2026 has been named the National Year of Reading in an effort to reverse a decline in reading for pleasure among UK children and adults.

Reading is an important skill for navigating the world, physically and emotionally, and a love of reading can be a gift that lasts a lifetime.

It’s a hobby that allows us to engage with distant worlds, to see things from new perspectives, and to challenge ourselves and our beliefs. Reading has also been linked to increased empathy, improved memory, and stress reduction.

To help you make the most of this government-backed initiative, here’s a rundown of five of the most highly anticipated books due out this year. But first, a closer look at what a Year of Reading entails and why it matters.

Finding joy in reading helps us to see the world through fresh eyes

Theory of Mind is the human capacity to acknowledge that other people have different beliefs, desires, and thought processes from our own. Understanding that we don’t all feel the same way, come from the same place, or have the same shared history is important. So too is building empathy.

And reading can help by allowing you to see the world through a new set of eyes and understand the challenges others are going through. This is an important skill to develop in children, but it can be nurtured in adults too, especially as the world evolves around us.

The National Year of Reading aims to inspire people to discover or rediscover the joy of reading, but also to make reading an enriching daily habit.

5 highly anticipated books coming out in 2026

1. Vigil by George Saunders (out now)

Predominantly a short story writer, Saunders’ first foray into the longer form resulted in the Booker Prize-winning Lincoln in the Bardo. That story dealt with Abraham Lincoln’s grief at the loss of his young son and was told primarily through the ghosts at Oak Hill Cemetery, where William Lincoln was buried.

The bardo relates to the intermediary place between life and death.

Saunders returns to similar themes in his follow-up novel, Vigil. As oil tycoon KJ Boone lies dying, death doula Jill Blaine tends to his soul. But Boone is unrepentant, and his nearness to death is awakening more than just ghosts.

2. Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami (17 March)

Winner of the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s most prestigious literary award, Mieko Kawakami returns with a novel about female friendship and overcoming hardship.

In 1990s Tokyo, teenager Hana escapes poverty with the help of an older woman, Kimiko, and the two eventually set up and run a bar called Lemon. Initially a haven, the bar – and their connection to it – begins to turn sour, threatening the two women’s friendship and everything that Hana holds dear.

3. The Midnight Train by Matt Haig (5 May)

Back in 2020, Matt Haig released his bestseller The Midnight Library. It followed Nora Seeds, who, on her last night on Earth, found herself transported to the Midnight Library.

There, among an infinite array of books, Nora was given the opportunity to make important life choices again and live a different, better life. But with infinite paths to choose from, making the right choice was never going to be easy.

Now, six years later, Haig returns to the world of The Midnight Library with The Midnight Train.

In this time-travel love story, the titular train allows travellers to return to their own past to relive the moments that meant the most to them.

4. The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout (5 May)

Elizabeth Strout is arguably best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning 2008 novel Olive Kitteridge, and more recently for My Name is Lucy Barton and its follow-ups.

2026 sees the release of The Things We Never Say. Teacher Artie Dam appears to have it all – a good job, a loving wife, weekends spent at parties or sailing in Massachusetts Bay. But inside, he feels alone, and when a life-altering secret is revealed, Artie must find new ways to make sense of the world around him – from friendships and grief to the importance of truth.

5. Land by Maggie O’Farrell (2 June)

O’Farrell’s Hamnet won the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction and has been enjoying more recent success thanks to a big-screen adaptation starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal.

That novel told the story of the death, aged 11, of William Shakespeare’s son with Anne Hathaway.

O’Farrell returns with an epic historical novel set in Ireland in the years before and after the Great Famine. Combining the tragic effects of colonisation – separation, rebellion, and lost opportunities – with high adventure in the form of buried treasure, ghosts, and ancient woodland, the story explores the land that inspired it and the people who live and survive there.

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SJP Approved 04/03/2026