With only two months of the year remaining, time is running out to successfully meet your reading goals.
Whether you set out read one or 100 books in 2026, there are so many options to choose from. There are tempting new releases such as book six in Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses series, or classics including Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice worth revisiting, with two new Jane Austen adaptations this year.
If you’re more interested in which titles people selling books are picking up, look no further than the Waterstones Book of the Year shortlist. Nominated by booksellers from across the country, the annual awards features a selection of 20 works published over the last 12 months.
Scottish author Douglas Stuart’s novel John of John is among those recognised, alongside two fellow Booker Prize nominees; The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout and May We Feed The King by Rebecca Perry.
Other fiction on the shortlist includes Land by Hamnet author Maggie O’Farrell, Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé’s new young adult mystery The Heirs and Yesteryear, Caro Claire Burke’s buzzy debut novel Yesteryear, which will soon be turned into a feature film starring Anne Hathaway.
There are also a number of non-fiction titles selected, such as Patrick Radden Keefe’s gripping London Falling and Ottolenghi’s latest cookbook Simple Too, as well as Sleeping Beauties, a book from Talking Heads frontman David Byrne which explores dormant ideas and how they can be revived.
If you’re looking to expand your TBR list, here the 2026 Waterstones Book of the Year shortlist in full - including what each book is about and where you can buy them.
13. Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War's Most Extraordinary Spy by Ben Macintyre
“The year is 1981. Tehran is in violent turmoil in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. The Soviets are planning to overthrow the Ayatollah's fledgling Islamist regime. If they do so, one response from America - unknown to the public - would be to use nuclear weapons. Redwood is the story of how at the height of the Cold War, one mysterious double agent, whose intelligence reached the highest levels of British and American governments, cracked open the KGB, revealed the Kremlin's secret plot and prevented Armageddon. 'Redwood' was the MI6 codename for this unsung, hitherto unknown hero of the Cold War, a highly-trained six-foot-four Russian intelligence officer who chose to expose the KGB’s deepest secrets, compelled to swap sides by a shaming secret of his own. Facing exposure, with both the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and his own KGB colleagues closing in, he demanded that MI6 try to smuggle him out of Iran in a high-stakes escape plan. This is the gripping tale of one man's courage, and its extraordinary unintended consequences that still shape our world today. It's about a moving friendship between spies on opposite sides of the global conflict; about marriage, loyalty, betrayal and sexual dysfunction; and about how decisions made in secret can have huge, long-term ramifications.” | Viking
14. Solace House by Will Maclean
“Summer, 1993, and Alex Lane finds himself at the end of the University summer term, broke and without any concrete plans. So, when he's offered the chance to join a group of students tasked with clearing out Solace House, a large Victorian residence left to the University by a reclusive hoarder called Flayne, he jumps at it. The other students are a mixed bunch, but Alex quickly falls into a close friendship with the mercurial, red-headed Ella. At first the house seems to be an ordinary, if grandiose, property. But as the team begin sorting through piles of junk, they stumble upon Flayne's journals in which he details his obsession with his missing mother, his discovery of a strange place called Bewise, and - most mysteriously - his belief in another realm lying parallel to ours, along with coded instructions on how it might be reached. As the students continue to sort through the detritus, one of Alex's companions becomes increasingly obsessed with the hidden secrets of Solace House, Flayne's missing mother, and the possibility that, if only they can decipher Flayne's increasingly unintelligible writings, they might gain knowledge beyond their wildest dreams. That is, assuming they are willing to sacrifice everything.” | Atlantic
15. Is This A Plum? By Dan and Finn Ojari
“Is this a plum? NO – IT’S A BUM! Is this a snake? NO – IT’S A CAKE! Is this a goose? NO – IT’S A MOOSE! Discover this deliciously playful, interactive treasure trove of visual tricks and rhyming reveals - a laugh-out-loud picture book that will bring genuine joy to adults and children alike. The teasing text interplays with striking, beautiful artwork and clever die-cut holes in the pages, revealing silly surprises as the pages turn. This rich, riotous book will instil a love of reading for pleasure in children of two and up.” | Puffin
16. Ottolenghi Simple Too by Yotam Ottolenghi and Verena Lochmuller
“It’s a noisy world out there, so stop, take a minute or two, listen to the soup bubble or the egg crackle... and let simple cooking be your solution. Bring Yotam Ottolenghi’s innovation to your everyday with 135 new recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. Every dish has simplicity at its core and can be made in under 30 minutes, cooked in one pot, or prepped ahead. Whatever your barriers to cooking, this book brings you into the kitchen with a promise that even the simplest of meals can be full of flavour and joy.” | Ebury