Coming in January, we have the long awaited new novel from George Saunders and a debut fantasy adventure from Shen Tao. Enjoy 5 Amazing New Books for January 2026!
This post may contain affiliate links that earn us a commission at no extra cost to you.
5 Amazing New Books for January 2026
Departure(s) by Julian Barnes
Departure(s) is a work of fiction – but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.
It is the story of a man called Stephen and a woman called Jean, who fall in love when they are young and again when they are old. It is the story of an elderly Jack Russell called Jimmy, enviably oblivious to his own mortality.
It is also the story of how the body fails us, whether through age, illness, accident or intent. And it is the story of how experiences fade into anecdotes, and then into memory. Does it matter if what we remember really happened? Or does it just matter that it mattered enough to be remembered?
It begins at the end of life – but it doesn’t end there. Ultimately, it’s about the only things that ever really mattered: how we find happiness in this life, and when it is time to say goodbye.
The Poet Empress by Shen Tao
TO KILL A MONSTER, SHE MUST BECOME ONE . . .
As the emperor lays dying, the once-great Azalea Dynasty plunges towards civil war. While its princes plot for power, a more hidden war – to become the next empress – occupies the imperial court.
Wei Yin – peasant girl turned concubine to the cruel Prince Terren – has already endured unimaginable suffering. Ripped from her family, she has no title, no allies, and no escape. But she does have a secret . . .
In the shadows of the palace, surrounded by enemies, she is learning a skill forbidden to women. Because when words are weapons and poetry holds an ancient magic, the fate of a girl – and a nation – can both be rewritten. All she has to do is compose the perfect poem – a tale so powerful, it can kill any man, even the next emperor.
This Is Where the Serpent Lives by Daniyal Mueenuddin
Moving from Pakistan’s sophisticated cities to its most rural farmlands, This Is Where the Serpent Lives captures the extraordinary proximity of extreme wealth to extreme poverty in a land where fate is determined by class and social station.
Daniyal Mueenuddin’s This Is Where the Serpent Lives paints a powerful portrait of contemporary feudal Pakistan and a farm on which the destinies of a dozen unforgettable characters are linked through violence and love, resilience, and tragedy. Yazid rises from abject poverty to the role of trusted servant to an affluent gangster; Saqib, an errand boy, is eventually trusted to lead his boss’s new farming venture, where he becomes determined to rise above his rank by any means necessary. Saqib’s boss, the wealthy landowner Hisham, reminisces about meeting his wife while she was dating his brother while Gazala, a young teacher, falls for Saqib and his bold promises for their future before learning about his plans to skim money from the farm’s profits.
In matters of both business and the heart, Mueenuddin’s characters struggle to choose between the paths that are moral and the paths that will allow them to survive the systems of caste, capital, and social power that so tightly grip their country.
Vigil by George Saunders
Not for the first time, Jill “Doll” Blaine finds herself hurtling toward earth, reconstituting as she falls, right down to her favourite black pumps. She plummets towards her newest charge, yet another soul she must usher into the afterlife, and lands headfirst in the circular drive of his ornate mansion.
She has performed this sacred duty three hundred and forty-three times since her own death. Her charges, as a rule, have been greatly comforted in their final moments. But this charge, she soon discovers, isn’t like the others: The powerful K.J. Boone will not be consoled, because he has nothing to regret. He lived a big, bold life, and the world is better for it. Isn’t it?
Vigil transports us, careening, through the wild final evening of an epic, complicated life. Crowds of people and animals – worldly and otherworldly, alive and dead – arrive, clamouring for a reckoning. Birds swarm the dying man’s room, a black calf grazes on the loveseat, a man from a distant drought-ravaged village materialises, two oil-business cronies from decades past show up with chilling plans for Boone’s post-death future.
With the acuity and explosive imagination we’ve come to expect, George Saunders takes on the gravest issues of our time – the menace of corporate greed, the toll of capitalism, the environmental perils of progress – and, in the process, spins a tale that encompasses life and death, good and evil, and the thorny question of absolution.
The Last of Earth by Deepa Anappara
In 1869, the mountainous territory of Tibet is closed to foreigners, an infuriating obstacle to European explorers racing to expand their empires. In response, Britain begins training Indian citizens – permitted to cross borders that white men may not – to undertake illicit, perilous expeditions within Tibet.
Balram is one such surveyor-spy, recruited to guide an English captain on a foolhardy mission. His path will soon cross with that of another unlikely explorer, Katherine. Fleeing a life of frustrated ambition, belittled by her male peers, Katherine has a plan to secure her legacy as the first European woman to reach Lhasa and the legendary Potala Palace.
As they battle to survive, Balram and Katherine face storms and bandits, snow leopards and soldiers, fevers and frostbite. But nothing is more dangerous than the secrets that snap at their heels, in this unforgettable story about the obsessions of the colonial enterprise, and the ways we endeavour to leave a mark on the world.
If you enjoyed 5 Amazing New Books for January 2026, check out our 15 Best Books of 2025