Need to Read: Fall 2026

September 3, 2026

Tim Ehrenberg, creator of “Tim Talks Books” and president of the Nantucket Book Foundation, gives you his Top Picks for Fall

I remember exactly where I was when 9/11 happened and I remember exactly where I was when I first read a Jodi Picoult novel. I have been known to say reading is my therapy and if that is true, then I owe Jodi backpay for being my therapist. She has walked me through coming out, religion, marriage, racism and gun violence in America, the Holocaust, trans rights, and COVID-19. She has made me fall in love with elephants and wolves and honeybees and whales. She has made me uncomfortable and ultimately a better, more compassionate human. Hollow Bones is her 30th book and it might be a perfect novel. It’s like five novels in one and I am amazed how she was able to weave all its threads together. Jodi is known for her twists, and this novel has seven signature Jodi twists. This is a 9/11 story and such a moving tribute to all those we lost that day 25 years ago. It’s about mental health and trauma and family and love. It makes you stop and think about something in a different way, which has always been why I revere Jodi as one of my favorite writers.

I will be in conversation with Jodi Picoult on September 30 in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, at the Stadium Theater with An Unlikely Story.

Class is back in session at Tiffin Academy with Elin Hilderbrand and Shelby Cunningham’s The Thoroughbreds , a sequel to The Academy. We’ve all been on the edge of our classroom seats waiting to see what was in Cinnamon’s email, what will happen with Tiffin’s “It couple,” Charley and East, and what will become of the underground speakeasy Priorities? All of your questions will be answered in this dramatic conclusion. This sequel is even more rewarding than its predecessor because we’re invested in the teachers and students, their daily lives and personalities. The book has all the excitement and thrill of your own senior year and has all the ingredients you love about an Elin Hilderbrand novel.

Elin Hilderbrand will be signing copies of The Thoroughbreds on September 13. Check nantucketbookpartners.com for place and time.

Beloved Nantucket historian Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the island’s number-one

bestseller In the Heart of the Sea, returns with a book you will be rushing to discover. The Rush is truly the story of the making of the modern world as we know it. In 1848, a carpenter spotted flecks of gold in a shallow stream at Sutter’s Mill in California and ignited the greatest voluntary migration in U.S. history as well as sparking the seed of the Civil War. I think Nat Philbrick is one of the best historians we have. He makes history accessible, entertaining and thrilling, and helps us to see how our past got us where we are today. A new book by Nat Philbrick is cause for celebration.

I will be in conversation with Nathaniel Philbrick on Tuesday, October 6 at the Unitarian Church for the book’s launch. Register at nantucketbookpartners.com

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is on a “best book of all-time” list for me. I waited almost a decade for a new novel and here it is: American Hagwon. It’s a moving epic family saga. It’s a novel of contradictions: intimate, yet larger than life; simple, yet complex. The book has sentences that bounce off the page with such profound beauty and insight into the human condition that I found myself underlining passages and rereading them over and over. I am positive this will be on everyone’s bedside table this fall for good reason. It’s an ambitious novel by one of our most talented wordsmiths.

Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic series should be required reading for the fall season. Nothing makes you want to sip some apple cider, sit in a pile of leaves with a chunky sweater on and read a book more than spending time with an Alice Hoffman character. The Witches of Cambridge is a brand-new witchy novel and it is pure magic from the very first sentence. “In every story, there is a beginning, and this was hers, the one she had been waiting for all her life.” Ava and Lauren attend Radcliffe College in the 1950s, where they become immersed in a mysterious group of witches known as the Lilith society. When girls begin to go missing, the witch trials of the past come back to haunt them.

I am forever spellbound with the mind of a writer. I built a career on examining their craft and how they create the magic of words on a page. Conversations with writers on stage or on our podcast are some of my favorite moments. Two incredible authors, Harlan Coben and Michael Cunningham, are giving us a magnifying glass into their writing lives with the memoirs, Plot Twist and Unsayable. Harlan Coben has been an auto-buy author for me since 1997. His books never disappoint and his wit, humor and tenacity are on full display with this new autobiography. Michael Cunningham (Pulitzer Prize winner of The Hours) is one of the greats, and his memoir is an ode to literature and a tribute to a life “trying to describe the indescribable.”

Listen to mine and Elin Hilderbrand’s conversation with Harlan Coben on our podcast Books, Beach, & Beyond at booksbeachandbeyond.com. I will be in conversation with Michael Cunningham at the Aspen Literary Festival on September 25.

Every Story is a Love Story opens with a letter written to a man from the woman who killed his wife in a tragic car accident. What follows is a breathtaking meditation on grief, love lost and forgiveness. It’s one of those books that you start, and all time and responsibilities go out the door. Dèy by Edwidge Danticat provides a similar reading experience. They are both novels that you don’t just read, you feel. In Dèy, a woman faces existential questions about self and family when she is caught in a random act of violence. Grief is an interesting subject, a profound feeling. It is something we all face, but rarely discuss. Both of these novels exquisitely unpack grief in affecting and moving ways.

I will be in conversation with Imbolo and Edwidge at the Boston Book Festival for the Fiction Keynote on Saturday, October 17.

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