Unabridged: 2026 Mid-Year Book Check-In with Sara Hildreth and Cree Myles

Now that we’re officially halfway through 2026, it’s time for a little mid-year book check-in with friends of the pod, Cree Myles (All Ways Black) and Sara Hildreth (Fiction Matters)! Together, we gush about the books we loved (and hated) from the first half of the year, the titles we’re most excited for in the second half of the year, and all the bookish trends defining 2026. Get ready for lots of reading inspo, juicy hot takes, and of course, book gossip.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes. You can also find what we talked about on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

• All Ways Black

• Cree Myles (Instagram)

• Fiction Matters Instagram

• Fiction Matters Substack

• “2026 Pulitzer Prize Announcement” (YouTube)

• The 2026 Paperback Reading Guide (Sara Hildreth, Fiction Matters)

• The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

• Lena Dunham

• Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

• Strangers by Belle Burden

• Kin by Tayari Jones

• Coach x Penguin Random House Readable Book Charms

• The Book Cover Collection by Dior

• “The Rise of Ragebait Lit” (Maris Kreizman, Harper’s Bazaar)

• Adult Braces by Lindy West

• London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe

• “Ep. 415 The Feeling of Being Known with Tayari Jones” (The Stacks)

• Alfred A. Knopf

• An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

• Honey by Imani Thompson

• Dead First by Johnny Compton

• Beetlecreek by William Demby

• The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

• Departure(s) by Julian Barnes

• The Great Wherever by Shannon Sanders

• Unreasonable Women by Justine van der Leun

• We Were Once a Family by Roxana Asgarian

• You Won’t Get Free of It by Rachel Aviv

• Calliope Street by Josh Hanson

• Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin

• Good Morning Means I Love You by Kendra Allen

• Jason Reynolds

• Sula by Toni Morrison

• Catch the Devil by Pamela Colloff

• Rachel Aviv at The New Yorker

• Beginning Middle End by Valeria Luiselli

• Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli

• Now I Surrender by Álvaro Enrigue translated by Natasha Wimmer

• Dèy by Edwidge Danticat

• The Song of Stork and Dromedary by Anjet Daanje translated by David McKay

• The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje translated by David McKay

• Farrar, Strauss & Giroux

• “9 books to read this summer” (Happy to Be Here, Greta Johnsen)

• Etna by Paul Yoon

• A Tender Age by Chang Rae Lee

• Hiroshima, 8:15 by Kiyoshi Tanimoto 

• Hiroshima by John Hersey

• Seasons of Fury by Rozina Ali

• Queen Mab by Emily McBride

• “Can You Understand Ireland Through One Family’s Terrible Secret?” (Emily McBride, The Nation)

• The Disappearers by Marlon James

• The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman by Deesha Philyaw

• Ply by Hernan Diaz

• American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee

• It Will Come Back to You by Sigrid Nunez

• Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel

• A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

• The Guest by Emma Cline

• The Girls by Emma Cline

• Switzy by Emma Cline

• American Scoundrel by Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark

• American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

• Roy Cohn

• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

• Angels in America by Tony Kushner

• Angels in America (HBO)

• Al Pacino

• Jeremy Strong

• Sebastian Stan

• The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi, 2024)

• The Bitch by Pilar Quintana

• Danzy Senna

• Percival Everett

• The Art of Fighting by Priya Parker

• The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker

• Man in the Mirror by Adnad Giridharadas

• Killing of Jordan Neely

• Fear and Fury by Heather Ann Thompson

• Five Bullets by Elliot William

• Kaveh Akbar

• Canon by Paige Lewis

• Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

• Partita by Barbara Kingsolver

• Exhibit by R. O. Kwon

• 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel

• Abandoning a Cat by Haruki Murakami

• The Bachelor (ABC)

• Underground by Haruki Murakami

• Strung Up by Stacey Patton

• The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford by Nafissa Thompson-Spires

• Kathy Belden

• Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires

• Fair Ones by Lydia Millet

• Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet

• May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry

• Transit Books

• Ghalen by Walter Mosley

• Hanging and Burning by Walter Mosley

• Nicole Kidman

• Back by Lauren Michele Jackson

• White Negroes by Lauren Michele Jackson

• “Ep. 221 White Negroes by Lauren Michele Jackson -- The Stacks Book Club (David Dennis Jr.)” (The Stacks)

• David Dennis Jr.

• Jia Tolentino

• Lauren Michele Jackson at The New Yorker

• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

• Nathaniel Hawthorne

• How to Be Less Useful by Priyanka Mattoo

• Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones by Priyanka Mattoo

• Humpty Dumpty by Harold Rogers

• Piglet by Lottie Hazell

• Beartown by Fredrik Backman

• Mona by Azra Liaqat Khan

• Tiny Reparations Books

• Pilar Garcia-Brown

• Magical/Realism by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal

• NW by Zadie Smith

• All the Beastly Things by Eilish Quin

• The Giver by Lois Lowry

• From Infinite World by Ashon Thomas Crawley

• Wild Aster by Anna Hogeland

• The Long Answer by Anna Hogeland

• Anne Carson

• Audition by Katie Kitamura

• Lauren Groff

• Transcription by Ben Lerner

• The Color Purple by Alice Walker

• 2026 National Book Award Judges

• Rumaan Alam

• North Sun by Ethan Rutherford

• “Unabridged: Most Anticipated Books of 2026 with Sara Hildreth and Cree Myles” (The Stacks)

• The Edge of Space-Time by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

• If This Be Magic by Daniel Hahn

• Paradise by Toni Morrison

• “Ep. 417 Paradise by Toni Morrison — The Stacks Book Club (Namwali Serpell)”

Connect with Cree: Instagram | Twitter | All Ways Black | Patreon
Connect with Sara: Instagram | Fiction Matters | Novel Pairings | Substack
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