The first official day of fall is this coming Tuesday, September 22, but if you’re reading this then by now you’ve probably seen a few “most anticipated for fall 2026” lists. There is so much great stuff coming, and so many new novels I want to read. But I want to focus on some of the nonfiction that’s coming out in the coming months because, according to some book world insiders, nonfiction is in crisis.
Or at least, it’s more difficult for editors at major houses to acquire books that purport to be true than it has been previously. Reliable stalwart nonfiction has been passed over by readers for more escapist fare, and I can’t say I blame readers for that. It doesn’t help that the end of the year is traditionally a big time for celebrity memoirs, the kinds of books that make great Christmas gifts and tend to suck up a lot of media attention.
There are so many good ones this year—Kyle MacLachlan, Judi Dench, LeVar Burton, and Dustin Hoffman, to name a few—but let’s not talk about them right now. They’ll be fine no matter what. I want to tell you about some other nonfiction titles that I’m looking forward to reading this season: the kinds of books that don’t require ghostwriters and big marketing budgets and for which their authors didn’t get paid seven-figure advances.
The best nonfiction writing relies on our inherent curiosity about the world we live in, as flawed as it may be. I hope something on this list strikes your own thirst for knowledge. The Only Thing There Is To Want: A Memoir of Three Loves by Sarah Heppola I expect that Sarah Heppola’s next book after her bestselling memoir Blackout will also be a masterpiece of personal writing.
Darkness Becomes Bright: On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe by Emily Ogden I love a literary biography. This season we’ll see new ones of Janet Malcolm and Anita Brookner, but my most anticipated is one that I hope will delve into how and why the works of this one weirdo (complimentary) became required reading in high school English classes. I Want to Be Famous: When Everybody and Nobody Is a Celebrity by Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber The thing about Bobby and Lindsey is that they were so good at writing about pop culture before they ever even started their very famous podcast, Who Weekly.
To see them work together and teach us a thing or two about celebrity culture in 2026 and how we ended up here. We Radiant Things: Notes on Being Alien and Becoming Cyborg by Franny Choi This is the kind of book I most seek out. In my ideal world there would be dozens of essay collections by excellent writers (Choi is a poet) on culture and politics, technology and the evils of capitalism.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
