A Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by PEN America, Lit Hub, BookPage, and Ms. Magazine The wife of a popular and powerful megachurch pastor upends her charmed “rags-to-Rolex” life when her secret past comes roaring into the spotlight—in this "funny and juicy and sexy and delicious peek behind the pulpit" (Samantha Irby) from the acclaimed and beloved author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. From the moment Scharisse Freeman ditched her humble roots and married a megachurch pastor fifteen years her senior, she’s been labeled too brash and too “of the world” by church folks who grudgingly accepted her into their fold, and too holy by her estranged childhood bestie Petra. Schar doesn’t have many allies, but that hasn’t stopped her from building an enviable business empire spanning books to clothing to branded products, and living the comfortable life her husband's power affords her. On the eve of her 40th birthday, Schar gets the final bit of validation she’s always dreamt of: a coveted invitation to participate in the First Lady USA pageant. This is her chance to be accepted by the other pastors’ wives—First Ladies—who are “like Jesus’ disciples if they had been a group of mean girls.” Finally, blissfully, the ice between Schar and the other First Ladies begins to thaw. But as the pageant nears, a sensational scandal breaks with Schar at its center, and her carefully curated life implodes. Schar faces down shame and terrible secrets from her childhood and is reminded that in the eyes of the church, optics can matter more than the truth. Unflinchingly funny, frank, and packed with surprising turns, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman exults in the luscious, messy pleasure of finally feeling free. "Deesha Philyaw has already established herself as one of the greatest short story writers, but in The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman she cements herself as the most soulfully entertaining writer of her era." - Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy and Long Division

An intersectional analysis of evangelical purity culture’s influence on gender, sexuality, race, and national identity in the United States. With a foreword by Linda Kay Klein, author of Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free.In After Purity, purity scholar Sara Moslener conducts a nuanced investigation of purity culture in white evangelical Christianity, revealing its profound impact on gender, sexuality, race, and national identity in the United States. Moslener shares exclusive stories of participants from her research on the After Purity Project to discuss how purity culture affected women—particularly white women—who grew up in the evangelical church. These stories depict how white supremacy has a hand in constructing idealized “traditional” or “biblical” views of family, white racial identity, sexuality, gender expression, and religion, and how our physical bodies are situated within systems of power and oppression.With a blend of history, current research, and sustained analysis, Moslener explores how white evangelicalism has become so politically powerful, why gender and sexuality are positioned at the center of debate, and how those debates aim to obscure deeper histories of white evangelical racism. She describes the full disturbing effect of the “True Love Waits” movement and how purity teachings displaced all other forms of religious education in evangelicalism. From her interviewees in the After Purity Project, she shares stories of oppressive personal piety, sexual repression, disembodiment, self-hatred, mandatory hetero-normativity, and the many layers of obligation and shame in sexuality before reaching adulthood and navigating their way out of the church. Moslener also describes her own story of being a teen advocate for purity culture to becoming a researcher, scholar, and advocate for people harmed by purity.After Purity provides a window into the world of white evangelicalism and how its leaders and political allies have manufactured socio-sexual panic to justify the elimination of sexual and religious diversity that thrive in a flourishing democracy.

The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior.In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth.Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new "behavioral futures markets," where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification."The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a "Big Other" operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled "hive" of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit--at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future.With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future--if we let it. Table of contents INTRODUCTION 1. Home or exile in the digital future I. THE FOUNDATIONS OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM 2. August 9, 2011: Setting the stage for Surveillance Capitalism 3. The discovery of behavioral surplus 4. The moat around the castle 5. The elaboration of Surveillance Capitalism: Kidnap, corner, compete 6. Hijacked: The division of learning in society II. THE ADVANCE OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM 7. The reality business 8. Rendition: From experience to data 9. Rendition from the depths 10. Make them dance 11. The right to the future tense III. INSTRUMENTARIAN POWER FOR A THIRD MODERNITY 12. Two species of power 13. Big Other and the rise of instrumentarian power 14. A utopia of certainty 15, The instrumentarian collective 16. Of life in the hive 17. The right to sanctuary CONCLUSION 18. A coup from above Acknowledgements About the author Detailed table of contents Notes Index

Inspired by true, long-buried stories of enslaved people who dared to fight back, a searing portrayal of resistance for fans of Colson Whitehead, Jesmyn Ward, and Percival Everett, from Clay Cane, award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Grift. As turmoil simmers within a divided nation, smoke from another blaze begins to rise. Sparked by individual acts of resistance among those enslaved across the American South, their seemingly disparate rebellions fuel a singular inferno of justice, connecting them in ways quiet at times, explosive at others. As these flames rise, so will they. Luke, quick-witted and literate, and Henri, a man with a strong and defiant spirit, forge an unbreakable bond at a Virginia plantation called Magnolia Row. Both seek escape from unimaginable cruelty. And sure as the fires of hell, Luke and Henri will leave their mark, sparking resistance among the lives they touch … One is Josephine, a young, sharp, and observant girl who wields silence as her greatest weapon. A witness to Luke and Henri’s resilience, she listens, watches, waits for the moment to make her move. Then there is Charity Butler, her husband a formerly enslaved man who proved his ferocity as a young boy standing alongside Josephine. At his encouragement, Charity fights for her freedom in court and wins—only to battle a deeply unjust system designed to destroy the life they’ve built. And finally, there is Nathaniel, who ruthlessly exploits other Black people and mirrors the cruelty of the white men who, like him, are enslavers. A perversion of the system of slavery, his fragile and contradictory rule will become a catalyst of its own. Inspired by the true stories of the profoundly courageous men and women who dared to fight back, Burn Down Master’s House is a singular tour de force of a novel—breathtaking in scope, compassion, and a timeliness that speaks powerfully to our present era. “To refill my well of radical hope, I read resistance stories. Whether from history or from historical imagination. Burn Down Master’s House is a resistance story for the ages. Clay Cane’s gripping novel is based on real stories of enslaved women and men, of their audacious struggle against slavery.”—Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award–winning author of Stamped from the Beginning

John Okada was born in Seattle, Washington in 1923. He attended the University of Washington and Columbia University. He served in the US Army in World War II, wrote one novel and died of a heart attack at the age of 47. John Okada died in obscurity believing that Asian America had rejected his work. In this work, Okada gives the perspective of a no-no boy, a Japanese-American man who would neither denounce his Japanese heritage nor fight for the U.S. Army during WWII. This novel takes place after the main character spent two years in a Japanese internment camp, and two years in prison after saying no when asked to join the U.S. Army. Okada's novel No-No Boy shows the internal and external struggles fought by Japanese-Americans in that time period, be they no-no boys or not.

Inspired by true, long-buried stories of enslaved people who dared to fight back, a searing portrayal of resistance for fans of Colson Whitehead, Jesmyn Ward, and Percival Everett, from Clay Cane, award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Grift. As turmoil simmers within a divided nation, smoke from another blaze begins to rise. Sparked by individual acts of resistance among those enslaved across the American South, their seemingly disparate rebellions fuel a singular inferno of justice, connecting them in ways quiet at times, explosive at others. As these flames rise, so will they. Luke, quick-witted and literate, and Henri, a man with a strong and defiant spirit, forge an unbreakable bond at a Virginia plantation called Magnolia Row. Both seek escape from unimaginable cruelty. And sure as the fires of hell, Luke and Henri will leave their mark, sparking resistance among the lives they touch … One is Josephine, a young, sharp, and observant girl who wields silence as her greatest weapon. A witness to Luke and Henri’s resilience, she listens, watches, waits for the moment to make her move. Then there is Charity Butler, her husband a formerly enslaved man who proved his ferocity as a young boy standing alongside Josephine. At his encouragement, Charity fights for her freedom in court and wins—only to battle a deeply unjust system designed to destroy the life they’ve built. And finally, there is Nathaniel, who ruthlessly exploits other Black people and mirrors the cruelty of the white men who, like him, are enslavers. A perversion of the system of slavery, his fragile and contradictory rule will become a catalyst of its own. Inspired by the true stories of the profoundly courageous men and women who dared to fight back, Burn Down Master’s House is a singular tour de force of a novel—breathtaking in scope, compassion, and a timeliness that speaks powerfully to our present era. “To refill my well of radical hope, I read resistance stories. Whether from history or from historical imagination. Burn Down Master’s House is a resistance story for the ages. Clay Cane’s gripping novel is based on real stories of enslaved women and men, of their audacious struggle against slavery.”—Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award–winning author of Stamped from the Beginning

From Nobel Prize winner Han Kang comes her first work of nonfiction published in English—a singular collection of writings including her inspiring Nobel Lecture. A LITERARY HUB AND ELECTRIC LIT MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR In this light-filled and multi-faceted book, Han Kang draws together the threads of her work and life, tracing the connections between her interior and exterior worlds through a sequence of essays, poems, photographs, and diaries, brilliantly translated by Maya West and e. yaewon & Paige Aniyah Morris. A book of reflections, of words and light, it has at its heart the tiny, north-facing courtyard garden at her home, cultivated solely through the reflected sunlight of the mirrors which she must move throughout the day, as the earth turns on its axis. In a poem written at eight years old, Han Kang imagined a “gold thread” of connection—an idea which she explores here with luminous attention, beginning with her Nobel Lecture. She writes of the wonder of following the thread we call language into the depths of other hearts, and her profound sense of an electric current which joins writer and reader. Both intimate and illuminating, Light and Thread is a book for all readers of Han Kang’s unique body of work.

From Nobel Prize winner Han Kang comes her first work of nonfiction published in English—a singular collection of writings including her inspiring Nobel Lecture. A LITERARY HUB AND ELECTRIC LIT MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR In this light-filled and multi-faceted book, Han Kang draws together the threads of her work and life, tracing the connections between her interior and exterior worlds through a sequence of essays, poems, photographs, and diaries, brilliantly translated by Maya West and e. yaewon & Paige Aniyah Morris. A book of reflections, of words and light, it has at its heart the tiny, north-facing courtyard garden at her home, cultivated solely through the reflected sunlight of the mirrors which she must move throughout the day, as the earth turns on its axis. In a poem written at eight years old, Han Kang imagined a “gold thread” of connection—an idea which she explores here with luminous attention, beginning with her Nobel Lecture. She writes of the wonder of following the thread we call language into the depths of other hearts, and her profound sense of an electric current which joins writer and reader. Both intimate and illuminating, Light and Thread is a book for all readers of Han Kang’s unique body of work.

A young, queer Palestinian American woman pieces together her great aunt’s secrets in this sweeping debut, a family saga confronting questions of sexual identity, exile, and lineage. In a Pacific Northwest hospital far from the Rummani family’s ancestral home in Palestine, the heart of a stillborn baby begins to beat and her skin turns a vibrant, permanent cobalt blue. On the same day, the Rummanis’ centuries-old soap factory in Nablus is destroyed in an air strike. The family matriarch and keeper of all Rummani lore, Aunt Nuha, believes that the blue girl embodies their sacred history, harkening to a time when the Rummanis were among the wealthiest soap-makers and their blue soap was a symbol of a legendary love. Decades later, Betty returns to her Aunt Nuha’s gravestone, faced with a difficult decision: Should she stay in the only country she’s every known or should she follow her heart for the woman she loves, perpetuating her family’s cycle of exile? Betty finds her answer in partially translated notebooks that reveal her aunt’s complex life and struggle with her own sexuality, which Nuha hid to help the family emigrate to the U.S. But as Betty soon discovers, her aunt hid much more than that. The Skin and Its Girl is a searing, poetic tale about desire and identity and a provocative exploration of how we let stories divide, unite, and define us—and even wield the power to restore a broken family. Sarah Cypher is that rare debut novelist who writes with the mastery and flair of a seasoned storyteller.

From a ferocious new talent, a debut story collection excavating the desire, humor, and horror in the everyday lives of Black women and girls—for readers of Deesha Philyaw and Kelly Link With a voice that vibrates on the page, Lydia Mathis’ debut collection is set in the American South and her sharply drawn, authentic characters shine a light on what we’re willing to do to ourselves and to others in service of our desires. The madness in the ordinary rules an overworked college safety officer is confronted by a bloody figure who walks into her office; a sex worker runs into a client en route to a parent-teacher conference; a teacher is plagued by a ghost determined to tidy her apartment. Desperate Bodies depicts the fragility, strength, and unruliness of Black women and girls’ bodies and the power in being honest about their desires. In unflinching prose, Mathis takes a frank and determined look at what it means to be subjected to imbalances of power through the perspectives of young girls and adult women. With surprising turns and a touch of the supernatural, these stories refuse to look away from the most honest, raw moments of womanhood. Visceral and unyielding, Desperate Bodies is a thrillingly dark ride that introduces Lydia Mathis as a major new writer.

From the popular and award-winning staff writer for The Atlantic, an eye-opening look at how the current media landscape has incentivized us to see our fellow citizens as characters in an ongoing entertainment—and how we can fight back against this phenomenon. Whether it’s our reality-television-star President or our expertly curated Instagram feeds, the line between fact and fiction—between what’s real and what’s fabricated for entertainment—has never been more blurred. Plot Twist explores what happens when we cede our reality to spectacle. Megan Garber explains how today’s internet-inflected culture conditions us to see one another not as people but as characters in an ongoing show, and how some of our most chronic and harmful social conditions—loneliness, depression, mistrust, misinformation, cynicism—stem from our demand for diversion. In ten chapters, each themed around an element of stagecraft—from “The Producers,” who edit our reality, to “The Props,” the strangers we turn into objects of our amusement, to “the Haters,” the worshipful Qanon-types who expect the prophecies of their anonymous leader to play out on live television—Garber argues that this comedy of our daily lives is quickly becoming tragedy. And we can’t understand our politics without first understanding our culture. Like The Anxious Generation but about our media diet, Plot Twist shows why Megan Garber is one of the most respected and widely-read journalists of our day. It is an urgent, page-turning, and dazzling look at how we entertained ourselves into our current predicament, and how we might find our way out of the maze of misinformation and chaos.

Friendship is the love story you can count on. Remy is lucky. Her debut novel, based on her three best friends, became an instant bestseller when it was released, and her agent and publisher are clamoring for a follow-up. But just as Remy’s creative inspiration seems to leave her, so too do her friends: one moves to New York, one gets pregnant, and one gets back together with her (awful) boyfriend. After an ill-advised one-night stand complicates matters further, Remy is left deeply alone—and unable to find her next book idea. Simone is successful. A Kindergarten teacher with a passion for kids, and a well-paying side hustle that affords her all the material comforts she desires, she doesn't have time for a robust social life. All Simone needs is her close-knit family—but after the true nature of her work is revealed, they cut her off, and she realizes for the first time just how isolated she is. When Simone and Remy bump into each other (literally) in a bookstore, it isn’t exactly soulmates at first sight. Simone is guarded and prickly, Remy is insecure and heartbroken, and each woman is harboring a secret. And yet they might just be the missing piece the other has been searching for—if only they can let each other in. Can Simone help Remy make one of the most important decisions of her life—and can Remy help Simone recover all that she’s lost? In Jessica George’s heartwarming, funny, and soulful second novel, she explores the restorative nature of female friendship and the life-changing power of platonic love.

A glorious fiction debut written with exceptional acuity by an award-winning twenty-five-year-old Thai-American writer. Read a complete short story at BookBrowse. Sightseeing is a masterful new work of fiction, a collection of stories set in contemporary Thailand and written with a grace and sophistication that belie the age of its young author. These are generous, tender tales of family bonds, youthful romance, generational conflicts, and cultural shiftings beneath the glossy surface of a warm, Edenic setting. Rattawut Lapcharoensap offers a diverse, humorous, and deeply affectionate view of life in a small Southeast Asian country that is inevitably absorbing the waves of encroaching Westernization. In the prizewinning opening story, "Farangs," the young son of a modest beachside motel owner commits the cardinal sin of falling for a pretty tourist, and the confrontation that ensues between the native boy and the girl's pompous American boyfriend culminates wondrously amid flying mangoes and Clint Eastwood—a pet pig—swimming out to sea. In "Sightseeing," the much-anticipated holiday of a young man about to leave for college and his loving and fiercely independent mother becomes a different kind of pilgrimage altogether when they are forced to confront the mother's impending blindness. The concluding novella, "Cockfighter," is a triumph of storytelling in which a young girl witnesses her proud father's valiant but foolhardy and drawn-out battle against the local delinquent and violent hoodlum whose family's vicious stranglehold on the villagers has passed down unchecked through generations. Through his vivid assemblage of parents and children, natives and transients, ardent lovers and sworn enemies, Lapcharoensap dares us to look with new eyes at the circumstances that shape our views and the prejudices that form our blind spots. Gorgeous and lush, painful and candid, Sightseeing is an extraordinary reading experience, one that powerfully reveals that when it comes to how we respond to pain, anger, hurt, and love, no place is too far from home.

Two former best friends find themselves fake dating on their favorite race-around-the-world reality TV show competition in Erin Baldwin's newest YA sapphic romance. The perfect book for fans of Heated Rivalry, Becky Albertalli, and The Amazing Race. Reality TV enthusiasts Noelle and Yumi spent a decade attached at the hip—until one ill-fated night (and one awkward kiss) ended their friendship. After a year of no contact, fate throws the girls back together when they’re offered a last-minute spot on The Adventureverse, their favorite race-around-the-world reality show. It’s a chance to put their superfan status to the test, a dream come true. Except for a few snags: It’s an all-couples season, filming starts in two days, and Noelle hasn’t spoken to her “girlfriend” in a year. But she already has plans to use the prize money on her ailing father’s medical expenses, and she would do anything for him—including fake date her ex-bestie on national television. Can Noelle walk a tightrope between reality and TV while juggling a pretend relationship and true feelings? Or will she get sent home empty-handed and brokenhearted?