Jen's Favorite Reads of 2026 - Part 1

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books)

As always, I had an impossible time choosing just five books to include on my "best reads of 2026 so far" list (which is why I cheated, as you'll notice from the graphic). At the time I'm writing this post, I've read 144 books so far this year; I've rated 95 of those books either 4.5 or 5 stars. (Yes, I'm a high rater, but I also do a LOT of self selecting based on previous experiences.)

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and share these fabulous reading experiences, and then I'll probably find a way to sneak in some honorable mentions somewhere. (I haven't been able to write as many reviews as I have in previous years, and I want to try to share some favorites.)

Be sure to check out Ashley's list here! I co-sign all of her picks.

Adam Higginbotham's Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)

I've read some amazing nonfiction this year, but I keep coming back to Challenger. First, I'm having a bit of a space moment (I finally started Mary Robinette Kowal's Lady Astronaut series and am hooked, and I just finished the most recent season of For All Mankind on Apple TV+), so that's part of my rationale.

But the way Higginbotham balances (1) the deep, twisty history of NASA and United States space exploration, (2) the details of the Challenger mission (I was in fourth grade and vividly remember sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the floor of my classroom, looking up at the tv cart, and seeing the explosion happen), and (3) the humanity at the core of the story is absolutely remarkable. I listened to this book, which is narrated by Jacques Roy. While it's a bit longer than the audiobooks I usually choose, it's well worth the listening experience.

Tayari Jones's Kin (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)

I had the chance to read this one as an egalley. Here's the review I wrote at that time:

Tayari Jones’s Kin, a brilliant novel set in the 1950s and 1960s, centers on Vernice and Annie. The two girls grow up together in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, in lives intertwined around one central absence—mothers—and one central presence—their friendship, more akin to a sisterhood.

As the girls mature, they wrestle with the ways that their mothers’ stories shape their own. Vernice, whose mother was murdered by her father, is haunted by what might have been: the mother who might have loved her, who might have shown the affection that her aunt Irene, who raised her, could never quite express. Annie—whose mother left her with her grandmother, another woman who provided the required care but was unable to offer the love for which Annie yearned—envies the clean break represented by Vernice’s mother’s death. In place of such a definitive loss, Annie becomes determined to find her mother and to, somehow, establish the relationship that she was denied.

Vernice’s path takes her to Spelman College, where she realizes that her intelligence is no match for the lessons of society. Vernice’s vision of herself—her sexuality, her appearance, her future—winds through a series of changes that seem to take her further and further from Honeysuckle.

Annie’s vow to find her mother leads to Memphis, along with an ex-boyfriend, his cousin (Annie’s current boyfriend), and the ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. (Yes, it’s complicated.) Annie’s tunnel vision makes everything revolve around that search for her mother and imperils her ability to establish her own path forward.

Told in alternating perspectives, Kin was impossible to put down. The friendship between Vernice and Annie’s is undoubtedly the strong center of the novel: the ways that these characters contrast and complement each other is absolutely beautiful. Jones’s writing is vibrant and so, so quotable. I found myself marking quotation after quotation because of its wisdom, a deep truth it revealed about Vernice or Annie, or just because it was beautiful. Her ability to bring to life her protagonists but also a rich cast of secondary characters is remarkable.

Ultimately, Kin made me feel the joy and pain and hope of these women, made me want the best for them, and made me love them even through their mistakes and their flaws. Kin is the second of Jones’s novels I’ve read—An American Marriage was also a five-star read for me—and it has convinced me to prioritize her backlist.

Kim Liggett's The Grace Year (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)

I picked up The Grace Year on a whim (shelf talkers at my library are wildly effective for me!)—it had been on my list for a long time, but I'd honestly forgotten what it was about.

Wow.

The novel really resonated at a time when some influential individuals are calling for an end to the Nineteenth Amendment—that's the one that guarantees women the right to vote. The protagonist, Tierney, has long known that her "grace year," when young women turn sixteen, will mean banishment and trauma for her. She lives in a society that demonizes women, isolating them in an attempt to control their "power" (both real and imaginary). The dynamics of this society, in which men have turned against women and, in turn, women turn against each other, is so powerfully depicted.

I thought this was an incredible work of dystopian fiction that I picked up just at the right time, and it's a further testament to the power of literature to speak to the current moment.

Ann Patchett's Whistler (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)

Ann Patchett's Whistler was the perfect experience with which to begin my summer. I ended up listening to the novel, read by the author. (I'm a bit torn about whether to recommend that format because I kept yearning to mark quotations, but the listening is a lovely way to be immersed in the book.)

The book begins with an unexpected meeting. Daphne and her husband, Jonathan, are at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when Jonathan notices that they're being followed by an older man. At first, Daphne thinks he's being paranoid; then, she realizes that he's right. They stop to confront their stalker who reveals that he is Eddie, who had been Daphne's stepfather when she was nine.

What then unfurls is a beautiful story of unexpected kinds of love, of forgiveness, of the unconventional families that can form at any age.

We learn about the event that ended the marriage between Eddie and Daphne's mother and about Daphne's deep relationship with her sister and, yes, about that horse on the cover of the book.

The whole book is just so beautifully tender. (And, yes, I know I keep using the world "beautiful," but it's fitting. I promise.)

Patchett is such an assured author. She never rushes and doesn't need to build suspense through false pretenses. Instead, she gently unfolds this story.

I can't recommend it enough. (Maybe we should all just read it twice: once on audio and once in print.)

Leonard Pitts, Jr.'s Before I Forget (Bookshop.org), The Last Thing You Surrender (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm), Grant Park (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm), Freeman (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm), and 54 Miles (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm)

Here comes the cheating...

So, this year, I took on an author project with my fabulous bookstagram friend, @readwithtoni. Every month, she leads a new, fiction-related buddy read, as well as a nonfiction pick as part of her #readtolearn series. This buddy read group was a bonus.

I hadn't read any of Pitts's books before but dived in because I trust Toni, and she's been raving about him for years.

She was so, so right.

In these novels, Pitts takes on the range of the Black American experience, shifting from the post-Reconstruction novel Freeman to a look at World War II with The Last Thing You Surrender. Grant Park moves between the early days of the Civil Rights era and the election of Barack Obama, and 54 Miles, a sort of sequel to The Last Thing You Surrender, focuses on the 1960s' Civil Rights protests, as well.

Reading these books—one each month—emphasized Pitts's unique authorial voice and a distinctive point of view. (I'm also reading a collection of his newspaper columns, Forward from This Moment: Selected Columns, 1994-2008 (Bookshop.org), which are fascinating to consider in conjunction with his fiction.)

I highly recommend Pitts's work and also this type of author project, which will highlight elements you may not be expecting.

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