books to read in 2026 ♡
Items in this hypelist
Finished
All the Lovers in the Night
Mieko Kawakami • 2022
Convenience Store Woman
Sayaka Murata • 2019
A Certain Hunger
Chelsea G. Summers • 2021
Women Don't Owe You Pretty
Florence Given • 2020
Breasts and Eggs
Mieko Kawakami • 2021
To Read
Hunger
Roxanne Gay
Have you ever wondered why that 13-digit number on the back of a book costs $125 in the United States but is completely free in Canada and India? This book, The Global ISBN Handbook, is your 2025 guide to the International Standard Book Number. It explains everything about this global "fingerprint" for books. The ISBN is the most important cornerstone of the publishing industry. It started as a simple warehouse tool in the 1960s. Now, it is a complex digital identifier used in over 200 countries. This handbook deconstructs the entire system. It uses 15 distinct national case studies to do this. You will learn how the old 10-digit system changed to the new 13-digit one. We break down the five parts of the ISBN, from the "Bookland" prefix to the final check digit. The book explores the global governance framework, starting with the International ISBN Agency. Then, it dives deep into how different countries run their systems. You'll see the privatized, high-cost model in the United States. You'll compare it to Canada's free, government-run system. We explore the industry-led models in Brazil and Germany. We look at government-run systems in Mexico and India. We even cover the unique case of China, where the ISBN is not a simple identifier but a state-controlled publication license. The book also examines the systems in the UK , France , Russia , Japan , Australia , South Africa , Nigeria , and Egypt. Many books and websites can tell you how to get an ISBN. This handbook is the only resource that explains why the process is so different everywhere you look. It moves beyond a simple "how-to" and provides a true global analysis. It directly compares the privatized, for-profit models in the US and UK against the free, public-good systems in Canada and South Africa. You won't just learn the price; you will understand the cultural policies, market structures, and legal philosophies that shape that price. This book shows how the ISBN is a "global mirror". It reveals how a simple number can be a commercial product in one nation , a tool of cultural policy in another , and an instrument of state control in a third. This comparative insight is the missing piece for any author, publisher, or researcher trying to navigate the complex international publishing market. Disclaimer: This handbook is an independently produced resource for commentary and analysis. The author has no affiliation with the International ISBN Agency, R.R. Bowker, Library and Archives Canada, the National Press and Publication Administration, or any other national ISBN agency. This work is independently produced under the principle of nominative fair use.
Heaven
Meiko Kawakami
Have you ever wondered why that 13-digit number on the back of a book costs $125 in the United States but is completely free in Canada and India? This book, The Global ISBN Handbook, is your 2025 guide to the International Standard Book Number. It explains everything about this global "fingerprint" for books. The ISBN is the most important cornerstone of the publishing industry. It started as a simple warehouse tool in the 1960s. Now, it is a complex digital identifier used in over 200 countries. This handbook deconstructs the entire system. It uses 15 distinct national case studies to do this. You will learn how the old 10-digit system changed to the new 13-digit one. We break down the five parts of the ISBN, from the "Bookland" prefix to the final check digit. The book explores the global governance framework, starting with the International ISBN Agency. Then, it dives deep into how different countries run their systems. You'll see the privatized, high-cost model in the United States. You'll compare it to Canada's free, government-run system. We explore the industry-led models in Brazil and Germany. We look at government-run systems in Mexico and India. We even cover the unique case of China, where the ISBN is not a simple identifier but a state-controlled publication license. The book also examines the systems in the UK , France , Russia , Japan , Australia , South Africa , Nigeria , and Egypt. Many books and websites can tell you how to get an ISBN. This handbook is the only resource that explains why the process is so different everywhere you look. It moves beyond a simple "how-to" and provides a true global analysis. It directly compares the privatized, for-profit models in the US and UK against the free, public-good systems in Canada and South Africa. You won't just learn the price; you will understand the cultural policies, market structures, and legal philosophies that shape that price. This book shows how the ISBN is a "global mirror". It reveals how a simple number can be a commercial product in one nation , a tool of cultural policy in another , and an instrument of state control in a third. This comparative insight is the missing piece for any author, publisher, or researcher trying to navigate the complex international publishing market. Disclaimer: This handbook is an independently produced resource for commentary and analysis. The author has no affiliation with the International ISBN Agency, R.R. Bowker, Library and Archives Canada, the National Press and Publication Administration, or any other national ISBN agency. This work is independently produced under the principle of nominative fair use.
These Women
Ivy Pochoda • 2020
Dear Medusa
Olivia A. Cole • 2023
Empress Orchid
Anchee Min • 2005
She's a Lamb! A Novel
Meredith Hambrock • 2025
Julie Chan Is Dead
Liann Zhang • 2025
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath • 2000
Common Decency
Susannah Dickey • 2022
The Premonition
Banana Yoshimoto • 2023
Beach Read
Emily Henry • 2020
You, Again
Kate Goldbeck • 2023
Small Things Like These
Claire Keegan • 2021
A Very Easy Death
Simone De Beauvoir • 2013
A Spy In The House Of Love
Anais Nin • 2001
The Lover
Marguerite Duras • 2011
No Longer Human
Osamu Dazai • 2023

Tuesdays with Morrie
Mitch Albom • 2007
The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini • 2004
Beautiful World, Where Are You
Sally Rooney • 2021
Conversations with Friends
Sally Rooney • 2017
Mother in the Dark
Kayla Maiuri • 2022
The Long Answer
Anna Hogeland • 2022
Yolk
Mary H. K. Choi • 2022
When We Lost Our Heads
Heather O'Neill • 2022

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou • 2009

Educated A Memoir
Tara Westover • 2022
Aesthetica
Allie Rowbottom • 2022
The Song of Achilles
Madeline Miller • 2012
CIRCE
Madeline Miller • 2020
"A bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story," this #1 New York Times bestseller is "both epic and intimate in its scope, recasting the most infamous female figure from the Odyssey as a hero in her own right" (Alexandra Alter, The New York Times). In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child -- not powerful like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power -- the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves. Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts, and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus. But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love. With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world. #1 New York Times bestseller -- named one of the best books of the year by NPR, the Washington Post, People, Time, Amazon, Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, Newsweek, the A.V. Club, Christian Science Monitor, Refinery 29, BuzzFeed, Paste, Audible, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Thrillist, NYPL, Self, Real Simple, Goodreads, Boston Globe, Electric Literature, BookPage, the Guardian, Book Riot, Seattle Times, and Business Insider
The Glow A Novel
Jessie Gaynor • 2023
Rouge
Mona Awad • 2023
When Breath Becomes Air
Paul Kalanithi • 2016
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Mitch Albom • 2006
If I Had Your Face
Frances Cha • 2020
Natural Beauty
Ling Ling Huang • 2023
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine
Rashid Khalidi • 2020
Light in Gaza Writings Born of Fire
Jehad Abusalim • 2022
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement
Angela Y. Davis • 2016
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
Ilan Pappe • 2007
Orientalism
Edward W. Said • 2003
The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck • 2006
The Giver
Lois Lowry • 2018
Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist)
Min Jin Lee • 2017
Martyr! A novel
Kaveh Akbar • 2024
<b><i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER • SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • ONE OF <i>THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S </i>10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR <b>• <b>A<b> <i>TIME</i> MUST-READ BOOK OF THE YEAR</b></b> • </b>A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum. Electrifying, funny, and wholly original<i>, Martyr!</i> heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction.<br><br>“Kaveh Akbar is one of my favorite writers. Ever.” —Tommy Orange, Pulitzer Prize–nominated author of <i>There There</i><br><br>“The best novel you'll ever read about the joy of language, addiction, displacement, martyrdom, belonging, homesickness.” —Lauren Groff, best-selling author of <i>Matrix</i> and <i>Fates and Furies</i></b><br><br>Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.<br><br>Kaveh Akbar’s <i>Martyr!</i> is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others.
East of Eden
John Steinbeck • 2025
The Dutch House
Ann Patchett • 2019
The Secret History
Donna Tartt • 2004
<b><b><b><b>ONE OF <i>TIME MAGAZINE</i>'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • </b>INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A contemporary literary classic and "a<b>n accomplished psychological thriller ... absolutely chilling" (<i>Village Voice</i>)</b>, f<b>rom the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of <i>The Goldfinch.<br><br></i></b></b></b>One of <i>The Atlantic</i>’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years</b><br><br>Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality.<br><br><b>“A remarkably powerful novel [and] a ferociously well-paced entertainment . . . Forceful, cerebral, and impeccably controlled.” —<i>The New York Times</i></b>
People from My Neighborhood
Hiromi Kawakami • 2021
Vanishing World
Sayaka Murata • 2025
The Third Love
Hiromi Kawakami • 2025
The White Book
Han Kang • 2019
We Do Not Part
Han Kang • 2025
Strange Weather in Tokyo
Hiromi Kawakami • 2017
A Little Life
Hanya Yanagihara • 2016
<b><i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (<i>NPR</i>) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century.<br></b><br><b><b><b><b><b><b><b>NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST <b><b><b>•</b></b></b></b> MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST <b>• <b><b><b><b><b> WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE</b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b><br><br><i>A Little Life</i> follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.
The Trouble With Happiness and Other Stories
Tove Ditlevsen • 2022
Greek Lessons
Han Kang • 2023
There Lives a Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die
Tove Ditlevsen • 2025
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini • 2008
Make Me Famous
Maud Ventura • 2025
Hunchback
Saou Ichikawa • 2025
The Days of Abandonment
Elena Ferrante • 2005
Hurricane Season
Fernanda Melchor • 2020
Cursed Bunny
Bora Chung • 2021
Earthlings
Sayaka Murata • 2020
Minor Detail
Adania Shibli • 2020
Time of the Flies
Claudia Piñeiro • 2024
Reservoir Bitches
Dahlia De la Cerda • 2024
Happening
Annie Ernaux • 2011
Concerning My Daughter A Novel
Hye-jin Kim • 2022
The Woman Destroyed
Simone De Beauvoir • 1987







