Our 25 most anticipated non-fiction books for 2026

Any attempt to predict which of the following 25 books will best reflect the year ahead is obviously foolish, so we won’t even try. Instead, we’ll just say that we trust the brains of their writers enough to include them here.

This list of Shortlist’s most anticipated non-fiction, biography and memoir coming in 2026 includes books about fictional space and real space, wild Yellowhammers and wild Pikachu, AI companions, supremacist survivalism and cosmic jazz.

Something for everyone then. Enjoy!

Love Machines (James Muldoon)

The AI companion subreddits are booming right now and the stories get wilder by the day. The ChatGPT ‘memory’ resets alone are brutal. Enter, this new book from James Muldoon, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute. He charts the rise of chatbot boyfriends, AI therapists, digital resurrections and the fakest of friends through interviews with users, developers and yes, the actual chatbots. AI agents are out here scrambling both minds and hearts already.

Out 15th January (Faber)

Rasputin (Antony Beevor)

Speaking of love machines, Russia’s greatest, Grigori Rasputin, gets the biography treatment from military historian Antony Beevor, author of definitive accounts of Stalingrad and the collapse of the Third Reich. Subtitled ‘And The Downfall of The Romanovs’, Beevor digs into the myths surrounding the mad-monk-mystic-peasant’s eventual relationship and power over Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra. Royals, debauchery, corruption, revolution? Can’t wait to get our hands on this one.

Out 12th March (Orion)

Escape From Capitalism (Clara E. Mattei)

Italian economist Clara E. Mattei is putting out her next anti-austerity ‘manifesto’ with Penguin and we love to see it. Here, she’s debunking the neutral, non-political, pseudo-scientific sheen that has been cast over economics, so as to make any criticism of methods and outcomes appear childish and uninformed. One of those ‘how the world really works’ books on inflation, growth and national budgets, Escape From Capitalism looks set to be an excellent tool to prep you for spicy dinner party debates.

Out 22nd January (Penguin)

Empire of Madness (Khameer Kidia)

From Khameer Kidia, a doctor and anthropologist at Harvard Medical School, comes this study of our individualised Western approach to mental health care. With over a decade of fieldwork behind him, Kidia argues that we need to rethink this focus on symptoms and start to look at the underlying causes of mental illness, including debt, housing, culture and colonialism, as well as ideas around healing from other parts of the world.

Out 3rd February (Random House)

Super Nintendo (Keza Macdonald)

We recently got beat by an eight year-old kid playing Mario Kart on the Switch 2 and it was a blast, which is to say: after 136 years, Nintendo still has the juice. The Guardian’s video games editor Keza Macdonald has written a love letter to Nintendo’s games, consoles, characters and creators. Super Nintendo features interviews with developers and gamers via deep dives into Zelda, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Pokémon and the rest. Oh and Charlie Brooker says it’s “a great book”, so.

Out 12th February (Guardian Books/ Faber)

Starchild (Maggie Aderin-Pocock)

The space scientist and The Sky At Night presenter Maggie Aderin-Pocock is fast approaching National Treasure Status so now’s a fine time for her memoir. Starchild will trace her life from watching stop-motion sci-fi animation The Clangers in the 70s, through to working on the James Webb and Gemini telescopes and how she got to where she is today. Expect plenty of moon talk and real talk throughout.

Out 19th February (BBC Books/ Penguin)

Cosmic Music (Andy Beta)

From White Rabbit Books and music journalist Andy Beta, we’re getting a comprehensive, full-length account - apparently the first!? - of the life of spiritual jazz musician Alice Coltrane. She composed, she sang, she played the piano, she played the harp, she was a Hindu leader, she was John Coltrane’s wife… If you don’t know Journey In Satchidananda, World Galaxy, Universal Consciousness and the rest, you’ve almost certainly heard music influenced by her discography. What a treat.

Out 19th March (White Rabbit Books)

Finding Albion (Zakia Sewell)

You might have heard DJ Zakia Sewell presenting on BBC 6 Music and NTS Radio. We say this only with affection - her upcoming book Finding Albion sounds very 6 Music. Finding Albion is all about the myths, legends, folk songs and folklore still alive on this wet and windy island. And Sewell has previous form as chronicler of these stories: she’s written for the wonderful Weird Walk zine and she made a four-part BBC Radio 4 doc on this very subject in 2020.

Out 19th March (Hodder Press)

The Beginning Comes After The End (Rebecca Solnit)

You know what would be really nice? To be able to just call Rebecca Solnit up whenever, to shoot the shit and also to check if we can still be hopeful about *gestures around* everything going on out there. Slightly impractical, sure, so it’s reassuring that Solnit is putting out both essays and books at a steady rate. This next edition looks to continue the themes of last year’s No Straight Road Takes You There, with an Antonio Gramschi quote to whet our appetites on the publisher’s website: “An old world is dying; a new world is being born; now is the time of monsters.” Gulp.

Out 26th March (Granta)

London Falling (Patrick Radden Keefe)

It’s a testament to the talents of Patrick Radden Keefe - one of the best investigative journalists on the planet, author of Empire of Pain and Say Nothing - that even those of us who don’t usually favour true crime are anticipating London Falling. It’s the story of 19 year-old Zac Brettler who fell to his death from the balcony of a Thames-side luxury flat and how he had been posing as the son of a Russian oligarch, getting mixed up with underworld gangsters in the capital.

Out 7th April (Picador)

Things We Found In The Ground (Eleanor Bruce & Lucilla Gray)

Maybe it’s down to Mackenzie Crook’s Detectorists but metal detecting has long been one of our fave niche subcultures. So this account of how two Gen Z cousins in Lincolnshire reconnected over the thrill of buried treasure looks very charming. Ellie and Lucie post the artifacts they’ve uncovered - Roman coins, Bronze Age axes - on their joint Insta @romanfound. More of this wholesome energy going into the New Year, please.

Out 9th April (HarperNorth)

A People’s History of Football: A Graphic Chronicle (Mickaël Correia and JC Deveney)

This history of football ‘from below’ via Pluto Press was published a few years ago but this April it’s getting a graphic novel-style update from illustrator and comic book artist Lelio Bonaccorso, who has worked with Marvel and DC. A People’s History.. takes in the feudal origins of the beautiful game and focuses more on workers, activists and the impact of say, wartime Munitionettes on the evolution of football, than the billionaire owners of the top clubs.

Out 20th April (Pluto Press)

Thirst: The Twelve Drinks That Changed Me (John Robins)

Here’s a comedian’s memoir that, unlike most, looks to have a very clear reason for being. John Robins does a pretty damn funny podcast/ Radio 5 Live show with his mate Elis James and he’s popped up on Taskmaster and Mock The Week. He hasn’t had a drink since 2022 and this is the story of his complicated, but no doubt relatable, relationship to alcohol. Honestly, he had us with the book cover.

Out 7th May (Viking)

What The Bouncer Saw (George Bass)

This one caught our attention. It’s the story of a full-time university campus security guard, George Bass, who earns ‘just above the minimum wage’ working four days on, four days off. Bass is also a feature writer for the likes of the FT and The New York Times so we’re intrigued to see how he crafts his own account of professional safety, student shenanigans and making ends meet in a seemingly permanent cost-of-living crisis. Must-read potential.

Out 7th May (Corsair)

The Book of Birds (Jackie Morris & Robert Macfarlane)

True to Robert Macfarlane’s epiphanies about nature in last year’s wonderful Is A River Alive? this compendium of birds tries to answer the question not "what" but more, “who is that bird?”. The 49 species here are all illustrated by the beautiful watercolours of Jackie Morris, Macfarlane’s collaborator on The Lost Words, and are all currently endangered or in decline. A field guide of songs and spirits as much as nests and habits.

Out 7th May (Penguin)

The Beautiful Death of Ozzy Osbourne (Keith Kahn Harris)

What a title! It still seems a little unreal but on 5th July 2025, the original line-up of Black Sabbath played a live-streamed concert at Villa Park in Birmingham. It was titled Back To The Beginning, featured an all-star line-up of supporting acts and made £140 million for charity. Then a few weeks later on 22nd July, Ozzy Osbourne departed. We’re sure there will be many more books to come but this one, from metal writer Keith Kahn Harris, looks at the lessons that metal might have when it comes to love, politics and yes, death.

Out 4th June (HarperNorth)

The Next Fix (Kojo Karam)

Kojo Karam’s last book Uncommon Wealth was really fantastic and he’s covered the ‘War on Drugs’ for years in various forms so we’d expect the same of his upcoming book. Here he's reporting on the current state of the global drugs trade, the pharmaceuticals industry and the shifting boundaries between the two spheres in terms of the science, the politics and the money. Karam is a professor of law and political economy at Loughborough University and an informed, eloquent commentator on race, institutions and drug policy amongst other topics. A fascinating angle on newsworthy stories.

Out 23rd June (John Murray)

The Art of Star Wars: Andor (Phil Szostak)

Plenty has been written about just how timely Andor’s story feels and just how good the Tony Gilroy Disney+ show is compared to the rest of the Star Wars movie and TV output this past decade. This new ‘Art of’ title from Abrams Books goes behind-the-scenes of Andor’s two seasons with concept art, production design and interviews and images on the FX, creatures, ships, props and costumes. That coffee table does look a bit empty now.

Out 9th July (Abrams Books)

The Castle (Jon Ronson)

For a while Jon Ronson was so goddamn prolific you’d be forgiven for occasionally skipping a book or podcast series of his. The Castle, though, is not a skippable track. At first glance, it all sounds classic Ronson: a rich tycoon, weird parties in a castle in a forest, confused young men acting out, convicted murderers on his trail. The difference with this real-life story is that the writer sets out to uncover this particular mystery because his son Joel gets mixed up in it.

Out 20th August (Viking)

End Times Fascism (Naomi Klein & Astra Taylor)

Naomi Klein is another public intellectual we’d quite like a private hotline to bling. Again, like in the Solnit case, we must make do with her next book. After 2023’s delicious Doppelganger, this one is titled End Times Fascism (gulp) and is co-written with Canadian documentary maker, writer and activist Astra Taylor. The scope is wide: tech oligarchs, climate deniers, religious extremists, bunker-building and rocket ship-obsessed billionaires, all of which fall under Klein and Taylor’s label of “supremacist survivalism”. On the other side? No less than “the fight for the living world.” Should be a future classic.

Out 15th September (Allen Lane)

The Steps (Sylvester Stallone)

We’re suckers for a rags-to-riches celebrity memoir, so why not Rocky himself? Sylvester Stallone’s book is set to span his whole life, from a difficult childhood to his later Hollywood years, but with a particular focus on the years between when the actor arrived in NYC in 1969, through the writing and making of Rocky and culminating in the film winning Best Picture at the 1977 Oscars. Just love to root for the underdog.

Out 29th September (Seven Dials)

More (Gillian Anderson)

Not many details on this one at this stage but it sounds like Jean Milburn - we mean, Gillian Anderson - is returning with a follow-up to Want, her anthology of hundreds of anonymous sexual fantasies from women around the world. Anderson and her publishers Bloomsbury put out the call early last year for “even more daring” contributions to this second edition, though with quite a short submission window. So those Mulder and Scully fanfics will have to wait.

Out September (Bloomsbury)

Letters To Our Sons (Stephen Graham & Orly Klein)

We see you Stephen Graham, you are really doing the most. Not satisfied with changing the conversation and winning all the awards with Adolescence, the show he co-created with writer Jack Thorne, Graham is back later this year with a book compiled of letters of advice and wisdom written from fathers to sons. He’s co-editing Letters To Our Sons with psychologist Orly Klein and the contributions portal for this one is still live until 12th January. So any dads, step-dads and father figures, get in there.

Out 6th October (Bloomsbury)

Sleeping Beauties (David Byrne)

Another title that’s still quite mysterious for now. It’s a book from Talking Heads frontman and music legend David Byrne about art and ideas, though, so we’re locked in for wherever this goes. Why ‘sleeping beauties’? In his public talks, Byrne has shown an interest in ideas and innovations that have been overlooked or lost throughout history but which have been or could be ripe for revival or rediscovery. Let his Sword of Truth fly swift and sure.

Out October (Canongate)

Untitled Memoir (Angela Rayner)

Depending on how Angela Rayner’s potential comeback and political ambitions play out in 2026, this book could well turn into a literary bid for Prime Minister. The Guardian got the scoop in December that Rayner was working on a memoir, written with the help of a ghostwriter and with the MP planning to narrate the audiobook herself. In terms of the scope, it’s set to take in her childhood growing up in poverty in Stockport, her union and Labour Party career, her stint as Deputy PM and her resignation last year. Don’t count her out just yet.

Out second half of 2026 (Bodley Head)

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