10 books to read in August: new releases from Jill Lepore, Claudia Rankin and more

If your summer could use a little energy boost, forget the complicated smoothie — turn to one of these fresh book releases instead. From fast-paced World War II history to a slow-burn rescue in rural Wyoming, along with an art-world mystery and a punchy look at modern America, you’ll find something to galvanize your bedside book stack. Happy reading!

FICTION:

Appraisals: A Novel
By Claire Boyles
W. W. Norton: 288 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

While Boyles’ debut novel ostensibly follows the fate of an Eastern Colorado family farm, its deeper purpose involves showing how dire water resources are for all agricultural endeavors in the region. Maggie and her husband Fish have inherited their land from her grandparents, but they and their teenage daughter Ozzie all know that without irrigation, even defeating big development plans won’t make much of a difference to locals.

The Seekers of Deer Creek: A Novel
By Thao Thai
Mariner Books: 320 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

Vietnamese American sisters Vivi and Calla are also a curator and an artist. When their father dies and leaves behind a sketch that might be the work of renowned Vietnamese painter K.P. Lý, the siblings embark on a quest to find out whether Lý had connections to their family. Along the way they reexamine their difficult upbringing and find new ways to communicate that matter more than any artwork.

Etna: A Novel
By Paul Yoon
Scribner: 208 pp., $28
(Aug. 4)

Anyone who has seen “The Odyssey” with Matt Damon or is anticipating “Heart of the Beast” with Brad Pitt (about a veteran and his war dog), should pick up Yoon’s remarkable tale of a combat survivor in an alternate present who happens to be a former military dog named Etna. His adventures traversing a broken land of haunted people and animals may be less the stuff of future myth and more about trauma, but Yoon brilliantly creates voices for human and canine that make both more whole.

A Tender Age: A Novel
By Chang-Rae Lee
Riverhead: 368 pp., $30
(Aug. 11)

Jeon-Gi, known as J-G, is a relatively happy 10-year-old in 1976, until a neighbor’s attack on him fuels his own violent ideas. Although he gets a relatively easy sentence after threatening a classmate, J-G’s parents decide to send him to a Christian summer camp. Incidents there that might be sweet nostalgia for other kids only remind him of how different and lonely he feels inside. However, it’s J-G’s adult reason for sharing his experience that hits home.

Sunrise: A Novel
By Téa Obreht
Random House: 368 pp., $29
(Aug. 11)

Many, so so many, historical novels seek to tie a contemporary protagonist to a long-ago event or story; so so many fail to make the connections mean anything. That’s why Obreht’s superb and fascinating new book should earn a place on your 2026 reading list: She not only meaningfully connects the stories of a stranded young woman, an early-20th-century gunslinger, and a historical reenactor, but manages to make them illuminate each other.

NONFICTION:

Triage
By Claudia Rankine
Graywolf: 192 pp., $28
(Aug. 4)

The book’s epigraph says a great deal: “Any attempt to name and describe our lives will always seem unstable because all language is a form of triage.” Rankine’s new attempt at triage focuses on her long friendship with a person identified only as “the theorist.” Anecdotes and analysis are interspersed with photos of all sorts of sofas and couches, calling into question ideas about where and how we find respite and support — or not.

Your Fellow Americans: Dispatches Across the Country We Call Home
By Peter Santenello
Simon & Schuster: 336 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

Santenello has over 4 million subscribers on YouTube, where he posts videos about every kind of place in America — rich and poor, renowned and hidden, busy and abandoned. Love or hate the author’s self-described nonpartisan approach, you’ll find this book surprising, particularly as it reveals how geography, climate and infrastructure affect community and communication. Think Anthony Bourdain crossed with Michael Moore.

Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War
By James M. Scott
W. W. Norton & Co.: 528 pp., $42
(Aug. 4)

Historian Scott (“Black Snow”) creates a propulsive read about the last days of World War II, in which America’s development of the atomic bomb pushed against Japan’s aggressive majority, with tragic results that many — including the author — believe necessary. The contrast between President Harry S. Truman, who had been in office for a matter of weeks, and Emperor Hirohito, whose military seemed unstoppable, remains shocking.

The People’s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn
By Dave Zirin
Dutton: 320 pp., $33
(Aug. 4)

Recently a friend showed me a list of books recommended by a pundit and asked which one to read first. Without hesitation I told her she should pick up “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn, first published in 1980 and still the most comprehensive remedial tonic to received wisdom I know. Zirin’s lively biography of this activist should remind everyone that history isn’t just about facts and figures but also context and compassion.

The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State
By Jill Lepore
Liveright Publishing Corp.: 336 pp., $30
(Aug. 25)

Hannah Arendt, one of the 20th century’s defining political thinkers, posited that modern life was making “being human superfluous”; her learned successor Lepore warns that our present bears out that idea. One day scholars will teach Lepore’s work alongside Arendt’s, seeing that Lepore interrogates not simply a modern moment, but traces our current machine age back to the 17th-century conceit for artifice as improvement. According to her, the way out is to get back to nature. Meet you in the woods.

If your summer could use a little energy boost, forget the complicated smoothie — turn to one of these fresh book releases instead. From fast-paced World War II history to a slow-burn rescue in rural Wyoming, along with an art-world mystery and a punchy look at modern America, you’ll find something to galvanize your bedside book stack. Happy reading!

FICTION:

Appraisals: A Novel
By Claire Boyles
W. W. Norton: 288 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

While Boyles’ debut novel ostensibly follows the fate of an Eastern Colorado family farm, its deeper purpose involves showing how dire water resources are for all agricultural endeavors in the region. Maggie and her husband Fish have inherited their land from her grandparents, but they and their teenage daughter Ozzie all know that without irrigation, even defeating big development plans won’t make much of a difference to locals.

The Seekers of Deer Creek: A Novel
By Thao Thai
Mariner Books: 320 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

Vietnamese American sisters Vivi and Calla are also a curator and an artist. When their father dies and leaves behind a sketch that might be the work of renowned Vietnamese painter K.P. Lý, the siblings embark on a quest to find out whether Lý had connections to their family. Along the way they reexamine their difficult upbringing and find new ways to communicate that matter more than any artwork.

Etna: A Novel
By Paul Yoon
Scribner: 208 pp., $28
(Aug. 4)

Anyone who has seen “The Odyssey” with Matt Damon or is anticipating “Heart of the Beast” with Brad Pitt (about a veteran and his war dog), should pick up Yoon’s remarkable tale of a combat survivor in an alternate present who happens to be a former military dog named Etna. His adventures traversing a broken land of haunted people and animals may be less the stuff of future myth and more about trauma, but Yoon brilliantly creates voices for human and canine that make both more whole.

A Tender Age: A Novel
By Chang-Rae Lee
Riverhead: 368 pp., $30
(Aug. 11)

Jeon-Gi, known as J-G, is a relatively happy 10-year-old in 1976, until a neighbor’s attack on him fuels his own violent ideas. Although he gets a relatively easy sentence after threatening a classmate, J-G’s parents decide to send him to a Christian summer camp. Incidents there that might be sweet nostalgia for other kids only remind him of how different and lonely he feels inside. However, it’s J-G’s adult reason for sharing his experience that hits home.

Sunrise: A Novel
By Téa Obreht
Random House: 368 pp., $29
(Aug. 11)

Many, so so many, historical novels seek to tie a contemporary protagonist to a long-ago event or story; so so many fail to make the connections mean anything. That’s why Obreht’s superb and fascinating new book should earn a place on your 2026 reading list: She not only meaningfully connects the stories of a stranded young woman, an early-20th-century gunslinger, and a historical reenactor, but manages to make them illuminate each other.

NONFICTION:

Triage
By Claudia Rankine
Graywolf: 192 pp., $28
(Aug. 4)

The book’s epigraph says a great deal: “Any attempt to name and describe our lives will always seem unstable because all language is a form of triage.” Rankine’s new attempt at triage focuses on her long friendship with a person identified only as “the theorist.” Anecdotes and analysis are interspersed with photos of all sorts of sofas and couches, calling into question ideas about where and how we find respite and support — or not.

Your Fellow Americans: Dispatches Across the Country We Call Home
By Peter Santenello
Simon & Schuster: 336 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

Santenello has over 4 million subscribers on YouTube, where he posts videos about every kind of place in America — rich and poor, renowned and hidden, busy and abandoned. Love or hate the author’s self-described nonpartisan approach, you’ll find this book surprising, particularly as it reveals how geography, climate and infrastructure affect community and communication. Think Anthony Bourdain crossed with Michael Moore.

Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War
By James M. Scott
W. W. Norton & Co.: 528 pp., $42
(Aug. 4)

Historian Scott (“Black Snow”) creates a propulsive read about the last days of World War II, in which America’s development of the atomic bomb pushed against Japan’s aggressive majority, with tragic results that many — including the author — believe necessary. The contrast between President Harry S. Truman, who had been in office for a matter of weeks, and Emperor Hirohito, whose military seemed unstoppable, remains shocking.

The People’s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn
By Dave Zirin
Dutton: 320 pp., $33
(Aug. 4)

Recently a friend showed me a list of books recommended by a pundit and asked which one to read first. Without hesitation I told her she should pick up “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn, first published in 1980 and still the most comprehensive remedial tonic to received wisdom I know. Zirin’s lively biography of this activist should remind everyone that history isn’t just about facts and figures but also context and compassion.

The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State
By Jill Lepore
Liveright Publishing Corp.: 336 pp., $30
(Aug. 25)

Hannah Arendt, one of the 20th century’s defining political thinkers, posited that modern life was making “being human superfluous”; her learned successor Lepore warns that our present bears out that idea. One day scholars will teach Lepore’s work alongside Arendt’s, seeing that Lepore interrogates not simply a modern moment, but traces our current machine age back to the 17th-century conceit for artifice as improvement. According to her, the way out is to get back to nature. Meet you in the woods.

If your summer could use a little energy boost, forget the complicated smoothie — turn to one of these fresh book releases instead. From fast-paced World War II history to a slow-burn rescue in rural Wyoming, along with an art-world mystery and a punchy look at modern America, you’ll find something to galvanize your bedside book stack. Happy reading!

FICTION:

Appraisals: A Novel
By Claire Boyles
W. W. Norton: 288 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

While Boyles’ debut novel ostensibly follows the fate of an Eastern Colorado family farm, its deeper purpose involves showing how dire water resources are for all agricultural endeavors in the region. Maggie and her husband Fish have inherited their land from her grandparents, but they and their teenage daughter Ozzie all know that without irrigation, even defeating big development plans won’t make much of a difference to locals.

The Seekers of Deer Creek: A Novel
By Thao Thai
Mariner Books: 320 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

Vietnamese American sisters Vivi and Calla are also a curator and an artist. When their father dies and leaves behind a sketch that might be the work of renowned Vietnamese painter K.P. Lý, the siblings embark on a quest to find out whether Lý had connections to their family. Along the way they reexamine their difficult upbringing and find new ways to communicate that matter more than any artwork.

Etna: A Novel
By Paul Yoon
Scribner: 208 pp., $28
(Aug. 4)

Anyone who has seen “The Odyssey” with Matt Damon or is anticipating “Heart of the Beast” with Brad Pitt (about a veteran and his war dog), should pick up Yoon’s remarkable tale of a combat survivor in an alternate present who happens to be a former military dog named Etna. His adventures traversing a broken land of haunted people and animals may be less the stuff of future myth and more about trauma, but Yoon brilliantly creates voices for human and canine that make both more whole.

A Tender Age: A Novel
By Chang-Rae Lee
Riverhead: 368 pp., $30
(Aug. 11)

Jeon-Gi, known as J-G, is a relatively happy 10-year-old in 1976, until a neighbor’s attack on him fuels his own violent ideas. Although he gets a relatively easy sentence after threatening a classmate, J-G’s parents decide to send him to a Christian summer camp. Incidents there that might be sweet nostalgia for other kids only remind him of how different and lonely he feels inside. However, it’s J-G’s adult reason for sharing his experience that hits home.

Sunrise: A Novel
By Téa Obreht
Random House: 368 pp., $29
(Aug. 11)

Many, so so many, historical novels seek to tie a contemporary protagonist to a long-ago event or story; so so many fail to make the connections mean anything. That’s why Obreht’s superb and fascinating new book should earn a place on your 2026 reading list: She not only meaningfully connects the stories of a stranded young woman, an early-20th-century gunslinger, and a historical reenactor, but manages to make them illuminate each other.

NONFICTION:

Triage
By Claudia Rankine
Graywolf: 192 pp., $28
(Aug. 4)

The book’s epigraph says a great deal: “Any attempt to name and describe our lives will always seem unstable because all language is a form of triage.” Rankine’s new attempt at triage focuses on her long friendship with a person identified only as “the theorist.” Anecdotes and analysis are interspersed with photos of all sorts of sofas and couches, calling into question ideas about where and how we find respite and support — or not.

Your Fellow Americans: Dispatches Across the Country We Call Home
By Peter Santenello
Simon & Schuster: 336 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

Santenello has over 4 million subscribers on YouTube, where he posts videos about every kind of place in America — rich and poor, renowned and hidden, busy and abandoned. Love or hate the author’s self-described nonpartisan approach, you’ll find this book surprising, particularly as it reveals how geography, climate and infrastructure affect community and communication. Think Anthony Bourdain crossed with Michael Moore.

Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War
By James M. Scott
W. W. Norton & Co.: 528 pp., $42
(Aug. 4)

Historian Scott (“Black Snow”) creates a propulsive read about the last days of World War II, in which America’s development of the atomic bomb pushed against Japan’s aggressive majority, with tragic results that many — including the author — believe necessary. The contrast between President Harry S. Truman, who had been in office for a matter of weeks, and Emperor Hirohito, whose military seemed unstoppable, remains shocking.

The People’s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn
By Dave Zirin
Dutton: 320 pp., $33
(Aug. 4)

Recently a friend showed me a list of books recommended by a pundit and asked which one to read first. Without hesitation I told her she should pick up “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn, first published in 1980 and still the most comprehensive remedial tonic to received wisdom I know. Zirin’s lively biography of this activist should remind everyone that history isn’t just about facts and figures but also context and compassion.

The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State
By Jill Lepore
Liveright Publishing Corp.: 336 pp., $30
(Aug. 25)

Hannah Arendt, one of the 20th century’s defining political thinkers, posited that modern life was making “being human superfluous”; her learned successor Lepore warns that our present bears out that idea. One day scholars will teach Lepore’s work alongside Arendt’s, seeing that Lepore interrogates not simply a modern moment, but traces our current machine age back to the 17th-century conceit for artifice as improvement. According to her, the way out is to get back to nature. Meet you in the woods.

If your summer could use a little energy boost, forget the complicated smoothie — turn to one of these fresh book releases instead. From fast-paced World War II history to a slow-burn rescue in rural Wyoming, along with an art-world mystery and a punchy look at modern America, you’ll find something to galvanize your bedside book stack. Happy reading!

FICTION:

Appraisals: A Novel
By Claire Boyles
W. W. Norton: 288 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

While Boyles’ debut novel ostensibly follows the fate of an Eastern Colorado family farm, its deeper purpose involves showing how dire water resources are for all agricultural endeavors in the region. Maggie and her husband Fish have inherited their land from her grandparents, but they and their teenage daughter Ozzie all know that without irrigation, even defeating big development plans won’t make much of a difference to locals.

The Seekers of Deer Creek: A Novel
By Thao Thai
Mariner Books: 320 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

Vietnamese American sisters Vivi and Calla are also a curator and an artist. When their father dies and leaves behind a sketch that might be the work of renowned Vietnamese painter K.P. Lý, the siblings embark on a quest to find out whether Lý had connections to their family. Along the way they reexamine their difficult upbringing and find new ways to communicate that matter more than any artwork.

Etna: A Novel
By Paul Yoon
Scribner: 208 pp., $28
(Aug. 4)

Anyone who has seen “The Odyssey” with Matt Damon or is anticipating “Heart of the Beast” with Brad Pitt (about a veteran and his war dog), should pick up Yoon’s remarkable tale of a combat survivor in an alternate present who happens to be a former military dog named Etna. His adventures traversing a broken land of haunted people and animals may be less the stuff of future myth and more about trauma, but Yoon brilliantly creates voices for human and canine that make both more whole.

A Tender Age: A Novel
By Chang-Rae Lee
Riverhead: 368 pp., $30
(Aug. 11)

Jeon-Gi, known as J-G, is a relatively happy 10-year-old in 1976, until a neighbor’s attack on him fuels his own violent ideas. Although he gets a relatively easy sentence after threatening a classmate, J-G’s parents decide to send him to a Christian summer camp. Incidents there that might be sweet nostalgia for other kids only remind him of how different and lonely he feels inside. However, it’s J-G’s adult reason for sharing his experience that hits home.

Sunrise: A Novel
By Téa Obreht
Random House: 368 pp., $29
(Aug. 11)

Many, so so many, historical novels seek to tie a contemporary protagonist to a long-ago event or story; so so many fail to make the connections mean anything. That’s why Obreht’s superb and fascinating new book should earn a place on your 2026 reading list: She not only meaningfully connects the stories of a stranded young woman, an early-20th-century gunslinger, and a historical reenactor, but manages to make them illuminate each other.

NONFICTION:

Triage
By Claudia Rankine
Graywolf: 192 pp., $28
(Aug. 4)

The book’s epigraph says a great deal: “Any attempt to name and describe our lives will always seem unstable because all language is a form of triage.” Rankine’s new attempt at triage focuses on her long friendship with a person identified only as “the theorist.” Anecdotes and analysis are interspersed with photos of all sorts of sofas and couches, calling into question ideas about where and how we find respite and support — or not.

Your Fellow Americans: Dispatches Across the Country We Call Home
By Peter Santenello
Simon & Schuster: 336 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

Santenello has over 4 million subscribers on YouTube, where he posts videos about every kind of place in America — rich and poor, renowned and hidden, busy and abandoned. Love or hate the author’s self-described nonpartisan approach, you’ll find this book surprising, particularly as it reveals how geography, climate and infrastructure affect community and communication. Think Anthony Bourdain crossed with Michael Moore.

Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War
By James M. Scott
W. W. Norton & Co.: 528 pp., $42
(Aug. 4)

Historian Scott (“Black Snow”) creates a propulsive read about the last days of World War II, in which America’s development of the atomic bomb pushed against Japan’s aggressive majority, with tragic results that many — including the author — believe necessary. The contrast between President Harry S. Truman, who had been in office for a matter of weeks, and Emperor Hirohito, whose military seemed unstoppable, remains shocking.

The People’s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn
By Dave Zirin
Dutton: 320 pp., $33
(Aug. 4)

Recently a friend showed me a list of books recommended by a pundit and asked which one to read first. Without hesitation I told her she should pick up “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn, first published in 1980 and still the most comprehensive remedial tonic to received wisdom I know. Zirin’s lively biography of this activist should remind everyone that history isn’t just about facts and figures but also context and compassion.

The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State
By Jill Lepore
Liveright Publishing Corp.: 336 pp., $30
(Aug. 25)

Hannah Arendt, one of the 20th century’s defining political thinkers, posited that modern life was making “being human superfluous”; her learned successor Lepore warns that our present bears out that idea. One day scholars will teach Lepore’s work alongside Arendt’s, seeing that Lepore interrogates not simply a modern moment, but traces our current machine age back to the 17th-century conceit for artifice as improvement. According to her, the way out is to get back to nature. Meet you in the woods.

If your summer could use a little energy boost, forget the complicated smoothie — turn to one of these fresh book releases instead. From fast-paced World War II history to a slow-burn rescue in rural Wyoming, along with an art-world mystery and a punchy look at modern America, you’ll find something to galvanize your bedside book stack. Happy reading!

FICTION:

Appraisals: A Novel
By Claire Boyles
W. W. Norton: 288 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

While Boyles’ debut novel ostensibly follows the fate of an Eastern Colorado family farm, its deeper purpose involves showing how dire water resources are for all agricultural endeavors in the region. Maggie and her husband Fish have inherited their land from her grandparents, but they and their teenage daughter Ozzie all know that without irrigation, even defeating big development plans won’t make much of a difference to locals.

The Seekers of Deer Creek: A Novel
By Thao Thai
Mariner Books: 320 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

Vietnamese American sisters Vivi and Calla are also a curator and an artist. When their father dies and leaves behind a sketch that might be the work of renowned Vietnamese painter K.P. Lý, the siblings embark on a quest to find out whether Lý had connections to their family. Along the way they reexamine their difficult upbringing and find new ways to communicate that matter more than any artwork.

Etna: A Novel
By Paul Yoon
Scribner: 208 pp., $28
(Aug. 4)

Anyone who has seen “The Odyssey” with Matt Damon or is anticipating “Heart of the Beast” with Brad Pitt (about a veteran and his war dog), should pick up Yoon’s remarkable tale of a combat survivor in an alternate present who happens to be a former military dog named Etna. His adventures traversing a broken land of haunted people and animals may be less the stuff of future myth and more about trauma, but Yoon brilliantly creates voices for human and canine that make both more whole.

A Tender Age: A Novel
By Chang-Rae Lee
Riverhead: 368 pp., $30
(Aug. 11)

Jeon-Gi, known as J-G, is a relatively happy 10-year-old in 1976, until a neighbor’s attack on him fuels his own violent ideas. Although he gets a relatively easy sentence after threatening a classmate, J-G’s parents decide to send him to a Christian summer camp. Incidents there that might be sweet nostalgia for other kids only remind him of how different and lonely he feels inside. However, it’s J-G’s adult reason for sharing his experience that hits home.

Sunrise: A Novel
By Téa Obreht
Random House: 368 pp., $29
(Aug. 11)

Many, so so many, historical novels seek to tie a contemporary protagonist to a long-ago event or story; so so many fail to make the connections mean anything. That’s why Obreht’s superb and fascinating new book should earn a place on your 2026 reading list: She not only meaningfully connects the stories of a stranded young woman, an early-20th-century gunslinger, and a historical reenactor, but manages to make them illuminate each other.

NONFICTION:

Triage
By Claudia Rankine
Graywolf: 192 pp., $28
(Aug. 4)

The book’s epigraph says a great deal: “Any attempt to name and describe our lives will always seem unstable because all language is a form of triage.” Rankine’s new attempt at triage focuses on her long friendship with a person identified only as “the theorist.” Anecdotes and analysis are interspersed with photos of all sorts of sofas and couches, calling into question ideas about where and how we find respite and support — or not.

Your Fellow Americans: Dispatches Across the Country We Call Home
By Peter Santenello
Simon & Schuster: 336 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

Santenello has over 4 million subscribers on YouTube, where he posts videos about every kind of place in America — rich and poor, renowned and hidden, busy and abandoned. Love or hate the author’s self-described nonpartisan approach, you’ll find this book surprising, particularly as it reveals how geography, climate and infrastructure affect community and communication. Think Anthony Bourdain crossed with Michael Moore.

Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War
By James M. Scott
W. W. Norton & Co.: 528 pp., $42
(Aug. 4)

Historian Scott (“Black Snow”) creates a propulsive read about the last days of World War II, in which America’s development of the atomic bomb pushed against Japan’s aggressive majority, with tragic results that many — including the author — believe necessary. The contrast between President Harry S. Truman, who had been in office for a matter of weeks, and Emperor Hirohito, whose military seemed unstoppable, remains shocking.

The People’s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn
By Dave Zirin
Dutton: 320 pp., $33
(Aug. 4)

Recently a friend showed me a list of books recommended by a pundit and asked which one to read first. Without hesitation I told her she should pick up “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn, first published in 1980 and still the most comprehensive remedial tonic to received wisdom I know. Zirin’s lively biography of this activist should remind everyone that history isn’t just about facts and figures but also context and compassion.

The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State
By Jill Lepore
Liveright Publishing Corp.: 336 pp., $30
(Aug. 25)

Hannah Arendt, one of the 20th century’s defining political thinkers, posited that modern life was making “being human superfluous”; her learned successor Lepore warns that our present bears out that idea. One day scholars will teach Lepore’s work alongside Arendt’s, seeing that Lepore interrogates not simply a modern moment, but traces our current machine age back to the 17th-century conceit for artifice as improvement. According to her, the way out is to get back to nature. Meet you in the woods.

If your summer could use a little energy boost, forget the complicated smoothie — turn to one of these fresh book releases instead. From fast-paced World War II history to a slow-burn rescue in rural Wyoming, along with an art-world mystery and a punchy look at modern America, you’ll find something to galvanize your bedside book stack. Happy reading!

FICTION:

Appraisals: A Novel
By Claire Boyles
W. W. Norton: 288 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

While Boyles’ debut novel ostensibly follows the fate of an Eastern Colorado family farm, its deeper purpose involves showing how dire water resources are for all agricultural endeavors in the region. Maggie and her husband Fish have inherited their land from her grandparents, but they and their teenage daughter Ozzie all know that without irrigation, even defeating big development plans won’t make much of a difference to locals.

The Seekers of Deer Creek: A Novel
By Thao Thai
Mariner Books: 320 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

Vietnamese American sisters Vivi and Calla are also a curator and an artist. When their father dies and leaves behind a sketch that might be the work of renowned Vietnamese painter K.P. Lý, the siblings embark on a quest to find out whether Lý had connections to their family. Along the way they reexamine their difficult upbringing and find new ways to communicate that matter more than any artwork.

Etna: A Novel
By Paul Yoon
Scribner: 208 pp., $28
(Aug. 4)

Anyone who has seen “The Odyssey” with Matt Damon or is anticipating “Heart of the Beast” with Brad Pitt (about a veteran and his war dog), should pick up Yoon’s remarkable tale of a combat survivor in an alternate present who happens to be a former military dog named Etna. His adventures traversing a broken land of haunted people and animals may be less the stuff of future myth and more about trauma, but Yoon brilliantly creates voices for human and canine that make both more whole.

A Tender Age: A Novel
By Chang-Rae Lee
Riverhead: 368 pp., $30
(Aug. 11)

Jeon-Gi, known as J-G, is a relatively happy 10-year-old in 1976, until a neighbor’s attack on him fuels his own violent ideas. Although he gets a relatively easy sentence after threatening a classmate, J-G’s parents decide to send him to a Christian summer camp. Incidents there that might be sweet nostalgia for other kids only remind him of how different and lonely he feels inside. However, it’s J-G’s adult reason for sharing his experience that hits home.

Sunrise: A Novel
By Téa Obreht
Random House: 368 pp., $29
(Aug. 11)

Many, so so many, historical novels seek to tie a contemporary protagonist to a long-ago event or story; so so many fail to make the connections mean anything. That’s why Obreht’s superb and fascinating new book should earn a place on your 2026 reading list: She not only meaningfully connects the stories of a stranded young woman, an early-20th-century gunslinger, and a historical reenactor, but manages to make them illuminate each other.

NONFICTION:

Triage
By Claudia Rankine
Graywolf: 192 pp., $28
(Aug. 4)

The book’s epigraph says a great deal: “Any attempt to name and describe our lives will always seem unstable because all language is a form of triage.” Rankine’s new attempt at triage focuses on her long friendship with a person identified only as “the theorist.” Anecdotes and analysis are interspersed with photos of all sorts of sofas and couches, calling into question ideas about where and how we find respite and support — or not.

Your Fellow Americans: Dispatches Across the Country We Call Home
By Peter Santenello
Simon & Schuster: 336 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

Santenello has over 4 million subscribers on YouTube, where he posts videos about every kind of place in America — rich and poor, renowned and hidden, busy and abandoned. Love or hate the author’s self-described nonpartisan approach, you’ll find this book surprising, particularly as it reveals how geography, climate and infrastructure affect community and communication. Think Anthony Bourdain crossed with Michael Moore.

Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War
By James M. Scott
W. W. Norton & Co.: 528 pp., $42
(Aug. 4)

Historian Scott (“Black Snow”) creates a propulsive read about the last days of World War II, in which America’s development of the atomic bomb pushed against Japan’s aggressive majority, with tragic results that many — including the author — believe necessary. The contrast between President Harry S. Truman, who had been in office for a matter of weeks, and Emperor Hirohito, whose military seemed unstoppable, remains shocking.

The People’s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn
By Dave Zirin
Dutton: 320 pp., $33
(Aug. 4)

Recently a friend showed me a list of books recommended by a pundit and asked which one to read first. Without hesitation I told her she should pick up “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn, first published in 1980 and still the most comprehensive remedial tonic to received wisdom I know. Zirin’s lively biography of this activist should remind everyone that history isn’t just about facts and figures but also context and compassion.

The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State
By Jill Lepore
Liveright Publishing Corp.: 336 pp., $30
(Aug. 25)

Hannah Arendt, one of the 20th century’s defining political thinkers, posited that modern life was making “being human superfluous”; her learned successor Lepore warns that our present bears out that idea. One day scholars will teach Lepore’s work alongside Arendt’s, seeing that Lepore interrogates not simply a modern moment, but traces our current machine age back to the 17th-century conceit for artifice as improvement. According to her, the way out is to get back to nature. Meet you in the woods.

If your summer could use a little energy boost, forget the complicated smoothie — turn to one of these fresh book releases instead. From fast-paced World War II history to a slow-burn rescue in rural Wyoming, along with an art-world mystery and a punchy look at modern America, you’ll find something to galvanize your bedside book stack. Happy reading!

FICTION:

Appraisals: A Novel
By Claire Boyles
W. W. Norton: 288 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

While Boyles’ debut novel ostensibly follows the fate of an Eastern Colorado family farm, its deeper purpose involves showing how dire water resources are for all agricultural endeavors in the region. Maggie and her husband Fish have inherited their land from her grandparents, but they and their teenage daughter Ozzie all know that without irrigation, even defeating big development plans won’t make much of a difference to locals.

The Seekers of Deer Creek: A Novel
By Thao Thai
Mariner Books: 320 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

Vietnamese American sisters Vivi and Calla are also a curator and an artist. When their father dies and leaves behind a sketch that might be the work of renowned Vietnamese painter K.P. Lý, the siblings embark on a quest to find out whether Lý had connections to their family. Along the way they reexamine their difficult upbringing and find new ways to communicate that matter more than any artwork.

Etna: A Novel
By Paul Yoon
Scribner: 208 pp., $28
(Aug. 4)

Anyone who has seen “The Odyssey” with Matt Damon or is anticipating “Heart of the Beast” with Brad Pitt (about a veteran and his war dog), should pick up Yoon’s remarkable tale of a combat survivor in an alternate present who happens to be a former military dog named Etna. His adventures traversing a broken land of haunted people and animals may be less the stuff of future myth and more about trauma, but Yoon brilliantly creates voices for human and canine that make both more whole.

A Tender Age: A Novel
By Chang-Rae Lee
Riverhead: 368 pp., $30
(Aug. 11)

Jeon-Gi, known as J-G, is a relatively happy 10-year-old in 1976, until a neighbor’s attack on him fuels his own violent ideas. Although he gets a relatively easy sentence after threatening a classmate, J-G’s parents decide to send him to a Christian summer camp. Incidents there that might be sweet nostalgia for other kids only remind him of how different and lonely he feels inside. However, it’s J-G’s adult reason for sharing his experience that hits home.

Sunrise: A Novel
By Téa Obreht
Random House: 368 pp., $29
(Aug. 11)

Many, so so many, historical novels seek to tie a contemporary protagonist to a long-ago event or story; so so many fail to make the connections mean anything. That’s why Obreht’s superb and fascinating new book should earn a place on your 2026 reading list: She not only meaningfully connects the stories of a stranded young woman, an early-20th-century gunslinger, and a historical reenactor, but manages to make them illuminate each other.

NONFICTION:

Triage
By Claudia Rankine
Graywolf: 192 pp., $28
(Aug. 4)

The book’s epigraph says a great deal: “Any attempt to name and describe our lives will always seem unstable because all language is a form of triage.” Rankine’s new attempt at triage focuses on her long friendship with a person identified only as “the theorist.” Anecdotes and analysis are interspersed with photos of all sorts of sofas and couches, calling into question ideas about where and how we find respite and support — or not.

Your Fellow Americans: Dispatches Across the Country We Call Home
By Peter Santenello
Simon & Schuster: 336 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

Santenello has over 4 million subscribers on YouTube, where he posts videos about every kind of place in America — rich and poor, renowned and hidden, busy and abandoned. Love or hate the author’s self-described nonpartisan approach, you’ll find this book surprising, particularly as it reveals how geography, climate and infrastructure affect community and communication. Think Anthony Bourdain crossed with Michael Moore.

Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War
By James M. Scott
W. W. Norton & Co.: 528 pp., $42
(Aug. 4)

Historian Scott (“Black Snow”) creates a propulsive read about the last days of World War II, in which America’s development of the atomic bomb pushed against Japan’s aggressive majority, with tragic results that many — including the author — believe necessary. The contrast between President Harry S. Truman, who had been in office for a matter of weeks, and Emperor Hirohito, whose military seemed unstoppable, remains shocking.

The People’s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn
By Dave Zirin
Dutton: 320 pp., $33
(Aug. 4)

Recently a friend showed me a list of books recommended by a pundit and asked which one to read first. Without hesitation I told her she should pick up “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn, first published in 1980 and still the most comprehensive remedial tonic to received wisdom I know. Zirin’s lively biography of this activist should remind everyone that history isn’t just about facts and figures but also context and compassion.

The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State
By Jill Lepore
Liveright Publishing Corp.: 336 pp., $30
(Aug. 25)

Hannah Arendt, one of the 20th century’s defining political thinkers, posited that modern life was making “being human superfluous”; her learned successor Lepore warns that our present bears out that idea. One day scholars will teach Lepore’s work alongside Arendt’s, seeing that Lepore interrogates not simply a modern moment, but traces our current machine age back to the 17th-century conceit for artifice as improvement. According to her, the way out is to get back to nature. Meet you in the woods.

If your summer could use a little energy boost, forget the complicated smoothie — turn to one of these fresh book releases instead. From fast-paced World War II history to a slow-burn rescue in rural Wyoming, along with an art-world mystery and a punchy look at modern America, you’ll find something to galvanize your bedside book stack. Happy reading!

FICTION:

Appraisals: A Novel
By Claire Boyles
W. W. Norton: 288 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

While Boyles’ debut novel ostensibly follows the fate of an Eastern Colorado family farm, its deeper purpose involves showing how dire water resources are for all agricultural endeavors in the region. Maggie and her husband Fish have inherited their land from her grandparents, but they and their teenage daughter Ozzie all know that without irrigation, even defeating big development plans won’t make much of a difference to locals.

The Seekers of Deer Creek: A Novel
By Thao Thai
Mariner Books: 320 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

Vietnamese American sisters Vivi and Calla are also a curator and an artist. When their father dies and leaves behind a sketch that might be the work of renowned Vietnamese painter K.P. Lý, the siblings embark on a quest to find out whether Lý had connections to their family. Along the way they reexamine their difficult upbringing and find new ways to communicate that matter more than any artwork.

Etna: A Novel
By Paul Yoon
Scribner: 208 pp., $28
(Aug. 4)

Anyone who has seen “The Odyssey” with Matt Damon or is anticipating “Heart of the Beast” with Brad Pitt (about a veteran and his war dog), should pick up Yoon’s remarkable tale of a combat survivor in an alternate present who happens to be a former military dog named Etna. His adventures traversing a broken land of haunted people and animals may be less the stuff of future myth and more about trauma, but Yoon brilliantly creates voices for human and canine that make both more whole.

A Tender Age: A Novel
By Chang-Rae Lee
Riverhead: 368 pp., $30
(Aug. 11)

Jeon-Gi, known as J-G, is a relatively happy 10-year-old in 1976, until a neighbor’s attack on him fuels his own violent ideas. Although he gets a relatively easy sentence after threatening a classmate, J-G’s parents decide to send him to a Christian summer camp. Incidents there that might be sweet nostalgia for other kids only remind him of how different and lonely he feels inside. However, it’s J-G’s adult reason for sharing his experience that hits home.

Sunrise: A Novel
By Téa Obreht
Random House: 368 pp., $29
(Aug. 11)

Many, so so many, historical novels seek to tie a contemporary protagonist to a long-ago event or story; so so many fail to make the connections mean anything. That’s why Obreht’s superb and fascinating new book should earn a place on your 2026 reading list: She not only meaningfully connects the stories of a stranded young woman, an early-20th-century gunslinger, and a historical reenactor, but manages to make them illuminate each other.

NONFICTION:

Triage
By Claudia Rankine
Graywolf: 192 pp., $28
(Aug. 4)

The book’s epigraph says a great deal: “Any attempt to name and describe our lives will always seem unstable because all language is a form of triage.” Rankine’s new attempt at triage focuses on her long friendship with a person identified only as “the theorist.” Anecdotes and analysis are interspersed with photos of all sorts of sofas and couches, calling into question ideas about where and how we find respite and support — or not.

Your Fellow Americans: Dispatches Across the Country We Call Home
By Peter Santenello
Simon & Schuster: 336 pp., $30
(Aug. 4)

Santenello has over 4 million subscribers on YouTube, where he posts videos about every kind of place in America — rich and poor, renowned and hidden, busy and abandoned. Love or hate the author’s self-described nonpartisan approach, you’ll find this book surprising, particularly as it reveals how geography, climate and infrastructure affect community and communication. Think Anthony Bourdain crossed with Michael Moore.

Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War
By James M. Scott
W. W. Norton & Co.: 528 pp., $42
(Aug. 4)

Historian Scott (“Black Snow”) creates a propulsive read about the last days of World War II, in which America’s development of the atomic bomb pushed against Japan’s aggressive majority, with tragic results that many — including the author — believe necessary. The contrast between President Harry S. Truman, who had been in office for a matter of weeks, and Emperor Hirohito, whose military seemed unstoppable, remains shocking.

The People’s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn
By Dave Zirin
Dutton: 320 pp., $33
(Aug. 4)

Recently a friend showed me a list of books recommended by a pundit and asked which one to read first. Without hesitation I told her she should pick up “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn, first published in 1980 and still the most comprehensive remedial tonic to received wisdom I know. Zirin’s lively biography of this activist should remind everyone that history isn’t just about facts and figures but also context and compassion.

The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State
By Jill Lepore
Liveright Publishing Corp.: 336 pp., $30
(Aug. 25)

Hannah Arendt, one of the 20th century’s defining political thinkers, posited that modern life was making “being human superfluous”; her learned successor Lepore warns that our present bears out that idea. One day scholars will teach Lepore’s work alongside Arendt’s, seeing that Lepore interrogates not simply a modern moment, but traces our current machine age back to the 17th-century conceit for artifice as improvement. According to her, the way out is to get back to nature. Meet you in the woods.