Suggested Reads for October 2026

15 hours ago

8 min read

Looking for some book inspiration? Here are some suggested reads for September!

These books have been on the New York Times Bestseller List and at the top of the Millstadt Library's most circulated list. At the end of these lists, Nichole picks a book or two that she personally recommends (not this month, she's been busy reading Webtoons.)

We just reviewed House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward and are reading The Confession Club by Elizabeth Berg for our next Senior Center Book Club meeting on Monday, November 16 at 11 a.m.

Without further ado, here are this month's picks!

The Witch by Freida McFadden

Some secrets don't die―they wait.

When Julia Barlow loses her job and her apartment, she has nowhere left to go but Pemberton, her family's sprawling seventeenth-century estate in rural Massachusetts. Officially, she's there to check in on her aging grandmother. Unofficially, she's hoping the old house will give her a place to disappear.

Instead, Pemberton begins to unravel her.

Every night, the grandfather clock stops at exactly 3:41 a.m. The lights flicker without warning. And a disembodied voice cries for help outside Julia's bedroom door.

As Julia digs into the house's dark history, she uncovers the story of a woman executed for witchcraft in 1692―and realizes the past may not be finished with Pemberton yet. When decades of family lies begin to surface, Julia must confront a terrifying truth: Pemberton may be haunted by women whose voices refuse to stay silent.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden comes The Witch, a chilling, twist-filled thriller about secrets―those we inherit, those we bury, and those people will burn to keep silent.

352 pages, Hardcover | First published October 6, 2026

Partita by Barbara Kingsolver

A deeply moving new novel about life and art from one of America’s greatest writers.

Livia Cable has made her peace with her marriage and modest livelihood in the farm country where she grew up, until a shocking phone call from an old lover shakes her to the core. Decades earlier, this man knew her as Livia Bohusz, a music conservatory student estranged from her home and family, uncertain of anything except her passion for music and promise as an extraordinary pianist. His request, now, to see her again stirs up ghosts she’s kept at bay for a lifetime.

Shifting between past and present, Livia’s decision to meet or reject the reunion means confronting step by step, in memories framed as musical dances, the traumas of childhood loss, abandonment, self-immolating passion, and perilous attachment to a man who broke her belief in love and ruptured the course of her life.

With razor-sharp acuity and deep affection, Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Kingsolver’s unforgettable new novel reflects on class barriers, the risks of ambition, and the timeless love affair between life and art.

408 pages, Kindle Edition | First published October 6, 2026

352 pages, Hardcover | Expected publication September 29, 2026

Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel

From the bestselling author of Station Eleven, Exit Party is Emily St. John Mandel’s epic new story of crimes committed and loves lost across worlds and decades.

2031. America is at war with itself, but for the first time in weeks there is some hope: the Republic of California has been declared, the curfew in Los Angeles is lifted, and everyone in the city is going to a party.

Ari, newly released from prison, arrives with her friend Gloria just as a fragile new era begins. But there are people at the party who shouldn’t be there. Something is very wrong...

Years later, living a different life in Paris, Ari remains haunted by that night. Whatever happened at the party fractured her sense of reality – and may hold the key to a very different world.

Freedom and surveillance, art and survival, love and loss in a broken world: Exit Party is the electrifying new novel from Emily St. John Mandel.

320 pages, Kindle Edition | First published September 15, 2026

American Pope: Leo XIV's Road from the South Side of Chicago to Vatican City by Daniel Burke

On May 8, 2025, eighteen days after the death of Pope Francis, Cardinal Dominique Mamberti stepped out on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to share the name of the new leader of the Catholic Church.

For the first time in its 2,000 year history, the Catholic Church would be led by an American.

NPR’s Daniel Burke and Scott Detrow, who were in St. Peter’s Square that day leading the network’s coverage, were among those shocked by the selection. Growing up in the faith as kids and reporting on it as adults, they had been told it was an article of faith, a given, that the Catholic Church would never elect an American pope. And yet, there was Prevost—now Leo XIV—smiling, waving, and declaring to the crowd in Italian, “Peace be with you.”

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who grew up just outside Chicago but had spent much of his adult life in Peru, had been a dark horse candidate to say the least–an unassuming Augustinian who had only recently been promoted to the top levels of Church leadership. His elevation to the most prominent religious seat in the world prompted unprecedented enthusiasm—a surge of “Da Pope” memes and American tourists flocking to Rome with gifts of deep dish pizza and hats from Villanova (his alma mater)—but despite international media coverage and fascination, the scope of Prevost’s journey has yet to be told in full, intimate detail.

Now, in American Pope, Burke and Detrow present the first comprehensive, impressively sourced biography of the new pontiff. The two journalists spent the year after Leo’s election reporting in Peru, Chicago, and Rome. They tracked down Leo’s close confidants, childhood friends, family members, classmates, fellow clergy, and Vatican insiders. They gained unprecedented access to archival documents, letters, emails, and other personal correspondence that provide key insights into Prevost’s experiences and views. As a result, readers are introduced to a man at varying stages of his destiny: Robert, a quiet young boy from a working-class parish straddling Chicago’s southern border, coming into his faith in Kennedy-era America; Bob, a serious student who writes for his high school paper and spends time in the seminary leading family interventions for alcoholics; Padre and Monsignor Roberto, a stabilizing and hopeful presence in impoverished and terrorized communities of Peru, and who would help lead his diocese through the COVID-19 pandemic; Father Bob, the leader of the Augustinian order at a time of crisis for the Catholic Church; Cardinal Prevost, the unassuming ally of Pope Francis; and, finally, Leo, whose ascension will forever change the Church he serves and loves.

Enlightening, engrossing, and undeniably human, American Pope is the key to understanding one of the most consequential figures of our time.

Genres: Biography | History | Religion | Nonfiction | Biography Memoir

400 pages, Hardcover | Published October 6, 2026

All In | David Baldacci

In the newest thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author David Baldacci, the 6:20 Man is leaving U.S soil―this time drawn into a storm of billion‑dollar secrets and international power plays that could shatter the world order.

When fearless war correspondent Theresa Lee is shot on a storm-swept Manhattan street and the man she was meeting, Bill Walker, vanishes, the 6:20 Man, aka former Army Ranger turned federal investigator Travis Devine, is called in. Theresa is an investigative journalist, Walker a legendary analyst for the Five Eyes alliance that gathers intelligence that could topple governments around the world. A professional hit team has tried to silence one and snatched the other―and Devine has to find out why.

From New York’s glass‑and‑steel canyons to the glittering harbors of Australia, Devine is pulled into the orbit of the Woolwine empire―an Australian dynasty whose fortune makes them more powerful than some nations. Partnering with Anais Jones, a driven, Sydney-based homicide detective, he uncovers a lethal convergence of rogue intelligence operations, Russian mobsters, compromised prisons, and a quiet campaign to redraw the global balance of power.

To stop a conspiracy fueled by weaponized data and manufactured truths, Devine will have to untangle a love story that may be a lie, a rescue that may have been conjured, and a billionaire’s ambition with a body count. In a world where enemies wear the faces of allies, the only currency that matters is information―and the 6:20 Man is running out of time to keep it all from crashing down.

448 pages, Hardcover | Expected publication November 10, 2026

Life Out of Order by Audrey Niffenegger

Alba DeTamble has never lived a life in order. Born with the same rare Chrono-Displacement Disorder as her father Henry, she slips unpredictably through decades, haunted by the secrets of a future she can witness but cannot change. As Alba strives to maintain a normal life with Zach, her safe, supportive anchor, she forms a tight-knit community of artists and activists who fight to take care of each other in an increasingly unstable world. 

At once intimate and expansive, Life Out of Order plunges readers into a world of Niffenegger’s dazzling imagination: from the riot-torn streets of a dystopian Chicago, to a digital museum for forgotten memories and lost artifacts. Curating this ever-expanding museum is Isadora, Alba’s mysterious stepsister and an unsettling presence in their family – whose fate may be intertwined with Alba’s in more dangerous ways than she knows.

Told through a kaleidoscope of perspectives, the story moves through a boundless, unfolding universe of virtual reality, skimming the wildest reaches of technology and our natural world. The result is a testament to the power of art and community to sustain us in these fractured times—and an epic tale that’s set to define an entirely new genre in a way only Niffenegger can.

560 pages, Hardcover | First published October 6, 2026

Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus

Batter Gray is worried about his future. Even when he was eleven, his classmates seemed to have settled on a goal: doctor, lawyer, broker, engineer. Good jobs that automatically command respect, security, 401Ks. Now Batter is in his early twenties, living in New York City, and he wants something different; something that alienates some readers and bores most. Poetry. And yet—to him and exactly thirty-nine editors at a company called Peck & Peck—poetry not only represents the power of humanity but holds the key to its survival.

Batter is named after his mother’s heroic dog. An identical twin who lost his brother at birth, he finds himself confronted by the everyday dualities that make up life: right vs. wrong, truth vs. lies, rejection vs. acceptance. It’s almost as if his dead brother is a reminder: there are always two sides to every story.

No, wait. Make that three.

432 pages, Hardcover | First published October 13, 2026

NICHOLE'S RECOMMENDATION

Recommendation might be a strong word for this book, but it certianly was an interesting read. The main character, Ken Kato, was completely unlikeable. Really, everybody in the book was unlikeable. I was hopeful that it would be more like Dexter, as they promised, but it wasn't. That said, if you're looking for a quick, quirky read, this might be for you.

The Makoto Murders by Richard Jerram

Ken Kato is a half-British, half-Japanese photojournalist working for a low-brow weekly magazine in Tokyo. He achieved fame with a photograph of a boy who drowned in the tsunami that hit Japan in 2011, who he could have saved had he not been more concerned with finding the right light and composition for his shot.

Four years later, he has failed to repeat that success and, facing irrelevancy (and, worse, redundancy), he decides to turn serial killer to generate his own attention-grabbing pictures – for which he's inevitably always first on the scene. His magazine then publishes the pictures, causing a sensation in a society where murder is almost unheard of, and tripling its sales figures.

Hoping to impress his colleague Hayashi's estranged wife Makoto, who he is stalking after a short affair (though she clearly sees things differently), Kato murders only men and women with the same name as her. Inevitably the police are suspicious, but can find no evidence as he is meticulous in his planning and execution. Kato's editor is also suspicious, but is willing to ignore the evidence in front of him as sales boom.

304 pages, Kindle Edition | First published July 21, 2026

*all descriptions of the novels and the book covers are from GoodReads.com

Suggested Reads for October 2026

Recent Posts

Comments