe any other work of 20th-century fiction.

Can you identify the phrase that isn’t from 1984?

• Big Brother
• The Decanting Room
• Newspeak
• Doublethink
• Thought Police

✅ See the answer in the End Notes, and join us for a deep dive into 1984 on Zero to Well-Read.

Here’s a fun literary trend for 2026 and 2027: some of the tween and teen characters you grew up with in beloved book series are coming of age themselves. At least three classic and contemporary series favorites-American Girl, Nancy Drew, and Gossip Girl-will see their characters enter their adult eras very soon. 

• Samantha Parkington of American Girl will star in Samantha: The Next Chapter (October 13). The book, written by bestselling author Fiona Davis, will take Samantha to New York City where she’s working to help educate women about suffrage, only to discover her inheritance and childhood home have been stolen from her.

• Cecily von Ziegesar will revisit her iconic character Blair from Gossip Girl with a summer 2027 book titled Blair. It follows the character’s story 20 years after the initial series’ conclusion as she tries to make her way back to the top of the social ladder on the Upper East Side. 

• Dream team E. Lockhart and Sarah Mlynowski will reimagine iconic girl detective Nancy Drew in a series of books that find her all grown up as a 40-something divorced mom in Brooklyn who, after putting aside her days as an amateur sleuth, is brought back into solving a local mystery with her ex-childhood best friend. Details TBD.

While these three examples of childhood favorites getting a grown-up glow up center the voices and perspectives of white characters, there’s so much fertile ground here that seeing more diverse stories pop up soon wouldn’t be surprising.

• Who wouldn’t want to know what’s going on with artist Claudia Kishi as a 30-something returning home to Stoneybrook or how Jessi’s ballet career led her to amazing locations across the globe?  

And speaking of The Babysitters Club and favorites from youth, there’s a new middle grade book entry to celebrate that series’s 40th this year, too: The Baby-sitters Club Fan Edition: Baby-sitter Summer, a Baby-Sitters Club Super Special. It’s coming July 7 and will feature some of your current favorite middle and YA authors! - KJ

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Censorship has increased exponentially over the last five years. The targets have shifted, even though the intended outcome is the same.

• What began as a flood of book bans at public schools-that is, from the ground level-has largely moved the opposite way, with bans being forced upon libraries by state-level legislation.
• As a result , numerous public libraries have begun to dismantle their young adult collections; others may face this same requirement by the end of the 2026 legislative session, too.

While YA collections are dismantled under the guise of “protecting the kids” from “harmful material,” what’s gone underreported is where and how young adult services in public libraries have become less and less common.

• Budget cuts and shifts in priorities have meant that there are simply fewer librarians specializing in serving teenagers, as well as fewer experts in the kinds of materials available for teenagers.
• Amid these changes , those with actual expertise are finding themselves having to define and defend some of the very basics of young adult literature to colleagues.
• In at least one case in South Carolina, that person lost their role on a public library board for explaining the history and purpose of such a collection geared for teenagers. 

With few places for teenagers to be teenagers, where and how is this demographic supposed to come of age when the books written for them and the spaces developed with them in mind continue to disappear? 

→ Read more about this troubling trend and learn how you can get involved. - KJ

Bsrat Mezghebe’s novel I Hope You Find What You’re Looking For follows a group of three Eritrean American women on the eve of Eritrean independence. Below, she shares her experience writing about Black immigrant communities. I Hope You Find What You’re Looking For is out now, from Liveright and Well-Read Black Girl Books.

My debut novel delves into the secrets of a family of women living in the Washington, D.C. suburbs on the eve of Eritrean independence. It explores the stories we’re told about love, motherhood, and freedom, and the ones we dare to write for ourselves.

As a child of immigrants, I witnessed my loved ones make incredible sacrifices in search of peace for themselves and their home country. But I also witnessed how war and geopolitics were still no match for the drama of everyday life: carving out space for yourself in your family, searching for love and companionship, and finding meaning in your life. Writing this book allowed me to consider how the personal and political intertwine, and how ordinary people respond to extraordinary times.

Fiction’s superpower is to bridge the specific to the universal. While the offerings of English-language novels about Black immigrant communities are still far too slim, I’m excited to share one that resonated with me. Dinaw Mengestu’s The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears poignantly portrayed a Washington, D.C.-based Ethiopian refugee haunted by the same war that my characters survived.

I hope readers of my novel get a glimpse into the inner lives of immigrants, as well as the ways that they shape America and America shapes them.

Winter might be winding down, but the deals at Columbia are just heating up with an end of season sale featuring discounts up to 50% off. We’re talking professional-grade cold-weather essentials for the entire family at prices that actually make sense for your wallet. Don’t wait for the first frost of 2027 to realize you’re unprepared—grab the gear today and cruise through the rest of the season in style.

Did you know? Flynn has written a script for a Tim Burton-directed remake of Attack of the 50-Foot Woman.

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🌟 Can you guess the Hollywood star who is quietly funding a library in LA?

📱 These tips for putting your phone down to engage with movies would also work with books.

🌈 Pick up these eight books with main characters who use they/them pronouns.

🧛 A horror expert explores how vampires sank their teeth into pop culture.

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