Publishers Weekly

MIEKO KAWAKAMI

Sisters in Yellow Mieko Kawakami, trans. from the Japanese by Laurel Taylor and Hitomi Yoshio. Knopf, $30 (448p) ISBN 978-0-593-53773-2 KAWAKAMI (All the Lovers in the Night) unfurls a remarkable noir-tinged tale of female desperation. e story opens...

“I DON’T NECESSARILY WANT THE NOVEL TO BE A COMPLETELY CRINGE-FREE READING EXPERIENCE.”

ONE OF OUR SPRING 2026 WRITERS TO WATCH

Publishing People of the Year

Our annual salute to those who have made important contributions to the industry begins with Penguin Random House CEO Nihar Malaviya, our person of the year. We’re also recognizing the work of five others who had notable impacts on the business.

Spring Fiction & Nonfiction Preview

Our editors have sifted through thousands of submissions to bring you the season’s most notable new releases, from game-changing histories to high-voltage romantasies.

THE NOVELIST LAUNCHES A SPELLBINDING NEW ROMANTASY SERIES WITH

THIS SCINTILLATING romantasy series launch from Odette (Curse of the Wolf King) transports readers to the violent theocracy of the Holy Continent, where all arts and passions are viewed as deadly sins and strictly forbidden. Society is ruled by the...

THE NOVELIST SPINS A MAGICAL TALE OF LOVE AND LITERATURE IN THE CHARMED LIBRARY.

Jennifer Moorman. Harper Muse, $18.99 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-4003-4366-9 WORDS LITERALLY COME TO LIFE for a lonely assistant librarian in this exquisite tale of a magical library from Moorman ( e Vanishing of Josephine Reynolds). One night,...

From Brain Science to Bedtime Fears

Renowned physician brings his literary lens to childhood fear, fatherhood, and the stories we carry. His latest work, Bedtime Stories That Will Terrify Children, is a darkly beautiful debut f rom Omera Press

Religion & Spirituality Update

This year’s annual meetings of the AAR and SBL will highlight scholarship, fellowship, and the importance of taking a stand for academic freedom.

Star Watch 2025

This year, members of the publishing industry nominated nearly 200 of their peers ages 40 and under for PW’s program honoring rising talent in the book business. We’ve selected the best of the best for recognition.

Best Books 2025

Our editors review thousands of books each year, and for this issue they’ve picked 150 of the best for adults, teens, and children, from bold literary experiments to heartfelt memoirs, whimsical adventure tales, and more.

GABRIEL TALLENT

THIS TENSE AND STAGGERING tale of rock climbing and family demons from Tallent (My Absolute Darling) explores the cost of following one’s dreams. Best friends and high school seniors Daniel Redburn and Tamma Callahan steal every spare moment to climb...

JEANETTE WINTERSON

★ ❘ CRITIC AND NOVELIST WINTERSON (Night Side of the River) anchors this dazzling memoir-in-essays in her childhood obsession with One Thousand and One Nights, the collection of Middle Eastern folktales that introduced magic lamps and ying carpets to...

Holiday Gift Guide

PW’s editors have compiled 150 gift-worthy titles for children and adults alike. Our picks include doorstop histories and up-all-night mysteries, heart-warming romances and hearth-warming cookbooks, and books by favorite and soon-to-be-favorite authors.

OYINKAN BRAITHWAITE

OYINKAN AITE W H IT RA B

THE FREEDOM TO READ ISSUE

Down but Never Out

Children’s book agents persevere in a tough climate for middle grade.

Independent presses of all sizes are winning by mixing it up.

Independent presses of all sizes are winning by mixing it up.

KEVIN YOUNG

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD nalist Young (Stones) o ers an impressionistic and potent collection of sequence poems written over 16 years. Rich with epigrammatic are (“It’s like a language,/ loss—/ can be// learnt only/ by living—there—”), Young’s work...

JOE HILL

Joe Hill. Morrow, $40 (896p) ISBN 978-0-06-220060-0 BESTSELLER HILL (The Fireman) masterfully sustains tension throughout this immersive doorstopper of a horror novel. On one of college student Arthur Oakes’s visits to his mother, Erin, in the Vermont...

SASHA BONÉT

THE DEBUT AUTHOR DAZZLES IN THE WATERBEARERS, A POTENT BLEND OF FAMILY MEMOIR AND CULTURAL HISTORY.

WE TALK WITH NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER JOE SACCO ABOUT HIS INCISIVE LATEST WORK OF COMICS JOURNALISM.

JOE SACCO believes in the power of the people. But as a comics journalist whose reporting has taken him to some of the most brutal conflict zones on Earth, he’s also keenly aware that people and their prejudices can be leveraged by politicians. “The...

Breaking Boundaries

We speak with several YA authors who are venturing into adult fiction for the first time.

Fall Fiction & Nonfiction Preview

From blockbuster biographies to spine-tingling suspense novels and hot-and-heavy romances, our editors handpick the season’s most noteworthy new releases.

THE DEBUT NOVELIST DELIVERS A SEARING COMING-OF-AGE DRAMA IN ATOMIC HEARTS.

Megan Cummins. Ballantine, $29 (352p) ISBN 978-0-593-87535-3 Cummins’s impressive debut novel (a er the collection If the Body Allows It) follows two lifelong friends who bonded while struggling with their torn-apart families. Gertie and Cindy, both...

OLIA HERCULES

★ ❘CHEF AND COOKBOOK AUTHOR Hercules (Home Food) blends personal history with political urgency in this poignant account of her family’s roots in Ukraine. What begins as a visceral tale of survival and cultural preservation—Hercules recounts the...

For reviews from other publications, see the inside back cover.

Where big ideas begin

Visionary thinking and actionable insights for today’s most ambitious leaders.

Forever Homes

aLTHOUGH COVID PROMPTED many to spend more time at home, the trend didn’t begin or end with the pandemic. With that in mind, PW spoke with authors whose forthcoming books help readers choose meaningful decor over fleeting fads, grow and preserve their...

EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT

On Monday September 5th, 1994, at home, at the dining room table, I sat down to write. An hour later, I gave the first chapter to my wife. I asked, “Should I continue?” “Yes,” she said. “I like it.” So I wrote through the rest of the fall and winter,...

THE PLIMPTON PRIZE WINNER WOWS IN NECESSARY FICTION, A LUMINOUS NOVEL OF QUEER LIFE IN LAGOS, NIGERIA.

THE PLIMPTON PRIZE WINNER WOWS IN NECESSARY FICTION, A LUMINOUS NOVEL OF QUEER LIFE IN LAGOS, NIGERIA.

JUN0 DAWSON

Juno Dawson. Penguin Books, $19 trade paper (464p) ISBN 978-0-14-313716-0 GIRL POWER goes toe-to-toe with demonic forces in Dawson’s explosive conclusion to the HMRC trilogy (a er e Shadow Cabinet), which nds its expansive cast of magical women at...

Manga publishers turn to genres appealing to women as a growing readership ages up.

GIRLS AND YOUNG WOMEN HAVE ALWAYS been a key part of the U.S. manga audience, but that audience is changing as it grows up and branches out—and publishers are eager to follow. In Japan, most manga are divided into categories by gender and age group:...

HONORÉE FANONNE JEFFERS

Honorée Fanonne Je ers. Harper, $30 (368p) ISBN 978-0-06-324663-8 ★ ❘ NOVELIST JEFFERS ( e Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois) explores in these incisive essays “the crossroads”: “a location of difficulty and possibility, a boundary between the divine and...

“I’M THE QUEEN OF HIDING THE OBVIOUS FROM MYSELF.”

In 2016, bestselling memoirist Melissa Febos made a resolution to be celibate for three months. She knew that for many people this would not be particularly difficult or a daunting proposition—or even something they would think of as a choice. But for...

DC TITLES FOR OUR YOUNGEST READERS!

SUPERMAN: THE WORLD Written and illustrated by top talent from around the world including Dan Jurgens and Lee Weeks, Jorge Jiménez, Stevan Subič, and more! 9781799504870 | June 2025 | $24.99 SUPERMAN’S GOOD GUY GANG Clark Kent befriends fellow...

Mother, May I?

Authors look at the mother-child relationship from both sides of the equation.

School and Library Spotlight

Special fonts and formats can engage dyslexic and struggling readers.

TOCHI ONYEBUCHI

THE MELANCHOLY antihero of this searing indictment of colonialism from World Fantasy Award winner Onyebuchi (Goliath) walks the mean streets of an unnamed West African city that’s trembling on the verge of an election between a charismatic indigenous...

MAUD VENTURA

Maud Ventura, trans. from the French by Gretchen Schmid. HarperVia, $30 (400p) ISBN 978-0-06-342751-8 IN THE SMASHING sophomore novel from Ventura (My Husband), an amoral singer re ects on her tortured past and trouble with stardom. Raised in Paris...

Politics, Power, and the Almighty

Religion publishers are launching a wave of titles with a Christian perspective addressing many of the fundamental questions rattling the nation today: Is the United States a land where people heed Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount by choice, by edict, or...

“PERIODICALLY I WORRY ABOUT VILIFYING MEN, BUT I DON’T THINK THE WORLD IS SUFFERING FROM MY PORTRAYALS.”

In spring 1999, Lydia Millet impulsively purchased a dilapidated house in the desert outside of Tucson, Ariz., on the edge of Saguaro National Park West, and relocated there from New York City to start a new life—one set against a landscape of sage and...

“I’M A STRICT BELIEVER THAT THERE’S A PRICE FOR EVERYTHING.” STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES

Throughout his 25-year career, bestselling horror novelist Stephen Graham Jones has mixed with a mélange of demons, including zombies (in Zombie Bake-Off), werewolves (Mongrels), and good old-fashioned serial killers (I Was a Teenage Slasher). But for...

CHRIS BOHJALIAN RETURNS WITH A CIVIL WAR PAGE TURNER

iT’S NOT EASY to categorize Chris Bohjalian’s work. If he were a journalist or academic, he might be considered a generalist, someone disinclined to a specific subject or genre. The 64-year-old bestselling author wrote both The Flight Attendant...

ODDER An Otter's Story

The heartwarming picture–book adaptation of the beloved New York Times bestseller, Odder Coming 4.29.25

We talk with Eisner nominee Lawrence Lindell about their raw and revealing graphic memoir.

We talk with Eisner nominee Lawrence Lindell about their raw and revealing graphic memoir.

KATIE KITAMURA

KITAMURA INTIMACIES serves up a taut and alluring novel about a mysterious relationship between a middle-aged woman and a young man. The unnamed narrator, a well-known theater actor, meets Xavier at a restaurant in New York City. eir rst meeting took...

LAILA LALAMI

★ LALAMI THE OTHER AMERICANS delivers a stirring dystopian tale of dwindling privacy and freedom in the digital age. In the late 2030s, Sara T. Hussein, 38, a Muslim American art archivist, is detained by o cials from the Risk Assessment...

10 WRITERS TO WATCH THIS SPRING

THIS SPRING’S BUZZIEST DEBUT FICTION HAS NO SHORTAGE OF DRAMA, WHETHER IN BIOTECH STARTUPS, NATIVE AMERICAN RESERVATION POLITICS, PSYCHOTHERAPY SESSIONS, THE SCOTTISH THEATER WORLD, OR WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL. THE SLATE ALSO CONTAINS TWO HOLLYWOOD-READY...

The Ingram Way

For leading Ingram Content Group through nearly 30 years of change and growth, Ingram Content Group chairman John Ingram has earned Publishers Weekly’s second-annual Frederic G. Melcher Lifetime Achievement Award.

Spring Fiction & Nonfiction Preview

Our editors highlight 767 forthcoming titles and pick their top 10 books in each of 13 categories.

Victoria Amelina

The Ukrainian novelist, who was killed by a 2023 Russian missile strike, provides a devastating chronicle of the war in her homeland in Looking at Women Looking at War.

Prevailing Winds

As the facts of climate change manifest in real life, fiction writers are finding that the future is all too present.

Making Space at The Table

Conversations about diversity in the publishing industry are not new, they’re not easy, and they’re bigger than publishing. In late October, PW spoke with agents and editors about their impressions and experiences of the industry as publishing...

Thinking Outside the Screen

Publishers continue to scour webcomics for tales and talent, and have found that fans of the format buy books as mementos.

Olivia Wolfgang-Smith

The novelist astonishes in Mutual Interest, an ingenious story of power and passion in Gilded Age New York.

The hit romantasy webcomic continues MAY 2025!

The hit romantasy webcomic continues MAY 2025!

Optimism Reigns at Frankfurt

Rights dealing was brisk and the mood was buoyant at this year’s fair.

RISING STARS

PW celebrates the 10th anniversary of Star Watch, our annual celebration of publishing’s best and brightest.

HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

Our editors have been busy making the literary rounds and compiling gift suggestions for book lovers of all ages.

ALI SMITH

Publishers are hoping changes at Indigo will revive the Canadian market. And we talk with Nicole Winstanley, the new president and publisher of Simon & Schuster Canada.

AMANDA LEE KOE

The Singapore Literature Prize winner sets pulses racing in Sister Snake, her audacious and addictive sophomore novel.

The Week in Publishing

Among the week’s headlines, audio publishers from around the world gathered in New York City, and PEN America found school book bans surged in the 2023–2024 school year.

Brief Industry Insights on

Held in Düsseldorf, Germany, every four years, Drupa is the largest printing technologies exhibition in the world. This year’s event, which ran from May 28 through June 7, drew 170,000 trade visitors, 80% of whom came from overseas, and 1,643...