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October 2, 2026

On Wednesday night, I went to see Min Jin Lee at her event in Montclair, NJ, where she was celebrating the release of her latest novel, AMERICAN HAGWON, which is one of my favorite books of 2026 and will be a Bookreporter.com Bets On selection. Her previous novel, PACHINKO, came out in 2017 and garnered so many awards.

I had been in New York City for a conference that day. After some crazy traffic delays, I was able to slip into the green room and have a quick catch-up with Min before the event started. I loved even that brief meetup where we talked in shorthand, and I got to share my good wishes with her.

October 2026

October's Books on Screen roundup includes the films Verity, Sense and Sensibility, Klara and the Sun, Whalefall, Other Mommy and The Mosquito Bowl; the series premieres of "Carrie" on Prime Video and "East of Eden" on Netflix; the season premieres of CBS's "Tracker," USA Network's "The Rainmaker," and Prime Video's "The Terminal List"; the series finales of "A Tale of Two Cities" on MGM+ and "Marble Hall Murders" on PBS "Masterpiece"; the season finales of Apple TV's "Slow Horses" and USA Network's "Anna Pigeon"; the continuation of "R.J. Decker" on ABC and "Outlander: Blood of My Blood" on STARZ; and the DVD/Blu-ray releases of Frankenstein and Late Fame.

September 30, 2026

While talking about books with other readers enhances the reading experience, I love when the conversation includes an author as well. My book group was lucky enough to have Nadia Hashimi join us on Monday night to discuss her latest novel, CITY OF WIDOWS (see the photo above). The book follows three characters as the calendar is turning to August 31, 2021, when we were evacuating people from Afghanistan. For those who worked with the United States --- and those who spoke out against the Taliban --- there is a race to get on one of the final US flights leaving the country.

The Munich Affair by James Patterson and David Ellis

September 2026

We all are well aware of the atrocities that Adolf Hitler committed during his reign of terror. His ordering of the extinction of Jewish people was barbaric, and the ramifications of that and the other cruelties he imparted on millions cannot be justified in any way. He changed the course of history, first in Germany and then with his outreach to countries throughout Europe. His antisemitic feelings still have consequences today. 

Ten Perfect Guests by Jonathan Santlofer

September 2026

TEN PERFECT GUESTS by Jonathan Santlofer opens with 10 people being invited to a private island for a weekend memorial service for Victor D’Arcangelo, an artist who recently has died. Attendance is mandatory if they hope to reap part of the inheritance that he has left behind. All attendees arrive via first-class travel on planes and water vehicles. It feels very posh, and though there is tension among them, there is an expectation that this could be a pleasant weekend. 

The guests include Victor’s art dealers, a critic, his ex-wife, his son…you get the picture. And they are all in it for the money. 

Jonathan Santlofer, author of Ten Perfect Guests

When celebrated and enigmatic artist Victor D'Arcangelo dies unexpectedly, his nearest and dearest receive an irresistible summons: attend his weekend memorial --- or forfeit their inheritance. But once they arrive, the paradise begins to feel more like a prison. Someone knows their secrets. Someone wants revenge. As the weekend spirals into chaos, one question hangs in the sultry, tropical air: Who, if anyone, will survive? This time, the masterpiece may be murder.

Robert Kolker, author of The Vanishing Family: Love, Fate, and the Quest to End Dementia

In Pleasant Hills, Pennsylvania, there lived a family with nine siblings, the youngest a girl named Barb. As the older children headed off to college, only Barb was home to see their mother fall under a gothic spell, changing into someone she didn’t recognize. We learn that this family has a genetic mutation that causes dementia, but with an especially cruel twist. As early as their 40s, formerly loving parents and hard-driving executives will lose their jobs, have affairs, take up drinking, and become people their families hardly know. Their former personalities seem to vanish --- and there is a 50-50 chance that it will happen to their children, too. THE VANISHING FAMILY unfolds like a heartbreaking thriller as the siblings begin to realize that what happened to their mother is happening to them.

James Patterson, author of The Munich Affair

Spanning a century, THE MUNICH AFFAIR is set in motion by the murder of Adolf Hitler's young lover by his own hand. A determined detective, Thomas Bauer, obsessively pursues Hitler --- putting Bauer’s Jewish wife and children in grave danger. A courageous journalist, Fritz Gerlich, writes story after story detailing the murder --- making Gerlich a target for Hitler’s Gestapo. An American professor, Eleanor Robbins, picks up the trail of evidence from present-day Neo-Nazis guarding the Führer’s long-held secrets to the death.

Jodi Picoult, author of Hollow Bones

On September 11, 2001, when Molly Fitzgerald was only two months old, her mother went to an appointment at the World Trade Center and never came home. Her father and the stepmother who raised her couldn’t have loved her more, but she still grew up with a healthy dread of disasters. Now an adult, Molly runs the Rhode Island Department for Emergency Preparedness, mapping out ways to save lives during storms, epidemics and airplane crashes. She and her husband, Jesse --- a police polygraph expert with his own history of crisis --- have found a love that is a solace in a dangerous world. But then the unexpected upends their new marriage, leading them both to question everything they thought they knew.

Min Jin Lee, author of American Hagwon

The men, women and children in AMERICAN HAGWON struggle to find satisfaction and meaning in a world that seems to grow less forgiving with each passing year. Once comfortably middle class in Korea, John and Helen Koh and their three children find their lives upended --- first by a shocking betrayal by John’s oldest friend, then by the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Desperately striving to regain their footing, they leave Seoul for Sydney and eventually settle in Southern California --- where new vistas of opportunity open up for the children as their parents, strangers in a strange land, must adjust to a new life in which their experience and education mean little, and they set their sights on whatever it takes to provide for their children’s futures.