The books I have read so far in 2026

Everybody and their momma read Yesteryear and now I can say I have too. The social media tradwife thriller was inconsistent for me. There were chapters that were a 5-star for me, others where I felt a whole block was missing as I didn’t understand how it was woven and what it meant to convey. I think it will make a great movie, cannot wait to see Anne Hathaway making it come to light.

A fresh perspective of the couples of our era in Perfection. Anna and Tom are Italian freelancers and move to Berlin and then to Lisbon, keeping up with the trends and worries of their generation. It was translated by Sophie Hughes whom the author Vincenzo Latronico thanks for writing the book as much as he did. A nice nod to Women in Translation month right there.

Sally Hepworth is an Australian thriller writer and I used to follow her on Instagram. She has a self-deprecating sense of humour and a great sense of style. I read her books The Mother-In-Law and The Soulmate a few years ago and I love her fast-paced books that delve deeply into family dramas. Mad Mabel was no exception, and I loved it too. I was a few chapters in and I immediately thought of a friend I wanted to order it for.

The book revolves around the dual timeline of Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick: as an 81-year-old living in a quiet street in Melbourne and as a child and teenager navigating the hurdles that shaped her adulthood. And how, as people around her started to die, she thrillingly became Mad Mabel.

I love that this book is yet another one with an older female main character, such as The Switch, The Thursday Night Murder Club series and The Correspondent.

There is a growing space and a full life to write about and still to live no matter the woman's age.

The first volume of the Emma M. Lion Journals was exquisite and quirky. Although it is based in London in 1883, I imagined her living in The Gilded Age tv show with a The Correspondent pen. those are two compliments about this short novel.

Just finished Jill Biden’s View from the East Wing and it was, without a doubt, the most soporific book of my life. It felt like an endless list of things lived, people met, food eaten and gifts received. I am convinced that she had the most interesting life and intentions yet her book failed to convey those to me.

I felt the same about Susie Wolff’s memoir Driven, the difference being I really admire Susie and she would be a woman I’d love to meet one day. Jill, not so much. Nothing against her but she confirmed in this book she is a woman of her social status and generation (the one who doesn’t even speak about menopause with her husband?!), which I fail to connect with.

The book revolves around the dual timeline of Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick: as an 81-year-old living in a quiet street in Melbourne and as a child and teenager navigating the hurdles that shaped her adulthood. And how, as people around her started to die, she thrillingly became Mad Mabel.

Five french authors united and wrote Unhappy New Year. I don’t know how I came across this book but you can feel each author in each of the five sisters in the book that each has her own distinctive style, as they reunite at their father’s home for one last new year’s eve.

I loved Dolly Alderton’s Everything I know about love. I took some time to connect with the book at the beginning but it might be because it was her teen years. Again, do I have a hard time reading about teenagers? But then I was totally in for her young adult years, her loves, her questions, her life decisions, her friendships. A great read, a younger tone to Confessions of a 40-yo f* up I loved last month.

Gisèle was an anonymous wife, mother and grandmother in southern France when her life and story were catapulted into local and international news. Among other crimes, her husband was found to have raped her and invited 50 men to rape her whilst she was sleeping, influenced by drugs she was given without her knowledge.

A Hymn to Life is not only a ghastly true crime story written by the victim but mostly, a marriage memoir. Pelicot tries to balance the love story she lived against the crime she suffered at the hands of the man she trusted the most. You finish the book disgusted by the crimes and the sexism, yet in love with a woman who chose resilience and grace instead of hate. A must read.

I had this book on my Kindle and Audible for ages and it was frequently recommended by people once they learnt I like to wake up early. "Own your morning and elevate your life" came with big expectations yet it did not fulfill it for me. It felt longwinded and preachy. Good actionable points only came at a later part of the book for me but my mindset is too practical for so much metaphor. But I will keep waking up early, worry not.

One of the most talked about books of 2026, Strangers is a sharp, intense memoir moving between New York and Martha’s Vineyard, about marriage, divorce and the emotional and financial vulnerability women can slip into when they outsource too much of life to a man.

A few days after the pandemic hit New York in 2020, Belle’s husband announced he was leaving her and the family they had built together for over two decades. Not only we deal with a wife feeling completely blindsided and lost, we also follow her as she is rediscovering life on her own in the isolation of lockdown yet under the shame of a divorce.

I randomly bought Confessions of a Forty-Something F* Up and ended up loving it. In this book by Alexandra Potter, Nell returns to London after years in LA and has to rebuild everything: friendships, family identity, her career. Chaotic, self-deprecating and surprisingly comforting.

The Correspondent is an epistolary book revolving several years in the life of 70-something old Sybil Van Antwerp, a retired lawyer. She shares letters and emails with her family, friends, neighbours, service providers and famous book authors. And she waits for a reply! We see the back and forth through the years, as well as her declining health - Sybil is going blind - as well as her estranged relationship with the father of her children and her only daughter. The audiobook has a superb ensemble cast narration. I would love an on-screen adaptation. I think this might be my best book of 2026 already

Anderson Cooper is one of my favourite CNN Journalists and I fell in love and awe with his life story after the documentary Nothing Left Unsaid: Gloria Vanderbilt & Anderson Cooper, a two-hour documentary produced and directed by Liz Garbus. It features a poignant series of conversations between the mother and son, covering her life and family history in the public eye. I bought this audiobook not only because of his family's history (and knowing I could listen to his voice for hours) but because the Vanderbilts are an inspiration to the show The Gilded Age, on air since 2022 with HBO, more specifically portrayed by the Russell Family. You can see both reality and fiction colliding with Chapter 4 on Part I - Society as I Have Found It - where the Academy of Arts vs the Metropolitan Opera house wars. You can see that society fight from Old Money against New Money New Yorkers on The Gilded Age Season 2.

This a poignant novel about three girls who meet in their late teens years. One is pregnant and her parents send her away, one has a kid and takes him to high-school close to her chest (and she doesn't care about what anybody thinks about that!) and the third girl has twins and is raising them on her own and fiercely. The story is filled with triggers which do indeed compose many lives: parental rejection, pregnancy before adulthood, abortion... It's not an easy read as per its subjects yet the author makes the narrative so compelling you just can't stop wanting to know more about each moment of these characters' lives. Even if your life choices might be different from theirs, you cry with them, root for them, scream at them.