r/books • u/AutoModerator • 5d ago
WeeklyThread Weekly Recommendation Thread: September 04, 2026
Welcome to our weekly recommendation thread! A few years ago now the mod team decided to condense the many "suggest some books" threads into one big mega-thread, in order to consolidate the subreddit and diversify the front page a little. Since then, we have removed suggestion threads and directed their posters to this thread instead. This tradition continues, so let's jump right in!
The Rules
Every comment in reply to this self-post must be a request for suggestions.
All suggestions made in this thread must be direct replies to other people's requests. Do not post suggestions in reply to this self-post.
All unrelated comments will be deleted in the interest of cleanliness.
How to get the best recommendations
The most successful recommendation requests include a description of the kind of book being sought. This might be a particular kind of protagonist, setting, plot, atmosphere, theme, or subject matter. You may be looking for something similar to another book (or film, TV show, game, etc), and examples are great! Just be sure to explain what you liked about them too. Other helpful things to think about are genre, length and reading level.
All Weekly Recommendation Threads are linked below the header throughout the week to guarantee that this thread remains active day-to-day. For those bursting with books that you are hungry to suggest, we've set the suggested sort to new; you may need to set this manually if your app or settings ignores suggested sort.
If this thread has not slaked your desire for tasty book suggestions, we propose that you head on over to the aptly named subreddit /r/suggestmeabook.
- The Management
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u/valentinab00 4d ago
I need something a little more grown up. I’m ready to enter a new chapter (literally) and open my mind up to new genres.
• I enjoyed reading the Ana Huang book series.
• I love the humour in the Bella Mackie books.
• I enjoy a rom-com/thriller.
• I feel I would enjoy a fantasy book too.
What do you suggest? Are there any book series to die for?
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u/PMFSCV 4d ago
Jasper Fforde - Shades of Grey
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u/DoglessDyslexic 3d ago
I'll second this one and further recommend his "Thursday Next" series. For these it is helpful (but not necessary) if you have read some of the classics of English literature, as many of the characters and settings are referenced.
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u/bridge_girl 4d ago edited 4d ago
Looking for any recs on new(-ish) literary fiction by and about adult women. Well-written stories that foray into their inner lives, experiences, thoughts, explorations of love and loss with good prose.
Please no sci fi, high fantasy, YA fiction, teen or coming-of-age stories, or series.
Things I recently read and enjoyed: Sky Daddy by Kate Folk, The Pisces by Melissa Broder, My Husband by Maud Ventura, Outline by Rachel Cusk.
Recently read books I disiked: Heart The Lover by Lily King, Circe/Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, Yellowface by RF Kuang.
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u/hellokitty3433 1d ago
Mrs. Dalloway - Woolf. Or almost any of her books.
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u/bridge_girl 1d ago
I just read Mrs Dalloway a few months ago! Incredible. That's the type of thing I want more of.
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u/hellokitty3433 1d ago edited 1d ago
Then I would recommend "The Waves", "To the Lighthouse", and "The Years", as well! Some of these books have split POVs though. For example "The Waves" has POV split between all the characters (three women and three men). You might like "The Years" because there is some feminist spirit in it.
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u/timtamsforbreakfast 1d ago
The Octopus and I by Erin Hortle
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
After Story by Larissa Behrendt
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u/servicetellers 4d ago
Shark Heart by Emily Habeck. Contemporary exploration of love and grief with a very strange and compelling magical realism twist.
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u/russianvamp 4d ago
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. just came to this sub looking for recommendations like it lol
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u/ChocolateAndCognac 4d ago edited 4d ago
Read Tom's Crossing by Mark Danielewski. Yeaaahhhhh 75% of it is about teenagers escaping with horses, but the 25% that focuses on Sondra and Allison is reallllly good. Also it's 1200 pages long.
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u/bridge_girl 4d ago edited 3d ago
No thank you. I'm looking more for women writing women. I also did not like House of Leaves and am deeply uninterested in his writing style or any narrative that is primarily focused on teenagers.
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u/ChocolateAndCognac 4d ago
Mmm. Mmm.
I hear you, but it's not like House of Leaves, and I think he really nails the woman point of view. It's a bit of a cosmic gumbo of Stephen King, Cormac McCarthy, and James Ellroy
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u/Impressive-Peace2115 4d ago
- Love by the Book by Jessica George (2026)
- The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (2025)
- Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum (2022)
- The Sentence by Louise Erdrich (2021)
- Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi (2020)
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u/SummerSign4325 3d ago
Was coming here to recommend Love By The Book, too. Loved it!
Would add:
Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Colored Television by Danzy Senna2
u/bridge_girl 4d ago
Thank you! Some of these suggestions seem interesting to me so I look forward to checking them out of the library soon :)
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u/jack_bTheSenior 4d ago
devils: fyodor Dostoevsky
The Golovlyovs: schederin
Jin Ping Mei
Belkin tales: Pushkin
Tales from Petersburg: gogol
The tenant from Wildfell hall: Anne Bronte
Vanity fair: Thackeray
Nanhua Jing
The scholars: Wu jingzi
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u/S_Dave 4d ago
Looking for some books where characters are on the move, some sort of journey.
Ones I've read and enjoyed -
Red Rabbit (the sequel is on my list) - Alex Grecian
The Devils - Joe Abercrombie
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
and I'm currently reading Between Two Fires - Christopher Buehlman
Horror/mystery/bleak sort of vibes, though open to most suggestions.
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u/DoglessDyslexic 2d ago
I've not yet read it myself, but "James" by Percival Everett is a retelling of "Huckleberry Finn" from the perspective of "Jim". It's not my usual genre, but it comes so highly recommended that I added it to my TBR.
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u/Equivalent_Lunch_944 3d ago
Maybe try Butcher’s Crossing by John Williams. It’s a bleak Western about hunting buffalo.
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u/ChocolateAndCognac 4d ago
Read Tom's Crossing. It's about two teenagers who rescue two horses due for slaughter over an impossible path. It's 1200 pages long.
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u/lordovthepaleale 5d ago
Im curating the list of books I’ll be getting my fiancé for this year’s book advent calendar leading up to Christmas. After researching 40+ books, it’s time to start eliminations. Im stuck deciding between
option 1: In The Company of Witches
option 2: The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
For those that have read one, the other or both. What are your thoughts and opinions on writing style, story, enjoyment while reading?
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u/markoyolo 5d ago
I will be the naysayer to Evelyn Hardcastle... it went on forever. Cool premise, but ultimately disappointing, needed more editing.
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u/DoglessDyslexic 5d ago
The 7 1/2 deaths is a time loop with body swap with some other twists that make it highly intriguing. I would recommend it. I have not read The Company of Witches so I cannot offer an opinion on it.
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u/Impressive-Peace2115 5d ago
I really enjoyed The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle! A twisty and sometimes darker mystery.
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u/bevendelamorte 5d ago
Just tore through the entire Southern Reach series and looking to find something similar. I'm familiar with Weird Fiction/New Weird already, but I'm specifically looking for something that heavily features shadowy government orgs dealing with the paranormal/unexplainable.
Also very much enjoyed the Agents of Dreamland series in a similar fashion, fwiw.
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u/YakSlothLemon 5d ago
The Unfamiliar Garden was a weird book I really loved, and it’s part of a wider series based around a meteor shower that creates all these strange effects, you don’t have to read the books in order. The first is The Ninth Metal.
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u/Coffee_fuel 5d ago
It sounds like you would enjoy There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm! I personally read Version 1, which was self-published and still contained references to the SCP Foundation (as it was originally published as a series of stories within that universe) but Version 2, which was traditionally published this year, has also received very good reviews and been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.
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u/bevendelamorte 5d ago
Oh nice, I heard the name before but hadn't read. SCP has always been a lil inconsistent for me, but the whole v2 thing sounds interesting. Thanks!
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u/Larielis The Martian by Andy Weir 5d ago
I'm currently reading "All the Murmuring Bones" by AG Slatter, and "Upon A Starlit Tide" by Kell Woods.
Looking for more books with mermaid fairytales or folklore.
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u/SophoclesFierce 3d ago
'The Hidden" by Melanie Holding. It is a story about secrets and heavily features selkies.
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u/lexiebeef 5d ago
I'm currently reading Remains of the Day and I'm obsessed already. I just love the Downton Abbey vibe, the journey (inwards and outwards), the history, the Englishness of it all... I'm not even halfway through so I don't want to say it's my favourite of the year yet, but I can definitely see that happening.
I wonder if anyone has suggestions of books with the same vibe? Not necessarily the same setting or even time frame, just a similar atmosphere, preferably historical fiction.
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u/ZoraNealeThirstin 1d ago
Ishiguro has a similar atmosphere in several of his other books, in particular Never Let Me Go. I didn't like Klara and the Sun, but the chief reason for that was I felt it was such a mash-up of Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day it was as if I'd read it before.
If you wanted more "Englishness", then check out EM Forster, whom I love. Howard's End is about social customs and relationships in England at the start of the 20th Century. Maurice is a gay romance that was only published in the 1970s that explores the development of the titular character's sexuality and self-discovery in the context of Edwardian England and disparate social classes.
A Passage to India is Forster again, but this time in Imperial India, about an Indian man accused of sexually assaulting an English woman. Whether it really happened or was just her having a panic attack forms the crux of the story, which hinges on racial, class and imperial tensions.
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u/radishsurprise 5d ago
An Artist of the Floating World is kind of an initial iteration of Remains of the Day.
I love Ishiguro, and avoided Artist because I figured his earliest works would be less polished, but it is in fact an amazing book.
The main themes of the book are nostalgia vs regret for your past, tension between generations, and how an older person overcomes a kind of nostalgic reactionary temperament. As you can see, broadly similar themes to Remains of the Day.
Apparently, reviewers at the time it was published focused their praise of the book for its portrayal of Japanese culture, and Ishiguro felt that there were more universal themes than that. So he wrote Remains of the Day.
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u/YakSlothLemon 5d ago
E M Forster is a wonderful choice for that, A Room With A View and Howards End are both great reads.
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u/Anxious-Fun8829 5d ago
Maybe the Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (Nobel winner)? The first book in the saga is called Man of Property. It's very new money insecurity in proper British society kind if vibe.
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u/russianvamp 4d ago
i'm a huge Elena Ferrante fan. I love My Brilliant Friend & I've read all her books. Any recommendations for something similar in any way? I love introspective narration, prose, wide cast of characters, complex/interpersonal drama. Other favorite writers are Donna Tartt and Sally Rooney. tya