Canongate Books

FROM GRANTA BEST OF YOUNG BRITISH NOVELIST AND WINNER OF THE DESMOND ELLIOT PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2026'Disarmingly poignant' Guardian'Rare and compulsive' CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS'Unflinching' DAMON GALGUT'Wise, tender and funny' CAMILLA GRUDOVA'A true masterpiece' JASON OKUNDAYE'Glaringly fresh and true' COURTTIA NEWLAND'Full of originality and raw, pure, gutsy talent' CHRISTIE WATSONLoneliness means you don't have to disappoint anyone until you develop the habit of talking to yourselfAt nineteen, Marcus is young and in love . . . again. When his latest crush, Adwoa, starts showing him true affection, Marcus is ready to reconsider his lifestyle - the drugs, the casual encounters. At least for a little while. Now, before he knows it, Marcus is twenty-five. And history risks repeating itself. Told through two parallel narratives - one past, one present - Borderline Fiction is a highly original and deeply affecting contemporary tale of what it means to be a young black man navigating today's world.

When your life flashes before your eyes, what will matter most? For Wilbur it was his time with Maggie, the love of his life. Their honeymoon in Venice. Before he threw it all away. Years later, on the brink of his own death, a train arrives. It can take Wilbur back in time. To relive his most important moments. Soon he realises just how much he would have changed… An adventure through time, The Midnight Train is a story of love and second chances, from the world of The Midnight Library.

'This book is a complete delight, not only a fairytale for adults that transports you on a magical journey of childlike wonder, but also a parable that helps you lead a better life' - JAMES NORTON'Magically hopeful. This story will speak to your soul and your monkey mind and bring them back into harmony. Beautiful and uplifting, charming and soul-nurturing, this is another glorious triumph from the beloved Matt Haig' - DONNA ASHWORTH 'If you enjoyed The Midnight Library, you'll love this. The Midnight Train is exquisite storytelling and utterly brilliant. One of the most beautiful stories you'll ever experience' - JOANNA CANNONWhen your life flashes before your eyes, what will matter mos? or Wilbur it was his time with Maggie, the love of his life. Their honeymoon in Venice. Before he threw it all away. Years later, on the brink of his own death, a train arrives. It can take Wilbur back in time. To relive his most important moments. Soon he realises just how much he would have changed. An adventure through time, The Midnight Train is a story of love and second chances, from the world of The Midnight Library.

In her highly acclaimed debut, distinguished cosmologist and particle physicist Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein shared with her audience an abiding sense of wonder at the cosmos, while imagining a world without the entrenched injustice that plagues her field. Now, in The Edge of Space-Time, she embraces that cosmic wonder, taking readers on a mind-altering journey to the boundaries of the universe, inviting us to spend time at the edge of what we know about space-time and about ourselves. Guided by her conviction that for humanity to go forward we must know our cosmic past, Prescod-Weinstein renders accessible some of the most abstract concepts of theoretical physics and draws on poetry and popular culture—from Queen Latifah to Lewis Carroll to Big K.R.I.T. to Sun Ra and Star Trek— to tell fascinating stories about the fundamental quantum nature of space-time and everything inside of it. Here we meet the quantum cat that is both dead and alive, learn the difference between dark matter and dark energy, explore the inner workings of black holes, investigate the possibility of a unified theory of quantum gravity, and map out the meeting place of the unimaginably vast with the confoundingly small, following our guide out to the far reaches of the particle horizon and down to the tiniest (and queerest) neutrino. Prescod-Weinstein shows us how spending time with the cosmos is a vital human activity that enriches all our lives. Along the way, she calls on us to resist colonial approaches to space exploration and instead imagine a better path forward in our pursuit of humanity's undeniable connection with the stars. Through Prescod-Weinstein's clear-eyed and unique perspective, and informed by her deep knowledge of post-colonial history and Black feminist thought, The Edge of Space-Time argues that physics is an essential way for everyone to look at the universe and presents a compelling case that "the edge" is a powerful vantage point from which to see the big picture.

Our narrator understands good love stories - their secrets, their highs and free falls. But her greatest love story, the one she lived, never followed the rules. She was in her senior year of college when star students Sam and Yash swept her into an intoxicating world of academic fervour, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games. Their lives became quickly intertwined - with friendship but also with unpredictable passions and the intimations of first love. Decades later, she is a successful writer, living a comfortable life with her husband and children, when a surprise visit brings the past crashing into the present, forcing her to confront the decisions and deceptions of her youth.

Palestinian Aziz Abu Sarah and Israeli Maoz Inon are unlikely peacemakers, dedicated to finding a solution to the bitter war that has decimated historical, ancient land and ended family lines. Despite the losses they have suffered, the resolve of their friendship has taught them that strength and unity are more powerful than the violence of separation. Throughout their travels, they have been constantly asked: In the face of so much pain and suffering on both sides, when there have been so many lives lost and families shattered, how can they ever find hope? Their answer is always the same. One cannot find hope. We must create it. In The Future Is Peace, Sarah and Inon take readers on their unforgettable weeklong journey across the holy land. They explore each other's personal and national histories in a land of competing narratives, amid the turbulent push and pull of near constant war, and the recent devastation that has rocked the world. Their mission is to explain the naivete in believing that more violence can bring security and prosperity to either people while in search of a true and lasting peace. Pairing unapologetic candour and inspirational prose, Sarah and Inon are sending a message to humanity that the people have the power to make change. Peace is achievable, not just between the river and the sea, but throughout the world.

**FINALIST FOR THE BARNES & NOBLE DISCOVER PRIZE****LONGLISTED FOR THE VCU CABELL FIRST NOVEL AWARD****NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION 5 UNDER 35 HONOREE****FINALIST FOR THE 38TH ANNUAL PUBLISHING TRIANGLE AWARDS' EDMUND WHITE AWARD FOR DEBUT FICTION**Ruth's life changes the day she stands in line with her mother to buy a new school uniform - and sees another girl and her aunt turned away, unable to afford one. The girl, Maria, meets Ruth's stare without shame, and from that moment, Ruth can't stop thinking about her. When school begins, and they turn out to be the only two girls attending on scholarship, Ruth musters the courage to introduce herself. A friendship forms - not by choice, but by something stronger. Ruth is drawn into Maria's orbit, always circling: never too close, never quite able to pull away. As they grow up like sisters, attend the same college, and eventually move to 1990s New York to chase dreams in the art world, the bond between them begins to buckle under the weight of ambition and rivalry. Their lives continue to converge and diverge - until they meet in one final and momentous confrontation.

Andreas Egger knows every path and peak of his mountain valley, the source of his sustenance, his livelihood - his home. Set in the mid-twentieth century and told with beauty and tenderness, Robert Seethaler's A Whole Life is a story of man's relationship with an ancient landscape, of the value of solitude, of the arrival of the modern world, and above all, of the moments, great and small, that make us who we are.

Frieda Palmer - an eccentric, brilliant and infuriating woman with a maddening disregard for convention - has withdrawn to a decaying house by the sea on the wild edges of Exmoor. Now, the question of which of her children will inherit her fortune looms large. But do any of them really deserve i? et against the turbulent backdrop of post-Thatcherite Britain, The Witch of Exmoor is a spellbinding portrait of a troubled family and a wry dissection of middle-class sentiment around legacy and social ambition.

'There aren't many chroniclers of our older years who do it so well, with such wit and realism and intelligence' TESSA HADLEY'I have learned so much from Margaret Drabble's work' SALLY ROONEY'Wise, elegiac' The Times'One of Britain's most dazzling writers' New York Times'Generous, perceptive and good-humoured' JOAN BAKEWELL'One of the most thought-provoking and intellectually challenging writers around' Financial TimesWe all age differently, some stoically, some angrily, some calmly, some with an unfailing spirit of adventure and an undimmed curiosityFrom one of our finest literary voices, The Great Good Places is a luminous collection of essays, stories and memoir that traverses the experience of growing older and looking back on a life deeply lived. Drawing on decades of reading, writing and observation, Margaret Drabble reflects on the complex business of ageing, the strange workings of memory - its wonders and its fragility - and on the 'great good places', the childhood homes, coastal sanctuaries and cherished libraries that shape who we are. Rich with a lifetime's worth of insight and wisdom and peppered with Drabble's trademark lucidity and wit, The Great Good Places is an elegantly layered and profoundly moving meditation on time, place and the enduring power of recollection.

WINNER OF SCOTLAND'S NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS FOR DEBUT NON-FICTIONWINNER OF THE FORTNUM & MASON DEBUT FOOD BOOK AWARDSHORTLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE 2026A DEBUTIFUL BEST NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR'A bold new voice' IRISH TIMES'Visceral . . . I could feel every word' ANGELA HUI'Thoughtful, poetic and clear-sighted' CECILE PINThe orange is a souvenir of history. Across time, it has been a harbinger of God and doom, fortune and failure, pleasure and suffering. It is a fruit containing metaphors, dreams, mythologies, superstitions, parables and histories within its tough rind. So, what happens when the fruit is peeled and each segment - each moment of history, each meaning in time - is pulled apar? n this distinct, subversive and intimate hybrid memoir, Katie Goh explores the orange as a means of understanding the world, and herself within it. What she reveals is violence, colonialism, resilience, survival, adaptation - and unexpected beauty and sweetness against all odds.

THE READS TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2026 - TimesBOOKS TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2026 - Guardian2026 FICTION HIGHLIGHTS - ObserverWHAT TO READ IN 2026 - Financial TimesBOOKS YOU NEED TO READ IN 2026 - BBC CultureTHE MOST HYPED BOOKS WE CAN'T WAIT TO READ IN 2026 - Elle MagazineThe past is never done with: always the song continues Harlow Donne has devoted his life to the Classical world. When a chance comes up to study an obscure collection of papyrus fragments at Oxford University, he seizes it. Though it means leaving his daughter and fracturing marriage back home in Canada, this is the kind of career break he desperately needs. In the depths of the Bodleian Library, Harlow discovers a lost account of the Trojan War, a glimpse into the founding of Western civilization itself. He names the epic poem The Psoad, after its protagonist, a Greek commoner identified as Psoas of Midea but known to all as 'son of nobody'. As sole translator and interpreter of the Psoad, Harlow dedicates the poem and its modern footnotes to his daughter, Helen. Under his gaze, the text unlocks echoes of Ancient Greece into the present day, and a personal message to his beloved child appears. Despite the three-thousand-year gap between the two, a thread hasn't frayed: the universal song of homesickness and regret, of ambition and grief. In this masterpiece of myth and history, Son of Nobody explores how stories become facts, the price we pay to share them and how we live - then, now and always.

The past is never done with: always the song continues Harlow Donne has devoted his life to the Classical world. When a chance comes up to study an obscure collection of papyrus fragments at Oxford University, he seizes it. Though it means leaving his daughter and fracturing marriage back home in Canada, this is the kind of career break he desperately needs. In the depths of the Bodleian Library, Harlow discovers a lost account of the Trojan War, a glimpse into the founding of Western civilization itself. He names the epic poem The Psoad, after its protagonist, a Greek commoner identified as Psoas of Midea but known to all as 'son of nobody'. As sole translator and interpreter of the Psoad, Harlow dedicates the poem and its footnotes to his daughter, Helen. Under his gaze, the text unlocks echoes of Ancient Greece into the present day, and a personal message to his beloved child appears. Despite the three-thousand-year gap between the two, a thread hasn't frayed: the universal song of homesickness and regret, of ambition, love and grief. In this masterpiece of myth, history and domesticity, Son of Nobody explores how stories become facts, the price we pay to share them and how we live - then, now and always.

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2026 SO FAR My name is Anna, and for some time now, I have been trying to account for certain events in my life - my adult life, that is - which, from this vantage point of forty-five years, I often find baffling . . . In 1985 Dublin, nineteen-year-old Anna Hughes is in thrall to Peter Gallagher, an older, worldly man. Anna is introverted and naive, and Peter's experience, wide circle of friends and thirst for adventure captivate her. Her obsessive longing for him leads to marriage and, eventually, a crushing betrayal. As Anna's life becomes less predictable, she uncovers deeper layers of herself. Her journey gives an intimate portrait of a woman embracing herself as she is, claiming the life she yearns for.

In Traversal, Maria Popova traverses the border between life and death, chance and choice, chemistry and consciousness: what makes a body a person? What makes a planet a world? How do we safeguard our love of truth from our lust for power? What slakes our longings and what redeems our losses? Popova illuminates our various instruments of reckoning with these questions - our telescopes and our treatises, our postulates and our poems - through the intertwined lives, loves and legacies of visionaries both celebrated and sidelined by history, people born into the margins of their time and place who lived to write the future: Mary Shelley, Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, Fanny Wright. Woven throughout their stories are other threads - the decoding of the insulin molecule, the invention of the bicycle, how nature creates blue - which come together to create a rich tapestry of life's meaning; exploring what it is that makes life alive and worth living. By turns epic and intimate, Traversal explores the universe between cells and souls to reveal the world, and our lives, in a dazzling new light.

'Powerful' FINANCIAL TIMES'Thought-provoking' NEW SCIENTIST'Fascinating' DAILY MAILWINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY TRIVEDI SCIENCE BOOK PRIZEA FINANCIAL TIMES, THE TIMES AND GUARDIAN BEST SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEARWhat makes us who we are? Through the stories of seven of his patients, acclaimed Oxford University neurologist Masud Husain shows us how our brains create, change and can even restore our identity. Husain introduces us to a man who ran out of words, a woman who lost all inhibitions and another who believed she was having an affair with the man who was really her husband. These compelling human dramas reveal how our identities are created by different functions within the brain. It will ignite new ideas about who we really are - and why we act in the ways we do.