14 of the best books of 2026 so far

"Full of pathos and humour," according to The Times, The Palm House centres on a pair of spiky middle-aged colleagues, Laura Miller, a writer and the novel's narrator, and Edmund Putnam, an older editor who is leaving his job at a highbrow literary magazine. The friends' conversations in London pubs over drinks and shared packets of crisps are interspersed with often heartbreaking recollections about their pasts. Critics have praised the novel's dialogue, which Riley, writes the LRB, "wields… like a Swiss army knife, now corkscrewed, now serrated, but always coming to a short, sharp point." (RL)