In 1985, Jonathan Yardley reviewed Anne Tyler’s novel The Accidental Tourist in the Washington Post. He wrote: “Words fail me: one cannot reasonably expect fiction to be much better than this.” Now that is pretty much the grand slam of blurbs. It’s also the kind of thing I hope critics and readers will end up saying about books I’m recommending. Prognosticating is an inexact endeavour, however. At the very least, I hope to send folks into bookshops with a clearer idea of what’s new and good on those shelves.
With that in mind, here’s a closer look at some titles coming out in January, February, and March that, to me, look top-drawer. At the absolute minimum, I hope they will help keep you cozy and entertained until the clocks spring forward.
For fifty years, Julian Barnes has been writing literature of the highest quality. His latest book, Departure(s), a hybrid of autobiography and fiction, will be published on January 20, the day after Barnes’s 80th birthday. It will be his last book. (Barnes, suffering from an incurable illness, has said as much.) By all accounts, Departure(s) marks a graceful exit. Part love story, part novelist’s diary, the book is said to be a “revelatory meditation on love, death, and memory.” Barnes — whose 11th novel, The Sense of an Ending, was awarded the 2011 Man Booker Prize — has always been a deeply captivating writer. His books are elegantly composed, witty, precise, often funny and devastatingly insightful. He writes truly beautiful sentences, and stories as rich and complicated as life itself. Departure(s) is almost certain to be sad, beautiful, and thoroughly engaging. I’ve little doubt it will be one of Barnes’s best.
Val McDermid is a wildly popular Scottish crime writer of murderous fiction. She writes clever books apparently, awash in gore, that sell by the millions. I’ve never read a word she’s written, but I am completely charmed by what I’ve read about her new book of non-fiction, Winter: The Story of a Season.
Born and raised in small-town Scotland, McDermid’s Winter is an ode to memories of winters past and a heartfelt appreciation of all the season has to offer. She is a fan of a crisp cold day, of big jumpers and thick socks and scribbling in a notebook and settling in beside the fire. The world is divided in two, she writes, those who think soup is a meal and those who are wrong. Homemade soup is a comforting winter supper, McDermid was raised to believe; she calls it “central heating for the soul.” She offers us intimate snapshots of her childhood: going as a toddler to see Kirkcaldy’s big town-centre Christmas tree, and the memorable bonfire night when her father accidentally dropped a burning taper into a box of fireworks. She sings the praises of Scotland’s winter’s festivals, holidays and celebrations — the joyful times that help take the bite out of the short, frosty days, and long, windblown nights. The book is fairly slim, at 160 pages. I adore a lovely, gentle, bite-size book. Booklist calls Winter: The Story of a Season: “lyrical, often profound, and thoroughly enjoyable.” It sounds to me like a wee book that might just warm even the frostiest of hearts.
A few books are getting a lot of buzz on critics’ most anticipated books of 2026 lists. Several have me intrigued. But these are the sorts of books I’d want to sit down with in my local bookshop and read a bit of first. If you’re like me, you usually know after reading, say, the first ten pages if a book is for you or not. Among the titles I’d take for a “test drive” are Vigil by George Saunders, and Jeanette Winterson’s One Aladdin Two Lamps. Fans of both distinguished authors might wish to just take the chance. By the time you read this, both titles should be on bookshelves.
One book I know I’ll be picking up is David Streitfeld’s Western Star: The Life and Legends of Larry McMurtry. It’s not out until March, but it should be well worth the wait. The book is being billed as the “definitive” biography of Larry McMurtry, the legendary author of Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show, and Terms of Endearment, among many other classic American novels. We should be in good hands with Streitfeld, too. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and was a close friend of McMurtry’s. In fact, before McMurtry died in 2021, he gave his friend “the keys to his past.” This is good news, as McMurtry was an elusive figure who apparently loved making up stories about himself, and had many personas — rancher, novelist, Hollywood screenwriter, rare book collector, obsessive bookseller, rigorous defender of free speech. He was a complicated man. Streitfeld has gone to work, though; he’s dug into every archive and interviewed everyone who would talk. What he’ll reveal in Western Star will be revelatory and a treat to read, I’m sure. Douglas Brinkley, New York Times bestselling author of Cronkite, calls Western Star “a dazzling masterclass in the art of biography.” I, for one, can’t wait.
One last title I would like to recommend (though I really would like to recommend a large stack of books!) is Trina Moyles’ memoir Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival. As an environmental journalist and fire tower lookout, Moyles chronicles the path of this mesmerizing animal from her vantage point in northern Alberta. She also writes about her complicated relationship with her brother. In an increasingly conflicted world, Moyles, an acclaimed nature writer, reflects on ways we can co-exist with one another, with wildlife, and with nature. Recently, Black Bear earned a rave review in the Washington Post. It won’t be the last for this dazzling memoir.