A list of interesting sounding books — fiction and non-fiction, older and not yet published — that I haven’t read yet but have caught my eye somewhere (as at December 2025):

• Arranging Things: A Rhetoric of Object Placement, by Leonard Koren

• My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein: A Fiction, by Deborah Levy

• Whistler, by Ann Patchett

• John of John, by Douglas Stuart

• Painting Writing Texting, by Chantal Joffe & Olivia Laing

• How to Weather Together: Feminist Practice for Climate Change, by Astrida Neimanis and Jennifer Mae Hamilton

• Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century, by W. David Marx (h/t Craig Mod)

• Flower, by Ed Atkins

• The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life, by Ian Bogost

• We Will Rise Again: Speculative Stories and Essays on Protest, Resistance, and Hope, edited by Malka Older, Annalee Newitz and Karen Lord

• The Emergency, by George Packer

• The Social Codes of Tech Workers: Class Identity in Digital Capitalism, by Robert Dorschel (h/t John Naughton)

• Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free, by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

• Could Should Might Don’t, by Nick Foster

• In the Green Heart, by Richard Lloyd Parry

• Lessons for Young Artists, by David Gentleman

• Brian, by Jeremy Cooper

• What Is Mine, by José Henrique Bortoluci, Translated by Rahul Bery

• The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy, by Ray D. Madoff

• Racebook: A Personal History of the Internet, by O Tochi Onyebuchi

• Sick of It: The Global Fight for Women's Health, by Sophie Harman

• The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years, by Sunil Amrith

• One Aladdin Two Lamps, by Jeanette Winterson

• Empire of the Elite: Inside Conde Nast, the media dynasty that reshaped the world, by Michael M. Grynbaum

• The Last American Road Trip: A Memoir, by Sarah Kendzior

• Analog Days, by Damion Searls

• Pretentiousness: Why it Matters, by Dan Fox

• Squeeze Me: Lemon Recipes & Art, by Ruthie Rogers and Ed Ruscha

• The Exhibition of Persephone Q, by Jessi Jezewska Stevens

• Love Divine, by Ysenda Maxtone Graham

• The Catastrophe Hour: selected Essays, by Meghan Daum

• The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity, by Tim Wu

• Land, by Maggie O’Farrell (2026))

• London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City, and a Family’s Search for Truth, by Patrick Radden Keefe (April 2026)

• Minister without Portfolio: Memoir of a Reluctant Exile, by Hooman Majd

• Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It, by Cory Doctorow

• Earlier, by Sasha Frere-Jones

• Into the Weeds, by Lydia Davis

• What the Deep Water Knows, by Miranda Cowley Heller

• Antimemetics: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading, by Nadia Asparouhova

• Aqua, by Chiara Barzini

• What Is Free Speech?, by Fara Dabhoiwala

• The Word for World: The Maps of Ursula K. Le Guin, Edited by So Mayer and Sarah Shin 

• Big Kiss, Bye-Bye, by Claire-Louise Bennett

• This is For Everyone, by Tim Berners-Lee

• Death of an Ordinary Man, by Sarah Perry (December 2025)

• Dog Days, by Emily LaBarge

• Helm, by Sarah Hall

• One Boat, by Jonathan Buckley

• On the Calculation of Volume I, by Solvej Balle

• Greyhound, by Joanna Pocock

• Helen of Nowhere, by Makenna Goodman

• Intertidal, by Yuvan Aves

• The Last Human Job: the work of connecting in a disconnected world, by Allison Pugh

• The People’s Project, curated by Saeed Jones and Maggie Smith

• Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia, by Sam Dalrymple

• Paris Was Yesterday: 1925-1939, by Janet Flanner

• Women in Dark Times, by Jacqueline Rose

• Forest of Noise, Mosab Abu Toha

• Information Age, Cora Lewis

• Endling, Maria Reva

• The Means of Prediction, Maximilian Kasy

• Will There Ever Be Another You, Patricia Lockwood 

• Culpability, Bruce Holsinger

• I Want To Burn This Place Down, Maris Kreizman

• Vigil, George Saunders (January 2026)

• Brawler, Lauren Groff

• Cyberfeminism Index, Mindy Seu

• The Equivalents, Maggie Doherty 

• The Other Island, Carina del Valle Schorske

• The Slow Road North, Rosie Schaap

• Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones, Priyanka Mattoo

• Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good, Eley Williams

• Shopkeeping: stories, advice and observations, Peter Miller 

• Opacities, Sofia Samatar

• Ordinary Disasters, Anne Anlin Cheng 

• Acts of Resistance: the power of art to create a better world, Amber Massie-Blomfield 

• The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity, Sarah Schulman 

• The Wilderness, Aysegul Savas

• Three Lives A Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die, Tove Ditlevesen

• Searches: selfhood in the digital age, Vauhini Vara 

• To Save and To Destroy: writing as an other, Viet Thanh Nguyen

• The Work We Need, Hilary Cottam 

• What We Can Know, Ian McEwan

• Book of Lives, Margaret Atwood

• The Age of Choice, Sophia Rosenfeld 

• The Living Mountain, Nan Shepherd

• Mood Machine: the rise of Spotify and the costs of the perfect playlist, Liz Pelly

• The Book of Alchemy, Suleika Jaouad

• The Genius Myth, Helen Lewis

• Alterations, Cory Winrock

• Immemorial, Lauren Markham

• Lecture, Mary Cappello

• No Straight Road Takes You There, Rebecca Solnit

• Together, Ece Temelkuran

• Liquid Reflections, Liliane Lijn

• Notes from an island, Tove Jansson

• Elizabeth Harrower: the woman in the watch tower, Susan Wyndham

• Nova Scotia House, Charlie Porter

• Elite Capture, Olufemi o Taiwo

• Emergent Strategy, Adrienne Maree Brown